Dazed and Confused – The Movie Gourmet

Movies to See Right Now

April 15, 2016April 15, 2016 by movie gourmet

Here’s my slate of recommended movies in theaters this week:

I liked the evocative French drama My Golden Days, the beautiful tale of first love, with all its passion, importance, obsession, angst, conflict, breakups and makeups.
Ethan Hawke’s performance makes the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue a success.
I enjoyed every minute of Jake Gyllenhaal’s breakdown in Demolition (but was ambivalent about why I did).
Everybody Wants Some!! is a dead-on 1980 time capsule and an amusing frolic with lots of ball busting and girl chasing – but probably more fun for a heterosexual male audience.

Tom Hiddleston makes a believable Hank Williams, but that can’t save the plodding I Saw the Light, which fails to capture any of the pathos in Hank’s life and death.

Because Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! is now in theaters, my DVD/Stream of the Week is its “spiritual prequel” – the coming of age Dazed and Confused is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video (free with Amazon Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.masterpiece Dazed and Confused.

The best night on TV this week is April 16, when Turner Classic Movies airs both the glorious sand-and-sandal epic Spartacus and Mel Brooks’ guffaw-fest Young Frankenstein.

If you haven’t watched Spartacus in a while, you probably remember it for Kirk Douglas’ macho tour de force, the ever stunning Jean Simmons and the sexual cat-and-mouse between Laurence Olivier and the Bronx-accented slaveboy Tony Curtis. But you might have forgotten the strength of the supporting performances by Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton and – my favorite – Woody Strode. And watching last year’s Trumbo, I was reminded that indie producer Kirk Douglas awarded the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo the screenwriting credit that others had denied him.

Kirk Douglas and Woody Strode in SPARTACUS

DVD/Stream of the Week: DAZED AND CONFUSED

April 12, 2016 by movie gourmet

Richard Linklater’s newest movie Everybody Wants Some!! is coming out in theaters, which he describes as a “spiritual sequel” to his coming of age classic Dazed and Confused. So let’s all go back to the last day of high school in 1976 and refresh ourselves. All of these high school kids are up for a massive year-end party, and they are either thinking about or avoiding thinking about the next phase in their lives. It all adds up to the defining coming of age film for its generation.

Linklater is the master of coming of age (Boyhood) and coming of age in relationships (the Midnight trilogy). In Dazed and Confused the most unforgettable – and cautionary – character is Wooderson; as played with sheer genius by Mayygew McConaughhey, Wooderson is the one character who aggressively embraces NOT coming of age – kind of a shady, dissolute Peter Pan.

Dazed and Confused is known for launching McConaughey’s career, as well as unleashing indie fave Parker Posey as a Mean Girl of uncommon enthusiasm. This was Ben Affleck’s first main role, although his character is more of a one-dimensional bully, and doesn’t hint at his future success as an Oscar-winning screenwriter or major movie star. The rest of the cast includes then-newcomers Milla Jovovich, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams and Jason London. I especially enjoy the turns by Wiley Wiggins and the hilarious Rory Cochrane (Black Mass).

Dazed and Confused is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video (free with Amazon Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

Dazed and Confused is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video (free with Amazon Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

Movies to See Right Now

April 9, 2016April 8, 2016 by movie gourmet

I liked the evocative French drama My Golden Days, the beautiful tale of first love, with all its passion, importance, obsession, angst, conflict, breakups and makeups. My Golden Days opens widely in the Bay Area today.

Try to find the entirely fresh and unpredictably contemporary drama Take Me to the River, an impressive directorial debut by San Jose native Matt Sobel.

Ethan Hawke’s performance makes the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue a success.

Tom Hiddleston makes a believable Hank Williams, but that can’t save the plodding I Saw the Light, which fails to capture any of the pathos in Hank’s life and death.

Because Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! open today, my DVD/Stream of the Week is its “spiritual prequel” – the coming of age Dazed and Confused is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video (free with Amazon Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.masterpiece Dazed and Confused.

OK, serious movie buffs – on April 13, Turner Classic Movies presents an evening of early German cinema to frame the documentary From Caligari to Hitler. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is generally recognized as the first horror film in the history of cinema; it features Conrad Veidt (23 years later, Major Strausser in Casablanca). The Blue Angel (1930) is the classic old-fool-falls-for-a-girl story. I’ve only seen clips from Faust (1926), and I haven’t seen The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1927). If you’re going to watch just one, I recommend the 1922 Nosferatu, the Dracula tale with a hideously monstrous vampire played by Max Schreck.