Night Moves

Movies to See Right Now

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Charlotte Rampling and Jim Broadbent in THE SENSE OF AN ENDING at CINEQUEST on Sunday
Charlotte Rampling and Jim Broadbent in THE SENSE OF AN ENDING at CINEQUEST on Sunday

Silicon Valley’s own major film festival, Cinequest heads into its final weekend.  I strongly recommend the indie dramedy Quality Problems, screening at 9:30 tomight at the Hammer theater in downtown San Jose; if you’re going to see one Cinequest film, make it this one.  I’ll be linking more festival coverage to my Cinequest 2017 page, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.

Because Cinequest is underway, my video pick is from the 2013 festival: in the documentary Meet the Hitlers, we are introduced to those few people who choose NOT to change their birth name of “Hitler”. Meet the Hitlers is available for streaming rental from Amazon Video and Vudu and for streaming purchase from iTunes.

In theaters:

  • La La Land: the extraordinarily vivid romantic musical staring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
  • Lion: an emotionally affecting family drama that makes the audience weep (in a good way).
  • Hidden Figures: a true life story from the 1960s space program – a triumph of human spirit and brainpower over sexism and racism; the audience applauded.
  • Winner of the Best Picture Oscar, the remarkably sensitive and realistic indie drama Moonlight is at once a coming of age tale, an exploration of addicted parenting and a story of gay awakening. It’s almost universally praised, but I thought that the last act petered out.
  • The Salesman is another searing and authentic psychological family thriller from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past). It won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

On March 14, Turner Classic Movies is airing the 1975 character-driven neo-noir Night Moves, with Gene Hackman as an LA private eye who follows a trail of evidence to steamy Florida. Hackman shines in the role – the detective is deeply in love with his estranged wife, but unsuited for marriage. Night Moves also features Melanie Griffith’s breakthrough role as the highly sexualized teen daughter in the Florida family; Griffith was eighteen or nineteen when this was filmed, and had already been living with Don Johnson for three years.  (That night TCM will also present two even better 1970s neo-noir thrillers – Klute and The French Connection.)

Movies to See Right Now

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Gene Hackman in the 1975 NIGHT MOVES
Gene Hackman in the 1975 NIGHT MOVES

I’m at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and I haven’t caught up with the promising sci-fi Ex Machina or the rock doc Lambert & Stamp. Here are the movies that I know are good:

In theaters, I liked Ethan Hawke’s gentle documentary Seymour: An Introduction. If you’re looking for a scare, try the inventive and non-gory horror gem It Follows.

Documentarian Alex Gibney has TWO excellent films playing now on HBO:

  • Going Clear: The Prison of Belief, a devastating expose of Scientology is playing on HBO; and
  • Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, an especially well-researched and revelatory biopic of Frank Sinatra.

Don’t bother with Clouds of Sils Maria – it’s a muddled mess.  Insurgent, from the Divergent franchise is what it is – young adult sci-fi with some cool f/x. The romance 5 to 7 did NOT work for me, but I know smart women who enjoyed it.  The biting Hollywood satire of Maps to the Stars wasn’t worth the disturbing story of a cursed family. I also didn’t like the Western Slow West, now out on video.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the drama Wild, with its wonderful performances by Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixter.

On April 27, Turner Classic Movies is airing the 1975 character-driven neo-noir Night Moves, with Gene Hackman as an LA private eye who follows a trail of evidence to steamy Florida. Hackman shines in the role – the detective is deeply in love with his estranged wife, but unsuited for marriage. Night Moves also features Melanie Griffith’s breakthrough role as the highly sexualized teen daughter in the Florida family; Griffith was eighteen or nineteen when this was filmed, and had already been living with Don Johnson for three years.

And TCM is also showing one of my very favorite films, the Sam Peckinpah 1973 Western Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (April 30), featuring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles. Peckinpah takes us into a realistically dusty world of 1880s New Mexico and makes the story operatic in its sweep. Pat Garrett is a revisionist Western, with Billy representing the have-nots and his old pal Garrett hiring out to do the bidding of the capitalist one-percenters. It’s a near-great movie; if the unfortunate “Paco” story line were excised, it would rank among the greatest three or four Westerns of all time. (Another minor flaw: Richard Jaeckel has to wear a Paul Revere wig. )

Pat Garrett also features the Peckinpah repertory company of Luke Askew, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Gene Evans, Dub Taylor, Emilio Fernandez and, in one his most memorable roles, R.G. Armstrong. The stellar cast also features Harry Dean Stanton, Jason Robards, Elisha Cook Jr., Chill Wills, Richard Jaeckel, Jack Elam, Barry Sullivan, Jack Dodson (Howard Sprague in The Andy Griffin Show), Richard Bright (Al Neri in The Godfather), and Charles Martin Smith (Terry the Toad in American Graffiti).

The sound track is by Bob Dylan, and Dylan has a small acting role, too; this is the origin of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, which perfectly underlines a heartbreaking scene with two greats of the Western genre, Slim Pickins and Katy Jurado.