Grandma

Movies to See Right Now

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Alan Rickman in EYE IN THE SKY
Alan Rickman in EYE IN THE SKY

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

    • 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.  This movie has been out since March and has shown remarkable staying power.
    • Eccentric meets quirky in the historical comedy Elvis & Nixon, with Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey.
    • 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 Dough is light, fluffy and empty – just like a Twinkie.

My Stream of the Week is the Lily Tomlin vehicle Grandma, which is worthwhile watching just for the searing performance by Sam Elliott. Grandma is available to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

All About Eve: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"
All About Eve: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”

On May 7, Turner Classic Movies brings us one of the greatest movies of all time – All About Eve (1950). Bette Davis plays the middle-aging Broadway superstar Margot Channing, who fears losing her popularity with age. Who can eclipse her in the dog eat dog world of show biz? George Sanders is wonderful as the cynical critic Addison DeWitt, whose bimbo de jour is played by Marilyn Monroe. All About Eve was nominated for fourteen Oscars and won six.

1973’s The French Connection won five Oscars, including Best Picture and statues for Director William Friedkin and for star Gene Hackman. Hackman turned in an iconic performance as the driven, politically incorrect police detective Popeye Doyle. The film features a deliciously sly supporting performance by Fernando Rey, and also boosted the career of Roy Scheider (who played Doyle’s sidekick). The French Connection also features one of the greatest movie chase scenes. It plays on Turner Classic Movies on May 11.

Stream of the Week: GRANDMA – worth seeing for ten minutes of Sam Elliott

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Julia Garner and Lily Tomlin in GRANDMA
Julia Garner and Lily Tomlin in GRANDMA

I don’t throw around the term “genius” loosely, but Lily Tomlin’s imagination and comic timing really merits the term.  It’s always a pleasure to watch her work and the Tomlin vehicle Grandma, although minor Tomlin, is worthwhile.  Tomlin plays a crusty retiree whose high school-age granddaughter (Julia Garner) shows up at her door with an urgent need that she doesn’t want to tell her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) about.  They go on an adventurous quest for a solution – all in suburban LA.

Grandma is not a great movie, but it’s much more than a curmudgeonly geezer movie. Writer-director Paul Weitz, who co-wrote and co-directed About a Boy,  gives Tomlin a vivid character to play, and there are some excellent performances for Tomlin to interact with.  Judy Greer is brilliant as Tomlin’s recent lover.  And this is the final performance for one of my favorites, the late Elizabeth Peña (Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Lone Star).

The biggest surprise in Grandma is Sam Elliott, who is ALWAYS good, but I’ve never seen him explode in as searing a performance as this.  It’s remarkable, and Elliott steals the movie.

Grandma is available to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.