Movies to See Right Now

by
Photo caption: Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michelle Austin in HARD TRUTHS. Courtesy of Bleecker Street Media.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – my Noir City Wrap-up and new reviews of some of the year’s most acclaimed films: Two were created by already iconic filmmakers: Like Leigh’s Hard Truths and Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, The third is The Brutalist, the work of an emerging director, Brady Corbet, whom I guess has done emerged.

Note: I have finalized my list of Best Movies of 2024. BTW, none of them are as good as last year’s top three – Oppenheimer, Anatomy of a Fall or Past Lives.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters.
  • The Last Showgirl: desperation amid the rhinestones. In theaters.
  • The Brutalist: buffeted by fate, can his soul survive? In theaters.
  • Hard Truths: trapped inside her own rage. In theaters.
  • The Room Next Door: Tilda and Julianne, life and death. In theaters.
  • All We Imagine as Light: three women and a society that’s not on their side In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Return: an ancient tale told thru a 21st Century lens. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: another smart and charming romp. Netflix.
  • Oh, Canada: deathbed confession and so what? In theaters.
  • Queer: forty-five minutes of fine romantic drama, and then the bizarre. In theaters.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024:

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one.  Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • In the Summers: they mature, he evolves. Amazon.
  • Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango (included).
  • The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed: is she going to be a loser? Amazon, AppleTV, Hulu.
  • Love Lies Bleeding: obsessions and impulses collide. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

ON TV

Patty McCormack and Nancy Kelly in THE BAD SEED.

Turner Classic Movies is into its 31 Day of Oscars, showing only Oscar winners and nominees. That means it’s harder for me to recommend overlooked films to you, because fewer Oscar winners are overlooked, although some have been unjustly forgotten. So, this week I have the February 11 TCM airing of The Bad Seed (1956). Very bad things are happening – the chill comes from the revelation that the murderous fiend is a child with blonde pigtails. It’s gotta be tough to be cute and creepy at the same time, but child star Patty McCormack pulled it off. McCormack went on to161 screen credits, including iconic TV shows from Route 66 and Death Valley Days to Murder, She Wrote and The Sopranos. Patty is the queen of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, having worked with everyone from Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury to Ron Howard, Michael Douglas, Philip Seymour Hoffman and of course, Kevin Bacon himself. McCormack was Oscar-nominated for this performance as an 11-year-old.

THE BRUTALIST: buffeted by fate, can his soul survive?

by
Photo caption: Adrien Brody in THE BRUTALIST. Courtesy of A24.

The Brutalist opens with László (Adrien Brody) arriving in New York Harbor as a refugee. Emma Lazarus could have been thinking of László when she wrote her immortal poem; having survived Buchenwald, he is tired, poor, huddled, homeless and tempest-tossed.

He makes his way to Philadelphia, where his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola), has gone native, Americanizing his name, marrying a Catholic New Englander, and opening a small furniture store that he intends to build into a bigger enterprise. László, who was a architect of accomplishment and renown in prewar Hungary, has no such aspirations. László is grateful merely to be alive and away from war- and Holocaust-ravaged Europe and is content with even the least comfortable accommodations and the most menial employment. He does yearn for reunification with his wife Erzsébet and niece Zsófia, from whom he was separated years before in the Holocaust; they are alive, but in Soviet-controlled territory, and getting them to America will be difficult and complicated.

Just when László gets a taste of a promising situation, things don’t work out with Attila, and László finds himself homeless again. But then fortune smiles upon him – to an incredible, unpredictable and life-changing degree. Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a local zillionaire, learns of László’s international reputation and commissions a monumental vanity project – one that will bring fame and wealth to László. The only downside is that Van Buren is extremely capricious, and László owes all of his new found comfort to him. Van Buren giveth, and Van Buren can taketh away.

Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce in THE BRUTALIST. Courtesy of A24.

It is an asymmetrical relationship. László is all about expressing himself through his architecture. Van Buren is a collector, and, like any of his collectible objects, Van Buren enjoys László as an amusement and as a marker of prestige. Van Buren’s dominance manifests in countless micro-aggressions, and, finally, in the most degrading way.

László rides this roller coaster alone until Erzsébet arrives with Zsófia. László can be prickly and his confidence is always teetering, but Erzsébet is smooth and comfortable in her skin. Erzsébet is stronger than László, and many times as resilient. She has been able to survive a Nazi death camp, escape from behind the Iron Curtain and make her way to the New World, all while protecting her vulnerable niece. Although physically wrecked by her ordeal, she is eager to resume her career as a writer and her role as László’s coach and cheerleader. Erzsébet intends to make her own destiny, and refuses to be buffeted by the whims of fortune.

No matter how highly valued is his talent, László gets the message that he is too foreign, too Jewish, and, ultimately, is unwanted by America. While that weighs on him, his experience with Van Buren becomes soul-crushing. How much is too much for the human spirit to endure? Can Erzsébet help László find peace and dignity?

Feliity Jones in THE BRUTALIST. Courtesy of A24.

The Brutalist is a sweeping story, told in three hours thirty-five minutes (with an intermission), and every second brims with artistic ambition. Director and co-writer Brady Corbet has acted in movies by Gregg Araki, Michael Haneke, Lars Von Trier, Ruben Ostland and Olivier Assayas, and he is aspiring for his own individualistic masterpiece. Corbet makes every shot visually impactful, and the score juxtaposes period pop standards with throbbing, droning musical cues, and even begins with an overture. Corbet risked making The Brutalist pretentious and self-important, but it never is. Almost everything Corbet throws at the screen works to tell the story and to enhance our experience.

The one thing that doesn’t work is the epilogue, set in 1980, when an adult Zsófia (Ariane Labed) gives a speech at an architectural conference that honors László with a retrospective. Zsófia explicitly connects the dots between László’s artistic themes with the horrors of experience. After such a momentous and vivid story, told with so much artistry and innovation, the epilogue is both unnecessary and a buzz kill. It reminded me of the finale of another great movie, Psycho, in which Simon Oakland plays a psychiatric expert who explains to us that, indeed, Norman Bates was suffering from a recognized mental disorder. But, if you swing for the fences, you are allowed the occasional foul ball.

Adrien Brody in THE BRUTALIST. Courtesy of A24.

The acting is exceptional, especially the three leads, who are each justifiably Oscar-nominated. Adrien Brody brilliantly takes us through László’s remarkably up-and-down journey, with its very high highs and very low lows. (BTW Nikki Glaser’s best joke at the Golden Globes was “Adrien Brody – two-time Holocaust survivor.“)

Similarly, the battle between Van Buren and László (or the one between the good Van Buren and the bad Van Buren) wouldn’t be enough without Erzsébet being so appealing and such a badass. Felicity Jones captures her grace and ferocity.

Much of the film relies on Guy Pearce’ Van Buren, whose appetites, prejudices, emotional needs and entitlement drives the plot, as they buffet poor László. If Van Buren isn’t complicated and unpredictable, there’s no story here. I find Pearce to remarkably resemble classic film star Brian Donlevy here.

The wonderful Ivory Coast-born, French actor Isaach de Bankole is as good as always as László’s American friend Gordon. Gordon often represents the moral center of the story, solidly grounded while László flutters about. Joe Alwyn is appropriately malignant as Van Buren’s rangy snake of a son, Harry Lee, to whom Harrison has not passed on any of his better qualities.

The Brutalist is an epic in several senses of that descriptor, and one of the Best Movies of 2024.

HARD TRUTHS: trapped inside her own rage

by
Photo caption: Marianne Jean-Baptiste in HARD TRUTHS. Courtesy of Bleecker Street Media.

Hard Truths is the searing (but sometimes funny) portrait of a woman who lives without ever experiencing a moment of contentment. Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) overreacts to every situation, usually with rage, but sometimes with terror. In a state of perpetual grievance, even when she needs to manufacture one, every encounter is toxic.

Pansy is offended even by the ribbon that a neighbor puts on her baby, and by the affrontery of a retail clerk whose job it is to ask her is needs any assistance. Pansy’s husband Curtley (David Webber) and son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) tiptoe around their own house, bracing for Pansy’s next explosion. The 22-year-okd Moses either slacks in his room or wanders randomly around the city.

In contrast, Pansy’s sister Chantelle (Michelle Austin) enjoys her life and other people; the mood in her more modest apartment is relaxed and playful, and her daughters (Ani Nelson and Sophia Brown) are spirited achievers.

So, why is Pansy so unhappy? Curtley is an inoffensive man with a plumbing company, and he provides well for Pansy. She doesn’t have to work, and the family lives in a leafy neighborhood, in a comfortable house. She says that she is tired and lonely, and claims to have migraine headaches, but we don’t see any of those. I’m not a mental health professional (although I’m married to a licensed therapist), but Pansy is suffering from something more than a sour outlook on life; we see anxiety, depression and paranoia. We learn that she may be damaged from adult burdens prematurely forced on her in childhood by her mother, but she’s going to need some chemicals before she can sit long enough for talk therapy. Unfortunately, she lashes out at family members and doctors who could help, pushing them away. Poor Curtley is mystified and utterly unequipped to see any solution.

Hard Truths is a film by Mike Leigh (Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake, Another Year), who collaborates with hs actors so an usual degree, so Pansy is Leigh and Jean-Baptiste’s joint creation. 28 years ago, Jean-Baptiste played a wholly different character in Leigh’s masterpiece Secrets & Lies, a story in which Brenda Blethyn played the hot mess.

Jean-Baptiste’s singular performance is a tour de force. Everyone in the cast is excellent, and I especially admired David Webber’s for playing a decent man trapped in a hellish situation that he doesn’t understand, with no good choices.

Many of Pansy’s explosions are so absurdly ungrounded as to be funny, but the bottom line is that we’re watching the most unpleasant person imaginable for 97 minutes. Overall, I was saddened by the realization that 1) Pansy can’t help herself and that 2) there is no foreseeable path for relieving her disorder. Still, I’m glad I saw Hard Truths because of Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s sui generis performance.

OH, CANADA: deathbed confession and so what?

by
Photo caption: Richard Gere in OH, CANADA, Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

In Oh, Canada, Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) is a prominent documentarian who is dying, and one of his most successful former students (Michael Imperioli) is honoring him with a biodoc. When he is seated before an Errol Morris Interrotron, Fife demands that his wife Emma (Uma Thurman) take the position behind the camera so he can speak directly to her, and then takes over the filming with an unrestrained, blurted life story. It’s really a confession, and Leo has a lot to confess.

As Leo tells his life story, the young Leo is portrayed (mostly) by Jacob Elordi (Priscilla, Saltburn). Sometimes the older Gere shows up as the young Leo instead of Elordi, which reflects the muddling of Leo’s memory at this final stage of his life.

Besides his achievements as a filmmaker, Leo Fife has been revered as a principled American draft resister who fled to Canada to protest the Vietnam War. Leo reveals that his re-invention in Canada was anything but principled (and that Oh, Canada is a very ironic title). In fact, Leo’s adult life has been that of a weak and selfish man, a man who always takes the easy way, even if that means betrayal or thievery. It would be the life of a sociopath, except that sociopaths don’t feel guilt and the need to confess.

Oh, Canada is a Paul Schrader film. Schrader wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull., adapted The Last Temptation of Christ, wrote and directed American Gigolo and Affliction. All very good. All very dark.

Oh, Canada follows Schrader’s late-career, self-described ‘Man In A Room’ trilogy, following First Reformed and The Card Counter and Master Gardener  I would name it the “Man with a Code Seeks Redemption” trilogy. Likewise, Oh, Canada is about a man’s assessment of his life, but it’s not as good as the previous three, perhaps because Leo Fife never lived by a code, and it’s too late for redemption.

Oh, Canada is a searing portrait of a man confessing his sins, but too late to help anyone else, including those he has hurt. He might feel cleansed on his deathbed, but, so what?

In a nice touch, Fife’s protege shows himself to b just as vile as his mentor and visits one final indecency on Leo.

Gere and Thurman are solid. The Wife thought Jacob Elordi was appropriately smarmy, but I didn’t detect any hint of the self-loathing that the young Fife must have felt. Penelope Mitchell sparkles in a small role as an ambitious production assistant.

There’s one brilliant performance in Oh, Canada – that of Zach Shaffer as Leo’s long-abandoned adult son. Shaffer keeps his character contained in a highly charged situation, registering his emotional reaction only with his eyes. It’s a highly nuanced portrayal of a shattering experience.

I was constantly absorbed by Oh, Canada, as I learned who Leo Fife really was, but left the theater feeling indifferent.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Photo caption: Monica Barbaro and Timothee Chalamet in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This Week on The Movie Gourmet – Noir City continues though tomorrow, but I’m back with a new review of the overlooked gem In the Summers, now available to stream. Here’s my Noir City coverage so far:

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters.
  • The Last Showgirl: desperation amid the rhinestones. In theaters.
  • The Room Next Door: Tilda and Julianne, life and death. In theaters.
  • All We Imagine as Light: three women and a society that’s not on their side In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Return: an ancient tale told thru a 21st Century lens. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: another smart and charming romp. Netflix.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • In the Summers: they mature, he evolves. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Queer: forty-five minutes of fine romantic drama, and then the bizarre. In theaters.
  • You Are Not Me: a nightmare at mom and dad’s. Amazon, Fandango.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • It’s Not Me: his life as an art film. Amazon, Fandango.
  • Lake George: when you know you’re not going to win. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • The Critic: who’s on top now? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024:

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one.  Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • In the Summers: they mature, he evolves. Amazon.
  • Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango (included).
  • The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed: is she going to be a loser? Amazon, AppleTV, Hulu.
  • Love Lies Bleeding: obsessions and impulses collide. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

ON TV

Timothy Bottoms (standing) in THE PAPER CHASE

As we enter February, Turner Classic Movies launches its 31 Day of Oscars, showing only Oscar winners and nominees. That means lots of good movies, but it’s harder for me to recommend overlooked films to you, because fewer Oscar winners are overlooked, although some have been unjustly forgotten. For example tonight kicks off with 8 1/2, Wild Strawberries and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie back-to-back – a veritable survey course in European cinema. (I also DVR very few TCM movies this month, because I’ve already seen the ones I would want to watch.)

Nonetheless, I can recommend TCM’s February 3 broadcast of one of my personal favorite movies, The Paper Chase, which traces a young man’s (Timothy Bottoms) first year at Harvard Law School and is based on the memoir of a recent grad. Although IMDb labels The Paper Chase as 1973 movie, I saw it in the summer of 1975, just as I was about to enter law school myself.   It’s such a personal favorite because just about EVERYTHING in the movie is something that I experienced myself at in my first year at Georgetown Law – everything, that is, EXCEPT dating Lindsay Wagner.  It’s a compelling story and the great producer John Houseman won an acting Oscar for his performance as the mentor/nemesis law professor; Houseman immediately cashed in with his ”They make money the old fashioned way… they EARN it” commercials for Smith Barney.

The Paper Chase is also notable as the first feature film credit for actors Craig Richard Nelson, Graham Beckel (Brokeback Mountain, L.A. Confidential)  and Edward Herrmann (known for many portrayals of FDR).  All three are stellar as members of the law school study group, and these guys have now combined for over 300 screen acting credits.  John Jay Osborn Jr.,  who wrote the autobiographical novel which was the source material movie, died in 2022.

John Houseman in THE PAPER CHASE

IN THE SUMMERS: they mature, he evolves

by
Photocaption: Rene Perez Joglar (center) in IN THE SUMMERS. Courtesy of NashFilm and Music Box Films.

In the remarkably authentic and evocative In the Summers, two sisters fly to Las Cruces, New Mexico, for annual summer visits with their divorced dad. The father, Vincente, played by Rene Perez Joglar (AKA the rapper Residente) is a spirited and talented underachiever who tries to show them a Disney Dad experience; the girls soak up the fun, but also absorb lessons about Vincente’s less reliable characteristics. Each summer, the girls return to Las Cruces with additional savvy and sponge up real world lessons from Vincente’s changing behavior.

The girls arrive expecting last year’s Vincente, but they get a new model, shaped by his changing circumstances and emotional needs, and reflecting how he sees himself. From year to year, Vincente bounces between unearned swagger to self-loathing distraction to an uneasy humility. It’s a compelling coming of age for the daughters.

Carmen (Emma Ramos), the bartender at the local pool hall, is the one consistent sounding board who can validate what the girls are experiencing with their dad.

Joglar’s performance, only his second acting role in a narrative feature and first lead, is remarkable. He is able to portray a character who is the same man at the core, but whose behavior each year is formed by the cumulative slings and arrows of his life.

The three sets of actors playing Violeta and Eva as they mature (Dreya Castillo and Luciana Eva Quinonez, Kimaya Thais and Allison Salinas, Sasha Calle and Lio Meliel) are excellent.  So is Emma Ramos (New Amsterdam) as Carmen.

Writer-director Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio is able to convey so much narrative without spoon-feeding the audience. She positions the audience in the point of view of the watchful daughters, as they they to assess what is going on with their own father. She also gets fine performances out of actors with little or no movie experience. In the Summers is a triumphant debut feature for Lacorazza and marks the emergence of very promising filmmaker,

In the Summers made my list of Best Movies of 2024 after being my favorite film at last month’s Nashville Film Festival, and it’s streaming now on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Photo caption: Pamela Anderson in THE LAST SHOWGIRL. Courtesy of RoadsideFlix.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m at the Noir City film festival in Oakland:

Nevertheless, The Movie Gourmet has new reviews of Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door and Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl. But, first, remembering a fine actress and a transformative filmmaker.

REMEMBRANCES

Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini in David Lynch’s BLUE VEVET.

It’s hard to think of a filmmaker more influential than David Lynch. His Eraserhead became the firt arthouse cult film, and no one had ever seen anything on TV lik his Twin Peaks. He had a popular and critical success with Elephant Man, but remained defiantly artistic with his masterpieces, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. His last film work was a hoot – an acting cameo as John Ford in The Fabelmans.

Dean Stockwell in David Lynch’s BLUE VEVET.

Joan Plowright was primarily a star of the English stage, but she worked in movies, too, including Tea with Mussolini and earning an Oscar nod for Enchanted April. My favorite Plowright performance was in a gentle Irish comedy, Widows Peak.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters.
  • The Last Showgirl: desperation amid the rhinestones. In theaters.
  • The Room Next Door: Tilda and Julianne, life and death. In theaters.
  • All We Imagine as Light: three women and a society that’s not on their side In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Return: an ancient tale told thru a 21st Century lens. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: another smart and charming romp. Netflix.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • Queer: forty-five minutes of fine romantic drama, and then the bizarre. In theaters.
  • You Are Not Me: a nightmare at mom and dad’s. Amazon, Fandango.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • It’s Not Me: his life as an art film. Amazon, Fandango.
  • Lake George: when you know you’re not going to win. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • The Critic: who’s on top now? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024:

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one.  Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • In the Summers: they mature, he evolves. Amazon.
  • Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango (included).
  • The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed: is she going to be a loser? Amazon, AppleTV, Hulu.
  • Love Lies Bleeding: obsessions and impulses collide. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

ON TV

Dennis O’Keefe and Ann Sheridan in WOMAN ON THE RUN

On January 26, Turner Classic Movies airs the taut 77 minutes of Woman on the Run, one of my Overlooked Noir. When the police coming looking for a terrified murder witness, they are surprised to find his wife (Ann Sheridan) both ignorant of his whereabouts and unconcerned. And the wife has a Mouth On Her, much to the dismay of the detective (Robert Keith), who keeps walking into a torrent of sass. She starts hunting hubbie, along with the cops, a reporter (Dennis O’Keefe) and the killer, and they all careen through a life-or-death manhunt. Another star of Woman on the Run is San Francisco itself, from the hilly neighborhoods to the bustling streets to the dank and foreboding waterfront. Eddie Muller will present the intro and outro in TCM’s Noir Alley.

NOIR CITY is here – don’t miss these three femmes fatale

by
Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
Photo caption: Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN

Tomorrow, the Noir City film fest opens at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland and runs through February 2. This year’s program showcases the women of film noir – which femme is the most fatale?

Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and hard-to-find movies. You know Eddie Muller from TCM’s Noir Alley, and he hosts Noir City in person, this year with his TCM colleague Alicia Malone.

Evelyn Keyes and John Payne in 99 RIVER STREET
Evelyn Keyes and John Payne in 99 RIVER STREET

It’s a great program of 24 movies over ten days, jam packed with unforgettable female performances that span from the iconic (Jane Greer in Out of the Past) to the seductive (Claire Trevor in Murder, My Sweet) to the, well, savage (Ann Savage in Detour). Here are three of my personal favorites that you should not miss:

  • The Narrow Margin, Noir City’s opening night film with Marie Windsor. In this taut 71 minutes of tension, growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train. Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target. McGraw might be film noir’s toughest Tough Guy, but Windsor gives him all the tough he can handle, and matches him snarl for snarl. “Relax, Percy, I wouldn’t want any of that nobility to rub off on me”.
  • 99 River Street with Evelyn Keyes and Peggy Castle. Film noir tends to be about guys with bad luck, but nobody would trade their luck with Ernie Driscoll (John Payne). Ernie has lost his boxing career to a fluke cut and his abusive and slutty wife (a suitably insufferable Castle) to a mobster, and, now, he’s been framed for a murder. His only hope is to track down the Real Killer while driving around with the murdered corpse in his cab. Evelyn Keyes plays a Good Girl would-be actress who goes along for the ride; problem is, Ernie can’t tell when she’s acting. Nobody can keep ’em guessing like Evelyn Keyes.
  • Cry Danger with Rhonda Fleming. Rocky (Dick Powell) has been released from prison; he knows he didn’t commit the crime, but he knows that his alibi is phony, too. Trying to figure out who framed and unframed him, he seeks out an old flame, his partner’s wife Nancy (Rhonda Fleming).  The exquisitely beautiful Nancy is as wholesome as anyone can be with a hubbie in the hoosegow.  We know that. if she turns out to be a femme fatale, it’s going to be a major punch in the gut for Rocky. Bonus: Rocky’s wing man is the perjuring alibi witness (an indelible Richard Erdman): “Occasionally I always drink too much.” It’s hard to top a frame, a drunk, a dame, hidden loot and an LA trailer park. This is not available to stream, so see it at Noir City.
Dick Powell and Rhonda Fleming in CRY DANGER

Read my festival preview, NOIR CITY returns – with the spotlight on femmes fatale, which lists the twelve films from this year’s Noir City program that are NOT available to stream. Noir City is your best chance to see them.

I’ve written about The Narrow Margin, 99 River Street, Raw Deal, Caged, Cry Danger, The Prowler and Murder, My Sweet in my Overlooked Noir feature. Check them out, along with my Overlooked Neo-noir.

Don’t miss Noir City. Review the program and buy tickets at Noir City. Of the nine film festivals that I cover each year, I always insist on attending Noir City in person. To steal from Eddie Muller, see you in the shadows.

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR: Tilda and Julianne, life and death

by

Photo caption: Tilda Swinton and Juianne Moore in THE ROOM NEXT DOOR. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door is about the reconnection of two friends at a highly charged moment. Decades before, Martha (Tilda Swinton) and Ingrid (Julianne Moore) were running and gunning together in Manhattan, even dating the same guy (not at the same time). Each moved on to a successful career elsewhere – Ingrid as an author based in Europe and Martha as a war correspondent in the Balkans and Middle East. Ingrid returns to NYC on a book tour, and finds that Martha is hospitalized with stage 3 cervical cancer.

Martha undergoes an experimental treatment which seems to work, until it doesn’t. Martha has faced death many times in wars. She accepts her own mortality, but wants to avoid the indignity and suffering of her final weeks, and she wants to go out before experiencing happiness becomes impossible. But Martha doesn’t want to be alone, and her adult daughter is estranged.

Martha asks Ingrid to join her at a rented house in the woods, knowing that, on one night, Martha will end he own life. Not incidentally, Ingrid’s latest bestseller is about her own fear of death. Nevertheless, Ingrid agrees.

Remarkably, given the situation, The Room Next Door is not depressing. It’s absorbing, and even funny in places. The old boyfriend (a very funny John Tuturro), who both women remember as particularly zesty, is now a climate disaster Gloomy Gus, now essentially a public scold. Inrgid and Martha curl up on the couch to enjoy Buster Keaton’s hilarious Seven Chances.

We learn the back story about the father of Martha’s daughter, and more about Martha and Ingrid. Ingrid (and we the audience) wait on tenterhooks for Martha to implement her plan.

Of course, Moore and Swinton are two of cinema’s most talented actresses, and their performances are exquisite. Swinton even plays a second character.

We expect any Pedro Almodóvar film to be visually lush, with stellar performances from actresses, and The Room Next Door is certainly that. I never lost interest, but the work doesn’t rise to the level of Almodóvar’s masterpieces Talk to Her and Broken Embraces. .

This is Almodóvar’s first film in English, and he wrote the screenplay in English, evidently without enough collaboration. Hence, the dialogue is not as natural as if two native English speakers were conversing – sometimes a little stilted.

Although the core story about Martha and Ingrid is compelling, there are some extraneous distractions. I understood that a flashback from Martha’s wartime experiences is designed to tell us something about her, but it isn’t worth the time away from the main story. The same holds true when a cop tries to make some trouble for Ingrid; although very well acted by Allessandro Nivola, that thread doesn’t go anywhere (as it wouldn’t have in real life).

The Room Next Door is ever visually beautiful, with lots of Almodóvar’s favorite color of red. Almodovar takes full advantage of his leading ladies’ striking hair and graces them with vivid lipstick and fashion. He even gets to set ablaze a house on the prairie, just like the one in Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven

The Room Next Door, although not an essential film, still offers the mastery of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, in a story of life and death.

THE LAST SHOWGIRL: desperation amid the rhinestones

by
Photo caption: Pamela Anderson in THE LAST SHOWGIRL. Courtesy of RoadsideFlix.

Pam Anderson shines in The Last Showgirl, Gia Coppola’s singular study of personal identity. Anderson plays Shelly, who has spent the past thirty years onstage in an old fashioned, Las Vegas showgirl revue, showcasing rhinestones, plumage and bare breasts. The show has enjoyed a 38-year run and is the last one in town; as tastes have moved on, the audience has diminished. As The Last Showgirl begins, the owners have decided to permanently close the show.

All the dancers in the company are unsettled by the need to find new employment, but it’s clear that Shelley, no matter how well-preserved at age 57, is not going to be competitive in the Las Vegas female dancer job market. But Shelley is even more jarred by the end of her job than one might think. After all, she should be able to make the same money in another job; her income from the show wasn’t enough to care for her now college-age daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), who was fostered by family friends.

As Shelley flounders, we begin to understand that Shelley’s entire personal identity is invested in her stage persona. And we understand why she prioritized this job over even raising her own child. I feel so good about myself in the show…bathed in that light…I’M the one on the POSTER.

Shelley’s choice to get what she needs emotionally from the show, has left Hannah with a sense of emptiness, and Shelly now has that same emptiness about both her lost self-worth and the damage to the relationship with Hannah.

Pamela Anderson has not been known for her range as an actress, but she has enough to play Shelley with power and nuance. She is exceptional in this heartbreaking role. Anderson, whose body is still remarkable, has no vanity about the age on her face.

The rest of the cast is also outstanding. Kienran Shipka (Don Draper’s daughter in Mad Men) and Brenda Song play Shelley’s younger mentees in the troupe. Jamie Lee Curtis also eschews movie star glamor in playing Shelley’s former dance colleague, who has aged out of dancing and into cocktailing, and who suffers addictions to both alcohol and gambling; Curtis has one jaw dropping solo dance near the end of the film.

Jason Schwartzman is excellent as a guy casting live entertainment who resists being cruel, but finally must share the cruel truth with Shelley.

One of the best performances is that of Dave Bautista as the show’s stage manager. Bautista, the former pro wrestler who plays Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise and Beast in the Dune movies, is usually cast in action fare. Here, he proves that he can really act in a character-driven drama. His gentle, decent, socially awkward character is often the moral center of the story.

Coppola ends the film with a superb montage. The Last Showgirl is a searing portrait of a completely original character; it’s one of the Best Movies of 2024.