The Laundromat

Movies to See Right Now

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PARASITE. Photo courtesy of Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) .

Parasite is the best movie in theaters right now, and I’ve got twelve, count ’em TWELVE, more recommendations this week. Tonight, The Wife and I have a date: The Irishman and dinner.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
  • The indie gem Light from Light ingeniously embeds three portraits of personal awakening into what looks like a familiar haunted house movie. It’s playing in Silicon Valley for only one more week.
  • Harriet is excellent history (and Harriet Tubman belongs on the twenty dollar bill), but it’s not great cinema.
  • The atmospheric slow burn neo-noir Motherless Brooklyn gets postwar New York City right, but it’s too long.
  • The raucous romp Zombieland Double Tap is a fun change of pace to the serious fare in theaters.
  • I liked the Isabelle Huppert drama Frankie, but the Mill Valley Film Festival audience was very indifferent at the screening; I’m guessing that folks failed to warm to an ambiguous ending that leaves some plot threads unresolved.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • Loro, Paolo Sorrentino’s send-up of Silvio Berlusconi is much more interesting visually than it is thematically.
  • It’s tough to imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy the biodoc Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, about the first female mega rock star. 
  • Watching The Lighthouse is such an ordeal it could drive you crazy before Robert Pattinson goes mad on screen.
  • Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me , the portrait of a needy talent through complicated times. This fine and insightful film can streamed on Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Turner Classic Movies is airing the Peter Bogdanovich classic The Last Picture Show on November 20. I’ll be writing about it on November 19.

Turner Classic Movies is devoting Monday evening, November 18, to swashbucklers, and my favorite is Richard Lester’s boisterous The Three Musketeers from 1973. Watch Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York and Frank Finlay swashbuckle away against Bad Guys Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston. Geraldine Chaplin and Raquel Welch adorn the action. [If you like it, you can stream the second volume, The Four Musketeers, from Criterion Collection, Amazon, YouTube and Google Play; it was filmed in the same shoot and released the next year.]

Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay and Richard Chamberlain in THE THREE MUSKETEERS

Movies to See Right Now

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LIGHT FROM LIGHT

Parasite is the best movie in theaters right now, but there’s really something for everyone. I’m also recommending the under-the-radar indie Light from Light. Other audience-friendly movies range from the outrageous Jojo Rabbit and the affirming Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice to the raucous Zombieland Double Tap. Coming soon: reviews of Loro, Harriet, Midway, Motherless Brooklyn and Marriage Story.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
  • The indie gem Light from Light ingeniously embeds three portraits of personal awakening into what looks like a familiar haunted house movie. It’s playing in Silicon Valley for only two weeks.
  • The raucous romp Zombieland Double Tap is a fun change of pace to the serious fare in theaters.
  • I liked the Isabelle Huppert drama Frankie, but the Mill Valley Film Festival audience was very indifferent at the screening; I’m guessing that folks failed to warm to an ambiguous ending that leaves some plot threads unresolved.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • It’s tough to imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy the biodoc Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, about the first female mega rock star. 
  • Two rock music documentaries, The Quiet One and Echo in the Canyon. will be of moderate interest to rock fans of a certain age.
  • Watching The Lighthouse is such an ordeal it could drive you crazy before Robert Pattinson goes mad on screen.
  • Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.

ON VIDEO

My stream of the week is Making Montgomery Clift the biodoc that explodes some of the lore that has shaped popular understanding of movie star Montgomery Clift. Making Montgomery Clift is available to stream on Amazon.

ON TV

On November 13, TCM will broadcast The Battle of Algiers, the story of 1950s French colonialists struggling to suppress the guerrilla uprising of Algerian independence fighters.  Although it looks like a documentary, it is not.  Instead, filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo recreated the actual events so realistically that we believe that we are watching strategy councils of each side. Among the great war films, it may be the best film on counter-insurgency.  In 2003, the Pentagon screened the film for its special operations commanders.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Movies to See Right Now

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PARASITE

The best movies out now are Parasite and Pain and Glory. The most enjoyable, audience-friendly movies are Jojo Rabbit and Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice

OUT NOW

  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
  • I liked the Isabelle Huppert drama Frankie, but the Mill Valley Film Festival audience was very indifferent at the screening; I’m guessing that folks failed to warm to an ambiguous ending that leaves some plot threads unresolved.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • It’s tough to imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy the biodoc Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, about the first female mega rock star. 
  • Two rock music documentaries, The Quiet One and Echo in the Canyon. will be of moderate interest to rock fans of a certain age.
  • Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.

ON VIDEO

Elisabeth Moss soars in my Stream of the Week, Her Smell, a portrait of epic self-destruction. It’s the powerhouse performance of 2019. Her Smell is now available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Tomorrow, November 2, TCM brings us the 1979 Oscar-winner Harlan County U.S.A. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple embedded herself among the striking coal miners and got amazing footage – including of herself threatened and shot at. Also one of my 5 Great Hillbilly Movies.

HARLAN COUNTY, USA

Movies to See Right Now

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JOJO RABBIT

Now is the time we’ve all been waiting for – the year’s very best movies are coming out in waves. Parasite, Jojo Rabbit and Pain and Glory will make their share of Top Ten lists; (I saw Parasite at its first Silicon Valley screening Thursday night and will write about it soon). The Irishman and Marriage Story are coming next weekend – so see at least two movies in theaters this weekend to stay current.

OUT NOW

  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • It’s tough to imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy the biodoc Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, about the first female mega rock star. 
  • Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is last year’s best movie – the unforgettable coming of age film Leave No Trace. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie star as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting.  Leave No Trace is available for streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Here are two very different 1950s films coming up this week on Turner Classic Movies. On October 30, there’s the campy Bucket of Blood – it’s most interesting as a time capsule of the Beatnik Era.

And on October 28, TCM brings us A Place in the Sun: One of the great films of the 1950s.  Montgomery Clift is a poor kid who is satisfied to have a job and a trashy girlfriend (Shelly Winters in a brilliant portrayal).  Then, he learns that he could have it all – the CEO’s daughter Elizabeth Taylor, lifelong comfort, status and career.  Did I mention Elizabeth Taylor?  The now pregnant girlfriend is the only obstacle to more than he could have ever dreamed for – can he get rid of her without getting caught?

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A PLACE IN THE SUN

THE LAUNDROMAT: watch THE BIG SHORT again instead

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Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas in THE LAUNDROMAT

Steven Soderbergh’s disappointing The Laundromat takes on the Panama Papers scandal of 2015, in which the shady law firm of Mossack Fonseca enabled hundreds of global fraudsters and tax cheats. Intended as an expose of financial malfeasance, it only succeeds as a demonstration of cinematic waste. There’s way too much talent harnessed to result in such a shallow imitation of The Big Short.

Meryl Streep plays an Everywoman who gets swindled by a corrupt system and by individual crooks played by Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas and Jeffrey Wright. If there’s anything worthy about this film, it’s Oldman and Banderas, who get to break the fourth wall and blithely explain their cons to the camera – the same function that Margot Robbie, in a bubble bath, filled in The Big Short.

There just isn’t anything to engage the audience here. Worse, The Laundromat muddles it message by toggling between what’s legal and what’s not. The film explicitly claims that the crookedness depicted is legal, but it actually shows lots and lots of fraud – and fraud is already illegal. The real scandal, of course, is that the system is rigged so the big financial interests can LEGALLY screw the rest of us

It all culminates in a corny final shot that not even Streep can make convincing or palatable. If you MUST watch this crap, it’s streaming on Netflix.