Eight of my Best Films of 2018 – So Far are already available to stream. Here they are, and this week I’m featuring: Beast: finally unleashed … and untethered.Beast is a romance, a psychological thriller and a serial killer procedural. But it’s Jessie Buckley’s performance and Michael Pearce’s story that should bring you to see Beast. It’s a heckuva ride. You can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Also available to stream:
Leave No Trace: his demons, not hers. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The Rider: a life’s passion is threatened. n Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The Death of Stalin: gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Custody: the searing essence of domestic violence. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Three Identical Strangers: a Feel Good until we peel back the onion. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Quality Problems: a screwball comedy for the sandwich generation. My favorite film from last year’s Cinequest has been released on video this year: Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Outside In: she finds herself finally ready. Streaming on Netflix.
Eight of my Best Films of 2018 – So Far are already available to stream. Here they are, and this week I’m featuring The Death of Stalin: gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds. The Death of Stalin is a savagely funny movie from writer-director Armando Ianucci (Veep,In the Loop), a master of mocking the ambition, venality and flattery of those reaching for power. In The Death of Stalin, he adds terror to his quiver of motivations, and the result is darkly hilarious. You can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Also available to stream:
Leave No Trace: his demons, not hers. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The Rider: a life’s passion is threatened. n Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Beast: finally unleashed … and untethered. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Custody: the searing essence of domestic violence. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Three Identical Strangers: a Feel Good until we peel back the onion. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Quality Problems: a screwball comedy for the sandwich generation. My favorite film from last year’s Cinequest has been released on video this year: Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Outside In: she finds herself finally ready. Streaming on Netflix.
Eight of my Best Films of 2018 – So Far are already available to stream. Here they are, and this week I’m featuring The Rider: a life’s passion is threatened. A young man’s rodeo injury threatens to keep him from his passions. Filmed in South Dakota with non-professional actors, The Rider is emotionally powerful and genuine – and not a bit corny. It’s also visually beautiful. You can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Also available to stream:
Leave No Trace: his demons, not hers. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The Death of Stalin: gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Beast: finally unleashed … and untethered. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Custody: the searing essence of domestic violence. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Three Identical Strangers: a Feel Good until we peel back the onion. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Quality Problems: a screwball comedy for the sandwich generation. My favorite film from last year’s Cinequest has been released on video this year: Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Outside In: she finds herself finally ready. Streaming on Netflix.
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie and Ben Foster in a scene from Debra Granik’s LEAVE NO TRACE
Eight of my Best Films of 2018 – So Far are already available to stream. Here they are, and this week I’m featuring Leave No Trace: his demons, not hers. Leave No Trace is Debra Granik’s first narrative feature since her 2010 Winter’s Bone (which I had rated as the best film of that year). Leave No Trace is a brilliant coming of age film that stars Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting. Winter’s Bone launched the career of Jennifer Lawrence, and Leave No Trace might do the same for newcomer McKenzie. Leave No Trace may be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Also available to stream:
The Rider: a life’s passion is threatened. n Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The Death of Stalin: gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Beast: finally unleashed … and untethered. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Custody: the searing essence of domestic violence. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Three Identical Strangers: a Feel Good until we peel back the onion. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Quality Problems: a screwball comedy for the sandwich generation. My favorite film from last year’s Cinequest has been released on video this year: Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Outside In: she finds herself finally ready. Streaming on Netflix.
The MUST SEE is The Rider, which I’ll be writing about this weekend. A young man’s rodeo injury threatens to keep him from his passions. Filmed in South Dakota with non-professional actors, The Rider is emotionally powerful and genuine – and not a bit corny. It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2018 – So Far.
OUT NOW
This week’s other top picks:
A Quiet Placeis as satisfyingly scary as any movie I’ve seen in a good long time. Very little gore and splatter, but plenty of thrills. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, but I enjoyed and admired this one.
Claire’s Camerais the latest nugget from writer-director Hong Sang-soo, that great observer of awkward situations and hard-drinking. Stars Min-hee Kim (The Handmaiden) and Isabelle Huppert.
Godard, Mon Amour is, at the same time, a tribute to the genius of Jean-Luc Godard’s early cinema and a satire on the insufferable tedium of the political dilettantism that squandered the rest of Godard’s filmmaking career. This is a very inventive film, written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist). The more Godard films that you’ve seen, the more you will enjoy the wit of Godard, Mon Amour.
The wonderfully dark, dark comedy The Death of Stalin is still in a few theaters, and it’s worth the drive.
Outside In: Now on Netflix (and in one Bay Area theater), this fine Lynn Shelton drama about a man returning to his community after 20 years in prison is an acting showcase for Kaitlin Dever (Justified), Jay Duplass (Transparent) and, especially, Edie Falco. Falco’s performance is stunning.
Thom Zimny’s excellent HBO documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher explores Elvis’ artistic journey.
I liked Al Pacino’s portrayal of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno as his storied career was killed by scandal in HBO’s Paterno.
Not to see:
The completely indecipherable Ismael’s Ghosts, a waste of a talented cast and my time.
Bobby Kennedy for President – a disappointing Netflix documentary that recycles the best of RFK’s video clips but ignores many pivotal aspects to RFK’s journey, most especially his personal feud with LBJ.
ON VIDEO
Actress Charlize Theron, director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody are coming out with Tully this weekend. So this week’s video pick is their game-changing comedy Young Adult. Its cynicism reminds me of a Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder screenplay (high praise). Note: This is NOT a film for someone expecting a light comedy. Young Adult is available on DVD from Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
On May 5 and 6, Turner Classic Movies presents one of my personal favorites, and it will be introduced by the Czar of Noir Eddie Muller on Noir Alley. Director Richard Fleischer’s overlooked film noir masterpiece The Narrow Margin(1952) 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. It’s highly recommended on my list of Overlooked Noir.
Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
So there are about a hundred movie screens in Silicon Valley, and this weekend you can see Avengers: Infinity War on THIRTY of them. I have nothing against Avengers: Infinity War, which I do not plan to see even though I really like Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen, Christ Pratt, Tom Hiddleston and Robert Downey, Jr. It’s just that this latest from the Marvels franchise is taking up a third of our theater capacity. If only we could devote twenty-five screens to the Marvel movie and make room for another five movies about and for adults…I’m getting grouchy, because in the last year we’ve lost most of our art house screens with the closure of Camera 7, Camera 3 and the Bluelight, all after losing Camera 12 the year before. Still waiting for the opening of Pruneyard Dine-in Cinema…
OUT NOW
This week’s top picks:
A Quiet Placeis as satisfyingly scary as any movie I’ve seen in a good long time. Very little gore and splatter, but plenty of thrills. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, but I enjoyed and admired this one.
Godard, Mon Amour is, at the same time, a tribute to the genius of Jean-Luc Godard’s early cinema and a satire on the insufferable tedium of the political dilettantism that squandered the rest of Godard’s filmmaking career. This is a very inventive film, written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist). The more Godard films that you’ve seen, the more you will enjoy the wit of Godard, Mon Amour.
The wonderfully dark, dark comedy The Death of Stalin is still in a few theaters, and it’s worth the drive.
Outside In: Now on Netflix (and in one Bay Area theater), this fine Lynn Shelton drama about a man returning to his community after 20 years in prison is an acting showcase for Kaitlin Dever (Justified), Jay Duplass (Transparent) and, especially, Edie Falco. Falco’s performance is stunning.
Thom Zimny’s excellent HBO documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher explores Elvis’ artistic journey.
I liked Al Pacino’s portrayal of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno as his storied career was killed by scandal in HBO’s Paterno.
ON VIDEO
My DVD/Stream of the Week is a comedy, Miloš Forman’s bitingly satire of Communism, The Firemen’s Ball (which is also sometimes listed as The Fireman’s Ball). It can be streamed from Amazon Prime and rented on DVD from Netflix.
ON TV
On April 30, Turner Classic Movies presents the Otto Preminger masterpiece Anatomy of a Murder (1959). This movie has everything: Jimmy Stewart’s portrayal of a wily lawyer, content to underachieve in the countryside, Stewart’s electrifying courtroom face-off with George C. Scott, great performances by a surly Ben Gazzara and a slutty Lee Remick, a great jazz score by Duke Ellington and a suitably cynical noir ending. That jazz score is one of the few movie soundtrack CDs that I own. The music perfectly complements the story of a murder investigation that reveals more and more ambiguity as it proceeds. Stewart’s character relaxes by dabbling in jazz piano, and Duke himself has a cameo leading a bar band in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (of all places).
James Stewart and George C. Scott tangle in ANATOMY OF A MURDER
A Quiet Placeis as satisfyingly scary as any movie I’ve seen in a good long time. Very little gore and splatter, but plenty of thrills. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, but I enjoyed and admired this one.
Outside In: Now on Netflix (and in one Bay Area theater), this fine Lynn Shelton drama about a man returning to his community after 20 years in prison is an acting showcase for Kaitlin Dever (Justified), Jay Duplass (Transparent) and, especially, Edie Falco. Falco’s performance is stunning.
Thom Zimny’s excellent HBO documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher explores Elvis’ artistic journey.
I liked Al Pacino’s portrayal of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno as his storied career was killed by scandal in HBO’s Paterno.
ON VIDEO
My DVD/Stream of the Week is Art and Craft, a startling documentary about an art fraud. Of prolific scale. And which is apparently legal. By a diagnosed schizophrenic. Art and Craft is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube nd Google Play.
ON TV
Tomorrow night, Turner Classic Movies will air the enigmatic Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) by Australian filmmaker Peter Weir. An Australian girls school goes on an outing to a striking geological formation – and some of the girls and a teacher disappear. What happened to them? It’s beautiful and hypnotic and haunting. It’s a film masterpiece, but if you can’t handle ambiguous endings – this ain’t for you.
Weir has gone on to make high quality hits (The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, Master and Commander), but Picnic at Hanging Rock – the movie that he made at age 31 – is his most original work. Besides playing periodically on TCM, Picnic at Hanging Rock is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon and Hulu Plus.
Another dark comedy, this one about two teen girl sociopaths, Thoroughbreds.
Outside In: Now on Netflix, this fine Lynn Shelton drama about a man returning to his community after 20 years in prison is an acting showcase for Kaitlin Dever (Justified), Jay Duplass (Transparent) and, especially, Edie Falco. Falco’s performance is stunning.
I liked Al Pacino’s portrayal of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno as his storied career was killed by scandal in HBO’s Paterno.
ON VIDEO
This week’s video pick salutes the San Francisco International Film Festival, now underway. From last year’s SFFILMFestival, the topical French drama The Stopover explores the after-effects of combat in contemporary warfare. We also get a female lens on the acceptance of women in combat roles and on sexual assault in the military from the co-writer and co-directors, the sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin. The Stopover is available to stream on iTunes.
ON TV
This week, Turner Classic Movies brings us a couple of curiosities. First, on April 14, is arguable the first on-screen CSI in Mystery Street (1950). In an era where police detective work seemed to be mostly sweating out confessions under bright lights, the investigator in Mystery Street uses the methods of forensic science. And he’s played by Ricardo Montalban, no less. The Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller will supply the intro and outro on this week’s Noir Alley.
And on April 15, TCM will air the sci-fi classic Solaris (1972), the masterpiece of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. A psychologist, with that common Russian name of Kris Kelvin, is sent to check out a space mission orbiting the oceanic planet Solaris. He finds things ominously awry, with a suicide and suspiciously furtive behavior by the surviving crew. Then he is face-to-face with his own dead wife from Earth; and after he dispatches her into space, she reappears on the spacecraft. Things are seriously messed up.
Much of Solaris’ two hours and 47 minutes – watching this movie is a commitment – is trippy shots of the ocean planet, with waves breaking across its colored surface. Solaris is not so much an enjoyable art movie as it is a fascinating one. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes and is firmly placed in the sci-fi canon. Solaris is a must see for sci-fi fans [Note: This is NOT the inferior 2002 Steven Soderbergh remake.]
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie and Ben Foster in a scene from Debra Granik’s LEAVE NO TRACE, playing at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 4 – 17, 2018. Courtesy of SFFILM.
This week I’m diving deep into the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). Here’s my festival preview.
Another dark comedy, this one about two teen girl sociopaths, Thoroughbreds.
Outside In: Now on Netflix, this fine Lynn Shelton drama about a man returning to his community after 20 years in prison is an acting showcase for Kaitlin Dever (Justified), Jay Duplass (Transparent) and, especially, Edie Falco. Falco’s performance is stunning.
The Last Movie Star: An aged action movies star (Burt Reynolds playing someone very similar to Burt Reynolds) examines his life choices. Funny and sentimental (in a good way).
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Storyis the riveting biopic of a glamorous movie star who invented and patented the precursor to wireless technology; that’s amazing enough, but Bombshell delves deeply into how Lamarr’s stunning face, her Jewish heritage and mid-century gender roles shaped her career, marriages and parenting. Top notch.
The Leisure Seeker is an Alzheimer’s road trip dramedy with Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland. Mirren and Sutherland are excellent, possibly enough to see this in a theater.
VIDEO
In tribute to SFFILM, my Stream of the Week is from last year’s SFFILM Festival: NUTS! is the persistently hilarious (and finally poignant) documentary about the rise and fall of a medical and radio empire – all built on goat testicle “implantation” surgery in gullible humans. NUTS! is available to stream from Amazon (free with Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
TV
Tonight, Turner Classic Movies will air the 1964 serial killer movie The Strangler, with its brilliant and eccentric performance by Victor Buono.
And on April 8, TCM will air Stalag 17 (1960), adapted and directed by the great Billy Wilder. This is a taut WW II POW drama from a play written by two former POWs. If it’s not bad enough being held in a Nazi prison camp, there is a German mole informing on the prisoners. The POWs blame the wrong guy – the cynic played by William Holden – and he must uncover and expose the real traitor and help a POW in peril to escape.
This is a thriller, not a comedy, but you can’t tell from this trailer, which oversells the humor; it makes you expect Hogan’s Heroes.
Jason Isaacs and Steve Buscemi in THE DEATH OF STALIN
One might not expect the death of Josef Stalin and the subsequent maneuvering of his cronies to make for a savagely funny movie, but that is exactly what writer-director Armando Ianucci has accomplished in in The Death of Stalin. In his Veep and In the Loop, Ianucci has proved himself an expert in mocking the ambition, venality and flattery of those reaching for power. In The Death of Stalin, he adds terror to his quiver of motivations, and the result is darkly hilarious.
Serving Stalin was a high-wire act. By the end of Stalin’s Great Terror, everyone still standing in the Soviet leadership had survived by flattering Stalin and by loyally carrying out every Stalin command, no matter how misguided and/or murderous. Given that the slightest misstep – or even a wholly imagined fragment of Stalin’s paranoia – could lead to a summary bullet-in-the-head, this was no small achievement. These may have been the most powerful men at the very top of a superpower, but they have all been traumatized into extreme caution by years of fear.
For example, when Stalin suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and falls to the floor, his guards are afraid to burst into his room. When Stalin is discovered on the floor by his housekeeper, the regime’s top leaders gather around him and decide on next steps. The first question is whether to call a doctor, because they fear that if Stalin wakes up and finds that someone else has made a decision, he will have them executed. (Once they get past that, they must work around the fact that Stalin has already killed or exiled all the competent doctors in Moscow.)
Of course, it would be absurd for Stalin’s inner circle to refrain from calling a doctor for hours and hours. But it really happened. So did all of the other key occurrences in the movie, although the events were compressed from the real six months into a three-day movie plot.
This cast is brilliant. Steve Buscemi is cast as Nikita Kruschev and proves to be an inspired choice. Jason Isaacs, with a ridiculously broad (but historically accurate) chest full of medals, is especially delightful as Field Marshal Zhukov. Michael Palin, as Molotov, has one of the best bits as he deadpans political correctness while figuring out whether he can admit that the sudden release of his imprisoned wife is really good news. Each one of the actors – Simon Russell Beale, Olga Kuryenko, Paddy Considine, Jeffrey Tambor, Andrea Riseborough – gets to shine with Ianucci’s dialogue.
This is gallows humor from the highest of scaffolds. The Death of Stalin is an insightful exploration of terror – and hilarious, too.
