Night of the Lepus

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Ingvar Hilmir Snær and Noomi Rapace in LAMB. Courtesy of A24.

This week (Halloween week), the movies get more unsettling and scary.

IN THEATERS

Lamb: This dark, cautionary fable of karma is a brilliant and unsettling debut by writer-director Valdimar Jóhannsson.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

Sibyl: The filmmaking is so exquisite that it masks the delicious trashiness of the story. This sex-filled melodrama is now widely available to stream (Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube).

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

ON TV

THE KILLER SHREWS – this is a dog in a fright mask

This being Halloween Week, Turner Classic Movies starts out with some of the more outlandish movie monsters on October 26, First. we have carnivorous rabbits the size of horses in Night of the Lepus. Then we have a classic from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters, – it’s The Killer Shrews, where the filmmakers have put fright masks on dogs, and then applied shaggy patches to the sides of the dogs and ropy rat tails to their backs.

Then, on October 29, TCM brings us a REALLY scary movie, Philip Kaufman’s 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams must figure out that humans are being replicated by floating pods from outer space. Leonard Nimoy plays the chillingly confident and authoritative Dr. David Kibner – not everybody can be menacing in a turtleneck. The final shot is spine tingling.

Btooke Adams and Donald Sutherland in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Movies to See Right Now

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CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

If you can make it to Cinequest, there are some great movie choices, including Sunday night’s Clouds of Sils Maria with Kristin Stewart (who won the Supporting Actress Cesar – the French Oscar) and Juliette Binoche.  Here is my extensive Cinequest coverage.

The Oscars have come and gone, leaving these choices in theaters and elsewhere:

  • Clint Eastwood’s thoughtful and compelling American Sniper, with harrowing action and a career-best performance from Bradley Cooper.
  • The inspiring Selma, well-crafted and gripping throughout (but with an unfortunate historical depiction of LBJ).
  • The cinematically important and very funny (and, of course. Oscar-winning) Birdman.
  • The Theory of Everything is a successful, audience-friendly biopic of both Mr. AND Mrs. Genius.
  • Julianne Moore’s superb performance is the only reason to see Still Alice;
  • The Imitation Game – the riveting true story about the guy who invented the computer and defeated the Nazis and was then hounded for his homosexuality.
  • And the movie that is better than all of these:  Boyhood. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Here are some great choices for movies coming up on TV this week – all on Turner Classic Movies:

  • The Narrow Margin (February 28): This overlooked film noir masterpiece is a taut 71 minutes of tension. Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train. Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target.
  • Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
    Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (March 3): This romantic French musical is notable for three things: 1) the actors sing all of the dialogue; 2) the breakout performance by then 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve; and 3) an epilogue scene at a gas station – one of the great weepers in cinema history.
  • Spider Baby (March 4): This campy horror flick ain’t good, but it’s entertaining. Lon Chaney, Jr., passes the horror torch to Sid Haig.  Also on March 4, TCM is bringing us one of the silliest of mutant monster movies, Night of the Lepus (thundering herds of giant killer rabbits) along with Bucket of Blood, a serial killer movie that is a time capsule of beatnik culture.

Movies to See Right Now

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13 Assassins

The top picks this week are Incendies, Midnight in Paris and Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  I’m still urging people to see the searing drama Incendies, the year’s best film so far. Upon their mother’s death, a young man and woman learn for the first time of their father and their brother and journey from Quebec to the Middle East to uncover family secrets. As they bumble around Lebanon, we see the mother’s experience in flashbacks. We learn before they do that their lives were created – literally – by the violence of the Lebanese civil war.

Woody Allen’s sweet and smart Midnight in Paris is his best comedy in twenty-five years.  Owen Wilson accompanies fiancée Rachel McAdams to Paris, where she is intrigued by pretentious blowhard Michael Sheen, leaving Wilson to explore midnight Paris and time travel back to the Paris of the Lost Generation.

Don’t miss Cave of Forgotten Dreams while it can be seen in 3D; Werner Herzog explores the amazing 30,000 year old Chauvet cave paintings.

13 Assassins is brilliantly staged and photographed, and is one of the best recent action films; an honorable samurai must assemble and lead a team of thirteen to hack their way through a psychotically sadistic noble’s 200 bodyguards.

In Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig plays a woman whose insecurities keep her from seeing the good and the possible in her life; it’s funny, but not one of the year’s best. Meek’s Cutoff is a disappointing misfire.

For trailers and other choices,see Movies to See Right Now.

I haven’t yet seen The Tree of Life, which opens this weekend. You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick is Kaboom.

Movies on TV this week include the vicious drama Sweet Smell of Success and the campy mutant rabbit horror flick Night of the Lepus on TCM.

Movies to See Right Now

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Incendies

The searing drama Incendies is the year’s best film so far.  Upon their mother’s death, a young man and woman learn for the first time of their father and their brother and journey from Quebec to the Middle East to uncover family secrets.  As they bumble around Lebanon, we see the mother’s experience in flashbacks.  We learn before they do that their lives were created – literally – by the violence of the Lebanese civil war.

Don’t miss Cave of Forgotten Dreams while it can be seen in 3D;  Werner Herzog explores the amazing 30,000 year old Chauvet cave paintings.  In the fine French drama Queen to Play, a working class woman discovers a passion for chess  in midlife; she and her family, must adjust, along with a French-speaking Kevin Kline.

In Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig plays a woman whose insecurities keep her from seeing the good and the possible in her life; it’s funny, but not one of the year’s best. Meek’s Cutoff is a disappointing misfire.

Source Code is a gripping scifi thriller with intelligence and heart, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga and Michelle Monaghan. Hanna is a rip roaring girl-power thriller starring Saiorse Ronan as a 16-year-old raised in the Arctic Circle to be a master assassin by her rogue secret agent father, and then released upon the CIA.

For trailers and other choices,see Movies to See Right Now.

You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick is Diabolique.

Movies on TV this week include the underrated Sam Peckinpah classic Junior Bonner and the campy Giant Mutant Bunny horror film Night of the Lepus on TCM.

Coming up on TV – giant carnivorous mutant rabbits!

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On Friday, Turner Classic Movies will be broadcasting Night of the Lepus (1972).  If you enjoy mocking cheesy special effects in bad Mutant Animal Monster movies, you’ll love the giant mutant rabbits rumbling through small Western towns, bursting through windows to kill humans and even chowing down on a herd of horses.  Here’s a clip of the thundering herd of bloodthirsty bunnies.

And here’s the trailer, which gives you a very good sense of the movie’s production values.

Updated Movies to See Right Now

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Somewhere: It's Dad/Daughter Month at the Chateau Marmont

Now is the time to catch future Oscar contenders on the big screen, especially crowd pleasers like True Grit, The King’s Speech and Black Swan.

True Grit is the Coen Brothers’ splendid Old West story of Mattie Ross, a girl of unrelenting resolve and moxie played by 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in a breakthrough performance, and Jeff Bridges is perfect as the hilarious, oft-besotted and frequently lethal Rooster Cogburn. The King’s Speech is the crowd pleasing story of a good man (Colin Firth) overcoming his stammer to inspire his nation in wartime with the help of a brassy commoner (Geoffrey Rush). Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a rip roaring thriller and a showcase for Natalie Portman and Barbara Hershey.

Biutiful is a grim, grim movie with a great performance by Javier Bardem in a compelling portrait of a desperate man in desperate circumstance, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores perros, 21 Grams, Babel).

Somewhere is Sofia Coppola’s (Lost in Translation) artsy portrait of a man so purposeless that he can find no pleasure in pleasure.  An A-list movie star (Steven Dorff) is living at the Chateau Marmont with his expensive toys, booze and drugs and an inexhaustible supply of beautiful, sexually available women, but without Without any purpose or connection to others, his debauchery is completely joyless.  To his surprise and discomfort,  his eleven-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning) moves in for a few weeks.

I strongly recommend Rabbit Hole, an exquisite exploration of the grieving process with great performances by Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhardt, Diane Wiest, Sandra Oh and Miles Tenner. The Fighter is an excellent drama, starring Mark Wahlberg as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Christian Bale) and trashy mom (Melissa Leo). Fair Game, the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson story with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, is also excellent. All are on my list of Best Movies of 2010.

I Love You, Phillip Morris is an entertaining offbeat combo of the con man, prison and romantic comedy genres. Red Hill is a stylish contemporary Aussie Western. Season of the Witch is a bad Nicholas Cage/Ron Perlman buddy movie set among the plague, crusades and witch hunts of the 13th century.

For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.

I have not yet seen Another Year or The Way Back , opening this weekend. You can see the trailers at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick is The Naked Kiss. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.

Movies on TV include Jason and the Argonauts, Hannah and Her Sisters, D.O.A., The Shop Around the Corner and Night of the Lepus on TCM.