Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now

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DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE

The brilliant comedy about personal identity Dear White People opens today, along with the Sundance hit Whiplash and the Bill Murray crowd pleaser St. Vincent. I saw Dear White People at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and have been telling folks about it for months – it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far.

Other recommendations:

  • The thriller Gone Girl – the best Hollywood movie of 2014, with a career-topping performance by Rosamund Pike.
  • The successful period thriller The Two Faces of January sets a dark-hearted and shadowy story in sunny Greece. The Two Faces of January is in theaters and is also available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
  • The exceptionally well-acted dramedy The Skeleton Twins contains several inspired moments.
  • If you’re in the mood for a brutal, brutal World War II tank movie, there’s Fury.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the exquisite Polish drama Ida – the best foreign film of 2014.  Ida is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

This week, Turner Classic Movies will air the 1962 Ben Gazzara prison movie Convicts 4. TCM will also deliver two film noir masterpieces:

  • In a Lonely Place (1950): The most unsettlingly sexy film noiress Gloria Grahame falls for the troubled screenwriter Humphrey Bogart, a guy with a MAJOR anger management issue; once she’s hooked, she realizes that he might be a murderer after all…
  • Touch of Evil (1958): This Orson Welles masterpiece begins with one of cinema’s great opening scenes, as our lead characters walk from a Mexican border town into an American border town in a single tracking shot of well over 3 minutes. Unbeknownst to them, they are being shadowed by a car bomb. There’s a lot to enjoy here in this cesspool of corruption: a repellent sheriff-gone-bad played by Welles himself, one of Joseph Calleia’s finest supporting turns, one of Dennis Weaver’s first roles (written just for him by Welles) and Charlton Heston as a Mexican.
Orson Welles in his TOUCH OF EVIL
Orson Welles in his TOUCH OF EVIL

DVD/Stream of the Week: IDA

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IdaThe Polish drama Ida, which I first saw at this year’s Cinequest, is now available on video.  I currently rate it as (next to Boyhood) the best movie I’ve seen this year.

The title character is a novice nun who has been raised in a convent orphanage. Just before she is to take her vows in the early 1960s, she is told for the first time that she has an aunt. She meets the aunt, and Ida learns that she is the survivor of a Jewish family killed in the Holocaust. The aunt takes the novice on an odd couple road trip to trace the fate of their family.

The chain-smoking aunt (Agata Kulesza) is a judge who consumes vast quantities of vodka to self-medicate her own searing memories. But the most profound difference isn’t that the aunt is a hard ass and that the nun is prim and devout. The most important contrast is between their comparative worldliness – the aunt has been around the block and the novice is utterly naive and inexperienced (both literally and figuratively virginal). The young woman must make the choice between a future that follows her upbringing or one which her biological heritage opens to her. As Ida unfolds, her family legacy makes her choice an informed one.

The novice Ida, played by newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska, is very quiet – but hardly fragile. Saying little, she takes in the world with a penetrating gaze and a just-under-the-surface magnetic strength.

Superbly photographed in black and white, each shot is exquisitely composed. Watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other. Ida was directed and co-written by Pawel Pawlikowski, who also recently directed the British coming of age story My Summer of Love (with Emily Blunt) and the French thriller The Woman in the Fifth (with Kristin Scott Thomas and Ethan Hawke). He is an effective and economic story-teller, packing textured characters and a compelling story into an 80 minute film.

Ida is also successful in avoiding grimness. Pawlikowski has crafted a story which addresses the pain of the characters without being painful to watch. There’s some pretty fun music from a touring pop/jazz combo and plenty of wicked sarcasm from the aunt.

Ida won the International Critics’ Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Ida was my pick as the best film at Cinequest, where it won the Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature.

Ida is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY
THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY

The successful period thriller The Two Faces of January sets a dark-hearted and shadowy story in sunny Greece. The Two Faces of January is in theaters and also available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Also in theaters:

  • The poignant and compelling documentary Last Days in Vietnam with its story of folly, desperation and heroism.
  • The startling documentary Art and Craft, about an art fraud of prolific scale by a diagnosed schizophrenic.
  • The exceptionally well-acted dramedy The Skeleton Twins contains several inspired moments.

I also recommend The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern-day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie.  It remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the funniest movie of the year, the Canadian comedy The Grand Seduction. It’s a MUST SEE howler. The Grand Seduction is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

There’s a varied set of classics on Turner Classic Movies this week.

  • On October 21, there’s the especially nasty noir Detour, in which poor Tom Neal is practically eaten alive by Ann Savage as perhaps the most venal and vicious of film noir’s femmes fatale.
  • On the 22nd there’s one of my favorite manly adventure sagas, The Vikings from 1958; a one-eyed Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis bare their chests over Janet Leigh and swill mead with full-bearded Ernest Borgnine – it’s rip-roaring and silly and just a whole lot of fun.
  • Then on October 23, TCM airs the chilly Nicole Kidman ghost story The Others from 2001.
Ann Savage and Tom Neal in DETOUR (Hint - she's trouble!)
Ann Savage and Tom Neal in DETOUR (Hint – she’s trouble!)

DVD/Stream of the Week: THE GRAND SEDUCTION: funniest movie of 2014

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THE GRAND SEDUCTION
THE GRAND SEDUCTION

The Canadian comedy The Grand Seduction is the funniest movie of the year so far. It’s a MUST SEE.

Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges, The Guard, The General, Braveheart) and Gordon Pinsent (Away from Her) play isolated Canadians try to snooker a young doctor (Taylor Kitsch of Friday Night Lights) into settling in their podunk village. They enlist the entire hamlet in an absurdly elaborate and risky ruse, and the result is a satisfying knee-slapper that reminds me of Waking Ned Devine with random acts of cricket.

The Grand Seduction opened this year’s Cinequest on an especially uproarious note. The audience, including me and The Wife, rollicked with laugh after laugh.  I can’t understand why, like Ned Devine,  The Grand Seduction didn’t become a long-running imported art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or The Full Monty.  The Grand Seduction is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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PEEPING TOM, coming up on Turner Classic Movies and better than PSYCHO
PEEPING TOM, coming up on Turner Classic Movies and better than PSYCHO

Opening today, the startling documentary Art and Craft is about an art fraud. Of prolific scale.  Apparently not illegal.  By a diagnosed schizophrenic.

Also in theaters:

    • The exceptionally well-acted dramedy The Skeleton Twins contains several inspired moments.
    • The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
    • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
    • I really liked The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. Although it’s leaving theaters this weekend, it remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fable The Zero Theorem is visually arresting, but the story becomes tedious. Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Here’s my preview of the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival.

This week’s DVD/Stream of the Week is this year’s outstanding coming of age movie Very Good Girls starring the fine young actresses Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen. Very Good Girls is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

On October 4, Turner Classic Movies brings us what may be the best-ever psycho serial killer movie, Peeping Tom from 1960, the same year as Psycho.  The British film critics didn’t know what to make of a thriller where the protagonist was so disturbing, and they trashed Peeping Tom so badly that its great director Michael Powell (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Stairway to Heaven, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes) wasn’t able to work again in the UK.  But I think Peeping Tom is an overlooked masterpiece and even better than its iconic counterpart.

And on October 5, TCM broadcasts Cool Hand Luke, with Paul Newman as an iconic 1960s anti-hero, a charismatic supporting performance by George Kennedy, the unforgettable boiled egg-eating contest and the great movie line” What we have here is a failure to communicate”.

Movies to See Right Now

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Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader in THE SKELETON TWINS
Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader in THE SKELETON TWINS

The exceptionally well-acted dramedy The Skeleton Twins contains several inspired moments.

Also in theaters:

  • The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • I really liked The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. Although it’s leaving theaters this weekend, it remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fable The Zero Theorem is visually arresting, but the story becomes tedious. Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Here’s my preview of the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is an underrated 2014 romance that most of us didn’t get to see in theaters, The Face of Love with Annette Bening and Ed Harris.  The Face of Love is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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Gene Tierney startles Dana Andrews in LAURA
Gene Tierney startles Dana Andrews in LAURA

In theaters:

  • The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • I really liked The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. Although it’s leaving theaters this weekend, it remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fable The Zero Theorem opens today; it’s visually arresting, but the story becomes tedious.  Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Here’s my preview of the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the absorbing French period drama Augustine, about obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Augustine is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and Xbox Video.

On September 24, Turner Classic Movies plays the underrated anti-war masterpiece The Americanization of Emily, the favorite film of both of its stars – James Garner and Julie Andrews. On September 27, TCM offers the classic noir thriller Laura, with an unforgettable performance by Clifton Webb as a megalomaniac with one vulnerability – the dazzling beauty of Gene Tierney. The musical theme is unforgettable, too.

DVD/Stream of the Week: AUGUSTINE: obsession, passion and the birth of a science

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The absorbing French drama Augustine is based on the real work of 19th century medical research pioneer Jean-Martin Charcot, known as the father of neurology. A young kitchen maid begins suffering wild seizures and is brought to Charcot’s research hospital. He ascertains the triggers for the seizures, and begins to close in on cure. Needing funding for his research, he triggers her seizures before groups of his peers; he is showing off his research, but it’s clear that his affluent male audience is titillated by the comely girl’s orgasmic thrashes.

She is drawn to this man whose kindness to her belies their class difference and whose brilliance is the key to her recovery. The good doctor intends to cure her – but not until she has performed for his potential funders. She is unexpectedly cured just before Charcot’s most important demonstration, and she gets to decide whether to continue her exploitation. In the stunning conclusion, she gets the upper hand and her simmering feelings erupt.

The fine French actor Vincent Lindon (Mademoiselle Chambon) excels at playing very contained and reserved characters, and here he nails Charcot’s clash of decency and professional ambition. The French pop singer Soko is captivating as his patient.

It’s an auspicious first feature film for writer-director Alice Winocour. She has constructed a story that about two sympathetic characters whose interests converge, then diverge and then…

Augustine is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in THE TRIP TO ITALY
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in THE TRIP TO ITALY

In theaters:

  • The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
  • Alive Inside: The profoundly moving documentary showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music.
  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.
  • I really liked The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. It’s also available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
  • Don’t miss Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.

Boyhood tops my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far, and Alive Inside and Calvary also make the list.

Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.  I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

Here’s my preview of the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the unusually thoughtful romantic comedy Words and Pictures.

On September 16, Turner Classic Movies plays the unforgettable Bogart and Bacall thriller Key Largo.  And the next day, TCM will air the overlooked film noir masterpiece The Narrow Margin, a taut 71 minutes of tension.  Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train.  Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target.

Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN

DVD/Stream of the Week: WORDS AND PICTURES: an unusually thoughtful romantic comedy

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words picturesIn the unusually thoughtful romantic comedy Words and Pictures, Clive Owen and the ever-radiant Juliette Binoche star as sparring teachers. The two play world-class artists – Owen a writer and Binoche a painter – who find themselves in teaching jobs at an elite prep school. As they spiritedly disagree over whether words or pictures are the most powerful medium of expression, they each admire and are drawn to the other’s talent and passion.

Words and Pictures contains the wittiest movie dialogue in many moons and reminds us that real wit is more than some clever put downs. Owen’s English teacher worships the use of language to evoke original imagery and also revels in pedantic wordplay – the more syllables the better. When his boss asks him, “Why are you always late?”, he retorts “Why are you always dressed monochromatically?”.

The reason that he IS always late is that he’s an alcoholic hellbent on squandering his talent and alienating his friends and family. This is a realistic depiction of alcoholism and of its byproducts – unreliability, broken relationships and fundamental dishonesty. In an especially raw scene, he expresses his self-loathing by using a tennis racquet and tennis balls to demolish his own living space. Top notch stuff.

Binoche plays a woman of great inner strength and confidence who has been shaken by the advances of a chronic illness. According to the credits, Binoche herself created her character’s paintings.

Words and Pictures sparkles until near the end. When the students make the debate over words vs pictures explicit in the school assembly, the intellectual argument loses its force and the tension peters out. So it may not be a great movie, but Words and Pictures is still plenty entertaining and a damn sight smarter than the average romantic comedy.

I saw Words and Pictures earlier this year at Cinequest. It’s available now on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Vudu and Xbox Video.