Movies – Page 54 – The Movie Gourmet

It’s Scare Week at The Movie Gourmet

October 25, 2015 by movie gourmet

PEEPING TOM, coming up on Turner Classic Movies and better than PSYCHO — PEEPING TOM – even better than PSYCHO

Just for Halloween, The Movie Gourmet is presenting a special SCARE WEEK. It’s all horror, all of the time. But even folks who normally avoid the horror genre will find someone to enjoy here. I don’t like Gore Horror, so there’s relatively little blood and guts in this international program. Here’s the lineup.

Monday: Borgman (2014 – Netherlands). This is horror for adults, without the gore and with lots of wit. Borgman is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Tuesday: The Conjuring (2013 – US). Based on true events, The Conjuring scares without ANY gore. There are a few scary images, but The Conjuring relies on good, old-fashioned surprises and our discomfort with the occult to supply the fright. Women, in particular, who avoid this genre will relate to the performances of Vera Farmiga and Lili Taylor. The Conjuring is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.

Wednesday: Witching and Bitching (2014 – Spain). Witching and Bitching is a witty comment on misogyny inside a rockin’ horror spoof. Witching and Bitching is now streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.

Thursday: Peeping Tom (1960 – UK). This is the best-ever psycho serial killer movie, better than its contemporary Psycho. It’s so scary and unsettling that it ruined the career of its storied director Michael Powell. It’s undoubtedly the best movie in The Movie Gourmet’s Scare Week program. You can also find it on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Friday: It Follows (2015 – US). The key to It Follows is its originality – without expensive f/x or disgusting gore – it’s likely the best horror movie of this year. It Follows is available on DVD from both Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Also Friday: My Movies to See Right Now will include the ultra-campy The Tingler with Vincent Price.

Saturday: Freaks (1932 – UK) with real circus freaks. If you have teenagers jaded by today’s empty horror flicks, this will knock them for a loop. Only 64 minutes. Freaks is often televised around Halloween. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.

So enjoy – and don’t go alone into the darkened basement to investigate that strange sound!

Vincent Price and his co-star in THE TINGLER

Movies to See Right Now

October 23, 2015 by movie gourmet

My recommendations this week:

The Martian – an entertaining Must See space adventure – even for folks who usually don’t enjoy science fiction;
Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg’s Cold War espionage thriller with Tom Hanks, featuring a fantastic performance by Mark Rylance.
Sicario – a dark and paranoid crime thriller about the drug wars.
Prophet’s Prey – a Showtime documentary about child sexual abuse in a polygamous religious cult.

My Stream of the Week is the extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan, a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia – and it’s one of my Best Movies of 2015 – So Far. Leviathan is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

October 29 is a pretty cool day for Turner Classic Movies, with three completely disparate films that I recommend. First, if you have teenagers jaded by today’s empty horror flicks, Freaks will knock them for a loop. Bad things happen at the circus. And bad things happen in Freaks, one of the most unsettling horror films (and the least politically correct), because it was filmed in 1932 with real circus freaks.

If you are ready for some vintage camp, there’s the 1960 low-budget and self-mocking horror comedy Little Shop of Horrors. The story was remade into a Broadway musical which, in turn, was adapted into the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors starring Rick Moranis; the 1986 version is a much, MUCH better move, but the 1960 version has its own sublime silliness. The young Jack Nicholson first made a name for himself with a hilarious turn as a masochistic dental patient.

Finally, as funny as a heart attack, is the riveting 2005 Oscar winner The Hurt Locker. Kathryn Bigelow directed this hypertense story of an adrenaline-fueled GI bomb defuser (Jeremy Renner) in the Iraq War. The Hurt Locker won the first Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director for a film directed by a woman.

PROPHET’S PREY: perverting polygamy

October 21, 2015 by movie gourmet

The Showtime documentary Prophet’s Prey takes us deep into the world of renegade Mormon polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, now behind bars for sexual assault on young girls. In 1986, Jeff’s father Rulon Jeffs became the patriarch of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous cult that straddles the barren borders of Utah and Arizona. When Rulon became in firm, Warren Jeffs took control and, upon Rulon’s death, became the Church’s leader, a position of unencumbered and accountable power within the Church.

Fundamentalist polygamy, as practiced by Rulon and others, often involves older men taking on underage girls as multiple wives, which is discomfiting enough. But Warren is a sociopath and a child sexual predator, who, when given total power as leader became a monster of unspeakable proportions. Reportedly, at least 24 of Warren Jeff’s “wives” were under 17 and as young as 12.

As in any effective documentary, the source material is top rate. Filmmaker Amy Berg directed Prophet’s Prey from the book of the same name by Sam Brower (who also appears in the film) the private eye who dogged Jeffs. We hear from Warren Jeff’s “wife” #63 Janet. We meet his brother Warren (once head of FLDS security) and his sister Elaine and his nephews Brent and Lyle. There’s even amazing surveillance camera footage of Jeffs in his cell.

Prophet’s Prey’s writer-director Amy Berg previously directed Deliver Us from Evil about pedophile Catholic priests in California’s Central Valley, which ranked in the top ten on my list of Best Movies of 2006. She’s well on her way to cornering the market on docs about sexually deviant religious leaders. Prophet’s Prey is narrated by the musician Nick Cave.

Prophet’s Prey is currently playing on Showtime and DirecTV PPV.

Stream of the Week: LEVIATHAN: the overwhelming crush of corruption

October 20, 2015 by movie gourmet

The extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan is a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia – and it’s one of my Best Movies of 2015 – So Far. A Job-like Everyman struggles to protect his home from the clutches of the town’s corrupt mayor – and he has to battle the corruption that has permeated the political and justice systems. The very struggle takes its toll in his relationships, too, and the audience begins to wonder just how much he’s going to be left with at the end of the story.

Despite being deliberately paced and darkly themed, Leviathan is very watchable. The characters are superbly crafted and the story is filled with “what’s going to happen next?” moments. Writer-director Andrei Zvyagintsev and co-writer Oleg Negin are keen observers of human nature and season Leviathan with plenty of wry humor (e.g., the mayor runs his criminal Sopranos-like enterprise from a desk under a portrait of Putin). And there’s a surprise at the end.

Our Everyman is Kolya (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), who is hotheaded and drinks too much. He fixes cars out of his seafront home in a bleak village on the Barents Sea. His younger second wife Elena Lyadova is cipher. His teenage son (Sergey Pokhodaev) is a good kid, but troubled by the death of his mother. The performances are exceptional, along with that of Roman Madyanov as the corrupt-to-his-marrow mayor. The mayor wants to take Kolya’s property, and their battle plays out in the courts – and in extra-judicial arenas.

And then there’s the vodka abuse. The amount of vodka consumption by virtually every character is astounding. Expect (along with your fellow audience members) to gasp and giggle at the size of the pours.

The film’s only shortcoming is the heavy-handed symbolism employed to hammer home the hopelessness of the protagonist’s struggle, There’s a biblical quote (from Job, of course): “Can you draw out the Leviathan with a fishhook?”, and then shots of whales and of the skeleton of a long-dead beached whale. All this isn’t really necessary, especially with the courtroom scenes, which make the filmmakers’ point exceedingly well.

Andrei Zvyagintsev has solidified his place as one of the masters of world cinema. Leviathan is just his fourth feature, after Elena , which made my Top Ten list for 2012, and The Return, which made my Best Movies of 2004. Elena is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Vudu and Xbox Video. The Return is available on DVD from Netflix.

Leviathan was nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar, and has been critically acclaimed, currently scoring 92 on Metacritic.com. It’s available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

BRIDGE OF SPIES: pretty good spy story with a great Mark Rylance

October 19, 2015 by movie gourmet

In Steven Spielberg’s true-to-life espionage thriller Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks plays James B. Donovan, the insurance lawyer who went on a Cold War secret mission to negotiate the trade of a captured Russian spy for the captured US spy plane pilot Francis Gay Powers. That Russian spy was Rudolph Abel, played by Mark Rylance – himself perhaps the best reason to see this movie.

Rylance is a top echelon Shakespearean actor from the UK – best known in the US for his star turn as the dour Thomas Cromwell in the television miniseries Wolf Hall. In a remarkably minimalist yet evocative performance, Rylance reveals a man who lives by a code and is doggedly loyal to his own misguided cause – with absolutely no expectations of fairness or mercy from anyone else. The effect is to make us sympathize with a guy who is trying to give our most menacing enemy our dearest nuclear secrets. As my friend Karyn noted about Rylance, “less is more”.

This is not a great movie. Sure, Spielberg is the master of entertainment (complete with sentimentally swelling music at the end). After the movie’s riveting opening sequence of spy craft, we settle into a sometimes ponderous segment showing the Abel trial and the U-2 missions. Bridge of Spies takes off again when Hanks’ Donovan must head behind the Iron Curtain.

[SPOILER ALERT – After seeing the film, I was compelled to research James B. Donovan to see if he really represented Abel and negotiated both the Abel-for-Powers deal AND the release of over a thousand Cuban prisoners from the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Indeed, he did – all of the acts depicted in the movie seem to be factual. But the real James B. Donovan was not the Everyman portrayed by Spielberg and Hanks. Before going into private practice, Donovan served a stint as the General Counsel of the OSS – the predecessor of the CIA. While slipping off to East Berlin to barter for Powers, he was on the New York City Board of Education. And, instead of returning to obscurity after bringing Powers back to the US, he ran for US Senate from New York.]

Movies to See Right Now

October 16, 2015 by movie gourmet

Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon in 99 HOMES

First things first – the Camera Cinema Club is kicking off its 20th season this weekend, and it’s an absolute MUST for Silicon Valley film lovers. I explain why in these comments. I’ve been a Club member since its 2003-04 season. If you love movies and live in Silicon Valley, you need to be in the Camera Cinema Club. Sign up here.

There’s something for everyone in theaters:

The Martian – an entertaining Must See space adventure – even for folks who usually don’t enjoy science fiction;
Sicario – a dark and paranoid crime thriller about the drug wars.
Meet the Patels, a heartwarming crowd-pleaser – a documentary that’s funnier than most fictional comedies. Now hard to find in theaters, it’s worth tracking down.
99 Homes, a riveting psychological drama about the foreclosure crisis with searing performances by Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon.
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine – Alex Gibney’s anything but reverential documentary on Steve Jobs.

My most recent Stream of the Week is the unforgettable coming of age dramedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It’s available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. You will be able to rent it on DVD from Netflix and Redbox on November 3.

This week, Turner Classic Movies brings us two fantastic comedies – two of the very best in cinema history. First, on October 19, there’s My Man Godfrey (1936) – an assembly of eccentric, oblivious, venal and utterly spoiled characters make up a rich Park Avenue family and their hangers-on during the Depression. The kooky daughter (Carole Lombard) brings home a homeless guy (William Powell) to serve as their butler. The contrast between the dignified butler and his wacky employers results in a brilliant screwball comedy that masks searing social criticism that is relevant today. The wonderful character actor Eugene Pallette (who looked and sounded like a bullfrog in a tuxedo) plays the family’s patriarch, who is keenly aware that his wife and kids are completely nuts.

Then on October 21, TCM will present the groundbreaking French comedy La Cage Aux Folles – a daring film in 1978, when few were thinking about same-sex marriage. A gay guy runs a nightclub on the Riviera – and his partner is the star drag queen. The nightclub owner’s beloved son wants him to meet the parents of his intended. But the bride-to-be’s father is a conservative politician who practices the most severe and judgmental version of Roman Catholicism, so they’re going to have to conceal aspects of their lifestyle. Mad cap comedy ensues, and La Cage proves that broad farce can be heartfelt. Michel Serrault is unforgettable as Albin/Zaza – one of the all-time great comic performances. (La Cage was tepidly remade in 1996 as The Birdcage with Robin Williams, but you want to see the French original.)

Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

CAMERA CINEMA CLUB – a MUST for Silicon Valley Film Lovers

October 15, 2015 by movie gourmet

Jennifer lawrence breaks through in WINTER'S BONE, featured at the Camera Cinema Club — Jennifer Lawrence breaks through in WINTER’S BONE, featured at the Camera Cinema Club

An absolute MUST for Silicon Valley film lovers, the Camera Cinema Club is kicking off its 20th season this weekend.

It’s your chance to see ten as yet unreleased films for $160. There’s usually an post-screening Q&A with a filmmaker, either live or via Skype. It’s like seeing ten movies at a film festival – except it’s a manageable one per month instead of all at once.

The movies range from indie gems to Oscar Bait and are selected by Tim Sika, President of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. Sika is the host and producer of the movie magazine radio show Celluloid Dreams and also reviews movies for KGO radio.

Here’s how it works. The club meets monthly on Sundays – at Campbell’s Camera 7 in the morning and at downtown San Jose’s Camera 12 in the afternoon. After a movie trivia contest (winners get movie schwag), the house lights go off and a movie appears on the screen. Until this moment, we don’t know which movie it is. The mystery is part of the club’s appeal, and, as a result, I’ve seen some wonderful films that I otherwise never would have chosen to see. Afterward, Sika leads a discussion about the film – almost always with at least one of the filmmakers.

The Club’s 20th season begins on October 18th and you can sign up at here. It’s 10 events for $160 – a film festival on the installment plan. You can also buy a four-movie punch card or pay for an individual screening. The Camera Cinema Club is one of my Best Movie Deals in Silicon Valley.

I first saw my pick for the top movie of 2010, Winter’s Bone (four Oscar nominations, including for Jennifer Lawrence’s breakthrough performance), at the Camera Cinema Club. Here are some other Cinema Club films that have made my Best of the Year lists:

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, I’ll See You in My Dreams, Two Days One Night, Alive Inside, Bernie, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Rabbit Hole, Project Nim, The Messenger, The Tillman Story, Wendy and Lucy, Goodbye Solo, Taxi to the Dark Side, Shotgun Stories, American Splendor, Maria Full of Grace.

As you can see, Tim Sika has exquisite taste. Thanks to him, Camera Cinema Club members get to see (before their release):

Crowd pleasers like Meet the Patels, Cloudburst, Once and Mad Hot Ballroom;
Challenging cinematic ground breakers like Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color and Gus Van Zant’s Last Days;
Unknown gems like The Grief of Others and In the Family by the as yet undiscovered genius Patrick Wang, the hitherto forgotten neo-noir The Woman Chaser and the delightful Bay Area indie Colma: The Musical.

And I have to admit that, otherwise, I never would have seen The September Issue (I have no interest in the fashion world) or The Tillman Story (I thought I already knew the whole story). Both were rewarding movie experiences.

Cinema Club members also get invited to special previews and events. Recently, I attended a 99 Homes preview with star Andrew Garfield. Another highlight for me was a preview of Killer Joe with director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist). In a rare revival showing, the Cinema Club also screened an almost lost film, the 1981 They All Laughed – and I found myself sitting next to director Peter Bogdanovich!

I’ve been a Club member since its 2003-04 season. If you love movies and live in Silicon Valley, you need to be in the Camera Cinema Club. Sign up here.

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL screened pre-release at the CAMERA CINEMA CLUB

Movies to See Right Now

October 9, 2015 by movie gourmet

Plenty of excellent movie choices in the theaters – and something for everyone:

The Martian – an entertaining Must See space adventure – even for folks who usually don’t enjoy science fiction;
Sicario – a dark and paranoid crime thriller about the drug wars.
Meet the Patels, a heartwarming crowd-pleaser – a documentary that’s funnier than most fictional comedies. Now hard to find in theaters, it’s worth tracking down.
99 Homes, a riveting psychological drama about the foreclosure crisis with searing performances by Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon.
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine – Alex Gibney’s anything but reverential documentary on Steve Jobs.
The excellent true life crime drama Black Mass with Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton and a brilliant cast.
Going Clear: The Prison of Belief, documentarian Alex Gibney’s devastating expose of Scientology, originally shown on HBO and now in theaters.

My Stream of the Week is the unforgettable coming of age dramedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It’s available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. You will be able to rent it on DVD from Netflix and Redbox on November 3.

On October 12, Turner Classic Movies presents the groundbreaking French noir Elevator to the Gallows(1958). A thriller about the perfect crime that goes awry, it still stands up today, .It’s one of my Overlooked Noir. Elevator to the Gallows is such a groundbreaking film, you can argue that it’s the first of the neo-noir. It’s difficult now to appreciate the originality of Elevator the Gallows; but in 1958, no one had seen a film with a Miles Davis soundtrack or one where the two romantic leads were never on-screen together. Directed by Louis Malle when he was only 24 years old.

On October 15, TCM brings us the 1979 Oscar-winner Harlan County U.S.A. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple embedded herself among the striking coal miners and got amazing footage – including of herself threatened and shot at. Also one of my 5 Great Hillbilly Movies.

THE MARTIAN: an entertaining Must See

October 8, 2015 by movie gourmet

The space adventure The Martian delivers what the best big Hollywood movies can offer – a great looking movie that convincingly takes us to a place we’ve never been, inhabited by our favorite movie stars at their most appealing.

In The Martian, Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, a member of a scientific expedition to Mars who is (understandingly) left for dead when his team must make an emergency escape from the Red Planet. The next manned mission to Mars is scheduled to land four years later 1000 miles away and he only has a four months supply of food, so his chances don’t look promising. But Mark Watney is a character of irrepressible resilience, with a wicked sense of humor, and he immediately embarks on solving the many individual problems that stand between him and survival. NASA leadership (Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean and more) and his team en route back to Earth (Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Michael Pena) all try to help.

Directed masterfully by Ridley Scott, The Martian pops along and there’s never a dull moment. It helps that the character of Watney is very funny.

I’m not highly scientifically literate, but the science in The Martian seemed to be at least internally consistent. I do think that – in real life – the NASA team would have immediately come to the solution thought up in the movie by the geek in the Jet Propulsion Lab.

The awesomely desolate Marscapes are fantastic. It’s all CGI, but you can’t tell – it looks like it is shot on location.

Here’s why The Martian isn’t a great movie:

Other than Damon’s Mark Watney, the other characters are types, getting all of their authentic texture from the performances instead of from the writing.
Never for a moment does the audience think there’s any chance that The Martian is really going to kill off Matt Damon.

But, overall, The Martian is so entertaining, it’s a Must See – even for folks that usually pass on science fiction.

Stream of the Week: ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL – perched on the knife edge between comedy and tragedy

October 6, 2015 by movie gourmet

Here’s a MUST SEE – the unforgettable coming of age Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, a brilliant second feature from director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. The title suggests a weeper (and it is), but 90% of Me and Earl is flat-out hilarious. It’s high on my list of the Best Movies of 2015 – So Far.

Greg (Thomas Mann) is a Pittsburgh teenager who has decided that the best strategy for navigating high school is to foster good relations with every school clique while belonging to none. Embracing the adage “hot girls destroy your life”, he gives the opposite gender a very wide berth. Outwardly genial, Greg is emphatically anti-social in practice, except for his best friend Earl (Ronald Cyler II). But he even refuses to admit that Earl is his friend, describing him “as more of a co-worker”.

Greg’s parents disrupt Greg’s routine by forcing him to visit his classmate Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who has just been diagnosed with leukemia. Rachel doesn’t want any pity, so this is awkward all around until Greg makes Rachel laugh, which draws him back again to visit -and again. A friendship, based on their shared quirky senses of humor, blossoms, but – given her diagnosis – how far can it go?

Rachel is delighted to learn that Greg and Earl shoot their own movies – short knock-offs of iconic cinema classics. She first laughs when she finds that he has remade Rashomon as MonoRash. Their other titles include Death in Tennis, Brew Velvet and A Box of Lips Now.

Why is Me and Earl so successful? Most importantly, it perches right on the knife-edge between tragedy and comedy, and does so more than any movie I can think of. As funny as it is, we all know that there’s that leukemia thing just under the surface. But, with its originality and resistance to sentimentality, Me and Earl is the farthest thing from a disease-of-the-week movie.

Any movie lover will love all the movie references, as well as Greg and Earl’s many short films. Gomez-Rejon shot these shorts with Super 8, Bolex, digital Bolex and iPhone. Jesse Andrews adapted his own novel, and, as Gomez-Rejon expanded the number of “films within the film”, he called on Andrews to supply him with the new titles – and there are scores of them, right through the ending credits.

Finally, Me and Earl’s art direction is the most singular of any coming of age film. In fact, all the art direction led to the movie’s very satisfying ending; Gomez-Rejon brought in those surprises on the wall at the end – it’s not in the novel.

But Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is at its heart a coming of age story. Sure, the character of Greg is an original, but the life lessons that he must learn are universal.

Thomas Mann is hilarious as Greg; he could be a great comic talent in the making. Cooke and newcomer Cyler are also excellent. Nick Offerman and Connie Britton are perfect as Greg’s well-meaning parents, as is Molly Shannon as Rachel’s needy mom. Jon Bernthal also rocks the role of Mr. McCarthy, another great character we haven’t seen before – a boisterously vital, but grounded history teacher; Mr. McCarthy lets Greg and Earl spend their lunch hours in his office watching Werner Herzog movies on YouTube. (And Herzog himself reportedly loves the references.)

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon started as a personal assistant to Martin Scorsese and worked his way up to second unit director. With the startling originality of Me and Earl, he’s proved his chops as an auteur.

I saw Me and Earl and the Dying Girl in early May at the San Francisco International Film Festival at a screening with Gomez-Rejon. It also just screened at San Jose’s Camera Cinema Club, another fine choice by Club Director Tim Sika, President of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser and a Must See. It’s available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. You will be able to rent it on DVD from Netflix and Redbox on November 3.