Grand Prix (1966)

 

GRAND PRIX  (1966)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Frankenheimer

    James Garner, Yves Montand, Eva Marie Saint, 

    Toshiro Mifune, Jessica Walter, Brian Bedford,

    Antonio Sabato, Adolfo Celi, Françoise Hardy

Drivers and owners, wives and girlfriends follow the Grand Prix circuit in a movie that thunders and roars in its pulse-pounding racing scenes but runs low on gas when it's not on the track. There was  no CGI back then, so Frankenheimer mounted cameras on the cars and had guys drive them real fast, something he'd do again more than 30 years later when he made "Ronin". (He didn't speed up the film. The cars really are going that fast.) Garner apparently did his own driving. The split-screen montage sequences were the work of legendary title designer Saul Bass. Several of the drivers who worked on this would die racing over the next few years. 

Never Let Me Go (2010)

 

NEVER LET ME GO  (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mark Romanek

    Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley,

    Charlotte Rampling, Sally Hawkins, Izzy Meikle-Small,

    Charlie Rowe, Ella Purnell, Domhnall Gleeson,

    Andrea Riseborough, Nathalie Richard, Hannah Sharp

British boarding-school students form a contentious three-way friendship while being groomed for their mandated mission in life: to donate their organs in a series of surgeries, up to the point where they flatline and are declared "completed." There are elements of sci-fi and horror in this, but it's so low-key and beautifully done, you might not notice. As creep shows go, it's uncommonly smart and quiet, and the story, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, does a nice job of subverting expectations. The colors are muted, the sets and costumes are from another time, and the young actors who play the Mulligan, Garfield and Knightley characters as 12-year-olds are nicely cast. It's a movie that finds eeriness in restraint.

Duel of Champions (1961)

 

DUEL OF CHAMPIONS  (1961)  ¢ ¢

    D: Ferdinando Baldi, Terence Young

    Alan Ladd, Franca Bettoja, Jacques Sernas,

    Robert Keith, Andrea Aurel, Jacqueline Derval, 

    Violette Marceau, Franco Fabrizi, Luciano Marin

Who knew that once upon a time, the fate of the Roman Empire was in the hands of Alan Ladd?

I'm Still Here (2024)

 

I'M STILL HERE  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Walter Salles

    Fernanda Torres, Luyiza Kosovski, Selton Mello,

    Cora Mora, Augusto Trainotti, Fernanda Montenegro

"I'm Still Here" is about a woman trying to find out what happened to her husband who's disappeared in Brazil during the dictatorship. The husband's a former senator who's been abducted by agents working for the police or the army but who look and act more like regular kidnappers. The woman's forceful in a way that somebody with less affluence and status might not be, but that's not enough to prevent her from being taken into custody and interrogated herself. A harrowing look at a political system where dissent is silenced, resistance is crushed, and the key to power is stoking pervasive fear. Think that can't happen here? We'll see. An Oscar winner for best foreign language film, with a commanding performance by Fernanda Torres in the lead. Fernanda Montenegro (Torres' mother) has a quietly moving cameo late in the film. 

Mermaids of Tiburon (1962)

 

MERMAIDS OF TIBURON  (1962)  ¢ ¢

    D: John Lamb

    George Rowe, Diane Webber, Timothy Carey,

    Jose Gonzales-Gonzales, Gaby Martone,

    Judy Edwards, Jean Carroll, Diana Cook

Two divers - a ruthless scumbag looking for pearls and a marine biologist studying marine lifeforms - take off in separate boats to explore the waters around a mysterious island. They find exactly what you'e expect them to find in a movie called "Mermaids of Tiburon". Much of the film takes place underwater, and the amount of screen time devoted to bare-breasted women is unusual for 1962. Apparently, the picture was released in a G-rated version that died a quick box office death, while an uncut version that played in military theaters got a much more enthusiastic reception. Hmmm. Go figure. 

Monte Walsh (1970)

 

MONTE WALSH  (1970)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: William A. Fraker

    Lee Marvin, Jack Palance, Jeanne Moreau,

    Jim Davis, Mitchell Ryan, G.D. Spradlin,

    Matt Clark, Bo Hopkins, Allyn Ann McLerie

Marvin and Palance play aging cowpokes in a changing West, where accountants are taking over the cattle industry, jobs are becoming scarce, and the open range is being fenced in. A western that manages to be both playful and meloncholy, a celebration and an elegy for a vanishing way of life. Marvin's at his tight-lipped best, and Palance, in a rare sympathetic role, gives one of his most affecting and least mannered performances. 

Nitram (2021)

 

NITRAM  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Justin Kurzel

    Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Essie Davis,

    Anthony LaPaglia, Sean Keenan, Phoebe Taylor

I went into this movie without knowing the story behind it. It's set in Australia and its main character is a guy in his 20s living at home with his parents and subject to bouts of erratic behavior thanks to some significant mental health issues. He has the look of a surfer and, in fact, he longs to be one, though he's never surfed and doesn't even swim anymore. He's all impulse and no filter and there's a vaguely blank look about him that tells you the circuits don't all connect. There's a real sense that without mum and dad to keep a watchful eye on him, he'd be institutionalized, and that maybe he should be. You just hope he doesn't hurt anybody, and you really hope he's taking his meds. It's when he walks into a gun shop and starts putting together an arsenal that you start to think, oh no, this is not going to end well, and that's where the backstory comes in. Caleb Landry Jones in the lead gives the kind of performance that could make you feel real uncomfortable. Judy Davis (looking old) and Anthony LaPaglia (looking heavy) play his caring but beleaguered parents.