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.
Among other movies in theaters now:
I found the political documentary Citizen Koch to be righteous but lame.
I wasn’t a big fan of the bleak and hyperviolent The Rover, either;watch writer-director David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom instead.
My DVD/Stream of the week is the Backwoods thriller Joe, starring an unusually retrained Nicholas Cage and featuring two other great performances from lesser knowns. Joe is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
This week Turner Classic Movies is airing a very fun heist movie – the original 1969 The Italian Jobwith Michael Caine. Another good choice is the WW II spy thriller The Fallen Sparrow with John Garfield and a 22-year-old Maureen O’Hara.
In Joe, Nicholas Cage plays the title character, who lives a solitary life in backwoods Texas – self-isolated by problems with anger management and booze that long ago estranged his family and cost him some time in the state pen. Somehow Joe has stayed out of trouble for years, but he’s always on a slow simmer, seemingly close to boiling over. Joe meets Gary (Tye Sheridan of Mud), a boy who belongs to a family of drifters led by a father who beats them and takes all their money to spend on cheap likker. Joe bonds with Gary, and ultimately finds redemption in a sacrifice he makes for the boy. Dark and violent, Joe is ultimately successful as a gripping drama.
Indie writer-director David Gordon Green excels at authentic character-driven Southern dramas (George Washington, All the Real Girls and Undertow). Here he brings us to a world of nasty chained-up dogs, where everyone smokes cigarettes and eats canned food, and nobody has heard of espresso or the Internet.
Cage’s performance is excellent – never over-the-top and much more modulated and realistic than we’ve come to expect from him.
Sheridan, so good in Mud, might be even better here; he smolders at the abuse and neglect the family suffers at the hands of his father. He’s become a strapping kid who came employ violence against an adult, but the father-son tie keeps him from unleashing it on his despicable father. Sheridan is especially brilliant in an early scene where he playfully banters with his drunken dad and in another where Joe teaches him how to fake a pained smile to attract girls.
The biggest revelation in Joe is a searing performance by non-actor Gary Poulter as the drunken father who may shamble like a zombie, but is always cruising like a shark, on the hunt for someone to manipulate or rob. It’s stirring portrait of final stage alcoholism, where there is no moral filter anymore – he will resort to ANY conduct for some three dollar wine. There is nothing left but evil borne of desperation for a drink. Although Poulter was a reliable member of the filmmaking team, within two months after the conclusion of photography, he had resorted to his previous self-destructive lifestyle and died. Thanks to Green, he leaves one great cinematic performance as his legacy.
Joe is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
This a GREAT WEEK for cinema. The wonderfully wry German dark comedy A Coffee in Berlin opens today. In a brilliant debut feature, writer-director Jan Ole Gerster has created a warm-hearted but lost character who needs to connect with others – but sabotages his every opportunity. Besides laughing through A Coffee in Berlin, you’ll probably also notice the singularly complementary soundtrack and the vivid sense of time and place.
And don’t miss the 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. Ida may only be in theaters for another week or so.
The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
My DVD/Stream of the week is the Italian Caesar Must Die, with maximum security prisoners putting on a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Caesar Must Die is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Hulu.
Julie Delpy in WHITE
Okay, fire up the DVR for something special coming up on June 22 on Turner Classic Movies: the masterpiece Three Colors trilogy Blue, White and Red from the mid-1990s. The films are in French, and made by the director that I may admire more than any other, Krzysztof Kieslowski of Poland. The first film, Blue, stars Juliette Binoche and addresses grief; it is somber but its humanity is inspiring. Julie Delpy stars in White the second and much lighter film – a relationship dramedy. In Red, Irene Jacob stars in a story about how strangers treat each each other in modern society, with a redemptive conclusion to the trilogy. Together, the three movies profoundly explore aspects of the human condition, and the result is evocative, intelligent and emotionally satisfying. The stories of the three films intersect – and you can spot the characters from the first two movies in the third.
Kieslowski labored in obscurity in Communist Poland until he attained European recognition and US art house hits with The Decalogue (1988) and The Double Life of Véronique (1990). The Blue/White/Red trilogy came out in 1993 and 1994 to international acclaim, but Kieslowski, reportedly suffering from AIDS, had to retire and died two years later at age 54. I can’t imagine what cinematic masterpieces would have been produced in two more decades of Kieslowski.
Just so folks can calibrate my taste, I keep a list of the 50 Greatest Movies of All Time, and the Blue/White/Red trilogy is in the first ten films on that list. This trilogy is very special – and perfect for binge viewing.
Don’t miss the 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. Ida may only be in theaters for another week or so.
The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is Run & Jump, an Irish film by a Bay Area filmmaker that works equally well as a romance and as a family drama. Run & Jump is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.
Set your DVR to Turner Classic Movies for next Friday’s showing of the wonderful noir mystery Laura from 1944. What lifts any great film above the others in its genre is the depth of the characterization, and here we have the unforgettable star columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) – a compelling mixture of megalomania and insecurity; there’s also the proto-career woman Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney at her most stunning) and the cynical detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), a guy whose emotions have been depleted but are rekindled by a murder victim he’s never met. Watch for future horror movie regular Vincent Price in an early role as an oily gigolo. David Raksin composed one of cinema’s most evocative musical themes. Laura makes my list of Greatest Movies of All Time.
In the indie Run & Jump, a rare type of stroke has changed the personality of an Irish furniture maker; he has survived, but now prone to rages and catatonia, he is never going to be the same as before. He is returned to his family, led by his firecracker wife (Maxine Peake). Along comes an American medical researcher (Will Forte from Saturday Night Live and Nebraska), who moves with the family so he can continually film his patient’s symptoms.
The family initially resents the constant filming, although they desperately need the income from the research stipend. The researcher is so socially awkward that he’s almost catatonic himself, but he is able to provide the adult male presence that the family now misses, and they are eventually drawn to his kindness. Although he tries to maintain clinical distance, he is inevitably attracted to the vitality of the wife – a real live wire. But this isn’t going where you might expect…
Run & Jump succeeds both as a romance and as a family drama. The primary credit goes to co-writer and director Steph Green. A Bay Area filmmaker who now works in Ireland, Green was Oscar nominated for a live action short. Run & Jump is her first feature.
Maxine Peake’s affecting performance as the wife drives the film; Run & Jump is really the story of the wife’s struggles as she fights to keep her family afloat while making a near impossible adjustment.
Run & Jump is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.
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.
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 dramaShort 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.
The powerful drama Short Term 12 is now available streaming on Netflix Instant. It ranked as number 7 on my Best Movies of 2013. The compelling and affecting Short Term 12 is set in a foster care facility unit named Short Term 12; since the kids can live there for years, it seems pretty long-term to me. These are kids who have suffered abuse and neglect and who act out with disruptive and dangerous behaviors. Runaways, assaults and suicide attempts are commonplace, and some of the kids thrive on creating drama.
The gifted lead counselor on the unit is Grace (Brie Larson), who isn’t much older than the kids. She’s kind of a Troubled Kid Whisperer who, in each impossible situation, knows exactly what to do to defuse or comfort or protect. But while she is in total command of her volatile and fragile charges, she is profoundly troubled herself. She and her boyfriend Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), who also works on the unit, are themselves survivors and former foster youth. Mason seems to have resolved his issues, but Grace’s demons lurk just under her skin.
In Short Term 12’s taut 96 minutes, we watch Grace navigate through crisis after crisis until she must face her own. We share many of the most powerful moments in 2013 cinema, particularly one kid’s unexpectedly painful insightful and sensitive rap, another kid’s authoring a wrenching children’s story and Grace’s own outburst of ferocity to protect a kid from a parent.
Brie Larson’s performance as Grace is being widely and justifiably described as star-making, and I think she deserves an Oscar nomination. I noticed her performances in much smaller roles in Rampart and The Spectacular Now , and I’m really looking forward to the launch of a major career. Think Jennifer Lawrence.
John Gallagher Jr. must be a superb actor, because nobody in real life can be as appealing and sympathetic as his characters in Margaret, Newsroom and Short Term 12. I’ll watch any movie with Gallagher in it, and he’s almost good enough to help me stomach Newsroom.
In his debut feature, writer-director Destin Cretton has hit a home run with one of the year’s best dramas. Some might find the hopeful ending too pat, but I say So What – I have met many former foster youth who have transcended horrific childhoods to become exemplary adults.
Short Term 12 is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, GooglePlay and Xbox Video.
Let me make another pitch for 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. I took The Wife last week, and she admired Ida, too.
Get ready for funniest film of the year – the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction opens next week, and it’s a guaranteed audience pleaser.
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 Weeks is the highly original teen misfit movie Terri.Terri is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
Coming up on Turner Classic Movies on June 5 is one of the very best Westerns, Winchester ’73(1950). This was the first pairing of James Stewart with director Anthony Mann; the duo went on to create several more edgy “psychological Westerns” with atypically ambiguous heroes. Stewart’s emotionally scarred character is driven to hunt down a bad, bad guy (film noir stalwart Dan Duryea); his motivation is later revealed to be deeper than it first appears. Millard Mitchell plays Stewart’s buddy, and the two have great chemistry. Sexy Shelly Winters and sleazy John Ireland also sparkle in supporting roles. A very young Rock Hudson plays an American Indian warrior (shirtless, of course).
James Stewart and Millard Mitchell in WINCHESTER ’73
We’ve all seen the teen misfit movie. But Terri has some originality and lots of heart. Jacob Wysocki plays an overweight teen caring for his mentally ill uncle. He doesn’t have much going for him until John C. Reilly’s school counselor intervenes, sometimes clumsily (who knows what will make a teen respond?). Soon there’s a ripple effect among other troubled teens. Screenwriter Patrick Dewitt deserves some plaudits for the authenticity of the teen characters.
Terri is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
My pick for the best movie of the year so far is openly more widely this week – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust. 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
Fading Gigolo, a wonderfully sweet romantic comedy written, directed and starring John Tuturro is a crowd-pleaser. The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion. 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. Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging.
It’s Memorial Day Weekend, which means it’s time for Turner Classic Movies to unleash a war movie marathon. On May 24, you can see two classic Korean War films: The Steel Helmet (1951) and The Men of the Fighting Lady (1954).
