I admired both this gripping thriller’s intelligence and its heart. The key is a breakthrough screenplay by Ben Ripley. The scifi premise is that supersoldier Jake Gyllenhaal can inhabit the brain of a terrorism victim for the same 8 minutes – over and over again. Each time, he has 8 minutes to seek more clues. Can he build the clues into a solution and prevent the terrorist atrocity? Gyllenhaal is excellent. So is Vera Farmiga as his handler and Michelle Monaghan as a girl you could fall in love with in 8 minutes. Jeffrey Wright chews the scenery with his homage to Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove. Director Duncan Jones solidly brings Ripley’s screenplay home.
Movies
All New Movies to See Right Now
The Must See film is Source Code, a gripping scifi thriller with intelligence and heart, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga and Michelle Monaghan. Carancho is an Argentine love story nestled into a dark and violent noirish thriller, starring Ricardo Darin (The Secrets of Their Eyes, Nine Queens), the Argentine Joe Mantegna. Hanna is a rip roaring girl-power thriller starring Saiorse Ronan as a 16-year-old raised in the Arctic Circle to be a master assassin by her rogue secret agent father and then released upon the CIA.
Potiche, a delightful French farce of feminist self-discovery is the funniest movie in over a year, and another showcase for Catherine DeNeuve (as if she needs one). The Music Never Stopped is a crowd-pleaser, especially for Baby Boomers. Certified Copy is a well-acted puzzler of an art film. For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
I haven’t yet seen Poetry or In a Better World, which open this weekend. You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD pick is Le Cercle Rouge.
Movies on TV this week include Ball of Fire and The Outlaw Josey Wales on TCM.
Carancho: seamy and steamy
Well, they have ambulance chasers in Argentina, too, and that seamy world is the setting for this dark and violent noirish thriller. Ricardo Darin (The Secrets of Their Eyes, Nine Queens) stars as a suspended lawyer running insurance scams. (I think of Darin as the Argentine Joe Mantegna.) Set in the gloom of urban nighttime emergency rooms and funeral homes, it’s a love story between the lawyer and an equally troubled doctor (Martina Gusman), nestled into a crime thriller.
The story is as cynical and dark as it comes. The handheld camera keeps it out of the noir category, but the story is as hard-bitten as Kiss Me Deadly or any of the really nasty noirs. The violence is realistic, and there’s lots of it – I had never seen anyone beaten to death with a file drawer before. If you like dark and edgy (and I do), this is the film for you.
DVD of the Week: Le Cercle Rouge
Can a French 1970 color film that stars cool guys like Alain Delon and Yves Montand qualify as film noir? You bet, especially when written and directed by a master of noir like Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le Flambeur, Le Doulos, Le Samourai).
A thief gets out of prison, immediately robs his former crime boss and goes on the run. An escaped murderer stows away in the trunk of his car. Now they are both on the run from a very cynical and driven cop – as well as from the gangsters. They hire a dissolute former cop and try to pull off a heist. The honest cop who is chasing them squeezes a shady nightclub owner to betray them.
There’s a chase and shootings and a heist that takes up the final 30 minutes, but Le Cercle Rouge is not about the action. It’s about the nature of these characters, guys who live by their own codes. They know what they’re gonna do, and they don’t need to think about why. There’s minimal dialogue, and they look and act really cool for all 140 minutes.
Criterion has just released Le Cercle Rouge on DVD. Take a look. Here’s the trailer in French.
New Movies to See Right Now
The gripping sci fi thriller Source Code is the must see in theaters right now. Potiche opens this week, and this delightful French farce of feminist self-discovery is the funniest movie in over a year, and another showcase for Catherine Deneuve (as if she needs one). The Music Never Stopped is a crowd-pleaser, especially for Baby Boomers. Certified Copy is a well-acted puzzler of an art film.
The best holdovers in theaters now are the combo thriller/love story The Adjustment Bureau and the fun and unpretentious comedy Cedar Rapids. Nora’s Will is a wry family dramedy, which is also now playing on HBO Signature as Cinco Dias Sin Nora (Five Days Without Nora).
For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
I haven’t yet seen Carancho, Hanna or Restless, which open this weekend. You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD pick is Black Swan.
Movies on TV this week include A Face in the Crowd and The General on TCM.
DVD of the Week: Black Swan
Natalie Portman won the Best Actress Oscar for playing a ballet dancer who competes for the role of a lifetime. Her obsession with perfection is at once the key to her potential triumph and her potential ruin. Barbara Hershey brilliantly plays what we first see as another smothering stage mother, but soon learn to be something even more disturbing. Vincent Cassell (Mesrine) captures the charisma of the swaggering dance master who pushes the ballerina mercilessly. Portman’s dancer has the fragility of a porcelain teacup, and, as she slathers herself with more and more stress, we wonder just when, not if, she’ll break. The tension crescendos, and the climactic performance of Swan Lake is thrilling.
Fresh from The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is another directing triumph. In fact, parts of Black Swan are as trippy as Aronofsky’s brilliant Requiem for a Dream.
Black Swan is also on my list of Best Movies of 2010.
Coming up on TV: An Anti-war Masterpiece
Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the 1964 The Americanization of Emily on April 7. Set in England just before the D-Day invasion, The Americanization of Emily is a biting satire and one of the great anti-war movies. James Garner plays an admiral’s staff officer charged with locating luxury goods and willing English women for the brass. Julie Andrews plays an English driver who has lost her husband and other male family members in the War. She resists emotional entanglements with other servicemen whose lives may be put at risk, but falls for Garner’s “practicing coward”, a man who is under no illusions about the glory of war and is determined to stay as far from combat as possible.
Unfortunately, Garner’s boss (Melvyn Douglas) has fits of derangement and becomes obsessed with the hope that the first American killed on the beach at D-Day be from the Navy. Accordingly, he orders Garner to lead a suicide mission to land ahead of the D-Day landing, ostensibly to film it. Fellow officer James Coburn must guarantee Garner’s martyrdom.
It’s a brilliant screenplay from Paddy Chayefsky, who won screenwriting Oscars for Marty, The Hospital and Network.
Today, Americanization holds up as least as well as its contemporary Dr. Strangelove and much better than Failsafe.
Reportedly, both Andrews and Garner have tagged this as their favorite film.
One of the “Three Nameless Broads” bedded by the Coburn character is played by Judy Carne, later of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.
Potiche: Funny French Farce
This delightful French farce of feminist self-discovery is the funniest movie in over a year, and another showcase for Catherine Deneuve (as if she needs one). DeNeuve plays a 1977 potiche, French for “trophy housewife”, married to a guy who is a male chauvinist pig both by choice and cluelessness. He is also the meanest industrialist in France – Ebenezer Scrooge would be a softie next to this guy – and the workers in his factories are about to explode. He becomes incapacitated, and she must run the factory.
Now, this is a familiar story line for gender comedy – why is it so damn funny? It starts with the screenplay, which is smart and quick like the classic screwball comedy that American filmmakers don’t make anymore. And the cast is filled with proven actors who play each comic situation with complete earnestness, no matter how absurd.
Director Francois Ozon, best known in the US for Swimming Pool and 8 Women, adapted the screenplay from a play and has a blast skewering late-70s gender roles and both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Gerard Depardieu plays the Communist mayor, who is both the husband’s nemesis and the wife’s former fling. Two of the very best French comic players, Fabrice Luchini and Karen Viard, shine in co-starring roles as the husband and his secretary.
This Week’s Movies to See Right Now
Potiche opens this week, and this delightful French farce of feminist self-discovery is the funniest movie in over a year, and another showcase for Catherine DeNeuve (as if she needs one). The Music Never Stopped is a crowd-pleaser, especially for Baby Boomers. Certified Copy is a well-acted puzzler of an art film.
The best holdovers in theaters now are the combo thriller/love story The Adjustment Bureau and the fun and unpretentious comedy Cedar Rapids. Nora’s Will is a wry family dramedy, which is also now playing on HBO Signature as Cinco Dias Sin Nora (Five Days Without Nora).
For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
I haven’t yet seen Jane Eyre. You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD pick is Fair Game. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
Movies on TV this week include Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Frankenstein and the great Sam Fuller war film The Steel Helmet on TCM.
Movies: Best Bets for April
You can see trailers and descriptions of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
I’ve seen Potiche, which opens April 1. It’s a delightful French farce of feminist self-discovery, the funniest movie in over a year, and another showcase for Catherine DeNeuve (as if she needs one). DeNeuve plays a 1977 potiche, French for “trophy housewife”, married to a guy who is a male chauvinist pig and the meanest industrialist in France. He becomes incapacitated, and she must run the factory. It’s smart and quick like the classic screwball comedy that American filmmakers don’t make anymore.
Jane Eyre also releases April 1. I’m not on the edge of my seat waiting for a Bronte bodice ripper, but many of my readers are. Stars the excellent Mia Wasilova from Alice in Wonderland and The Kids Are All Right.
Carancho: Well, they have ambulance chasers in Argentina, too, and that seamy world is the setting for this sexy and violent noir thriller. Stars Ricardo Darin of The Secrets of Their Eyes and Nine Queens. Won Un Certain Regard at Cannes. Will release widely on April 8.
Hanna is a paranoid thriller starring Saoirse Ronan as a 16-year-old raised in the Arctic Circle to be a master assassin by her rogue secret agent father (Eric Bana), and then released upon the CIA. She is matched up against special ops wiz Cate Blanchett. Hanna is directed by Joe Wright (Atonement, The Soloist). Releases April 8.
Poetry: This is the story of a Korean grandmother who goes to a poetry workshop and begins to understand the real characters of the people she lives amongst. Highly praised at Cannes. Releases widely April 8.
Restless: Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk, Paranoid Park, Last Days, Elephant) directs (from IMDb) “the story of a terminally ill teenage girl who falls for a boy who likes to attend funerals and their encounters with the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot from WWII.” The girl is played by the very promising Mia Wasilova, who had a tremendous 2010 with The Kids Are All Right and Alice in Wonderland. Releases April 8.
In a Better World/Haevnen releases April 15. This won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. It was directed by the great Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier (Brothers/Brodre, After the Wedding, Things We Lost in the Fire). A Danish do-gooder returns from Africa to face family problems with his estranged wife and their vulnerable, bullied son.
The Princess of Montpensier: This film, admired at Cannes, is an adaptation of a well-known short story about a young woman who is forced by her father to marry – but not the man she loves. It is set in late 16th century France amid the French religious wars. Look for it on April 22.
Here’s the trailer for In a Better World.