SAM NOW: solving a mystery…only part of the story

by
Reed Harkness in SAM NOW. Courtesy of HA/HA Productions.

In the surprisingly complex documentary Sam Now, two brothers go on a road trip to solve a family mystery – but that’s only part of the story. Beginning as a teenager, writer-director Reed Harkness spent his teen years shooting movie projects that starred his younger half-brother Sam. Reed and Sam grew up in a blended family of spirited brothers, a family with one striking anomaly – Sam’s mother had suddenly vanished.

Shortly after the disappearance, the family learned that the mom was alive, having left of her own volition. She was choosing to live elsewhere secretly, severing all contact with her family. Reed and Sam’s family went on with their lives, and the subject of the missing mom was no longer discussed.

Years later, as young men, Reed and Sam decide to get in the car with Reed’s cameras and track down Sam’s mom. Will they find her? Why did she abandon her children? Can they resume/salvage their relationship or work out a new one?

The subject Harkness famiy in SAM NOW. Courtesy of HA/HA Productions.

Those are compelling questions, but the quest to find the mom isn’t the whole movie. Once the initial mystery is solved, Reed Harkness kept his camera focused on the participants over the next decade.

Beginning with home movies when the brothers were kids, Sam Now documents 25 years of family life and individual personal growth. It’s all complicated, as we might expect with multigenerational trauma.

Reed Harkness’ use of music in Sam Now is particularly strong. Reed and Sam’s rowdy boyhood and the brother’s road trip is accented with boisterous garage rock. More contemplative music accompanies the personal reflections later in the film.

Sam Now garnered various film fest awards, aired on PBS’ POV, and releases on streaming platforms, including Amazon and Vudu, on June 6.

32 SOUNDS: a concept movie, and the concept is kinda boring

by
32 SOUNDS. Courtesy of Abramorama.

The documentary 32 Sounds strives to be an immersive dive into sounds of all types and the impact of sounds on humans. It’s an anthology of 32 bits, each related to sound in different way.

The immersive quality is where 32 Sounds falls short. After seeing the trailer, I made an effort to see 32 Sounds in a theater with surround sound. But, after the filmmakers address the audience at the beginning, the surround sound is not really necessary to enjoy (or, in my case, NOT enjoy) the film.

The two most powerful scenes don’t have much to do with the technical or artsy stuff that comprise much of 32 Sounds. In one, a scientist listens to a long-forgotten letter to his future self that he taped as an 11-year-old. Later, a man muses on “ghost voices” – how he can ALMOST recall the voices of his dead loved ones.

Overall, the 95 minutes I invested in slogging thru 32 Sounds was wasted, except for the ten minutes that I drifted into a deep, blissful nap.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Photo caption: Petri Poikolainen in THE MAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO SEE TITANIC. Courtesy of Cinedigm Entertainment Group.

This week on The Movie Gourmet, my top recommendation is The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic, a rare nugget of complete originality that takes us into a unfamiliar world filled with unexpected laughs, suddenly turns into a thriller, and finishes as a moving love story. The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic is one of the Best Movies of 2023 – So Far.

But that’s not all! I also have new reviews of the showbiz biodoc Being Mary Tyler Moore, the family comedy Dealing with Dad and the ever-kinetic French indie Rodeo. And, from TCM’s Memorial Day Weekend slate filled with black-and-white war movies, I’ve plucked a 67-year-old gem that you almost certainly have not seen.

Note that Little Richard: I Am Everything and The Lost King have moved from theaters to the streaming platforms.

REMEMBRANCE

Jim Brown is justifiably best known for being voted the best NFL player of the 20th Century, but the reason he left the NFL was to star in the movies, where he was an African-American trailblazer. In 1969’s 100 Rifles, he played the first African-American male character in a major Hollywood movie to be shown having sex with a white woman (Raquel Welch).  Although Brown displayed a range of emotion onscreen described by James Wolcott as “no wider than a mail slot”, he was a pretty convincing action star, perhaps best in The Dirty Dozen.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

THE SPEED CUBERS. Courtesy of Netflix.

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

  • The Speed Cubers: odd, and then profound. Netflix.
  • Force Majeure: some things you just can’t get past. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, HBO (included).
  • Satan & Adam: more than an odd couple. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Levinsky Park: refuge for refugees? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: 5 million orange-toothed critters and a Cajun octogenarian. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • The 11th Green: a thinking person’s paranoid conspiracy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Wave: Everything you want in a disaster movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Magallanes: some wrongs cannot be righted. AppleTV.

ON TV

Paul Newman and Edmond O’Brien in THE RACK

On Memorial Day Weekend (May 28), Turner Classic Movies airs an overlooked Korean War film, The Rack (1956). A returning US army captain (Paul Newman) is court-martialed for collaborating with the enemy while a POW. He was tortured, and The Rack explores what can be realistically expected of a prisoner under duress. It’s a pretty good movie, and Wendell Corey, Edmond O’Brien, Walter Pidgeon, Lee Marvin and Cloris Leachman co-star.

Paul Newman and Walter Pidgeon in THE RACK

DEALING WITH DAD: two serious topics in an ok comedy

by
Peter S. Kim, Ally Maki and Hayden Szeto in DEALING WITH DAD. Courtesy of 1091 Pictures.

Dealing with Dad is a topical family comedy with an Asian-American cast. Three adult siblings – the super-achiever oldest sister, the passive middle brother and the infantilized youngest brother, a gaming slacker – meet at their parents’ home. The dad, whose harsh and never-bending expectations battered them as kids, has become paralyzed (and defanged) by severe depression.

Although Dealing with Dad is a comedy, its strengths are in addressing two serious subjects – depression and the issues that many second-generation Asian-Americans face because of their immigrant parents’ parenting styles.

The differences between the siblings spawn lots of laughs, but I found the banter a bit too sit-commy for my taste.

Bay Area audiences will appreciate that Dealing with Dad is set in MILPITAS.

I screened for the 2022 Cinequest. It started rolling out in theaters on May 19.

BEING MARY TYLER MOORE: you might just make it after all

by
Photo caption: BEING MARY TYLER MOORE. Courtesy of HBO.

The showbiz biodoc Being Mary Tyler Moore traces the career and life of an important trailblazer who captivated American TV audiences for decades. The ever-relatable Mary Tyler Moore pioneered the fictional single woman on TV, an important cultural moment.

While she was playing the archetypal single career woman, Moore was a wife and mother. She and husband Grant Tinker created some of the best TV ever – The Bob Newhart Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, Hill Street Blues, and St. Elsewhere – and pioneered the TV spinoff with Rhoda. It bears remembering that CBS’ Saturday evening 8-11 pm slate in the fall of 1973 was the best nightly TV lineup ever: All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show. 

Being Mary Tyler Moore traces the lesser known aspects of Moore’s life, including her childhood and retirement years. Of course, there’s a clip from the Mary Tyer Moore Show’s unforgettable Chuckles the Clown episode.

Incidentally, I highly recommend Joan Jett’s version of the MTM Show theme Love Is All Around, which you can find on YouTube.

Being Mary Tyler Moore is streaming on HBO, beginning May 26. I screened it for the SFFILM in April.

is in the Air.

THE BLIND MAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO SEE TITANIC: wow – laughs, thrills, love

by
Photo caption: Petri Poikolainen in THE MAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO SEE TITANIC. Courtesy of Cinedigm Entertainment Group.

Wow. The Finnish indie The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic is a rare nugget of complete originality that takes us into a unfamiliar world filled with unexpected laughs, suddenly turns into a thriller, and finishes as a moving love story. It’s unlike any movie I’ve seen.

Our protagonist, Jaako (Petri Poikolainen), is blind and confined to a wheelchair. Writer-director Teemu Nikki tells his story, in that most visual of media – cinema, from the perspective of a blind person. We either see Jaako’s face or the blurs that Jaako sees.

Jaako is a movie nerd, secure in his cultural taste. He rejects pity and strives to maintain his dignity with his sarcastic humor. (He has renamed his caregiver after two sadistic movie nurses – Annie Wilkes and Nurse Rached.) He’s a very, very funny guy.

Jaako has a girlfriend, Sirpa (Marjaana Maijala), that he’s never met. She is also housebound with a disability, but in another city. Sirpa has a sense of humor that can match his, and the two bond on the telephone, each bringing the other some delight each day. One day, Sirpa is devastated by some bad medical news, and Jaako resolves to travel by himself, unaided, across Finland to comfort her. Jaako and we go forth on an eventful journey. I don’t think that a person can display real courage until they are really afraid, and Jaako learns this. too.

Like Jaako, lead actor Petri Poikolainen is also a blind man with multiple sclerosis.

What Teemu Nikki has created here is astounding. There are layers upon layers of newness and originality in The Blind Man, etc: the character of Jaako, the procedural of living independently with both MS and blindness, and cinema from the POV of the blind person. The film’s overriding achievement is empathy.

The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic won an audience award at Venice Film Festival. It’s one of the Best Movies of 2023 – So Far. The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic is available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

RODEO: roller coaster on two wheels

by
Photo caption: Julie Ledru in RODEO. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

In the ever-kinetic Rodeo, a remarkably fierce young woman invites herself into a crew of dirt riders. Rodeo is set with remarkable verisimilitude in a subculture of young bikers from France’s hardscrabble immigrant communities. It’s an edgy scene, and Julia (newcomer Julie Ledru) penetrates it only because she’s a little scary herself.

Julia is a force of nature, and she is able to back off guys with an explosive hostility. When she is ready to adopt a dangerous new passion on two wheels, no one can stand in her way. Off she rides, on a journey with life-and-death stakes.

Rodeo is the first feature for French director Lola Quivoron, who is the real star of this roller coaster of a movie. If she wants to, Quivoron will be making big Hollywood action films like The Fast and the Furious.

Rodeo won the Un Certain Regard coup de coeur prize at Cannes, and I screened it for the SLO Film Fest. Rodeo is now available to stream from Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Photo caption: Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Fanny: The Right to Rock (now on PBS) and the new indie drama Land of Gold. Plus a streaming review of Force Majeure.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

Campbell Scott in THE 11TH GREEN. Courtesy of The 11th Green Film.

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

  • The 11th Green: a thinking person’s paranoid conspiracy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Satan & Adam: more than an odd couple. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Levinsky Park: refuge for refugees? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • The Speed Cubers: odd, and then profound. Netflix.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: 5 million orange-toothed critters and a Cajun octogenarian. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Reggie: it’s not just about Reggie. Netflix.
  • Hannah Ha Ha: what makes for human value and fulfillment? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Last Lullaby: backing out of a contract hit. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu, redbox.
  • Best Worst Movie: a romp through cinematic awfulness. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV.
  • The Wave: Everything you want in a disaster movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Magallanes: some wrongs cannot be righted. AppleTV.

FORCE MAJEURE – some things you just can’t get past

by
FORCE MAJEURE

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 was 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. Ostlund has gone on to direct The Square and Triangle of Sadness, both of which won the Palm d’Or at Cannes; (but Force Majeure is his best film.)

Force Majeure was Sweden’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It is available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube and is free on HBO.

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

FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK: triple-threat trailblazers

by
Photo caption: Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

Fanny: The Right to Rock documents the first all-female rock band to get signed by a major record label and churn out five albums. Fifty years ago, the band Fanny was breaking ground for women musicians – and for lesbians and Filipinas. Women rockers were a novelty in the early 1970; imagine layering on LGBTQ identity and Asian-American heritage.

Although you probably haven’t heard of them, this was no garage band. They had a major label record deal, European tours, and hung out with big name peers. Unlike many male bands of the period, Fanny didn’t crash and burn due to drug use or clashing egos. They just never caught on with record-buyers.

FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

It’s pretty clear that sexism in the music industry and media, combined with maybe being a little ahead of their time to deny Fanny stardom. Too bad – I would have loved to listen to them in their heyday.

Their music fits right into the stuff I was listening to in the 1970s. I’m guessing that the reason why I hadn’t heard of them is that they didn’t get played on FM radio in the Bay Area.

These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot. Tomorrow night, May 17, they’ll perform for one time at the Whisky A-Go-Go to commemorate the 50 year anniversary of their now infamous club performance at the Whisky.

Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

Fanny: The Right to Rock is filled with colorful anecdotes from back in the day. Todd Rundgren, an important early associate of Fanny, and Bonnie Raitt appear as eyewitnesses. Cherie Curry of the Runaways, Cathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Kate Pierson of the B-52s testify to Fanny’s trailblazing status.

I screened Fanny: The Right to Rock last year at the Nashville Film Festival. On May 22, you can watch it on your very own television when It will be broadcast on PBS and begin streaming on on PBS.ORG and the PBS APP.