Mustang

Movies to See Right Now

by
Christian Bale in VICE

If you haven’t seen it, don’t miss the Mr. Rogers biodoc Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Saturday night on PBS.

OUT NOW

  • In They Shall Not Grow Old, Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson has, for the first time, layered humanity over our understanding of World War I. By slowing down the speed of the jerky WWI film footage and adding sound and color, Jackson has allowed us to relate to the real people in the Great War. This is a generational achievement and a Must See.
  • Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars. It is streaming now Netflix.
  • Green Book: Tony Lip is a marvelous character, and Viggo Mortensen’s performance is one of the great pleasures of this year in the movies.
  • Vice: in this bitingly funny biopic of Dick Cheney by writer-director Adam McKay (The Big Short), Cheney is played by a physically transformed and unrecognizable Christian Bale.  A  superb performance, .pretty good history, biography from a sharp point of view and a damn entertaining movie.
  • Stan & Ollie: Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy deliver remarkable portraits of a partnership facing the inevitability of showbiz decline.
  • Pawel Pawlikowski’s sweeping romantic tragedy Cold War is not as compelling as his masterpiece Ida.
  • The Favourite: Great performances by three great actresses, sex and political intrigue are not enough; this critically praised film didn’t work for me.
  • Do NOT, under any circumstances, see I Hate Kids, which I started to screen for a film festival earlier in the year, but could not bring myself to finish. Somehow, it got a theatrical release, but it only has a Metacritic rating of 12.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is Mustang, an Ocar-nominated drama about five exuberant Turkish teenage girls who challenge the repression of traditional culture. You can stream Mustang on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes. Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Turner Classic Movies is in the midst of its 31 Days of Oscar series, and I think that it’s time to revisit a spectacle. On February 13, TCM is broadcasting Lawrence of Arabia. For decades, many of us watched this epic squeezed into tinny-sounding TVs. In 1989, I was fortunate enough to see the director’s cut in an old movie palace. Now technology has caught up, and modern large screen HD televisions can do this wide-screen classic justice. Similarly, modern home sound systems can work with the great Maurice Jarre soundtrack.

Nobody has ever created better epics than director David Lean (Bridge Over the River Kwai, Dr. Zhivago). Peter O’Toole stars at the moment of his greatest physical beauty. The rest of the cast is unsurpassed: Omar Sharif, Jose Ferrer, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains, Arthur Kennedy, thousands of extras and entire herds of camels. The vast and severe Arabian desert is a character unto itself.  And master editor Anne V. Coates delivered what is called the greatest cut in cinema.

Settle in and watch the whole thing – and remember what “epic” really means.

Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia

Stream of the Week: MUSTANG – repression challenged by the human spirit

by
MUSTANG
MUSTANG

Mustang is about five exuberant Turkish teenage girls who challenge the repression of traditional culture. It’s a triumph for writer-director Deniz Gamze Ergüven, and one of the best films of the year.

The five parentless sisters are living with their uncle and aunt on the Turkish coast “a thousand kilometers from Istanbul”. They’re a high-spirited bunch, and their rowdiness – innocent by Western standards – embarrasses their uncle. Overreacting, he tries to protect the family honor by pulling them out of school, taking away their electronics, putting them in traditional dresses (evoking the dress wear of fundamentalist polygamist Mormons) and conniving to marry them off as soon as possible. The uncle turns their home into a metaphorical prison that becomes more and more literal. The girls push back, and the stakes of the struggle get very, very high.

Our viewpoint is that of youngest sister Lale (Günes Sensoy), who is a force of nature, ever watchful (often fiercely). The poster girl for indomitability, Lale is one of the great movie characters of 2015.

Mustang is a film of distilled feminism, without any first world political correctness. These are people who want to marry or not, who they want, when they want and to have some control over their lives. They want protection from abuse. That is not a high bar, but because they are female, the traditional culture keeps these basic rights from them.

Although Mustang is set and filmed in Turkey by a Turkish writer-director, the actors are Turkish and all the dialogue is Turkish, it is technically a French movie. Director Ergüven works in France and the film was financed and produced in France. In fact, it was France’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar (over the Cannes winner Dheepan and the Vincent Lindon drama The Measure of a Man).

I happened to be in Sevilla, Spain during the Sevilla European Film Festival and saw Mustang there. I was rooting for Mustang to win the Best Foreign Language Oscar; it was nominated and SHOULD have won. .

You can stream Mustang on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes. Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Michael Caine in YOUTH
Michael Caine in YOUTH

This week I’ve got sixteen movie recommendations, beginning with six on my list of Best Movies of 2015.

  • Mustang, about exuberant Turkish teenage girls challenging traditional repression.
  • Creed, the newest and entirely fresh chapter in the Rocky franchise; it’s about the internal struggle of three people, not just The Big Fight.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Youth, a glorious cinematic meditation on life with Michael Caine.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.

Here are ten more choices. There’s something for everyone.

    • Legend – a true-life story and the best crime drama of 2015. Tom Hardy plays both gangster twin brothers.
    • Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.
    • Very Semi-Serious – a Must See documentary if you love the cartoons in The New Yorker. It’s showing on HBO.
    • Macbeth – an excellent new version of Shakespeare’s exploration of ambition. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star.
    • Hitchcock/Truffaut – a Must See for serious movie fans, this insightful documentary probes documentary Alfred Hitchcock’s body of work.
    • Chi-Raq: Spike Lee’s plea for inner city peace with justice, AND it’s a sex comedy.
    • Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg’s Cold War espionage thriller with Tom Hanks, featuring a fantastic performance by Mark Rylance.
    • Trumbo – the historical drama that reflects on the personal cost of principles.
    • Don Verdean – a dark satire on the faux scientists embraced by the Christian Right.
    • Spectre – action and vengeance from a determined James Bond.

I’m not a fan of Joy or The Danish Girl.

MUSTANG
MUSTANG

This week, you can set your DVR for two classic film noir classics on January 9. The 1962 Cape Fear features Robert Mitchum at his most menacing. Kiss of Death includes Richard Widmark’s breakthrough performance as psychopath Tommy Udo.

On January 11, Turner Classic Movies will present Sullivan’s Travels (1941). The great Preston Sturges created this fast-paced and cynical comedy about a pretentious movie director who goes out to be inspired by The Average Man – and gets more of an adventure than he expects. There has never been a better movie about Hollywood. It’s on my A Classic American Movie Primer – 5 to Start With.

Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea in SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS

Movies to See Right Now

by
Steve Carell (right) in THE BIG SHORT
Steve Carell (right) in THE BIG SHORT

Here are my extensive recommendations, beginning with six on my list of Best Movies of 2015. This is the very best time to go to the movies.  Scroll all the way down for six bonus picks on video.

  • Mustang, about exuberant Turkish teenage girls challenging traditional repression.
  • Creed, the newest and entirely fresh chapter in the Rocky franchise; it’s about the internal struggle of three people, not just The Big Fight.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Youth, a glorious cinematic meditation on life with Michael Caine.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.

Here are ten more choices. There’s something for everyone.

  • Legend – a true-life story and the best crime drama of 2015. Tom Hardy plays both gangster twin brothers.
  • Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.
  • Very Semi-Serious – a Must See documentary if you love the cartoons in The New Yorker. It’s showing on HBO.
  • Macbeth – an excellent new version of Shakespeare’s exploration of ambition. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star.
  • Hitchcock/Truffaut – a Must See for serious movie fans, this insightful documentary probes documentary Alfred Hitchcock’s body of work.
  • Chi-Raq: Spike Lee’s plea for inner city peace with justice, AND it’s a sex comedy.
  • Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg’s Cold War espionage thriller with Tom Hanks, featuring a fantastic performance by Mark Rylance.
  • Trumbo – the historical drama that reflects on the personal cost of principles.
  • Don Verdean – a dark satire on the faux scientists embraced by the Christian Right.
  • Spectre – action and vengeance from a determined James Bond.

Today Turner Classic Movies is presenting an entire day of the irresistible William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora in The Thin Man, After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home and Song of the Thin Man.  And on New Year’s Day, TCM is showing the superb proto-noir M (1931) – if you’re going to see one pre-war European film – see this one.

And to binge watch on this Holiday weekend, here are six more movies from my Best Movies of 2015 – So Far that are available to stream or to rent on DVD:

      • The smartest road trip movie ever, The End of the Tour. It’s available streaming from Amazon Instant, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
      • The unforgettable coming of age dramedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It’s available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play and now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox.
      • The extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan, a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia. Leviathan is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.
      • The hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
      • The Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, the story of an extraordinarily gifted person’s escape from torment. Love & Mercy is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu.
      • The gentle, thoughtful and altogether fresh dramedy I’ll See You In My Dreams with Blythe Danner, available to stream from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
MUSTANG
MUSTANG

Best Movies of 2015

by
Domhnall Gleeson in EX MACHINA
Domhnall Gleeson in EX MACHINA

Visit my Best Movies of 2015 for my list of the year’s best films, complete with images, trailers and my comments on each movie – as well as their availability to rent on DVD and to stream. My top ten movies for 2015 are:

  1. Ex Machina
  2. Wild Tales 
  3. Leviathan
  4. Brooklyn
  5. Youth
  6. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl 
  7. Creed
  8. Spotlight
  9. Phoenix
  10. The Martian

The other best films of the year are: The End of the Tour, Love & Mercy,  The Big Short, Corn Island, Mustang, I’ll See You in My Dreams,  ’71, The Look of Silence and  The Grief of Others.

I’m saving space for these promising 2015 films that I haven’t seen yet: The Revenant, Joy, The Hateful Eight and 45 Years.

2015 at the Movies: a glimmer of feminism

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MUSTANG
MUSTANG

There’s been a glimmer of feminism in many of the year’s best films. The most overtly feminist is Mustang, a fierce assault on the patriarchy of a traditional culture. But Brooklyn and Carol share a feminist point of view. It’s no coincidence that the character that revolts in Ex Machina has a female form.  Ex Machina, Mustang and Brooklyn are are on my Best Movies of 2015.

Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie loved by critics (especially the female ones), is a rock ’em, sock’em action movie where women characters flee for their safety from male atrocities and then exact their revenge.

Testament of Youth is a biopic of the pioneering woman who leads a social movement. And from the 19th Century, there was the proto-feminist bodice ripper Far from the Madding Crowd.  Chi-raq, Spike Lee’s modern inner city version of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, also has women taking charge of their society.

All of these movies are primarily about women and have female leads.

Even the protagonist’s love interest (usually a thankless and peripheral role) in Creed is accomplished and only interested in embracing the title character on her own terms.

What does this mean? Not that Hollywood is now the paradigm of gender equity.  Just that there were some high quality movies this year, some women-centered, with a welcome perspective.

Charlize Theron in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
Charlize Theron in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

2015 at the movies: most fun at the movies

by
Deenis O'Keefe and Ann Sheridan in WOMAN ON THE RUN
Deenis O’Keefe and Ann Sheridan in WOMAN ON THE RUN

My favorite movie-going experiences in 2015:

  • San Francisco’s Noir City film fest, with the double feature Woman on the Run and Born to Be Bad.
  • Cinequest, especially seeing the raucously funny Wild Tales with The Wife and friends  at a packed California Theatre and seeing the exquisite and lyrical Georgian drama Corn Island on the recommendation of international film programmer Charlie Cockey.
  • Turner Classic Movies’ Summer of Darkness, program of film noir, which allowed me to discover two new noir favorites: 99 River Street and Witness to Murder.
  • Discovering the wretchedly bad and unintentionally hilarious An American Hippie in Israel on TCM – a new addition to my Bad Movie Festival.
  • The wonderful surprise of the very funny and family centric documentary Meet the Patels at a Camera Cinema Club, complete with a Skype interview with the Patel family itself.
  • A particularly strong program at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where I saw The End of the Tour, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, The Look of Silence, Listen to Me Marlon, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead and Very Semi-serious.
  • The Wife taking me to a luxurious screening of Spectre at the Los Gatos Theater with its black leather sofas and ottomans.
  • Happening to be in Spain during the first weekend of the Sevilla European Film Festival, and getting to catch Mustang with The Wife and my niece Maeve.
MEET THE PATELS
MEET THE PATELS

Movies to See Right Now (Holiday edition)

by
MUSTANG
MUSTANG

If you’ve been waiting all year for excellent cinema, you’re in luck. This week, I have SIXTEEN recommendations, with SIX of them on my list of Best Movies of 2015.  Scroll all the way down for six bonus picks on video.

  • Mustang, about exuberant Turkish teenage girls challenging traditional repression.  You can find Mustang in San Francisco and San Rafael, and it’s opening in San Jose on January 1.
  • Creed, the newest and entirely fresh chapter in the Rocky franchise; it’s about the internal struggle of three people, not just The Big Fight.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Youth, a glorious cinematic meditation on life with Michael Caine.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.

Here are ten more choices. There’s something for everyone.

  • Legend – a true-life story and the best crime drama of 2015. Tom Hardy plays both gangster twin brothers.
  • Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.
  • Very Semi-Serious – a Must See documentary if you love the cartoons in The New Yorker. It’s showing on HBO.
  • Macbeth – an excellent new version of Shakespeare’s exploration of ambition. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star.
  • Hitchcock/Truffaut – a Must See for serious movie fans, this insightful documentary probes documentary Alfred Hitchcock’s body of work.
  • Chi-Raq: Spike Lee’s plea for inner city peace with justice, AND it’s a sex comedy.
  • Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg’s Cold War espionage thriller with Tom Hanks, featuring a fantastic performance by Mark Rylance.
  • Trumbo – the historical drama that reflects on the personal cost of principles.
  • Don Verdean – a dark satire on the faux scientists embraced by the Christian Right.
  • Spectre – action and vengeance from a determined James Bond.

Turner Classic Movies brings us the recently restored film noir Too Late for Tears on December 29.  On New Year’s Eve, TCM is presenting an entire day of the irresistible William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora in The Thin Man, After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home and Song of the Thin Man.

And on New Year’s Day, TCM is showing the superb proto-noir M (1931), Peter Lorre stars as a serial killer who preys on children. It’s a masterpiece by master director Fritz Lang (Metropolis), who later fled the Nazis to Hollywood and made several fine film noirs in the 50s. Lorre is compelling as a man plagued with a twisted compulsion. There’s no explicit violence, but you’ve never seen a more chilling solitary balloon. The city’s criminal underclass races with the police to hunt down the monster. The climax is a most unusual courtroom scene. If you’re going to see one pre-war European film – see this one.

Peter Lorre in M
Peter Lorre in M

And for the Holidays, here are movies from my Best Movies of 2015 – So Far that are available to stream or to rent on DVD:

      • The smartest road trip movie ever, The End of the Tour. It’s available streaming from Amazon Instant, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
      • The unforgettable coming of age dramedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It’s available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play and now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox.
      • The extraordinary Russian drama Leviathan, a searing indictment of society in post-Soviet Russia. Leviathan is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.
      • The hilariously dark Argentine comedy Wild Tales. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
      • The Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, the story of an extraordinarily gifted person’s escape from torment. Love & Mercy is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu.
      • The gentle, thoughtful and altogether fresh dramedy I’ll See You In My Dreams with Blythe Danner, available to stream from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

MUSTANG: repression challenged by the human spirit

by
MUSTANG
MUSTANG

Mustang is about five exuberant Turkish teenage girls who challenge the repression of traditional culture.  It’s a triumph for writer-director Deniz Gamze Ergüven, and one of the best films of the year.

The five parentless sisters are living with their uncle and aunt on the Turkish coast “a thousand kilometers from Istanbul”.  They’re a high-spirited bunch, and their rowdiness – innocent by Western standards – embarrasses their uncle.  Overreacting, he tries to protect the family honor by pulling them out of school, taking away their electronics, putting them in traditional dresses (evoking the dress wear of fundamentalist polygamist Mormons) and conniving to marry them off as soon as possible.  The uncle turns their home into a metaphorical prison that becomes more and more literal.  The girls push back, and the stakes of the struggle get very, very high.

Our viewpoint is that of youngest sister Lale (Günes Sensoy), who is a force of nature, ever watchful (often fiercely).  The poster girl for indomitability, Lale is one of the great movie characters of 2015.

Mustang is a film of distilled feminism, without any first world political correctness.  These are people who want to marry or not, who they want, when they want and to have some control over their lives.  They want protection from abuse.  That is not a high bar, but because they are female, the traditional culture keeps these basic rights from them.

Although Mustang is set and filmed in Turkey by a Turkish writer-director, the actors are Turkish and all the dialogue is Turkish, it is technically a French movie.   Director Ergüven works in France and the film was financed and produced in France.  In fact, it is France’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar (over the Cannes winner Dheepan and the Vincent Lindon drama The Measure of a Man).

I happened to be in Sevilla, Spain for the first weekend of the Sevilla European Film Festival and saw Mustang there.  I’ll be rooting for Mustang to win an Oscar.