Crumb

Movies to See Right Now on Thanksgiving Weekend

by

Isabelle Huppert in ELLE
Isabelle Huppert in ELLE

My top movie recommendation is Isabelle Huppert in the perverse wowzer Elle. Other top choices:

  • The Korean period con artist movie The Handmaiden is gorgeous, erotic and extraordinarily entertaining.
  • Sonia Braga is still luminous in the character-driven Brazilian drama Aquarius.
  • Mascots is the latest mockumentary from Christopher Guest (Best in Show) and it’s very funny. Mascots is streaming on Netflix Instant.

Also in theaters or on video:

    • Despite a delicious performance by one of may faves, Michael Shannon, I’m not recommending Nocturnal Animals; I’m writing about it tomorrow.
    • Arrival with Amy Adams, is real thinking person’s sci-fi. Every viewer will be transfixed by the first 80% of Arrival. How you feel about the finale depends on whether you buy into the disconnected-from-linear-time aspect or you just get confused, like I did.
    • The remarkably sensitive and realistic indie drama Moonlight is at once a coming of age tale, an exploration of addicted parenting and a story of gay awakening. It’s almost universally praised, but I thought that the last act petered out.
    • The end of the thriller The Girl on the Train (starring Emily Blunt) is indeed thrilling. But the 82 minutes before the Big Plot Twist is murky, confusing and boring.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is one of the year’s very, very best films, the character-driven crime drama Hell or High Water. It’s now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On November 28, Turner Classic Movies will present two excellent (and totally different) films:

  • Chandler is the 1971 neo-noir starring Warren Oates as a seedy private detective who gets in over his head. I mention, but don’t dwell on Chandler in my essay Warren Oates: a gift for desperation.
  • Crumb is the award-winning 1994 documentary, Terry Zwigoff’s profile of the counterculture cartoonist R. Crumb, the creator of Keep On Truckin’, Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and influential rock album covers. By exploring Crumb’s troubled family, Zwigoff reveals the origins of Crumb’s art. When we meet Crumb’s shattered brothers, it’s clear that Crumb’s artistic expression preserved his very sanity. I thought that Crumb was the very best movie of the year – and so did Gene Siskel; Roger Ebert pegged it at #2.
CRUMB
CRUMB

Movies to See Right Now

by
Elisha Cook Jr. finds out that Humphrey Bogart is on to him in the 1941 version of THE MALTESE FALCON

There are two Must See movies in theaters this weekend:

  • Before Midnight, the year’s best romance continuing the story of Ethan Hawke’s Jesse and Julie Delpy’s Celine from Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
  • Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley’s brilliant documentary about discovering her family’s secrets; unfortunately, Stories We Tell is going to be hard to find in theaters this week, but well worth the trouble.

Both films are on my Best Movies of 2013 – So Far .

The absorbing and thought-provoking eco-terrorism thriller The East is also opening today.

The other best bets in theaters include:

  • The Iceman is a solid true-life crime movie with an outstanding performance by Michael Shannon.
  • Mud, the gripping and thoughtful story of two Arkansas boys embarking on a secret adventure with a man hiding from the authorities – learning more than they expected about love and loyalty. Mud is also one of the best movies of 2013.

Also out right now:

  • HBO’s Behind the Candelabra is familar territory but entertaining, with Michael Douglas’ all-out re-creation of Liberace.
  • Kon-Tiki is a faithful, but underwhelming account of a true life 5,000 mile raft trip across the Pacific.
  • Don’t bother with Baz Luhrman’s flashy, hollow and lame The Great Gatsby.  Re-read the Fitzgerald novel instead – it’s only 192 pages.

The compelling documentary The Central Park Five from Ken Burns, et al, is available streaming from Amazon Instant and other VOD providers. Also available on VOD, Greetings from Tim Buckley is a film for those who want to see an actor depict interior conflict with very little external action. PBS is broadcasting the unexpectedly beautiful documentary Detropia, about the city of Detroit’s collapse and decay.

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the mobster showcase for Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin, Stand Up Guys.  Stand Up Guys is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Vudu, Amazon and several other VOD outlets.

Tonight Turner Classic Movies kicks off its June film noir festival with guest host Eddie Muller (the Czar of Noir) presenting films from the novels of Dashiell Hammett: the 1931 and more famous 1941 versions of The Maltese Falcon, plus the 1936 version (Satan Met a Lady) and The Glass Key.

On June 11, TCM features two of the nastiest noirs:  Detour and The Hitchhiker.

Also, on June 9, TCM is broadcasting the award winning Crumb, the 1994 documentary about counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb and his bizarrely dysfunctional family.

More At the Movies

by

As I said yesterday, the thing that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert did better than anyone was to evangelize good films with their series At the Movies (which ends this weekend).  They helped create audiences for indie and foreign films that were ignored by the Hollywood promotion machine.  They even had the guts to rate documentaries like Hoop Dreams and Crumb as their picks for the year’s best film.  Without Siskel and Ebert, I would never seen some of the greatest films of the 80s and 90s.

Here are Siskel and Ebert introducing a great indie film, David Mamet’s House of Games.

And a great foreign film (that launched a great film trilogy), Blue.

And the revival of a restored classic film noir, Touch of Evil.

New Movies to See This Week

by
Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek in Get Low

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 the great 1995 documentary, Crumb.  For the trailers and other DVD choices, see DVDs of the Week.

Movies on TV include The Set-Up, Leave Her to Heaven and The Fallen Sparrow, all coming up on TCM.

DVD of the Week: Crumb

by

Crumb (1995):  The Criterion Collection has released a great documentary, Terry Zwigoff’s profile of the counterculture cartoonist R. Crumb, the creator of Keep On Truckin’, Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and  influential rock album covers.  By exploring Crumb’s troubled family, Zwigoff reveals the origins of Crumb’s art.  When we meet Crumb’s shattered brothers, it’s clear that Crumb’s artistic expression preserved his very sanity.

In honor of At The Movies, which ends its long run on television, let’s hear Siskel & Ebert assess Crumb.  Siskel placed it #1 on his Top 10 list for 1995 and Ebert had it at  #2.

Check out my other recent DVD recommendations at DVDs of the Week.