The Young in Heart

It’s Oscars Weekend and it’s pretty easy to find the favorite, La La Land, in theaters.  My personal favorite, Hell or High Water, is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.  Here are the weekly recommendations:

• La La Land: the extraordinarily vivid romantic musical staring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
• Lion: an emotionally affecting family drama that makes the audience weep (in a good way).
• The Founder: the enjoyably addictive story of how a the money-grubbing visionary Ray Kroc built the McDonald’s food service empire.
• Hidden Figures: a true life story from the 1960s space program – a triumph of human spirit and brainpower over sexism and racism; the audience applauded.
• I Am Not Your Negro, the documentary about the American public intellectual James Baldwin. It’s a searing examination of race in America as analyzed through Baldwin’s eyes and as expressed through his elegant words.
• The thoughtful drama Fences is an actor’s showcase, especially for Viola Davis, but it’s very stagey.

I’ll also be posting about The Movie Gourmet’s annual Oscar Dinner on Sunday.  And my coverage of Cinequest starts tomorrow (hopefully).

My Stream of the Week is the gorgeous, erotic and gloriously entertaining The Handmaiden from Korea. You can stream it on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

I always point it out when Turner Classic Movies shows the iconic film noir The Third Man (March 1) or the gender-bending comedy Victor/Victoria (March 1).

On March 3, TCM presents a wonderfully entertaining comedy about an entire family of professional con artists, The Young in Heart.  It’s sweet and sappy, with the optimistic view that the criminals could be reformed by the unconditional love of a lonely old lady.   After much fun, it turns out that they just needed some structure that incentivizes them to use their talents for good rather than evil.  As readers will know, I’m not generally attracted to sentimental movies, but this one is damn funny.  The family is played by Roland Young, the always batty Bille Burke, Janet Gaynor and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr..  The movie is almost stolen by Minnie Dupree as their intended victim, Miss Fortune.  There’s also a nice turn by the gorgeous Paulette Goddard.     The Young in Heart is a showcase for Roland Young, so often the supporting character in the great screwball comedies; this film, more than his Topper series, may be his best and most enjoyable performance.