Make plans now to attend Noir City, the great San Francisco festival of film noir.
And, ICYMI:
- 2019 at the Movies: Great Experiences
- Best Movies of 2019
- 10 overlooked movies of 2019
- 2019 Farewells: Behind the Camera
- 2019 Farewells: On the Screen
- Happy Anniversary to the Wife!
Remembrances
“I just want to say one word to you. Just one word…Plastics.” Screenwriter Buck Henry wrote some of the most iconic dialogue in the movies. “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me!” Henry was nominated for Oscars for adapting The Graduate screenplay and for directing Heaven Can Wait. Along with The Graduate, I also love his screenplay for What’s Up, Doc? He also played the hotel clerk in The Graduate and played himself in The Player, pitching The Graduate II. He appeared often on Saturday Night Live, once getting nipped by John Belushi’s samurai sword. His NYT obit includes his birth name and other tidbits.
Actress Sue Lyon died at the very end of last year and hadn’t made a movie in forty years. She is best remembered for her performance at age 16 as the titular character in Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 Lolita. She also appeared in The Night of the Iguana and in one of my guilty faves, The Flim Flam Man.
OUT NOW
- The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
- Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
- Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s both in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
- Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
- Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
- Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
ON VIDEO
My Streams of the Week are the six Best Movies of 2019 – So Far that are already available to stream. This week, I’m featuring They Shall Not Grow Old: a generation finally understood. Now you can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
On January 12, Turner Classic Movies will present the 1934 screwball comedy Twentieth Century, which holds up as well today as it did 85 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.
