Talk about “overlooked” – there were some great movies this year that didn’t even get a meaningful theatrical release. Let’s start with Blue Ruin – a completely fresh take on the revenge thriller.
Then there’s the romantic drama a la Twilight Zone, The One I Love, with brilliant performances by Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass.
The year’s best documentary – Alive Inside – didn’t even get shortlisted for the best Documentary Oscar. I dare you to watch this movie without tearing up.
I thought that the Canadian comedy The Grand Seductionwould become a long running art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or The Full Monty. But, despite being the year’s funniest and most audience-friendly comedy, it came and went quickly.
I loved the darkly droll German slacker comedy A Coffee in Berlin, but only a few other folks saw it in this country. It was a big hit in Europe – for a reason.
Fortunately, Blue Ruin, The One I Love, The Grand Seduction and A Coffee in Berlin are all available on DVD and/or streaming. Follow the links above to find out how to watch them. But two wonderful films that I saw at Cinequest – the outrageously dark Hungarian comedy Heavenly Shift and the provocative Slovenian classroom dramaClass Enemy are not currently available to US audiences. When they are, I’ll let you know.
The successful period thriller The Two Faces of January sets a dark-hearted and shadowy story in sunny Greece. The Two Faces of January is in theaters and also available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
Also in theaters:
The poignant and compelling documentary Last Days in Vietnam with its story of folly, desperation and heroism.
The startling documentary Art and Craft, about an art fraud of prolific scale by a diagnosed schizophrenic.
The exceptionally well-acted dramedy The Skeleton Twinscontains several inspired moments.
I also recommend The One I Love– a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern-day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. It remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the funniest movie of the year, the Canadian comedy The Grand Seduction. It’s a MUST SEE howler. The Grand Seduction is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
There’s a varied set of classics on Turner Classic Movies this week.
On October 21, there’s the especially nasty noir Detour, in which poor Tom Neal is practically eaten alive by Ann Savage as perhaps the most venal and vicious of film noir’s femmes fatale.
On the 22nd there’s one of my favorite manly adventure sagas, The Vikings from 1958; a one-eyed Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis bare their chests over Janet Leigh and swill mead with full-bearded Ernest Borgnine – it’s rip-roaring and silly and just a whole lot of fun.
Then on October 23, TCM airs the chilly Nicole Kidman ghost story The Others from 2001.
Ann Savage and Tom Neal in DETOUR (Hint – she’s trouble!)
The Canadian comedy The Grand Seduction is the funniest movie of the year so far. It’s a MUST SEE.
Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges, The Guard, The General, Braveheart) and Gordon Pinsent (Away from Her) play isolated Canadians try to snooker a young doctor (Taylor Kitsch of Friday Night Lights) into settling in their podunk village. They enlist the entire hamlet in an absurdly elaborate and risky ruse, and the result is a satisfying knee-slapper that reminds me of Waking Ned Devine with random acts of cricket.
The Grand Seduction opened this year’s Cinequest on an especially uproarious note. The audience, including me and The Wife, rollicked with laugh after laugh. I can’t understand why, like Ned Devine, The Grand Seduction didn’t become a long-running imported art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or The Full Monty. The Grand Seduction is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
This a GREAT WEEK for cinema. The wonderfully wry German dark comedy A Coffee in Berlin opens today. In a brilliant debut feature, writer-director Jan Ole Gerster has created a warm-hearted but lost character who needs to connect with others – but sabotages his every opportunity. Besides laughing through A Coffee in Berlin, you’ll probably also notice the singularly complementary soundtrack and the vivid sense of time and place.
And don’t miss the two MUST SEE movies out now. The first is the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction – the funniest film of the year so far and a guaranteed audience pleaser. The second is my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other. Ida may only be in theaters for another week or so.
The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
My DVD/Stream of the week is the Italian Caesar Must Die, with maximum security prisoners putting on a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Caesar Must Die is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Hulu.
Julie Delpy in WHITE
Okay, fire up the DVR for something special coming up on June 22 on Turner Classic Movies: the masterpiece Three Colors trilogy Blue, White and Red from the mid-1990s. The films are in French, and made by the director that I may admire more than any other, Krzysztof Kieslowski of Poland. The first film, Blue, stars Juliette Binoche and addresses grief; it is somber but its humanity is inspiring. Julie Delpy stars in White the second and much lighter film – a relationship dramedy. In Red, Irene Jacob stars in a story about how strangers treat each each other in modern society, with a redemptive conclusion to the trilogy. Together, the three movies profoundly explore aspects of the human condition, and the result is evocative, intelligent and emotionally satisfying. The stories of the three films intersect – and you can spot the characters from the first two movies in the third.
Kieslowski labored in obscurity in Communist Poland until he attained European recognition and US art house hits with The Decalogue (1988) and The Double Life of Véronique (1990). The Blue/White/Red trilogy came out in 1993 and 1994 to international acclaim, but Kieslowski, reportedly suffering from AIDS, had to retire and died two years later at age 54. I can’t imagine what cinematic masterpieces would have been produced in two more decades of Kieslowski.
Just so folks can calibrate my taste, I keep a list of the 50 Greatest Movies of All Time, and the Blue/White/Red trilogy is in the first ten films on that list. This trilogy is very special – and perfect for binge viewing.
Don’t miss the two MUST SEE movies out now. The first is the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction – the funniest film of the year so far and a guaranteed audience pleaser. The second is my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other. Ida may only be in theaters for another week or so.
The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is Run & Jump, an Irish film by a Bay Area filmmaker that works equally well as a romance and as a family drama. Run & Jump is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.
Set your DVR to Turner Classic Movies for next Friday’s showing of the wonderful noir mystery Laura from 1944. What lifts any great film above the others in its genre is the depth of the characterization, and here we have the unforgettable star columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) – a compelling mixture of megalomania and insecurity; there’s also the proto-career woman Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney at her most stunning) and the cynical detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), a guy whose emotions have been depleted but are rekindled by a murder victim he’s never met. Watch for future horror movie regular Vincent Price in an early role as an oily gigolo. David Raksin composed one of cinema’s most evocative musical themes. Laura makes my list of Greatest Movies of All Time.
There are two MUST SEE movies out now. The first is the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction – the funniest film of the year so far and a guaranteed audience pleaser. The second is my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other.
In the documentary Finding Vivian Maier, we go on journey to discover why one of the great 20th Century photographers kept her own work a secret.
The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the powerful dramaShort Term 12, newly available on Netflix Instant. It’s ranked as number 7 on my Best Movies of 2013. Short Term 12 is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, GooglePlay and Xbox Video.
This week Turner Classic Movies offers two fine revisionist Westerns from the 1970s. A Man Called Horse (1970). In the early 19th century, Richard Harris is captured by American Indians and becomes assimilated into their culture. Modern viewers will recognize most of the plot of Avatar herein. Harris’ initiation into the tribe is one of cinema’s most cringe-worthy moments. The film still stands up well today. Although why is it that when the white guy encounters a native girl, it’s always the chief’s beautiful, unattached, nubile daughter?
In Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the title characters are played by James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. The great Katy Jurado and Chill Wills join Peckinpah company players, including Luke Askew, L.Q. Jones, Harry Dean Stanton, Slim Pickins, Jack Elam, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Richard Bright (Al Neri in The Godfather) and Richard Jaeckel. Bob Dylan also holds his own; Dylan wrote the score, including the iconic Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, featured in a heartbreaking scene with Jurado and Wills. I maintain that, if you delete the unfortunate scenes with Emilio Fernandez, you have a Western masterpiece. Still, it’s one of my favorites.
If you want some nasty film noir, there’s The Hitch-Hiker from 1953, directed by movie star Ida Lupino – one of the very few female directors of the 1950s. The bad guy is played by William Talman, who baby boomers will recognize as the never victorious DA Hamilton Burger in Perry Mason.
The Canadian comedy The Grand Seduction is the funniest movie of the year so far. It’s a MUST SEE.
Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges, The Guard, The General, Braveheart) and Gordon Pinsent (Away from Her) play isolated Canadians try to snooker a young doctor (Taylor Kitsch of Friday Night Lights) into settling in their podunk village. They enlist the entire hamlet in an absurdly elaborate and risky ruse, and the result is a satisfying knee-slapper that reminds me of Waking Ned Devine with random acts of cricket.
The Grand Seduction opened this year’s Cinequest on an especially uproarious note. The audience, including me and The Wife, rollicked with laugh after laugh. Like Ned Devine, I think that The Grand Seduction can become a long-running imported art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or The Full Monty.
Let me make another pitch for my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other. I took The Wife last week, and she admired Ida, too.
Get ready for funniest film of the year – the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction opens next week, and it’s a guaranteed audience pleaser.
In the documentary Finding Vivian Maier, we go on journey to discover why one of the great 20th Century photographers kept her own work a secret.
The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging.
My DVD/Stream of the Weeks is the highly original teen misfit movie Terri.Terri is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.
Coming up on Turner Classic Movies on June 5 is one of the very best Westerns, Winchester ’73(1950). This was the first pairing of James Stewart with director Anthony Mann; the duo went on to create several more edgy “psychological Westerns” with atypically ambiguous heroes. Stewart’s emotionally scarred character is driven to hunt down a bad, bad guy (film noir stalwart Dan Duryea); his motivation is later revealed to be deeper than it first appears. Millard Mitchell plays Stewart’s buddy, and the two have great chemistry. Sexy Shelly Winters and sleazy John Ireland also sparkle in supporting roles. A very young Rock Hudson plays an American Indian warrior (shirtless, of course).
James Stewart and Millard Mitchell in WINCHESTER ’73
I’ve started my running list of the Best Movies of 2014 – So Far and three of them – Ida, The Grand Seduction (I’ll write about it next Thursday) and Locke – you can see in theaters in the next two weekends.
By the end of the calendar year, I will have a Top Ten plus another 8-18 or so. I’m pretty sure that Ida will end up in my Top Ten.
I’ve also included Dear White People, which you’ll be able to see when it gets into theaters in October. And I’m also considering including the mesmerizing Brendan Gleeson drama Calvary(saw it at San Francisco International Film Festival and it releases widely August 1). I’m also mulling over adding two films that I saw at Cinequest – the outrageously dark Hungarian comedy Heavenly Shift and the provocative Slovenian classroom dramaClass Enemy; neither is currently available to US audiences.
The 2014 edition of Cinequest has emphasized comedy, and that has paid off with some of the festival’s biggest hits:
The Grand Seduction: Cinequest’s opening night film was this uproarious Canadian knee-slapper – a Waking Ned Devine with random acts of cricket.
Friended to Death: this sharply funny idie satirizes our obsession with social media. TMI becomes LOL.
Heavenly Shift: the hilariously dark (very dark) Hungarian comedy about a rogue ambulance crew with a financial incentive to deliver its patients dead on arrival.
Hunting Elephants: an Israeli caper comedy with Patrick Stewart (as you’ve never seen him).
The other most popular Cinequest hits have been the exquisite Polish drama Idaand the Canadian weeper Down River. I also particularly like the Slovenian class room drama Class Enemy.
Most of these films are still scheduled to play in the last half of the festival. Subject to Cinequest’s exhibition rights, I’m guessing that the most likely candidates for Cinequest’s Encore Day on Sunday, March 16 are Ida, Friended to Death, Down River, Hunting Elephants and Class Enemy.
