Yet more movies to watch at home, still topped by the excellent crime thriller The Whistlers.
ON VIDEO
In the absorbing crime thriller The Whistlers, a shady cop and a mysterious woman are walking a tightrope of treachery. The Whistlers was a hit at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, but COVID-19 impaired its 2020 theatrical release in the US. You can stream it from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Because the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) was supposed to be underway now (it’s been cancelled for the COVID-19 emergency), here’s a film from SFFILM’s 2017 program: The Lost City of Z revives the genre of the historical adventure epic, with all the spectacle of a swashbuckler, while braiding in modern sensitivities and a psychological portrait. This is a beautiful and thoughtful film. The Lost City of Z is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in Seven Days in May
“I’m suggesting Mr President, there’s a military plot to take over the Government of these United States, next Sunday…”
John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) is a master of the thriller, and his 1964 Seven Days in May is a masterpiece of the paranoid political thriller subgenre. Edmond O’Brien’s performance is best among outstanding turns by Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frederic March and Whit Bissell. Douglas showed his range by playing a profoundly decent man, for whom “patriotic” meant “devoted, dutiful and loyal to the nation’s principles”, not “jingoistic”. April 23 on Turner Classic Movie.
Charlie Hunnam in THE LOST CITY OF Z
photo courtesy of SFFILM
Because the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) was supposed to be underway now (it’s been cancelled for the COVID-19 emergency), here’s a film from SFFILM’s 2017 program. In auteur James Gray’s sweeping turn of the 20th Century epic The Lost City of Z, a stiff-upper-lip type British military officer becomes the first European to probe into the deepest heart of unmapped Amazonia. Finding his way through the lush jungles, braving encounters with sometimes cannibalistic indigenous warriors, he becomes obsessed with finding the lost city of an ancient civilization. I know this sounds like Indiana Jones, but it’s based on the real life of Percy Fawcett as chronicled in the recent book Lost City of Z by David Grann.
The Lost City of Z begins with an Edwardian stag hunt
through the verdant Irish countryside, complete with horses spilling
riders. This scene is gorgeous, but its point is to introduce the young
British military officer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) as a man of
unusual resourcefulness, talent and, above all, drive. Despite his
abilities, he has been chaffing at the unattractive assignments that
have precluded his career advancement. In the snobby Edwardian military,
he has been in disfavor because his dissolute father had stained the
family name. One of Fawcett’s commanders says, “He’s been rather
unfortunate in his choice of ancestors”.
That yearning to earn the recognition that he believes he merits –
and to attain the accomplishments of a Great Man – is the core of this
character-driven movie. Fawcett resists yet another assignment away from
the career-making action, a mapping expedition designed to have a minor
diplomatic payoff. But it takes him on a spectacular Amazon exploration
that brings him celebrity – and backing for more high-profile
expeditions. Fawcett was surfing the zeitgeist in the age of his
contemporaries Roald Amundsen (South Pole), Robert Peary (North Pole)
and Howard Carter (King Tut).
In that first expedition, Fawcett becomes convinced that he can find the magnificent city of a lost civilization deep in the Amazon, a city he calls Z (which is pronounced as the British “Zed”). The Lost City of Z takes us through two more Amazonian expeditions, sandwiched around Fawcett’s WW I service in the hellish Battle of the Somme. That final expedition ends mysteriously – and not well.
No one knows for sure what happened to Fawcett. In The Lost City of Z,
Gray leads us toward the most likely conclusion, the one embraced by
Grann’s book. If you’re interested in the decades of speculation about
Fawcett’s fate, there’s a good outline on Percy Fawcett’s Wikipedia page.
Fawcett comes with his own Victorian upper class prejudices, but he
has the capacity to set those aside for a post-Darwin open-mindedness.
Gray made it a point that the indigenous peoples in the movie are
independent of Fawcett; Gray shows them living their lives in a world
that Fawcett has found, not just advancing the plot points in Fawcett’s
quest. Four real tribes – and their cultures – are shown in the film.
As Percy Fawcett, with his oft-manic obsession and fame-seeking that
color his scientific curiosity and his old-fashioned Dudley Do-Right
values, Charlie Hunnam gives a tremendous, perhaps carer breakthrough,
performance. He’s been a promising actor in Sons of Anarchy and the overlooked thriller Deadfall) (and such a good actor that I never dreamed that he’s really British). Hunnam will next star as the title character in the King Arthur movie franchise.
Robert Pattinson is unexpectedly perfect as Fawcett’s travel buddy Henry Costin. With his Twilight dreaminess hidden behind a Smith Brothers beard, Pattinson projects a lean manliness. It’s probably his best performance.
Sienna Miller shines as Fawcett’s proto-feminist wife Nina. I first
noticed Miller (and Daniel Craig) in the underrated neo-noir thriller
2004 Layer Cake. Now Miller is still only 35 years old and has delivered other fine recent performances in Foxcatcher, American Sniper and (in an especially delicious role) High-Rise.
Director James Gray (The Yard, Two Lovers, The Immigrant) is
a favorite of cinephiles and of other filmmakers, but regular audiences
don’t turn out for his movies. That may change with The Lost City of Z,
a remarkably beautiful film that Gray shot, bucking the trend to
digital, in 35 mm. The jungle scenes were filmed in a national park in
Columbia. The cinemeatographer is the Oscar-nominated Darius Khondji.
Khondji shot The Immigrant for Gray and has been the DP of choice for David Fincher (Se7en) Alan Parker (Evita), Michael Haneke (Amour), and Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris).
Along with the stag hunt and the voyages up and down the jungle rivers,
there is also a breathtakingly beautiful ballroom scene and a gaspingly
surreal nighttime discovery of a rubber plantation’s opera house deep
in the jungle.
There have been other Lost Expedition movies, most famously Werner Herzog’s Aquirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo. The Lost City of Z
shares an obsession, a quest and a mysterious tragic end with those
films, but it stands apart with its exploration of the motivation of a
real life character and the authenticity of Gray’s depiction of the
indigenous people.
Movie studios used to make an entire genre of very fun movies from Gunga Din and The Four Feathers through Lawrence of Arabia and Zulu
that featured white Europeans getting their thrills in exotic third
world playgrounds. We often cringe at the racist premises and the
treatment of “the natives” those movies today. Since the 1960s, the best
examples of the genre, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, have had an ironic tinge. With The Lost City of Z, James Gray loses both the racism and the irony, and brings us brings a straight-ahead exploration tale.
The Lost City of Z revives the genre of the historical
adventure epic, with all the spectacle of a swashbuckler, while braiding
in modern sensitivities and a psychological portrait. This is a
beautiful and thoughtful film. The Lost City of Z is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Also see my notes from the director James Gray’s Q & A at the San Francisco International Film Festival. [And here are some completely random tidbits. There’s a cameo by Spaghetti Western star Franco Nero. And the closing credits recognize the “data wrangler”.]
There are still two Must See movies this summer – the historical thriller Dunkirk and the delightful romantic comedy The Big Sick.
The best of the rest:
Baby Driver is just an action movie, but the walking, running and driving are brilliantly time to the beat of music.
The Midwife, with Catherine Deneuve as a woman out of control and uncontrollable, indelibly disrupting another life.
The amusingly naughty but forgettable comedy The Little Hours is based on the dirty fun in your Western Civ class, Boccaccio’s The Decameron.
I enjoyed Charlize Theron’s rock ’em, sock ’em, espionage thriller Atomic Blonde, and I’ll be writing about it when I have time.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the visually beautiful The Lost City of Z, which revives the adventure epic with cultural sensitivity. The Lost City of Z is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
It’s time for Screwball Comedy: On August 13, Turner Classic Movies presents two of the very best examples, The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire. Both star Barbara Stanwyck, matched with Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve and with Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire. Ball of Fire is directed by the acknowledged master of screwball comedy, Howard Hawks, with a screenplay touched up by Billy Wilder. The Lady Eve is written and directed by Preston Sturges at the top of his game. In The Lady Eve, Stanwyck regards Fonda with, “I need him like the ax needs the turkey”, and in Ball of Fire, she is described with “That is the kind of woman that makes whole civilizations topple!”
Henry Fonda is no match for Barbara Stanwyck in THE LADY EVE
Charlie Hunnam in THE LOST CITY OF Z photo courtesy of SFFILM
In auteur James Gray’s sweeping turn of the 20th Century epic The Lost City of Z, a stiff-upper-lip type British military officer becomes the first European to probe into the deepest heart of unmapped Amazonia. Finding his way through the lush jungles, braving encounters with sometimes cannibalistic indigenous warriors, he becomes obsessed with finding the lost city of an ancient civilization. I know this sounds like Indiana Jones, but it’s based on the real life of Percy Fawcett as chronicled in the recent book Lost City of Z by David Grann.
The Lost City of Z opens tomorrow in Bay Area theaters. I saw The Lost City of Z at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILMFestival) at a screening with director James Gray. I’ll be sharing some snippets from Gray’s Q & A on Sunday.
The Lost City of Z begins with an Edwardian stag hunt through the verdant Irish countryside, complete with horses spilling riders. This scene is gorgeous, but its point is to introduce the young British military officer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) as a man of unusual resourcefulness, talent and, above all, drive. Despite his abilities, he has been chaffing at the unattractive assignments that have precluded his career advancement. In the snobby Edwardian military, he has been in disfavor because his dissolute father had stained the family name. One of Fawcett’s commanders says, “He’s been rather unfortunate in his choice of ancestors”.
That yearning to earn the recognition that he believes he merits – and to attain the accomplishments of a Great Man – is the core of this character-driven movie. Fawcett resists yet another assignment away from the career-making action, a mapping expedition designed to have a minor diplomatic payoff. But it takes him on a spectacular Amazon exploration that brings him celebrity – and backing for more high-profile expeditions. Fawcett was surfing the zeitgeist in the age of his contemporaries Roald Amundsen (South Pole), Robert Peary (North Pole) and Howard Carter (King Tut).
In that first expedition, Fawcett becomes convinced that he can find the magnificent city of a lost civilization deep in the Amazon, a city he calls Z (which is pronounced as the British “Zed”). The Lost City of Z takes us through two more Amazonian expeditions, sandwiched around Fawcett’s WW I service in the hellish Battle of the Somme.
That final expedition ends mysteriously – and not well.
No one knows for sure what happened to Fawcett. In The Lost City of Z, Gray leads us toward the most likely conclusion, the one embraced by Grann’s book. If you’re interested in the decades of speculation about Fawcett’s fate, there’s a good outline on Percy Fawcett’s Wikipedia page.
Fawcett comes with his own Victorian upper class prejudices, but he has the capacity to set those aside for a post-Darwin open-mindedness. Gray made it a point that the indigenous peoples in the movie are independent of Fawcett; Gray shows them living their lives in a world that Fawcett has found, not just advancing the plot points in Fawcett’s quest. Four real tribes – and their cultures – are shown in the film.
As Percy Fawcett, with his oft-manic obsession and fame-seeking that color his scientific curiosity and his old-fashioned Dudley Do-Right values, Charlie Hunnam gives a tremendous, perhaps carer breakthrough, performance. He’s been a promising actor in Sons of Anarchy and the overlooked thriller Deadfall) (and such a good actor that I never dreamed that he’s really British). Hunnam will next star as the title character in the King Arthur movie franchise.
Robert Pattinson is unexpectedly perfect as Fawcett’s travel buddy Henry Costin. With his Twilight dreaminess hidden behind a Smith Brothers beard, Pattinson projects a lean manliness. It’s probably his best performance.
Sienna Miller shines as Fawcett’s proto-feminist wife Nina. I first noticed Miller (and Daniel Craig) in the underrated neo-noir thriller 2004 Layer Cake. Now Miller is still only 35 years old and has delivered other fine recent performances in Foxcatcher, American Sniper and (in an especially delicious role) High-Rise.
Director James Gray (The Yard, Two Lovers, The Immigrant) is a favorite of cinephiles and of other filmmakers, but regular audiences don’t turn out for his movies. That may change with The Lost City of Z, a remarkably beautiful film that Gray shot, bucking the trend to digital, in 35 mm. The jungle scenes were filmed in a national park in Columbia. The cinemeatographer is the Oscar-nominated Darius Khondji. Khondji shot The Immigrant for Gray and has been the DP of choice for David Fincher (Se7en) Alan Parker (Evita), Michael Haneke (Amour), and Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris). Along with the stag hunt and the voyages up and down the jungle rivers, there is also a breathtakingly beautiful ballroom scene and a gaspingly surreal nighttime discovery of a rubber plantation’s opera house deep in the jungle.
There have been other Lost Expedition movies, most famously Werner Herzog’s Aquirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo. The Lost City of Z shares an obsession, a quest and a mysterious tragic end with those films, but it stands apart with its exploration of the motivation of a real life character and the authenticity of Gray’s depiction of the indigenous people.
Movie studios used to make an entire genre of very fun movies from Gunga Din and The Four Feathers through Lawrence of Arabia and Zulu that featured white Europeans getting their thrills in exotic third world playgrounds. We often cringe at the racist premises and the treatment of “the natives” those movies today. Since the 1960s, the best examples of the genre, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, have had an ironic tinge. With The Lost City of Z, James Gray loses both the racism and the irony, and brings us brings a straight-ahead exploration tale.
The Lost City of Z revives the genre of the historical adventure epic, with all the spectacle of a swashbuckler, while braiding in modern sensitivities and a psychological portrait. This is a beautiful and thoughtful film. The Lost City of Z is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Also see my notes from the director James Gray’s Q & A at the San Francisco International Film Festival.[And here are some completely random tidbits. There’s a cameo by Spaghetti Western star Franco Nero. The closing credits recognize the “animal weath coordinator” and the “data wrangler”.]
Why so few good films in theaters right now? I’ll tell you why! According to my calculations, a whopping 45% of all theater screens in Silicon Valley are devoted to ONLY THREE MOVIES: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and Baywatch. (It doesn’t help that the miserable A Quiet Passion is taking up some of the very few art house screens.) Nevertheless, you can still go out and see:
Paris Can Wait, a female fantasy with glorious French cuisine to tantalize all genders.
The Commune looks like a comedy of errors, but it’s a family drama with a searing performance by Trine Dyrholm.
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 sit with the Movers and Shakers. This may be Gere’s best movie performance ever.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is Paterson, a genial and occasionally very funny portrait of an artist’s creative process. Paterson is now available on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
On June 5, Turner Classic Movies is airing the very idiosyncratic Convicts 4, the true-life tail of one convict, played by Ben Gazzara, who develops into a fine artist while in prison. There’s a particularly unforgettable supporting turn by one of my favorite movie psychos, Timothy Carey, here in one of his most eccentrically self-conscious performances. The rich cast includes Stuart Whitman, Vincent Price, Rod Steiger, Jack Albertson, Ray Walton, Brodrick Crawford and Sammy Davis Jr.
On June 8 on TCM, look for John Dall playing the classic narcissist in Hitchcock’s psychological thriller Rope. Can he outwit Jimmy Stewart?
And, guess what? Pedro Almodóvar has ascended into Classic Cinema. His raucous and provocatively sexy comedy Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! will play on Turner Classic Movies on July 4. Almodóvar a classic? Makes you feel old…
a young Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril in TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN!
It’s Memorial Day weekend. Scroll down for my recommendations of current and classic movies on video and television that honor military service.
Recommended movies to see in theaters this week:
Opening this weekend, The Commune, looks like comedy of errors, but it’s a family drama with a searing performance by Trine Dyrholm.
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 sit with the Movers and Shakers. This may be Gere’s best movie performance ever.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is last year’s Oscar-winning Hacksaw Ridge, about American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who single-handedly rescued 75 fellow soldiers at the Battle of Okinawa and became the first Conscientious Objector in American history to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. You can rent Hacksaw Ridge on DVD from Netflix and Redbox or stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play and DirecTV. If you’re going to see one war movie this year, make it this one.
Yesterday I wrote about Turner Classic Movies’ uncommon slate of thoughtful Korean War movies airing Saturday, including Men in War, The Steel Helmet, The Rack and The Hook.
On Sunday May 28, TCM will present the definitive Pearl Harbor movie, Tora! Tora! Tora!from 1970. Featuring great American and Japanese casts, Tora! Tora! Tora! tells the story from both American and Japanese perspectives. It’s a suspenseful minute-by-minute countdown. Tora! Tora! Tora! is one of the very best movies ever made about a well-known historical event. And on Monday, May 29, TCM will broadcast the fine WW II submarine warfare movie The Enemy Below, which I wrote about last month (scroll down.
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.
Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.
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.
Richard Gere in NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER
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 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.
Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.
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 emotionally affecting drama Lion, one of the top crowd pleasers of 2016. When The Wife and I saw Lion, pretty much the entire audience was choked up. Stay all the way through the end credits for even more tears. Lion is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
What’s coming up this week on Turner Classic Movies? To start with, tonight TCM broadcasts the iconic generational comedy The Graduate AND my choice for the funniest movie of all time, The Producers.
On May 15, TCM will air the film that launched the Coen Brothers (Ethan and Joel), their first feature Blood Simple. Since their debut, the Coens have gone on to win Oscars for Fargo and No Country for Old Men, and their True Grit and the very, very underrated A Serious Man are just as good. Along the way, they also gave us the unforgettable The Big Lebowski.
It all started with their highly original neo-noir Blood Simple. It’s dark, it’s funny and damned entertaining. The highlight is the singular performance by veteran character actor M. Emmet Walsh as a Stetson-topped gunsel. Blood Simple was also the breakthrough performance for Frances McDormand. The suspenseful finale, when Walsh is methodically hunting down McDormand, is brilliant.
Charlie Hunnam in THE LOST CITY OF Z photo courtesy of SFFILM
Recommended movies to see in theaters this week:
My top recommendation is 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.
Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.
Richard Gere in NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER
And four movies to avoid:
Kristen Stewart is excellent in Personal Shopper, a murky mess of a movie; don’t bother.
I found the predictable Armenian Genocide drama The Promise to be a colossal waste of Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale.
Song to Song is yet another visually brilliant storytelling failure from auteur Terence Malick.
Also avoid the horror film The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which is out on video and, UNBELIEVABLY, getting some favorable buzz.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is The Founder starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc, the man who created the global corporate superpower that is McDonald’s. It’s both the vivid portrait of a particular change-maker and a cold-eyed study of exactly what capitalism really rewards. The Founder is available on DVD from both Netflix and Redbox and tp stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
On May 11, Turner Classic Movies will air not one, BUT TWO movies on my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters – The Giant Claw and The Black Scorpion.
Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.
And four to avoid:
Kristen Stewart is excellent in Personal Shopper, a murky mess of a movie; don’t bother.
I found the predictable Armenian Genocide drama The Promise to be a colossal waste of Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale.
Song to Song is yet another visually brilliant storytelling failure from auteur Terence Malick.
Also avoid the horror film The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which is out on video and, UNBELIEVABLY, getting some favorable buzz.
My Stream of the Week is the important and absorbing documentaryZero Days, which traces the story of an incredibly successful cyber attack by two nation states upon another – and its implications. It’s that rare documentary which has become even more topical today. Since Zero Days’ release last June, we have endured the successful Russian cyber attack on the US election process. And we face an unpredictable foe in North Korea, and our only practical protection against North Korea’s nuclear threat may be our own preemptive cyber attacks. Zero Days is available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
On May 1, Turner Classic Movies 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.
