The Castro Theatre in November has a delicious mix of film repertory ranging from Hitchcock to Francis Ford Coppola, Douglas Sirk, John Hughes and Gus Van Sant. We begin our capsules with some of the month's highlights.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) This laugh-out-loud comedy is both a collision-of-opposites buddy film and an astute psychological study of how two grown men can provoke each other to a degree that might result in mayhem in real life. A tight-ass ad guy (Steve Martin in a career-topping role) finds himself sharing close quarters with an aggressively friendly traveling salesmen (John Candy). Del (Candy) talks nonstop, a defense against loneliness, a trait that infuriates Neal (Martin), a type-A ad executive whose job involves suffering more than his share of fools and bores.
Director John Hughes takes some of the secrets about human nature displayed in his Brat Pack teen comedies and applies them to real-world icky moments. Martin's slow burn to full-out tirade against a cloying rental-car clerk remains an 80s comedy high spot, complete with an overuse of the F-word. Martin and Candy both manage to evoke straight-guy aversions to sharing intimate spaces without being overtly homophobic.
The Ice Storm (1997) Director Ang Lee asserts his claim to being his generation's Billy Wilder with this nuanced study of how suburban New York couples allow their hedonistic lifestyles to undermine their role as parents. Based on Rick Moody's Watergate-era novel. Lee matches a stellar ensemble of young and mature actors with traits both admirable and destructive. Joan Allen is a neglected suburban wife who acts out against her philandering husband (deceptively charming Kevin Kline) by shoplifting at a local store where she's almost sure to be caught. Tobey Maguire is a witty boarding-school teen whose early attempts at scoring drugs and sex are undermined by his opportunistic roommate. Elijah Wood is a hypersensitive youth who pushes his limits against an unforgiving Mother Nature. An avuncular train conductor ("Next stop: New Canaan, Connecticut!") frames a flashback structure that reinforces the film's tragic ending. Like most of Lee's work, the film overflows with unresolved homoerotic longings added to jack up the moral stakes, exposing our still-unresolved Puritanical roots. (both 11/23)
Author: The JT LeRoy Story (2016) Another version of this SF-based artist's attempt to extend an overblown literary hoax.
My Own Private Idaho (1991) Gus Van Sant's queer masterpiece is a layered study of two male hustlers (Keanu Reeves, River Phoenix) set against a complex American landscape. The Shakespearean conceit is overdone but doesn't distract from a sublime achievement in revelatory queer filmmaking. (both 11/4)
All That Heaven Allows (1955) Douglas Sirk casts Jane Wyman as an aging upper-class woman who inspires envy and hatred from her family and friends when she crosses class and age lines to date her younger yardman (Rock Hudson in his prime). Later remade by queer German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul).
Polyester (1981) John Waters started his drift towards mainstream comedy with this cute drag work. Divine is a suburban housewife, fading glamor-boy Tab Hunter makes a comic appearance. Good campy fun. (both 11/10)
Donnie Darko (2001) Richard Kelly's brilliant use of a suburban Republican family to evoke existential dread. Jake Gyllenhaal is great as a fearful teen whose nightmares involve a premonition of disaster and a large, threatening bunny. A black-comedy thriller about repressive high school life and phony huckster solutions.
Prisoners (2013) In French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve's gripping thriller, two sets of parents, one black, one white, react badly when their young daughters are abducted and the initial clues point to a mentally impaired young adult (very brave Paul Dano). Hugh Jackman abandons his nice-guy image and becomes a raving lunatic vigilante dad. Gyllenhaal is sublime as an overworked police detective who must battle the incompetence of his local department, the abusive madness of Jackman, and an audacious villain you probably will not suspect. An instant modern classic. (both 11/18)
The Conversation (1974) The film that Francis Ford Coppola considers his best is a haunting thriller involving a wiretap expert (Gene Hackman) trapped by the logic of his job bugging other people's lives. The film, based on Coppola's original screenplay, explores the human need to spy, deceive and upend the lives of others. Hackman is marvelous as a man who learns all too late the consequences of destroying any semblance of privacy. A great SF-set film with shots of Union Square that will stir nostalgia for those who know our city's history. Great use of banal pop music that, with repeated exposure, becomes sinister. (11/16)
Rear Window (1954) Hitchcock's most stirring view of a modern American sin: voyeurism. James Stewart is a wheelchair-bound magazine photographer injured on assignment who spends his time spying on his neighbors across a Manhattan apartment courtyard. His hobby takes a dark turn when his camera lens focuses on a portly neighbor (pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr). Suspecting the man of murdering his wife, Stewart and friends (Wendell Corey, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter) lay a trap for him that nearly backfires. (11/20)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) The comedy farce that defines Bette Davis and Joan Crawford for many, this Robert Aldrich-directed black comedy/horror-fest involves crippled Crawford tortured by her demented, revenge-seeking sister Davis. If you can scrape off the campy barnacles, this one still has things to say about the sometimes-psychotic dangers of aging.
Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) Aldrich returns with a campy vehicle for Davis and Olivia de Havilland. This time the joke's on Bette. (both 11/17)