This week on The Movie Gourmet – a remembrance of the late Angela Lansbury and an overdue review of the unusually intelligent summer popcorn movie Nope, which is now streamable (but watch it on your biggest home screen). Soon I’ll be posting my reviews of three current theatrical releases: Amsterdam, Triangle of Sadness and Tar.
REMEMBRANCE
Angela Lansbury’s first screen role was as the saucy, self-interested maid in Gaslight, which kicked off a notable Hollywood career. Her best movie performance was as the evil mother in The Manchurian Candidate, molding her own son into a robotic assassin. Her memorable work in cinema was outstripped by her careers on Broadway (multiple Tonys for Mame, Sweeney Todd, etc.) and TV (264 episodes and several TV movies of Murder, She Wrote).
CURRENT MOVIES
- Don’t Worry, Darling: a misfire (but with Huell Howser’s cool house). In theaters.
- The Grand Bolero: passion unlocked. Amazon.
- Spin Me Round: an unpretentious and delightful comedy. AppleTV.
- My Donkey, My Lover and I: it had me at the title. AppleTV.
WATCH AT HOME
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- The Bra: Just your average silent Azerbaijani comedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- The Outfit: no one is just what they seem to be. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Colma: The Musical: a refreshing hoot. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
- The Worst Person in the World: funny, poignant, original and profoundly authentic. Amazon, Apple, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Heartworn Highways: like desperados waitin’ for a train. AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Showtime.
- Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel: the artsy and the quirky. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- The East: how do we punish corporate crime? HBO, Amazon, AppleTV, redbox.
- The Visitor: self-isolation no longer. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Project Nim: a chimp learns the foibles of humans. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Bombshell: The Hedy Lamar Story: the world’s most beautiful woman and her secrets. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, KINO Now.
- The Gatekeepers: winning tactics make for a losing strategy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Auggie: Who do you see when you put on the glasses? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
ON TV
On October 29 and 30, Turner Classic Movies is airing one of my Overlooked Noirs, the Argentine suspense classic El Vampiro Negro. The city is consumed by a child murderer on the prowl, and the police are turning the city upside down. With the cops disrupting business, the criminals launch their own man hunt. If this plot sounds familiar, it’s because The Black Vampire is a remake of Fritz Lang’s 1931 M. As the lead, Nathán Pinzón is AT LEAST AS GOOD as was Peter Lorre in the original M, tight roping the line between scary and pathetic. This film is as trippy as any 1953 movie could be. El Vampiro Negro (The Black Vampire) was restored by Eddie Muller’s Film Noir Foundation, and I attended the premiere of the restoration at Noir City; Eddie will provide intro and outro on this weekend’s Noir Alley.
One of the highly stylized nightclub scenes in THE BLACK VAMPIRE