Weekly Movie Recommendations

DVD/Stream of the Week: Her

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her1Her, the latest from writer-director Spike Jonze is about as inventive at his Being John Malkovitch – and that’s really saying something. Joaquin Phoenix stars as a lonely guy fascinated by his breathtakingly intuitive new computer operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johannson). This new operating system is SO intuitive that it molds itself to please him, constantly fine tuning itself into the image of his ideal companion – and he falls in love.

It’s set in a technologically not-so-distant future (but far enough in the future that everyone in LA lives and works in highrises and takes transit, even to the beach). Along with the absurd premise, Jonze sprinkles in some brilliantly funny touches. There’s a blind date with a knockout (Olivia Wilde) that spirals out of control with stunning suddenness. There’s an inspired bit with a waitperson interrupting the diners with “How’s everything?” (one of my personal pet peeves) at precisely the most awkward moment possible. A video game figure is cuddly looking but shockingly abusive. Here’s one more sly touch – a future male fashion of awkwardly high-waisted pants. Lots of smart laughs.

Her is one of the more thought-provoking films of the year – why did the main character’s most recent relationship fail? Does he really know what he wants and needs? Can he give enough to make a reciprocal relationship work?

Joaquin Phoenix is very good, as are Wilde, Kirsten Wiig, Chris Pratt, Rooney Mara and Amy Adams. Scarlett Johannson, however, is a revelation; equipped only with her husky voice, she dominates the film. It’s an extraordinary performance.

All this being said, Her is not a perfect film – it drags in places. But between Johannson’s performance and Jonze’s wacky but thought-provoking story, Her is a winner – and on my Best Movies of 2013.  Her is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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FADING GIGOLO
FADING GIGOLO

We’re sliding into the blockbuster doldrums of summer, but the best movie of the year is opening more widely next week (teaser). Right now, I heartily recommend Fading Gigolo, a wonderfully sweet romantic comedy written, directed and starring John Tuturro. 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.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the gripping thriller Source Code.  It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2011.  Source Code is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

Take a hard-bitten Raymond Chandler mystery novel, have William Faulkner touch up the screenplay, get Howard Hawks to direct, cast Bogie and Bacall and, well, you get a 1946 masterpiece of film noir: The Big Sleep, coming up May 20 on Turner Classic Movies. The deliciously convoluted plot is part of the fun. I love the scene where Bogart’s Philip Chandler chats up Dorothy Malone’s bookstore clerk – and she closes the shop early for an off-screen quickie.

If you’re in the mood for a guilty pleasure, on May 17 TCM is showing 4 for Texas, a Rat Pack Western (!) from 1963. It’s not good, but you can enjoy Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin along with some great character actors: Jack Elam, Mike Mazurki, Victor Buono, Charles Bronson and Richard Jaeckel. Plus a cameo by the Three Stooges!

Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP
Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP

DVD/Stream of the Week: Source Code

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Source Code1Source Code is a gripping thriller, and I admired both its intelligence and its heart. The key is a breakthrough screenplay by Ben Ripley. The scifi premise is that supersoldier Jake Gyllenhaal can inhabit the brain of a terrorism victim for the same 8 minutes – over and over again. Each time, he has 8 minutes to seek more clues. Can he build the clues into a solution and prevent the terrorist atrocity? Gyllenhaal is excellent. So is Vera Farmiga as his handler and Michelle Monaghan as a girl you could fall in love with in 8 minutes. Jeffrey Wright chews the scenery with his homage to Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove. Director Duncan Jones solidly brings Ripley’s screenplay home.

It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2011. Source Code is available on DVDD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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Sofia Vergara and John Turturro in FADING GIGOLO
Sofia Vergara and John Turturro in FADING GIGOLO

Okay – I admit I’ve been Missing In Action lately. I have been too busy to write while engrossed in the San Francisco International Film Festival, the New Orleans Jazz Fest and then back for the closing of the SFIFF last night.

I heartily recommend Fading Gigolo, a wonderfully sweet romantic comedy written, directed and starring John Tuturro. If you can find it, I also liked Catherine Deneuve’s road trip to self discovery in On My Way.  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.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is a good French movie with a GREAT ending and several tantalizing scenes for foodies – You Will Be My Son.  You Will Be My Son is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes and Xbox Video.

On May 15, Turner Classic Movies is showing the 1986 Woody Allen near-masterpiece Hannah and Her Sisters. Biting and insightful, Hannah and Her Sisters won Best Supporting Oscars for Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest, along with a Best Screenplay Oscar for Woody. I particularly enjoy the performances of Barbara Hershey as the inappropriate object of Caine’s middle-aged infatuation and Max Von Sydow as her pretentious artist-boyfriend.

Mia Farrow, barbara hershey and Dianne Wiest in HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
Mia Farrow, barbara hershey and Dianne Wiest in HANNAH AND HER SISTERS

DVD/Stream of the Week: You Will Be My Son

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YOU WILL BE MY SON

Niels Arestrup (A Prophet, War Horse) stars as the owner of French wine estate who places impossible expectations on his son, with lethal results. The poor son has gotten a degree in winemaking, has worked his ass off on his father’s estate for years and has even married well – but it’s just not enough for his old man. The father’s interactions with the son range from dismissive to deeply cruel.

The father’s best friend is his longtime estate manager, whose health is faltering. The son is the natural choice for a successor, but the owner openly prefers the son’s boyhood friend, the son of the manager. The first half of You Will Be My Son focuses on the estate owner’s nastiness toward his son, which smolders throughout the film. But then the relationship between the sons turns from old buddies to that of the usurper and the usurped. And, finally, things come down to the decades-long relationship between the two old men.

Deep into the movie, we learn something about the father that colors his view of his son. And then, there’s a startling development that makes for a thrilling and operatic ending.

It’s one of several good 2013 films about fathers and sons, like The Place Beyond the Pines and At Any Price.  (This is also a food porn movie, with some tantalizing wine tasting scenes that should earn a spot on my Best Food Porn Movies.)

You Will Be My Son is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes and Xbox Video.

DVD/Stream of the Week: At Any Price

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Dennis Quaid in AT ANY PRICE

At Any Price is – at long last – a movie about today’s Farm Belt that farmers will recognize. American cinema has been romanticizing the small family farm for at least a quarter century since, to survive, US farmers have moved on to industrial scale agribusiness (with all its tradeoffs). The corporate farmer at the center of At Any Price is Henry Whipple (Dennis Quaid). Henry is a driven man, consumed by a need to have the biggest farm and to sell the most genetically modified corn seeds in southern Iowa. Henry is also stupendously selfish, utterly tone-deaf to the needs of anyone else.

Despite Henry’s dream to hand the business to one of his two sons, they despise him. The older son has avoided conflict by escaping to a vagabond life in international mountain climbing. The younger son, Dean (Zac Efron), plans his escape as a NASCAR driver and seems well on his path. Stuck on the farm for now, he can barely tolerate his father’s incessant grasping. But he’s small town royalty, he’s got a pretty girlfriend (Maika Monroe) and he’s as good-looking as Zac Efron, so life isn’t unbearable.

But Henry’s smug perch on top of the haystack is not as impregnable as it would seem. Along the way, he has cut some corners and stepped on other people, and it catches up to him. Henry’s empire threatens to topple, Dean clutches at his big career chance, and the two men – each and together – must react to developments that they never saw coming. Writer-director Ramin Bahrani spins a deeply authentic psychological drama as each man is forced into some uncomfortable self-examination.

It’s interesting that such a realistic exploration of New Agriculture in Middle America comes from Bahrani. Himself North Carolina-born, he has used nonprofessional actors to make three brilliant movies about struggling immigrants in America: Chop Shop, Man Push Cart and Goodbye, Solo. Goodbye, Solo was #5 on my list of Best Movies of 2009. Here’s a recent interview with Bahrani in the New York Times touching on At Any Price.

One of Bahrani’s insights is that the impacts of today’s capitalism aren’t necessarily from the malevolently rapacious (like Henry F. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life), but from the indifference of the selfish. With almost every step that he takes, Henry Whipple screws other folks, but he’s convinced himself that he’s a prince of a guy.

At Any Price is a showcase for Quaid and Efron. Quaid’s portrayal of Henry is brilliantly textured, projecting a self-righteous bluster which barely masks the desperation threatening to erupt through his pores. And I’ve come to always look forward to seeing Efron, who, in Me and Orson Welles, The Paperboy and Liberal Arts, has proven that he is more than just the pretty boy of High School Musical.

Bahrani’s actors have taken full advantage of his screenplay. The character of Dean’s girlfriend is especially well-written. Beginning as a simple teen from a broken family looking for some fun, her journey takes several surprising turns. The actress Maika Monroe pulls it off with a memorable performance. In many ways, the story is anchored by Kim Dickens (Deadwood, Treme) as Henry’s wife and Zac’s mom, resolutely dragging her men out of their self-created sinkholes. Veteran character actor Clancy Brown (the guy has 209 acting credits on IMDb) is superb as Henry’s chief rival.

We are left with two men who finally must appreciate who they really are, whether we like them or whether they like themselves. After seeing At Any Price, I didn’t leave the theater thrilled, but that’s probably because a brilliant examination of two ambiguous men is more thought-provoking than stirring. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

At Any Price is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Xbox Video, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

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FINDING VIVIAN MAIER
FINDING VIVIAN MAIER

In the engrossing 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 Unknown Known, master documentarian Errol Morris’ exploration of Donald Rumsfeld’s self-certainty, is a Must See for those who follow current events.   Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging. Dom Hemingway is a fun and profane romp. In the most bizarro movie of the year so far, Under the Skin, Scarlett Johansson plays an alien who lures men with her sensuality and then harvests their bodies; it’s trippy, but I found it ultimately unsatisfying.

I liked Run & Jump, now available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video. It’s successful as a romance, a family drama and a promising first feature.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the emotionally satisfying gem Philomena. Philomena is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Sam Fuller is one of my favorite directors, and Turner Classic Movies is offering a Fullerathon on April 29. Fuller started out as a tabloid reporter and never missed a chance to shamelessly sensationalize a subject (except for war, which he insisted on treating realistically).  Two of Fuller’s trashterpieces are Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor.  His masterpiece is probably the Korean War film I Shot Jesse James, The Baron of Arizona ; the WWII movie Merrill’s Marauders is more conventional, but a solid WWII movie.  TCM is also showing I Shot Jesse James, The Baron of Arizona and Verboten!.  The only stinker of the group is The Run of the Arrow, with a hopelessly miscast and scenery-chewing Rod Steiger in buckskins.

In The Naked Kiss, a prostitute opens the movie by beating her pimp to a pulp, and then moves to a new town, seeking a new beginning in the straight world. She gets a job as a nurse at the clinic for disabled children, and becomes engaged to the town’s leading philanthropist. She thinks that everything will be great unless someone reveals her tawdry past. But, instead, she discovers that her Mr. Perfect is molesting the crippled kids! (Only Sam Fuller could pull this off!) Here’s the trailer.

DVD/Stream of the Week: Philomena

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The title character in Philomena, is an Irish woman who was shipped off to the nuns as a pregnant teen and whose toddler was adopted without her genuine consent. Now over forty years later, she wants to find what has happened to her son. Philomena (Judi Dench) is a simple woman, whose deep faith has been unable to resolve her sense of loss. She enlists a British journalist (Coogan) to help her in the investigation. The journalist takes them on a journey that finds her answers – and some of those answers are wholly unexpected.

The nuns in the 1950s flashback are cartoonishly nasty, contrasted with their modern counterparts – just as evil but with slickly modern PR skills. Philomena’s faith enables her victimhood, but then an act of transcendence reveals her to be the most Christian character.

Of course, Dench is always excellent, but Coogan’s performance shows an unexpected range. His character has just had his high-flying career derailed and has lost the smug confidence that Coogan’s characters usually impart.

Director Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen) has a big success with Philomena, a nice rebound from his most recent efforts (Tamara Drewe, Lay the Favorite). Philomena is an emotionally satisfying success.

Philomena is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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Joe
I like the dark and violent Joe with Nicholas Cage and young Tye Sheridan of Mud.   The Unknown Known, master documentarian Errol Morris’ exploration of Donald Rumsfeld’s self-certainty, is a Must See for those who follow current events.

You can still find Jake Gyllenhaal’s brilliant performance in two roles in the psychological thriller Enemy. Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging. Dom Hemingway is a fun and profane romp. In the most bizarro movie of the year so far, Under the Skin, Scarlett Johansson plays an alien who lures men with her sensuality and then harvests their bodies; it’s trippy, but I found it ultimately unsatisfying.

I liked Run & Jump, now available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video. It’s successful as a romance, a family drama and a promising first feature.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is Martin Scorsese’s funniest film, The Wolf of Wall Street, in which the sales meetings make the toga party in Animal House look like an Amish barn-raising. The Wolf of Wall Street is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

This week Turner Classic Movies is showing one of my all-time favorites, the noir mystery Laura, with the detective (Dana Andrews) falling in love with the murder victim he has never met (the lustrous Gene Tierney); Clifton Webb steals the show with a brilliantly eccentric supporting turn. TCM is also showing perhaps the greatest Western movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a mature John Ford’s contemplation of all those shoot ’em ups from earlier in his career; it features James Stewart and John Wayne, along with Andy Devine, Woody Strode, Vera Mills, Edmond O’Brien and Lee Marvin. And speaking of the Duke, in The Shootist, he plays an aged gunslinger dying of cancer at the end of the Old West; poignantly, Wayne himself was fighting cancer himself and The Shootist was his final film.

DVD/Stream of the Week: The Wolf of Wall Street

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wolfWhat do you get when testosterone-fueled and morally challenged stock salesmen discover how to make piles of easy money by defrauding investors? Well, when Martin Scorsese tells the tale, we get three hours of full throttle, hilariously bad behavior. The Wolf of Wall Street is the story of a (real life) guy who found out how to make a fortune scamming middle class investors – and then a bigger fortune scamming rich investors – on penny stocks and shady IPOs. It’s a wild ride that is destined to end in a perp walk, propelled by enormous amounts of recreational drug use. In fact, the movie is really about excess – the sales meetings here make the toga party in Animal House look like an Amish barn-raising.

This is not economic story-telling. Scorsese indulgently lets his scenes run on and on – not so we lose interest, but just so he can milk out every drop of spectacle. Although he could have told the story in two hours instead of three, he just couldn’t resist supplying three hours of exhilaration. Fine by me.

I had never thought of Leonardo DiCaprio as a comic actor, but he does a fine job in the lead role – driving what is essentially a comedy. Speaking of comic actors, this may be Jonah Hill’s finest performance – he plays the top henchman, a character who wears horn-rimmed glasses (without corrective lenses) just to look more WASPish; no one can play schlubby desperation or drug-impaired overreaching better than Hill. There is a huge cast, and some of the year’s best acting gems include:

  • Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights and so brilliant in The Spectacular Now) as the FBI agent targeting DiCaprio. In particular, Chandler performs an exceptional scene on a yacht, where the agent lets the con artist (and the audience) think that his con is working – for just a bit. Top notch stuff.
  • Matthew McConaughey, at the height of his new-found acting powers, as our hero’s first mentor in amorality;
  • Rob Reiner (!) as the hero’s emotionally explosive but common sensical dad;
  • the stunning blonde Australian actress Margot Robbie as the Brooklyn-bred trophy wife; and
  • Joanna Lumley (a top model in London’s 60s Mod scene and popularizer of the Purdey bob hairstyle) as the trophy wife’s conveniently European aunt.

I’m certainly going to add this to my Best Drug Movies. Multiple scenes make this the best Quaalude movie ever, and one extended ‘lude scene with DiCaprio and Hill had the audience howling for several minutes.

Is this one of Scorsese’s best films? No – but it is one of the most entertaining and certainly the funniest.  The Wolf of Wall Street is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.