moviegourmet

Coming up on TV: The Americanization of Emily

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Julie Andrews and James Garner in The Americanization of Emily

 

One  of my Overlooked Masterworks plays on TCM on October 25th.  Set in England just before the D-Day invasion, The Americanization of Emily (1964) is a biting satire and one of the great anti-war movies. James Garner plays an admiral’s staff officer charged with locating luxury goods and willing English women for the brass.  Julie Andrews plays an English driver who has lost her husband and other male family members in the War.  She resists emotional entanglements with other servicemen whose lives may be put at risk, but falls for Garner’s “practicing coward”, a man who is under no illusions about the glory of war and is determined to stay as far from combat as possible.

Unfortunately, Garner’s boss (Melvyn Douglas) has fits of derangement and becomes obsessed with the hope that the first American killed on the beach at D-Day be from the Navy.   Accordingly, he orders Garner to lead a suicide mission to land ahead of the D-Day landing, ostensibly to film it.  Fellow officer James Coburn must guarantee Garner’s martyrdom.

It’s a brilliant screenplay from Paddy Chayefsky, who won screenwriting Oscars for Marty, The Hospital and Network.

Today, Americanization holds up as least as well as its contemporary Dr. Strangelove and much better than Failsafe.

Reportedly, both Andrews and Garner have tagged this as their favorite film.

One of the “Three Nameless Broads” bedded by the Coburn character is played by Judy Carne, later of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

Updated Movies To See Right Now

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James Coburn and James Garner in The Americanization of Emily

The best movie to see is still The Social Network.   The birth story of Facebook is a riveting tale of college sophomores that are brilliant, ambitious, immature, self-absorbed and disloyal – and about to become zillionaires.  It’s a triumph for actor Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland, Zombieland and Solitary Man), director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War).  It’s already on my list of Best Movies of 2010 – So Far.

Howl has a fine performance by James Franco, but is marred by an unsuccessful animation.  Without strongly recommending it, I can say that The Town is a satisfying Hollywood thriller.  You can skip Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.  For trailers and other choices, see  Movies to See Right Now.

I have not yet seen Inside Job or Hereafter, which open this week.  You can see their trailers at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD of the Week is still The Day of the Jackal.  For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.

Movies on TV include  The Americanization of Emily (more on that tomorrow) and The Black Stallion, all coming up on TCM.

10 Most Memorable Food Scenes

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By popular demand, I have updated my list of  10 Most Memorable Food Scenes.   Many of you have pointed out deserving scenes that I left off my first draft.  Paula reminded me of the dining-as-foreplay scene in Tom Jones.  Rick mentioned The Freshman, in which the  The Fabulous Gourmet Club charges a $1 million prix fixe “for the privilege of eating the very last of a species”.  And somehow I had forgotten the food fight scene from Animal House.

And Judy reminded me of a movie that I had erased from my memory because I hate, hate, hate it – The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.  Nevertheless, I admit that the final (and I mean final) dining scene is most memorable.

Here’s my pick for the most memorable food scene in the movies:

For the most tantalizing food in the movies, see my completely different list of  10 Food Porn Movies.

Movies I'm Looking Forward To – Late October Edition

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I’ve updated the Movies I’m Looking Forward To page to add trailers and descriptions of some key late October releases.  First, we have two romps, the sex comedy Tamara Drewe and the tongue-in-cheek actioner RED this weekend.  Then we step up in class on October 22 with the Wall Street documentary Inside Job and Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter.  And October 29 brings us the eagerly awaited (at least by me)  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

The early buzz is that Inside Job may be this year’s best documentary and one of the year’s best films.  Here’s the trailer.

This week's Movies to See Right Now

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Rooney Mara and Jesse Eisenberg open The Social Network

 

The Social Network is still the top choice in theaters this week. The birth story of Facebook is a riveting tale of college sophomores that are brilliant, ambitious, immature, self-absorbed and disloyal – and about to become zillionaires.  It’s a triumph for actor Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland, Zombieland and Solitary Man), director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War).  It’s already on my list of Best Movies of 2010 – So Far.

Howl has a fine performance by James Franco, but is marred by an unsuccessful animation.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story is a light and wry coming-of-age comedy set in a locked psychiatric facility.  It’s good-hearted fluff with a few chuckles and an unexpectedly restrained and  heartfelt performance by Zach Galifianakis.

Without strongly recommending it, I can say that The Town is a satisfying Hollywood thriller.  You can skip Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.

For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.

My DVD of the Week is The Day of the Jackal, like The American, the tale of an international master assassin – only fact-based and even better.  For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.

Movies on TV include  Mister Roberts, Repo Man and Arsenic and Old Lace, all coming up on TCM.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story

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This is a light and wry coming-of-age comedy set in a locked psychiatric facility by Directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (Half Nelson, Sugar).  It’s hard for me to find humor in psych wards, but this good-hearted fluff had a few chuckles.  Keir Gilchrist and Emma Roberts star as the teens.  But the film is more of a showcase for Zach Galifianakis’ restrained and textured performance, less Wild Man and more  heartfelt – who knew?

DVD of the Week: The Day of the Jackal

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My DVD of the Week is The Day of the Jackal (1973), like The American, the tale of an international master assassin – only fact-based and even better.  In Day of the Jackal, French security forces are tipped off to a plot to assassinate President DeGaulle and they eventually figure out where and when the assassination will be attempted.  But they don’t know who they are looking for or what he looks like.  Without computers or cell phones, they must track down the unknown assassin in time.

Edward Fox is excellent as the resourceful and meticulously professional killer.  So is Michael Lonsdale as the creative yet methodical cop leading the manhunt.  But the real star is director Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here to Eternity, A Man for All Seasons).  As he showed in High Noon, Zinnemann knows how to tell a story and build tension, and the ending in Day of the Jackal is thrilling.

The Day of the Jackal has nothing to do with Carlos the Jackal of The Sundance Channel’s Carlos.

For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.

Carlos

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I haven’t seen it yet, but Cannes audiences loved this 5-hour biopic of the 70s terrorist Carlos the Jackal, and the film was bought by IFC and Sundance Channel.  The Sundance Channel is broadcasting it in three parts, this Monday through Wednesday, October 11-13.  Set your TiVos.

Many see this as a star-making breakthrough for its Venezuelan star Edgar Ramirez.

Howl

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Howl‘s filmmakers made a risky choice that pays off and a safe choice that doesn’t.  The risky choice is to make the film about a poem, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, not a conventional biopic of Ginsberg or a courtroom drama about the famous obscenity trial.  This is risky because poetry is not embraced by the mass audience; in our culture, poetry makes opera look like NASCAR in terms of popularity.  Yet the movie is at its strongest in the segments where James Franco’s Ginsberg reads from Howl.  The poem Howl – with its pain, rage, alienation and rebellion – is the best part of the movie Howl.   Snippets of Ginsberg’s life and the trial are placed about to give context to the poem.

The unfortunately safe choice is using animation to interpret the poem.  The poem evokes powerful imagery in the minds of the audience.  Here, the animation is very literal, so we see – and are distracted by – the images instead of thinking them up ourselves.  Maybe the filmmakers didn’t think that the audience would accept the unadorned reading of a poem.  Howl is a long poem, but the filmmakers do an effective job in delivering it to us in segments.  The language of the poem is not a shocking today as it was in the 50s, but definitely gets your attention.

Franco is great.  Jeff Daniels has a small juicy part, but David Straithern, Jon Hamm, Mary-Louise Parker, Bob Balaban, Treat Williams and Allesandro Nivona don’t have much to do.

The writer-directors here are Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, who made the Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk., which is one of the great documentaries and one of the great political films.