Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now – New Year’s Edition

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Photo caption: Monica Barbaro and Timothee Chalamet in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet -don’t wait for my review review of A Complete Unknown this weekend – go out and see it- it’s great. And I’ve begun my year end coverage continues. Look for Best Movies of 2024 on the 31st. So far, I published:

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandngo.
  • The Critic: who’s on top now? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandngo.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • Chasing Chasing Amy: the origins of love, fictional and otherwise. In theaters.
  • Kneecap: sláinte! Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Will & Harper: old friends adjust. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far:

ON TV

Myrna Loy and William Powell as Nora and Nick Charles during the Holidays

Once again, Turner Classic Movies is giving us a wonderful New Year’s Eve present – an all-day Thin Man marathon. William Powell and Myrna Loy are cinema’s favorite movie couple for a reason – just settle in and watch Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man and its sequels do what they do best – banter, canoodle, solve crimes and, of course, tipple.

Stars abound in supporting roles in the series. James Stewart had only made one feature film before 1936, the year, he appeared in After the Thin Man. Dean Stockwell played Nick and Nora’s son Nick Charles Jr in Song of the Thin Man. Film noir goddesses Gloria Grahame and Marie Windsor also both appear in Song of the Thin Man.

The pre-notoriety Tom Neal has a key role in in Another Thin Man. Classic film aficionados will also recognize Maureen O’Sullivan, Keenan Wynn, Leon Ames, Sheldon Leonard, C. Awbrey Smith, Joseph Calleia and Sam Levene.

These six movies from 1934-47 (The Thin Man, After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, The Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home and Song of the Thin Man) are still first-rate escapist entertainment. Love ’em.

Movies to See Right Now – Holiday Edition

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Photo caption: Timothee Chalamet in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of The Critic and a capsule recommendation (below) of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, along with two recommendations to DVR on TCM. Next week: A Complete Unknown, the ballyhooed Bob Dylan biopic.

And my year-end coverage is about to begin: Farewells, Best (and Worst) Movie-going Experiences and, of course, The Best Films of 2024. Watch this space.

CURRENT MOVIES

I’m not writing a separate post about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice because it’s neither an overlooked movie or an important one. But The Wife and I finally got around to streaming it for free from Max, and, boy, is it entertaining. We were reminded that so much of Beetlejuice’s gleeful misbehavior is Michael Keaton’s brilliant invention. Jenna Ortega adds a refreshing note. There’s an homage to the original movie’s hilarious use of Banana Boat (Day-O) and the comic possibilities of MacArthur Park are fully realized. There’s even some smart mockery of our self-help heavy culture Beetlejuice Beetlejuice can be streamed from Max (included), Amazon and AppleTV.

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandngo.
  • The Critic: who’s on top now? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandngo.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • Chasing Chasing Amy: the origins of love, fictional and otherwise. In theaters.
  • Kneecap: sláinte! Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Will & Harper: old friends adjust. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far:

ON TV

On December 27, Turner Classis Movies airs Three Strangers, with Geraldine Fitzgerald’s indelible performance, which I wrote about last week. If you missed it, you can stream it from Amazon or AppleTV.

On December 28, TCM will present The Last Detail, featuring one of 30-something Jack Nicholson’s iconic embodiments of alienation and rebelliousness (Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, The Passenger, Onne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).

Two non-commissioned Navy lifers (Nicholson and Otis Young) are ordered to escort a court-martialed 18-year-old seaman (Randy Quaid) from Norfolk to a naval prison in Maine. The kid is very dumb, very inexperienced and very, very, very unlucky. He faces a long, disproportional for a petty theft; he didn’t know he was stealing from the base commander’s wife’s pet charity. Because he hasn’t had many adult experiences, the older guys decide to show him a good, completely unauthorized, time on the trip.

Carol Kane and Michael Moriarty add superb supporting performances.

Co-written by Robert Towne (Chinatown) and directed by Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Being There), this is a prime example of New Hollywood cinema.

Randy Quaid, Jack Nicholson and Otis Young in THE LAST DETAIL.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Daniel Craig in QUEER. Courtesy of A24.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Saturday Night, I Used to Be Funny, and It’s Not Me. I’m waiting to see the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer with Daniel Craig, Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, and Brady Corbet’s acclaimed third feature, The Brutalist with Adrian Brody – and I’m getting twitchy with impatience.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters and now streaming.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters.
  • The Substance: the thinking woman’s Faust, if you can take the body horror. MUBI (free), Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Endless Summer Syndrome: there will be hell to pay. In arthouse theaters.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandngo.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • Saturday Night: chaos as entertainment. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • It’s Not Me: his life as an art film. Amazon, Fandango.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • I Used to Be Funny: PTSD is no joke. Netflix, Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Kneecap: sláinte! Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Will & Harper: old friends adjust. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far:

ON TV

Peter Lorre, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Sydney Greenstreet in THREE STRANGERS.

Set your DVR to record the December 27 Turner Classic Movies airing of Three Strangers, a much underrated film noir from 1946, co-written by John Huston. Geraldine Fitzgerald, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre play three people who don’t know each other ando are brought together by an odd gamble. There’s a legend that, if three strangers make the same prayer to a Chinese god, he will grant a their wish. Each of the three needs money, so they partner in the purchase of a sweepstakes ticket and give it a go.

Lorre’s character is a destitute alcoholic who would buy a bar with his windfall and never leave it. The other two need to hit the jackpot, too, but their reasons are much, much darker. The ending of the story is absurdly noir for some and tragically noir for others.

The best element of Three Strangers is Geraldine Fitzgerald’s a performance as a woman who seems eccentric, until she reveals herself as dangerously unhinged. John Huston had wanted Fitzgerald for the Bridgit O’Shaughnessy role in The Maltese Falcon, and I’m glad that Mary Astor got the part instead because Astor’s performance was perfect – and maybe the best ever liar in the history of cinema. But, when you see her in Three Strangers, it becomes clear that Fitzgerald would have been a remarkably interesting Bridgit, too.

Lorre and Greenstreet were first paired five years earlier in The Maltese Falcon (Greenstreet’s very first movie, at age 62), and Three Strangers was one of eight more films that took advantage of their chemistry.

The director was Jean Negulesco, who knew his way around the noir genre (The Mask of Dimitrios, Nobody Lives Forever, Johnny Belinda and Road House). Three Strangers is plenty entertaining, and Fitzgerald is a revelation.

Geraldine Fitzgerald in THREE STRANGERS.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg in A REAL PAIN. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of the simmering French drama Endless Summer Syndrome and a highlight of TCM’s broadcast of the rare German neo-noir romance Black Gravel.

Awards are starting to trickle in for movies and performances that I have that I have championed. Slamdance awarded it documentary storytelling award to Sweetheart Deal. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has recognized the film Anora, Anora‘s Yura Borisov and A Real Pain:‘s Kieran Culkin.

REMEMBRANCE

In his second act, Marshall Brickman co-wrote Woody Allen’s two masterpieces: Annie Hall and Manhattan. Brickman had success before (creating Johnny Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent and co-writing The Muppets) and after (creating the Broadway shows Jersey Boys and The Addams Family).

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters and now streaming.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters.
  • The Substance: the thinking woman’s Faust, if you can take the body horror. MUBI (free), Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Endless Summer Syndrome: there will be hell to pay. In arthouse theaters.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandngo.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • Kneecap: sláinte! Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Will & Harper: old friends adjust. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far:

ON TV

Ingmar Zeisberg and Helmut Wildt in BLACK GRAVEL

TODAY, Turner Classic Movies airs the super hard-to-find German neo-noir romance Black Gravel. It’s not streaming, so this is your best chance.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Mikey Madison and Yura Borisov in ANORA. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of the brilliant but gory The Substance.

REMEMBRANCE

Lee Van Cleef and Earl Hollimon (right) in THE BIG COMBO

Earl Holliman had the confidence, in one of his first movies, to put a unique spin on the role of a mob henchman in 1955’s The Big Combo. He continued to play character roles in big movies: Giant, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and The Sons of Katie Elder. He went on to amass almost 100 credit in television, most popularly as Angie Dickinson’s boss in Policewoman/ most of his TV work was forgettable, but he did star in the first ever episode of The Twilight Zone.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters.
  • The Substance: the thinking woman’s Faust, if you can take the body horror. MUBI (free), Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandngo.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • Chasing Chasing Amy: the origins of love, fictional and otherwise. In theaters.
  • Kneecap: sláinte! Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Will & Harper: old friends adjust. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far:

ON TV

Patrick McGoohan and Paul Harris in ALL NIGHT LONG

On December 9, Turner Classic Movies airs the little seen All Night Long, one of my Overlooked Neo-noir. It’s Shakespeare’s Othello, set in the jazz world of 1962 London – and with music performed by Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and other real jazz musicians. Patrick McGoohan is soars in the juicy Iago role – MacGoohan did devious scheming very well, and satisfyingly implodes when it all falls apart. His career was ascending, and he was only two years away from becoming a huge TV star with Secret Agent, to be followed by The Prisoner, possibly the most original show ever on television.

Movies to See Right Now – Thanksgiving Weekend Edition

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Photo caption: Mikey Madison in ANORA. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet, new reviews of two historical dramas Steve McQueen’s WW II thriller Blitz and the grimly beautiful Chilean drama The Settlers. I’m not going to be writing about the two new Big Movies – Wicked (even though I always like Cynthia Erivo) and Gladiator II (the CGI rhino in he trailer looked too cheesy).

During the holidays, my WATCH AT HOME feature suspends its usual The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE and subs in films on my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far list; there are plenty of great movies from earlier this year that you can now stream at home.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far:

ON TV

THE LIFE OF BRIAN

On November 29, Turner Classic Movies is airing one of the wittiest satires of all time, The Life of Brian. The guys from Monty Python send up the Greatest Story Ever Told, while skewering human nature, religion, sword-and-sandal epics, and, in its funniest scene, political correctness.

I just wrote about Peeping Tom, the best-ever psycho serial killer movie, and there goes TCM playing it again on November 30. If you have yet to see it, don’t miss it this time.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg in A REAL PAIN. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain and the indie Chasing Chasing Amy. My top recommendation in theaters this week is still Anora, and my streaming pick is The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.

REMEMBRANCE

Timothy West (right) in EDWARD THE KING

British actor Timothy West became recognized in the US for his titular performance in the imported mini-series Edward the King, as the son of Queen Victoria, who simmered for decades, waiting for his chance to become King Edward VII. I loved him one of my favorite movies, Day of the Jackal. West’s 151 screen credits included three portrayals of Winston Churchill. As prolific as he was in television and the movies, he had even more of an impact on stage. He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Prospect Theater Company, served as artistic director of the Old Vic Theater, and, at age 81, played the role of King Lear for the fourth time.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Gregory Peck in THE GUNFIGHTER.

On November 23 (tomorrow), Turner Classic Movies airs the 1950 western The Gunfighter, which I recently watched and enjoyed. Gregory Peck plays the gunfighter Jimmy Ringo, notorious throughout the West, he is a target for others who want to become famous for killing him. reconcile with his estranged wife (Helen Westcott), who has been keeping her marriage to the gunfighter a secret, The town sheriff is a gunfighting pal of Ringo’s, since reformed, concerned about the inevitable violence that follows Ringo to every town Millard Mitchell, Hollywood storytelling so well – in a taut 85 minutes, one of Peck’s best performances (right upyhere with Atticus Finch), Karl Malden, Ellen Corby, Richard Jaeckal, Alan Hale,Jr., and former child star Skip Homeier, who plays one of the best punks you’ll ever despise

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Mark Eydelshteyn (left) and Mikey Madison (center) in ANORA. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – the fall movies, many of which I’ve been waiting for since the Canes Film Festival in May, are flooding into theaters. So, The Movie Gourmet is following last week’s review of Conclave with new reviews of award-winners Anora and Emilia Pérez. The genre-busting Netflix documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin rounded out one of my best movie-watching weeks ever. (I also immersed myself in French cinema and rewatched Jean-Pierre Melville’s neo-noir Second Wind and introduced myself to six of Jean-Paul Belmondo’s films.)

Next week – a new review of A Real Pain, which The Wife and I saw last night.

REMEMBRANCE

I didn’t remember the name of actor Jonathan Haze, who worked in a score of Roger Corman’s low budget exploitation films.  His most memorable starring role was in Little Shop of Horrors, where his character cultivated a flesh-eating houseplant and pulled a tooth from a masochistic dental patient (Jack Nicholson).

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Dennis O’Keefe and Ann Sheridan in WOMAN ON THE RUN

On November 19, Turner Classic Movies presents the taut 77 minutes of Woman on the Run, one of my Overlooked Noir. When the police coming looking for a terrified murder witness, they are surprised to find his wife (Ann Sheridan) both ignorant of his whereabouts and unconcerned. And the wife has a Mouth On Her, much to the dismay of the detective (Robert Keith), who keeps walking into a torrent of sass. She starts hunting hubbie, along with the cops, a reporter (Dennis O’Keefe) and the killer, and they all careen through a life-or-death manhunt. Another star of Woman on the Run is San Francisco itself, from the hilly neighborhoods to the bustling streets to the dank and foreboding waterfront.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Ralph Fiennes (front) in CONCLAVE. Courtesy of Focus Features.

This week on The Movie Gourmet, new reviews of Edward Berger’s Vatican thriller Conclave, the first of this fall’s big Hollywood prestige pictures, and Hong Sang-soo’s little meditation In Water.

Note: In the Summers, director Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s hihly recommended debut film, is now available to stream on Amazon.

REMEMBRANCE

Quincy Jones, one of the giants of American music, left a huge imprint on American cinema, with contributions to literally hundreds of films. Starting with The Pawnbroker in 1965, he composed scores of soundtracks and earned seven Oscar nominations for original score or original song.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Harvey Keitel (left) and Robert De Niro (center) in MEAN STREETS.

On November 12, Turner Classic Movies is airing Mean Streets, the explosive showcase for Marin Scorsese, Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. In 1973, the three were essentially unknown, although De Niro had gained some notice as the slow-wited and dying catcher in the weeper Bang the Drum Slowly earlier in the year. Keitel’s first credit was in Scorsese’s debut film Who’s That Knocking at My Door?. De Niro’s next two films were The Godfather Part II and Taxi Driver. In the next five years, Keitel would make three more Scorsese films and work with Paul Schrader, Robert Altman and Francis Ford Coppola. Scorsese followed Mean Streets with the popular and affecting drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and then embarked on his historic run of masterpieces (Taxi Driver, The Last Waltz, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Goodfellas) and some of recent cinema’s most ambitious films: The Last Temptation of Christ, Gangs of New York, and Killers of the Flower Moon).

In Mean Streets, Keitel plays a low-level gangster ridden with Catholic guilt and worried about his wild and self-destructive friend (played by De Niro), who seems destined to piss off one too many loan sharks. Scorsese’s introduction to these vivid characters and the verisimilitude with his setting in Little Italy demonstrated his filmmaking promise.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Saiorse Ronan in THE OUTRUN. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of Joanna Arnow’s deadpan comedy The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed – brave, transgressive and brilliant. I also wrote about the 1960 movie even more scary than Psycho – Peeping Tom; if you missed it on TCM this week, you can still stream it on Amazon, AppleTV and Criterion.

REMEMBRANCES

Teri Garr in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

I was surprised that Teri Garr had 44 screen credits (many as a dancer, including Viva Las Vegas) before her breakthrough role as Inga in Young Frankenstein.  Then she played the mom in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, earned an Oscar nod for her most memorable role in Tootsie and went on to work in 200 more movies and shows.

David Harris (left) with Terry Michos and Marcelino Sanchez in THE WARRIORS.

You’ve seen David Harris in Brubaker, A Soldier’s Story, and NYPD Blue, but his most memorable role was early on, in Walter Hill’s indie cult classic The Warriors.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

A scene from THE RED SHOES in MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBERGER. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.

On November 7, Turner Classic Movies airs Martin Scorsese’s documentary Made in England: The films of Powell and Pressberger: It’s like a auditng a Scorsese guest presentation in film school.