Mountain climbing partners tie a line between themselves so – if one of them falls – he can be saved by the other. But what if an accident puts BOTH of them at mortal risk? What if the fallen climber can’t be pulled up? What if one climber’s fall has doomed the other? The gripping documentary Touching the Void retraces that situation in real life – what happens if you cut your partner’s line?
In 1985, this happened to expert climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates in the Peruvian Andes. The 2005 film Touching the Void re-enacts the incident with the reflections of participants.
There’s no more life-or-death decision than “Should I cut the rope?” Although the issues of betrayal and guilt naturally arise, it turns out to be lot more complicated than that.
That moment of decision is dramatic, of course, but it’s only one segment of Touching the Void, which includes multiple survival stories in one adventure. One of them is absolutely epic.
Touching the Void was directed by Kevin Macdonald, who won the Best Documentary Oscar for 2000’s One Day in September, about the terrorist attack at the 1976 Munich Olympics. Touching the Void has been acclaimed as“the most successful documentary in British cinema history”. Touching the Void can be streamed from Amazon and iTunes.
In the thriller Searching, a Silicon Valley engineer David (Jon Cho) has been single-parenting his daughter since the death of his wife. The daughter, now sixteen, doesn’t come home. Has she run away? He she been abducted? Is she even still alive? Searching is a ticking clock thriller as David and the investigating police detective Vick (Debra Messing) race against time to solve the case. There are several red herrings, a couple major plot twists and one mega-surprise.
Here’s what is really different about Searching – the movie is entirely on the character’s screens – those of his computers, but also on smartphones, television, a security video and a live funeral cam. The sixteen year-old flashbacks are shown on a sixteen-year-old version of Windows desktop.
This is NOT a “gimmick movie”. It is a complete movie that writer-director Aneesh Chaganty has chosen to tell through this device. For example, Chaganty barely gives a glimpse of the comments on on-line news reports – and no character comments on them – but the audience finds them maddening and suffers the indignities along with David. In the same vein, I also enjoyed the recent teen horror Unfriended, also told on a computer screen, and the claustrophobic drama Locke, set in the driver’s seat of an auto.
Detective Vick asks David, “Who is your daughter and who does she talk with?”, which puts the spotlight on the movie’s theme. He’s her dad, and he was certain that he knows his daughter – but he finds out that, as a teenager, she has developed into an entirely new and unrecognizable person. Obviously, that revelation brings him enormous guilt to go along with the shock, but he throws himself into the search by grabbing her laptop and hacking her social media. As any good Silicon Valley parent, he opens a spreadsheet and starts filling it with what he finds out from the trail she has left online.
John Cho’s performance is pretty much perfect. Of course, he’s already achieved popular success in two movie franchises – as Harold in the Harold and Kumar stoner series and Sulu in Star Wars. Here, he gets a full-out, adult dramatic role and knocks it out of the park. Cho modulates David’s increasing tension and desperation through the story, and he is perfect in the flashback scenes, too.
Aneesh Chaganty is a San Jose native. Although he says that only two percent of the movie was actually filmed in San Jose, Searching really nails the vibe of Silicon Valley in 2018. Locals will unmask the very slight name changes to recognize the Sharks, the SJPD, Oakridge Mall, Evergreen/Silver Creek Highs and more. (The only egregious misstep is one character referencing Highway “101” in LA-speak as “the 101” .)
Searching can be streamed from Amazon (Starz channel), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Brian Dennehy, Lucas Jaye and Hong Chau in DRIVEWAYS
I can’t think of a more authentic movie about intergenerational relationships than the charming, character-driven Driveways. It’s a modest little indie, and it’s one of the Best Movies of 2020 – So Far.
Kathy (Hong Chau) and her nine-year-old Cody (Lucas Jaye) arrive in a small town to clean out and flip the house of Kathy’s late sister. Kathy and her much older sister had lost touch,and Kathy is surprised and disheartened to discover that the sister had become a hoarder, making the clean-up job monumental. The octogenarian next-door neigbor Del (Brian Dennehy) watches from his porch.
All three are facing life challenges. Kathy is a single mom trying to navigate a career change; now she has an unwanted chore and some guilt from not reviving the relationship with her sister. Cody is a sensitive kid who isn’t comfortable in many situations and who has an embarrassing reaction to anxiety. Del is grieving the loss of his wife and facing the loss of his independence. Things do not go as the audience expects.
Hong Chau in DRIVEWAYS
Director Andrew Ahn, by dropping subtle clues, lets the audience connect the dots about the characters and their back stories. We learn about the mom-son relationship when she discards a cigarette on the ground and he wordlessly grinds it out with his shoe. We learn about Del’s fears about his independence when he glances at an increasingly forgetful buddy.
Driveways is a three-hander and all three actors, Hong Chau, Lucas Jaye and Brian Dennehy are superb. 91-year-old character actor Jerry Adler is brilliant in a few very brief scenes.
This was the final performance for Brian Dennehy (scroll down to bottom for my remembrance). His performance – so remarkably genuine and subtle – in Driveways is award-worthy. Dennehy’s facial expression, in one fleeting moment, conveys Del’s profound regret about a mistake that he made with his own daughter.
Brian Dennehy and Lucas Jaye in DRIVEWAYS
Driveways played at Cinequest 2020 with an in-person appearance by Hong Chau, which I skipped because I sized it up as too sappy. I was wrong.
You know how children are drawn to some kids and not to others? Driveways perfectly captures the joy of making friends when a kid discovers another kid with common interests.
That authenticity is exactly what keeps Driveways from being corny. There’s not a hint of manipulation from Ahn. That’s why Driveways is that rarity, a recommendation from The Movie Gourmet that can be described as”heartfelt”.
Cody is as much the lead character as are the mom and the old guy. The Wife thinks that the movie is too slow for kids. But I’d give it a try and challenge the kids. It’s only 83 minutes, and I think kids will be drawn to the portrayal of a kid that is so real-world and unlike the stock characters spoon fed them by the likes of the Disney Channel.
Driveways is available to stream on all the major platforms.
Honor the late indie director Lynne Shelton by watching a great Edie Falco performance in Shelton’s Outside In. I also have remembrances of Fred Willard, who, as much as anyone, invented the deadpan mockumentary, and actor Michel Piccoli, a stalwart of French cinema.
Coming up this weekend – a 2020 indie gem about inter-generational friendships – one of those rare heartwarming movie recommendations from the Movie Gourmet.
ON VIDEO
Outside In is a superb indie drama by director Lynne Shelton, who died this week. It’s a story of self-discovery with an astonishing performance by Edie Falco. Outside In can be streamed on Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The T.A.M.I. Showis the first concert film as we understand the genre today and features eight future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers. It’s very easy to find the full one hour, 52 minute, version for free on YouTube, along with clips of each of the acts.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
Harold Russell, Dana Andrews and Frederic Mrch in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
Turner Classic Movies is running their usual war movie marathon on Memorial Day Weekend. But my choice, on Monday, May 25, is a movie that evokes our experience today. The Best Years of Our Lives is about people yearning to Get On With It after their lives were consumed by an upheaval they all shared. In their case it was WW II. In our case, it’s COVID-19.
One of the greatest movies of all time, The Best Years of Our Lives, is an exceptionally well-crafted, contemporary snapshot of post WW II American society adapting to the challenges of peacetime. It justifiably won seven Oscars. And it’s still a great and moving film.
When Frederic March, immediately back from overseas, sneaks back into his apartment where Myrna Loy is washing the dishes, I dare you not to shed tears at her reaction.
REMEMBRANCES
Fred Willard (left) in BEST IN SHOW
Fred Willard, as much as anyone, invented the deadpan mockumentary, starting with his talk show sidekick, Jerry Hubbard character in 1977’s Fernwood 2 Night with Martin Mull. Willard’s zenith was in This Is Spinal Tap and the Christopher Guest ensemble mockumentaries that followed: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, For Your Consideration, A Mighty Wind and Mascots. He finished up by playing yet another uncontrollable character, Phil Dunphy’s dad on Modern Family.
Here are some tidbits from Willard’s unashamedly unprepared dog show commentator Buck Laughlin in Best in Show:
If you put them in a race, who would come in first? You know if you had a little jockey on them, going like this [imitates jockeys hitting the side of the horse].
And to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten.
I went to one of those obedience places once… it was all going well until they spilled hot candle wax on my private parts.
[sees the trophy] I’ve taken a sponge bath in smaller bowls than that.
Lynne Shelton in SWORD OF TRUST
Director Lynne Shelton was the best of the mumblecore directors with Your Sister’s Sister, Touchy Feely, Laggies, Outside In and Sword of Trust. Between her uncompromisingly authentic and goofy indies, she was sought out to direct mainstream TV like Mad Men and GLOW. She got in front of her own camera in Sword of Trust and delivered one of last year’s best performances.
Michel Piccoli in LA BELLE NOISEUSE
When I think of actor Michel Piccoli, I think of his simmering performance in La Belle Noiseuse; Jacques Rivette’s masterpiece has a run time of three hours and 58 minutes, and it’s gripping throughout because of the tension between Piccoli and Emmanuele Beart. He also appeared in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Doulos, Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt and Luis Bunuel’s Belle du Jour, Diary of a Chambermaid and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. At age 85, he was very funny as a reluctant pope paralyzed by panic attacks in We Have a Pope.
James Brown and His Famous Flames in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
The T.A.M.I. Show is probably the first concert film as we think of the genre today. An amazing confluence of talent gives us an unfiltered 1964 time capsule of British Invasion, Surf, Motown, Pop and early Soul (but there’s no Folk) music.
Here are the performers:
The Rolling Stones
James Brown
The Beach Boys
Chuck Berry
The Supremes
Marvin Gaye
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
Lesley Gore
The Blossoms (backing Gaye)
Gerry and the Pacemakers
Jan and Dean
The Barbarians
Billy D. Kramer and the Dakotas
Eight The T.A.M.I. Show performers are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Berry, the Stones, the Beach Boys, James Brown and the Famous Flames, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and The Blossoms singer Darlene Love, who was inducted as a solo act. Future actress Teri Garr and choreographer/pop artist Toni Basil were two of the Go Go Girls. Members of the famed Wrecking Crew session musicians constituted the house band, including guitarist Glen Campbell, pianist Leon Russell and drummer Hal Blaine, along with the jazz great, bassist Jimmy Bond. The house band is rarely glimpsed, but you can see them to the right during The Supremes’ set and at the finale.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
The T.A.M.I. Show was filmed in two performances at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Tickets were free for LA teenagers. (Future film director John Landis and future teen heartthrob David Cassidy went as seventh grade classmates.) The event was emceed by by Jan and Dean. T.A.M.I. stands for either Teen Age Music International or Teenage Music Awards International (although there were no awards).
James Brown absolutely killed. His was a performance for the ages, and the crowd went nuts. To their everlasting regret, the Rolling Stones had to follow him to close the show.
In this performance, the Stones were hippy Brits singing Blues music (that, oddly, White American teens were only now discovering though these White guys from the UK). It’s most notable for Mick Jagger’s groundbreaking definition of a Front Man. As I write this in 2020, I just heard a Stones song on the radio that I didn’t recognize and learned that it was released this year – 56 years after the T.A.M.I. Show.
The Beach Boys in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
The Beach Boys came on immediately after a Jan and Dean song, which does not favor Jan and Dean today in comparison. Brian Wilson’s genius and the band’s fun energy were many rungs above what Jan and Dean had to offer as musicians. It’s poignant to watch the the young, 1964 Beach Boys today, knowing that everything about them hung precariously on Brian Wilson’s traumatized mental health.
Billy J. Kramer fronting the Dakotas in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
There are two very odd “What are those guys doing here?” sets. One is the slick-haired Brit popster Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, an act managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George Martin at the same time as the Beatles; Kramer got to perform FOUR songs!
The second is one of the first shaggy haired American rock bands, The Barbarians. They perform Hey Little Bird, which preceded their one novelty hit Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?
The Barbarians, for some reason, performing in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW
When I watch these 1964 performances, I can’t help but think about what these artists still had ahead of them. James Brown had just recorded I Got You (I Feel Good), but it wouldn’t be widely released until 1965. The Stones still hadn’t created EARLY Stones songs like Satisfaction, Paint It Black, Sympathy for the Devil and You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Marvin Gaye hadn’t yet sung I Heard It Through the Grapevine or What’s Goin’ On. Ahead for the Supremes were Love Child and a flock of other number one hits. And this was before The Beach Boys did California Girls and Good Vibrations, not to mention the Pet Sounds album.
The T.A.M.I. Show is on the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. It probably would have been more influential, except that hardly anybody saw it for years. It’s somewhat of a Lost Film, having fallen off the radar after its 1964 release. I recall seeing it on late night TV sometime in the late 1970s or early 80s. It was resurrected in VHS bootleg form in the 80s (but without the Beach Boys set).
It’s still not available to rent a stream, but The T.A.M.I. Show is available on Netflix DVD. It’s very easy to find the full one hour 52 minute version for free on YouTube, along with clips of each of the acts.
The fine director Lynn Shelton has died at age 54. Shelton’s drama Outside In begins when a man (Jay Duplass of Transparent) returns to his small town community after 20 years in prison. Having been incarcerated since he was a teenager, he’s a bit emotionally stunted; he was a good kid who is now trying to be a good man. He tries to negotiate his way among his not-so-supportive family, some former friends who share a secret and suspicious townspeople.
He’s free only because of a persistent campaign for justice by one of his high school teachers (Edie Falco). The case has been an obsession for the teacher, much to annoyance of her blue-collar husband. Now that the campaign has ended, the teacher must fill that vacuum with another passion.
There isn’t much passion in her marriage. Shelton brilliantly depicts a husband who has expectations of their relationship and their future – he just doesn’t communicate them to his wife, or check to see if those expectations are shared. He’s not a terrible person, and the relationship isn’t abusive – it’s just lapsed into staleness.
The freed convict and the teacher are comforted by each other. There are several ways that this story could go, several of them trite. Let’s just say that Shelton takes us in some unpredictable directions, while maintaining authenticity.
Outside In is a story of self-discovery. The teacher must assess what will make her happy and make some hard choices. In a tour de force, Falco takes us through her confusion, dissatisfaction, longing, passion and, finally, determination.
Kaitlin Dever (Justified) is also excellent as the teacher’s teen daughter. Outside In is an acting showcase for Falco, Duplass and Dever. Falco’s performance, however, is stunning.
I saw Outside In before its release at Silicon Valley’s Cinema Club. It can be streamed on Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
More overlooked movies to watch at home: the funniest and saddest movie – all in one – and two jaw-dropping documentaries. Plus an amazingly charismatic star in a classic noir…from Poland! Scroll down for remembrances of Jerry Stiller and Little Richard.
ON VIDEO
SPACESHIP EARTH, Courtesy of Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth: The latest from Silicon Valley native filmmaker Matt Wolf, this documentary traces an audacious scientific quasi-experiment of the 1990s, the Biosphere 2, perhaps the Last Stand of the Renaissance Man. Just released this weekend, Spaceship Earth can be streamed from iTunes, Hulu, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Cold Case Hammarskjöld: This eccentric and irresistible documentary purports to solve a historical mystery, buts it”s an excuse for the filmmaker to hop around Africa talking to aged fixers and mercenaries. It’s both an investigatory documentary and a send-up of the genre. Available on most streaming platforms.
Night on Earth: this Jim Jarmusch indie has one of the very funniest scenes and one of the very saddest scenes – in the same movie. Night on Earth is comprised of five vignettes, each in a taxi and each in a different city: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and, of all places, Helsinki. It’s now available to stream from the Criterion Collection and Amazon. Do not confuse this 1991 Jarmusch film with the 2020 miniseries of the same name.
Ashes and Diamonds: This Polish thriller is one of my Overlooked Noir. A masterful director and his charismatic star make this a Can’t Miss. Last week I wrote when Turner Classic Movies aired it, but if you missed it, you can stream Ashes and Diamonds from Amazon and iTunes.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
On May 16, Turner Classic Movies will air The Crimson Kimono, another sensationalistic and deliciously exploitative cop noir from the great Sam Fuller. Always looking to add some shock value, Fuller delivered a Japanese-American leading man (James Shigeta), an inter-racial romance and a stripper victim. The groundbreaking aspect of The Crimson Kimono is that Fuller’s writing and Shigeta’s performance normalized the Japanese-American character. This film is on my list of Overlooked Noir.
James Shigeta (Right) in THE CRIMSON KIMONO
REMEMBRANCES
Jerry Stiller, along with his wife and professional partner Anne Meara (scroll down), was a comedy pioneer. He’s best remembered for playing George Costanza’s father on TV’s Seinfeld and for being Ben Stiller’s real life dad. But Stiller sandwiched some good work in movies (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Ritz, Hairspray) between the early and later phases of his work.
The Rock pioneer Little Richard has died. I fondly remember his hilarious turn in Down and Out in Beverly Hills as the neighbor to Richard Dreyfus’ family, Orvis Goodnight. He appeared in one of the very first rock n roll movies Don’t Knock the Rock (1956), a same-year followup to Rock Around the Clock. His music was featured in hundred of films and television shows.
The latest from Silicon Valley native documentarian Matt Wolf, Spaceship Earth traces an audacious scientific quasi-experiment of the 1990s, the Biosphere 2, perhaps the Last Stand of the Renaissance Man.
How ambitious was Biosphere 2? (Biosphere 1 is Earth.) It was the construction of an enormous structure – big enough to host a series of ecosystems – jungle, desert, etc. And to fill it, like Noah’s Ark, with an array of plant and animal species. And then sealing a team of eight humans inside for two years to survive (don’t underestimate Job 1 in this experimental artificial environment), tend the agriculture and conduct scores of scientific experiments. The promise was to learn about how humans could survive in future space colonies.
Biosphere 2 in SPACESHIP EARTH.. Courtesy of ecotechnics.edu and Spaceship Earth.
Scientists quibble about how closed and controlled the experiments really were. Ultimately, the experiment itself is not as meaningful a story as who did it and why. Wolf could have made this a procedural, or an expose about a cult or a fiasco.
Instead, Wolf made the inspired choice to begin 25 years earlier, with the San Francisco hippie commune that became the core leadershop of Biosphere 2. Led by the charismatic John Allen and a cadre of very smart and able women, they moved to rural New Mexico, then Berkeley and then around the world. These were unusually highly functioning hippies because they didn’t dive into drugs, and they focused on tangible projects like building a seaworthy ship and a hotel in Nepal – and always experimental theater.
Along the way, billionaire-with-a-B Ed Bass took a shining to Allen and the group and became their benefactor and sponsor. That made it possible for a pipe dream about sustainability to become a real project with a budget in the hundreds of millions.
SPACESHIP EARTH, Courtesy of Spaceship Earth
Here’s what is stunning about this story. If someone, say NASA, had undertaken to create an Earth-like closed environment in preparation for space colonization, these are the LAST people who would have been asked to be involved. None of these hippies had academic or professional credentials or experience that even remotely would qualify them, in an objective sense. But they got there first with the idea and with Ed Bass’ money.
That’s what I found so amazing about the folks behind Biosphere 2 – they weren’t specialists, like the folks who build spaceships. Think of the generalist Renaissance Man who works across disciplines. These folks had a profound commitment to sustainability and said “what if?”, much like Da Vinci designing buildings, bridges and fortification, conceptualizing parachutes, helicopters and deep sea diving bells while painting great art. Or like the 18th Century gentleman inventors/scientists/industrialists/collectors.
The resultant 1990s media circus, certainly enough to scar the participants, seems almost quaint today. With an instantaneous and never ending news cycle, tribal and agenda-driven commentary and viral social media, God help them if they tried this today. It didn’t turn out to be the New Age Garden of Eden that was advertised.
Of course, there was hubris and tone deaf PR from the organizers, and the inevitable personality clashes between any eight nonconformists locked up together in a fish bowl for twp years. And then there was that sudden soaring of the CO2 level, threatening the lives of many species, including the humans.
What happened? In Spaceship Earth, it’s not treated as a catastrophe or a self-immolation or a betrayal, although you could make the argument for any of those characterizations. What’s more important is what these folks aspired to do and how far they got.
This was a genuine quest for sustainability, with some valid scientific experiments embedded in grand performance art.
Just released this weekend, Spaceship Earth can be streamed from iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Mads Brügger’s eccentric and irresistible documentary Cold Case Hammarskjöld purports to solve a historical mystery. In 1961, Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld was flying to cease-fire negotiations near the Congo-Rhodesia border when his plane crashed, killing all aboard. There has never been a satisfactory explanation of why or how the plane crashed.
Danish filmmaker Brügger enlists the Swedish private investigator Göran Björkdahl, who has been researching the Hammarskjöld crash, and heads off to Africa in search of witnesses and clues. Björkdahl is dead serious. Brügger is, well, entertaining. With an ironic wink at the audience, Brügger begins by equipping the two with pith helmets for their African exploration.
The two come across a very plausible conspiracy that the Hammarskjöld plane was targeted. And, as they move among the shady world of South African reactionaries, they encounter an even more shocking conspiracy theory. But Brügger is a story-teller, not a historian; fortunately, he doesn’t have to deliver a smoking gun.
Idiosyncratically, Brügger chooses to narrate his film by dictating the “script” to two African secretaries. Midway, he admits that what really drives him is the excuse to hop around Africa talking to aged fixers and mercenaries. And it’s a rich collection of scoundrels that he finds, some revealing old secrets, some covering them up and some apparently spinning wild tales.
That’s the fun of Cold Case Hammarskjöld, now available from all the usual streaming services.
Night on Earth has one of the very funniest scenes and one of the very saddest scenes – in the same movie. Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch in 1991, Night on Earth is comprised of five vignettes, each in a taxi and each in a different city: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and, of all places, Helsinki.
Moving west to east across the time zones, Night on Earth opens with the contrast between a working class driver (Wynona Ryder) and a striver executive (Gena Rowlands) and how they connect – or don’t.
Then we move to New York where a totally disoriented East German immigrant (Armin Mueller-Stahl) gets a job driving a hack (on his first or second day in the US) and picks up potty-mouthed passengers (Giancarlo Esposito and Rosie Perez).
The LA and NYC scenes are good, but Night on Earth really accelerates in Paris when an African immigrant driver (Isaach De Bankolé) picks up a blind woman (the gap-toothed beauty Béatrice Dall). They both are a bit touchy and immediately get underneath each others skins. The prickly conversation that follows teaches each a little about the other.
Now we get to perhaps the funniest episode in the movies (yes, I mean in the history of cinema). A manic, motormouth Roman cabbie (Roberto Benigni) picks up an ailing Catholic cleric and regales him with an unwanted stream of consciousness confession, highlighting his own ever more inappropriate sexual partners, including a pumpkin and a sheep. It’s a rapid fire comedic assault sure to convulse any audience.
Finally, in Helsinki, two guys toss their passed-out buddy into a cab, and explain that he’s had the worst day ever – he has lost his job just when he has a wife looking for a divorce and a pregnant daughter. But the driver (Matti Pellonpää) tells them a story that tops it. Profound sadness.
The cult director and indie favorite Jarmusch made Night on Earth in 1991 after he first made a splash with Mystery Train. He followed it with Dead Man, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Coffee and Cigarettes, Broken Flowers and Paterson. Night on Earth is one of the few movies that I own on DVD, and it’s now available from the Criterion Collection. But you can now stream it from Amazon. Go for it. Do not confuse this 1991 Jarmusch film with the 2020 miniseries of the same name.
