This week on The Movie Gourmet – watch for a new review of Turn Every Page, which I recommend.
Along with big Oscar winners Everything Everywhere All at Once and All Quiet on the Western Front, three of the top four movies on my Best Movies of 2022 are newly available to stream:
- The Whale, with its spectacular performances by the Oscar-winning Brendan Fraser and by Hong Chau.
- Aftersun, with its Oscar-nominated performance by Paul Mescal.
- Broker, which was spurned by the Oscars despite being a masterpiece.
REMEMBRANCE
Sadly, the actor Robert Blake will be remembered for the horrific childhood and sordid post-career detailed in his NYT obit, a hit TV show with a parrot and an absence of personal boundaries on TV talk shows. He was a child star, exploited by an abusive parent, in Our Gang and even The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. But he proved his underlying talent in In Cold Blood.
CURRENT MOVIES
- Turn Every Page: two masters, two obsessives. In theaters.
- Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- The Whale: regret to redemption. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. back in theaters plus on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Aftersun: who’s coming of age is this? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- The Fabelmans: a mom, a dad and their genius kid. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- All Quiet on the Western Front: the trauma of war. Netflix.
WATCH AT HOME
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
- Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
- Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
- Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
ON TV
On March 24, Turner Classic Movies airs Metropolitan from 1990, the work of writer-director Whit Stillman, who is essentially his own genre. What Stilman does really well is bring us unto the world of old money Eastern preppies with their refined manners and their odd customs like debutante balls. His well-educated characters have earnest late-night existential conversations in complete sentences. Nobody else does this, and Stillman’s dialogue has always kept me wholly absorbed. I keep thinking, I should despise these people, and yet their ruminations are kind of intoxicating. Stilman’s next movie, Barcelona, is enjoyable, too.
