12 Years a Slave

Movies To See This Week (and a milestone for The Movie Gourmet)

by
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

There is NO BETTER TIME to go to the movies than THIS WEEKEND.  Of the films opening widely today, I recommend the gloriously entertaining American Hustle, with Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner and Louis C.K. at their best. I haven’t yet seen the other promising movies opening today: the Coen Brother’s Inside Llewyn Davis,  Tom Hanks as Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks and Go for Sisters (by my favorite indie writer-director John Sayles). And you can still several of the best movies of the year:

  • The French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color, with its stunning performance by 19-year-old actress Adèle Exarchopoulos, currently tops my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.
  • The city of Rome dazzles in The Great Beauty, already another contender for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
  • I really liked and admired the funny, poignant and thought-provoking family portrait Nebraska from Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants).
  • Philomena, with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan is an emotionally satisfying gem.
  • This weekend, I will write about The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, another fine thriller from that franchise, with another amazing performance by Jennifer Lawrence.

You can still find some of the earlier top 2013 movies in theaters: the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips; the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance; and 12 Years a Slave, an unsparingly realistic depiction of the horrors of American slavery.

Make this a 2-3 movie weekend!

[Note: Sunday’s We Remember Billy Jack was The Movie Gourmet’s 1000th post.  Thanks to all of you for your support.]

Movies to See Right Now – Thanksgiving Weekend

by
Bruce Dern and Will Forte in NEBRASKA

I really liked and admired the evocative family portrait Nebraska from Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants).  The funny, poignant and thought-provoking Nebraska opens this weekend, and features strong performances from Bruce Dern (a certain Oscar nod) and Will Forte and June Squibb.

Please don’t miss the French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color , which explores first love, capturing the arc of a young woman’s first serious romance with remarkable authenticity and a stunning performance by 19-year-old actress Adèle Exarchopoulos. It’s three hours long, justifiably rated NC-17 and currently tops my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

Other good choices include the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips and the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance. 12 Years a Slave is an unsparingly realistic depiction of the horrors of American slavery.

Check out my VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including How to Make Money Selling Drugs).

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the entirely fresh and riveting Parkland, which sharply dramatizes the events of November 22-25 in Dallas from the viewpoints of the secondary participants. Parkland is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, GooglePlay and XBOX Live.

On TV, you can’t do any better than John Ford’s mold-breaking Western The Searchers, with John Wayne playing a man filled with racism, obsessed with revenge and never ever giving up.  Turner Classic Movies on November 30.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Adèle Exarchopoulos in BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR

The French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color explores first love, capturing the arc of a young woman’s first serious romance with remarkable authenticity and a stunning performance by 19-year-old actress Adèle Exarchopoulos. It’s three hours long, justifiably rated NC-17 and currently tops my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

Other good choices include the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips and the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance. 12 Years a Slave is an unsparingly realistic depiction of the horrors of American slavery. The Motel Life is a solid character-driven drama. Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon offers both guffaws and an unexpected moment of self-discovery.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including How to Make Money Selling Drugs).

Here’s a treat – on November 26, Turner Classic Movies is celebrating Cops and Robbers with a feast of crime movies. The menu includes The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Naked City, Bullitt, Rififi, Asphalt Jungle and Gun Crazy.  I’ll be writing more about these films on the weekend.

Movies to See Right Now

by
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR

The French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color explores first love, capturing the arc of a young woman’s first serious romance with remarkable authenticity and a stunning performance by 19-year-old actress Adèle Exarchopoulos. It’s three hours long, justifiably rated NC-17 and currently tops my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

Other good choices include the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips and the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance. 12 Years a Slave is an unsparingly realistic depiction of the horrors of American slavery. The Motel Life is a solid character-driven drama. Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon offers both guffaws and an unexpected moment of self-discovery.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including How to Make Money Selling Drugs).

My DVD/Stream of the Week is Before Midnight, the year’s best romance (and one of the year’s best movies).  Before Midnight is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and other VOD outlets. I recommend that you watch the prequels first. Both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on VOD from Amazon , iTunes, Vudu and other VOD outlets. Before Sunrise is free with Amazon Prime.

Since we’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, my television picks are two JFK films on Turner Classic Movies – the documentary Primary (November 20) and the biopic PT 109 (November 21).  I’ll be writing more about these films on Monday. (I also recommend the fresh and riveting Parkland, which sharply dramatizes the events of November 22-25 in Dallas from the viewpoints of the secondary participants; Parkland is available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and XBOX Live.)

Movies to See Right Now

by
PARKLAND

This week’s best picks are the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips and the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance.  12 Years a Slave is an unsparingly realistic depiction of the horrors of American slavery.

I haven’t yet seen the French film that won the top prize at Cannes – Blue is the Warmest Color, which opens today.  Actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux (Farewell My Queen, Midnight in Paris) are reportedly spectacular in this three-hour love story.  One of the explicit sex scenes takes over twenty minutes.

The Motel Life, which also opens today, is solid character-driven drama. Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon offers both guffaws and an unexpected moment of self-discovery.

My Stream of the Week is the entirely fresh and riveting Parkland, which sharply dramatizes the events of November 22-25 in Dallas from the viewpoints of the secondary participants. Parkland is available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and XBOX Live.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including How to Make Money Selling Drugs).

On November 11, Turner Classic Movies is playing the underrated 1949 noir The Set-up. This is one of the great film noirs and one of my 10 Best Boxing Movies . Robert Ryan plays a washed-up boxer that nobody believes can win again, not even his long-suffering wife. His manager doesn’t bother to tell him that he is committed to taking a dive in his next fight. But what if he wins? Director Robert Wise makes use of then innovative real time narrative. In this clip, watch for the verisimilitude of the bar where the deal goes down.

12 Years a Slave: unsparing, I repeat, unsparing

by
Chiwetel Ejiafor and Michael Fassbender in 12 YEARS A SLAVE

12 Years a Slave is an unsparing, I repeat, unsparing depiction of American slavery.  It tells the true story of Soloman Northup, a comfortable Syracuse, New York, free man of color who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery in the South, where he languished for twelve years.  At first, Northup is bewildered and can’t believe what is happening to him, but he is quickly immersed into the horrors of slavery, and remains focused on his own survival in hopes that eventually he can be rescued.  As he is traded from slave-owner to slave-owner, we witness his experience.  All of the slave-owners are brutal in their own ways, but the last one is also a psychotic sadist (Michael Fassbender).  As a result, almost all of 12 Years a Slave’s 134 minutes is the beating, whipping, raping and killing of (and commerce in) enslaved people.  It’s an unrelentingly tough watch.

The fine British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dirty Pretty Things) plays Northup, and his outstanding performance carries the film.   The other startling performance is by Fassbender (who previously teamed with director Steve McQueen for Shame), whose demented role would be lusted after by the likes of Christolph Walz and Gary Oldman.  The acting is uniformly excellent, but I’ll also call out Sarah Paulson as a bitter plantation mistress and Garret Dillahunt (Winter’s Bone, Assassination of Jesse James yada yada, Looper, Killing Them Softly) as a morally weak White trash loser.

12 Years a Slave’s Metacritic rating has shot to an atmospheric 97 because critics are gushing about the groundbreakingly ultra-realistic (and thus horrifying) depiction of slavery by a Hollywood movie (in contrast to the decades of bowdlerized portrayals by the likes of Gone with the Wind).  Give the credit to screenwriter John Ridley (who wrote the story in Three Kings).

Yes, 12 Years a Slave is a landmark historical movie. Yes, it is well-made and centered around a superb leading performance.  But you should know that it is a very grim viewing experience.

Mill Valley Film Fest upcoming

by
THE PAST

Here’s a heads up for San Francisco Bay Area (and especially Marin) movie fans.  The Mill Valley Film Festival usually offers an early peek at some prestige fall releases, and that is definitely the case this October.

I think the three most promising films are:

  • The Past: The Artist’s Berenice Bejo won Best Actress at Cannes as a Parisian woman divorcing her Iranian husband in Paris amid an increasingly messy family life.  By the director of Oscar-winning A Separation.
  • All Is Lost with Robert Redford as a man battling impossible odds when something goes horribly wrong on his trans-ocean solo voyage.
  • the historical slavery epic 12 Years a Slave (but the only screening, with director and star, is already sold out).

Other films with lots of buzz include:

  • Nebraska:  Director Alexander Payne follows his Sideways and The Descendants with a black and white indie.  Bruce Dern won Best Actor at Cannes for portraying an addled Montana grump who thinks he’s won a junk mail sweepstakes.  His son drives him to Omaha to claim the nonexistent prize, stopping to see some relatives and have some road trip adventures along the way.   There’s also some buzz about the performance of June Squibb (who acted in Payne’s About Schmidt) as the old man’s wife.
  • Philomena:  Judi Dench stars as an Irish woman seeking the son she was forced to give up for adoption.  Co-stars Steve Coogan in a non-ironic role.
  • Blue is the Warmest Color:  This film, which many critics thought was way too long, nevertheless won the top prize at Cannes. Actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux (Farewell My Queen, Midnight in Paris) are reportedly spectacular in this three-hour love story.  One of the explicit sex scenes takes over twenty minutes (TWENTY MINUTES!).
  • The Rocket:  A boy takes his family across war-scarred Laos to enter a rocket contest.  It looks like the kind of movie that I usually don’t like, but it won major awards at the Berlin and Tribeca film fests.

Eventually, I’ll have descriptions and trailers for all these films on my Movies I’m Looking Forward To.  Scroll down to “Later Fall – Prestige Season”.   The Mill Valley Film Festival will run October 3-13  at the Rafael in San Rafael, the Sequoia in Mill Valley and three other Marin venues.