Foxcatcher

Movies to See Right Now

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Laura Dern in WILD
Laura Dern in WILD

After today, all of the prestige movies of 2014 will be in wide release except for A Most Violent Year and Two Days, One Night, which open more widely next weekend. Of the ones that I’ve seen, here are your best bets:

    • The cinematically important and very funny Birdman. You can still find Birdman, but you may have to look around a bit. It has justifiably garnered several Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.
    • 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.
    • Big Eyes is a lite audience pleaser.
    • Set in the macho world of Olympic wrestling, Foxcatcher is really a relationship movie with a stunning dramatic performance by Steve Carell.
    • 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 Boyhood, an important film – a milestone in the history of cinema. It may turn out to be the best film of the decade. It’s a Must See. Boyhood is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

On January 20, Turner Classic Movies is airing A Face in the Crowd. During every year of the 1960s, Andy Griffith entered the living rooms of most Baby Boomers as Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show and in guest appearances on Mayberry R.F.D. Younger folks knew him from another ten seasons on television starring as Matlock.

But, in his very first feature film, Griffith shed the likeability and decency that made him a TV megastar and became a searingly unforgettable villain. In the 1957 Elia Kazan classic A Face in the Crowd, Griffith plays Lonesome Rhodes, a failed country guitar picker who is hauled out of an Arkansas drunk tank by talent scout Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal). It turns out that he has a folksy charm that is dynamite in the new medium of television. He quickly rises in the infotainment universe until he is an A List celeb and a political power broker. To Jeffries’ horror, Rhodes reveals himself to be an evil, power hungry megalomaniac. Jeffries made him – can she break him? The seduction of a gullible public by a good timin’ charmer predicts the careers of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, although Lonesome Rhodes is meaner than Reagan and less ideological than Bush.

Amazingly, A Face in the Crowd did not garner even a nomination for an Academy Award for Griffith – or for any of its other filmmakers. Today, it is well-regarded, having been added to the library of Congress’ preservation list in the US National Film Registry and rating 91% in the critical reviews tallied by Rotten Tomatoes. It is one of the greatest political films.

Movies to See Right Now

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Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

It’s the Holidays, and theaters are featuring movies from my Best Movies of 2014 list:

  • 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.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy, which showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn. The Trip to Italy is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

On January 6, Turner Classic Movies brings us War Hunt, a 1962 film about Robert Redford joining a Korean War unit as a new replacement, with John Saxon as the platoon’s psycho killer. Along with Redford, Sidney Pollack and Francis Ford Coppola are in the cast, making War Hunt the only film with three Oscar-winning directors as actors. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss for Coppola as an uncredited convoy truck driver.

Tomorrow night, TCM is airing Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). Anthony Quinn is Mountain Rivera, a fighter whose career is ended by a ring injury by Cassius Clay (played by the real Muhammed Ali). His manager, Jackie Gleason, continues to exploit him in this heartbreaking drama. There’s no boxing in this clip, but it illustrates the quality of the writing and the acting.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Michael Keaton and Edward Norton in BIRDMAN
Michael Keaton and Edward Norton in BIRDMAN

It’s that Prestige Movie time of year, and theaters are featuring movies from my Best Movies of 2014- So Far list:

  • 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.
  • J.K. Simmons is brilliant in the intense indie drama Whiplash, a study of motivation and abuse, ambition and obsession.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the thoughtful dramedy The Skeleton Twins – a mostly hilarious movie that seriously explores the subject of depression. The Skeleton Twins is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On New Year’s Eve, set your DVR for one of my FAVORITE movies, The Paper Chase, which traces a young man’s (Timothy Bottoms) first year at Harvard Law School and is based on the memoir of a recent  grad.    Although IMDb labels The Paper Chase as 1973 movie, I saw it in the summer of 1975, just as I was about to enter law school myself.   It’s such a personal favorite because  just about EVERYTHING in the movie is something that I experienced myself at in my first year at Georgetown Law – everything, that is, EXCEPT dating Lindsay Wagner.  It’s a compelling story and the great producer John Houseman won an acting Oscar for his performance as the mentor/nemesis law professor; Houseman immediately cashed in with his “”They make money the old fashioned way… they EARN it” commercials for Smith Barney.

The Paper Chase is also notable as the first feature film credit for actors Craig Richard Nelson, Graham Beckel (Brokeback Mountain, L.A. Confidential)  and Edward Herrmann (known for many portrayals of FDR).  All three are stellar as members of the law school study group, and these guys have now combined for over 300 screen acting credits.  The Paper Chase is also available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu and Xbox Video.

THE PAPER CHASE
THE PAPER CHASE

FOXCATCHER: the worst mommie issues since Norman Bates

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Channing Tatum and Steve Carell in FOXCATCHER
Channing Tatum and Steve Carell in FOXCATCHER

It may be set in the macho world of Olympic wrestling, but the docudrama Foxcatcher is really a relationship movie. The relationship triangle is between Olympic gold medal winning brothers Mark and Dave Schultz and the billionaire wrestling enthusiast John E. du Pont.  Mark is uncomplicated and naive and seduced by du Pont’s offer to get him out of his older, more worldly, brother’s shadow.  But du Pont turns out to be one sick puppy, with tragic results.

And the character of John E. du Pont, as brilliantly revealed by Steve Carell, is what makes this story so fascinating.  He’s a zillionaire who is passionate about a relatively low profile Olympic sport and wants to sponsor US wrestlers – that’s all within the normal band of rich guy behavior.  But he also fancies himself a coach, a Vince Lombardi-like Leader of Men, and his wealth enables him to act out his pathetic fantasies.  It’s pretty clear that he’s driven by the worst mommie issues since Norman Bates in Psycho.  (Vanessa Redgrave, in a brilliantly understated performance, plays his perpetually disapproving mother.)

Carell wear a prosthetic nose to resemble the real du Pont (just perform a Google image search for “John E du Pont” to see the real thing).  But Carell knocks this role out of the park with his eyes – cluelessly confident, then raging when denied what he wants, then searching for a glimmer of maternal approval.  Carell deserves – and I’m sure will secure – a Best Actor Oscar nomination.  The guy can do more than comedy, that’s for sure.

All three of the main actors are getting Oscar buzz. Mark Ruffalo, is exceptional as Dave Schultz.  Two of his scenes are extraordinary.  In one, he is listening to Mark’s big plans and we can tell he thinks it’s too good to be true, but he doesn’t want to rain on his brother’s parade.  In the other, he is being prompted to say something that disgusts him in du Pont’s vanity documentary.  The story is centered on Channing Tatum as Mark Schultz.  I generally like Tatum, and he’s OK here, but I couldn’t get past his device of jutting out Mark’s chin to capture the dumb jock look.

Foxcatcher is directed by Bennett Miller, whose two other films were Capote and Moneyball.  He lets us understand Mark Schultz by watching him in his daily routine.  He lets us understand John E. du Pont by contrasting his empty, blathering coachspeak with his posing as someone accomplished in his own right.  Bennett keeps the camera right on his characters and stays out of the way, especially with his effectively spare soundtrack.  It all works very well.