On November 9, Turner Classic Movies will present A Place in the Sun, one of the great films of the 1950s. Montgomery Clift is a poor kid who is satisfied to have a job and a trashy girlfriend (Shelly Winters in a brilliant portrayal). Then, he learns that he could have it ALL – the CEO’s gorgeous daughter (19-year-old Elizabeth Taylor), lifelong comfort, status and career. Did I mention Elizabeth Taylor? The now pregnant girlfriend is the only obstacle to more than he could have ever dreamed for – can he get rid of her without getting caught?
Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A PLACE IN THE SUN
Now is the time we’ve all been waiting for – the year’s very best movies are coming out in waves. Parasite,Jojo Rabbit and Pain and Glory will make their share of Top Ten lists; (I saw Parasite at its first Silicon Valley screening Thursday night and will write about it soon). The Irishman and Marriage Story are coming next weekend – so see at least two movies in theaters this weekend to stay current.
OUT NOW
Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.
ON VIDEO
My Stream of the Week is last year’s best movie– the unforgettable coming of age film Leave No Trace. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie star as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting. Leave No Trace is available for streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
Here are two very different 1950s films coming up this week on Turner Classic Movies. On October 30, there’s the campy Bucket of Blood– it’s most interesting as a time capsule of the Beatnik Era.
And on October 28, TCM brings us A Place in the Sun: One of the great films of the 1950s. Montgomery Clift is a poor kid who is satisfied to have a job and a trashy girlfriend (Shelly Winters in a brilliant portrayal). Then, he learns that he could have it all – the CEO’s daughter Elizabeth Taylor, lifelong comfort, status and career. Did I mention Elizabeth Taylor? The now pregnant girlfriend is the only obstacle to more than he could have ever dreamed for – can he get rid of her without getting caught?
Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A PLACE IN THE SUN
Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films. On this Thursday through Sunday, the TCM lineup is especially rich, including these gems:
Seven Days in May: “I’m suggesting Mr President, there’s a military plot to take over the Government of these United States, next Sunday…” John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) is a master of the thriller, and his 1964 Seven Days in May is a masterpiece of the paranoid political thriller subgenre. Edmond O’Brien’s performance is best among outstanding turns by Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frederic March and Whit Bissell.
A Place in the Sun:One of the great films of the 1950s. Montgomery Clift is a poor kid who is satisfied to have a job and a trashy girlfriend (Shelly Winters in a brilliant portrayal). Then, he learns that he could have it all – the CEO’s daughter Elizabeth Taylor, lifelong comfort, status and career. Did I mention Elizabeth Taylor? The now pregnant girlfriend is the only obstacle to more than he could have ever dreamed for – can he get rid of her without getting caught?
Anatomy of a Murder (1959): Otto Preminger delivers a classic courtroom drama that frankly addresses sexual mores. James Stewart is a folksy but very canny lawyer defending a cynical soldier (Ben Gazzara) on a murder charge; did he discover his wife straying or is he avenging her rape? Lee Remick portrays the wife with a penchant for partying and uncertain fidelity. The Duke Ellington score could be the very best jazz score in the movies. Joseph Welch, the real-life lawyer who stood up to Sen. Joe McCarthy in a televised red scare hearing, plays the judge.
All this and more! There’s Double Indemnity one of the masterpieces of film noir, Marlon Brando’s tour de force in On the Waterfront, the great trial movie The Caine Mutiny, the historically important Easy Rider (and one of my Best Drug Movies) and the political classic All the King’s Men. If you’re looking for an epic, you can try out The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia on your big screen TV. For a comedy, there’s Tootsie.
And don’t miss an overlooked great Jack Nicholson performance in The Last Detail.
The best new movie is Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects with Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones. In Stand Up Guys, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin play old mobsters gearing up for one last surge of adrenaline. Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances. The charmingly funny Warm Bodies has made my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies. The pretty good horror movie Mama (with Jessica Chastain) can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering.
Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 and all are nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. The French language drama Amour, also nominated for Best Picture, is a brilliantly made film about the end of life – it’s also an almost unbearable viewing experience.
If, like me, you worship the spaghetti Western, the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained is gloriously pedal-to-the-metal, splattering exploitation. The intelligent dramaRust and Bone is the singular tale of a complicated woman and an uncomplicated man. Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling.
Skip the unoriginal mob movie Gangster Squad, which wastes its fine cast. Also pass on the lavish but stupefying all-star Les Miserables, with its multiple endings, each more miserable than the last. The FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson is a bore. The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril. I have not seen Movie 43 – it is the most critically reviled movie in a looooong time.
My DVD of the week is the underrated 2012 thriller Deadfall.
Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films. In the next week, the especially rich lineup will include Double Indemnity, A Place in the Sun, Seven Days in May, All the King’s Men, Anatomy of a Murder with its great jazz score, On the Waterfront, The Caine Mutiny, Easy Rider, The Last Detail, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Tootsie.
Elizabeth Taylor was a fine actress and a compelling screen presence. The movies are full of extraordinary beauties, but few could better dominate a camera’s attention.
She won her Oscar for Butterfield 8, which was entirely her vehicle. But my favorite Elizabeth Taylor performances were in the ensemble casts of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Giant. Although A Place in the Sun is Montgomery Clift’s movie, Elizabeth Taylor is essential – if an 18-year-old Elizabeth Taylor fell in love with him, what man wouldn’t at least think about killing for her?
As my friend Keith always advises me, movie distributors send out their weakest material in August. Make lemonade out of the lemons by catching up on the better movies from earlier in the year.
Inception and Toy Story 3 are two of the year’s best. If you want a thriller, go with The Girl Who Played With Fire. Robert Duvall gives another masterful performance in Get Low. For an indie dramedy, try The Kids Are All Right. For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
My DVD of the week is a British coming of age drama from earlier this year, Fish Tank. For the trailers and other DVD choices, see DVDs of the Week.
Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun
Movies on TV include Cool Hand Luke, A Place in the Sun, A Face in the Crowd, Anatomy of a Murder, and The Stunt Man, all coming up on TCM.
This is the time of year where you can still see the best movies – by avoiding the theaters. Fortunately, there are some great movies on TV during late August – and here are six of them. Thank God (and Ted Turner) for Turner Classic Movies.
Cool Hand Luke (1967): Paul Newman plays a free-spirited character that refuses to bend to The System – even in a Southern chain gang. Many memorable scenes include the fight with George Kennedy’s Dragline, the wager on eating a massive amount of hardboiled eggs, getting sent to the hole, the scariest aviator sunglasses ever and the unforgettable: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”. One of my 10 Best Prison Movies and 10 Most Memorable Food Scenes. TCM 8/21
A Place in the Sun:One of the great films of the 1950s. Montgomery Clift is a poor kid who is satisfied to have a job and a trashy girlfriend (Shelly Winters in a brilliant portrayal). Then, he learns that he could have it all – the CEO’s daughter Elizabeth Taylor, lifelong comfort, status and career. Did I mention Elizabeth Taylor? The now pregnant girlfriend is the only obstacle to more than he could have ever dreamed for – can he get rid of her without getting caught? TCM 8/23
Andy Griffith as the charming, phony and venal Lonesome Rhodes
A Face in the Crowd (1957): This is a brilliant political classic by Elia Kazan. Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is a failed country guitar picker who is hauled out of an Arkansas drunk tank by talent scout Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal). It turns out that he has a folksy charm that is dynamite in the new medium of television. He quickly rises in the infotainment universe until he is an A List celeb and a political power broker. To Jeffries’ horror, Rhodes reveals himself to be an evil, power hungry megalomaniac. Jeffries made him – can she break him? The seduction of a gullible public by a good timin’ charmer predicts the careers of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, although Lonesome Rhodes is meaner than Reagan and less ideological than Bush. One of my 10 Best Political Movies. TCM 8/26
James Stewart and George C. Scott tangle in Anatomy of a Murder
Anatomy of a Murder (1959): Otto Preminger delivers a classic courtroom drama that frankly addresses sexual mores. James Stewart is a folksy but very canny lawyer defending a cynical soldier (Ben Gazzara) on a murder charge; did he discover his wife straying or is he avenging her rape? Lee Remick portrays the wife with a penchant for partying and uncertain fidelity. The Duke Ellington score could be the very best jazz score in the movies. Joseph Welch, the real-life lawyer who stood up to Sen. Joe McCarthy in a televised red scare hearing, plays the judge. TCM 8/26 score
The Stunt Man (1980): Steve Railback plays a young fugitive chased on to a movie location shoot. The director (Peter O’Toole) hides him out on the set as long as he works as a stunt double in increasingly hazardous stunts. He is attracted to the leading lady (Barbara Hershey). It doesn’t take long for him to doubt the director’s good will and to learn that not everything is as it seems. Shot on location at San Diego’s famed Hotel Del Coronado. One of my Overlooked Masterworks. Listen to Director Robert Rush describe his movie in this clip. TCM 8/28
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976): This is one of my very favorite Westerns. Clint Eastwood directs the movie and plays a Civil War vet on the run, who unwillingly picks up a set of misfits and strays on his journey. TCM 8/31
