Lots to come from The Movie Gourmet as I catch up after my Cinequest coverage. I’m finishing up my interviews with Cinequest’s Mr. Documentary, Sandy Wolf, and Mine 9 director Eddie Mensore, along with Cinequest reviews of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Transit, Teen Spirit, Buy Me a Gun, The Bra, The Hummingbird Project, The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste Garcia, Original Sin and WBCN and the American Revolution. At least four of these films will be in theaters soon.
Speaking of Cinequest, my strong recommendations for Mine 9 and Last Sunrise were validated by the Cinequest Jury Awards for Best Narrative Drama Feature and Best Science Fiction Feature, respectively. Travel Ban, which I also recommended, won an Audience Award.
Along with Transit, I also need to finish writing up the art house imports Birds of Passage and Sunset, along with the doc The Brink.
ON TV
On March 24, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting Twentieth Century, a 1934 screwball comedy, which holds up as well today as it did 77 years ago. A flamboyantly narcissistic Broadway producer (John Barrymore) has fallen on hard times and hops a transcontinental train to persuade his former star (Carole Lombard), now an A-list movie star, to headline his new venture. Barrymore’s shameless self-entitlement and hyper dramatic neediness makes for one of the funniest performances in the movies.
And, on March 29, TCM airs the innovative film noir He Walked By Night, completed by an uncredited Anthony Mann. Inspired by a true life story, the LAPD goes on a man hunt for a highly skilled wacko played by Richard Basehart, with his bland good looks (but maniacal eyes). It’s a police procedural elevated by the great cinematography of John Alton, especially the sewer escape chase (right up there with the one in The Third Man).
