Phantasm (1979)

As low-budget shockers go, Don Coscarelli's Phantasm (1979) is as assured and imaginative as they come. Working from his own script, Coscarelli crafts a trippy little adventure that blends monster horror and fantasy and science fiction quite nicely. It's loaded with jolts and a fair amount of gore but the whole notion of a reed thin undertaker stealing bodies with a crew of robed dwarves for their masters in another dimension is ghoulishly warped and entertaining.

Ethan Frome (1993)

Edith Wharton is not a writer I'm very familiar with though I enjoyed Martin Scorsese's elegantly stagy 1993 adaptation of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Age of Innocence, which starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder. The same year, British director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) released his adaptation of Ethan Frome, a tale of emotional and psychological entrapment. Madden's film starred Liam Neeson as Ethan Frome; Joan Allen as his distant cousin and later wife Zeena Frome; and Patricia Arquette as Zeena's distant cousin, Mattie Silver, who comes to live with the couple after Zeena falls ill of a host of mysterious ailments. Set around the turn of the 20th century in the snow-covered back country of fictitious Starkfield, Massachusetts, the film opens with a new preacher (Tate Donovan) arriving at this frigid outpost and seeing a grossly hobbled Ethan Frome trudging through the snow. He begins inquiries into this strange, broken man but is told by townspeople to leave the Fromes alone. Undeterred, the preacher goes to the Frome house and hires Ethan as a driver, to model Christian charity to his flock. After being snowed in at the Frome's hovel one night, the preacher becomes even more insistent on knowing the story of this sad and isolated man. How did he come to be so bent and miserable. An acquaintance of the Fromes'  weaves the sad but morbidly fascinating tale of love, duty and disappointment. The three principals (Neeson, Allen and Arquette) give solid performances (especially Allen, a personal favorite of mine) in a film that probes pretty deeply into the core of human despair. Highly recommended but the story, for those unfamiliar, is extraordinarily bleak.  

Go (1999)

Doug Liman's Go (1999) begins on Christmas Eve and ends the next morning and follows a rag tag band of supermarket clerks and a couple of their customers in a wild ride through the environs of L.A. and Las Vegas in search of drugs and / or sex. Liman, director of Swingers and The Bourne Identity, takes an intricate script by John August and weaves together three tales of woe and intrigue (to borrow from Car Talk) that star, principally, Sarah Polley as Ronna, a luckless checkout girl who wants to try her hand at drug dealing to stave off eviction from her apartment; Desmond Askew as Ronna's co-worker, a British horn dog named Simon who sets out for Vegas with his band of merry men and gets chased out by the mob; and Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf as a pair of a soap opera stars who are also lovers working off drug charges by helping a police sting bring down a major player named Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant). Nearly everyone ends up at a  Mary Xmas warehouse rave where scores are settled. It's tons of irreverent late-night holiday fun. Recommended. P.S. A pre-Tom Cruise Katie Holmes is featured as Ronna's wary but willing best friend Clare.

Beautiful Thing (1996)

Because Hettie Macdonald's first feature film, Beautiful Thing (1996), has so much genuine heart, a winning cast of characters, a fresh and respectful treatment of gay youth, and a soundtrack by Mama Cass, one will forgive it's achingly bad third reel. Based on Jonathan Harvey's play, which apparently is still routinely performed in Britain, the film tells the story of two teen-aged Londoners -- Jamie and Ste -- growing up next door to each other in the working class tenements of the Thamesmead district. Jamie is a the bookish loner who lives with his single Mum, Sandra, a barmaid with dreams of running her own pub. Ste is the affable jock who is routinely beaten by his abusive father and older brother. Jamie is smitten with Ste, who is oblivious (or so we are led to believe) until a particularly bad beat down finds the boy bunking next door at Jamie's. Macdonald's staging of the boys' "discovery" is handled smartly, respectfully and realistically, even though one could argue that having "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" from The Sound of Music playing in the background is a bit heavy-handed. The boys' friendships becomes a point of peculiar interest for their nosy neighbor Leah (Tameka Empson), who spends most of the film channeling Mama Cass. The inevitable panicked confrontation between a fearful Sandra and her tearful son, though overwrought, somehow rings true. After that scene, however, the movie careers into a ditch of implausibility following a drug-induced Leah. The final shot of the lads doing a box step in the tenement quad is pure fantasy. For those unaccustomed to London working class dialects, some of the dialogue (not counting universal vulgarisms) might be indecipherable  but that won't keep you from enjoying a different kind of family film. FYI, for fans of Dr. Who, Macdonald went on to direct the highly celebrated Blink episode from 2007, which featured the weeping angels. Recommended.

Six Feet Under (2001-2005)

Leave it to Alan Ball to kick off his terrifically involving (though maddeningly uneven) HBO series Six Feet Under with a fatal car wreck on Christmas Eve. The patriarch of a brittle and self-involved L.A. family, the Fishers, is a mortician who is killed when his funeral coach (a/k/a hearse) is T-boned by a city bus while he reaches for another smoke. (Ball has never met an irony he did not immediately fall in love with.) Nathaniel Fisher (Richard Jenkins) leaves behind his sexually and socially repressed wife, Ruth (Frances Conroy); his emotionally stunted libertine of an older son, Nate (Peter Krause); his closeted and repressed younger son, David (Michael C. Hall); a raging spitfire of a daughter, Clair (Lauren Ambrose) who was reputedly Ball's alter ego and all of their many loves and losses. Regular viewers of the series, which aired from 2001 to 2005, grew to know and love the Fishers and the series despite their pretty obvious flaws (both the Fishers' and the series'). I was devoted to it for the entirety of its run and occasionally reach back to re-watch favorite episodes, among them "Back to the Garden" from Season 2, which features the wonderful Patricia Clarkson as Ruth's airy sister Sarah who invites Clair out to Topanga Canyon for a visit and a little spiritual awakening.

The Time of Their Lives (1946)

Facebook Friends of a certain age might remember when old movies were shown on network television pretty routinely. Staples on Saturday and Sunday afternoons were the comedies of the '40s that featured Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the Eastside Kids, and Abbott and Costello. Created more as diversions from the stresses of war and want than as art, these films were later broadcast on television because they were cheap and inoffensive family fare. I don't know that any of them has aged particularly well (although Seth McFarlane has gotten quite a lot of mileage out of the Crosby and Hope "Road to ..." movies on Family Guy) but I have a special fondness for Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. My favorite of the dozens of films they released during the '40s and '50s is probably not the best (technically) in their catalog but it's imaginative and a little magical, The Time of Their Lives (1946). The movie tells the story of a humble tinker and a young woman who meet on a colonial estate and are mistakenly killed as traitors by American Revolutionary War soldiers while trying to leave the estate to warn General Washington of Benedict Arnold's treachery. Their bodies are dumped in a well and cursed. For more than 150 years their ghosts are trapped on the property and may only be released to go to heaven if proof of their innocence is revealed. Costello plays the tinker, Marjorie Allen the young woman who was killed with him and Abbott plays both the tinker's rival and later a psychiatrist. The special effects (which were endlessly fascinating back in the day) will seem quaint to some but, unlike today's effects, they won't overwhelm the story. Recommended.

The Big Picture (1989)

Christopher Guest's first feature film, The Big Picture, was about making a movie that is true to your individual vision ... and how impossible that is in Hollywood. Guest, who went on to direct other wonderfully oddball pictures -- Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind -- has crafted a clever and insightful tale about a film student (Kevin Bacon) who after winning a school competition accepts an offer to direct an actual movie at an actual studio.  Despite some major red flags during his first meeting with a studio producer (J.T. Walsh), he descends deeper and deeper into the maw of the beast, compromising his vision, alienating his girlfriend (Emily Longstreth), dumping his friend and cameraman (Michael McKean) and coming close to forgetting why he got involved in the business in the first place. In short, he becomes a typical Tinsel Town D-bag. Guest, a terrific film satirist and chameleonic actor, has made an imaginative and ultimately uplifting film that is actually about more than movies -- as the title suggests.

Claudine (1974)

Diahann Carroll was not the first choice for the title role in John Berry's Claudine (1974), a single mom of six living in Harlem and trying to keep body and soul together on public assistance. The great Diana Sands (A Raisin in the Sun) was originally cast but bowed out when she was diagnosed with cancer. She asked Carroll (TV's Julia) to do the picture, a fresh and refreshing film of a woman caught in a familiar Catch 22 created by the "system" that penalizes welfare recipients for actually working. Unable to make enough to provide for her children, Claudine lies to social service workers about having a job as a maid. It's while working that she meets a kind and cheerful garbage collector Rupert, played by James Earl Jones. Claudine is cautious after being loved then abandoned before but not nearly as wary as her children, who dislike her friend immediately. Eventually, they warm up to him but, as so often happens in life and the movies, reversals and set backs are visited upon the couple and old wounds are exposed anew and no one manages the disappointment well, but none less well than Claudine's oldest, Charles, played by Lawrence Hilton-Jackson (later of Welcome Back, Kotter). The final reel is poignant and, yes, a little sentimental but it works. Both Carroll and Jones are wonderful in this lovingly charming film that wore its dignity like a crown. Carroll was nominated for an Oscar for her performance. She didn't take home the statue but the film is certainly a winner. Recommended..

Visit to a Small Planet (1960)

While few would argue that Jerry Lewis's hefty filmography for Paramount back during the '50s and '60s amounts to great art, those movies are enduring curios of Cold War era American popular culture and often provide insight into human nature, warts and all. Lewis's most popular work might be his self-directed The Nutty Professor from 1963 (What'll it be, Hmmm?) and his performance in Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy opposite Robert DeNiro. For me, his 1960 movie A Visit to a Small Planet has a more distinguished pedigree than most of his work, as it was based on a late '50s satirical Broadway play by Gore Vidal.  A thinly veiled send-up of American paranoia, Planet tells the story of a naive alien lad named Kreton who comes to Earth to study the ways of humans. He ends up staying with a typical suburban family and discovers, often by way of his mind-reading capabilities, that humans are not always what they appear to be. Lewis plays Kreton with his signature vaudevillian broadness and the film is not nearly as cynical as one might expect considering its connection to Vidal. It does represent for me a model of what made Lewis such a staple in American cinema -- it illustrated that we should treat each other better and laugh at ourselves as we do it. Something to keep in mind during the holidays, yes? Recommended.

High Times (1960)

I first watched this early Blake Edwards film (1960) the summer before I started university (1975). Its depiction of college life was quite unlike what I would encounter at USC and not just because the film was made 15 years before. The movie stars the inimitable Bing Crosby as a wealthy fast-food restaurant magnate who decides to earn his college degree. He moves into a dormitory on campus where one on his roommates is played by the then stud du jour Fabian. (Yes, there is singing.) Bing wears a frosh's beanie, gets the hots for and dates his French teacher (Nicole Maurey), pledges a fraternity and hangs out with a hippie free spirit played by Tuesday Weld, who I think is studying anthropology. (None of which I did.) And, predictably, he gives the commencement speech at the end of the film. (Ditto.) It's all harmless, colorful fun and for those of us whose college experience was quite different is a little like visiting another planet. (Which will be another of my holiday film recommendations later.) This film has only recently been available on disc. Recommended.

Inside Moves (1980)

Inside Moves, directed by Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon), is not a great film but it's warm and affectionate. It's seasonal in that it's about a constructed family of disabled misfits who hang out at a bar in Oakland that's tended by everybody's best friend Jerry (David Morse). Jerry's actual best friend, Roary (John Savage) threw himself off a building but only permanently crippled himself. Jerry wants to return to the basketball courts but he has a bum leg. He is able to get the operation he needs when a professional ballplayer loans him the money. After healing, Jerry joins the Golden State Warriors and for a while, and to his shame, forgets about his old life, and his friends, at the bar. Diana Scarwid was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Roary's waitress girlfriend, Louise, who bears an entirely different sort of wounds. Yes, it's a movie about what's important in life, and I think that's what the holiday season is for. 

Babette's Feast (1987)

Last night, I enjoyed the first of several holiday meals planned with friends over the coming weeks. (I had the duck.) I was reminded last night of a marvelous film about family, friends and food from 1987, Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast. Sumptuous, elegant and atmospheric only begin to describe the wonder of this film set in the 1800s about a French refugee who seeks shelter in the home of two pious elderly sisters in a port town in Denmark and all three rediscover the vitality of life. Based on a Isak Dinesen story, Axel filmed the preparation of the titular banquet with nearly anthropological detail. It's a cinematic feast that's perfectly suited for the holidays. Highly recommended (but maybe not on an empty stomach).

Billy Elliott (2000)

I was thinking about "holiday movies" that aren't "Holiday Movies," that is, movies that don't have Christmas or Hanukkah as a theme or a backdrop but that have at their core a spirit of newness and hope. Billy Elliott is a splendid example of what I mean besides being a tremendously life-affirming movie overall. It's the story of young British lad growing up in a coal-mining town during Margaret Thatcher's "reign" as Prime Minister and her war against the miners' unions. Despite his father's coaxing to explore boxing after school, Billy discovers an interest in the ballet and therein lies a whole different sort of battle -- one that has a truly surprising conclusion. Director Stephen Daldry was nominated for an Oscar for this film, and the wonderful Julie Walters' performance as the stern but kindly ballet mistress was recognized as well. The film's enormous heart, however, is Jamie Bell, in his first feature film. And what a debut. Highly Recommended.

Mildred Pierce

I hope everything is peace and joy for you today BUT if by this evening you're looking for a little perspective on familial dysfunction do consider renting Mildred Pierce. This 1945 murder mystery stars Joan Crawford and tells the story of a woman's pursuit of the American dream only to be dogged by her spoiled daughter, played by Ann Blyth. Crawford won the leading actress Oscar for her Mildred, and Blyth was nominated as best supporting actress. The orginal was remade by HBO last year and starred the redoutable Kate Winslet, who won the Golden Globe for her performance. Here's a spirited little clip from the orignal, which is a cinematic classic. http://youtu.be/5Hd15nSDZrM

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

My plans to see Lincoln (the movie not the capital of Nebraska) reminded me that this ridiculous Disney adventure starring Nicolas Cage opens with the assassination of the 16th president. Despite that the movie is wholesome family entertainment, blessedly free of profanity, vulgarity and bloody violence. The bad guys are vanquished, warring spouses are reunited and everybody ends up filthy rich. It also stars celebrity Republican Jon Voigt, a curiously unengaging Dame Helen Mirren, a snarky Ed Harris and the mysteriously asexual Justin Bartha. Feisty Diane Kruger also stars but along with most of the rest of the cast is horribly wasted. If you want to see her really act rent Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. She's marvelous.

Torch Song Trilogy

In celebration of S.C. Pride weekend I would like to recommend Paul Bogart's Torch Song Trilogy, the film version of Harvey Fierstein's Tony Award winning stage play. I hate this poster but think the 1988 film is pretty nifty though a bit dated. Fierstein is like caviar -- delectible in small portions but, unfortunately, he only comes in gallon-size drums. The film, which also stars Matthew Broderick, Brian Kerwin and Anne Bancroft, is froth and a little fury and includes some fun drag numbers featuring Harvey, Cats' Ken Page and the then ageless, now deceased, Charles Pierce. Oh, about the poster, everyone in it has been pinched and powdered from hell to breakfast and the marvelous Miss Bancroft looks all "good-googly-goo," like she's been goosed. In all it's pretty life-affirming but ham-fisted in places.

Sunshine

Reading dire reports of solar flares interrupting earthy affairs, I was reminded of Danny Boyle's intriguing but not totally satisfying foray into science fiction, Sunshine (2007). Boyle is better known for his wholly satisfying Slumdog Millionaire and his indispensable cult hits Trainspotting (1996) and Shallow Grave (1994). Sunshine tells the story of an international crew of astronauts on a mission to deliver an explosive payload the size of Manhattan island to the sun, where it will reignite the star, which is diminishing and threatening life on Earth. This will be the Earth's second attempt, as the previous effort failed mysteriously. As with the best science fiction with which I'm familiar, this adventure is merely backdrop for more existential musings. Some of which, admittedly I could not parse. Still, the visuals are kind of amazing. It's well worth checking out, IMO.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam is an auteur with a singular vision so you know what you're going to get before the first reel starts rolling: fish-eyed lenses, dream(y) sequences, enormous puppety heads, slapsticky pratfalls and a bit of moralizing and vanquishing of evildoers. In other words, you get Monty Python on steroids but that...'s a really good thing. I enjoy Gilliam's films, mostly, but often they leave me feeling like that enormous diner from The Meaning of Life ... just one more clever cinematic device and I'll explode.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a Gilliam picture through and through with the mixed blessing of also being Heath Ledger's last film, the one during the filming of which he died. Ledger is wonderful as a mysterious conman who is taken in by Doctor Parnassus's traveling troupe of fantasy merchants who are on the run from a thousand-year-old deal with the devil. (Yes, Dr. Faustus.) The recasting of Ledger's unfinished scenes didn't feel as gimmicky as I had feared and considering the story is about getting lost in the fertile imagination of the title character, played sportingly by Christopher Plummer, having Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell step in wasn't at all jarring.
I was also delighted to see Andrew Garfield, who delivered a sparkling performance in this year's Social Network, as the film's lovelorn protagonist and Lily Cole, a striking young British actress with whom I was unfamiliar, as the good / bad doctor's daughter. Rounding out the principals in this entertaining picture was Verne Troyer (Austin Powers' Mini-Me) as Parnassus' trusted company foreman.

Valhalla Rising

Mads Mikkelsen (the bleeding-eyed Le Chiffre from Casino Royale) plays One-Eye, a mute and half-blind escaped Viking slave from some unidentified Nordic outpost who, along with his towheaded child interpreter, hops a ship bound for the Holy Land to rescue Jerusalem from the infidels but doesn't quite make it. This is t...he premise of Nicolas Winding Refn's Valhalla Rising, a curious episodic film that's more a collection of striking tableaux than an actual motion picture, IMO. The script contains little actual dialogue, mostly burly unwashed men (they're Vikings but they sound like they're from the Scottish Highlands) sitting in a longboat or on a boggy shore essentially waiting to die. That is to say, the film is beautifully shot (despite the bloodletting) and even though it makes motions toward heavier philosophical questions about the divine and the sacred it doesn't offer much to think about.

Man from Earth (2007)

Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth (2007) ponders the nature of life and probes questions of mortality, history and knowledge, more precisely, how is it we know what we know. It's how these undeniably heavy themes are introduced that makes the film such a surprise.

A respected and highly favored history professor has announced to his colleagues that he's leaving after 10 years on the faculty. His friends -- among them, a biologist, anthropologist, archeologist and psychiatrist -- gather at his home to say goodbye and ask him why he's leaving his tenured position so suddenly. It's then that he reveals he's actually 14,000 years old. From that incredible premise, Bixby, a celebrated sci-fi writer who died the year after this film was released, crafts a decidedly theatrical but satisfying treatment of the meaning of life that contains not a single cliche and has a fascinating reveal in its last quarter. Highly entertaining and not just for eggheads.