Honeyland

Movies to See Right Now

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Brad Pitt in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

It’s time for the Oscars, and The Movie Gourmet will be rooting for Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and Parasite, which lead my Best Movies of 2019. I’ll be rooting for Adam Driver (actor), Brad Pitt (supporting actor), Laura Dern (supporting actress), Bong Joon Ho or Quentin Tarantino (director and original screenplay) and Taika Waititi (adapted screenplay for Jojo Rabbit).

Roger Deakins should win the cinematography Oscar for 1917; overall, I wasn’t impressed with 1917, except for the technical achievements, so I would be OK with 1917 winning some technical Oscars. I haven’t yet seen the favorite for best documentary, American Factory, which is streamable.

If Honeyland or The Joker win anything, I will become nauseous. If 1917 takes Best Picture, it will be projectile vomit.

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 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 streaming on Netflix.
  • Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • 1917 is technically groundbreaking, but the screenplay neither thrilled me nor moved me.
  • The earnest documentary Honeyland failed to keep me interested.

ON VIDEO

The character-driven suspenser The Gift is more than a satisfying thriller – it’s a well-made and surprisingly thoughtful film that I keep mulling over. The Gift is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon in ATLANTIC CITY

Turner Classic Movies continues its 31 Days of Oscar on February 8 with Atlantic City, one of only 43 movies that have been nominated for all of the Big Five Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay). Susan Sarandon plays Sally, a hard luck waitress in Atlantic City at its shabbiest. She’s never met anyone like her neighbor Lou (Burt Lancaster), an elderly small-time hood, who behaves as if he’s mob royalty, despite the fact that he lives across the alley from Sally. Despite his station, Lou has the confidence that comes from having seen every situation before. Sally’s nogoodnik ex entangles the two in a life or death drug buy. Top rate.

Susan Sarandon and Burt Lancaster in ATLANTIC CITY

REMEMBRANCE

Here’s my tribute to Kirk Douglas.

Movies to See Right Now

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Tao Zhao in ASH IS PUREST WHITE – this week’s video pick

This weekend I’m back in San Francisco for the close of Noir City, Eddie Muller’s great film noir festival. Here are my recommendations and the eighteen films you can’t see anywhere else.

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 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 streaming on Netflix.
  • Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • 1917 is technically groundbreaking, but the screenplay neither thrilled me nor moved me.
  • The earnest documentary Honeyland failed to keep me interested.

ON VIDEO

My video pick, Ash Is Purest White, is writer-director Zhangke Jia’s portrait of an unforgettable woman surviving betrayal, the crime world and the tidal waves of change in modern China, all embedded in a gangster neo-noir. Tao Zhao, Jia’s wife and muse, gives a tour de force performance. Ash is Purest White is on my list of Best Movies of 2019, and it’s streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On February 1, The Candidate reappears on Turner Classic Movies’ 31 Days of Oscar. The Candidate may still be the greatest political film of all-time, with a searing leading performance by Robert Redford. My day job is in politics, and so many moments in The Candidate are absolutely real. Excellent supporting performances by Peter Boyle, Don Porter and Melvyn Douglas. (Significant parts of The Candidate were shot in the Bay Area, including San Jose’s Eastridge mall and Oakland’s Paramount Theatre.)

THE CANDIDATE – Robert Redford learns that running for elected office has its disadvantages

Movies to See Right Now

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Jean Gabin (wearung shades) and Alain Delon (with dice) in ANY NUMBER CAN WIN, playing Sunday at NOIR CITY

This weekend I’m in San Francisco at Noir City, Eddie Muller’s great film noir festival. Here are my recommendations and the eighteen films you can’t see anywhere else.

And ICYMI my first look at Cinequest 2020.

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 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 streaming on Netflix.
  • Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • 1917 is technically groundbreaking, but the screenplay neither thrilled me nor moved me.
  • The earnest documentary Honeyland failed to keep me interested.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is H.P. Mendoza’s refreshing hoot, Colma: The Musical. You can stream it from Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

REMEMBRANCES

Best known as member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Terry Jones was responsible for much of the troupe’s surreal and wicked humor; he embraced cross dressing as British matrons in Python skits. Jones thought up And Now for Something Completely Different, co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail and wrote the The Meaning of Life. Jones wrote and directed one of the wittiest films ever, The Life of Brian.

Jo Shishido in CRUEL GUN STORY

Actor Jo Shishido starred in a zillion Japanese crime action films, most notably Cruel Gun Story (1964). Oddly, his career as a leading man took off after his plastic surgery, intended to emphasize his cheekbones, left him with puffy cheeks.

ON TV

On January 25 and 26, Turner Classic Movies is presenting the 1950 noir thriller Try and Get Me! (also known as The Sound of Fury), It’s fitting that Eddie Muller will introduce this film on TCM’s Noir Alley because Muller’s Film Noir Foundation restored Try and Get Me! (and I first saw it at the FNF’s Noir City film fest).

Frank Lovejoy plays a hard luck guy who is talked into a crime by a sociopath (Lloyd Bridges), and the crime becomes worse than he ever imagined. The story basically mirrors that of the 1933 Brooke Hart kidnapping in San Jose, which resulted in the Bay Area’s last public lynching – in San Jose’s St. James Park.

Lloyd Bridges and Frank Lovejoy in TRY AND GET ME!

HONEYLAND: bees good, neighbors bad

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HONEYLAND

The documentary Honeyland is about a fiftyish Macedonian woman named Hatidze, who lives in an otherwise abandoned mountain village. She cares for her mother, who is blind and bedridden, and she clambers over rocky mountains to collect honeycombs and bees; she sells the honey in a nearby city for a living.

Suddenly, a thoroughly disorganized family moves in next door, sprawling litter and rowdy kids across the previously serene landscape. The father, Hussein, thinks that he will strike it rich raising cattle and bees; the fact that it’s not that easy utterly escapes him. Hussein is foolish, makes the lazy choice at every opportunity and blames the resultant misadventures on others.

Despite Hatidze’s best efforts, her mother’s health declines and Hussein’s self-made disasters continue. That’s all that happens in Honeyland. As my longtime readers will know, I’m more patient with the slowly paced, indie cinéma vérité than the next guy; but but I lost interest in Honeyland. The only reason I watched Honeyland to the end was because The Wife wanted to see if something more interesting was going to happen.

In fact, the only reason that I’m writing about this film at all is that it has somehow been Oscar-nominated for both the Best International Film and the Best Documentary, which I find baffling.

Reportedly, the filmmakers lived in tent in the remote village and filmed Honeyland over four years.

Hatidze is sweet, decent and fully aligned with popular values of sustainability. She has a sense of humor and some measure of snaggle-toothed charm. The film is only one hour 26 minutes, but it seems longer. I streamed Honeyland, but I don’t know why you should.