The Movie Gourmet

DVD/Stream of the Week: I ORIGINS – a thoughtful romance that muses on the boundaries of science and spirituality

March 27, 2018 by movie gourmet

Michael Pitt and Brit Marling in I ORIGINS

The romance I Origins explores the conflict between science and spirituality. Our scientist protagonist (Michael Pitt) is completely empirical and militantly anti-spiritual. He is obsessed with the study of iris scans and patterns of the eye (the “I” in the title is a pun). He is hoping to prove that eyes can be evolved, which he believes will debunk the Creationist pseudo-science of Intelligent Design. He meets a model (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) – and they don’t meet CUTE, they meet HOT. Through a string of scientifically improbable coincidences, he is able to track her down for a second encounter that is sharply romantic. They fall in love – an attraction of opposites because she is mercurial and vaguely New Agey.

Along the way, he gains a new lab assistant (Brit Marling), who is just as smart and more driven than is he. Together they find the lab breakthrough to prove his theory. The main three characters are affected by a life-altering tragedy. Seven years later, the story resumes with the public release of the discovery. As our hero takes his victory lap over religion, he is faced with new evidence that cannot be explained by science…

Writer-director Mike Cahill (Another Earth, also starring Marling) has constructed a story that sets up a discussion on the limits of empiricism. I give Cahill extra points for raising the issue without ponderosity or pretension. Some critics have harshly judged the movie, but they see it wrongly as a corny religion-beats-science movie instead of a contemplation on the possibilities. And they altogether miss the fact that the film is basically a romance, which Cahill himself sees as one of the two central aspects of I Origins. Cahill explores and compares the intense lust-at-first-sight, opposites-attract type of love with the love relationship based on common values and aspirations.

There are, however, two shots involving pivotal moments in the story (and both involving billboards) that are such self-consciously ostentatious filmmaking that they distracted me, rather than bringing emphasis to each moment.

Pitt, an actor of sometimes unsettling affect, is very good here, as he was in The Dreamers and Last Days. Berges-Frisbey and Marling deliver fine performances, too. If Marling is in a movie, it aspires to being good – I loved The East, which she co-write and starred in. Archie Panjabi, without the boots and the upfront sexiness she wears on The Good Wife, is solid in a minor part.

I Origins works both as a scientific detective story and as a meditation on romance. I found it to be smart and entertaining. I Origins is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

THOROUGHBREDS: which of these girls is the most sociopathic?

March 26, 2018March 26, 2018 by movie gourmet

The psychological thriller Thoroughbreds is a witty and novel exploration of sociopathy. The story is about two teen daughters of the Connecticut super-rich: Amanda (Olivia Cooke – so good in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy). Although the girls have known each other since early childhood, it turns out that Amanda’s mom, at her wit’s end, has paid for a “play date” with Lily. This seems like a mismatch, but the two bond and then scheme to murder Lily’s odious step-father, Mark.

Amanda admits that she doesn’t feel emotions. That being said, she is very perceptive and self-aware about her lack of feelings. Although she has an Asberger’s affect, she has learned to mimic emotional behavior. Amanda has shocked the community with a disturbing act and has been socially ostracized.

Lily, on the other hand, is at first glance a normal teen – normal for the over-privileged, that is. It turns out that she has her issues, too. In the film’s biggest understatement, one girl says to the other, “empathy not your strong suit”.

Thoroughbreds is the writing and directing feature debut for Cory Finley. Although it has its obvious similarities to psychological thrillers in the vein of Strangers on a Train, this film is not so much about the plot as an exploration of these two personalities Finley has taken two types of sociopaths and combined them into a very original match-up. For example, one of the girls is definitely a very high-functioning borderline personality – but she’s not the one who has been diagnosed as such.

As we are immersed in the story, we focus less about whether they’re going to kill Mark and more on which girl is more disturbed.

Both Cooke and Taylor-Joy deliver fine performances. The late Anton Yechin appears in a very funny role as the Connecticut suburbs’ bumbling bottom-feeder.

Paul Sparks is excellent as the repellent step-dad Mark. In Mark, Finley has crafted a character who excels in business and his many hobbies (riding, tennis, kendo), each of which he pursues obsessively. He is the only character who has a very clear and accurate analysis of Lily’s personality. Mark is the guy who outsiders would see as a high-achiever in many fields, even though he’s gone beyond the pale with his mega-rowing machine and monthly juice purges. But once we see his domination and control of Lily’s mom and the creepy sexual undertones of his relationship with Lily, we want him to go.

I had been eager to see Thoroughbreds since I first watched this deliciously noirish trailer. It was worth the wait. Thoroughbreds is a very promising calling card by Cory Finley.

THE DEATH OF STALIN: gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds

March 26, 2018March 25, 2018 by movie gourmet

Jason Isaacs and Steve Buscemi in THE DEATH OF STALIN

One might not expect the death of Josef Stalin and the subsequent maneuvering of his cronies to make for a savagely funny movie, but that is exactly what writer-director Armando Ianucci has accomplished in in The Death of Stalin. In his Veep and In the Loop, Ianucci has proved himself an expert in mocking the ambition, venality and flattery of those reaching for power. In The Death of Stalin, he adds terror to his quiver of motivations, and the result is darkly hilarious.

Serving Stalin was a high-wire act. By the end of Stalin’s Great Terror, everyone still standing in the Soviet leadership had survived by flattering Stalin and by loyally carrying out every Stalin command, no matter how misguided and/or murderous. Given that the slightest misstep – or even a wholly imagined fragment of Stalin’s paranoia – could lead to a summary bullet-in-the-head, this was no small achievement. These may have been the most powerful men at the very top of a superpower, but they have all been traumatized into extreme caution by years of fear.

For example, when Stalin suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and falls to the floor, his guards are afraid to burst into his room. When Stalin is discovered on the floor by his housekeeper, the regime’s top leaders gather around him and decide on next steps. The first question is whether to call a doctor, because they fear that if Stalin wakes up and finds that someone else has made a decision, he will have them executed. (Once they get past that, they must work around the fact that Stalin has already killed or exiled all the competent doctors in Moscow.)

Of course, it would be absurd for Stalin’s inner circle to refrain from calling a doctor for hours and hours. But it really happened. So did all of the other key occurrences in the movie, although the events were compressed from the real six months into a three-day movie plot.

This cast is brilliant. Steve Buscemi is cast as Nikita Kruschev and proves to be an inspired choice. Jason Isaacs, with a ridiculously broad (but historically accurate) chest full of medals, is especially delightful as Field Marshal Zhukov. Michael Palin, as Molotov, has one of the best bits as he deadpans political correctness while figuring out whether he can admit that the sudden release of his imprisoned wife is really good news. Each one of the actors – Simon Russell Beale, Olga Kuryenko, Paddy Considine, Jeffrey Tambor, Andrea Riseborough – gets to shine with Ianucci’s dialogue.

This is gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds. The Death of Stalin is an insightful exploration of terror – and hilarious, too.

Movies to See Right Now

March 23, 2018 by movie gourmet

Leading off this week’s top picks is the wonderfully dark, dark comedy The Death of Stalin. I’ll be writing about it tomorrow. I’ll also be writing about another dark comedy that I liked very much, Thoroughbreds, about two teen girl sociopaths.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is the riveting biopic of a glamorous movie star who invented and patented the precursor to wireless technology; that’s amazing enough, but Bombshell delves deeply into how Lamarr’s stunning face, her Jewish heritage and mid-century gender roles shaped her career, marriages and parenting. Top notch.

The Leisure Seeker is an Alzheimer’s road trip dramedy with Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland. Mirren and Sutherland are excellent, possibly enough to see this in a theater.

These Oscar winners are still in theaters:

The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s imaginative, operatic inter-species romance may become the most-remembered film of 2017.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a powerful combination of raw emotion and dark hilarity with an acting tour de force from Frances McDormand and a slew of great actors.
Pixar’s Coco is a moving and authentic dive into Mexican culture, and it’s visually spectacular.
I, Tonya is a marvelously entertaining movie, filled with wicked wit and sympathetic social comment. I just watched it again with The Wife!

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the droll Swedish dramedy Force Majeure, a family learns that there are some things you just can’t get past. Force Majeure was Sweden’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

On Sunday, March 25, Turner Classic Movies will air I Want to Live! Susan Hayward’s performance as a good-hearted, but very unlucky, floozy won her an Oscar. It’s about a party girl who takes up with a couple of lowlifes. The lowlifes commit a murder and pin it on her. There is a great jazz soundtrack and a dramatic walk to The Chair.

DVD/Stream of the Week: FORCE MAJEURE – some things you just can’t get past

March 20, 2018 by movie gourmet

In the droll Swedish dramedy Force Majeure, a smugly affluent family of four vacations at an upscale ski resort in the French Alps. The wife explains to a friend that they take the vacation because otherwise the husband never sees the family. But, while the wife is blissed out, the kids fidget and complain, and the hubby sneaks peeks at his phone.

Then there’s a sudden moment of apparent life-and-death peril; the husband has a chance to protect the wife and kids, but instead – after first securing his iPhone – runs for his life. How do they all go on from that revealing moment? The extent that one incident can bring relationships into focus is the core of Force Majeure.

Clearly, the family has a serious issue to resolve, but there’s plenty of dry humor. In the most cringe worthy moments, the wife tries to contain her disgust, but can’t keep it bottled up when she’s in the most social situations. The couple repeatedly huddle outside their room in their underwear to talk things out, only to find themselves observed by the same impassive French hotel worker. The most tense moments are interrupted by an insistent cell phone vibration, another guest’s birthday party and a child’s remotely out-of-control flying toy.

Force Majeure is exceptionally well-written by writer-director Ruben Ostlund. It’s just his fourth feature and the first widely seen outside Scandinavia. He transitions between scenes by showing the machinery of the ski resort accompanied by Baroque organ music – a singular and very effective directorial choice.

Force Majeure was Sweden’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

[I’ve included the trailer as always, but I recommend that you see the movie WITHOUT watching this trailer – mild spoilers]

Movies to See Right Now

March 16, 2018 by movie gourmet

Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand in THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

These Oscar winners are still in theaters:

The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s imaginative, operatic inter-species romance may become the most-remembered film of 2017.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a powerful combination of raw emotion and dark hilarity with an acting tour de force from Frances McDormand and a slew of great actors.
Pixar’s Coco is a moving and authentic dive into Mexican culture, and it’s visually spectacular.
I, Tonya is a marvelously entertaining movie, filled with wicked wit and sympathetic social comment.

Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland are excellent in the otherwise underwhelming The Leisure Seeker, an Alzheimer’s road trip dramedy.

Speaking of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, you can see the Oscar-winner Frances McDormand‘s 1984 screen debut in Blood Simple tomorrow on TCM.

On March 18, Turner Classic Movies presents the grievously underrated Don Siegel thriller Charley Varrick. Siegel was a master of crime movies (and was the primary filmmaking mentor to Clint Eastwood). I particularly love Siegel’s San Francisco noir The Lineup, the guilty pleasure Two Mules for Sister Sara and John Wayne’s goodbye, The Shootist. The 1973 neo-noir Charley Varrick is right up there with Siegel’s best. Walter Matthau stars as the title character, an expert heist man who sets up a “perfect crime” bank robbery which, of course, goes awry. Worst of all, it turns out that Varrick has stolen a secret Mob fortune being laundered by the bank, and now the underworld organization is after him. Only his wits can save him. I’ve rewatched Charley Varrick a couple of times recently, and it still holds up for me.

BLOOD SIMPLE: Frances McDormand at 27

March 14, 2018 by movie gourmet

On March 17, Turner Classic Movies will air the 1984 film that was Oscar winner Frances McDormand’s first screen credit, Blood Simple. That was also the storied Coen Brothers’s first feature film (and sparked McDormands’ 34-year marriage to Joel Cohen). Since their debut, the Coens have gone on to win Oscars for Fargo and No Country for Old Men, and their True Grit and the very, very underrated A Serious Man are just as good. Along the way, they also gave us the unforgettable The Big Lebowski.

It all started with their highly original neo-noir Blood Simple. It’s dark, it’s funny and damned entertaining. The highlight is the singular performance by veteran character actor M. Emmet Walsh as a Stetson-topped gunsel. The suspenseful finale, when Walsh is methodically hunting down the 27-year-old McDormand, is brilliant.

DVD/Stream of the Week: BLUE RUIN – fresh take on the revenge thriller

March 13, 2018 by movie gourmet

Here’s an entirely fresh take on the revenge thriller. Blue Ruin, an audience favorite on the festival circuit in 2013, didn’t get a theatrical release, and I would have missed it entirely but for a suggestion from my friend Jose.

As the film opens, we are following a homeless man and observing his survival tactics; once we’re hooked, we learn that a traumatic incident led to his homelessness. Then we watch him methodically prepare for an entirely different mission. There is very little dialogue in the first 30 minutes. And then we have 60 minutes of lethal cat-and-mouse, with intense suspense about which of the characters will survive and how. As a thriller, this is first class.

What makes Blue Ruin so fresh is the lead character, who has been shattered by a tragedy in his life – and who isn’t at all confident about his ability to redress it. This ain’t a Charles Bronson or Liam Neeson type hunter-of-bad-guys. Instead, our hero is as scared and fragile as most of us would be if we were being hunted for our lives – and so we relate to him.

Macon Blair is superb as the protagonist. He’s entirely believable both as a damaged down-and-outer and as a man-on-a-mission. Man, I hope Blair gets cast in more movies – he’s just great here.

Devin Ratray, one of the execrable, buffoonish cousins in Nebraska, is very good in an entirely different role here – a slacker scarred by his war experiences who nevertheless remains very skilled.

Blue Ruin was written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier. He is responsible for the wholly original lead character and the intense pace of the film, along with the meticulously economical storytelling; the exposition never relies on even one extra word of dialogue.

Blue Ruin is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.

Cinequest: BROTHERS IN ARMS

May 13, 2018March 12, 2018 by movie gourmet

Brothers in Arms is a documentary on the making of Platoon, directed by Paul Sanchez, who played Doc. Platoon, of course, won the Best Picture Oscar and launched the careers of many actors in its young cast. Except for Tom Berenger, this was the first movie job for most of them. including Charlie Sheen, Johnny Depp and Willem Dafoe.

Director Oliver Stone, a Vietnam vet himself, assembled the cast two weeks before filming and put them through basic military training in the Philippine jungle under real military trainers. The cast developed an usual bond during that process, as well as in coping with the mercurial Stone.

In Brothers in Arms, we get to hear from the actors (except for Dafoe, who was making a movie in South Africa) and the military advisers (but not from Oliver Stone). There plenty of entertaining anecdotes and some insights into the filmmaking.

Cinequest: BERLIN FALLING

April 28, 2018March 11, 2018 by movie gourmet

Tom Wlaschiha and Ken Duken in BERLIN FALLING

In the intense German thriller Berlin Falling, Frank (Ken Duken) is a troubled vet hoping to reunite at Christmas with his estranged wife and kid. But he picks up the hitchhiker Andreas (Tom Wlaschiha of Game of Thrones), who turns out to be any contemporary European’s worst nightmare (exactly what kind of nightmare is revealed at the end). Andreas subdues Frank with a highly personalized threat and forces him him to engage in a horrific terrorist attack, complete with its own chilling Isis video. It looks like there is no way out for Frank, and Berlin Falling ticks on like a time bomb to its uncompromising and violent conclusion.

With its comments on terrorism, immigration and xenophobia, Berlin Falling covers much of the same ground as this year’s German Oscar submission, In the Fade, but with a huge plot twist. It’s the writing-directing feature debut for actor Ken Duken, who plays Frank. It all works as a nail-biter, but it’s a bit exhausting. I saw Berlin Falling at Cinequest.