The Danish Girl

Movies to See Right Now

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Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS
Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS

This weekend  45 Years becomes the final film on my Best Movies of 2015 to have been released in the Bay Area. Don’t miss Charlotte Rampling’s enthralling Oscar-nominated performance.  And five more from my 2015 list:

  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Plus two more good choices:

  • The Hateful Eight, a Quentin Tarantino showcase for Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but a movie that’s not for everyone.
  • Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.

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

My Stream of the Week is the riveting German psychodrama Phoenix with its WOWZER ending. Phoenix is one of my Best Movies of 2015. It is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, YouTube and Google Play.

This Sunday, January 31, Turner Classic Movies presents the ultra-suspenseful Diabolique from “the French Hitchcock” Henri-Georges Clouzot and the American film noir Phantom Lady, with Elisha Cook, Jr.’s orgasmic drumming scene – how did they get THAT by the censors?

Also this week on TCM: Lawrence of Arabia, The Sting, The Third Man, Cool Hand Luke, East of Eden, The Dirty Dozen.

Elisha Cook, Jr. and a nice of gams in PHANTOM LADY
Elisha Cook, Jr. and some nice gams in PHANTOM LADY

Movies to See Right Now

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Walton Goggins in THE HATEFUL EIGHT
Walton Goggins in THE HATEFUL EIGHT

You can see five movies from my final list of Best Movies of 2015 in theaters this week.  This is a list of the very best 21 of the 155 2015 movies that I’ve seen.

  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • (a sixth top film, 45 Years, will be released in the Bay Area next week.)

Two more choices:

  • The Hateful Eight, a Quentin Tarantino showcase for Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but a movie that’s not for everyone.
  • Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.

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

My DVD/Stream of the week is the space adventure The Martian – with all the best that a Hollywood movie can offer.  You can rent The Martian on DVD from Netflix now and from Redbox on February 9.  You can stream it on Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On January 26, Turner Classic Movies screens Spike Lee’s debut feature She’s Gotta Have It. Watch for Spike himself supplying the comic relief as the unforgettable Mars Blackmon. I still remember going to the theater in 1986 on the recommendation of Siskel & Ebert and feeling so excited about discovering a talented new auteur.

Tracy Camilla Johns and Spike Lee in SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT
Tracy Camilla Johns and Spike Lee in SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT

Movies to See Right Now

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Leonardo DiCaprio in THE REVENANT
Leonardo DiCaprio in THE REVENANT

I’ve now seen ’em all and my list of Best Movies of 2015 is now complete – you can see five of these in theaters this week:

  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • (a sixth top film, 45 Years, will be released in the Bay Area in two weeks.)

Two more choices:

  • The Hateful Eight, a Quentin Tarantino showcase for Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but a movie that’s not for everyone.
  • Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.

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

My DVDs of the Week celebrate the late cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. The Hired Hand is one of his overlooked masterpieces. Visions of Light is a documentary about his art of cinematography. Both are available on Netflix DVDs.

On January 21, Turner Classic Movies is playing Pushover, one of my Overlooked Noir. An amoral cop (Fred MacMurray) decides that, if he can double cross BOTH the other cops and the criminal, he can wind up with the loot AND the gangster’s girlfriend (“Introducing Kim Novak”).

Movies to See Right Now

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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

THE DANISH GIRL: some highlights but overall meh

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Eddie Redmayne in THE DANISH GIRL
Eddie Redmayne in THE DANISH GIRL

The melodramatic docudrama The Danish Girl is based on the real life of Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, one of the first people to receive sexual reassignment surgery.  We begin with a devoted and playful young married couple of Danish painters in the 1920s (Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander).  He is a moderately successful landscape painter, and she is a struggling portraitist.  As they experiment with sexual role-playing, his self-identification as a woman named Lili is revealed, and their journey continues though his-to-her transgender metamorphosis through the groundbreaking surgery.

There’s a point when he starts acting out his gender identification in ways that are not okay with her, and this is the best part of the film.  Vikander plays a woman who is sexually ahead of her time, but anyone would be knocked for a loop when their partner switches genders.  It doesn’t help when Lili addresses her very real yearnings with a substantial degree of selfishness.

But then The Danish Girl starts dragging and then ultimately grinds into boredom and predictability.  The movie keeps hammering us with the wife’s devoted support of her transforming spouse, the secret they strive to maintain, yada yada.  Tom Hooper, the director of The King’s Speech and the literally miserable Les Miserables, is technically quite good; he also knows how to make a movie pretentious and ponderous.  There’s probably a better 90-minute movie embedded in The Danish Girl’s 119 minutes.

Vikander is just outstanding as the wife.  Redmayne also nails his role, a part every bit as showy as in The Theory of Everything.  Matthias Schoenaerts, Amber Heard and Ben Whislaw are excellent in supporting roles.  Sebastian Koch, who is always good, is also solid in a secondary role.

The costumes in The Danish Girl are exquisite.  The early hints as to his gender identification come with his attraction to the fabric and design of fine clothes.  Then Lili  expresses her femininity through ever more ravishing and flamboyant fashion.  All of the clothes are beautiful to look at, from Vikander’s new nightgown to the dapper suits and cravats on Matthias Schoennaerts.   In the second half of the film, Vikander wears a turquoise dress with a vertical decorative panel that is a masterpiece of art deco design.

Excellent acting, phenomenal costumes and some riveting early scenes.  Then meh.