Weekly Movie Recommendations

DVD/Stream of the Week: Before Midnight (and Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, too)

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BEFORE MIDNIGHT

In 1995’s Before Sunrise, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is an American writer in his early twenties who meets a French woman, Celine (Julie Delpy), on a train and talks her into walking around Vienna with him before his early morning flight back home. They banter and flirt, sparks fly and they agree to meet in six months. We find out what happened nine years later when they encounter each other again in Paris in Before Sunset. Now, in Before Midnight, it’s been another nine years and Jesse and Celine are 41. Their journeys have reached another stage, and we meet them in a Greek coastal resort.

In the first two movies, we were rooting for them to get together, but didn’t know whether it would happen. Now we know – they are a couple. The arcs of their careers have intersected, they face the roles of parent and step-parent and their attraction and feelings for each other have matured. As do all couples, they must negotiate each other’s expectations, desires, temperaments and quirks – with a combination of deliberation, accommodation, manipulation and argument.

All three movies in the series are deeply affecting because they are unusually authentic movie romances. The tension in the first two movies is what will happen when they fall in love. The tension in Before Midnight is whether – and how – they will stay in love. Jesse and Celine are perfect for each other – but is that enough?

Before Midnight is co-written by director Richard Linklater and stars Hawke and Delpy. Once again, we have a movie romance without the tired conventions of more superficial romantic comedies; in this series, there are no goofy best friends/roommates, obnoxiously intrusive parents – and no weddings. Instead, we have two attractive, intelligent and very verbal people who are very funny, and have potentially conflicting needs.

The series, which develops the same characters over eighteen years, is a very impressive work and Before Midnight is the year’s best romance (and one of the year’s best movies).

Before Midnight is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and other VOD outlets. I recommend that you watch the prequels first. Both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on VOD from Amazon , iTunes, Vudu and other VOD outlets. Before Sunrise is free with Amazon Prime.

Movies to See Right Now

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PARKLAND

This week’s best picks are the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips and the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance.  12 Years a Slave is an unsparingly realistic depiction of the horrors of American slavery.

I haven’t yet seen the French film that won the top prize at Cannes – Blue is the Warmest Color, which opens today.  Actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux (Farewell My Queen, Midnight in Paris) are reportedly spectacular in this three-hour love story.  One of the explicit sex scenes takes over twenty minutes.

The Motel Life, which also opens today, is solid character-driven drama. Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon offers both guffaws and an unexpected moment of self-discovery.

My Stream of the Week is the entirely fresh and riveting Parkland, which sharply dramatizes the events of November 22-25 in Dallas from the viewpoints of the secondary participants. Parkland is available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and XBOX Live.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including How to Make Money Selling Drugs).

On November 11, Turner Classic Movies is playing the underrated 1949 noir The Set-up. This is one of the great film noirs and one of my 10 Best Boxing Movies . Robert Ryan plays a washed-up boxer that nobody believes can win again, not even his long-suffering wife. His manager doesn’t bother to tell him that he is committed to taking a dive in his next fight. But what if he wins? Director Robert Wise makes use of then innovative real time narrative. In this clip, watch for the verisimilitude of the bar where the deal goes down.

DVD/Stream of the Week: The Conjuring

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THE CONJURING

Just right for Halloween week, the satisfying shocker The Conjuring begins in a familiar way. In 1971, a couple (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) moves into an old, isolated farmhouse with their five daughters. The youngest kid finds a creepy old music box, the dog refuses to come inside the house, all the clocks stop at 3:07 AM, the house is always chilly and there’s a boarded-up cellar. If you’ve ever seen a scary movie, you know that THIS HOUSE IS HAUNTED. Soon, the family desperately seeks the help of husband and wife ghostbusters (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson).

Interestingly, the story is based on a real occurrence. The real ghost experts soon afterward took on the notorious house in Amityville, Long Island.

What makes The Conjuring work so well? First, the performances of Vera Farmiga and Lili Taylor elevate the material. Each is gifted with the capacity to mix passion, inner strength and fragility.

Director James Wan superbly paces the action, letting our sense of dread build and build until we jump in our seats. He uses a handheld (but not jumpy) camera to provide cool angles and a point of view that helps us relate to the characters.

And there is no gore. There are a few scary images, but The Conjuring relies on good, old-fashioned surprises and our discomfort with the occult to supply the fright.

The Conjuring is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and other VOD providers.

Movies to See Right Now

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John Cazale and Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

This week’s best picks are the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips and the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance.  I’m also featuring two cinematic masterpieces on TCM – The Conversation and Blow-up (see below).

I also like the intricately plotted and unrelentingly tense suspense thriller Prisoners (with Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman). Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon offers both guffaws and an unexpected moment of self-discovery.  In addition, the rock music documentary Muscle Shoals, the based-on-fact French foodie saga Haute Cuisine and the witty French rom com Populaire each has something to offer.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including How to Make Money Selling Drugs).

I haven’t yet seen the Robert Redford survival drama All Is Lost, opening this weekend.  You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the cop buddy comedy The Heat, with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock. The Heat is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu and other VOD outlets.The Heat is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu and other VOD outlets.

On October 30, Turner Classic Movies is presenting back-to-back two murder mysteries that are among the greatest movies ever – The Conversation (1974) and Blow-up (1966). At the height of his powers, Francis Ford Coppola directed The Conversation between The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, and The Conversation is every bit the masterwork as the others. In a role just as iconic as in The French Connection, Gene Hackman plays an audio surveillance expert entangled in a morally troubling assignment – and then obsessed. Veteran character actor Allen Garfield is just as good and the irreplaceable John Cazale makes us cringe and ache as always. Look for a very young Harrison Ford and for a glimpse of an uncredited Robert Duvall as a corpse. The most significant achievement in The Conversation, however, is the groundbreaking sound editing by Walter Murch. After experiencing The Conversation, you’ll never again overlook movie sound editing.

There’s yet more obsession in 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 sportscars, discos and and scoring with supermodels (think Jane Birkin, Sarah Miles and Verushka). Then he finds that a landscape that he randomly photographed 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 club.

David Hemmings in BLOW-UP

DVD/Stream of the Week: The Heat

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THE HEAT

We’ve all seen cop buddy comedies before (Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours and scores of copycats). In the The Heat, the odd couple is Sandra Bullock (as the arrogant and fastidious FBI agent) and Melissa McCarthy (as the earthy and streetwise Boston cop). There are some especially well-written bits in The Heat, especially when Bullock’s prig finally explodes into a completely inept torrent of profanity and when McCarthy’s cop belittles her commander’s manhood for what must be the zillionth time.

But here’s why you will enjoy The Heat. Melissa McCarthy’s line readings are brilliantly hilarious. Her gift for dialogue makes everything and everyone in this movie much funnier. Her performance elevates the entire movie. In fact, every person who has talked to me about The Heat has laughed when describing it. It may not be that original, but it’s sufficiently well made and McCarthy is sublime.

The Heat is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu and other VOD outlets.

Movies to See Right Now

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This week’s best pick is the flawless thriller Captain Phillips, with Tom Hanks starring as the real-life ship captain hijacked by Somali pirates and rescued by American commandos in 2009.

I also like the intricately plotted and unrelentingly tense suspense thriller Prisoners (with Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman).  Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon offers both guffaws and an unexpected moment of self-discovery.

My other top recommendations are Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine (with an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett) and the very well-acted civil rights epic Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

In addition, the rock music documentary Muscle Shoals, the based-on-fact French foodie saga Haute Cuisine and the witty French rom com Populaire each has something to offer.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including How to Make Money Selling Drugs).

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the cop buddy comedy The Heat, with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock. The Heat is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu and other VOD outlets.

 

Movies to See Right Now

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PRISONERS

Although I haven’t had a chance  to write about them yet, I like the suspense thriller Prisoners (with Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman) and Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon.  I hope to post about them this weekend.

I haven’t yet seen the Tom Hanks thriller Captain Phillips or the rollicking Danny Trejo action comedy Machete Kills, which open today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My other top recommendations:

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including Letters from the Big Man).

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the provocative eco-terrorism drama The East.

On October 17, Turner Classic Movies will be showcasing the excellent prison drama Convicts 4. It’s not aptly titled – it’s about one convict (Ben Gazzara), whose talent as a visual artist blossoms in prison. Convicts 4 is soon to be on my list of Best Prison Movies.

DVD/Stream of the Week: The East

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Brit Marling in THE EAST

The East is a smart and gripping thriller that explores both our response to corporate criminality and the unfamiliar world of anarchist collectives. Brit Marling plays a brilliant up-and-comer in an industrial security firm who goes undercover to hunt down and infiltrate a band of eco-terrorists named The East.

The East seeks to brings deadly personal accountability to corporate leaders who injure people and the environment. These aren’t Hollywoodized corporate villains – all of the corporate crimes depicted in the movie have occurred in real life. Lesser filmmakers would have made The East into a revenge fantasy with a Robin Hood-like merry band of earnest kids – or a conventional espionage procedural, hunting down a gang of wild-eyed terrorists.

The East is so good because it explores our helplessness in the face of corporate malfeasance. The corporate targets deserve to be held accountable, and their crimes cry out for punishment. Yet the vigilante violence of The East is clearly unacceptable. No self-selected group of avengers – no matter how legitimate their grievance – should be able to inflict extra-legal violence. (If you don’t think so, just substitute white supremacist militia, fundamentalist Mormons or Chechen immigrants for the hippies in this movie.)

We view this dilemma through the perspective of Marling’s protagonist, whose own views evolve through the course of the story. Marling co-wrote the screenplay with director Zal Batmanglij. Marling and Batmanglij spent over three months in an anarchist collective, living a cash-free life off the grid; that experience has paid off with an unusual authenticity in the depiction of the anarchist lifestyle.

Marling and Batmanglij also co-wrote the indie The Sound of My Voice, and Marling wrote and starred in last year’s sci-fi hit Another Earth. Here, they have created a set of original characters and invented some really ingenious plot points, especially a very powerful initiation dinner and an astounding bit of tradecraft involving dental floss.

Besides Marling, Ellen Page is especially good as one of the eco-terrorists. Julia Ormond is brilliant in a tiny part as a business executive. There are other fine performances by Patricia Clarkson as Marling’s nasty boss and by Alexander Skarsgaard and Toby Kebell as anarchists.

There may be some holes in the plot, but The East is such a tautly crafted thriller, that we don’t have time to notice. There is one unfortunately corny scene between Ellen Page’s character and Jamey Sheridan’s (he’s become the Go To Guy for entitled white male scumbags). But those are quibbles – The East is a very strong film.

The East  is available on DVD from both Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes, GooglePlay and other VOD outlets.

DVD/Stream of the Week: The Iceman

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Michel Shannon in THE ICEMAN

The Iceman is based on the true story of Richard Kuklinski, a New Jersey hitman said to have killed at least 100 (and possibly more than 250) people over thirty years until 1985. Besides his prolific trail of carnage, the most interesting aspect of The Iceman is its take on Kuklinski’s personality and its portrayal by Michael Shannon.

Shannon’s Kuklinski deeply loves his wife and daughters – and is psychotically indifferent to the fate of any other human (even his own). To him, killing another person is as unencumbered by morality or emotion as delivering a pizza or fixing a muffler. His “Iceman” nickname derives from his practice of freezing his victims and dumping their bodies months later – so investigators could not fix the time of death. But “Iceman” just as aptly applies to Kuklinski’s fearlessness and utter lack of empathy.

Ever since Shotgun Stories, Michael Shannon has been one of my favorite actors. He’s perfect for Kuklinski, because Shannon can combine impassivity and intensity like no one else. He can also use his hulking frame to enhance his menace (or, in Mud, his goofiness).

His fellow actors – including Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta and David Schwimmer – do a fine job. I particularly enjoyed Chris Evans as fellow hitman Mr. Freezy, who works out of his ice cream truck. Because I don’t watch superhero movies, I was unaware that Evans has recently starred as Captain America in The Avengers and as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four movies.

The Iceman is a solid true-life crime movie with an outstanding performance by Michael Shannon.  The Iceman is available on DVD from both Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes, GooglePlay, YouTube and other purveyors of VOD.

Movies to See Right Now

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SHORT TERM 12

This week’s MUST SEE is the affecting foster facility drama Short Term 12, with its powerful performance by performance by Brie Larson (Rampart, The Spectacular Now). Another good choice is You Will Be My Son, a good French movie with a great ending (and it will likely be in theaters for only another week or so).

Other recommendations from the most current movies:

  • I really liked the absorbing drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.
  • In A World… is the year’s best comedy so far – it’s a Hollywood satire, an insider’s glimpse into the voice-over industry, a family dramedy and a romantic comedy all in one.
  • The Family, Luc Besson’s tongue-in-cheek Mafioso-moves-to-France comedy has its moments.

I haven’t yet seen the Joseph Gordon Levitt comedy Don Jon, which opens today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My other top recommendations:

My other recommendations:

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including Letters from the Big Man).

My DVD/Stream of the Week is The Sapphires, a Feel Good triumph from Australia. The Sapphires is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay and other VOD outlets.

On September 28, you can watch Trouble Along the Way,
featuring John Wayne as a crooked college football coach who says “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” (years before Vince Lombardi).