The Killer Shrews

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Ingvar Hilmir Snær and Noomi Rapace in LAMB. Courtesy of A24.

This week (Halloween week), the movies get more unsettling and scary.

IN THEATERS

Lamb: This dark, cautionary fable of karma is a brilliant and unsettling debut by writer-director Valdimar Jóhannsson.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

Sibyl: The filmmaking is so exquisite that it masks the delicious trashiness of the story. This sex-filled melodrama is now widely available to stream (Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube).

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

ON TV

THE KILLER SHREWS – this is a dog in a fright mask

This being Halloween Week, Turner Classic Movies starts out with some of the more outlandish movie monsters on October 26, First. we have carnivorous rabbits the size of horses in Night of the Lepus. Then we have a classic from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters, – it’s The Killer Shrews, where the filmmakers have put fright masks on dogs, and then applied shaggy patches to the sides of the dogs and ropy rat tails to their backs.

Then, on October 29, TCM brings us a REALLY scary movie, Philip Kaufman’s 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams must figure out that humans are being replicated by floating pods from outer space. Leonard Nimoy plays the chillingly confident and authoritative Dr. David Kibner – not everybody can be menacing in a turtleneck. The final shot is spine tingling.

Btooke Adams and Donald Sutherland in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Movies to See Right Now

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Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson in SORRY TO BOTHER YOU

OK – stay with me here – I’m recommending the most oddly-paired double bill of Sorry to Bother You and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?.   Both films fiercely stake out positions in support of basic human worth.  The savagely funny social satire Sorry to Bother You carries the message that humans are more than just their commercial value as consumers and labor to be exploited.  The surprisingly emotional biodoc Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is about Fred Rogers’ fierce devotion to the principle that every child is deserving of love and our protection.

One of the Bay Area’s top cinema events: the 38th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF38), has opened and runs through August 5 in San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Rafael, Albany and Oakland. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest Jewish film festival, and, with a 2017 attendance figure of 40,000, still the largest. As always, there’s an especially strong slate of documentaries; I’ll be writing about the Must See docs tomorrow.

LEAVE NO TRACE

OUT NOW

  • Please make every attempt to see the best movie of the year, now in Bay Area theaters: the emotionally powerful coming of age drama Leave No Trace from Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone). Superbly well-crafted, impeccably acted, thoughtful and emotionally powerful, it’s a Must See.
  • First Reformed: Ethan Hawke stars in this bleak, bleak psychological thriller with an intense ending.
  • Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exhuverance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
  • American Animals is funny documentary/reenactment of a preposterous heist.
  • RBG is the affectionate and humanizing biodoc about that great stoneface, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

 

ON VIDEO

This week’s video pick, the inventive Ruby Sparks, is about romance and it’s very, very funny, but it transcends the genre of romantic comedy. It’s clear that its co-star Zoe Kazan is a major talent as a screenwriter.  Ruby Sparks is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

 

ON TV

This week’s offerings from Turner Classic Movies are remarkably diverse.  On July 24, there’s George Cukor’s  Dinner at Eight, an all-star 1933 Hollywood dramedy that mostly still stands up today.  Jean Harlow is hilarious as the trophy bride of the course noveau-millionaire played by Wallace Beery.  Marie Dressler is at least as funny as a former star yearning to relive an old romance.  John Barrymore adds a heartbreaking performance as a man facing disgrace.  If all this weren’t enough, we also get Lionel Barrymore, some ditziness from Billie Burke and a splash of sarcasm from quick-patter artist Lee Tracy.  Harlow, who died at 26, is usually remembered as a platinum blonde sex symbol, but Dinner at Eight reminds us of her comic brilliance.

On July 26 , TCM presents The Getaway, a 1972 crime thriller starring the charismatic Steve McQueen and his real-life squeeze Ali MacGraw.  McQueen and MacGraw are delightful to watch as they move between violent clashes and double- and triple-crosses. As befits a Sam Peckinpah film, there’s an intense shootout at the end.  The grossly underrated character actor Al Lettieri (Sollozzo the Turk in The Godfather) gets to play perhaps his most delicious villain; when he comes across a oddly matched married couple –  the nubile Sally Struthers and the nerdy Jack Dodson (county clerk Howard Sprague in The Andy Griffith Show), Lettieri layers on some glorious sexual perversity.   Speaking of character actors, we also get to enjoy the crew of Peckinpah favorites: Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Dub Taylor, Bo Hopkins and Richard Bright.

And, just for fun, on July 23, TCM will air the original Godzilla and two movies from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters: The Black Scorpion and The Killer Shrews.

https://youtu.be/ZDxBnYsjdKM

Movies to See Right Now

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TRUMAN
TRUMAN

Recommended movies to see in theaters this week:

  • The gentle and insightful end-of-life drama Truman. Often funny, it’s a weeper that is never maudlin. One of the best movies of the year.  Hard to find, but worth it.
  • The droll dark comedy Radio Dreams explores the ambivalence of the immigrant experience through the portrait of a flamboyant misfit, a man who rides the roller coaster of megalomania and despair. Radio Dreams opens today for a one-week-only run at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
  • The Lost City of Z, a thoughtful and beautifully cinematic revival of the adventure epic genre.
  • In Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, writer-director Joseph Cedar and his star Richard Gere combine to create the unforgettable character of Norman Oppenheimer, a Jewish Willy Loman who finally gets his chance to sits with the Movers and Shakers. This may be Gere’s best movie performance ever.
  • The Dinner is an emotional potboiler that showcases Richard Gere, Laura Linney Steve Coogan and Rebecca Hall.
  • Free Fire is a witty and fun shoot ’em up.
  • Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.

TRUMAN
TRUMAN

And movies to avoid:

  • A Quiet Passion, a miserably evocative portrait of a miserable Emily Dickinson.
  • I found the predictable Armenian Genocide drama The Promise to be a colossal waste of Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the historical Feel Good Hidden Figures, which tells the hitherto generally unknown story of some African-American women whose math wizardry was key to the success of the US space program in the early 1960s. The audience at my screening burst into applause, which doesn’t happen that often. Hidden Figures is available on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On May 23, Turner Classic Movies will air two great, great, great Westerns: John Ford’s classic The Searchers with John Wayne and a much less famous film, Sydney Pollack’s under recognized 1972 masterpiece Jeremiah Johnson, which features a brilliantly understated but compelling performance by Robert Redford. If you want to understand why Redford is a movie star, watch this movie. Give lots of credit to Pollack – it’s only 108 minutes long, and today’s filmmakers would bloat this epic tale by 40 minutes longer.

Then on May 25, there is a real curiosity on TCM, the 1933 anti-war movie Men Must Fight, which predicts many aspects World War II with unsettling accuracy. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a trip.

Also on May 25, TCM brings us another two movies from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters – The Killer Shrews and The Wasp Woman.

Robert Redford in JEREMIAH JOHNSON
Robert Redford in JEREMIAH JOHNSON

Movies to See Right Now

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CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing and San Francisco Film Society.
CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing and San Francisco Film Society.

The beginning of a very promising Fall movie season kicks off today.

Mascots is the latest mockumentary from Christopher Guest (Best in Show) and it’s very funny.  Mascots is playing in very few theaters, but it’s streaming on Netflix Instant, too.

The end of the thriller The Girl on the Train (starring Emily Blunt) is indeed thrilling. But the 82 minutes before the Big Plot Twist is murky, confusing and boring.

My Stream of the Week is also the Most Overlooked Movie of 2016: Chevalier is a sly and pointed exploration of male competitiveness. Director Athina Rachel Tsangari is obviously a keen observer of male behavior. Both men and women will enjoy laughing at male behavior taken to extreme. I sure did. Chevalier is perhaps the funniest movie of 2016, and it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2016 – So Far. I’m hoping that its popularity explodes now that it’s available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

We seem to have a major election coming up, so Turner Classic Movies is blessing us on October 26 with four of the absolute best political movies ever: The Last Hurrah, All the President’s Men, The Best Man and The Candidate.

And several rungs down in movie quality, on October 22 TCM will play The Killer Shrews from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters, in which the voraciously predatory mutant shrews are played by dogs in fright masks. Yes, dogs.

The Candidate - Robert Redford learns that running for elected office has its disadvantages
THE CANDIDATE – Robert Redford learns that running for elected office has its disadvantages

Least Convincing Movie Monsters

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Killer Shrew mask

Tomorrow, June 10, Turner Classic Movies is airing two films on my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters.   We’ll get to see The Black Scorpion and The Killer Shrews.

In The Killer Shrews, the voraciously predatory mutant shrews are played by dogs in fright masks. Yes, dogs. As you can see from the bottom photo, the filmmakers have also applied shaggy patches to the sides of the dogs and ropy rat tails to their backs. [SPOILER ALERT: When humans escape from their island, the killer shrews die of overpopulation.]

The Killer Shrews is only #3 on my list.  Visit Least Convincing Movie Monsters to see the two even sillier movie monsters.

Killer Shrews shag and tails

Least Convincing Movie Monsters

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The Killer Shrews: This is a dog in a fright mask.

Given the Cowboys & Aliens hubbub and my post on 1994’s Oblivion, I’ve been thinking about phony looking movie monsters.  So here’s my list of the Least Convincing Movie Monsters.  These monsters are so bad that Godzilla doesn’t even make this list.  And the dogs wearing fright masks in The Killer Shrews (above) are only #3.  Enjoy.