This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m covering the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, which opened Thursday. Here’s my SJFJFF preview and my festival recommendations. Also, a new review of the evocative and highly evocative psychodrama I Saw the TV Glow.
REMEMBRANCE
Shelley Duvall will be best remembered for playing the wife of Jack Nicholson’s decompensating writer in The Shining. It’s hard to discuss American cinema of the 1970s without mentioning Duvall because six of her first seven movies were Robert Altman films (Brewster McCloud, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Buffalo Bill etc., and 3 Women; the seventh was Annie Hall, in a hilarious turn as an Alvy Singer sex partner. She also played the waitress who prods Steve Martin’s Cyrano character into wooing Daryl Hannah’s Roxanne in Roxanne.
CURRENT MOVIES
- Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. In theaters.
- The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. In theaters.
- Daddio: intimacy between strangers. In theaters.
- Perfect Days: intentional contentment. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, Hulu (included).
- Sorry/Not Sorry: revelatory, and posing the smartest questions. In theaters.
- Confessions of a Good Samaritan: of course, wouldn’t you?…WHAT? In theaters, primarily arthouses.
- Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
- Thelma: too proud to be taken. In theaters.
- I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Back in some theaters and Amazon, AppleTV; Fandango.
- Mother Couch: obstreperous mom, surreal situation. In theaters, primarily arthouses.
- Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- La Chimera: six genres for the price of one. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- The Grab: important, engrossing and sobering. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Run Lola Run: still sprinting after 25 years. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube.
- Relative: a loving, but insistent investigation. Amazon (included with prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Wicked Little Letters: a sparkling Jessie Buckley and an interesting take on repression. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- How to Have Sex: searing and authentic. MUBI.
- Civil War: a most cautionary tale. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, but still expensive.
- The Dead Don’t Hurt: such a bad movie. In theaters.
- Kinds of Kindness: disgustingly indulgent. In theaters, primarily arthouses.
WATCH AT HOME
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- John Adams: the most overlooked giant of our Founding Fathers. MAX included), Amazon, AppleTV.
- Headhunters: from smoothly confident scoundrel to human piñata. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Very Semi-Serious: glorious The New Yorker cartoons. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Black Bear: ever surprising. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Ruby Sparks: be careful what you ask for. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary: ordinary humans enabling monstrous acts. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Much Ado About Nothing (2013): it’s not homework, it’s a screwball comedy. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Midnight Family: an all-night race for pesos. YouTube.
- I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore: a schlub goes postal. Netflix.
ON TV
Need 100 minutes of emotional uplift? On July 20, Turner Classic Movies brings us the gospel music documentary Say Amen, Somebody. This 1982 art house hit is almost never on television, and has been hard to find, although you can now stream in on Criterion, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango. The film traces the genre from gospel pioneers Willie Mae Ford Smith and Thomas A. Dorsey to contemporary artists. The music is stirring and infectious.