DVD/Stream of the Week: Joe

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JoeIn Joe, Nicholas Cage plays the title character, who lives a solitary life in backwoods Texas – self-isolated by problems with anger management and booze that long ago estranged his family and cost him some time in the state pen. Somehow Joe has stayed out of trouble for years, but he’s always on a slow simmer, seemingly close to boiling over. Joe meets Gary (Tye Sheridan of Mud), a boy who belongs to a family of drifters led by a father who beats them and takes all their money to spend on cheap likker. Joe bonds with Gary, and ultimately finds redemption in a sacrifice he makes for the boy. Dark and violent, Joe is ultimately successful as a gripping drama.

Indie writer-director David Gordon Green excels at authentic character-driven Southern dramas (George Washington, All the Real Girls and Undertow). Here he brings us to a world of nasty chained-up dogs, where everyone smokes cigarettes and eats canned food, and nobody has heard of espresso or the Internet.

Cage’s performance is excellent – never over-the-top and much more modulated and realistic than we’ve come to expect from him.

Sheridan, so good in Mud, might be even better here; he smolders at the abuse and neglect the family suffers at the hands of his father. He’s become a strapping kid who came employ violence against an adult, but the father-son tie keeps him from unleashing it on his despicable father. Sheridan is especially brilliant in an early scene where he playfully banters with his drunken dad and in another where Joe teaches him how to fake a pained smile to attract girls.

The biggest revelation in Joe is a searing performance by non-actor Gary Poulter as the drunken father who may shamble like a zombie, but is always cruising like a shark, on the hunt for someone to manipulate or rob. It’s stirring portrait of final stage alcoholism, where there is no moral filter anymore – he will resort to ANY conduct for some three dollar wine. There is nothing left but evil borne of desperation for a drink. Although Poulter was a reliable member of the filmmaking team, within two months after the conclusion of photography, he had resorted to his previous self-destructive lifestyle and died. Thanks to Green, he leaves one great cinematic performance as his legacy.

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

Movies to See Right Now

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Juliette Binoche in BLUE
Juliette Binoche in BLUE

This a GREAT WEEK for cinema. The wonderfully wry German dark comedy A Coffee in Berlin opens today. In a brilliant debut feature, writer-director Jan Ole Gerster has created a warm-hearted but lost character who needs to connect with others – but sabotages his every opportunity. Besides laughing through A Coffee in Berlin, you’ll probably also notice the singularly complementary soundtrack and the vivid sense of time and place.

And don’t miss the two MUST SEE movies out now. The first is the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction – the funniest film of the year so far and a guaranteed audience pleaser. The second is my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other. Ida may only be in theaters for another week or so.

Here are other good movie choices:

My DVD/Stream of the week is the Italian Caesar Must Die, with maximum security prisoners putting on a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Caesar Must Die is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Hulu.

Julie Delpy in WHITE
Julie Delpy in WHITE

Okay, fire up the DVR for something special coming up on June 22 on Turner Classic Movies: the masterpiece Three Colors trilogy Blue, White and Red from the mid-1990s. The films are in French, and made by the director that I may admire more than any other, Krzysztof Kieslowski of Poland. The first film, Blue, stars Juliette Binoche and addresses grief; it is somber but its humanity is inspiring. Julie Delpy stars in White the second and much lighter film – a relationship dramedy. In Red, Irene Jacob stars in a story about how strangers treat each each other in modern society, with a redemptive conclusion to the trilogy. Together, the three movies profoundly explore aspects of the human condition, and the result is evocative, intelligent and emotionally satisfying. The stories of the three films intersect – and you can spot the characters from the first two movies in the third.

Kieslowski labored in obscurity in Communist Poland until he attained European recognition and US art house hits with The Decalogue (1988) and The Double Life of Véronique (1990). The Blue/White/Red trilogy came out in 1993 and 1994 to international acclaim, but Kieslowski, reportedly suffering from AIDS, had to retire and died two years later at age 54.  I can’t imagine what cinematic masterpieces would have been produced in two more decades of Kieslowski.

Just so folks can calibrate my taste, I keep a list of the 50 Greatest Movies of All Time, and the Blue/White/Red trilogy is in the first ten films on that list. This trilogy is very special – and perfect for binge viewing.

Irene Jacob in RED
Irene Jacob in RED

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia: the man who invented snark

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GORE VIDAL: THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA

Nicholas D. Wrathall’s documentary Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia is an affectionate portrait of the famously prickly novelist. Vidal, himself an American blue blood, delighted in the harshest criticism of American society, culture and politics. In the film, he observes “When I want to know what the United States is up to, I look into my own black heart.”

Vidal practically invented snark. Most of all, he seemed to relish the role of provocateur, publicly spewing out outrageous (and oft factually unreliable) statements. There has never been a more entertaining TV talk show guest.  In Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, we see many of the famous talk show moments – including the 1968 NBC debate when he baited the ubercool William F. Buckley into calling him a queer; that was a pricelessly typical moment, where Vidal playfully PRETENDED to take himself very seriously in labeling Buckley “crypto-Nazi”, causing Buckley – who really WAS taking himself seriously – to erupt.

Wrathall’s film benefits from his access to Vidal himself, facilitated by Vidal’s nephew, the director Burr Steers (who co-produced and appears).  So there are glimpses into less well-known aspects of Vidal’s life, including his longtime partner and his love of living in Italy.

Say what you must, Vidal was both absorbing and ever-amusing, which makes Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia an intelligent diversion.

A Coffee in Berlin: slacker minus coffee equals plenty of laughs

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A COFFEE IN BERLIN (OH BOY)
A COFFEE IN BERLIN (OH BOY)

Ranging from wry to hilarious, the German dark comedy A Coffee in Berlin hits every note perfectly.  Opening tomorrow, it’s the debut feature for writer-director Jan Ole Gerster, a talented filmmaker we’ll be hearing from again.

Jan Ole Gerster
Jan Ole Gerster

We see a slacker moving from encounter to encounter in a series of vignettes.  Gerster has created a warm-hearted but lost character who needs to connect with others – but sabotages his every opportunity.  He has no apparent long term goals, and even his short term goal of getting some coffee is frustrated.

As the main character (Tom Schilling) wanders through contemporary Berlin, A Coffee in Berlin demonstrates an outstanding sense of place, especially in a dawn montage near the end of the film. The soundtrack is also excellent – the understated music complements each scene remarkably well.

I saw A Coffee in Berlin (then titled Oh Boy) at Cinequest 2013 and singled it out as one of the three most wholly original films in the festival and as one of my favorite movie-going experiences of the year.  A Coffee in Berlin was snagged for the festival by Cinequest’s film scout extraordinaire Charlie Cockey.

DVD/Stream of the Week: Caesar Must Die

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caesar must die
In the taut 76 minutes of Caesar Must Die, convicts in an Italian maximum security prison put on a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.  Every year, there’s a drama laboratory at this prison.  It turns out that Julius Caesar is a perfect choice.

Julius Caesar is, most of all, a play about high stakes.  And high stakes, where a decision can result in life or death or power or failure or freedom or incarceration, is something these guys profoundly understand – and have time to reflect upon.  During rehearsal, one actor snaps at the director, “I’ve been in here for 20 tears, and you’re telling me not to waste time?”.  When Cassius states that he has wagered his life on the outcome of one battle and lost, the line is more powerful because we know the actor playing Cassius is himself a lifer.

When the prisoners audition, we learn that their sentences range from 14 years to “life meaning life”.  Most of them are naturalistic and very effective actors.  The guy who plays Caesar is especially powerful in his acting and reacting.

The Julius Caesar story unfolds in black-and-white as the prisoners rehearse and then play the early scenes in the contemporary prison setting.  Segments from the performance itself – about 15 minutes – are filmed in color.

It all works very well as a very successful Shakespeare movie – and as a prison movie, too. Caesar Must Die is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Hulu.

We Are the Best!: friendship at the age of moroseness and exuberance

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WE ARE THE BEST!
WE ARE THE BEST!

We Are the Best! is about Swedish thirteen-year-old girls in 1986 – and the most important descriptor here is “thirteen-year-old”.  It’s perhaps the age where friendship is most important.  It’s the age when the needle flips back and forth between moroseness and exuberance.  When you feel like your peers despise you, when you’re skittish about your own body, you’re exploring feelings about the opposite gender and you are certain that your parents are the most embarrassing on the planet – you really need someone on your own team to check in with.

In We Are the Best!, we have two girls with punk hair who are NOT the popular kids in school. Trying to stake out some personal dignity, they find themselves claiming to be a punk band, despite not owning or knowing how to play any musical instruments. They reach out to the other social outcast at their school, a serious practicing Christian who plays classical guitar, and she soon sports a punk haircut, too.  Together, they test the bonds of friendship and navigate the adventures that all thirteen-year-olds encounter.  As it explores the value of teen friendship, We are the Best! is funny, poignant and charming.

a searing scene from Ruby Dee

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Ruby Dee, who died this week at age 91, was a great actress of film and stage, as well as the artistic and political partner of her husband Ossie Davis. One of her most affecting scenes is “Gator’s Last Dance” in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. Samuel L. Jackson (in the breakthrough performance that set up Jackson for his star-making turn in Pulp Fiction) plays a crackhead.  Badly strung out, he bursts into the home of his parents (Dee and Davis) looking for some dope money.  At first look, Dee seems to have less of a role in the scene than Jackson or Davis. But the key is her intense desperation to avoid – and then to mitigate – the encounter between son and father. And, finally,  her fears are realized and manifest into profound grief. It’s a searing performance (and it’s worth sitting through the advertisement).

Movies to See Right Now

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IDA
IDA

Don’t miss the two MUST SEE movies out now. The first is the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction – the funniest film of the year so far and a guaranteed audience pleaser. The second is my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other.  Ida may only be in theaters for another week or so.

Here are other good movie choices:

My DVD/Stream of the Week is Run & Jump, an Irish film by a Bay Area filmmaker that works equally well as a romance and as a family drama. Run & Jump is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.

Set your DVR to Turner Classic Movies for next Friday’s showing of the wonderful noir mystery Laura from 1944. What lifts any great film above the others in its genre is the depth of the characterization, and here we have the unforgettable star columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) – a compelling mixture of megalomania and insecurity; there’s also the proto-career woman Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney at her most stunning) and the cynical detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), a guy whose emotions have been depleted but are rekindled by a murder victim he’s never met. Watch for future horror movie regular Vincent Price in an early role as an oily gigolo. David Raksin composed one of cinema’s most evocative musical themes. Laura makes my list of Greatest Movies of All Time.

The Final Member: the Icelandic penis documentary – not so much about penises

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final chapter“Of course you are” is what The Wife says when I answer one of her questions with something like, “I’m watching the Icelandic penis documentary”.  Indeed, the documentary The Final Member is about the curator of the Icelandic Phallological Museum.  He has collected and displays sample penises from every mammalian species from hamster to sperm whale.   THAT’S NOT THE WEIRD PART.

The museum still lacks a sample from Homo Sapiens.  It’s the curator’s quest – and the men vying to contribute their own organs – that is central to The Final Member.   Like the
Errol Morris films Days of Heaven (pet cemetery) and Tabloid (Mormon missionary, cloning dogs), it’s not that the OBJECT of obsession is so funny – it’s the obsession itself.  It’s that the documentary presents people who are SO OBSESSED and SO EARNEST about the topic.  Of course, it is pretty funny when guys are each striving to put their penises on museum display.

In fact, the lengths to which one guy is willing to go for penis fame and fortune is astounding and, for male viewers, wince-inducing.  I’m working on a list of Jawdropping Documentaries, and – believe me – The Final Member is gonna make that list.  I recommend The Final Member for its 75 minutes of “he said WHAT?” LOL moments.

BTW that’s one-third of a sperm whale penis in the image at the top of this post.  (And the very last shot in The Final Member is a very wry filmmaking joke, too.)

The Final Member is now streaming on Amazon and iTunes.

DVD/Stream of the Week: Run & Jump

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Maxine Peake in RUN & JUMP
Maxine Peake in RUN & JUMP

In the indie Run & Jump, a rare type of stroke has changed the personality of an Irish furniture maker; he has survived, but now prone to rages and catatonia, he is never going to be the same as before. He is returned to his family, led by his firecracker wife (Maxine Peake). Along comes an American medical researcher (Will Forte from Saturday Night Live and Nebraska), who moves with the family so he can continually film his patient’s symptoms.

The family initially resents the constant filming, although they desperately need the income from the research stipend. The researcher is so socially awkward that he’s almost catatonic himself, but he is able to provide the adult male presence that the family now misses, and they are eventually drawn to his kindness. Although he tries to maintain clinical distance, he is inevitably attracted to the vitality of the wife – a real live wire. But this isn’t going where you might expect…

Run & Jump succeeds both as a romance and as a family drama. The primary credit goes to co-writer and director Steph Green. A Bay Area filmmaker who now works in Ireland, Green was Oscar nominated for a live action short. Run & Jump is her first feature.

Maxine Peake’s affecting performance as the wife drives the film; Run & Jump is really the story of the wife’s struggles as she fights to keep her family afloat while making a near impossible adjustment.

Run & Jump is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.