Cloudburst

Movies to See Right Now

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Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand in THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

You have two more weeks to binge the Oscar-nominated movies.  ( I’ve also written If I Picked the Oscars – before the nominations were announced.)  These first two movies are, deservedly, the Oscar favorites:

  • The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s imaginative, operatic inter-species romance may become the most-remembered film of 2017.
  • Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a powerful combination of raw emotion and dark hilarity with an acting tour de force from Frances McDormand and a slew of great actors.
  • Steven Spielberg’s docudrama on the Pentagon Papers, The Post, is both a riveting thriller and an astonishingly insightful portrait of Katharine Graham by Meryl Streep. It’s one of the best movies of the year – and one of the most important. Also see my notes on historical figures in The Post.
  • Pixar’s Coco is a moving and authentic dive into Mexican culture, and it’s visually spectacular.
  • Lady Bird , an entirely fresh coming of age comedy that explores the mother-daughter relationship – an impressive debut for Greta Gerwig as a writer and director.
  • I, Tonya is a marvelously entertaining movie, filled with wicked wit and sympathetic social comment.
Alison Janney in I, TONYA

Here’s the rest of my Best Movies of 2017 – So Far. Most of the ones from earlier this year are available on video. Here’s aniother current choice:

  • Call Me By Your Name is an extraordinarily beautiful story of sexual awakening set in a luscious Italian summer, but I didn’t buy the impossibly cool parents or the two pop ballad musical interludes.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the funny and sentimental Canadian dramedy Cloudburst, pairing Oscar-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck) and Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot) as lesbian life partners of many decades. Cloudburst was an indie hit in Canadian theaters, but was purchased by Lifetime and didn’t get a theatrical release in the US. Happily, it’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video , iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

There are plenty of good movie choices on TV this week because Turner Classic Movies is in the midst of its 31 Days of Oscars. I’m suggesting that, on February 18, you DVR Henry Fonda at his most appealing in the subversive WW II comedy Mister Roberts. (Yes, I’m using “DVR” as a verb.) Fonda gets to play off of James Cagney, William Powell and Jack Lemmon.

James Cagney and Henry Fonda in MISTER ROBERTS

DVD/Stream of the Week: CLOUDBURST

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Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker in CLOUDBURST

The funny and sentimental Canadian dramedy Cloudburst pairs Oscar-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck) and Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot) as lesbian life partners of many decades. Because they live in Maine before the legalization of same-sex marriage there, their union is not legally recognized. The sweet-tempered Dotty (Fricker) is visually-impaired and becoming more and more infirm. Her partner Stella (Dukakis) is irascible and enjoys a startlingly vulgar vocabulary. The pair is separated when Dotty’s granddaughter moves Dotty into a convalescent home over Stella’s objection. Stella rescues Dotty and spirits the two of them off to get legally married in Nova Scotia. On the run from Maine authorities, they pick up a feckless young guy (Ryan Doucette) and head off on a very funny, and sometimes dangerous, road trip.

Cloudburst is directed and written by Thom Fitzgerald from his own play. Fitzgerald has written wonderful characters for Dukakis and Fricker to play, and their performances are superb. Surprisingly, this is the first lead role for the 68-year-old Fricker.

Cloudburst was an indie hit in Canadian theaters, but was purchased by Lifetime and didn’t get a theatrical release in the US. That’s a shame, because I think that Cloudburst could have become an art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It’s a crowd pleaser.

Cloudburst is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video , iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine in BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT
Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine in BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT

Far from the Madding Crowd, which opens today, is satisfying choice for those looking for a bodice ripper. I haven’t yet seen the sci-fi Ex Machina, which has been engendering almost universal praise.  If you’re looking for a scare, try the inventive and non-gory horror gem It Follows.

I’m at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where I’ve written about four films so far (scroll down).  Two are among the year’s best films: the wonderfully weepy and funny coming of age film, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and the uncomfortable documentary on living with past genocide in the absence of truth and reconciliation, The Look of Silence.

Documentarian Alex Gibney now has TWO excellent films playing on HBO:

  • Going Clear: The Prison of Belief, a devastating expose of Scientology is playing on HBO; and
  • Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, an especially well-researched and revelatory biopic of Frank Sinatra.

Don’t bother with Clouds of Sils Maria – it’s a muddled mess. Insurgent, from the Divergent franchise is what it is – young adult sci-fi with some cool f/x. The romance 5 to 7 did NOT work for me, but I know smart women who enjoyed it. The biting Hollywood satire of Maps to the Stars wasn’t worth the disturbing story of a cursed family. I also didn’t like the Western Slow West, now out on video.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the funny and sentimental Canadian dramedy Cloudburst, available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video , iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

On May 4, Turner Classic Movies is playing two marvelous, gritty classics from 1958.

    • I Want to Live! features Susan Hayward’s Oscar-winning performance as a good hearted but very unlucky floozy; it has both a great jazz soundtrack and a dramatic walk to The Chair.
    • Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is another film noir from the great Fritz Lang: seeking to discredit capital punishment, a reporter (Dana Andrews) gets himself charged with and CONVICTED of a murder – but then the evidence of his innocence suddenly disappears! Crackerjack (and deeply noir) surprise ending.

DVD/Stream of the Week: CLOUDBURST

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Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker in CLOUDBURST

The funny and sentimental Canadian dramedy Cloudburst pairs Oscar-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck) and Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot) as lesbian life partners of many decades. Because they live in Maine before the legalization of same-sex marriage there, their union is not legally recognized. The sweet-tempered Dotty (Fricker) is visually-impaired and becoming more and more infirm. Her partner Stella (Dukakis) is irascible and enjoys a startlingly vulgar vocabulary. The pair is separated when Dotty’s granddaughter moves Dotty into a convalescent home over Stella’s objection. Stella rescues Dotty and spirits the two of them off to get legally married in Nova Scotia. On the run from Maine authorities, they pick up a feckless young guy (Ryan Doucette) and head off on a very funny, and sometimes dangerous, road trip.

Cloudburst is directed and written by Thom Fitzgerald from his own play. Fitzgerald has written wonderful characters for Dukakis and Fricker to play, and their performances are superb. Surprisingly, this is the first lead role for the 68-year-old Fricker.

Cloudburst was an indie hit in Canadian theaters, but was purchased by Lifetime and didn’t get a theatrical release in the US. That’s a shame, because I think that Cloudburst could have become an art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It’s a crowd pleaser.

Cloudburst is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video , iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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THE SPECTACULAR NOW

This week’s MUST SEE is still the powerfully authentic coming of age film The Spectacular Now – don’t miss it. Better yet, take your teens!

Along with The Spectacular Now, the emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station is also on my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

I haven’t yet seen the British farce The World’s End or the indie criminal-on-the-run story Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which open today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My other top recommendations:

  • The jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
  • Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
  • The very well-acted civil rights epic Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

My other recommendations:

  • The droll indie comedy Prince Avalanche.
  • The rock documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, essential for music fans.
  • Another rock doc, A Band Called Death with the story of three African-American brothers in Detroit inventing punk rock before The Ramones and The Sex Pistols – and then dropping out of sight for decades.
  • the satisfying shocker The Conjuring.
  • The HBO documentary Casting By, which reveals an essential ingredient in filmmaking.

Also out right now:

  • I Give It a Year – a British rom com with a twist.
  • The American porn star biopic Lovelace, more of a soap opera.
  • The British porn kingpin biopic The Look of Love.
  • The Irish horror comedy Grabbers, which fails to deliver on a great premise.
  • The astonishingly bad shocker The Rambler, with its 58 second vomit scene.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the funny and sentimental Canadian indie Cloudburst, with Oscar-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker.  Cloudburst is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and other VOD providers.

DVD/Stream of the Week: Cloudburst

by
Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker in CLOUDBURST

The funny and sentimental Canadian dramedy Cloudburst pairs Oscar-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck) and Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot) as lesbian life partners of many decades.  Because they live in Maine before the legalization of same-sex marriage there, their union is not legally recognized.  The sweet-tempered Dotty (Fricker) is visually-impaired and becoming more and more infirm. Her partner Stella (Dukakis) is irascible and enjoys a startlingly vulgar vocabulary.  The pair is separated when Dotty’s granddaughter moves Dotty into a convalescent home over Stella’s objection.  Stella rescues Dotty and spirits the two of them off to get legally married in Nova Scotia.  On the run from Maine authorities, they pick up a feckless young guy (Ryan Doucette) and head off on a very funny, and sometimes dangerous, road trip.

Cloudburst is directed and written by Thom Fitzgerald from his own play.  Fitzgerald has written wonderful characters for Dukakis and Fricker to play, and their performances are superb.  Surprisingly, this is the first lead role for the 68-year-old Fricker.

Cloudburst was an indie hit in Canadian theaters, but was purchased by Lifetime and didn’t get a theatrical release in the US.  That’s a shame, because I think that Cloudburst could have become an art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  It’s a crowd pleaser.

Cloudburst is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and other VOD providers.