I’m still covering the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF); the fest runs through May 5. Throughout the fest, I’ll be linking more festival coverage to my SFFIF 2016 page, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.Here’s some of my SFIFF coverage:
Here’s my slate of recommended movies in theaters this week:
Critical reception has been mixed on the intricately constructed family drama Louder Than Bombs, but I strongly recommend it.
Ethan Hawke’s performance makes the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Bluea success.
Thriller meets thinker in Eye in the Sky, a parable from modern drone warfare starring Helen Mirren and with a wonderful final performance from the late Alan Rickman.
Eccentric meets quirky in the historical comedy Elvis & Nixon, with Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey.
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. The mismatched buddy movie Doughis light, fluffy and empty – just like a Twinkie.
My Stream of the Week is the offbeat documentary Meet the Hitlers, about those few people who choose NOT to change their birth name of “Hitler”. Meet the Hitlers is available for streaming rental from Amazon Video and Vudu and for streaming purchase from iTunes.
Screenwriter Anthony Veiller fleshed out a very brief Hemingway short story, resulting in Robert Siodmak’s compelling 1946 film noir The Killers, which Turner Classic Movies airs on May 4. The Killers was the screen debut of former circus acrobat Burt Lancaster and the breakthrough for the 23-year-old Ava Gardner. The toughest of noir tough guys – Charles McGraw and Broderick Crawford are hunting down Lancaster for offending their mob boss…and the clock is ticking.
Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster in THE KILLERSCharles McGraw (left) and Broderick Crawford (center) are the title characters in THE KILLERS
In December, 1970, an addled Elvis Presley was isolated and indulged by his hangers-on and feeling cranky enough to shoot out a TV set in Graceland. He decided that he needed a “federal agent at large” badge, and his quest sparked an impromptu visit to the Nixon White House, resulting in the all-time most requested photo from the National Archives (below). All this really happened, and the historical comedy Elvis & Nixon imagines the details, with the iconic characters fleshed by two of our finest screen actors, Michael Shannon (Elvis) and Kevin Spacey (Richard Nixon).
In the movies, Shannon usually projects a hulking menace, but here he uses his imposing presence to dominate and suck the oxygen out of a room. Of course, Shannon doesn’t have the sexual energy of Elvis, but his intensity makes up for it. As impaired and wacky as Shannon’s Elvis is, he can be a charming flatterer and knows how to make the most of his celebrity and sexual power. He wins over Nixon by bringing up their common distaste for commies and the Beatles, and shamelessly complementing Nixon’s homely looks.
Spacey goes beyond impersonation of Nixon’s well-known mannerisms to reach the seasoned pol, the cagey and amoral tactician, the doting father, and, above all, a man submerged in an unquenchable pool of resentfulness. In particular, Spacey perfectly delivers one classically Nixonian chip-on-the-shoulder monologue. And few can portray social awkwardness as well as Spacey.
In Elvis & Nixon, Nixon forces himself to keep a straight face as Elvis explains that “I want to go undercover”. Because his movie experience has given him a mastery of disguises, Elvis continues, he can infiltrate the Rolling Stones and the Black Panthers, slipping back and forth between them with no one the wiser. [Note: There were only five Rolling Stones – wouldn’t they have noticed a sixth one?] The real Elvis reportedly coveted the federal badge so he could take his guns and drugs on airplanes.
The two men size each other up and probe. Each man is using the meeting for his own ends. The humor comes from Elvis’ eccentricities and the hopelessly square and insecure Nixon’s reactions.
Elvis & Nixon is not a guffaw fest, but it has a few LOL moments. Otherwise unadorned, the Elvis-Nixon meeting itself is bizarre enough, but Shannon and Spacey make it especially worthwhile.
