Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now

by
Brendan Gleeson and Kelly Reilly in CALVARY
Brendan Gleeson and Kelly Reilly in CALVARY

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. But two other movies that are ALSO on my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far are also in theaters:

  • The emotionally gripping documentary Alive Inside, showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music. This will be one of the two favorites for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.

Boyhood and Alive Inside, in particular, are MUST SEEs. Don’t miss them.

Also in theaters:

  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.
  • The sci fi thriller Snowpiercer is both thoughtful and exciting, plus it features amazing production design. You can also stream Snowpiercer on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and DirecTV.
  • Lucy – a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that rocks.

I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

There’s also an assortment of recent releases to Video on Demand:

          • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon Instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
          • Life Itself, the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death Life Itself is streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
          • The oddly undisturbing documentary A Brony Tale, about grown men with very unusual taste in television shows. Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.
          • The Congress: a thoughtful live action fable followed by a less compelling an animated sci fi story. The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
          • Robert Duvall’s geezer-gone-wild roadtrip in A Night in Old Mexico. A Night in Old Mexico is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET

This week Turner Classic Movies is featuring Pickup on South Street, an entertaining Sam Fuller film noir with a protagonist thief (Richard Widmark) who pocket picks himself into being targeted by a Commie spy ring. And then there’s the 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark, where Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman trapped in her apartment by a gang of thugs led by a psychotic Alan Arkin in his breakout movie role.

DVD/Stream of the Week: Robin Williams’ finest performance

by

This brilliant scene (above) from Aladdin (mostly improvised) showcases Robin Williams’ comic genius – irrepressible until yesterday. Taking in Williams’ rapid fire torrents of creativity was often like standing in front of a fire hose, but in a good way.

Williams was in a bunch of fine movies – Moscow on the Hudson, Good Morning Vietnam, Aladdin, Deconstructing Harry, Good Will Hunting, Insomnia and The Face of Love. Even though he won an acting Oscar for Good Will Hunting, his best performance was as a character very much unlike Robin Williams – the frighteningly contained Sy Parrish in One Hour Photo. Nothing seems more ordinary and harmless than this guy in a drugstore vest at the photo stand, but Sy’s building obsession with a family of customers – a family completely oblivious to his preoccupation with them – goes from uneasy to chilling to terrifying.  One Hour Photo is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Xbox Video and on FHEsearchlightconnect on YouTube.

Movies to See Right Now – more than one MUST SEE

by
Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater in BOYHOOD
Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater in BOYHOOD

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.  But two other movies that are ALSO on my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far open this weekend:

  • The emotionally gripping documentary Alive Inside, showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music.  This will be one of the two favorites for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.

Boyhood and Alive Inside, in particular, are MUST SEEs.  Don’t miss them.

Also in theaters:

  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.
  • The smart and entertaining I Origins, which works both as a scientific detective story and as a meditation on romance.
  • The quirky comedy Land Ho!, with an uproarious and yet genuine geezer road trip to Iceland.
  • The sci fi thriller Snowpiercer is both thoughtful and exciting, plus it features amazing production design. You can also stream Snowpiercer on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and DirecTV.
  • Lucy – a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that rocks.
  • The credible and politically important HBO documentary The Newburgh Sting, which exposes the FBI’s manufacture of a fake terrorist attack to arrest some New York dumbasses. It’s playing on HBO.

I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

There’s also an assortment of recent releases to Video on Demand:

        • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon Instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
        • Life Itself, the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death Life Itself is streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
        • The oddly undisturbing documentary A Brony Tale, about grown men with very unusual taste in television shows. Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.
        • The Congress: a thoughtful live action fable followed by a less compelling an animated sci fi story. The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
        • Robert Duvall’s geezer-gone-wild roadtrip in A Night in Old Mexico. A Night in Old Mexico is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
        • The art vs. technology documentary Tim’s Vermeer is a yawner.

One of my all-time favorite comedies, Twentieth Century, shows up on Turner Classic Movies on August 10. The next day, TCM will air The Wild One and The Gold Rush. The Wild One has the iconic 1953 Marlon Brando performance as the leader of bikers that terrorize a small town (based on a real incident in Hollister, California). Brando is asked “What are you rebelling against?” and replies “Whadda you got?”. Charlie Chaplin’s comic masterpiece The Gold Rush includes the wonderful scene where hulking Mack Swain, crazed by winter starvation, imagines Charlie to be a succulent chicken and chases him around their Alaskan cabin.

Charlie Chaplin and Mack Swain in THE GOLD RUSH
Charlie Chaplin and Mack Swain in THE GOLD RUSH

Movies to See Right Now

by
Eller Coltrane in BOYHOOD
Eller Coltrane in BOYHOOD

First things first –  Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood tops my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far and it may turn out to be the best film of the decade. It’s a Must See.

And there are plenty of other good movie choices.  Here are some more recommendations:

  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.
  • The smart and entertaining I Origins, which works both as a scientific detective story and as a meditation on romance.
  • The quirky comedy Land Ho!, with an uproarious and yet genuine geezer road trip to Iceland.
  • The sci fi thriller Snowpiercer is both thoughtful and exciting, plus it features amazing production design. You can also stream Snowpiercer on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and DirecTV.
  • Lucy – a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that rocks.
  • The credible and politically important HBO documentary The Newburgh Sting, which exposes the FBI’s manufacture of a fake terrorist attack to arrest some New York dumbasses. It’s playing on HBO.

There’s also an assortment of recent releases to Video on Demand:

      • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
      • Life Itself, the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death Life Itself is streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
      • The oddly undisturbing documentary A Brony Tale, about grown men with very unusual taste in television shows. Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.
      • The Congress: a thoughtful live action fable followed by a less compelling an animated sci fi story. The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
      • Robert Duvall’s geezer-gone-wild roadtrip in A Night in Old Mexico. A Night in Old Mexico is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
      • The art vs. technology documentary Tim’s Vermeer is a yawner.

My Stream of the Week is the satisfying French drama On My Way, with the extraordinary Catherine Deneuve on an escapist road trip. On My Way is available streaming on Amazon Instant and iTunes.

On August 7, Turner Classic Movies will air the classic 1940 romance The Shop Around the Corner with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. It was remade a half-century later as You’ve Got Mail. The Wife and I watched it recently – I thought it was sweet, but she thought it a little dated and draggy in places. On a different note, TCM will show Juarez and Bordertown on August 6 – two Paul Muni movies that show up on my list of Least Convincing Mexicans.

Movies to See Right Now – the really good movies are here

by
Patricia Arquette and Eller Coltrane in BOYHOOD
Patricia Arquette and Eller Coltrane in BOYHOOD

Our patience has been rewarded – an onslaught of really good movies is finally out now. I haven’t yet seen two of the highly anticipated movies that are out today:

    • Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood – potentially the best movie of the year.
    • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final performance in the John LeCarre espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.

I HAVE seen and recommend:

  • The smart and entertaining I Origins , which works both as a scientific detective story and as a meditation on romance.
  • The sci fi thriller  Snowpiercer is both thoughtful and exciting, plus it features amazing production design. You can also stream Snowpiercer on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and DirecTV.
  • Lucy – a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that rocks.
  • The credible and politically important HBO documentary The Newburgh Sting, which exposes the FBI’s manufacture of a fake terrorist attack to arrest some New York dumbasses.  It’s playing on HBO.

There’s also an assortment of recent releases to Video on Demand:

    • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
    • Life Itself, the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death Life Itself is streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
    • The oddly undisturbing documentary A Brony Tale, about grown men with very unusual taste in television shows.  Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.
    • The Congress: a thoughtful live action fable followed by a less compelling an animated sci fi story.  The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
    • Robert Duvall’s geezer-gone-wild roadtrip in A Night in Old Mexico.  A Night in Old Mexico is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
    • The art vs. technology documentary Tim’s Vermeer is a yawner.

I recommend setting your DVR to record Wild Strawberries on July 28. If you have found the work of Ingmar Bergman just too dreary, this is a great choice. There’s no denying that Bergman is a film genius, and he’s influenced the likes of Woody Allen, Scorsese, Coppola, Altman, Kieślowski and basically much of the last two generations of filmmakers. But I don’t recommend that casual movie fans watch gloomy movies that “are good for you” – I want you to have a good time at the movies. Wild Strawberries is the story of an accomplished but cranky geezer.  His indifferent daughter-in-law is taking him to be honored at his college. On their road trip, they pick up some young hitch-hikers and then a stranded couple. Each encounter reminds the old doctor of an episode in his youth. As he reminisces, he can finally emotionally process the experiences that had troubled him, helping him finally achieve an inner peace. It’s a wonderful film.

WILD STRAWBERRIES
WILD STRAWBERRIES

Movies to See Right Now

by
Richard Linklater's BOYHOOD - opening widely next week
Richard Linklater’s BOYHOOD – opening widely next week

Pickins are slim in theaters this week, but we’ve got a great week coming up. Opening here in Silicon Valley next Friday are:

  • Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood – potentially the best movie of the year.
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final performance in the John LeCarre espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.
  • The quirky indie comedy Land Ho!.
  • Lucy – a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that looks like it rocks.

While we’re waiting for THOSE movies:

  • Jersey Boys is mostly fun – and features another jaunty performance by Christopher Walken.
  • The Wife enjoyed Code Black – the documentary about emergency rooms in urban public hospitals.
  • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
  • Life Itself, the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death Life Itself is streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
  • The art vs. technology documentary Tim’s Vermeer is a yawner.

My summertime DVD/Stream of the Week recommendations are the superb surfing documentaries Step Into Liquid and Riding Giants.  Step Into Liquid is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Hulu and Xbox Video.  Riding Giants is available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play and Xbox Video.

DVD/Stream of the Week: hang ten this summer!

by

Let’s go surfin’ now

Everybody’s learning how

Come on and safari with me

It’s a great time for the two most awesome and gnarly surfing movies, the documentaries Step Into Liquid and Riding Giants.

Step Into Liquid (2003): We see the world’s best pro surfers in the most extreme locations. We also see devoted amateurs in the tiny ripples of Lake Michigan and surfing evangelists teaching Irish school children. The cinematography is remarkable – critic Elvis Mitchell called the film “insanely gorgeous”. The filmmaker is Dana Brown, son of Bruce Brown, who made The Endless Summer (1966) and The Endless Summer II (1994).

 

Riding Giants (2004): This film focuses on the obsessive search for the best wave by some of the greatest surfers in history. We see “the biggest wave ever ridden” and then a monster that could be bigger. The movie traces the discovery of the Half Moon Bay surf spot Mavericks. And more and more, all wonderfully shot.

The filmmaker is Stacy Peralta, a surfer and one the pioneers of modern skateboarding (and a founder of the Powell Peralta skateboard product company). Peralta also made Dogtown and Z-boys (2001), the great documentary about the roots of skateboarding, and wrote the 2005 Lords of Dogtown.

Movies to See Right Now

by
WITCHING AND BITCHING
WITCHING AND BITCHING

I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof.  You can stream it on Amazon instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.

Roger Ebert fans will need to see Life Itself, the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death. Life Itself is playing theaters and also steams on Amazon instant, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

It’s not up to Clint Eastwood’s usual standard, but Jersey Boys, is mostly fun – and features another jaunty performance by Christopher Walken.

If you look for it in theaters, you can still find my top movie of the year so far, the transcendent Polish drama Ida.

The documentary Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger has an interesting subject, but the filmmaking is clunky. It does, however, make my list of Longest Movie Titles.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the Erroll Morris documentary The Unknown Known: Iraq War architect Donald Rumsfeld is apparently completely immune from self-doubt, but ultimately reveals more about himself than he would like. You can find The Unknown Known on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Set your DVRs for Turner Classic Movies on July 23 for Blow-up. Set in the Mod London of the mid-60s, a fashion photographer (David Hemmings) is living a fun but shallow life filled with sports cars, discos and and scoring with supermodels (think Jane Birkin, Sarah Miles and Verushka). Then he discovers that his random photograph of a landscape may contain a clue in a murder and meets a mystery woman (Vanessa Redgrave). After taking us into a vivid depiction of the Mod world, director Michelangelo Antonioni brilliantly turns the story into a suspenseful story of spiraling obsession. His L’Avventura, La Notte and L’Eclisse made Antonioni an icon of cinema, but Blow-up is his most accessible and enjoyable masterwork. There’s also a cameo performance by the Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page version of the Yardbirds and a quick sighting of Michael Palin in a nightclub.

BLOW-UP
BLOW-UP

DVD/Stream of the Week: The Unknown Known

by

Rumsfeld: unruffled by the Errol Morris documentary treatmentErrol Morris is a master documentarian (Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line, Standard Operating Procedure), so he is the perfect guy to explore the personality and career – and, above all, the self-certainty – of Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. For most of the film, Rumsfeld himself is on-screen talking to Morris’ camera. Rumsfeld is apparently completely immune from self-doubt, but ultimately reveals more about himself than he would like.

The title of the picture comes from a Rumsfeld memo that describes a policy maker’s “unknown known” as that which you thought you know but it turns out that you didn’t. Of course, the classic “unknown known” is the certainty that the Iraq War would be justified and would turn out well.

In contrast, the “unknown unknown” is something that you don’t know that you don’t know and that Rumsfeld says that you have to imagine (such as the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks). Of course, the imagining of all kinds of such attacks drives the neo-conservative theory of preemptive war – to strike at those who can be IMAGINED to threaten you.

Rumsfeld is remarkably glib and very effective at selling his own version of reality. Morris takes this on early in the documentary by getting Rumsfeld to deny linking Saddam with Al Qaeda and then shows him doing exactly that in a pre-Iraq War news conference. Indeed, Morris himself is an effective off-screen participant throughout, sparring with Rumsfeld, with each guy winning his share of verbal tussles.

When Rumsfeld thinks that he’s won a point, he grins the infuriating grin in the image above. The one time he loses his smile is when Morris mentions a moment when Rumsfeld almost became Reagan’s Vice-President (and then future President), and Rumsfeld acknowledges that, yes, this was possible. The film is brilliantly edited, and Morris knows EXACTLY how long to extend a shot to catch Rumsfeld in moments of reflection.

The movie traces Rumsfeld’s remarkable life and career from his marriage and early start as a young Congressman thru his roles in the Nixon and Ford administrations with the end of Watergate, the fall of Saigon, his salesmanship for defense spending increases in the 1970s and his service as Reagan’s Middle East envoy. After a time in the wilderness during Bush I, of course, he came to his greatest power during Bush II. He gives a stirring first-person account of the 9/11 attack of the Pentagon, relating what the scene was like even before the first responders arrived. But the core of the film is about the Rumsfeld decisions about Iraq.

Unusual for a current events documentary, there’s also some top shelf music from Danny Elfman, Oscar nominated for Good Will Hunting and Milk.

You can find The Unknown Known on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Matthew McConaughey in TRUE DETECTIVE
Matthew McConaughey in TRUE DETECTIVE

My top picks:

  • Ranging from wry to hilarious, the German dark comedy A Coffee in Berlin hits every note perfectly. I love this little movie, and it may only be in theaters for another week, so see it while you can.
  • It’s not up to Clint Eastwood’s usual standard, but Jersey Boys, is mostly fun – and features another jaunty performance by Christopher Walken.
  • If you look for it in theaters, you can still find my top movie of the year so far, the transcendent Polish drama Ida.

Among other movies out now:

My DVD/Stream of the week – perfect for binge-viewing on the holiday weekend – is the eight one-hour episodes of HBO’s True Detective. It’s a dark tale of two mismatched detectives – each tormented by his own demons – obsessed by a whodunit in contemporary back bayou Lousiana. Wood Harrelson is very good, and Matthew McConaughey’s performance may have been the best on TV this year. True Detective is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from HBO GO.

Turner Classic Movies also offers a pretty appetizing movie smorgasbord this week, starting with The Big Steal (1949) on July 8  – Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer are chased all over Mexico by William Bendix.  Then on July 10, we have three great documentaries:

  • The 1968 Salesman – as good of a depiction of the sales life as Glengarry Glen Ross);
  • Harlan County, U.S.A, the 1979 Oscar-winner Filmmaker Barbara Kopple embedded herself among the striking coal miners and got amazing footage – including of herself threatened and shot at.  Also one of my 5 Great Hillbilly Movies.
  • The Times of Harvey Milk  – the Oscar winner from 1984.  The real story behind Milk with the original witnesses.  One of the best political movies ever.