This week, I still like The Lost Leonardo and Ma Belle, My Beauty in theaters – and a host of watch-at-home suggestions.
REMEMBRANCES
Jean-Paul Belmondo, with his flattened nose and a cigarette dangling from his full lips, was the personification of European cinema in the early 1960s, from the French New Wave to Jean-Paul Melville neo-noirs to Italian art films. Projecting an insouciant sexiness, he starred with Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, which basically kicked off the Nouvelle Vague with Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. Breathless was released in 1960, the same year that Belmondo co-starred with Oscar-winner Sophia Loren in Vittorio de Sica’s Two Women, co-starred with Jena Moreau in Seven Days, Seven Nights, and starred in four other films, to boot.
Super-prolific character actor Michael Constantine appeared in hundreds of television episodes (113 in Room 222 alone). I liked him in his movie comedies – as the grumpy former GI in If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium and as the Windex-obsessed dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
IN THEATERS
- CODA: a thought-provoking audience-pleaser. Also streaming on AppleTV.
- Ma Belle, My Beauty: a simmering romantic reunion.
- Respect: struggling to take command of her own artistry
- The Lost Leonardo: is it a hustle? Does it matter?
- The Green Knight: more of a test than a quest
- Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain: Bad ass romantic. Best Movies of 2021 – So Far.
- Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised): concert with context. In theaters and streaming on Hulu. Best Movies of 2021 – So Far. Still in theaters, but getting harder to find.
- Annette: opening and closing sparks, but tiresome and creepy in between
ON VIDEO
On Being a Human Person: A documentary on Roy Andersson, an auteur who makes very, very odd movies that are deeply profound, humanistic and mostly funny. Laemmle.
The Unknown Saint: Here’s another pitch for this delightful crime comedy from Morocco. It’s a deadpan dive into human foibles and really, really bad luck. Netflix.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal and Greed: Improbability squared. Netflix.
- Searching for Mr. Rugoff: the best movie taste of any barbarian. Roxie.
- Curiosa: erotic, but do we care? Laemmle.
- Riders of Justice: Thriller, comedy and much, much more. It’s the year’s best movie so far. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube. #1 on my Best Movies of 2021 – So Far
- Dirt Music: a gorgeous bodice-ripper with a WTF ending. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- No Sudden Move: Steven Soderbergh’s neo-noir thriller has even more double-crosses than movie stars – and it has plenty of movie stars. HBO Max.
- Neutral Ground: the supremacist legacy of old statues. PBS.
- Mama Weed: it’s always fun when Huppert gets outrageous. Laemmle.
- Summertime: no longer invisible and unheard, giving voice through verse. Roxie and Laemmle.
- Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation: Two gay Southern geniuses, revealing themselves. Roxie and Laemmle.
- The Dry: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
ON TV
On September 14, Turner Classic Movies airs one my personal favorite movies, The Paper Chase, which traces a young man’s (Timothy Bottoms) first year at Harvard Law School and is based on the memoir of a recent grad. Although IMDb labels The Paper Chase as 1973 movie, I saw it in the summer of 1975, just as I was about to enter law school myself. It’s such a personal favorite because just about EVERYTHING in the movie is something that I experienced myself at in my first year at Georgetown Law – everything, that is, EXCEPT dating Lindsay Wagner. It’s a compelling story and the great producer John Houseman won an acting Oscar for his performance as the mentor/nemesis law professor; Houseman immediately cashed in with his ”They make money the old fashioned way… they EARN it” commercials for Smith Barney.
The Paper Chase is also notable as the first feature film credit for actors Craig Richard Nelson, Graham Beckel (Brokeback Mountain, L.A. Confidential) and Edward Herrmann (known for many portrayals of FDR). All three are stellar as members of the law school study group, and these guys have now combined for over 300 screen acting credits. The Paper Chase is also available to stream from Amazon, Vudu and YouTube.
