Calvary

Movies to See Right Now

by
Brendan Gleeson and Kelly Reilly in CALVARY
Brendan Gleeson and Kelly Reilly in CALVARY

We’re still harvesting the Best Movies of 2014 (and awaiting the wider release of Selma, A Most Violent Year, American Sniper and Inherent Vice):

  • The cinematically important and very funny Birdman.
  • The best Hollywood movie of 2014, the thriller Gone Girl, with a career-topping performance by Rosamund Pike.
  • I liked the droll Swedish dramedy Force Majeure, which won an award at Cannes and is Sweden’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

And here are some other hearty recommendations:

  • Reese Witherspoon is superb in the Fight Your Demons drama Wild, and Laura Dern may be even better.
  • The Theory of Everything is a successful, audience-friendly biopic of both Mr. AND Mrs. Genius.
  • The Imitation Game – the riveting true story about the guy who invented the computer and defeated the Nazis and was then hounded for his homosexuality.
  • Set in the macho world of Olympic wrestling, Foxcatcher is really a relationship movie with a stunning dramatic performance by Steve Carell.
  • Big Eyes is a lite audience pleaser.
  • J.K. Simmons is brilliant in the intense indie drama Whiplash, a study of motivation and abuse, ambition and obsession.
  • Mr. Turner is visually remarkable and features a stuning performance by Timothy Spall, but it’s toooo loooong.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the dark, intense and mesmerizing Calvary. In my opinion, Brendan Gleeson’s extraordinary performance as a good man navigating a grimly urgent situation is the very best acting of the year. Calvary is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Coming up on TV on January 11, Turner Classic Movies brings us Knife in the Water, Roman Polanski’s first feature, made in Communist Poland in 1962. A couple picks up a hitchhiker and invite him on to their small sailboat and sexual tension ensues – think of a mystery thriller influenced by the French New Wave. Knife in the Water lost the Best Foreign Picture Oscar to Fellini’s 8 1/2. This was Polanski before Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Sharon Tate’s murder by the Manson Family, the rape scandal and the fugitive flight from prosecution in the US, The Pianist and a slew of inappropriately young actress girlfriends. Incidentally, the most thoughtful and revealing documentary on Polanski is Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which is available on DVD from Netflix.

DVD/Stream of the Week: CALVARY – dark, intense and mesmerizing

by
Brendan Glesson in CALVARY
Brendan Gleeson in CALVARY

The superbly written drama Calvary opens with a startling line, which kicks off the unsettling premise. Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges, The Guard, The Grand Seduction) plays a very good man who is an Irish priest, Father James. In the confessional, a man tells him that – in one week – he will kill Father James. Having been molested by a priest (now dead), the man will make his statement against the Church: “There’s no point in killing a bad priest. I’m going to kill you because you’re innocent.”

Who is the man? (Father James figures it out before the audience does.) Will the execution really happen? Will Father James take steps to protect himself? Tension builds as the days count down.

The character of Father James is wonderfully crafted. Having come to the priesthood in midlife, after being married and having a secular career, he is seasoned and unburdened by high expectations of human nature – and has a wicked sense of humor. Yet he is moral in the best sense and profoundly compassionate. And Gleeson – always excellent – nails the role. It’s one of the finest leading performances of the year.

We know that the killer comes from a very limited pool of villagers and would-be parishioners, played by Chris O’Dowd, Dylan Moran, Aidan Gillen, M. Emmet Walsh, Isaach de Bankole and Orla O’Rourke. Their feelings for Father James range from fondness to indifference. Their attitudes toward the Church, on the other hand, range from indifference to hostility. (Moran is the best – playing a man grappling with his unhappiness, despite enjoying a fortune built by exploiting others. )

None of these characters is a stereotype. It’s a quirky bunch – but not CUTE quirky. There’s a lot of buried rage in this village – and dry humor, too. Referring to his wife, one casually says, “I think she’s bipolar, or lactose intolerant, one of the two”.

But it’s not the villagers that Father James must deal with. He gets a visit from his occasionally suicidal adult daughter (Kelly Reilly, who is ALWAYS good); he loves and welcomes her, but she often contributes more stress. He doesn’t love his roommate, an idiotically shallow priest David Wilmot (the thug in The Guard who hilariously couldn’t figure out if he was a psychopath or a sociopath). Then there’s a seriously twisted imprisoned killer (the star’s son Domnhall Gleeson), a foreign tourist numbed by a sudden tragedy (Marie-Josee Croze) and a scheming bishop (David McSavage).

Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (The Guard) gets the credit for populating his screenplay with enough unique and original characters for an entire film festival, let alone one movie. After The Guard and Calvary, I can’t wait to see his next movie.

As one should ascertain from its title, Calvary ain’t a feel-good movie. It plumbs some pretty dark territory. But as we follow Brendan Gleeson’s extraordinary performance as a good man navigating a grimly urgent situation, it is mesmerizing.  Calvary is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Dylan Moran in CALVARY
Dylan Moran in CALVARY

Movies to See Right Now

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Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in THE TRIP TO ITALY
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in THE TRIP TO ITALY

In theaters:

  • The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
  • Alive Inside: The profoundly moving documentary showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music.
  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.
  • I really liked The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. It’s also available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
  • Don’t miss Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.

Boyhood tops my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far, and Alive Inside and Calvary also make the list.

Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.  I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

Here’s my preview of the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the unusually thoughtful romantic comedy Words and Pictures.

On September 16, Turner Classic Movies plays the unforgettable Bogart and Bacall thriller Key Largo.  And the next day, TCM will air the overlooked film noir masterpiece The Narrow Margin, a taut 71 minutes of tension.  Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train.  Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target.

Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN

Movies to See Right Now

by
Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass in THE ONE I LOVE
Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass in THE ONE I LOVE

Plenty of good choices in theaters:

  • The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
  • Alive Inside: The profoundly moving documentary showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music.
  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson.  Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.
  • I really liked The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie.  It’s also available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
  • Don’t miss Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.

Boyhood tops my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far, and Alive Inside and Calvary also make the list.

Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred molina and john Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange.  I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.  I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is Go For Sisters , a border thriller with three more great movie characters from master indie writer-director John Sayles. Go for Sisters is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon and Vudu.

As I wrote yesterday, Turner Classic Movies is airing the prototype for Orange Is the New Black – Caged from 1950 – set your DVR tonight..

On September 7, TCM plays The Battle of Algiers (1966), the story of 1950s French colonialists struggling to suppress the guerrilla uprising of Algerian independence fighters.  Although it looks like a documentary, it is not.  Instead, filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo recreated the actual events so realistically that we believe that we are watching strategy councils of each side.  Urban insurgency and counter-insurgency are nasty, brutal and not very short – and we see some horrifically inhumane butchering by both sides. Among the great war films, it may be the best film on counter-insurgency.  In 2003, the Pentagon screened the film for its special operations commanders. Re-released to theaters in 2004, The Battle of Algiers made many critics’ top ten lists the second time around.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Dan Cohen (RightI in ALIVE INSIDE
ALIVE INSIDE

Last night I saw Alive Inside for the second time, this time with The Wife, and it was as profoundly moving as the first screening.  This documentary showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music is on my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far (along with three other movies in this post – Boyhood, Calvary and Locke).

Other top picks:

  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.

The sci fi thriller Snowpiercer is both thoughtful and exciting, plus it features amazing production design; you can also stream Snowpiercer on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and DirecTV.   Lucy is a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that rocks.  I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

There’s also an assortment of recent releases to Video on Demand:

  • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon Instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
  • The oddly undisturbing documentary A Brony Tale, about grown men with very unusual taste in television shows. Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.
  • The Congress: a thoughtful live action fable followed by a less compelling an animated sci fi story. The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Robert Duvall’s geezer-gone-wild roadtrip in A Night in Old Mexico. A Night in Old Mexico is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

My DVD/Stream of the week is Locke, a thriller about responsibility – and it’s also on my list of the year’s best so far.  Locke is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

It’s another good week for film noir coming up on Turner Classic Movies.

  • On August 25, TCM will air the 1944 Murder, My Sweet. Rebelling against being typecast in the sappy musical roles that he knew he was aging out of, Dick Powell took on the role of hardboiled detective Philip Marlowe and knocked it out of the park. He rejuvenated his own career in a similar arc to what we’ve recently seen from Alec Baldwin and Matthew McConaughey.
  • The Hitch-hiker (August 27 on TCM) is notable for being the first film noir directed by a woman (the veteran noir actress Ida Lupino). The ruthless bad guy is played by William Talman, who Baby Boomers will remember as the luckless District Attorney Hamilton Burger on TV’s Perry Mason – kind of a proto-Wiley Coyote.
  • I’m going to be featuring the noir thriller D.O.A. in a post on Monday.

Movies to See Right Now – more than one MUST SEE

by
Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater in BOYHOOD
Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater in BOYHOOD

Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.  But two other movies that are ALSO on my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far open this weekend:

  • The emotionally gripping documentary Alive Inside, showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music.  This will be one of the two favorites for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.

Boyhood and Alive Inside, in particular, are MUST SEEs.  Don’t miss them.

Also in theaters:

  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.
  • The smart and entertaining I Origins, which works both as a scientific detective story and as a meditation on romance.
  • The quirky comedy Land Ho!, with an uproarious and yet genuine geezer road trip to Iceland.
  • The sci fi thriller Snowpiercer is both thoughtful and exciting, plus it features amazing production design. You can also stream Snowpiercer on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and DirecTV.
  • Lucy – a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that rocks.
  • The credible and politically important HBO documentary The Newburgh Sting, which exposes the FBI’s manufacture of a fake terrorist attack to arrest some New York dumbasses. It’s playing on HBO.

I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

There’s also an assortment of recent releases to Video on Demand:

        • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon Instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
        • Life Itself, the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death Life Itself is streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
        • The oddly undisturbing documentary A Brony Tale, about grown men with very unusual taste in television shows. Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.
        • The Congress: a thoughtful live action fable followed by a less compelling an animated sci fi story. The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
        • Robert Duvall’s geezer-gone-wild roadtrip in A Night in Old Mexico. A Night in Old Mexico is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
        • The art vs. technology documentary Tim’s Vermeer is a yawner.

One of my all-time favorite comedies, Twentieth Century, shows up on Turner Classic Movies on August 10. The next day, TCM will air The Wild One and The Gold Rush. The Wild One has the iconic 1953 Marlon Brando performance as the leader of bikers that terrorize a small town (based on a real incident in Hollister, California). Brando is asked “What are you rebelling against?” and replies “Whadda you got?”. Charlie Chaplin’s comic masterpiece The Gold Rush includes the wonderful scene where hulking Mack Swain, crazed by winter starvation, imagines Charlie to be a succulent chicken and chases him around their Alaskan cabin.

Charlie Chaplin and Mack Swain in THE GOLD RUSH
Charlie Chaplin and Mack Swain in THE GOLD RUSH

CALVARY: dark, tense and mesmerizing

by
Brendan Glesson in CALVARY
Brendan Gleeson in CALVARY

The superbly written drama Calvary opens with a startling line, which kicks off the unsettling premise.  Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges, The Guard, The Grand Seduction) plays a very good man who is an Irish priest, Father James.  In the confessional, a man tells him that – in one week – he will kill Father James.  Having been molested by a priest (now dead), the man will make his statement against the Church:  “There’s no point in killing a bad priest. I’m going to kill you because you’re innocent.”

Who is the man?  (Father James figures it out before the audience does.)  Will the execution really happen?  Will Father James take steps to protect himself?  Tension builds as the days count down.

The character of Father James is wonderfully crafted.  Having come to the priesthood in midlife, after being married and having a secular career, he is seasoned and unburdened by high expectations of human nature – and has a wicked sense of humor.  Yet he is moral in the best sense and profoundly compassionate.  And Gleeson – always excellent – nails the role.  It’s one of the finest leading performances of the year.

We know that the killer comes from a very limited pool of villagers and would-be parishioners, played by Chris O’Dowd, Dylan Moran, Aidan Gillen, M. Emmet Walsh, Isaach de Bankole and Orla O’Rourke.  Their feelings for Father James range from fondness to indifference.  Their attitudes toward the Church, on the other hand, range from indifference to hostility.  (Moran is the best – playing a man grappling with his unhappiness, despite enjoying a fortune built by exploiting others. )

None of these characters is a stereotype.  It’s a quirky bunch – but not CUTE quirky.   There’s a lot of buried rage in this village – and dry humor, too.  Referring to his wife, one casually says, “I think she’s bipolar, or lactose intolerant, one of the two”.

But it’s not the the villagers that Father James must deal with.  He gets a visit from his occasionally suicidal adult daughter (Kelly Reilly, who is ALWAYS good); he loves and welcomes her, but she often contributes more stress. He doesn’t love his roommate, an idiotically shallow priest David Wilmot (the thug in The Guard who hilariously couldn’t figure out if he was a psychopath or a sociopath).  Then there’s a seriously twisted imprisoned killer (the star’s son Domnhall Gleeson), a foreign tourist numbed by a sudden tragedy (Marie-Josee Croze) and a scheming bishop (David McSavage).

Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (The Guard) gets the credit for populating his screenplay with enough unique and original characters for an entire film festival, let alone one movie.  After The Guard and Calvary, I can’t wait to see his next movie.

As one should ascertain from its title, Calvary ain’t a feel-good movie.  It plumbs some pretty dark territory.  But as we follow Brendan Gleeson’s extraordinary performance as a good man navigating a grimly urgent situation, it is mesmerizing.

Dylan Moran in CALVARY
Dylan Moran in CALVARY

Movies to See Right Now

by
Eller Coltrane in BOYHOOD
Eller Coltrane in BOYHOOD

First things first –  Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood tops my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far and it may turn out to be the best film of the decade. It’s a Must See.

And there are plenty of other good movie choices.  Here are some more recommendations:

  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.
  • The smart and entertaining I Origins, which works both as a scientific detective story and as a meditation on romance.
  • The quirky comedy Land Ho!, with an uproarious and yet genuine geezer road trip to Iceland.
  • The sci fi thriller Snowpiercer is both thoughtful and exciting, plus it features amazing production design. You can also stream Snowpiercer on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and DirecTV.
  • Lucy – a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that rocks.
  • The credible and politically important HBO documentary The Newburgh Sting, which exposes the FBI’s manufacture of a fake terrorist attack to arrest some New York dumbasses. It’s playing on HBO.

There’s also an assortment of recent releases to Video on Demand:

      • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
      • Life Itself, the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death Life Itself is streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
      • The oddly undisturbing documentary A Brony Tale, about grown men with very unusual taste in television shows. Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.
      • The Congress: a thoughtful live action fable followed by a less compelling an animated sci fi story. The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
      • Robert Duvall’s geezer-gone-wild roadtrip in A Night in Old Mexico. A Night in Old Mexico is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
      • The art vs. technology documentary Tim’s Vermeer is a yawner.

My Stream of the Week is the satisfying French drama On My Way, with the extraordinary Catherine Deneuve on an escapist road trip. On My Way is available streaming on Amazon Instant and iTunes.

On August 7, Turner Classic Movies will air the classic 1940 romance The Shop Around the Corner with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. It was remade a half-century later as You’ve Got Mail. The Wife and I watched it recently – I thought it was sweet, but she thought it a little dated and draggy in places. On a different note, TCM will show Juarez and Bordertown on August 6 – two Paul Muni movies that show up on my list of Least Convincing Mexicans.

Best Movies of 2014 – So Far

by
IDA
IDA

I’ve started my running list of the Best Movies of 2014 – So Far and three of them – Ida, The Grand Seduction (I’ll write about it next Thursday) and Locke – you can see in theaters in the next two weekends.

By the end of the calendar year, I will have a Top Ten plus another 8-18 or so. I’m pretty sure that Ida will end up in my Top Ten.

I’ve also included Dear White People, which you’ll be able to see when it gets into theaters in October.  And I’m also considering including the mesmerizing Brendan Gleeson drama Calvary (saw it at San Francisco International Film Festival and it releases widely August 1). I’m also mulling over adding two films that I saw at Cinequest – the outrageously dark Hungarian comedy Heavenly Shift and the provocative Slovenian classroom drama Class Enemy; neither is currently available to US audiences.