Jack “Dragnet” Webb and Peggy Lee in PETE KELLY’S BLUES
On October 16, TCM brings something COMPLETELY different, the 1955 Pete Kelly’s Blues, directed by and starring Jack Webb, who we all know from TV’s Dragnet. Made at the downturn of the Big Band Era, Pete Kelly’s Blues is set at during Prohibition in the infancy of Big Bands.
It’s a fairly routine drama about a small time bandleader on the outs with a dangerous crime boss, but Jack Webb loved jazz and worked hard to get the music in the movie right, resulting in quite the period document. Peggy Lee received a Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for portraying an alcoholic vocalist. There’s an unforgettable cameo performance by Ella Fitzgerald at the top of her game. The house band includes many real-life musicians who played with Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby and the like, including Matty Matlock, Eddie Miller and Jud De Naut.
Webb never had much range as an actor, but the rest of the cast is excellent: Janet Leigh, Edmond O’Brien, Lee Marvin, Andy Devine, Jayne Mansfield and Harry Morgan. Not a great flick, but worth a look for the music.
The Canadian comedy The Grand Seduction is the funniest movie of the year so far. It’s a MUST SEE.
Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges, The Guard, The General, Braveheart) and Gordon Pinsent (Away from Her) play isolated Canadians try to snooker a young doctor (Taylor Kitsch of Friday Night Lights) into settling in their podunk village. They enlist the entire hamlet in an absurdly elaborate and risky ruse, and the result is a satisfying knee-slapper that reminds me of Waking Ned Devine with random acts of cricket.
The Grand Seduction opened this year’s Cinequest on an especially uproarious note. The audience, including me and The Wife, rollicked with laugh after laugh. I can’t understand why, like Ned Devine, The Grand Seduction didn’t become a long-running imported art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or The Full Monty. The Grand Seduction is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
PEEPING TOM, coming up on Turner Classic Movies and better than PSYCHO
Opening today, the startling documentary Art and Craftis about an art fraud. Of prolific scale. Apparently not illegal. By a diagnosed schizophrenic.
Also in theaters:
The exceptionally well-acted dramedy The Skeleton Twinscontains several inspired moments.
The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family dramaBoyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
I really liked The One I Love– a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. Although it’s leaving theaters this weekend, it remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fable The Zero Theorem is visually arresting, but the story becomes tedious. Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
This week’s DVD/Stream of the Week is this year’s outstanding coming of age movie Very Good Girls starring the fine young actresses Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen. Very Good Girls is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
On October 4, Turner Classic Movies brings us what may be the best-ever psycho serial killer movie, Peeping Tom from 1960, the same year as Psycho. The British film critics didn’t know what to make of a thriller where the protagonist was so disturbing, and they trashed Peeping Tom so badly that its great director Michael Powell (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Stairway to Heaven, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes) wasn’t able to work again in the UK. But I think Peeping Tom is an overlooked masterpiece and even better than its iconic counterpart.
And on October 5, TCM broadcasts Cool Hand Luke, with Paul Newman as an iconic 1960s anti-hero, a charismatic supporting performance by George Kennedy, the unforgettable boiled egg-eating contest and the great movie line” What we have here is a failure to communicate”.
The startling documentary Art and Craftis about an art fraud. Of prolific scale. And which is apparently legal. By a diagnosed schizophrenic.
We start with a guy named Mark Landis. He is very good at photocopying (!) great art works, applying paint to make them seem like the real thing, putting them in distressed frames and donating them to museums in the name of his late (and imaginary!) sister. He has done this hundreds of times, fooling scores of snooty museum curators in the process.
Why does he do this? Why can’t he stop? What’s with the imaginary sister? Those answers probably lie within his schizophrenia, a disease which doesn’t impair his skill or his cunning. Landis himself, once you get over his initial creepiness and become comfortable in his Southern gentility and wry mischievousness, is one of this year’s most compelling movie characters.
Why doesn’t his fraud constitute a criminal act? Because he doesn’t profit from selling his fakes, he just gives them away. And he doesn’t take the tax write-off.
How come he doesn’t get caught? These are PHOTOCOPIES for krissakes! Those answers are in the self-interest and professional greed of the museum professionals – embodied by one puddle of mediocrity who becomes Landis’ obsessive Javert.
All of these combine to make Art and Craft one of the year’s most engaging documentaries. I saw Art and Craft at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it was an audience hit.
History is a compendium of individual human stories, oft caught up in a world event. That’s what drives the riveting documentary Last Days in Vietnam, which chronicles the desperate attempts of many South Vietnamese to escape before the Communist takeover in 1975. Over 140,000 got out in the initial exodus, including 77,000 through the means depicted in this film – mostly compressed into just two panicked days.
As if there weren’t enough American folly in Vietnam, the first evacuation plan didn’t include any non-Americans, even including the Vietnamese dependents of Americans. Then there were evacuation plans that were never implemented because of the blockheadedness of the US Ambassador. In the final week, young American military and intelligence officers took matters into their own hand, and began a sub rosa evacuation – ignoring the chain of command, breaking immigration laws and risking career-killing charges of insubordination.
Last Days in Vietnam is directed by Rory Kennedy (daughter of RFK), who recently made Ethel, the affecting bio-doc of her mother. Kennedy does a good job of setting the historical stage for those who didn’t live through the era, and then letting the witnesses tell their compelling personal stories.
The talking heads include:
the six-year-old who jumped out of a helicopter and then watched his mother drop his baby sister on to a ship’s deck;
the US Navy vet who plays the taped diary that he sent home to his wife after the fateful day;
the CIA analyst who unsuccessfully tried to convince the deluded US Ambassador that the end was at hand;
the college student who managed to get over a wall inside the embassy, but found that his freedom was not guaranteed;
Ford Administration officials Henry Kissinger and Ron Nessen, who relate the White House view of the events.
One heroic young American officer managed with ingenuity and chutzpah to get out hundreds of Vietnamese. In the film’s most poignant moment, it falls to him to tell the final American lie to the 400 Vietnamese remaining in the US embassy, for whom there were no more helicopters.
I saw the movie in San Jose with an audience that was about half Vietnamese-American, some of the age to have lived through this period. San Jose’s 100,000 Vietnamese population is largest of any city outside Vietnam, and many Vietnamese-Americans still memorialize the subject of this film as Black April. The exit from the theater was somber.
Last Days in Vietnam is a PBS American Experience film, so I expect it to show up on TV within the year.
This week’s DVD/Stream of the Week is this year’s outstanding coming of age movie Very Good Girls. Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen play best buds who graduate from high school and decide they need to lose their respective virginities before heading to college. Both fall for the same guy, and they’re each drawn to him and wary of him. But what elevates this story above those with similar set-ups is that it’s not so much about girl-and-boy but about girl-and-girl and how the circumstances affect their lifelong friendship.
Although there’s potential conflict over the boy and each girl’s family goes through a crisis, Very Good Girls is completely free of emo pretension. Genuine through and through, the story lets us relate to these girls and keep us engaged in what is happening to their bond.
Olsen is 25 and Fanning is 20, but they are entirely believable as 18-year-olds. Fanning and Olsen are right up there with Jennifer Lawrence, Shailene Woodley and Bree Larson as our best young film actresses. Fanning recently made an indie breakthrough in The Motel Life. Olsen has been excellent in Martha Marcy May Marlene and even in the awful In Secret.
The girls’ parents are played by Richard Dreyfuss and Demi Moore and Clark Gregg and Ellen Barkin. It’s kind of a hoot to see the actresses that gave played some of the hottest scenes in 1989/1990 cinema (Ghost and Sea of Love) play the curfew-enforcing moms. Peter Sarsgaard also shows up, at his most pervy.
Very Good Girls is the first film directed by screenwriter Naomi Foner (Oscar-nominated for Running on Empty), mother of Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal. Foner has a wonderful touch, and I hope we see her direct some more.
It pisses me off that, if Very Good Girls had been about high school boys getting laid, it would have gotten the theatrical release that eluded this film. But we can make up for hat by watching it at home. Very Good Girls is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
The exceptionally well-acted dramedy The Skeleton Twinscontains several inspired moments.
Also in theaters:
The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family dramaBoyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
I really liked The One I Love– a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. Although it’s leaving theaters this weekend, it remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fable The Zero Theorem is visually arresting, but the story becomes tedious. Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is an underrated 2014 romance that most of us didn’t get to see in theaters, The Face of Love with Annette Bening and Ed Harris. The Face of Love is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
Here’s an underrated 2014 romance that most of us didn’t get to see in theaters: The Face of Love.
Annette Bening plays a woman whose husband suddenly dies, and she is plunged into an immediate and harsh sense of loss. She goes on with her life and then is surprised to meet a man who is attracted to her. They begin to date and fast develop a serious bond. Here’s the kicker – the new boyfriend looks EXACTLY like her late husband (both are played by Ed Harris). You know that eventually he is going to find out, and that eventually her kids and friends are going to find out, and that people are going to think this is very weird. Those characters – and the audience – will wonder whether she is in love with this new man – in love with the image of her husband.
As one would expect, Bening and Harris both give compelling performances. The scene where the new guy asks her out on a date is especially fun. The Face of Love is a worthwhile watch.
The Face of Love is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
The term “dramedy” has never been more apt – The Skeleton Twins is a serious exploration of two complex and textured characters with depression, and yet most of the movie is very, very funny. Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play adult twins who haven’t spoken in ten years; they share a troubled upbringing, bitingly wicked and often morbid humor and serious melancholy. Their blues manifest in different, but serious ways. Brought together when the sister invites the brother to move in with her and her husband, past memories are evoked, each calls the other on their bullshit and everyone’s serene routine is overturned.
The two stars are excellent – and this is Hader’s best film work so far. His monologue about how far he’s come since high school is heart-breaking.
There is lots to like about The Skeleton Twins:
perhaps Luke Wilson’s best performance as the ever-decent and upbeat husband, hopelessly out of his depth with his troubled spouse;
a hilarious Wilson monologue about “land mines”, which will make everyone who has been either a boyfriend or a husband fall out of his seat laughing;
a sparkling turn by Joanna Gleason as the twins’ insufferably self-absorbed New Agey mother;
watching Wiig finally outshine Hader in lip-syncing to Starship’s execrable power ballad “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”. (BTW, on YouTube, you can find Starship’s original video for “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” – Mickey Thomas at his most insincere and Grace Slick in 80s Big Hair – YIKES.)
So the film works overall, but I was left a little short on the mental health aspect (see, if you want, under SPOILER ALERT below). Nevertheless, I recommend The Skeleton Twins for its intelligence, honesty and humor.
[SPOILER ALERT: The main characters are both clinically depressed. I didn’t buy the ending where – without any medication or talk therapy – the two seemed to trending hopefully because they have embraced honesty and the support of each other. Now The Wife, who is a trained therapist, DID buy the ending, saying that the movie didn’t show them to be OK, just doing well with each other’s support. The critical consensus seems to be with her.]
The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family dramaBoyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
I really liked The One I Love– a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. Although it’s leaving theaters this weekend, it remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fable The Zero Theorem opens today; it’s visually arresting, but the story becomes tedious. Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the absorbing French period drama Augustine, about obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Augustine is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and Xbox Video.
On September 24, Turner Classic Movies plays the underrated anti-war masterpiece The Americanization of Emily, the favorite film of both of its stars – James Garner and Julie Andrews. On September 27, TCM offers the classic noir thriller Laura, with an unforgettable performance by Clifton Webb as a megalomaniac with one vulnerability – the dazzling beauty of Gene Tierney. The musical theme is unforgettable, too.
