This week on The Movie Gourmet – my top pick is the gripping Persian Lessons.
CURRENT MOVIES
- BlackBerry: woulda, coulda, shoulda. In theaters.
- Persian Lessons: walking the tightrope. In select arthouse theaters.
- The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic: wow – laughs, thrills, love. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Sam Now: a mystery solved…and more questions. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Being Mary Tyler Moore: you might just make it after all. HBO.
- Turn Every Page: two masters, two obsessives. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Dealing with Dad: two serious topics in an ok comedy. In theaters.
- Rodeo: roller coaster on two wheel. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
- Little Richard: I Am Everything: never denying his identity, but renouncing it. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Fanny: The Right to Rock: triple threat trailblazers. PBS.
- Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song: a reflective artist, a reflective movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Jews of the Wild West: desperadoes, cowpunchers…and Jews. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- The Lost King: not all cranks are cranky. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Living: what is it to live? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- A Dark, Dark Man: rounding up the usual suspects in Kazakhstan. MHz.
WATCH AT HOME
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- Listening to Kenny G.: derision, devotion and a hard-working guy. HBO.
- Blue Ruin: fresh take on the revenge thriller. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Piggy: surprising and darkly hilarious. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Riders of Justice: thriller, comedy and much, much more.
- The Bra: Just your average silent Azerbaijani comedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Drinking Buddies: an unusually genuine romantic comedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Revenge: The web is spun. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
ON TV
On June 14, Turner Classic Movies will air A Fuller Life, the biodoc of one of my favorite film directors, the irascible Samuel Fuller, the master of the In Your Face Movie. In Depression Era New York City, Fuller grew up working as a child in the tabloid newspaper industry and became a boy reporter at 17. Fuller never lost his gift for the shocking hook, and he reveled unashamedly in the salacious; perhaps the best example is his neo-noir The Naked Kiss, which opens with a prostitute beating her john senseless with her shoe; she moves to another town to go straight, finds herself in a relationship with the rich, handsome and seemingly saintly benefactor of a hospital for disabled children – only to find out that he is preying sexually on the children.
Without any hint of snobbery or pretention, Fuller just told great stories. His The Crimson Kimono was racially groundbreaking by normalizing a Japanese-American protagonist, and he used the outrageous to comment on race in Shock Corridor and White Dog.
In World War II, Fuller served in the First Infantry Division (the “Big Red One”), which landed in North Africa, Sicily and Normandy, and which liberated the Falkenau death camp. Immersed in the horrors of war, he was determined to make war movies with no “recruitment value”, and his are some of the best, especially The Steel Helmet and the autobiographical The Big Red One.
Fuller has been revered by Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and a host of French filmmakers. I don’t remember Marty or Quentin appearing in A Fuller Life, but William Friedkin, Wim Wenders, Buck Henry, James Toback and Monte Hellman do. A Fuller Life is dierected by Sam Fuller’s daughter Samantha Fuller, who has sourced the film exquisitely.