movie recommendations

Coming up on TV: An Anti-war Masterpiece

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James Coburn and James Garner in The Americanization of Emily

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

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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

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Catherine DeNeuve has heard it one too many times in Potiche

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

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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.

Coming Up on TV: A Great Sam Fuller War Film

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On April 2, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the 1951 Korean War movie The Steel Helmet. It’s a gritty classic by the great writer-director Sam Fuller, a WWII combat vet who brooked no sentimentality about war.   Gene Evans, a favorite of the two Sams  (Fuller and Peckinpah), is especially good as the sergeant.

Certified Copy: Hmmmmmmmm

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Abbas Kiarostami, the critically acclaimed Iranian-born director, presents us with a puzzle set in beautiful Tuscan hill towns.  An apparently unacquainted man and woman spend the day together.  Then they pretend that they are married.  And then they seem to have been long (and unhappily) married.

So after watching the film, one may ask if the couple was married and only pretending not to be at first?  Or did they instead start pretending to be married and just get more realistic toward the end of the film?  Or do different stages of the film depict different realities?  If you need to know what is going on in a movie and why, this is not a good choice for you.

The couple is played by the Juliette Binoche, and the British opera singer William Shimell.  They are excellent.  Binoche won the Best Actress award at Cannes for this role.

The Music Never Stopped: sentimental movies can be good, after all

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Here’s a crowd pleasing movie.  Parents find their long lost adult son in a hospital, suffering from a brain tumor that has erased his much of his memory (and all of his short term memory).  A speech therapist discovers that the son’s personality is sparked by music that he remembers from his teens.  The father and the son have been estranged since the son left after an argument between them.  The father finds that he can reach over the memory disability and re-connect by learning the son’s music.

The son’s music is all from the period 1964 to 1970 – and this music is another character in the film.  Dad leaves behind his Big Band sensibilities to embrace Bob Dylan, Donovan, Steppenwolf, Crosby Stills & Nash and, especially the Grateful Dead.  Baby Boomers and Dead Heads will really enjoy this movie from the music alone.  Indeed, the Dead’s Bob Weir and Mickey Hart have been out supporting the movie.

The film is a showcase for the excellent actor J.K. Simmons, who plays the father.  Simmons is always very, very good (Juno‘s dad, getting fired in Up in the Air and on TV’s Oz and Law and Order).  Here, he plays a guy who is secure in his own righteousness, but then sees and accepts his own responsibility for the estrangement, and whose love for his son motivates him to make some big changes.  Lou Taylor Pucci is excellent as the son.  Julia Ormond does a good job playing the speech therapist.

Now I generally hate “disease of the week” movies.  Really hate them.  But here the real story is about the relationship between father and son, and the rebuilding of the bond between them.  The memory disability, along with their past and the father’s initial stubbornness,  is just another obstacle to their communication.

The story is based on an actual case described by Oliver Sacks in his essay The Last Hippie.

Updated Movies to See Right Now

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Lou Tayor Pucci and JK Simmons in The Music Never Stopped

The best bets in theaters now are the combo thriller/love story The Adjustment Bureau and the Baby Boomer-friendly The Music Never Stopped.

Cedar Rapids is a fun and unpretentious comedy. 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).

Oscar winner The King’s Speech is on my Best Movies of 2010 and is still kicking around in some theaters.

For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.

You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick is The Fighter. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.

Movies on TV this week include two all-time greats,  Lawrence of Arabia and All About Eve on TCM.

DVD of the Week: The Fighter

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Here’s you chance to see the Oscar-winning performance by Christian Bale and Melissa Leo in The Fighter. Mark Wahlberg stars as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Bale) and his powerful, trashy mom (Leo).  As one would expect, Bale nails the flashier role of the addict, deluding himself about both past glories and his importance to his family. Leo is almost unrecognized under her teased hair, and is accompanied by a hilarious Greek Chorus of adult daughters, each trashier than the last.

The boxing scenes are very well done, and Wahlberg matches Sylvester Stallone and Hilary Swank in making us believe that he is, indeed, a boxer. See my list of 10 Best Boxing Movies.  It’s also on my list of Best Movies of 2010.

Hereafter’s special effects and the real tsunami

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In recommending Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter as my DVD of the Week, I mentioned the amazing tsunami scene at the beginning of the film.  You can easily find and watch this sequence on YouTube by searching for “Hereafter tsunami”.

Here’s a featurette by Scanline VFX that illustrates how they created the Oscar-nominated special effects for Hereafter.

To compare it with the real thing, here are some real tsunami videos from last week.