This week on The Movie Gourmet – my preview of the Mill Valley Film Festival, which just opened and runs through October. Every year, most of the big Oscar movies play at Mill Valley before their thetrical rekease. This year’s program includes films by many of the world’s filmmakers: Cristian Mungiu, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Hirokazu Koreeda, Pedro Almodovar, Mike Leigh, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Pawel Pawlikowski, Peter Farrely, Danny Boyle, Martin McDonagh, Barbara Kopple and Ron Howard. The fest opened with Boyle’s dark comedy Wild Horse Nine with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as CIA agents on Easter Island.
I also posted a new review of the observational indie dramedy The Scout, which is worth seeking out in art houses.
REMEMBRANCE
Fashion designer Bob Mackie dominated the Hollywood red carpet, adorning clients like Cher, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, and Mitzi Gaynor. I saw Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion at a SLO Film Fest screening, with Bob Mackie in person.
CURRENT MOVIES
- The Scout: not what she signed up for. In theaters.
- Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma: witty, bizarre and riotously funny. Amazon, AppleTV.
- Tony: a brat unspoiled. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- The History of Concrete: a lens on absurdity. In theaters.
- The Whisper Man: an unsettling thriller with three creepy villains. Netflix.
- Romeria: when the dots don’t connect right away. Amazon, Fandango, AppleTV.
ON TV
On October 5, Turner Classic Movies brings us two of Kzrysztof Kieslowski’ Three Colours trilogy which I include on my Greatest Movies of All Time. The first is Blue, starring Juliette Binoche as a woman who battles overwhelming grief by de-linking herself from all aspects of her previous life; nevertheless, some elements of her past intrude, and sh come to a complicated path forward. Because of the character’s heartbreak, most of Blue is pretty grim. I recommend that you first sample White, about a Polish immigrant who stands to get kicked out of France when his French wife (Julie Delpy) decodes to divorce him.
Oddly, TCM is not playing Red, perhaps the best of the three films, starring Irene Jacob and Jean-Louis Trintignat as two of several Parisians connected by chance and dog welfare. As the various characters thread teir ways through various sexual improprieties, including a voyeurism scandal, the final scene connects them with the protagonists of Blue and White. Red is included with Criterion and HBO and available to rent on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.
The Polish auteur Kieslowski spent most of his career behind the Iron Curtain and topped off his career with five great, French-funded projects from 1989 to 1994: Dekalog, The Double Life of Veronique, Blue, White and Red. After finishing Red at age 52, he retired at the peak of his powers, and, sadly, died less than two years later during heart surgery.