This week at The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of A Song for Cesar and Adventures in Success. Also, Nightmare Alley is now streaming from HBO Max and Hulu.
CURRENT FILMS
- Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. In theaters.
- Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. In theaters.
- The Power of the Dog: One man’s meanness, another man’s growth. Netflix.
- The Worst Person in the World: funny, poignant, original and profoundly authentic. In theaters.
- Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. Hulu, HBO Max.
- Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
- The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
- Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn: completely different than any movie you’ve seen. AppleTV, Drafthouse On Demand.
- Parallel Mothers: Pedro Almodovar gives us a lush melodrama, sandwiched between bookend dives into today’s unhealed wounds from the Spanish Civil War. In theaters.
- Jagged: Insightful biodoc of Alanis Morissette, who is really not that angry, after all. HBO.
- The Lost Daughter : Great, Oscar-nominated performances by Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in this dark, unsettling exploration of the obligation of parenting. Netflix.
- Licorice Pizza: When nine years is a big age difference. In theaters.
- The Hand of God: Filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s own coming of age story – and a time capsule of 1986 Naples. Netflix.
- Being the Ricardos: a tepid slice of a really good story. Amazon (included with Prime).
Remember to check out all of my Best Movies of 2021.
ON TV
On March 24, Turner Classic Movies airs the compelling Dodsworth, William Wyler’s 1936 film version of the Sinclair Lewis novel. The title character is a guy who has worked hard to get rich enough to step away from the rat race and take his wife on an extended European holiday. He thinks that he finally has it all – until he discovers that his wife has conflicting needs.
In one of his greatest performances, Walter Huston plays Sam Dodsworth as a guy supremely confident in his own skin, until he is devastated in learning who his wife really is. Unlike many stars from the Classic Era, Huston’s naturalistic acting would work in today’s cinema. Ruth Chatterton, who was a big Broadway star just ending a ten-year movie career, is equally good as Sam’s unashamedly selfish wife Fran (you’ve just got to let me have my fling!).
The third great performance is Mary Astor’s most sympathetic, as Edith, the straight-shooting anti-Fran. Astor shot Dodsworth during the daytime and then suffered through a humiliating child custody trial, held at night (with Chatterton at her side for support). Astor won over the court on the stand by channeling the character of Edith.
“Love has to stop somewhere short of suicide.” I just discovered Dodsworth in 2020, thanks to TCM guru Sandy Wolf.