High-Rise

Movies to See Right Now

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Imogen Poots in GREEN ROOM
Imogen Poots in GREEN ROOM

My recommended movies in theaters this week:

  • The bloody thriller Green Room is a fresh and satisfying, well, bloody thriller. Very intense and very violent. Director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin) proves again that he’s the rising master of the genre movie.
  • If you like dystopian sci-fi, then the satire High-Rise is for you. Otherwise, not a Must See.
  • 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.

The mismatched buddy movie Dough is light, fluffy and empty – just like a Twinkie.

My Stream of the Week is a remarkable filmmaking achievement – the entire movie Victoria the was filmed in a SINGLE SHOT (and it is a successful thriller, not just a gimmick). Make sure that you watch it in one uninterrupted sitting. Victoria is available to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.

On May 21, Turner Classic Movies features one of my Overlooked Noir, Pitfall (1948), a noir thriller without either a conventional sap or femme fatale.

Then, on May 23 TCM airs the 1997 political biopic George Wallace with Gary Sinise as the the segregationist Alabama governor and Presidential candidate. Made for TV by master director John Frankenheimer, George Wallace won multiple Emmys, Golden Globes and SAG awards. Sinise is brilliant, and his supporting cast includes Joe Don Baker, William Sanderson, Mare Winningham, Clarence Williams III and Angelina Jolie as sexy second wife Cornelia.

Gary Sinise in WALLACE
Gary Sinise in GEORGE WALLACE

Movies to See Right Now

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Patrick Stewart and Macon Blair in GREEN ROOM. photo courtesy of Scott Green/© A24.
Patrick Stewart and Macon Blair in GREEN ROOM. Photo: Scott Green/© A24.

My recommended movies in theaters this week:

  • The bloody thriller Green Room is a fresh and satisfying, well, bloody thriller.  Very intense and very violent.  Director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin) proves again that he’s the rising master of the genre movie.
  • If you like dystopian sci-fi, then the satire High-Rise is for you.  Otherwise, not a Must See.
  • 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.

The mismatched buddy movie Dough is light, fluffy and empty – just like a Twinkie.

My Stream of the Week is the thought-provoking documentary The Brainwashing of My Dad, which explores how right-wing media impacts the mood and personality of its consumers as well as their political outlook. The Brainwashing of My Dad is available streaming on Amazon Video, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On May 19, Turner Classic Movies bring us Roger Corman’s time-capsule LSD exploitation film The Trip, which is featured in my Bad Movie Festival (scroll down to No. 9). Peter Fonda buys acid from Dennis Hopper and trips at Bruce Dern’s house – but wanders away to stagger down Sunset Boulevard.

On May 20, TCM airs a time capsule from the 1970s, the crime/revenge drama The Outfit, starring Robert Duvall, Linda Black and Joe Don Baker. The supporting cast is itself an homage to 1950s film noir: Robert Ryan (mob kingpin), Timothy Carey (chief henchman), Jane Greer, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor and Richard Jaeckel. The Outfit is the masterpiece of director John Flynn, whose other work consisted of pedestrian action movies.

Duvall pisses off Timothy Carey in THE OUTFIT
Robert Duvall pisses off Timothy Carey in THE OUTFIT

HIGH-RISE: the villain is an oligarchy

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Tom Hiddleston in HIGH-RISE. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.
Tom Hiddleston in HIGH-RISE. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

The dystopian sci-fi satire High-Rise, adapted from a J.G. Ballard novel, makes a droll and cynical comment on our species.  Taking place in the near future, the very wealthy live on the top floors of a self-contained high-rise, just above the middle class.  Human greed and jealousy creates scarcity for the residents – not Third World-type scarcity, but scarcity of amenities like swimming pool access and power brownouts.  Class competition erupts and a morbid descent into murderous chaos ensues.  We plunge into this complacent, and then hellish, world from the perspective of a young middle class striver (Tom Hiddleston).

The designer of the complex of high-rises (Jeremy Irons) lives in a luxurious penthouse with a staggeringly pastoral garden.  The character’s name is Royal, but he’s not the ruler.  (We actually come to wish that he were benignly in charge.)  And despite his trappings, Royal is not the omnipotent Bond-type villain.   The villain turns out instead to be an oligarchy of the One Percent, along with the darkest aspects of every character’s humanness.

Tom Hiddleston is fine, and the rest of the cast is solid.   The two standouts are Jeremy Irons as Royal and Sienna Miller, dressed in Carnaby Street retro, as a deliciously voracious man-hunter.  The wonderful Elisabeth Moss is wasted in a role where she just doesn’t have much to do.

I saw High-Rise at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). It opens in Bay Area theaters tomorrow.