Movies to See Right Now – in Theaters, On DVD, On TV

by

In Theaters:

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Rock-em, sock-em feminist suspense thriller built around the very original character of damaged, angry, master hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace).  Lisbeth makes Dirty Harry look like Bishop Tutu.  The Swedish title was Men Who Hate Woman, and there’s lots of violence against women in this film, satisfyingly avenged.  This is a whodunit with layers of romance, suspense, and sex, with even some Nazis thrown in.

A Prophet Probably the year’s best film so far – about a young French-Arab from his first terrifying day in prison to his release.  It evokes the Deniro scenes in Godfather II, except set with gritty realism in contemporary France.

The Ghost Writer First class paranoid political thriller by Roman Polanski.

On DVD: 

The Hurt Locker, Precious and Up in the Air.  If you haven’t caught up with last year’s best, there’s no better time than now.

On TV:

Mon Oncle Perhaps the most deeply funny movie of all time, this is Jacques Tati’s masterful satire of modernist consumerism.  The spare soundtrack might be the best ever.  TCM 3/28/10

Shotgun Stories Character driven, gripping tale of three damaged brothers in the Bayou.  Sundance Channel in late March and early April.

Layer Cake Contemporary British noir crime thriller with Daniel Craig. IFC 3/28/10

Outrage Documentary that convincingly exposes secretly gay politicians who vote against gay rights.  This is not Florida Governor Charlie Christ’s favorite movie.  HBO 3/3/0/10, 4/1/10.

Also in Theaters:

Alice in Wonderland in 3-D: Eye candy from Tim Burton.

The Runaways:  Very well-executed Behind the Music arc.  Good performances by Kristin Stewart and Dakota Fanning.

Best Films of 2009 and Ten Recommended

by

I’ve posted my annual list of best movies of the year (see “Best Films of 2009” link above).

I’ll also be filling in my list of ten recommended films from the year – the ten movies that I am pushing on everyone I know:

The Hurt Locker

Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains

Precious

Broken Embraces (Abrazos Rotos)

Goodbye Solo

Up in the Air

Gomorrah

Sin Nombre

(500) Days of Summer

The Last Lullaby

Oscar Dinner

by

Every year, we watch the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees.  For example, we had sushi for Lost in Translation and cowboy campfire beans for Brokeback Mountain –  you get the idea.

Last year, Frost/Nixon and Milk were stumping me until I realized that they were set in the 1970s.  So we had celery sticks stuffed with pimento spread, pigs in a blanket and Tequila Sunrises.

This year, the growth to TEN nominees has challenged us.  But here is tonight’s Oscar Dinner:

Airplane bottles of liquor for Up in the Air.  Obvious.

Prawn Cocktail Exotique for District 9 and for An Education.  “Prawn” is the South African slur for the aliens in District 9.  And a shrimp cocktail would fit into the fancy 1960s dinner out in An Education.

KFC chicken for Precious and The Blind Side.  OK, the fast food chicken in Precious is from a diner, not from KFC,  but it comes in a bucket.

Scrambled Eggs for Avatar.  This references the scene where Jake Scully powers through his breakfast before getting back into his avatar control module.  Plus we didn’t want to dye any food blue.

Fatayer bi Sabanekh for The Hurt Locker.  It’s the Arab version of spanokopita, the spinach and feta turnover.  Had to go Middle Eastern.

Grandma Ethel’s Brisket for A Serious Man.  A Seriously Jewish Brisket.

Haricot Vert for Inglorious Basterds.  It takes place in France, and we needed a vegetable.

Ice cream for Up.  Ours isn’t from Fenton’s Creamery. but, hey, we don’t live in Oakland.

Some Pre-Oscar thoughts

by

Best Supporting Actor:  Christolph Walz completely deserves to win Best Supporting Actor – and he will. Me and Orson Welles’ studio made a huge mistake and pushed Christian MacKay for Best Actor instead of Supporting for his amazing performance as Orson Welles; MacKay belongs among the nominees here. And the funniest performance as a Supporting Actor – maybe in the decade – is Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman in A Serious Man; Melamed creates a hilariously pompous and blatantly manipulative character as the guy who seduces the protagonist’s wife and then expects the hero to bend over backwards to make everything convenient for them; I’ve never seen such an earnestly self-entitled character. Woody Harrelson is also great in The Messenger.

Best Documentary: The Cove is nominated for Best Documentary, and I’ve heard that it is very, very good. But it’s been a strong year for documentaries. My favorite,
Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains, may actually be a 2008 release. But I think that Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 and Tyson are nomination-worthy. Other goods documentaries this year include Outrage, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, The September Issue, More Than a Game, The Way We Get By, It Might Get Loud, and Thrilla in Manilla.

Best Animated Feature:  Just saw The Secret of Kells, and I have no idea why it has a high Metacritic score or why it is nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Best Supporting Actress:  Penelope Cruz is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Nine, but her better performance was in Broken Embraces.

Best Foreign Language Film: And why wasn’t Broken Embraces nominated for Best Foreign Language Film? It was one of my top five films of the year, and the Academy loves Almodovar. I am rooting against The White Ribbon – a brilliantly made film that tells a disappointingly shallow story. The White Ribbon is a depiction of a village in which every father is emotionally, physically and/or sexually abusive, all of the kids are very creepy and a mysterious someone is doing some very, very bad things. That could all work toward a good film, if the message were something a little deeper than “Germany’s WWII generation had very mean parents”.

The Most Fun Oscar Pool

by

Here’s our Oscar Pool. If you’re worried about who’s going to win Best Sound Editing or Best Animated Short, you’re taking this too seriously.

1. Number of winners cut off by music.

2. Number of winners turning the wrong way to leave stage.

3. Number of winners who thank their parents.

4. Number of presenters/winners wearing dresses with very daring cleavage.

5. Number of presenters/winners wearing dresses that expose lower back.

6. Number of gawd-awful ugly dresses (by consensus of those in the room with you).

7. Number of references by Alec Baldwin to his nude scene in It’s Complicated.

8. Number of times that Jack Nicholson is on screen.

Tiebreaker #1: Total Oscars for Avatar.

Tiebreaker #2 (if necessary): Number of minutes the show goes over time.