Spartacus

Movies to See Right Now (still at home)

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Danny Trejo in INMATE #1: THE RISE OF DANNY TREJO

This week – the year’s most original film, plus a Feel Good about the lovable Danny Trejo and two great surfing documentaries.

ON VIDEO

Campbell Scott in THE 11TH GREEN

The 11th Green: You won’t find a more original movie this year than Christopher Munch’s absorbing exploration of extraterrestrial visits to Earth. There are no Little Green Men, but wait until Ike and Obama talk to each other in another dimension! You can buy a virtual ticket for The 11th Green – and support the Roxie Theater – at Theatrical-At-Home.

Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo: a satisfying documentary on Danny Trejo’s extraordinarily redemptive life: from junkie/vicious thug/inmate to lovable/drug counselor/movie star. We can’t get too much redemption these days, so stream Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo from Amazon, Vudu, TouTube and Google Play.

Step into Liquid and Riding Giants: Get stoked with the two most bitchin’ surfing documentaries. Both can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play

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

ON TV

Kirk Douglas and Woody Strode in SPARTACUS

Tune in to Turner Classic Movies on July 20, for one of cinema’s great spectacles, Spartacus. If you haven’t watched Spartacus in a while, you probably remember it for Kirk Douglas’ macho tour de force, the ever stunning Jean Simmons and the sexual cat-and-mouse between Laurence Olivier and the Bronx-accented slaveboy Tony Curtis. But you might have forgotten the strength of the supporting performances by Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton and – my favorite – Woody Strode. And watching the recent Trumbo, I was reminded that indie producer Kirk Douglas awarded the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo the screenwriting credit that others had denied him; his decision helped to end the Hollywood blacklist (and also it really helped that Spartacus was a massive financial success).

Kirk Douglas in SPARTACUS

Movies to See Right Now

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a marvelously entertaining masterpiece. I’m just going to keep beating this drum until I run out of friends who haven’t seen it yet (including The Wife).

OUT NOW

  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best.
  • The family dramedy The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • You can find, if you look hard enough, Jirga, an indie parable about atonement that was Australia’s submission to the Academy Awards.
  • Here’s my rant on the latest Olivier Assayas film, Non-Fiction.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is The East, a smart and gripping thriller that explores both our response to corporate criminality and the unfamiliar world of anarchist collectives. The East is available on DVD from both Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes, GooglePlay and other VOD outlets.

ON TV

Kirk Douglas in SPARTACUS

On August 31, Turner Classic Movies offers Kirk Douglas’ testosterone exploding across the screen in Spartacus, The Vikings and Gunfight at the OK Corral. The latter is the John Sturges 1957 version with Douglas and with Dennis Hopper as Billy Clanton; (I prefer the 1946 John Ford version of the same story – My Darling Clementine, with Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Ward Bond, Walter Brennan and John Ireland.)

Kirk keeps his shirt on in OK Corral, but Spartacus and The Vikings are filled with shirtless virile charisma. There’s really nothing to The Vikings except action adventure (and a scary contact lens), but it’s been a guilty pleasure of mine since the first time it played on TV.

Kirk Douglas in THE VIKINGS

Movies to See Right Now

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Ethan Hawke in BORN TO BE BLUE
Ethan Hawke in BORN TO BE BLUE

Here’s my slate of recommended movies in theaters this week:

  • I liked the evocative French drama My Golden Days, the beautiful tale of first love, with all its passion, importance, obsession, angst, conflict, breakups and makeups.
  • Ethan Hawke’s performance makes the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue a success.
  • I enjoyed every minute of Jake Gyllenhaal’s breakdown in Demolition (but was ambivalent about why I did).
  • Everybody Wants Some!! is a dead-on 1980 time capsule and an amusing frolic with lots of ball busting and girl chasing – but probably more fun for a heterosexual male audience.

Tom Hiddleston makes a believable Hank Williams, but that can’t save the plodding I Saw the Light, which fails to capture any of the pathos in Hank’s life and death.

Because Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! is now in theaters, my DVD/Stream of the Week is its “spiritual prequel” – the coming of age Dazed and Confused is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video (free with Amazon Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.masterpiece Dazed and Confused.

The best night on TV this week is April 16, when Turner Classic Movies airs both the glorious sand-and-sandal epic Spartacus and Mel Brooks’ guffaw-fest Young Frankenstein.

If you haven’t watched Spartacus in a while, you probably remember it for Kirk Douglas’ macho tour de force, the ever stunning Jean Simmons and the sexual cat-and-mouse between Laurence Olivier and the Bronx-accented slaveboy Tony Curtis. But you might have forgotten the strength of the supporting performances by Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton and – my favorite – Woody Strode. And watching last year’s Trumbo, I was reminded that indie producer Kirk Douglas awarded the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo the screenwriting credit that others had denied him.

Kirk Douglas and Woody Strode in SPARTACUS
Kirk Douglas and Woody Strode in SPARTACUS

The best Tony Curtis movies

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Tony Curtis has died.  He was a very handsome and sexy guy, and the first half of his career was at the tail end of Hollywood’s Studio Era.  As a result, he played the pretty boy leads in lots of mediocre action movies.  He and first wife Janet Leigh (parents of Jamie Lee Curtis) made up one of Hollywood’s most glamorous couples ever.

But Tony Curtis could act if he got the right role, and he made at least three great movies.  The fact that these movies come from three very different genres (screwball comedy, contemporary drama, sword-and-sandal epic) is a testament to his ability.

Some Like It Hot (1959):  This Billy Wilder masterpiece is my pick for the best comedy of all time.  Seriously – the best comedy ever.  And it still works today.  Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play most of the movie in drag (and Tony is kind of cute).  Curtis must continue the ruse although next to Marilyn Monroe is at her most delectable.  Curtis then dons a yachting cap and does a dead-on Cary Grant impression as the heir to an industrial fortune.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957):  This has Curtis’ most subtly acted role as a Broadway press agent who is completely at the mercy of Burt Lancaster’s sadistically nasty columnist.  Many of us have experienced being vulnerable to the caprice of an extremely mean person – Curtis perfectly captures the dread and humiliation of being in that position.

Spartacus (1960):  Once in a while, a grand epic is a really good movie , and Spartacus qualifies.  Curtis plays a slave who is hit on by Laurence Olivier’s Roman patrician in a scene of BARELY implicit homosexuality.  “Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?”, Olivier leers from the bath.  It was a gutsy scene for a studio actor at the end of the 50s.