The Movie Gourmet

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL: what a program this year

August 13, 2019September 8, 2018 by movie gourmet

The Mill Valley Film Festival always showcases many of the prestige films that are scheduled for release during Award Season. It’s the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies.

For example, last year’s festival featured The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name and The Florida Project. Those five films combined for 28 Oscar nominations and 7 Oscars. You get the idea.

ALL FOUR of the movies I am expecting to be the year’s best are playing at this year’s MVFF:

Cold War from Pawel Pawlikowski, the Oscar-winning director of Ida. Pawlikowski will appear in person at MVFF.
Roma – from Alfonso Cuarón, the Oscar-winning director of Gravity (and Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Cuarón will appear in person at MVFF.
If Beale Street Could Talk – from Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning writer-director of Moonlight. Jenkins will appear in person at MVFF.
Shoplifters, which won the Palm d’Or at Cannes for writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda. He’s had art house hits with Maborosi, Still Walking and The Third Murder, but this could be his masterpiece.

Other highlights include:

Widows, the latest from director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave). Stars Viola Davis and the trailer is a hoot.
A Private War, for which Rosamund Pike is getting Oscar buzz (she wears an eye patch!).
Green Book with Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen.
Wildlife – actress Carey Mulligan and director Paul Dano will appear in person.
Boy Erased, Joel Edgerton’s “gay conversion therapy” drama starring Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea and Lady Bird).
The Kindergarten Teacher, the remake of the recent Israeli film. Star Maggie Gyllenhaal will appear at MVFF.
Ben Is Back with Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges – very intriguing trailer.
Non-fiction, a comedy of manners from Olivier Assayas, starring Juliette Binoche, Guillaume Canet and the funny, funny character actor Vincent Macaigne.
What They Had a family drama that I reviewed at Cinequest, with Blythe Danner, Robert Forster, Hilary Swank and Michael Shannon.
Capernuaum – this drama about Palestinian refugees could be the festival dark horse.

This year’s festival runs October 4-14 at four different Marin County venues. You can peruse the program and buy tickets at Mill Valley Film Festival.

Movies to See Right Now

September 7, 2018 by movie gourmet

Adam Driver and John David Washington in BLACKKKLANSMAN

Wyeth, the latest documentary in the PBS American Masters series, takes on the odd case of the great painter Andrew Wyeth and explores the question, what is a muse? And how can great art come from the most unlikely and obscure subjects?

Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke and Chris O’Dowd sparkle in the affable romantic comedy Juliet, Naked; it’s an okay rom com with a fresh premise – boy loses girl and finds her pursued instead by his lifelong idol.

OUT NOW

Spike Lee’s true story BlacKkKlansman is very funny and, finally, emotionally powerful.
Crazy Rich Asians is wildly popular for a reason – it’s damn entertaining and probably the year’s most appealing date movie. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll wait for the chance to see Awkwafina in her next movie.
Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exuberance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
The hyper-violent and stylized Belgian thriller Let the Corpses Tan is a contemporary thriller that pays loving homage to the Sergio Leone canon. Essentially a soulless exercise in style, more interesting than gripping. It’s a visual stunner, though, and the Leone references are fun.
The coming-of-age drama We the Animals is imaginative, but it’s a grind.

ON VIDEO

We’ve just seen another appalling Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, this one in Pennsylvania. In Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, documentarian Alex Gibney explores the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of priest abuse from a Wisconsin parish to the top of the Vatican (and I mean the top). Deliver Us From Evil is the story of a serial pedophile priest moved from parish to parish in the Diocese of Stockton, California. This has become, sadly, a familiar narrative, but what distinguishes Deliver Us From Evil is its breathtaking interviews with the pedophile himself.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is available to stream from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and HBO GO. Deliver Us from Evil is available to stream from iTunes, Vudu and YouTube.

ON TV

On September 8, Turner Classic Movies presents a great Rudyard Kipling adventure yarn, gloriously brought to the screen by director John Huston – The Man Who Would Be King. Michael Caine and Sean Connery star as Peachy Carnahan and Daniel Dravot, two reprobates mustered out of the Queen’s army in colonial India. Rather than return to menial prospects in England, these cheeky and lovable scoundrels seek to make their fortune as mercenaries in the outskirts of the Raj. Fortune smiles, and they reach unforeseeable success – and then one of them overreaches…

John Huston had been trying to make this 1975 movie since the 1950s. His first choices for the roles of Carnahan and Dravot were Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, but Bogart became ill. Then the casting of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster fell through. When he was mulling over a pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Newman advised him to use British actors for these British roles. Thank you Paul Newman – Caine and Connery are magnificent.

Huston told Caine that the movie was about friendship, and that Carnahan and Dravot are successful as long as they are united in single purpose.

Christopher Plummer plays Kipling. Saeed Jaffrey is excellent as the local fixer.

Sean Connery, Saeed Jaffrey and Michael Caine in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

Saeed Jaffrey, Michael Caine and Sean Connery in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

See you later, Burt

August 13, 2019September 6, 2018 by movie gourmet

I’m gonna miss Burt Reynolds – both for being a movie icon and for being one of the greatest guests ever on Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He solidified that icon status in Deliverance, brandishing a bow-and-arrow and clad in a sleeveless neoprene vest – there has never been a more studly image in the history of cinema.

The key to Burt Reynolds’ appeal is that unique combination of virility and charm, his stunning physicality leavened by his not taking himself too seriously. I’m ridiculously handsome, and isn’t that just ridiculous?

To celebrate Burt’s rollicking Smokey and the Bandit era, I recommend The Bandit, a documentary about Burt’s collaboration with stuntman/director/roommate Hal Needham. You can stream The Bandit from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

In his last film, this year’s The Last Movie Star, an aged action movie star (Burt Reynolds playing someone very similar to Burt Reynolds) examines his life choices. It’s very funny and sentimental (in a good way), and you can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

JULIET, NAKED: okay rom com with a fresh premise

September 6, 2018 by movie gourmet

Ethan Hawke, Rose Byrne and Chris Dowd in JULIET, NAKED

Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke and Chris O’Dowd sparkle in the affable romantic comedy Juliet, Naked. This rom com has a fresh premise – boy loses girl and finds her pursued instead by his lifelong idol. But the core of the film is, is it ever too late to jump start your life?

Annie (Byrne) lives what has become a very unsatisfying life in a British beach resort. Upon her father’s death, she returned to her hometown to help raise her little sister and the take over her father’s tiny museum. She fell in love with the local professor Duncan (O’Dowd), and they’ve been living together for over a decade. But now the sister is grown, she’s outgrown the museum, and the self-absorbed Duncan just doesn’t care about her opinions or her wants. She’s very unhappy – and it’s all sneaked up on her.

Duncan, on the other hand, is completely fulfilled by his obsessive fandom for the pop singer-songwriter Tucker Crow, who disappeared into seclusion twenty years ago. He’s filled a room of their apartment with Tucker Crowe memorabilia, and lives for the online discussions that he moderates discussions on his Tucker Crowe website. He derives status and gratification from being the world’s leading self-appointed authority on Tucker Crowe. He is a major league bloviator. In the movies, O’Dowd always seems so lovable; here, he;s successful in stretching himself into an unsympathetic character.

Tucker Crowe (Hawke), is living in an exile of self-loathing. Whereas Annie has settled for a life she no longer wants, Tucker has blown his life up with bad choices. After fathering several kids with several mothers – and abandoning them – he is now trying for redemption as the stay-at-home dad for his youngest, an eight-year-old boy. It turns out that one act of bad behavior in particular has – to him – discredited all his hit songs.

Rose Byrne and Chris Dowd in JULIET, NAKED

A turn of events lead to Annie kicking out Duncan, and Annie and Tucker – two unhappy and lonely people – meet online. Comedy and romance ensues. Among the funnier moments are when Duncan meets Tucker in real life, when Tucker stumbles into Duncan’s Tucker Crowe shrine and when all of Tucker’s exes and progeny descend on Tucker and Annie in a hospital room.

Ethan Hawke, who is a fair musician, nails a sweet cover of The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset. Hawke also performs many of the songs on the soundtrack, including a very fun punk anthem during the closing credits.

Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke in JULIET, NAKED

Overall, I liked Juliet, Naked as an agreeable romp. The Wife recommends it as a home video watch, not for a special trip to the theater.

The Wife also said she was distracted by all the clumsy efforts to hide Rose Byrne’s pregnancy – extra-roomy dresses and Byrne’s awkwardly front-carrying duffels and all manner of objects. I didn’t notice, but Byrne did gave birth in November 2017, so I assume that The Wife was once, again, far more observant than I.

WYETH: what is a muse?

September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 by movie gourmet

Andrew Wyeth’s *Christina’s World*, featured in WYETH

Wyeth, the latest documentary in the PBS American Masters series, takes on the odd case of the great painter Andrew Wyeth and explores the question, what is a muse? And how can great art come from the most unlikely and obscure subjects?

Every artist has a source of inspiration, and it’s amazing that Wyeth was able to find his while living an unusually parochial life. Choosing not to “see the world”, Wyeth spent his entire life in two rural settings – his childhood home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. and his summer coastal home in Cushing, Maine. Fortunately, some of his neighbors allowed him to hang around and watch them in their daily lives. Wyeth would then pad along home to his studio and churn out hundreds of finely detailed paintings from what he remembered.

In doing so, he rendered iconic some very unlikely subjects by painting them again and again – a disabled neighbor woman, a stolid farmer, an alcoholic eccentric.

We learn that Wyeth could spend all of his time on his two obsessions – studying the locals and painting them – because of his wife Betsy. From age 17, Betsy managed Wyeth’s business, household and family, freeing him to devote every thought to the artistic process.

That’s why it was so shocking when Wyeth revealed fifteen years’ work – over 200 paintings, many erotic – with a subject Betsy had known nothing about.

Wyeth draws upon rich source material, including never-before-seen family photos and artifacts, and we meet Wyeth’s family members, neighbors and subjects, and visit the actual homes where Wyeth studied his subjects.

Wyeth will be airing on the PBS American Masters series beginning on September 7.

MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD: the blame climbs until it cannot climb higher

September 4, 2018 by movie gourmet

We’ve just seen another appalling Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, this one in Pennsylvania. In Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, documentarian Alex Gibney explores the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of priest abuse from a Wisconsin parish to the top of the Vatican (and I mean the top). The film begins with the horrifying and disgusting abuse of the most vulnerable – children at a residential Catholic school for the deaf; the children’s devout parents could not communicate with the children through American Sign Language, making them even more easy to victimize.

At first it seems like just another story of Church leaders suppressing the truth to avoid bad publicity and lawsuits – and it is for the first few years. But then we learn about an American bishop trying to remove a pedophile from ministry, but being thwarted by superiors across the Atlantic. As Gibney pulls apart the onion, the focus of the story climbs the Church hierarchy. The brilliant and prolific Gibney’s work includes Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Casino Jack and the United States of Money and the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side.

I also recommend another documentary on this difficult subject, Deliver Us From Evil, which made my top ten list for 2006. That is the story of a serial pedophile priest moved from parish to parish in the Diocese of Stockton, California. This has become, sadly, a familiar narrative, but what distinguishes Deliver Us From Evil is its breathtaking interviews with the pedophile himself.

Movies to See Right Now

August 31, 2018 by movie gourmet

Crazy Rich Asians is wildly popular for a reason – it’s damn entertaining and probably the year’s most appealing date movie. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll wait for the chance to see Awkwafina in her next movie. Other choices in theaters:

OUT NOW

Spike Lee’s true story BlacKkKlansman is very funny and, finally, emotionally powerful.
Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exuberance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
The hyper-violent and stylized Belgian thriller Let the Corpses Tan is a contemporary thriller that pays loving homage to the Sergio Leone canon. Essentially a soulless exercise in style, more interesting than gripping. It’s a visual stunner, though, and the Leone references are fun.
The coming-of-age drama We the Animals is imaginative, but a grind.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the cheeky and original sex comedy Threesomething, which I saw at its world premiere at this year’s Cinequest. Comedy is hard to write, especially comedy as smart and original as this. Threesomething is now available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On September 1, Turner Classic Movies presents the iconic 1946 film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice. An essential element in film noir is a guy’s lust for a Bad Girl driving him to a Bad Decision, and when John Garfield first sees Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, you can tell that he’s hooked. She’s a Bad Girl, and a Bad Decision is on its way.

John Garfield's first look at Lana Turner in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE — John Garfield’s first look at Lana Turner in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE

LET THE CORPSES TAN: an exercise in style

August 29, 2018 by movie gourmet

A scene from LET THE CORPSES TAN, courtesy of Kino Lorber

Neo-noir and Spaghetti Westerns converge in the hyper-violent and stylized Belgian thriller Let the Corpses Tan.

Written and directed by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, this is a contemporary thriller that pays loving homage to the Sergio Leone canon. Tight closeups on characters’ eyes aren’t just for the big showdowns in this flick. They even use two Ennio Morricone musical cues from 1969 and 1971. A pivotal character even smokes cigarillos like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name in the Leone movies.

Let the Corpses Tan is set in a compound of ruins atop a Mediterranean cliff, occupied by an oversexed artist who hosts visitors. Besides a writer, she’s hosting three mysterious out-towners. They turn out to be criminals who, with their shady lawyer, have pulled off an armored car heist and are flush in gold bars. Just as they are ready to sneak away, the writer is surprised by his estranged wife, her kid and her nanny. Then two cops happen upon the residents, and a gun battle explodes.

There’s only one road out of the compound and two groups of criminals and two groups of the non-criminals occupy various shelters in the ruins. It’s a standoff because no one can escape – or escape with the gold. They are forced to hunt each other in a lethal and claustrophobic game of cat-and-mouse, including even the guy caught without any clothes. Under life-and-death pressure, allegiances become malleable and the double crosses and side-switching begin.

So do the casualties. Sam Peckinpah would wince at some of the gore and splatter, and Let the Corpses Tan lives up to its deliciously brutal title.

As exhaustion mounts from the siege, various characters have vivid fantasies. Let the Corpses Tan gets very, very trippy. One breast milk crucifixion fantasy is like nothing I have seen or could have imagined. Eventually, there’s a Death character in female form, at one point a urinating Death.

There’s one interesting character. The artist/hostess is basically a goddess of carnality. She is played by Elina Löwensohn (from 1994’s Amateur with Isabelle Huppert), and Löwensohn’s eyes are voracious.

Let the Corpses Tan is essentially a soulless exercise in style, more interesting than gripping. It’s a visual stunner, though, and the Leone references are fun.

Isabelle Chester and Sam Sonenshine in THREESOMETHING

In the cheeky and original comedy Threesomething, Charlie (Sam Sonenshine) and his buddy Isaac (James Morosini) invite Charlies’ friend Zoe (Isabelle Chester) to engage in a three-way sexual encounter. That pitch alone is one of the funniest three-minute, fifteen-second, openings to a film I’ve seen in years. But then Threesomething finds the ridiculous moments in both the sex itself and in the all-consuming passion of new infatuation. After a crisp 72 minutes, Threesomething‘s ending is very fresh and non-formulaic, posing just enough ambiguity about the characters’ futures.

Co-writers Morosini and Sonenshine have identified the comic possibilities within the notion that a threesome is more or less symmetrical. Let me explain it this way. What if your idea of a threesome is three participants, but it evolves into two participants and a spectator?

Lust and love are such ripe sources of comedy because we humans are our most ridiculous when we are the most absorbed and single-minded – and that is definitively the case while having sex. And everyone’s sexual fantasies and fetishes – even if shared with one’s sexual partner – are laughable or creepy to someone else. Threesomething reaps the laughs from these situations without being sit-commy.

This is the Are you good? generation. Threesomething’s commentary on the compulsive over-checking in and over-supportiveness is all very sharply witty. And over-sharing is the core of Charlie’s relationship with his mother (Dru Mouser, who steals all of her scenes).

Sonenshine is just about perfect in his reactions during the threesome. He is fantastically gifted at playing both awkward discomfort and contained frustration.

Chester’s performance has several highlights, beginning with Zoe’s takes on the initial proposition and a particularly ill-timed outburst of weeping (inspired). As the story concludes, watch Chester’s face as Zoe considers and reconsiders how comfortable she really is in her choice of partner(s).

Threesomething is Morosini’s directorial debut and the first feature screenplay for both Morodini and Sonenshine. Comedy is hard to write, especially comedy as smart and original as this. I saw Threesomething’s world premiere at this year’s Cinequest. It is available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.