Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption. Jodie Comer and Austin Butler in THE BIKERIDERS. Courtesy of Focus Features.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of last year’s overlooked neo-noir The Little Things, which is worth streaming for Denzel Washington’s performance. Note that Thelma, Ghostlight, Daddio and Sorry/Not Sorryare already streaming. The Bikeriders, which has been streaming for couple weeks, is included in a Peacock subscription. Plus, scroll down for a rarity, my recommendation of a sexy silent film.

REMEMBRANCE

Gena Rowlands, Oscar-nominated as best actress for Gloria and A Woman Under the Influence, had a gift for authentic and wrenching performances. I also liked her in lighter fare like Minnie and Moskowitz and Night on Earth. She was the director John Cassavetes’ wife, muse and leading lady.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Thelma: too proud to be taken. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Perfect Days: intentional contentment. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, Hulu (included).
  • How to Come Alive: addicted to his own turmoil. In theaters.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Back in some theaters and Amazon, AppleTV; Fandango.
  • The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, Peacock (included).
  • Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango (included).
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Daddio: intimacy between strangers. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Sorry/Not Sorry: revelatory, and posing the smartest questions. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Grab: important, engrossing and sobering. Amazon, AppleTV, 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, Netflix.
  • How to Have Sex: searing and authentic. MUBI.
  • Civil War: a most cautionary tale. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, but still expensive.

WATCH AT HOME

Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

ON TV

Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in FLESH AND THE DEVIL

I rarely, rarely recommend silent dramas, because today’s general audiences find them too stilted to enjoy, and I don’t push “eat your broccoli” movies on folks. But, on August 19, Turner Classic Movies will present the 1926 Flesh and the Devil, and it’s a good chance to see what the stardom of Greta Garbo was all about, as well as pre-Code Hollywood sexuality.

Flesh and the Devil was made in Garbo’s first year in Hollywood and was her breakthrough star-making role in the US. She plays Felicitas, a woman who enjoy making men loooong for her. In her seduction of the righteous young limitary officer Leo (John Gilbert), she shoots him a come hither look even while kneeling for communion in church. She accepts his offer of a dance and immediately flops into his arms with predatory intent, quickly leading him outside into the dark where they can be alone; things move rapidly to a post-coital smoke. Reportedly, this is cinema’s first horizontal love scene and its first closeup of an open-mouth kiss.

At filming, Garbo was 21 and Gilbert 26 (but he looks over 30). Gilbert had dreamy looks, expressive eyes and perfect comic timing; he was a naturalistic actor – unusually so for the silent era – and he would have probably been a top talent in today’s cinema. The couple’s steamy chemistry in Flesh and the Devil was real; they moved in together before the shooting wrapped. Their enthusiasm during the filming of the bear rug scene so embarrassed director Clarence Brown that he did not call “cut”; the crew just crept out of the studio.

Flesh and the Devil also includes an excellent character performance by George Fawcett as Pastor Voss, a character who oddly smokes a cigar in his pipe. Fawcett was 65 but had already made 107 silents films.