Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

Windy’s Pick of the Week: The Gift

The Gift is one of those movies that makes you say (again), “Wait – Keanu Reeves can act??”

It’s a creepy little movie that feels like Sam Raimi just having a good time with actors he clearly enjoys working with. Cate Blanchett is always a favorite of mine, and heaven knows I like a good supernatural horror story. But the scariest part of the movie isn’t Cate’s visions – it’s Keanu Reeves, who smolders with barely-contained rage every second he’s on screen.

Oh – and you get to see Giovanni Ribisi doing his usual thing, and Katie Holmes boobs for about 2 seconds.

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Grand Piano

In Grand Piano, Elijah Wood plays an anxiety-filled pianist, who, during a high-profile concert, finds an ominous note on his sheet music. Eventually, the musician finds himself onstage, wearing a concealed earpiece, through which he is told that he must continue to play or else he will be shot. (It’s kind of like Speed with a piano instead of a bus.)

That’s quite the setup, but the truly marvelous thing about Grand Piano is that it feels like something Hitchcock might have directed. Spanish director Eugenio Mira, who also wrote the amazing piano score (!), creates a tense atmosphere while choreographing every dazzling piece of cinematography to both music and a plot that seems to play out almost in real time.

Beyond that, it’s always a joy to see John Cusack play a not-very-nice person.

Grand Piano is one of the best recent movies that pretty much nobody has heard of. The movie flickered to life on the film festival circuit last year, and then got a very limited release in the United States, and then went straight to home video. You can currently find it streaming on iTunes, Amazon, and Vudu, among other places.

Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: The Matador

The Matador asks the cinematic question, “What would James Bond really be like if an ordinary person just ran into him in a bar in Mexico City?” Even better than that: Greg Kinnear stars as The Ordinary Guy, and the enigmatic (and drunk) hit man he encounters is played by none other than Pierce Brosnan. Soon, the two men form an unlikely friendship, and hijinks ensue.

The Matador came out one year before the Bond franchise reboot, Casino Royale, and as such, it may be the best Bond farewell that Brosnan could have ever had. Even though The Matador really doesn’t really have anything at all to do with James Bond except for Brosnan, it gives Brosnan a delicious chance to self-parody and that is exactly what he does. This film lives and breathes under Brosnan’s presence; it’s a great tribute to his sly comic timing.

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Return to Me

This is a “comedy” whose central conflict centers around the death and organ donation of a beautiful young woman.  Her husband (David Duchovny) struggles to limp along after her death, but it isn’t until he meets waitress Minnie Driver that he comes back to life.  The complication?  Minnie is only alive because of a heart transplant… oh yeah, you know where she got that heart, right?

It’s a pretty tortured plot device, but that doesn’t take away from the great chemistry between Duchovny and Driver, or the delightful patter of the script.  There’s a screwball comedy sensibility to the dialogue, with a bit of slapstick thrown in for good measure.  It helps that you have Carol O’Connor, Robert Loggia, David Alan Grier, and Jim Belushi along for the ride.  Along with Bonnie Hunt – who wrote and directed as well!  I like my romantic comedies as light and fresh as a wedding butter-mint patty.

Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Keeping the Faith

I’m on a roll with the underappreciated rom coms. Keeping the Faith is a comedy about a pair of boys and their childhood tomboy friend who grow up to be a Catholic Priest (Edward Norton) and a Jewish Rabbi (Ben Stiller), along with their type A hot-but-driven friend Jenna Elfman. I will watch stupid, bland rom coms at least once (I like to eat ice cream after derby practice and veg) – but this one is neither bland, nor stupid. First off, Edward Norton directs, and he has a light touch to match his dry comedic timing. This is also one of the few films where I find Ben Stiller to be completely likeable and attractive – generally, he uses his considerable charisma to play neurotics of some sort. Both men play sincere men of faith who nevertheless wrestle with exactly what that faith costs them and how to be true to themselves while being true to their beliefs. Also – it’s a total love letter to Manhattan. And a great supporting cast (Anne Bancroft, Eli Wallach, Lisa Edelstein, Ron Rifkin, Milos Foreman) doesn’t hurt either.

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: Wake in Fright

Wake in Fright came to cinematic life in Australia in 1971, but was barely heard from since. That is because the negative vanished. An international search eventually located the negative in 2004, inside a warehouse in Pittsburgh, inside a box marked for destruction. So it’s sheer luck we get to see it today.

And what luck! Wake in Fright is an excellent example of the amazing, edgy filmmaking that was happening in Australia in the 1970s. It also has what may be the greatest Donald Pleasance performance I’ve ever seen.

Wake in Fright is the story of a young bonded teacher who has a teaching assignment in a desolate, remote town in the middle of the Australian outback. He is determined to buy his way out of his assignment someday so he can live a fuller life, but for the time being, he just wants to go on vacation in Sydney. On the way to catch a plane, he winds up stranded in another remote outback town, out of money and out of luck thanks to a local gambling ring, booze, guns, and a hypnotic Donald Pleasance. The rest of the film spirals downward in a horrific haze, sort of like a dusty, no-budget, 100%-more-kangaroos version of Apocalypse Now.

If you have a taste for the dark films of the 1970s and/or the late great Donald Pleasance, this one is a real treat!