Late Night

Movies to See Right Now

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Margot Robbie stars in ONCE UPON TIME IN HOLLYWOOD,

The top choice is Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood – it’s a masterpiece AND it’s marvelously entertaining.

And I’ve written an acknowledgement of the late groundbreaking filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker.

OUT NOW

  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best
  • Sword of Trust is a wickedly funny comedy with an emotionally powerful personal story embedded. Great performances by Marc Maron and Lynn Shelton.
    The family dramedy
  • The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the engaging documentary Satan & Adam, much more than an odd couple story. You can stream it from Netflix and iTunes.

ON TV

Tonight, Turner Classic Movies airs In a Lonely Place (1950). The most unsettlingly sexy film noiress Gloria Grahame falls for the troubled screenwriter Humphrey Bogart, a guy with a MAJOR anger management issue; once she’s hooked, she realizes that he might be a murderer after all…Nicholas Ray directs. In a Lonely Place justifiably made the BBC’s list of the 100 Greatest American Films. The Czar of Noir Eddie Muller has named it as his #1 noir.

Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart in IN A LONELY PLACE

Movies to See Right Now

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Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Pacino in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLWOOD

The Movie Gourmet is having a busy week: Wednesday night at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival for Curtiz, last night with the remarkable Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and a date with The Wife tonight for The Farewell. I’ll be writing these up soon – stay tuned.

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).
  • The Kid is a little movie that works, chiefly because of Dustin DeHaan’s performance, for fans of Westerns. The Kid can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON VIDEO

My stream of the week is Mud, a great film to watch with middle schoolers and teens on summer vacation. At its heart, Mud is a coming of age story in which the kids get a big dose of realism about love and human constancy. You can stream Mud on Amazon (free on Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play; it’s also available on DVD from Netflix.

ON TV

I’m recommending Anatomy of a Murder, which I featured yesterday; it airs tomorrow on TCM.

There’s also an early neo-noir on TCM on July 27 – 1962’s Experiment in Terror. It’s not one of the great noirs, but it’s a nailbiter with some high points and some curiosities. A criminal (Ross Martin) tries to heist a bank by threatening a bank teller’s little sister; he’s stalking her and scaring her over the phone, so the FBI leader (Glenn Ford) only has the crook’s asthmatic voice as a clue. The bank teller is played by Lee Remick, who is always worth watching, and the role of the little sister was one of the first for 20-year-old Stefanie Powers. Like Stefanie Powers (The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. and Hart to Hart), Ross Martin became a well-known TV star (Artemus Gordon in The Wild, Wild West). The climax is a chase in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park – right where the departing throngs bottle-necked at the entrance to the long escalator – a point always to be remembered by Giants fans; oddly, the bad guy is trying to be inconspicuous by being the only person in the crowd to wear a hoodie – not yet ubiquitous ballpark fashion. Blake Edwards, much more well known for comedies, directed.

Lee Remick catching a Giants game at Candlestick in EXPERIMENT IN TERROR
Ross Martin and Lee Remick in EXPERIMENT IN TERROR
Ross Martin in EXPERIMENT IN TERROR

Movies to See Right Now

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Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson in LATE NIGHT

I’ve recently updated my Best Movies of 2019 – So Far. Two of the films on the list is in theaters right now.

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).

ON VIDEO

My stream of the week is the neo-noir Elena, a superbly crafted film that vividly peeks into a dark, very dark contemporary Russia. Elena is available to be streamed from Amazon (free with Prime), iTunes and Google Play.

ON TV

On July 24, Turner Classic Movies will broadcast 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.


Bette Davis in ALL ABOUT EVE: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”

Movies to See Right Now

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Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever as Amy in BOOKSMART. Photo credit: Francois Duhamel / Annapurna Pictures

The movie that I’m most eager to see is The Farewell; it’s out this weekend, but I’m in an undisclosed location with The Wife – there are Brown Trout but no movie theaters.

I’ve recently updated my Best Movies of 2019 – So Far. Two of the films on the list is in theaters right now.

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).
  • So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.

ON VIDEO

THE GREAT BEAUTY

It’s time for foreign travel, so my Stream of the Week is The Great Beauty, with its stunning imagery, introspection, social criticism, sexual decadence, fine performances, humor and a Rome travelogue – each by itself worth watching the film.  The Great Beauty won the Best Foreign Language Oscar and can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On July 15, Turner Classic Movies will play the 1957 classic Western  3:10 to Yuma.  This may the career-best performance by the underrated Van Heflin, who plays a financially ruined rancher who bets his life for a chance to support his family.  All he has to do is to guard a cruel and resourceful outlaw (Glenn Ford) against rescue attempts by his gang.  Heflin’s rancher is totally outmatched and his only chance comes from his desperation-fueled adrenaline. It’s an edge-of-your-seat countdown until help is scheduled to arrive.  The 2007 remake with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe is very good, too, but Van Heflin reigns supreme.

Van Heflin in 3:10 TO YUMA

Movies to See Right Now

by
Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson in LATE NIGHT

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).
  • So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.
  • The documentary Framing John DeLorean is an incomplete retelling of this modern Icarus fable. If you already know the basics of the DeLorean story, I’d recommend this Car and Driver article instead. Framing John DeLorean is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON VIDEO

My stream of the week, the documentary Project Nim, is the extraordinary story of a chimpanzee that was taught a human language – American Sign Language – by some far less reliable humans. Project Nim can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On July 8, Turner Classic Movies is airing the always entertaining 1946 film noir Gilda. Glenn Ford plays a shady gambler who shows up in exotic Buenos Aires, where he lucks into a job with a casino operator; turns out that his new boss has a gorgeous young wife (Rita Hayworth). The Ford and Hayworth characters shared a past relationship that ended ugly. There are plot twists aplenty, including a faked death, former Nazis running a tungsten cartel, and a love affair that is on-again, off-again and on-again. Glenn Ford’s character spins like a top through sap-hero-jerk-hero. The wonderful actor Joseph Calleia comes brooding through the story. Gilda is almost worthwhile just for the dramatic cinematography of Rudolph Maté (D.O.A.) and for Hayworth’s stunning wardrobe.

Rita Hayworth (and dress) in GILDA

LATE NIGHT: skewers privilege, stays genuine

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Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson in LATE NIGHT

In Mindy Kaling’s very smart comedy Late Night, Emma Thompson plays Katherine Newberry, the host of late night television talk show that has become, along with Katherine herself, an institution; the problem is that institutions tend to get stale, and networks eventually dump stale shows.

A woman in an almost all-male niche, Katherine has achieved by being brusque and exacting (and Emma Thompson nails the part). But is she still genuine? And is she still even trying? Katherine brings the inexperienced striver Molly Patel (Kaling) into her writers’ room as a diversity hire – and Molly can tell her the truths that others fear to tell Katherine.

Late Night skewers male privilege and affluent class privilege, and takes on slut shaming, too. Kaling has spent time as the only woman or only POC in writers’ rooms, and she clearly knows of what she writes. Kaling doesn’t pull any punches, but the wit makes it an easy, and perhaps instructive, watch for any audience.

It’s also worth watching Late Night for a secondary thread – the relationship between Katherine and her husband (John Lithgow). It’s such an authentic portrayal of a longtime partnership, based on affection and trust – the only venue in which Katherine allows herself to be vulnerable. Lithgow’s performance is powerful and heartbreaking.

The best joke involves Katherine Newberry coining the word, “catharticissistic”, a witticism that convulsed The Wife, but totally escaped the Millennial woman seated next to her.

Amy Ryan plays the network CEO, and at first we think it’s going to be a stereotypical the-suits-trample-the-creatives character. But Ryan’s CEO is the age and gender peer who calls Katherine on her shit. Ryan’s performance sparkles.

Ike Barinholz is ickily superb as the shallow, gross-out comic pegged to replace Katherine. Denis O’Hare is also excellent as Katherine’s loyal but enabling producer.

I haven’t been a big fan of Kaling’s performances, but Late Night is her triumph as a writer. This is a comedy with laughs and social criticism. And the supporting turns by John Lithgow and Amy Ryan are special,