Tricks and/or Treats Movie Picks

For those of you that prefer treats and tricks instead of ghosts and ghouls, these post-Halloween picks should fill your now empty candy bag quite nicely. There's no reason to quit Halloween cold turkey. Just dial it back heading into Film Noirvember.

ELAINE’S PICKS

House of Games (David Mamet, 1987)

Mamet is the master of the big con. Margaret (Lindsay Crouse), a successful psychiatrist, tries to help her patient get out from under gambling debts. Big mistake. Tricks and very few treats make this a delight to watch and rewatch. The ending supports the wicked twists and turns and doesn't disappoint in subsequent viewings. If you like this one, also seek out Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner (1997). 

The Gift (Joel Edgerton, 2015)

Written and directed by Joel Edgerton, The Gift stars Jason Bateman in a non-comedic role. The twisty tale becomes creepier as the story progresses. Like Alfred Hitchcock's domestic thriller, Shadow of the Doubt (1943), Edgerton's film conveys a constant sense of underlying unease -- things are never quite what they seem to be. 

Truly, Madly, Deeply (Anthony Minghella, 1990)

Alan Rickman is the benevolent ghost in Minghella's fantasy drama. When he returns to haunt his love, Nina (Juliet Stevenson) he becomes an obnoxious ghost (like bringing home strange spirit acquaintances) with an agenda. TMD features one of the all-time great crying scenes.

Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)

Christian Petzold is one of Germany’s most acclaimed filmmakers. The Phoenix in question refers to the mythological bird that can be reborn. Nelly (Nina Hoss) is a Holocaust survivor who has her face reconstructed and returns to her home to face her husband who may or may not have surrendered her to the Nazis. The influence of VERTIGO, FRANKENSTEIN, film noir and pulp fiction enliven this unique tale of betrayal, memory— and revenge.

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JAY’S PICKS

The Gazebo (George Marshall, 1959) 

Glenn Ford stars in this clever black comedy as a TV mystery writer blackmailed over nude photos of his actress wife (Debbie Reynolds) from many years ago. To extricate himself, he shoots the blackmailer and buries him under their new gazebo. While fending off contractors and real estate agents who might uncover his deed, Ford learns the real blackmailer has been killed elsewhere. So, who's buried under the gazebo?

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006) 

Nolan's critical and commercial acclaim covers films like Memento, Oppenheimer, and Batman, but this -- one of his devious best -- concerns friends turned feuding magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale). After one perfects a remarkable illusion, the other becomes obsessed with discovering its secret. Co-stars Scarlett Johanssen, Michael Caine, and David Bowie (as Nicola Tesla). 

The Last of Sheila (Herbert Ross, 1973) 

Everyone loves an Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnit with a stacked cast of beloved actors including James Mason, Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn, Ian McShane, and Raquel Welch. Rian Johnson's Knives Out films have proven the genre maintains a cross-generational appeal. This one-week pleasure cruise and scavenger hunt turns deadly as guests conceal and uncover secrets and some wind up dead. Even if you discover the film's trick, it's still a treat. 

The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007)

Even though J.A. Bayona’s film sits firmly within the horror genre, it doesn’t resort to jump scares and the typical horror cliches to spook its audience. It’s a thinking person’s thriller that burrows under your skin and lingers. In many ways, it’s an old fashioned, gothic haunted house story dripping with atmosphere and racing towards its shocking (and heart wrenching) conclusion.

Sweltering Summer Movie Picks

We’re sliding down the backside of summer and everything is damp with humidity and sweat and used pool towels. Summer also inspires a specific type of cinema. It's never too late to slip into some hot summer movies that focus on coming-of-age, adolescent freedoms, idle flights of fancy, momentary flings, and vacations to far flung locales. They sweat. They bake. They swelter and shrivel under the midday sun. These are some of our favorite “Summer Movies.”

Elaine’s Picks

The Way Way Back (Jim Rash, Nat Faxon, 2013)

A beach house, a station wagon, and a water park with a tube slide fuel this coming-of-age tale. It’s a familiar story, but the cast and the writing tell the story well. The movie stars Liam James, Toni Colette, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney. If you like this try Adventureland (2009) which was filmed at Kennywood and features a similarly bittersweet and comic tone.

My Donkey, My Lover & I (Caroline Vignal, 2020)

Antoinette’s summer holiday takes an unexpected turn in this French dramedy. This is a buddy movie—with unique buddies. It’s the journey, not the destination that matters. Vignal and cinematographer Simon Beaufils (Anatomy of a Fall) paints with the film camera. 

500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009)

Screenwriter Scott Neustader describes 500 Days as an anti-Hollywood romantic comedy. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, the film dessolution of a new romance as the story bounces around chronologically to tell a clever yarn, full of heart and heartbreak. 

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Jay’s Picks

The Sandlot (1993) dir. David Mickey Evans

Few movies nail the beauty of a “wasted” summer with friends better than this 1960’s nostalgia-fueled baseball comedy. The Sandlot playfully explores coming-of-age, childhood mythmaking, and the value of legends. It’s lasting appeal can be attributed to its heart and quotable dialogue. (“You’re killing me, Smalls.”)

Summertime (1954) dir. David Lean

A tour of Venice through the eyes of an emotionally muted Katherine Hepburn on holiday. She’s a woman harboring uncertain pain until a smitten shopkeeper turns his attention toward her. As the threat of connection grows, Lean explores middle-aged anxiety, want, and the self-fulfilling prophecies of loneliness. Summertime feels slight – but it’s a deeply soulful and spiritual film. 

Body Heat (1981) dir. Lawrence Kasdan

Kasdan transplants the golden age of the film noir into 1981 and this steamy thriller starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. The stunted double entendre, loaded phrasing, femme fatale, double (and triple) crosses. Body Heat also belongs among the sweatiest films of all time; you can feel the heat (temperature and smolder) right through your screen.

Pittsburgh-Made Movie Picks

Unstoppable (2010) dir. Tony Scott

Tony Scott’s fifth collaboration with Denzel Washington was also unfortunately his last film. The Top Gun director committed suicide in 2012 after a long, unpublicized battle with cancer. Loosely based on the real life events of a runaway train and the two men trying to stop it, this non-stop popcorn muncher perfectly represents Scott’s oeuvre. Style and substance whipped together into an adrenaline-fueled sensory overload. “I love Pittsburgh,” Scott said of the production. “It reminds me of where I grew up (in North England)... If you saw the movie, I embrace the landscape. I felt I was back home in my youth." Quentin Tarantino called Unstoppable one of the best films of the decade, and Christoper Nolan cited the film as an inspiration for building suspense.

Wonder Boys (2000) dir. Curtis Hanson

Unless you're talking about Wonder Boys as one of the greatest movies of the last 50 years, you’re underrating it. Michael Douglas' Grady Tripp is one of the deepest, most interesting characters presented on screen. The characters are fallible people, stumbling through life, held back by their delusions or narcotics or bourgeois malaise or fear… Curtis Hanson's follow up to L.A. Confidential further displays his deft touch at creating likable characters out of unlikeable people. No small part of that is Michael Chabon’s novel and Steve Kloves' adapted script. The movie easily bests the fine book. It's leaner, more focused, and Grady Tripp’s pathos comes through more clearly. It's the answer to that timeless question about movies that improve upon the novel. I happen to love both so much that I named my recently adopted dog Grady.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) dir. George Romero

Night of the Living Dead (1968) made George Romero an indie filmmaking icon. Dawn of the Dead made him a legend. Bloodier, meaner, funnier, the second installment of Romero’s zombie series takes full advantage of the changing cinematic decorum to create a ghoulish, entrail-spilling satire on consumerism. Fans from all over the world make pilgrimages to the Monroeville Mall to pay their respects to the creator of the modern zombie film.

Bob Roberts (1992) dir. Tim Robbins

This dark political satire might now land too close to reality to be considered laugh-out-loud funny, but its prescience has only magnified the travesty of actor/writer/director Robbins’ grossly overlooked 1992 film about an entertainer that jumps into the Pennsylvania senate race. He succeeds by exploiting the fears of the most gullible through folk songs about immigrants and welfare queens.

Adventureland (2009) dir. Greg Mottola

Filmed at Kennywood, this film waxes comedic, dramatic, and nostalgic about those lousy jobs that populate our misspent teenage summers. It’s 1987. Recent college graduate Jesse Eisenberg has a trip to Europe put on hold after his parents’ finances go up in flames. After taking a job working the games at the local amusement park, he befriends Kristen Stewart, who makes his ordinary life tumultuous. Far more thoughtful than the genre normally allows, Mottola’s film is honest and observant about the anxiety and innocence of youth.

Jay Patrick is a Mt. Lebanon-based syndicated writer of film and fiction and the host of the Cinema Shame Podcast (formerly produced by DVD Netflix and available wherever you get your podcasts) where guests watch, for the first time, a movie they really should have seen by now.

“Spring Forward” Time Travel Movies

Time After Time (1979) dir. Nicolas Meyer

Author and time-machine inventor H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) pursues Jack the Ripper (David Warner) from 19th century London to 1970s San Francisco. High-concept historical fiction time travelogue uses the fish-out-of-water premise to spotlight character and motivation rather than indulging in sci-fi silliness.

Somewhere in Time (1980) dir. Jeannot Szwarc

At the opening night of his first play a young writer (Christopher Reeve) meets an old lady who asks him to “come back” to her. He learns she’s a famous stage actress from the early 1900s. His obsession leads to method of time-travel self-hypnosis and a liaison in the past. Narrative simplicity creates an unusual, proximate intimacy between Reeve and Jane Seymour’s young actress. Zero time-travel rigamarole leaves narrative room for a timeless romance. 

Les Visiteurs (1993) dir. Jean-Marie Poiré

Poorly remade in the U.S. as Just Visiting (2001), this French farce pits medieval knights against contemporary 20th century evils. As much a live action cartoon as a narrative film, Poiré’s film is 107 minutes of frenetic fantasy and charmingly chivalrous adventures.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) dir. Colin Tevorrow

Magazine employees (Aubrey Plaza and Jake Johnson) head out to interview a guy who placed a classified ad seeking time travel companions. The time-travel device in this instance provides an excuse for eccentric characters to engage in comedic banter and stumble into earnest emotional connection.

Palm Springs (2020) dir. Max Barbakow

A ribald and disillusioned twist on the “time-loop” sub-genre of time travel movies. Nyles (Andy Samberg) engages in a tryst gone wrong with maid of honor Sarah (Cristin Milioti), but the pair find themselves in a Kafkaesque wedding reception that just won’t end.

Jay Patrick is a Mt. Lebanon-based syndicated writer of film and fiction and the host of the Cinema Shame Podcast (formerly produced by DVD Netflix and available wherever you get your podcasts) where guests watch, for the first time, a movie they really should have seen by now.

The Denis Recommends... Holiday Films

IT HAPPENED ON FIFTH AVENUE (1947) dir. Roy Del Ruth

This sweetly sentimental film pokes fun at class striation and aligns with Frank Capra's philosophies of an idealized America where Community triumphs over societal ills.

THE REF (1994) dir. Ted Demme

Denis Leary shovels his trademark stand-up crankiness into this crass and subversively warmhearted comedy about a thief that holds a dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.

ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (2011) dir. Sarah Smith

Fast-paced, stuffed with joy and clever twists on the idea of Santa in a contemporary world, this Aardman Animations (creators of Wallace & Gromit) film puts a bow on every Christmas season.

3 Godfathers (1948) dir. John Ford

Nothing about this film explicitly says “Christmas movie” – but the spirit of Christmas lives in this “minor” John Ford Western about three bank robbers (read: wise men) who promise to shepherd a dying woman’s baby safely across the desert in order to redeem their sins.

Klaus (2019) dir. Sergio Pablos

This beautifully animated Netflix film, sets the Santa Claus mythology in remote northern Norway where the pampered postmaster’s son (Jason Schwartzman) must create a thriving post office under impossible conditions in order to preserve his inheritance. With the help of a cantankerous and reclusive woodsman (J.K. Simmons), he just might succeed.

CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945) dir. Peter Godfrey

This screwball comedy features deception, frothy dialogue, good food, and Barbara Stanwyck.

THE MERRY GENTLEMAN (2008) dir. Michael Keaton

Christmas is the backdrop for an angst-plagued hitman and a lonely woman. Watch for subtle twists to traditional Christmas imagery. Stars Kelly MacDonald and Michael Keaton in his directorial debut.

DREAMING OF A JEWISH CHRISTMAS (2017) dir. Larry Weinstein

This delightful, informative documentary focuses on fresh information about the Jewish songwriters responsible for your favorite Christmas tunes. Inventive, original performances will make you want to sing along.

Frozen River (2008) dir. Courtney Hunt

This struggles of working class mother, Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo), set in upstate New York during the Christmas season. The subtle symbolism may be reminiscent of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), but this tale is full of reality as Eddy smuggles immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River in the trunk of her Dodge Spirit.

A MIDNIGHT CLEAR (1992) dir. Keith Gordon

Starring Ethan Hawke and Gary Sinise, this tense anti-war is a parable with strong spiritual undertones. The cinematography is key to the story.