This week at The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of My Best Part and Sundown. And here’s my rant on the troubled state of Bay Area cinema. I’ m going to strongly recommend The Worst Person in the World, which is now out in theaters, but I’ll have to mull it over before I write about.
Since its Oscar nomination, the year’s best film, Drive My Car, has opened more widely, including at the AMC Mercado 20 in Santa Clara, the AMC Eastridge 15 in San Jose and the Landmark Aquarius in Palo Alto.
CURRENT FILMS
- Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. In theaters.
- Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. In theaters.
- Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. In theaters.
- The Power of the Dog: One man’s meanness, another man’s growth. Netflix.
- Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
- The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
- Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn: completely different than any movie you’ve seen. AppleTV, Drafthouse On Demand.
- Parallel Mothers: Pedro Almodovar gives us a lush melodrama, sandwiched between bookend dives into today’s unhealed wounds from the Spanish Civil War. In theaters.
- Jagged: Insightful biodoc of Alanis Morissette, who is really not that angry, after all. HBO.
- The Lost Daughter : Great, Oscar-nominated performances by Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in this dark, unsettling exploration of the obligation of parenting. Netflix.
- House of Gucci: Lady Gaga and Adam Driver shine in this modern tale of Shakespearean family treachery. In theaters.
- Licorice Pizza: When nine years is a big age difference. In theaters.
- The Pact: a pawn in someone else’s story. In theaters.
- The Hand of God: Filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s own coming of age story – and a time capsule of 1986 Naples. Netflix.
- Sundown: Checked out – really checked out. In theaters.
- Being the Ricardos: a tepid slice of a really good story. Amazon (included with Prime).
Remember to check out all of my Best Movies of 2021.
MORE RECOMMENDATIONS ON VIDEO
- Dance of the 41: overreaching while gay. Netflix.
- Western: alienated man goes native. Criterion Channel, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube
- Styx: a confident woman with no good choices. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
- Light from Light: a haunted house movie that isn’t. Amazon, AppleTV.
- The Heist of the Century: improbable, ingenious and all too human. HBO Max, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
- The Friends of Eddie Coyle: when all the choices are bad. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
ON TV
On February 28, Turner Classic Movies airs a WOWZER – the 1960 Korean horror/noir The Housemaid. A couple hires a maid, who turns out to be the domestic from hell. Seduction, deception, threats follow…and who will poison whom? I screened this film for a recent Noir City, and although I can’t say that it’s one of my favorites, it does keeping stunning the audience with ever darker twists. Often considered one of the top Korean films of all time.
On March 1, TCM airs Laura, perhaps my favorite thriller from the noir era, with an unforgettable performance by Clifton Webb as a megalomaniac with one vulnerability – the dazzling beauty of Gene Tierney. The musical theme is unforgettable, too.
