MAIN STREAM MOVIES

Regular readers will note that I prefer watching movies on a gigantic screen, the way God intended. In the future, no doubt, movies will be digitally implanted directly into our lobes, but at this historical moment, we are somewhere in-between. Move theaters are closed thanks to COVID-19, so we're stuck watching movies on our home screens. With a zillion options, some are more worthy than others, but here are a few titles I've notice popping up on streaming platforms that might be worth your time!

THE ASSISTANT Her new job as office assistant to a famous movie mogul ought to be a dream come true for a bright young college graduate with ambitions to produce her own movies. But it's a nightmare for the conflicted protagonist who discovers enabling her boss's sexual conquests is the unspoken part of her job description in this taut, claustrophobic and entirely effective drama from filmmaker Kitty Green. The focus of her story is not on predators or their victims, but on the system of silence and complicity that allows such misconduct to happen. Julia Garner has the pale, porcelain face of a Renaissance angel, darkening with visceral anxiety over the course of her workday. (R) 87 minutes. (***) (2020) (Amazon Prime)

THE HANDMAIDEN It may seem like an odd collaboration: bad-boy Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park, famed for the violent male revenge melodrama Oldboy, and British author Sarah Waters, whose femme-centric erotic thrillers are set in the Dickensian underworld of Victorian London. But it turns out to be a surprisingly happy match-up in Park's Asian riff on Waters' novel Fingersmith. Filmmaker and source material are both edgy in complementary ways. Gorgeously shot and composed, audacious, and full of witty visual asides, it's a sly entertainment of sex, larceny, deception, double-crosses, and female liberation. (R) 144 minutes. In Korean and Japanese with English subtitles. (***1/2) (2016) (Amazon Prime)

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO This first feature from director Joe Talbot is remarkably assured and absorbing meditation on the mythology of the city's fabled past while its characters — two young black men born and raised in the city — reckon with the uncertainty of its present. As a semi-autobiographical version of himself, Jimmie Fails' character is obsessed with a stately Victorian-style house built by his grandfather that his family no longer possesses. Jonathan Majors offers poignant support as his best friend in this dreamy, splendidly composed mood piece about the search for home and identity in the rapidly evolving city they love. (R) 120 minutes. (***1/2) (2019) (Amazon Prime)

MILLIONS Money doesn't grow on trees, but it does fall out of the sky in this wonderful film from the ever-surprising Danny Boyle, about the comic misadventures of two young brothers in the working-class north of England when they find a mysterious suitcase stuffed with cold cash. Little Alex Eitel is terrific as the boy whose superheroes are the Catholic saints; he's up on all their biographical stats (birth, death, martyrdom), and they keep popping up in the story to help him figure out how to use the money to do good. Boyle's fresh, kinetic filmmaking style complements a touching story that's acute, funny, sophisticated, and full of imagination. Not a kids' film per se, this is a story told from a child's perspective that beguiles viewers of all ages (****) (PG) 97 minutes. (2005) (Disney Plus)

St. Peter (Alun Armstrong) (note keys and halo) instructs Alex Eitel in Millions

SONG OF THE SEA Anyone who loves seals, ancient Celtic folklore, fairy tales or mythology will be utterly charmed by this magical Irish animated feature. Directed by Tomm Moore, whose previous film was the lovely Secret of the Kells, inspired by the famed illuminated manuscript, this Oscar-nominated fable combines traditional tales of the selkies (seals who transform into humans on land) with a stunning visual palette, and an endearing tale of a young girl and her destiny. Every hand-drawn frame of this movie is ravishing — even on a small screen! (PG) 93 minutes. (****) (2014) (Netflix)

OUT AT HOME

Displacement fuels poignant, dreamy Last Black Man In San Francisco


The vintage hippie anthem, "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)," keeps popping up on the soundtrack of The Last Black Man In San Francisco. Its use is ironic, referencing the mythology of the city's fabled past while its characters — two young black men born and raised in the city — reckon with the uncertainty of its present.


The most apropos lyric from the song, however, is never actually sung in the movie: the recurring refrain, "People in motion."


Everyone is on the move here —the protagonist on his skateboard, navigating the city's steep hills and ramshackle neighborhoods; passers-by in the streets — techies, joggers, homeless scavengers; chattering Muni bus passengers; platoons of sanitation workers in neon vests marching out to clean up the toxic waterfront.

Majors, Fails: Stealthy

And yet, despite all the activity around them, the protagonists seem rooted in place, unable to move forward as time marches on, struggling to imagine viable new lives for themselves in the rapidly evolving city they love.

This is the first feature from rookie director Joe Talbot, who wrote the script with Rob Richert, based on a story Talbot concocted with his longtime friend and fellow San Francisco native, Jimmie Fails — who stars as a semi-autobiographical version of himself.

Jimmie's passion is the stately, Victorian-style home in the Fillmore district that his grandfather built in the 1940s, after entire communities of Japanese-Americans had been removed to internment camps. It’s long since fallen out of his family’s possession. But when the current owners move out, Jimmie and his best bud Montgomery (the excellent Jonathan Majors) stealthily move in.

It’s a bit thin, plot-wise, but the storytelling is everything in this splendidly atmospheric mood piece. Themes of displacement, gentrification, and cultural identity are there to be pondered in every dreamy, thoughtfully composed shot, every passing image, without Talbot beating us over the head with them.
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Trivia alert: Director Joe Talbot is the grandson of longtime Hollywood veteran Lyle Talbot. Leading man material at Warner Bros in the 1930s and ’40s, Lyle Talbot became a fixture in B-movies of the ’50s (including the notorious Plan 9 From Outer Space), and segued smoothly into TV for a couple of decades after that.

Joe Talbot is also the nephew of Stephen Talbot, a Bay Area TV journalist (long associated with PBS) and documentary producer. Stephen Talbot was also a child actor who had a recurring role on Leave It To Beaver.

Talk about family history!