There are two MUST SEE movies out now. The first is the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction – the funniest film of the year so far and a guaranteed audience pleaser. The second is my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other.
Here are other good movie choices:
- Words and Pictures is an unusually thoughtful romantic comedy.
- Fading Gigolo, a wonderfully sweet romantic comedy written, directed and starring John Tuturro is a crowd-pleaser.
- Locke is a drama with a gimmick that works.
- In the documentary Finding Vivian Maier, we go on journey to discover why one of the great 20th Century photographers kept her own work a secret.
- The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
- Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the powerful drama Short Term 12, newly available on Netflix Instant. It’s ranked as number 7 on my Best Movies of 2013. Short Term 12 is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, GooglePlay and Xbox Video.
This week Turner Classic Movies offers two fine revisionist Westerns from the 1970s. A Man Called Horse (1970). In the early 19th century, Richard Harris is captured by American Indians and becomes assimilated into their culture. Modern viewers will recognize most of the plot of Avatar herein. Harris’ initiation into the tribe is one of cinema’s most cringe-worthy moments. The film still stands up well today. Although why is it that when the white guy encounters a native girl, it’s always the chief’s beautiful, unattached, nubile daughter?
In Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the title characters are played by James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. The great Katy Jurado and Chill Wills join Peckinpah company players, including Luke Askew, L.Q. Jones, Harry Dean Stanton, Slim Pickins, Jack Elam, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Richard Bright (Al Neri in The Godfather) and Richard Jaeckel. Bob Dylan also holds his own; Dylan wrote the score, including the iconic Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, featured in a heartbreaking scene with Jurado and Wills. I maintain that, if you delete the unfortunate scenes with Emilio Fernandez, you have a Western masterpiece. Still, it’s one of my favorites.
If you want some nasty film noir, there’s The Hitch-Hiker from 1953, directed by movie star Ida Lupino – one of the very few female directors of the 1950s. The bad guy is played by William Talman, who baby boomers will recognize as the never victorious DA Hamilton Burger in Perry Mason.
