Touch of Evil

Movies to See Right Now

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Charlotte Rampling and Jim Broadbent in THE SENSE OF AN ENDING
Charlotte Rampling and Jim Broadbent in THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

Okay, I’m exhausted from Cinequest, and the Oscar movies have drifted out of the theaters for the most part, so here we go:

  • The little British drama The Sense of an Ending, with Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter and Charlotte Rampling, is the best movie opening this week.
  • If you’re looking for an unchallenging comedy, then The Last Word, with the force of nature named Shirley MacLaine, is for you.
  • By all means, avoid the epically bad epic The Ottoman Lieutenant, so bad that it provokes unintended audience giggles and guffaws.

The landmark 1967 US Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia overturned state laws that banned interracial marriage. My DVD/Stream of the week, Loving is the story of the real couple behind that ruling, and it’s a satisfying love story of two modest people who would rather not have been forced to make history. You can watch it on DVD from Netflix and Redbox or stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Turner Classic Movies presents the political suspense drama Seven Days in May and  Samuel Fuller’s gloriously pulpy psych ward expose,  Shock Corridor,  on March 18 and the Orson Welles film noir classic Touch of Evil on March 22.

Movies to See Right Now

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Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY
Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY

Thriller meets thinker in Eye in the Sky, a parable from modern drone warfare starring Helen Mirren and with a wonderful final performance from the late Alan Rickman.

I also really liked the gripping Norwegian disaster movie The Wave, with its ticking clock tension and cool disaster effects. (Now hard to find.)

You have to look hard to find it now, but you should still try to see the awesome and authentic survival tale The Revenant on the BIG SCREEN.

Silicon Valley’s film fest ended this week, and here’s my Cinequest festival wrap-up.

In honor of the recently concluded Cinequest, my DVD/Stream of the Week is from the 2013 fest: The Sapphires, a triumph of a Feel Good Movie. The Sapphires is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay and Flixster.

The best movie pick on TV this week will come on March 20, when Turner Classic Movies will present Touch of Evil (1958). This Orson Welles masterpiece begins with one of cinema’s great opening scenes, as our lead characters walk from a Mexican border town into an American border town in a single tracking shot of well over 3 minutes. Unbeknownst to them, they are being shadowed by a car bomb. There’s a lot to enjoy here in this cesspool of corruption: a repellent sheriff-gone-bad played by Welles himself, one of Joseph Calleia’s finest supporting turns, one of Dennis Weaver’s first roles (written just for him by Welles) and Charlton Heston as a Mexican.

Orson Welles in his TOUCH OF EVIL
Orson Welles in his TOUCH OF EVIL

Movies to See Right Now

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DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE

The brilliant comedy about personal identity Dear White People opens today, along with the Sundance hit Whiplash and the Bill Murray crowd pleaser St. Vincent. I saw Dear White People at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and have been telling folks about it for months – it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far.

Other recommendations:

  • The thriller Gone Girl – the best Hollywood movie of 2014, with a career-topping performance by Rosamund Pike.
  • The successful period thriller The Two Faces of January sets a dark-hearted and shadowy story in sunny Greece. The Two Faces of January is in theaters and is also available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
  • The exceptionally well-acted dramedy The Skeleton Twins contains several inspired moments.
  • If you’re in the mood for a brutal, brutal World War II tank movie, there’s Fury.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the exquisite Polish drama Ida – the best foreign film of 2014.  Ida is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

This week, Turner Classic Movies will air the 1962 Ben Gazzara prison movie Convicts 4. TCM will also deliver two film noir masterpieces:

  • In a Lonely Place (1950): The most unsettlingly sexy film noiress Gloria Grahame falls for the troubled screenwriter Humphrey Bogart, a guy with a MAJOR anger management issue; once she’s hooked, she realizes that he might be a murderer after all…
  • Touch of Evil (1958): This Orson Welles masterpiece begins with one of cinema’s great opening scenes, as our lead characters walk from a Mexican border town into an American border town in a single tracking shot of well over 3 minutes. Unbeknownst to them, they are being shadowed by a car bomb. There’s a lot to enjoy here in this cesspool of corruption: a repellent sheriff-gone-bad played by Welles himself, one of Joseph Calleia’s finest supporting turns, one of Dennis Weaver’s first roles (written just for him by Welles) and Charlton Heston as a Mexican.
Orson Welles in his TOUCH OF EVIL
Orson Welles in his TOUCH OF EVIL

More At the Movies

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As I said yesterday, the thing that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert did better than anyone was to evangelize good films with their series At the Movies (which ends this weekend).  They helped create audiences for indie and foreign films that were ignored by the Hollywood promotion machine.  They even had the guts to rate documentaries like Hoop Dreams and Crumb as their picks for the year’s best film.  Without Siskel and Ebert, I would never seen some of the greatest films of the 80s and 90s.

Here are Siskel and Ebert introducing a great indie film, David Mamet’s House of Games.

And a great foreign film (that launched a great film trilogy), Blue.

And the revival of a restored classic film noir, Touch of Evil.