Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Olivia Colman in EMPIRE OF LIGHT. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – two film festivals at once, I’m heading to Oakland for Noir City, while covering Park City, Utah’s Slamdance virtually. Also, I have new reviews of Empire of Light and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a rant and a remembrance.

I just saw Broker, which I’ll be writing about soon. It’s an exceptional film, which will take the #2 slot on my top ten movie list. See it when you can.

Important note: many of the year’s most prestigious films have become available to stream (see below in CURRENT MOVIES): Aftersun, The Eternal Daughter, The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, Decision to Leave, Armageddon Time and Triangle of Sadness.

A RANT ABOUT THE ELVIS MOVIE

I generally detest the filmmaking of Baz Luhrman, so I had skipped his 2022 Elvis until this week; The lead actor, Austin Butler, won the dramatic acting Golden Globe, so, even though the Golden Globes have little credibility with me, I gave it a whirl. Actually, I gave the first hour-and-ten-minutes a whirl. It’s rare that I can’t finish a big, popular movie, but I had to bail on Elvis.

Elvis turns out like much of Luhrman’s other work, with perhaps even more unrestrained garishness, which, in writing about his The Great Gatsby, I labeled “flashy, hollow and lame”. There is an unremitting assault of frenetic eye candy, none of which serves to reveal anything about Elvis.

And, having done a lot of reading about Elvis, I was distracted by Luhrman’s misleading narrative, most outrageously inventing a fantasy about Elvis’ relations with African-Americans, and even outsizing the career role of Elvis’ mother. For historical accuracy, Luhrman makes Oliver Stone look like David McCullough or Stephen Ambrose.

Austin Butler isn’t bad as Elvis, but I just never accepted him as Elvis, just as an actor playing Elvis. Luhrman and Butler captured Elvis’ simplicity, devotion to mother and ambition, but missed big on his playfulness and capriciousness. Now, I wouldn’t damn Butler with such faint praise for having to match the magnetism of one of the very most charismatic figures in world history if Kurt Russell hadn’t been so much better.

REMEMBRANCE

Gina Lollibrigida has died at 95. Her very solid mainly, European body of film work was overshadowed by her image in the US as a sex symbol (Solomon and Sheba). Check her out in John Huston’s sly Beat the Devil. Lollibrigida was the first five-syllable Italian word that I learned to pronounce.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

At year-end, I suspend my usual The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE so I can highlight the very best movies from 2022. These are on my list of Best Movies of 2022 and they shouldn’t be overlooked. Now you can watch them all at home.

  • Nope: an exceptionally intelligent popcorn movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Montana Story: a family secret simmers, then explodes. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Compartment No. 6: a surprising journey to connection. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Poser: personal plagiarism. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Tale of King Crab: storytelling at its best. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • 12 Months: an authentic relationship evolves. Amazon.

ON TV

Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb (foreground) in 12 ANGRY MEN.

On January 22, Turner Classic Movies airs an iconic movie that I can’t believe I haven’t written about it before – 12 Angry Men. You’ve probably seen it before, but you may wish to appreciate it again.

Twelve men (and, befitting the 1957 time frame, they are all white men) have found themselves where no one wants to be – on a jury. It’s a hot and humid summer, and the jury room is stifling. It’s a murder case, and the prosecution has put on a credible case. The impetus is to convict the defendant and go home, but one juror (Henry Fonda) holds out. As the jurors probe the evidence more carefully, the debate becomes heated, especially between the hold-out and two of the others (Lee J. Cobb and Ed Begley). The room becomes more and more uncomfortable as opinions swing back and forth, with a man’s life in the balance.

Lee J. Cobb in 12 ANGRY MEN.

Fonda, Cobb and Begley are just the most brilliant in a remarkable cast: Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, E.G. Marshall, John Fiedler, Edwards Binns, Jack Klugman, Joseph Sweeney,, John Voscovec and Robert Webber. In their careers, Fonda, Warden, Balsam and Begley each won an Oscar, and the cast as a whole collected 11 Oscar nominations between them. I recently watched a Dick Cavett interview in which he asked Henry Fonda to name five of his films that would endure; Fonda blurted out “12 Angry Men‘ and then paused to consider the other choices.

The cast spends essentially all of 12 Angry Men’s 96 minutes in one room, yet director Sidney Lumet makes the excitement match any action movie or thriller. Lumet started out filming the characters from above, then moved to eye-level as the tension increased, and finally filmed from below to rachet up the claustrophobia in the room. The camera closes in tightly on the men’s faces as they sweat and yell. This is text-book filmmaking.

12 Angry Men probes themes of class bias, fairmindedness and citizen responsibility. It’s also about divisions of opinion, which is even more topical in today’s American society.

Henry Fonda in 12 ANGRY MEN.