Harriet

Movies to See Right Now

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Scarlett Johannson and Adam Driver in MARRIAGE STORY

Of the four top movies of the year, you can still find Parasite in theaters and you can already stream Marriage Story, The Irishman and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.

Watch out for the very special opportunity to see a virtually lost film from 1976, Joseph Losey’s Mr. Klein at the Roxie and BAMPFA.

If you enjoy Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, check out his equally inventive take on another genre, the neo-noir Brick.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s both in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
  • Harriet is excellent history (and Harriet Tubman belongs on the twenty dollar bill), but it’s not great cinema.
  • The atmospheric slow burn neo-noir Motherless Brooklyn gets postwar New York City right, but it’s too long.
  • Loro, Paolo Sorrentino’s send-up of Silvio Berlusconi is much more interesting visually than it is thematically.

ON VIDEO

My Streams of the Week are the six Best Movies of 2019 – So Far that are already available to stream. This week, I’m featuring Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood: masterpiece.

ON TV

I have NO TV recommendations this week – get out there and see the year’s best in theaters!

Movies to See Right Now

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PARASITE. Photo courtesy of Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) .

Three of the best four movies of the year so far are in theaters this weekend: Parasite, Marriage Story and The Irishman.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and will be streaming on Netflix on December 6. Complete review coming this weekend.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s in theaters now, and will stream on Netflix on November 27. Complete review coming this weekend.
  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
  • Harriet is excellent history (and Harriet Tubman belongs on the twenty dollar bill), but it’s not great cinema.
  • The atmospheric slow burn neo-noir Motherless Brooklyn gets postwar New York City right, but it’s too long.
  • The raucous romp Zombieland Double Tap is a fun change of pace to the serious fare in theaters.
  • I liked the Isabelle Huppert drama Frankie, but the Mill Valley Film Festival audience was very indifferent at the screening; I’m guessing that folks failed to warm to an ambiguous ending that leaves some plot threads unresolved.
  • Loro, Paolo Sorrentino’s send-up of Silvio Berlusconi is much more interesting visually than it is thematically.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is All the Way, with Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, Trumbo) becoming the first actor to capture LBJ in all his facets – a man who was boring and square on television but frenetic, forceful and ever-dominating in person. LBJ’s 1964 makes for a stirring story, and All the Way is a compelling film. You can stream it from HBO GO, Amazon’s HBO Now,  iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On November 27, Turner Classic Movies will air Harry Dean Stanton’s masterpiece in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas. In Paris Texas, Harry Dean plays Travis, a man so traumatized that he has disappeared and is found wandering across the desert and mistaken for a mute.  As he is cared for by his brother (Dean Stockwell), he evolves from feral to erratic to troubled, but with a sense of tenderness and a determination to put things right.  We see Travis as a madman who gains extraordinary lucidity about what wrong in his life and his own responsibility for it.

At the film’s climax, Travis speaks to Jane (Natassja Kinski) through a one-way mirror (she can’t see him).  Spinning what at first seems like parable, Travis explains what happened to him – and to her – and why it happened.  It’s a 20-minute monologue so captivating and touching that it rises to be recognized as one of the very greatest screen performances.

Harry Dean Stanton in PARIS, TEXAS
Natassja Kinski and Harry Dean Stanton in PARIS, TEXAS

Movies to See Right Now

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PARASITE. Photo courtesy of Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) .

Parasite is the best movie in theaters right now, and I’ve got twelve, count ’em TWELVE, more recommendations this week. Tonight, The Wife and I have a date: The Irishman and dinner.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
  • The indie gem Light from Light ingeniously embeds three portraits of personal awakening into what looks like a familiar haunted house movie. It’s playing in Silicon Valley for only one more week.
  • Harriet is excellent history (and Harriet Tubman belongs on the twenty dollar bill), but it’s not great cinema.
  • The atmospheric slow burn neo-noir Motherless Brooklyn gets postwar New York City right, but it’s too long.
  • The raucous romp Zombieland Double Tap is a fun change of pace to the serious fare in theaters.
  • I liked the Isabelle Huppert drama Frankie, but the Mill Valley Film Festival audience was very indifferent at the screening; I’m guessing that folks failed to warm to an ambiguous ending that leaves some plot threads unresolved.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • Loro, Paolo Sorrentino’s send-up of Silvio Berlusconi is much more interesting visually than it is thematically.
  • It’s tough to imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy the biodoc Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, about the first female mega rock star. 
  • Watching The Lighthouse is such an ordeal it could drive you crazy before Robert Pattinson goes mad on screen.
  • Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me , the portrait of a needy talent through complicated times. This fine and insightful film can streamed on Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Turner Classic Movies is airing the Peter Bogdanovich classic The Last Picture Show on November 20. I’ll be writing about it on November 19.

Turner Classic Movies is devoting Monday evening, November 18, to swashbucklers, and my favorite is Richard Lester’s boisterous The Three Musketeers from 1973. Watch Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York and Frank Finlay swashbuckle away against Bad Guys Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston. Geraldine Chaplin and Raquel Welch adorn the action. [If you like it, you can stream the second volume, The Four Musketeers, from Criterion Collection, Amazon, YouTube and Google Play; it was filmed in the same shoot and released the next year.]

Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay and Richard Chamberlain in THE THREE MUSKETEERS

HARRIET: story great, movie only okay

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Cynthia Erivo in HARRIET. Photo courtesy of Focus Features.

I first watched the trailer for Harriet askance because the Harriet Tubman action figure I saw on-screen didn’t resemble the tiny, revered Tubman in the sepia photos. But that is because of my own skepticism of Hollywood history and my own woeful ignorance of the historic Tubman. The ancient lady in her photos and the historic Tubman are explained in this fine NYT piece Harriet Tubman Facts and Myths: How the Movie Tried to Get it Right. As Harriet’s director Kasi Lemmons says in this NYT article, “You don’t have an image of what she was like when she was actually doing this work in her late 20s, when she was this young superheroine, this completely badass woman.”

Harriet is good history. The problem is that Lemmons doesn’t trust us to appreciate Tubman’s heroism when we see it – a 100-mile solo escape from slavery, guiding 75 escaped slaves to freedom with the Underground Railroad, leading troops into battle to free 700 more in the Civil War, and becoming a thought leader in the abolitionist and suffragist movements. So we have this swelling music every time Tubman does something inspirational. The constant, obvious beatification is distracting.

Tubman is played with convincing intensity by Cynthia Erivo. Erivo was absolutely the best thing about the Steve McQueen film Widows; since Erivo’s character teamed with those played by Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki, the fact that she stole the movie is impressive. Erivo is a Broadway musical actress/singer, and Harriet uses her singing talent as well.

If you’re not expecting great cinema, you’ll appreciate this important and compelling history. Harriet makes it clear why Tubman belongs on the twenty dollar bill.