The Sapphires is a triumph of a Feel Good Movie. Set in the 1960s, a singing group from an Australian Aboriginal family faces racial obstacles at home, but blossoms when the girls learn Motown hits to entertain US troops in Vietnam. Remarkably, Tony Briggs based the screenplay on his mother’s real experience – make sure you stay for the Where Are They Now end credits.
The ever amiable Chris O’Dowd (one of the best things about Bridesmaids) is funny and charming as the girls’ dissolute manager. Jessica Mauboy, who plays the lead singer, has a great voice for soul music. A surprisingly beautiful song by the girls’ mom, played by veteran actress Kylie Belling, is an especially touching moment.
The Sapphires is not a deep movie, but it is a satisfying one. It’s predictable and manipulative, but I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t enjoy it. The Sapphires is a guaranteed good time at the movies.
The Sapphires is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay and other VOD outlets.
This week’s MUST SEE is the affecting foster facility dramaShort 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 two weeks).
Other recommendations from the most current movies:
In A Word… 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 seenPrisoners, which opens today. It’s a thriller from Denis Villenueve, the director of Incendies (my top movie of 2011). Other promising movies opening today include the festival hit Museum Hours and the literary bio-documentary Salinger. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films atMovies I’m Looking Forward To.
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 is the brilliant drama Mud, with Michael McConaughey. It’s a great choice to watch and then discuss with your pre-teens and young teens. Mud, one of my Best Movies of 2013 – So Far, is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay, YouTube and other VOD outlets.
Turner Classic Movies will broadcast the riotously funny screwball comedy Twentieth Century on September 23.
In A Word… 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.
I haven’t yet seen Short Term 12, the drama set in a group home with a reputedly star-making performance by Bree Larson (Rampart, The Spectacular Now). Same goes for The Family, Luc Besson’s tongue-in-cheek Mafioso-moves-to-France movie. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films atMovies I’m Looking Forward To.
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 Stream of the Week is the documentary How to Make Money Selling Drugs, a dispassionate critique of the Drug War. How to Make Money Selling Drugs is available streaming from Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
On September 17, Turner Classic Movies will air the very trippy Un Chien Andalou, made in 1929 by the then very young absurdist director Luis Buñuel with surrealist painter Salvador Dali. If you’ve never seen the famous eyeball-slicing scene, here’s your chance.
In A Word… 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 jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
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).
On September 10, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the great French heist movie Rififi. And on September 12, TCM will air one of the greatest examples of film noir,Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas.
The riveting thriller Shadow Dancer takes place during The Troubles in 1990s Belfast. Thirtyish single mom Collette (Andrea Riseborough) is captured by British security while planting an IRA bomb in London. Faced with the alternative of a long imprisonment with her young son snatched off to foster care, Collette reluctantly agrees to return to Belfast and inform on her IRA unit. This would make for a tense ride in any case, but Collette belongs to a crew run by her two adult brothers, and all three live with their mother.
Everyone in the cell, including the three siblings, is paranoid out of necessity. And paranoid is only a starting point in describing the IRA’s internal security chief, who soon figures out that there’s a mole in the unit, and begins a mercilessly ruthless investigation; before every interrogation, his assistant rolls out plastic sheeting on the floor – just in case an immediate execution is warranted. To make matters even more nerve-wracking, Collette’s British handler Max (Clive Owen) suspects that his superiors are making Collette expendable to protect another intelligence asset. And so we go along on Shadow Dancer’s wild ride, all the way to its noirish ending.
The heart of the film is Andrea Riseborough’s fine performance as Collette. Surrounded by suspicious friends and foes alike, she must be contained and ever watchful. She cannot reveal that the tension is ripping her apart on the inside.
All of the performances are excellent, especially Brid Brennan as Collette’s severe mother, always putting on the kettle for one of her terrorist offspring. David Wilmot is convincing as the IRA’s mole hunter, dead serious here after his comic turn in The Guard as the goon who couldn’t remember whether he was a psychopath or a sociopath.
Director James Marsh won an Oscar for his documentary Man on Wire. Marsh also directed Project Nim (one of my Best Movies of 2011) and the based-on-fact British crime drama Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980.
Here, Marsh demonstrates an excellent sense of pace. Pay attention to the scenes at the beginning with Collette’s little brother and with the London Underground. In contrast to many quick-cutting filmmakers, Marsh takes his time so dread settles in and the tension builds. It results in a top-notch thriller.
In A Word… is the years 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 jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
Another rock doc, A Band Called Death with the story of three African-American brothers in Detroit inventing punk rock before The Ramones and The Sex Pistols – and then dropping out of sight for decades.
The Irish horror comedyGrabbers, which fails to deliver on a great premise.
The astonishingly bad shocker The Rambler, with its 58 second vomit scene.
I haven’t yet seen the indie criminal-on-the-run story Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which opens today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films atMovies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the New Zealand cop miniseries Top of the Lake, starring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss. You can catch Top of the Lake episodes on the Sundance Channel or watch all seven episodes on DVD or streaming from Netflix, and it’s perfect for a Labor Day Weekend marathon.
I haven’t yet seen the British farce The World’s End or the indie criminal-on-the-run story Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which open today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films atMovies I’m Looking Forward To.
My other top recommendations:
The jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
Another rock doc, A Band Called Death with the story of three African-American brothers in Detroit inventing punk rock before The Ramones and The Sex Pistols – and then dropping out of sight for decades.
The Irish horror comedyGrabbers, which fails to deliver on a great premise.
The astonishingly bad shocker The Rambler, with its 58 second vomit scene.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the funny and sentimental Canadian indie Cloudburst, with Oscar-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker. Cloudburst is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and other VOD providers.
The droll indie comedy Prince Avalanche opens today (and is also streaming on VOD). I haven’t yet seen Lee Daniels’ The Butler, a major release which also opens today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films atMovies I’m Looking Forward To.
The jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
Another rock doc, A Band Called Death with the story of three African-American brothers in Detroit inventing punk rock before The Ramones and The Sex Pistols – and then dropping out of sight for decades.
The Irish horror comedyGrabbers, which fails to deliver on a great premise.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the intelligent drama The Place Beyond the Pines with Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper. The Place Beyond the Pines is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay and other VOD providers.
On August 21, Turner Classic Movies will air the iconic Sam Peckinpah Western The Wild Bunch, with stellar performances by William Holden, Robert Ryan and Ernest Borgnine. Watch for two of my favorite character actors – Warren Oates and Ben Johnson – as the Gorch brothers. Other beloved members of Peckinpah’s repertory company in The Wild Bunch include L.Q. Jones, Dub Taylor and Strother Martin.
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes in THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES
According to the Old Testament, “the iniquity of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons”. Indeed, the successes and flaws of fathers, and the choices they make, impact their sons. And sons are often driven to be like or unlike their fathers, to match them or to surpass them. That is the territory explored in writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s intelligent drama The Place Beyond the Pines. (The story is set in Schenectady, New York, and the title refers to the Mohawk origin of the town’s name.)
At first, the story follows a familiar path for a crime drama – a motorcycle trick rider (Ryan Gosling) turns to bank robbery and has an encounter with a cop on patrol (Bradley Cooper). But the screenplay embeds nuggets about how both men feel about their fathers and how those feelings drive their actions. Both men have infant sons, and the father-son theme becomes more apparent as the story resumes fifteen years later with a focus on their own sons as teenagers.
I can’t remember a recent performance by Ryan Gosling that hasn’t been compelling, and he’s outstanding here, too. But the unexpected gem is Bradley Cooper, who shows us acting depth and range that we haven’t seen in his earlier work. Especially in scenes with a police psychiatrist and when forced to ask his father for advice, Cooper exposes the naked vulnerability of his character.
The Place Beyond the Pines is replete with excellent performances. Eva Mendes plays the mother of Gosling’s baby, and her performance stands up to Gosling’s – no small feat. Harris Yulin is superb as Cooper’s canny father. The wonderful Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom,Killing Them Softly) plays Gosling’s crime partner. Ray Liotta, who often plays shady characters, has never been so menacing.
I found the character of Cooper’s son to be very unsympathetic; he is supposed to be a kid messed up by his parents’ divorce and father’s inattention, and I think that the story would have worked better if it were easier to look past his obnoxiousness to appreciate his damaged nature. Still, it’s a film that I’m still pondering a day later. Cianfrance made Blue Valentine, the hard-to-watch but starkly authentic story of an unraveled relationship, an acting showcase for Gosling and Michele Williams. The Place Beyond the Pines is just as thoughtful and more accessible than Blue Valentine. Pines is an ambitious and mostly successful film.
The Place Beyond the Pines is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay and other VOD providers.
This week’s MUST SEES are The Hunt – the best movie of 2013 so far – and the emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station. The Huntis likely out for only one more week.
Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
I haven’t yet seen Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard in the porn star biopic Lovelace. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films atMovies I’m Looking Forward To.
Another rock doc, A Band Called Death with the story of three African-American brothers in Detroit inventing punk rock before The Ramones and The Sex Pistols – and then dropping out of sight for decades.
A stale intellectual argument from 1961 in Hannah Arendt.
The Irish horror comedyGrabbers, which fails to deliver on a great premise.
the wretched crime thriller Only God Forgives is in the running for the year’s worst film.
This week, there’s no DVD/Stream of the Week – get out to see The Hunt and Fruitvale Station!
On August 11, Turner Classic Movies is featuring Henry Fonda movies, including his iconic performances in Mister Roberts and The Grapes of Wrath. But I also like the oft overlooked comedy A Big Hand for a Little Lady, where Fonda plays a pioneer who has lost almost everything in a poker game and then becomes ill just when he is dealt a very promising hand; his wife (Joanne Woodward) must decide whether to hold ’em or fold ’em.
