ANATOMY OF A MURDER: coming up on TV

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George C. Scott (center) seethes while James Stewart (right) lawyers in ANATOMY OF A MURDER

Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting Anatomy of a Murder on July 27.  I love this film for its great courtroom scene, for the great performances by James Stewart, George C. Scott, Ben Gazzara and Lee Remick, and for its exquisite pacing by director Otto Preminger. 

Jimmy Stewart plays a lawyer who has exiled himself to the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan precisely to avoid the high-pressured rat race by settling into a leisurely rural practice.  But circumstances force him into an all-consuming, high-stakes trial.  It’s a murder case, and he must defend a hot-tempered soldier who has killed a local businessman.  The defendant is not sympathetic (Ben Gazzara at his most smoldering).  The defense – rage at the rape of his wife – rests on whether there WAS a rape, and the wife (a sizzling Lee Remick) isn’t an ideal witness, either.  The local DA brings in a hotshot, big city prosecutor (George C. Scott) to nail down the conviction.

You take your clients and facts as you find them, and this makes for a gripping courtroom battle.  The canny local lawyer pulls out all the stops.  The cynical ending plants Anatomy of a Murder firmly into the film noir/neo-noir genre.

The supporting performances, especial Arthur O’Connell and Eve Arden as Jimmy’s team, are remarkably good.

The prolific character actor Murray Hamilton plays Al the bartender, and this is my favorite Murray Hamilton performance.  Hamilton is best known for his performances as Mr. Robinson in The Graduate and as the mayor in Jaws.  Here, his line reading of “bare-legged” practically cries ” SLUT SLUT SLUT”.

Real-life lawyer Joseph Welch plays the judge. In the televised McCarthy hearings, Welch emasculated the bullying Joseph McCarthy with “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?“

I also recommend Anatomy of a Murder for its great jazz soundtrack by none other than Duke Ellington.  It’s one of the few movie soundtrack CDs that I own. The music perfectly complements the story of a murder investigation that reveals more and more ambiguity as it proceeds.  Stewart’s character relaxes by dabbling in jazz piano, and Duke himself has a cameo leading a bar band in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (of all places).

Stream of the Week: MUD – a big dose of realism about love

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MUD

In the brilliant drama Mud, two Arkansas boys venture onto a river island and discover a man named Mud (Michael McConaughey) hiding from the authorities. Ellis (Tye Sheridan of The Tree of Life) is a hopeless romantic, consumed by an ideal view of love. His more hard-eyed buddy Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) is on the outlook for cool stuff. Both are ready for the excitement of a secret adventure.

Mud is another triumph for writer-director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter). The story has aspects of a boyhood adventure and of an escape thriller which hook the audience. But Mud is, at its heart, a coming of age story in which Ellis (primarily) gets a big dose of realism about love and human constancy.

Neckbone doesn’t have many illusions about human nature. His parents aren’t in the picture, and he lives with his wacky uncle Galen (Michael Shannon) in a trailer. Neckbone has a knack for immediately getting to the core of situation by bargaining an errand for a pistol or asking “Didja feel her titties?”.

A step down from Neckbone’s trailer lifestyle, Ellis lives on a floating shack tied to the riverbank. His parents are together, but, it seems, not for long. Somehow, Ellis believes in an ideal and forever love. There are many relationships for Ellis to observe: his parents’ troubled journey, the sacrifices Mud makes for his lover (Reese Witherspoon), the mysterious relationship between Mud and another houseboat dweller (Sam Shepherd), a rich man’s (Joe Don Baker) own obsession with his sons, his partnership with Neckbone and Ellis’ own first foray into dating. It’s all a bigger mouthful than Ellis was expecting.

The two kid actors are great. So are McConaughey, Shepherd, Witherspoon, Baker and Nichol’s favorite actor, Shannon. Mud primarily succeeds because Nichols has created compelling characters and woven a top-rate story, both gripping and thoughtful. I listed Mud as one of the best movies of 2013. You can stream Mud on Amazon (free on Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play; it’s also available on DVD from Netflix.

Movies to See Right Now

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Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson in LATE NIGHT

I’ve recently updated my Best Movies of 2019 – So Far. Two of the films on the list is in theaters right now.

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).

ON VIDEO

My stream of the week is the neo-noir Elena, a superbly crafted film that vividly peeks into a dark, very dark contemporary Russia. Elena is available to be streamed from Amazon (free with Prime), iTunes and Google Play.

ON TV

On July 24, Turner Classic Movies will broadcast one of the greatest movies of all time – All About Eve (1950). Bette Davis plays the middle-aging Broadway superstar Margot Channing, who fears losing her popularity with age. Who can eclipse her in the dog eat dog world of show biz? George Sanders is wonderful as the cynical critic Addison DeWitt, whose bimbo de jour is played by Marilyn Monroe. All About Eve was nominated for fourteen Oscars and won six.


Bette Davis in ALL ABOUT EVE: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”

THE KID: male role models – shooting at each other

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Dane DeHaan (left) and Ethan Hawke in THE KID

In Vincent D’Onofrio’s western The Kid, a boy (Jake Schur) escapes with his sister from a murderous uncle, but runs right into the Billy the Kid-Pat Garrett finale. The core is the lesson that the boy learns from his relationships with both Western icons – Billy (Dane DeHaan) and Pat (Ethan Hawke).

I recommend this Vincent D’Onofrio /Film interview, in which he discusses how the boy’s relationships with Billy and Pat echo the male role models from his own childhood.

The fine actor Dane DeHaan is the first movie Billy the Kid that I’ve seen who actually looks like Billy the Kid; he also behaves as I imagine the real Billy the Kid to behave – as a charismatic but psychopathic punk. No handsome, sardonic Kris Kristoffersson or misunderstood Paul Newman here. Ethan Hawke, of course, is excellent as a man imparting an important truth to a boy – that life may be complicated, but that reliability is always damn important.

The Kid is a little movie that works, chiefly because of DeHaan’s performance, for fans of Westerns. The Kid can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Stream of the Week: ELENA – a vividly dark peek into contemporary Russia

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Nadezhda Markina in ELENA

Elena is a superbly crafted film that vividly peeks into a dark, very dark contemporary Russia. Directed and co-written by Andre Zvyagintsev (The Return, Leviathan and Loveless), Elena is the triumph of drama over melodrama. There is an absolute minimum of on-screen action and no histrionics at all, yet the story simmers throughout. It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2012.

Zvyagintsev builds the story upon his characters. It is set in a tony apartment in a quiet upscale Moscow neighborhood, home of Vladimir and Elena. Vladimir is pushing 70 and rich. I doubt that any softies got rich in post-Soviet Russia, and Vladimir is a hard man, devoid of sentimentality except for his estranged daughter. Late in life, he has married the working class Elena, his one-time nurse, now in her 50s. They have a comfortable, frank, affectionate and practical relationship.

Both have adult children from previous marriages. Vladimir’s daughter Katerina has no use for her father, but he subsidizes her lifestyle of perpetual partying. Vladimir and Katerina finally share a moment, bonding over their shared cynicism.

Elena’s nogoodnik son Sergey lives in a hard scrabble suburb and embraces his chronic unemployment with alarming indolence. His equally lazy and selfish teenage son, having an indifferent high school career, is now facing the dreaded Army unless someone can bribe his way into a college.

Elena is desperate to rescue her grandson from his self-inflicted predicament, but only Vladimir’s money can help, and Vladimir despises Elena’s trashy and shiftless family. The movie is built on this conflict, and it is Elena’s story. As Elena, the actress Nadezhda Markina reveals Elena’s affection, desperation and determination with her eyes, face and movements. Perfectly framing Markina’s outstanding performance by isolating it, Zvyagintsev delivers the film in a series of long shots, with terse dialogue and a spare soundtrack. There is no expository dialogue explaining the plot or swelling music manipulating our reaction.

Elena is a dark movie that asks its audience to invest patience, thought and energy – so it’s not for everybody. Elena is also one of the year’s best films, and an extraordinary example of a very pure breed of filmmaking.  Elena is available to be streamed from Amazon (free with Prime), iTunes and Google Play.

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL is here.

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WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL

It’s time for one of the Bay Area’s top cinema events: the 39th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), which opens this Thursday, July 18, and runs through August 4 at five locations throughout the Bay Area. As usual, the fest presents a broad range of feature films from 17 countries (but mostly from the US and Israel), plus 2 programs of short films (Jews in Shorts).

My top recommendation is Rob Garver’s What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, a remarkably thorough and insightful biodoc of the iconic film critic and her drive for relevance. It’s illustrated with clips of the movies that she loved and hated. I’ll publish my long form review when What She Said is released in the Bay Area.

Two more SFJFF entries about the movies are Curtiz, a narrative film about the prolific director Michael Curtiz and Carl Laemmle, a documentary about the pioneering movie impresario

SFJFF always presents an excellent slate of docs. This year’s batch includes Golda, with footage from Golda Meir’s last interview.

There are also comedies. The sibling roadtrip comedy Dancing Dogs of Dombrova looks promising. I’ve seen the comedy of manners How About Adolf? – a family provocateur trying to get under his brother-in-law’s skin unintentionally ignites an eruption of family resentments and revelations.

I haven’t seen it, but my favorite SFJFF title this year is the animated film Seder-Masochism.

One of the most appealing features of the SFJFF39 is that, wherever you live in the Bay Area, the fest comes to you. SFJFF39 will present films at the Castro in San Francisco, CIneArts in Palo Alto, the Albany Twin in Albany, the Rafael in San Rafael and the Piedmont in Oakland. You can peruse the entire program and buy tickets and passes at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

Jut for fun, here’s the delightful trailer from the 2016 version of SFJFF.

WES STUDI gets an Oscar

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Wes Studi in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Wes Studi is getting an honorary Oscar, and I’m all for it. Slated for a Governors Award, Studi is being honored, along with David Lynch, Geena Davis and Lina Wertmuller by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Wes Studi has an uncommon gift of being compelling. I first noticed him in Dances with Wolves, but he’s compiled 97 screen credits from Geronimo: An American Legend to The New World to Heat to Avatar.

Undoubtedly, Studi’s greatest (and most searing) performance was as Magua in The Last of the Mohicans, a movie that he absolutely stole from the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe and Russell Means.

Studi, of Cherokee descent, is the first Native American actor to receive an Oscar.

Wes Studi with Al Pacino in HEAT

Movies to See Right Now

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Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever as Amy in BOOKSMART. Photo credit: Francois Duhamel / Annapurna Pictures

The movie that I’m most eager to see is The Farewell; it’s out this weekend, but I’m in an undisclosed location with The Wife – there are Brown Trout but no movie theaters.

I’ve recently updated my Best Movies of 2019 – So Far. Two of the films on the list is in theaters right now.

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).
  • So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.

ON VIDEO

THE GREAT BEAUTY

It’s time for foreign travel, so my Stream of the Week is The Great Beauty, with its stunning imagery, introspection, social criticism, sexual decadence, fine performances, humor and a Rome travelogue – each by itself worth watching the film.  The Great Beauty won the Best Foreign Language Oscar and can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On July 15, Turner Classic Movies will play the 1957 classic Western  3:10 to Yuma.  This may the career-best performance by the underrated Van Heflin, who plays a financially ruined rancher who bets his life for a chance to support his family.  All he has to do is to guard a cruel and resourceful outlaw (Glenn Ford) against rescue attempts by his gang.  Heflin’s rancher is totally outmatched and his only chance comes from his desperation-fueled adrenaline. It’s an edge-of-your-seat countdown until help is scheduled to arrive.  The 2007 remake with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe is very good, too, but Van Heflin reigns supreme.

Van Heflin in 3:10 TO YUMA

Stream of the Week: THE GREAT BEAUTY – decadence, stunning imagery and the beauties of Rome itself

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As The Great Beauty (La grande belleza) begins, its protagonist Gep Gambardella is celebrating his 65th birthday in a feverishly hedonistic party. Gep authored a successful novel in his twenties, which has since allowed him the indulgent life of a celebrity journalist, bobbing from party to party among Rome’s shallow rich. Gep is having a helluva time, but now he reflects on the emptiness of his milieu and the superficial accomplishments of his past 40 years. As he alternates introspection and indulgence, we follow him through a series of strikingly beautiful Roman settings. (And, because Gep parties all night, we see lots of gorgeously still Roman dawns.)

The Great Beauty is foremost an extraordinarily beautiful art film. If you’ve been to Rome, you know that it is a generally chaotic city with unexpected islands of solitude. The Great Beauty captures this aspect of the Eternal City better than any other film I’ve seen. On one level, The Great Beauty is very successful Rome porn.

Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino also explores the moral vacuity of the very rich and the party life. It’s the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi, whom Sorrentino blames for enabling a national culture of escapism. These themes, along with the main character and the movie’s structure are of course nearly identical to Fellini’s great La Dolce Vita (1960), but The Great Beauty is more accessible, funnier and a bit more hopeful – and much more of a showcase for the cityscape of Rome. Sorrentino provides plenty of laughs, especially with a gourmet-obsessed cardinal and a cadaverous celebrity nun with a Mephistopheles-looking handler.

It’s hard to imagine an actor better suited to play Gep than Toni Servillo. Servillo perfectly captures both the happiness Gep takes in carnal pleasure and his self-criticism for giving his entire life to it. Servillo’s Gep is brazenly proud of his own cynicism, until we see his humanity breaking through at a funeral. Servillo is even magnificent in wearing Gep’s impressive collection of sports jackets.

There’s so much to The Great Beauty – stunning imagery, introspection, social criticism, sexual decadence, fine performances, humor and a Rome travelogue – each by itself worthwatching the film.  The Great Beauty won the Best Foreign Language Oscar and can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

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Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson in LATE NIGHT

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).
  • So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.
  • The documentary Framing John DeLorean is an incomplete retelling of this modern Icarus fable. If you already know the basics of the DeLorean story, I’d recommend this Car and Driver article instead. Framing John DeLorean is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON VIDEO

My stream of the week, the documentary Project Nim, is the extraordinary story of a chimpanzee that was taught a human language – American Sign Language – by some far less reliable humans. Project Nim can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On July 8, Turner Classic Movies is airing the always entertaining 1946 film noir Gilda. Glenn Ford plays a shady gambler who shows up in exotic Buenos Aires, where he lucks into a job with a casino operator; turns out that his new boss has a gorgeous young wife (Rita Hayworth). The Ford and Hayworth characters shared a past relationship that ended ugly. There are plot twists aplenty, including a faked death, former Nazis running a tungsten cartel, and a love affair that is on-again, off-again and on-again. Glenn Ford’s character spins like a top through sap-hero-jerk-hero. The wonderful actor Joseph Calleia comes brooding through the story. Gilda is almost worthwhile just for the dramatic cinematography of Rudolph Maté (D.O.A.) and for Hayworth’s stunning wardrobe.

Rita Hayworth (and dress) in GILDA