Movies

DVD/Stream of the Week: THE HUNT

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THE HUNT

In honor of the opening of this year’s Cinequest, this week’s pick is the Danish drama The Hunt from the 2013 Cinequest.  Mads Mikkelsen plays a man whose life is ruined by a false claim of child sexual abuse. You’ll recognize Mikkelsen, a big star in Europe, from After the Wedding and the 2006 Casino Royale (he was the villain with the bleeding eye). He won the 2012 Cannes Best Actor award for this performance.

The story is terrifyingly plausible. The protagonist, Lucas, is getting his bearings after a job change and a divorce. He lives in a small Danish town where everyone knows everyone else, next door to his best friend. The best friend drinks too much and his wife is a little high-strung, but Lucas embraces them for who they are. He’s a regular guy who hunts and drinks with his buddies and is adored by the kids at the kindergarten where he works. He’s not a saint – his ex-wife can get him to fly off the handle with little effort.

A little girl hears a sexual reference at home that she does not understand (and no one in the story could ever find out how she heard it). When she innocently repeats it at school, the staff is alarmed and starts to investigate. Except for one mistake by the school principal, everyone in the story acts reasonably. One step in the process builds upon another until the town’s parents become so understandably upset that a public hysteria ensues.

Director Thomas Vinterburg had previously created the underappreciated Celebration (Festen). The Hunt is gripping – we’re on the edges of our seats as the investigation snowballs and Lucas is put at risk of losing everything – his reputation, his job, his child, his friends, his liberty and even his life. Can Lucas be cleared, and, if he is, how scarred will he be? The Hunt is a superbly crafted film with a magnificent performance by Mikkelsen.

The Hunt is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and PlayStation Video.

Cinequest: DAN AND MARGOT

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DAN AND MARGOT
DAN AND MARGOT

Margot is a vibrant and salty 27-year-old Canadian woman. She suffered a schizophrenic break when she was away at college. Now she’s medicated, and fighting to resume her life. Margot is the subject of the documentary Dan and Margot, and I’ll leave you to find out who Dan is or is not.

How do we think of schizophrenia?  We often visualize the feral-looking guy ranting to himself outside the 7-11. But how about those who are just slipping into a schizophrenic break or those medicated – with the disorder under control?  In this very personal look examination of one person’s illness, Margot and her friends and family share how the disorder can sneak up on not only the individual, but their support system, as  well.

Filmmakers Chloe Sosa-Sims and Jake Chirico parachute themselves and their camera into Margot’s life and take advantage of the access without sensationalizing her life. Dan and Margot is a solid and thought-provoking movie.

[Note: there is a little animation in Dan and Margot, but most is live action and almost all of that is Margot herself. The trailer is more representative of the film than is the still image above.]

Cinequest: PARABELLUM

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PARABELLUM
PARABELLUM

The Argentine drama Parabellum is a trippy movie unlike anything that you’ve seen.  Set in a pre-apocalyptic near future, cities are crumbling into disorder and meteors are plunging into the Earth with alarmingly increased frequency.  Clearly everyone should be panicking, but no one is.

Instead, the characters in Parabellum don blindfolds and are motored up a jungle river to a secret adventure resort where they learn survivalist skills – kind of Camp Heart of Darkness.  The most life-and-death exercises are addressed matter-of-factly, with an absurdly calm determination that makes Parabellum seem like something out of Buñuel.

Parabellum’s measured pace seems so at odds with the impending disaster (whatever it will be), that it’s part of the joke.  What the hell is going on and what are these people thinking?  Beautifully shot, engrossing and witty – Parabellum is a wacky treat.

Cinequest: DEMIMONDE

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DEMIMONDE
DEMIMONDE

Sex, intrigue and murder – the atmospheric Hungarian drama Demimonde has it all.  It’s just before World War I in Pest, and we meet a wealthy kept woman (Patricia Kovács), her longtime housekeeper (Dorka Gryllus) and the new maid (Laura Döbrösi). Indeed, the movie’s title describes the professional courtesan,  shamelessly successful as a professional mistress that she can dare to seek riskier and riskier gratification.  Mustering more poise, dignity and sexiness than anyone else,  she utterly flouts all the conventions of respectability.  I don’t need them to respect me, she says, I just need them to be fascinated.  Indeed, she fascinates so many of the characters, that the sexual entanglements pile up until there are grave consequences.

All of the characters are hungering for something – sex and status, lost love, new love, sustenance, amusement.  The three lead actresses and all the supporting cast are exceptionally good.  Director Attila Szász convincingly takes us to the period and keeps the surprises coming.

With all the misbehavior, someone is sure to be punished and, when that happens, Demimonde becomes operatic. It’s one of the most satisfyingly entertaining films at Cinequest, and it plays the festival on March 2, 3, 9 and 10.

Cinequest: CHUCK NORRIS VS. COMMUNISM

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CHUCK NORRIS VS. COMMUNISM
CHUCK NORRIS VS. COMMUNISM

During the Communist regime of the repugnant Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romanians could only experience two hours of television per day and all of that was boring Ceaușescu propaganda.  They were starving for culture, of any type and any quality, and a ring of smugglers responded to the demand with bootleg VHS tapes of American movies.  The rewarding documentary Chuck Norris Vs. Communism tells this story.

Now this isn’t about high cinema from America and the rest of the world inspiring the current crop of Romanian auteurs – although that did happen. This is about ordinary Romanians feasting on even the crappiest American movies, especially the never-ending cascade of action movies (Chuck Norris movies were among the favorites).

The authorities, usually obsessively repressive, turned a blind eye top the VHS smuggling because they totally missed the subversive impact the movies that were not overtly political.  But the ordinary Romanians saw abundantly stocked American supermarkets and measured that against their own deprivation.

One guy organized this VHS smuggling ring.  Amazingly, one woman narrated a Romanian voiceover for all these movies – hundreds of them.  It was a shady business for him and a moonlighting gig for her – but now they are cultural heroes in Romania.  We meet these two briefly in Chuck Norris Vs. Communism.  And we hear the testimony of Romanians touched by cinema – even trashy cinema.

What is banal in some cultures can have a significant impact on others.  Chuck Norris Vs. Communism makes that point engagingly, in a story you won’t see anywhere else.  Plays Cinequest on March 4, 6 and 12.

No Oscar dinner this year

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Oscar dinner from 2015
Oscar dinner from 2015

Every year, we have watched the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees. We’ve had sushi for Lost in Translation, cowboy beans for Brokeback Mountain, Somali chicken suqaar for Captain Phillips, etc.  The photo above shows last year’s Oscar dinner, finished with the courtesan au chocolate, the elaborate filled pastry smuggled to Gustave (Ray Fiennes) in The Grand Budapest Hotel.

But this year, The Wife and I are spending an away weekend with our daughter and son-in-law, so we just can’t pull it off.

But, if we were going to stage our dinner, we would have considered:

  • spaghetti from Brooklyn;
  • potatoes (but not cultivated in our own waste) from The Martian;
  • pub pints from one of the Boston bars in Spotlight;
  • Steve Carell’s Las Vegas convention dessert in The Big Short;
  • and I like the idea of raw bison liver from The Revenant, but The Wife was never going to agree to that.

Below is our 2011 pièce de résistance, our Severed Hand Ice Sculpture for 127 Hours and Winter’s Bone.

The Movie Gourmet's culinary tribute to 127 HOURS and WINTER'S BONE
The Movie Gourmet’s culinary tribute to 127 HOURS and WINTER’S BONE

help get a Cinequest star to the festival

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THE PROMISED BAND
THE PROMISED BAND

The thought-provoking documentary The Promised Band has its world premiere next week at Cinequest. It’s about a group of Israeli and Palestinian women seeking to fight through the cultural, legal, political, military and security barriers between them (by forming a girl band).   I’ve seen it, and it effectively brings the audience into the Israel-Palestine border situation and the isolating effects on both Israelis and Palestinians.  The Promised Band is one of the 129 woman-directed films at this year’s Cinequest.

The most compelling subject of the documentary is the main Palestinian character, the charismatic Lina. There’s now a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to bring Lina from Ramallah to San Jose for Cinequest: Let’s Get Lina to California . I’ve kicked in a little, and I’d appreciate it if you would consider helping out, too.

Movies to See Right Now

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Saoirse Ronan in BROOKLYN
Saoirse Ronan in BROOKLYN – it ain’t going to win an Oscar, but you should see it while it’s on the big screen

Here’s your last chance to watch the Oscar nominees before the awards broadcast:

  • 45 Years with Charlotte Rampling’s enthralling Oscar-nominated performance.
  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN. I predict that The Revenant will be the biggest winner at the Oscars.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.

The Coen Brothers’ disappointingly empty comedy Hail, Caesar contains some cool Hollywood parodies.

Silicon Valley’s own film festival Cinequest is around the corner – make plans now to attend between March 1 and March 13.

My Stream/VOD of the Week is DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: The Story of the National Lampoon, which takes us through an engaging and comprehensive history of the groundbreaking and seminal satirical magazine. You can stream it from iTunes or the Showtime VOD service (and you can catch it on the Showtime channel).

The Movie Gourmet features Overlooked Noir, but Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity is anything but overlooked – it’s justifiably recognized as one of the two or three most iconic film noir. I’ve included it as the prototypical noir in my A Classic American Movie Primer. It’s about a guy who is just selling insurance until he meets a woman he can’t resist…Double Indemnity plays on Turner Classic Movies on February 28.

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY
Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Check out her ankle bracelet.

another look at BROOKLYN

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Saoirse Ronan in BROOKLYN
Saoirse Ronan in BROOKLYN

The Movie Gourmet saw Brooklyn again last weekend with The Wife, and I liked it better the second time around.  That’s saying something because it’s already #4 on my Best Movies of 2015.  (The only three movies that I admired more weren’t nominated this year.)

Here’s my original post  on Brooklyn, when it was first released.   This time – even though I knew what was coming – I was much more emotionally involved in the story.  I predicted that Brooklyn would especially appeal to women, but even my male poker buddies who saw it told me that they “were rooting for the Italian guy”.

Saoirse Ronan is so brilliant in Brooklyn.  I expect Brie Larson to win the Best Actress Oscar for Room, but Charlotte Rampling (45 Years) and Ronan are equally deserving.

On Sunday evening, The Revenant is going to beat Spotlight for the Best Picture Oscar. I rated Brooklyn the highest of the Oscar-nominated movies, even over The Revenant and Spotlight, and I’m sticking with that assessment.

Cinequest around the corner

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cinequest

Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY
Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY

Make your plans now to attend the 26th edition of Cinequest, Silicon Valley’s own major film festival. By some metrics the largest film festival in North America, Cinequest was recently voted the nation’s best by USA Today readers. The 2016 Cinequest is scheduled for March 1 through March 13 and will over 100 feature films from the US and over twenty other countries.  And, at Cinequest, it’s easy to meet the filmmakers.

This year’s headline events include:

  • The Helen Mirren thriller Eye in the Sky on Opening Night.
  • A pre-release screening of the major studio The Little Prince, already spoken of as a contender for the 2017 Animated Feature Oscar.
  • James Franco’s appearance to present his film The Adderall Diaries.
  • Rita Moreno’s attendance at the world premiere of her movie Remember Me.
  • The Australian drama The Daughter on Closing Night (I’ve seen it – and it packs a punch!).

This year, Cinequest presents the world or US premieres of sixty features and sixty-nine shorts. And of these 129 debut films, 64 were directed by women!

I’m going to be strongly recommending at least two of these first features, the psychological thriller Lost Solace and the character-driven drama Heaven’s Floor.  I’ve already screened over a dozen Cinequest 2016 movies, and I’ve already also found an excellent period romance, some thought-provoking documentaries and even a satisfying low brow comedy.

Indeed, the real treasure at Cinequest 2016 is likely to be found among the hitherto less well-known films. In the past three years, the Cinequest gems Wild Tales, ’71, Ida and The Hunt all made my Best of the Year lists.

Cinequest is on my list of Silicon Valley’s Best Movie Deals.  You can get a pass for as little as $155, and you can get individual tickets as well. The express pass for an additional tax-deductible $100 is a fantastic deal – you get to skip to the front of the lines!

Take a look at the program, the schedule and the passes and tickets. (If you want to support Silicon Valley’s most important cinema event while skipping the lines, the $100 donation for Express Line Access is an awesome deal.)

As usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. I usually screen (and write about) over thirty films from around the world.  I’ll soon have up a Cinequest 2016 page. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

LOST SOLACE
LOST SOLACE