The Lobster

Movies to See Right Now

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Bryan Cranston in ALL THE WAY
Bryan Cranston in ALL THE WAY

It’s an exceptional week for movies about American politics.

  • All the Way is a thrilling political docudrama with a stellar performance.  It’s the story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, warts and all, ending official racial segregation in America with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bryan Cranston brings LBJ alive as no actor has before.  All the Way is still playing on HBO.
  • Don’t miss the political documentary Weiner – it’s probably the best documentary of the year. Weiner has more than its share of forehead-slapping moments and is often funny and always captivating. It also provokes some reflection on the media in this age.
  • Scroll down to read about two other great films of American politics coming up on TV: All the President’s Men and The Candidate.

If you like the espionage novelist John le Carré, you’ll enjoy Our Kind of Traitor opens today. It’s a robust thriller with a funny yet powerful performance by Stellan Skarsgård.

Also in theaters:

  • Love & Friendship – a sharply witty adaptation of a Jane Austen story with an adept turn by Kate Beckinsale.
  • The Nice Guys – Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in a very funny mismatched buddy movie from the creator of the Lethal Weapon franchise.
  • Julianne Moore, along with supporting players Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph, shine in the amiably satisfying little romantic comedy Maggie’s Plan.
  • Finding Dory doesn’t have the breakthrough animation or the depth of story that we expect from Pixar, but it won’t be painful to watch a zillion times with your kids.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the quietly engrossing drama 45 Years, a movie on my Best Movies of 2015 list with an enthralling Oscar-nominated performance by Charlotte Rampling. 45 Years is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Set your DVRs for Turner Classic Movies next Friday, July 7, as TCM explores “America in the 70s” with four of the best films EVER – All the President’s Men, The Candidate, Network and The Conversation –  along with the time capsule thriller Klute (after which 15% of all American women changed their hairstyles to mirror Jane Fonda’s “shag”).

Jane Fonda in KLUTE
Jane Fonda in KLUTE

Movies to See Right Now

by
Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin in WEINER
Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin in WEINER

Don’t miss the political documentary Weiner – it’s probably the best documentary of the year. Weiner has more than its share of forehead-slapping moments and is often funny and always captivating. It also provokes some reflection on the media in this age.

Also in theaters:

  • Love & Friendship – a sharply witty adaptation of a Jane Austen story with an adept turn by Kate Beckinsale.
  • The Nice Guys – Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in a very funny mismatched buddy movie from the creator of the Lethal Weapon franchise.
  • Julianne Moore, along with supporting players Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph, shine in the amiably satisfying little romantic comedy Maggie’s Plan.

You can find a thrilling political docudrama with a stellar performance playing on HBO. It’s All the Way, the story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, warts and all, ending official racial segregation in America with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bryan Cranston brings LBJ alive as no actor has before.

Stay away from the dark comedy The Lobster. A grim and tedious misfire, it’s the biggest movie disappointment of the year.

On June 21, Turner Classic Movies presents Jack Nicholson as the iconic 1970s anti-hero in Five Easy Pieces. It’s a profound and deeply affecting study of alienation. Nicholson plays someone who has rejected and isolated himself from his dysfunctional family. Then he must embark on the epic road trip back to the family home. Amid the drama, there is plenty of funny, including the funniest sandwich order in the history of cinema.

FIVE EASY PIECES
FIVE EASY PIECES

Movies to See Right Now

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WEINER. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society.
WEINER. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society.

Don’t miss the political documentary Weiner.  I haven’t had the chance to post about it yet, but it’s probably the best documentary of the year.  Weiner has more than its share of forehead-slapping moments and is often funny and always captivating.  It also provokes some reflection on the media in this age.

Another movie that I enjoyed but haven’t had the opportunity to post about is the nice little comedy Maggie’s Plan.

Also in theaters:

  • Love & Friendship – a sharply witty adaptation of a Jane Austen story with an adept turn by Kate Beckinsale.
  • The Nice Guys – Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in a very funny mismatched buddy movie from the creator of the Lethal Weapon franchise.

You can find the best movie out right now on HBO. It’s All the Way, the story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, warts and all, ending official racial segregation in America with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bryan Cranston brings LBJ alive as no actor has before.

Stay away from the dark comedy The Lobster. A grim and tedious misfire, it’s the biggest movie disappointment of the year.

My Stream of the Week is Meet the Patels, both a documentary and a comedy – and ultimately, a satisfying crowd-pleaser. Meet the Patels is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. It’s hilarious and heart-warming, so don’t miss it.

Wow – Turner Classic Movies should keep your DVR humming on Tuesday, June 14. TCM will be broadcasting one of the great movies that you have likely NOT seen, having just been released on DVD in 2009: The Earrings of Madame de… (1953). Max Ophuls directed what is perhaps the most visually evocative romance ever in black and white. It’s worth seeing for the ballroom scene alone. The shallow and privileged wife of a stick-in-the-mud general takes a lover, but the earrings she pawned reveal the affair and consequences ensue. The great Italian director Vittorio De Sica plays the impossibly handsome lover.

And ALSO on June 14, TCM will present The Graduate, The French Connection, The Last Detail and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Just for fun, on June 16, TCM will screen a series of Lupe Velez’ Mexican Spitfire movies from the early 1940s. I find startling similarities between Velez’ Mexican Spitfire and Sofia Vergara’s character of Gloria on Modern Family.

The Earrings of Madame de...
The Earrings of Madame de…

THE LOBSTER: the movie disappointment of the year

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Colin Farrell in THE LOBSTER
Colin Farrell in THE LOBSTER

The Lobster, which is supposed to be a dark comedy, won the Jury Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, along with acclaim at the Toronto and Sundance fests, so I had been eagerly awaiting it for just over twelve months.  I had liked Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ Greek absurdist film Dogtooth.  Unfortunately, The Lobster is a disagreeable misfire, which makes it the biggest movie disappointment of the year.

The Lobster takes place in an imagined world that looks like ours, but where being single is the worst status possible.  Single people go to a woodsy resort hotel, where they are under a time limit to find a partner or be turned into the animal of their choice. After all, in the city, they are challenged by law enforcement to produce their most important form of identification – the certificate that proves they are in a couple.  Guests at the resort go on daily hunts in the forest, where they shoot escaped single people  – the Loners – with tranquilizer darts.  (The Loners have their own monstrous leader (Lea Seydoux) and harsh rules.)

If a guest finds a partner, they enjoy a double room for two weeks and then a holiday on a yacht.  The hotel manager (Olivia Colman) drily announces,  that if the new relationship  becomes troubled, “We will assign you children. That always helps.”

It’s all very deadpan.  As the cast earnestly complies with ever more absurd rules at the hotel, The Lobster is darkly funny.

But then, The Lobster runs off its rails.  We lose the drollery and find our way in a survivalist love story with Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, and then, into a what is essentially a horror ending.  Inside all this mess is an allegory about society putting obstacles in the way of our reaching happiness through a love match.  But it stops being funny, and starts becoming tedious and uncomfortable.

Colin Farrell leads a fine cast with Weisz, Colman, Seydoux and James C. Reilly.  The failings of The Lobster are not their fault.

The first third of the The Lobster is amusing, and I hung hopefully with the second third.  The final third is dark, without much, if any, leavening humor, and the last fifteen minutes is almost unwatchable.  Stay away.