Upcoming Movies – Page 4 – The Movie Gourmet

NOIR CITY: the great San Francisco festival of film noir

January 18, 2017January 18, 2017 by movie gourmet

I always look forward to the Noir City film fest, which gets underway in San Francisco this week. 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 movies not available on DVD. And we get to watch them in a vintage movie palace (San Francisco’s Castro Theatre) with a thousand other film fans.

The theme of this year’s festival is the Heist Movie, Noir City is presenting a wonderful array of heist movies from the classic American film noir period, foreign noirs and an especially healthy selection of neo-noirs. Being noir, you might not expect many of these heists to end well. And some are from noir’s Perfect Crime sub-genre – they’re going to get away with the elaborately planned big heist EXCEPT FOR ONE THING.

Noir City runs January 20-29. To see the this year’s Noir City program and buy tickets, go here.

On Noir City’s first weekend:

The Asphalt Jungle: As long as things go according to plan… John Huston directed a marvelous cast (Sterling Hayden, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, Jean Hagen, John McIntire). And even Louis Calhern knows that Marilyn Monroe isn’t going to stick around as his moll.
Violent Saturday: a completely overlooked film from one of my favorite directors that I hadn’t seen until Eddie Muller programmed it for this festival. Filmed in the bright Arizona desert with CinemaScope and De Luxe color, the story is plenty noir.
Four Ways Out: Saturday night, Noir City goes goes Italian with the last script written by screenwriter Federico Fellini before he started directing. Four guys pull a heist, and it goes bad four different ways.
Big Deal on Madonna Street, the funniest film in the festival, with an Italian gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Watch for a 34-year-old pre-Fellini Marcello Mastroianni.
Rififi: This French classic is the top heist film ever and pioneering in its use of real time. After the team is assembled and the job is plotted, the actual crime unfolds in real-time – over thirty minutes of nerve wracking silence.
The Big Risk: It’s a highlight because it’s a French noir starring the bloodhound-visaged Lino Ventura that I have NOT seen, so I’ll be going to Noir City myself on Sunday.

And midweek, at Noir City:

The rarely-seen Once a Thief (Alain Delon, trying to keep Ann-Margret while being hunted by Van Heflin) and The Sicilian Clan (with the neo-noir trifecta of Delon, Ventura and Jean Gabin), both on Wednesday evening, January 25.

I’ll be writing about Noir City’s tremendous final weekend. Stay tuned.

TCM’s Hitchcock binge-a-thon

December 31, 2016 by movie gourmet

You can spend New Years Day watching football OR you can tune into Turner Classic Movies for OVER TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK. Seven out of Hitchcock’s best eight films are on tap: Rope, Strangers on a Train, The Birds, Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window and Shadow of a Doubt. (Only North by Northwest is missing.)

Because Hitchcock was known for the “psychological” thriller, look for John Dall playing the classic narcissist in Rope and Robert Walker playing the most creepily functional psychopath in Strangers on a Train. If I had to pick just one Hitchcock classic to watch tomorrow, it would be Rear Window.

TCM is also mixing in some not-so-great Hitchcock for those of you who are curious (or obsessive): Torn Curtain, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Family Plot, Marnie and The Trouble with Harry.

Happy binge-watching!

TONI ERDMANN: Must See at MVFF

October 8, 2016 by movie gourmet

One MUST SEE at the Mill Valley Film Festival is Toni Erdmann, from writer-director Maren Ade. You might not expect an almost three-hour German comedy to break through, but I’ve seen it, and I think that it’s a lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Ade gives us a woman’s perspective of a father-daughter relationship, creating a totally original and unforgettable father who takes prankstering into performance art. This is a movie with the funniest nude brunch you’ll ever witness that still will leave you choked up at the end.

Toni Erdmann opens January 20 in the Bay Area, but you can see it at the MVFF today, October 8, and on October 13; both screenings are at the Rafael in San Rafael.

This year’s MVFF runs from October 6-16, mostly at the Sequoia in Mill Valley and the Rafael in San Rafael, but also at three other Marin venues. Check out the program and tickets for the MVFF. I’ll be adding more festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.

Mill Valley Film Festival: the documentaries

October 5, 2016 by movie gourmet

Here are my top documentary picks at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival:

Tower is a remarkably original retelling of the 1966 mass shooting at UT Austin. Tower is a tick-tock of the 96 minutes when 49 people were randomly chosen to be shot by a gunman in the landmark tower 240 feet above the campus. That gunman is barely mentioned (and may not even be named) in the movie. What makes Tower distinctive and powerful it’s the survivors who tell their stories, reenacted by actors who are animated by a rotoscope-like technique (think Richard Linklater’s Waking Life). Telling this story through animation, dotted with some historical stills and footage, is captivating. October 7 and 9.
Death by Design is an important environmental exposé on the toxic impact of personal electronics. Most of us have heard that some very dangerous materials and some horrific working conditions are used in the manufacturing of our favorite devices. Death by Design is the first film to successfully tie it all together, with historical perspective, global sweep and a possible way out. October 7 and 11.
Ella Brennan: Commanding the Table tells the story of the New Orleans powerhouse restaurateur – and it’s compelling. This is a woman who started running restaurants in the 1950s before she was thirty, the mentor of celebrity chefs Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse and Jamie Shannon and responsible for Bananas Foster, the Jazz Brunch and a host of food trends. October 15 only.

Ella Brennan leads the MVFF’s Focus: Culinary Cinema program, along with documentaries on chefs Massimo Botturo (Theater of Life) and Jeremiah Tower (Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent) and a road trip narrative, Paris Can Wait, starring Alec Baldwin and Diane Lane.

Of course, the big family hit of the Holiday season may turn out to be, of all things a documentary about a Mongolian girl – The Eagle Huntress; reportedly it’s both a crowd pleaser and spectacular eye candy.

This year’s MVFF runs from October 6-16, mostly at the Sequoia in Mill Valley and the Rafael in San Rafael, but also at three other Marin venues. Check out the program and tickets for the MVFF. I’ll be adding more festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.

Mill Valley Film Festival: best bets

October 5, 2016 by movie gourmet

The Mill Valley Film Festival is the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the prestige films that are scheduled for release during Award Season.. My choices for the most promising entries among the Big Movies:

Arrival stars Amy Adams as a linguist dispatched to communicate with alien lifeforms Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Incendies – my top movie of 2011, Prisoners, Sicario).
La La Land is a big studio musical a la Singing in the Rain with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Loving tells the story of the Virginia couple whose 1967 US Supreme Court case overturned state laws banning inter-racial marriage. Stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. Directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, all three of which made my Best of the Year lists).
Buzz is trending for Lion, with Dev Patel starring as an Australian adoptee returning to India to search for his biological parents.
And the big family hit of the Holiday season may turn out to be, of all things a documentary about a Mongolian girl – The Eagle Huntress; reportedly it’s both a crowd pleaser and spectacular eye candy.

One MUST SEE at the fest is Toni Erdmann, from writer-director Maren Ade. You might not expect an almost three-hour German comedy to break through, but I’ve seen it, and I think that it’s a lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Ade gives us a woman’s perspective of a father-daughter relationship, creating a totally original and unforgettable father character that takes prankstering into performance art. This is a movie with the funniest nude brunch you’ll ever witness that still will leave you choked up at the end.Toni Erdmann leads a roster rich with future art house hits from some of the world’s leading filmmakers:

The Handmaiden from Chan-wook Park of Oldboy.
Julieta, Pedro Almodovar’s latest),
Aquarius, starring Sonia Braga, still luminous 40 years after Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands.
The Salesman from Asghar Farhadi of A Separation.
Certain Women from Kelly Reichardt of Wendy and Lucy, starring Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern.
Paterson from Jim Jarmusch with Adam Driver; Jarmusch’s Iggy Pop doc Gimme Shelter also screens at MVFF.
Frantz from François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Potiche).
Elle from Paul Verhoeven with Isabelle Huppert in, what else?, a psychological thriller with disturbing sex.

Jeff Nichols, Kelly Reichardt and Asghar Farhadi will be presenting their films in person.

The 2016 MVFF also features a solid lineup of documentaries, including Tower, a highly original look at a mass shooting, and Death by Design, an important environmental exposé on the toxic impact of our favorite electronic devices.

This year’s MVFF runs from October 6-16, mostly at the Sequoia in Mill Valley and the Rafael in San Rafael, but also at three other Marin venues. Check out the program and tickets. I’ll be adding more festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.

LOVING Credit: Ben Rothstein/Focus Features

A Tale of Two Trailers

October 2, 2016 by movie gourmet

I thought that I had a pretty good grasp about film American Honey, which opens this weekend, because I’d seen its trailer several times over the past couple months. After all, it’s directed by Andrea Arnold, a director I very much admire for Red Road and Fish Tank, two superb and VERY unsettling movies with female protagonists. American Honey won the Jury prize at Cannes and has been favored by critics who’ve seen it (unlike me). But THEN I saw a more recent promo for the film and was jarred by the contrast. Both the trailer and the promo are from the distributor A24. I’m showing them to you in the reverse order that I saw them. Watch them both and see what YOU think.

Here’s the promo. Seems to me like it’s about a party-heavy, teen adventure road movie. A lark.

Now here’s the trailer that I had seen first. Seems like a searingly realistic movie about alienated and unsupported teen runaways, dabbling in all sorts of scams and and illegality, with lots of risky (and very dangerous) behaviors. Seems more edgy and even disturbing to me.

One of these (I suspect the promo) is going to end up on my list of Most Misleading Trailers.

Anyway, by all reports it’s another fine film from Arnold, and I’m looking forward to the entire 2 hours and 41 minutes.

LOOKS LIKE AN AMAZING FALL SEASON FOR MOVIES

October 1, 2016 by movie gourmet

Every October through New Year, Hollywood rolls out its most cinematically aspirational movies to compete with indie and foreign Oscar bait. This shaping up to be a killer Prestige Season – the depth of the upcoming offerings is especially promising. We know about them because they’ve been screened at major film festivals earlier this year, and the buzz has leaked out. These movies start rolling out into theaters on October 7 and 14 (Birth of a Nation and Certain Women) and continue opening through January 20 in the Bay Area (Toni Erdmann).

The top candidates for the Best Picture Oscar are looking to be:

Arrival stars Amy Adams as a linguist dispatched to communicate with alien lifeforms Directed by Denis Villaneuve (Incendies – my top movie of 2011, Prisoners, Sicario).
La La Land is a big studio musical a la Singing in the Rain with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Loving tells the story of the Virginia couple whose 1967 US Supreme Court case overturned state laws banning inter-racial marriage. Stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. Directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, all three of which made my Best of the Year lists).
Manchester By the Sea, a family drama from writer-director Kenneth Lonergan, the genius behind the little-seen Margaret. Stars Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and Kyle Chandler. Big hit at Sundance.

Other major releases that could break through:

Lion stars Dev Patel as an Australian adoptee returning to India to search for his biological parents; costarring Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara.
Birth of a Nation – Nate Parker writes, directs and stars in this depiction of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion. This was an awards favorite after Sundance in January, but the buzz has been sinking after the publicizing of director Parker’s own involvement in a 1999 campus rape case; (he was tried and acquitted).
Jackie – Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy.
Hacksaw Ridge is the true story of the WWII conscientious objector who served as a battlefield medic and earned the Congressional Medal of Honor. Being a Mel Gibson movie, the battle scenes are realistic and vivid.
And the big family hit of the Holiday season may turn out to be, of all things a documentary about a Mongolian girl – The Eagle Huntress; reportedly it’s both a crowd pleaser and spectacular eye candy.

Then there is an entire herd of foreign and indie films that will grace the art houses. Some will break through as popular hits and, undoubtedly, some will spawn Oscar nominations for acting, directing and writing awards.

Toni Erdmann is writer-director Maren Ade’s perspective of a father-daughter relationship, creating a totally original and unforgettable father who takes prankstering into performance art. You might not expect an almost three-hour German comedy to break through, but I’ve seen it, and I think that it’s a lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture.
Nocturnal Animals is a violent thriller with Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon.
The Handmaiden is a mystery romance set in Japan, from Chan-wook Park of Oldboy.
Julieta is Pedro Almodovar’s latest. That’s enough for some of us.
Aquarius, stars Sonia Braga as a woman battling developers to protect her home; Braga is still luminous 40 years after Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands.
Certain Women comes from Kelly Reichardt of Wendy and Lucy, starring Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern.
The Salesman is another personal drama from Asghar Farhadi of A Separation.
Personal Shopper is a Parisian ghost story that stars Kristen Stewart. From director Olivier Assayas.
Elle, from director Paul Verhoeven, stars Isabelle Huppert in, what else?, a psychological thriller with disturbing sex.
Paterson Adam Driver stars in this drama from Jim Jarmusch.

Keep coming back to The Movie Gourmet. and I’ll keep you current on this year’s Big Movies.

Coming up: Mill Valley Film Festival

September 28, 2016September 28, 2016 by movie gourmet

The Mill Valley Film Festival always showcases many of the most promising prestige films that are scheduled for release during Award Season. It’s the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies.

This year’s fest opens on October 6 with BOTH Arrival and La La Land and closes on October 16 with Loving – three of the biggest prestige movies and early favorites for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards.

Arrival stars Amy Adams as a linguist dispatched to communicate with alien lifeforms Directed by Denis Villaneuve (Incendies – my top movie of 2011, Prisoners, Sicario).
La La Land is a big studio musical a la Singing in the Rain with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Loving tells the story of the Virginia couple whose 1967 US Supreme Court case overturned state laws banning inter-racial marriage. Stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. Directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, all three of which made my Best of the Year lists).
Besides Arrival, La La Land and Loving, buzz is trending for another MVFF offering – Lion – with Dev Patel starring as an Australian adoptee returning to India to search for his biological parents.
And the big family hit of the Holiday season may turn out to be, of all things a documentary about a Mongolian girl – The Eagle Huntress; reportedly it’s both a crowd pleaser and spectacular eye candy.

One MUST SEE at the fest is Toni Erdmann, from writer-director Maren Ade. You might not expect an almost three-hour German comedy to break through, but I’ve seen it, and I think that it’s a lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Ade gives us a woman’s perspective of a father-daughter relationship, creating a totally original and unforgettable father character that takes prankstering into performance art. This is a movie with the funniest nude brunch you’ll ever witness, and it will still leave you choked up at the end. Toni Erdmann leads a roster rich with future art house hits from some of the world’s leading filmmakers:

The Handmaiden from Chan-wook Park of Oldboy.
Julieta, Pedro Almodovar’s latest.
Aquarius, starring Sonia Braga, still luminous 40 years after Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands.
The Salesman from Asghar Farhadi of A Separation.
Certain Women from Kelly Reichardt of Wendy and Lucy, starring Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern.
Paterson from Jim Jarmusch with Adam Driver; Jarmusch’s Iggy Pop doc Gimme Shelter also screens at MVFF.
Frantz from François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Potiche).
Elle from Paul Verhoeven with Isabelle Huppert in, what else?, a psychological thriller with disturbing sex.

Celebrity appearances, for those of you who like that sort of thing, will include Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams, Ewan McGregor, Emma Stone, Gael García Bernal, Edward James Olmos, Joel Edgerton, Annette Bening and Aaron Eckhardt. For those of you seeking a chance to hear great filmmakers discuss their work in the flesh, you’ll get your chance with Jeff Nichols, Kelly Reichardt and Asghar Farhadi.

MIA MADRE: deeply personal and about loss

September 1, 2016 by movie gourmet

John Turturro in MY MOTHER — Margherita Buy and John Turturro in MIA MADRE

So let’s get one thing straight right up front – Mia Madre is NOT a dramedy. It’s an Italian drama that is leavened with bits of comedy. Writer-director Nanni Moretti has constructed a deeply personal portrait of a person in mid-career and mid-life who is losing her aged parent. There’s never a convenient moment to go through this experience, and Moretti’s protagonist, a movie director (Margherita Buy), is juggling her job and her relationships with her teen daughter, her ex-husband and her brother (played by Moretti). It’s all very complicated – just like it is in real life, and Moretti brings authenticity to the story.

All of this is pretty somber, but our heroine is making a movie, and she has cast an astonishingly pompous American star (John Turturro) who claims to speak more Italian that he really does and who can’t remember his lines. Every scene with Turturro is hilarious as he bumbles through the filmmaking with shameless bravado.

Nanni Moretti is a gifted filmmaker who has been successful in varied genres. I really enjoyed his comedy We Have a Pope, about a newly elected pope who suffers a panic attack and flees the Vatican. This is more serious stuff. The Wife, who liked it less than I did, refers to it as the “depressing Italian dying mother movie”. I found it very affecting, especially the emotionally satisfying ending.

I saw Mia Madre at the Mill Valley Film Festival in October 2015, but its theatrical release in the bay Area was delayed until this weekend..

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival – the top picks

July 20, 2016 by movie gourmet

Here’s a preview of the 36th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF36), which opens tomorrow, July 21, and runs through August 7 at five locations throughout the Bay Area. The festival offers a broad range of film experiences:

51 features (33 Documentaries, 18 Narratives) from 13 countries (but mostly from the US and Israel).
2 programs of short films (Jews in Shorts), a web series and first two episodes of the miniseries False Flag.
14 world, North American or US premieres.
celebrity appearances by Norman Lear, Robert Klein, Adam (s0n of Leonard) Nimoy and a passel of filmmakers.

Here are my four top recommendations:

The documentary The Last Laugh explores humor and the Holocaust. Is there anything funny about Nazis or about the Holocaust itself? When is humor acceptable, therapeutic, transgressive or even taboo? How has the passage of time affected what is funny? And does it matter who tells the joke? We hear from Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Rob and Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, concentration camp survivor and Hogan’s Heroes star Robert Clary and, most unforgettably, Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone.
An addictive taste of the Israeli miniseries False Flag, a character-driven thriller with elements of the whodunit, the paranoid thriller, the perfect crime movie and the espionage procedural.
The world premiere of Wrestling Jerusalem, an imaginative examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the perspectives of seventeen distinct characters, both Jew and Arab, in a one-man play.
Fever at Dawn – an epic romance with both an exploration of identity and a moral choice.

One of the most appealing features of the SFJFF is that, wherever you live in the Bay Area, the fest comes to you. SFJFF will present 27-51 films at each of the main venues – the Castro in San Francisco, CineArts in Palo Alto and the Roda Theater at the Berkeley Rep. The festival will also screen at least 14 movies at both the Rafael in San Rafael and the Piedmont in Oakland.

Of my top picks, False Flag and Wrestling Jerusalem will screen in San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Rafael. The Last Laugh will be playing at the Castro and the Roda. Fever at Dawn will screen in San Francisco, Berkeley and Palo Alto.

You can peruse the entire program and buy tickets and passes at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. The fest also offers a handy iPhone app available from the App Store: sjff36. You can follow the Festival on Twitter at @SFJewish Film; and, of course, you can follow my coverage at @themoviegourmet.