Stuff I've Been Watching November 2019 (Native American Heritage Month)

1. Midnight Cowboy. Directed by John Schlesinger • 1969 • United States Starring Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles. One of the British New Wave’s most versatile directors, John Schlesinger came to New York in the late 1960s to make MIDNIGHT COWBOY, a picaresque story of friendship that captured a city in crisis and sparked a new era of Hollywood movies. Jon Voight delivers a career-making performance as Joe Buck, a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy city women; he finds a companion in Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida, played by Dustin Hoffman in a radical departure from his breakthrough in The Graduate. A critical and commercial success despite controversy over what the MPAA termed its “homosexual frame of reference,” Midnight Cowboy became the first X-rated film to receive the best picture Oscar, and decades on, its influence still reverberates through cinema. Via the criterion app. 5 November. 
2. Smoke Signals. 1998. directed by Chris Eyre. Starring Tantoo Cardinal, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, Adam Beach. Evan Though Victor and Thomas have lived their entire young lives in the same tiny town (Indian reservation), they could not have less in common. But when Victor is urgently called away, it's Thomas who comes up with the money to pay for his trip. There is just one thing Victor has to do: take Thomas along for the ride! You are in for a rare and entertaining comic treat as this most unlikely pair leave home on what becomes an unexpected unforgettable adventure of friendship and discovery. Purchased via apple iTunes. 7 November.
3. Ready Player One. 2018. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Tye Sheridan, Win Morisaki, Simon Pegg, T.J. Miller, Mark Rylance, Hannah John-Kamen. From filmmaker Steven Spielberg comes the science fiction action adventure Ready Player One, based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name. The film is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger. Purchased via apple iTunes. 7 November.
4. The Lives of Others. 2006. Germany. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Starring Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch. Set in East Berlin in the early 1980s, this acclaimed debut feature from Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck focuses on GDR’s pervasive and chilling surveillance state. The successful dramatist Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), a popular actress, are big intellectual stars in the socialist state, though in private they are not always loyal to the party line. Secret service agent Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is instructed to observe the couple. What begins as a routine surveillance operation motivated by Cold War politics soon becomes an obsession fueled by personal desires. Via the criterion channel app. 8 November.
5. Powwow Highway. 1989. Directed by Jonathan Wacks. United Kingdom, United States. Buddy Red Bow is struggling, in the face of persecution, by greedy developers and political in-fighting, to keep his nation on a Montana Cheyenne Reservation financially solvent and independent. Philbert, a simple-minded friend of Buddy's, ardently pursues Native American/First Nation wisdom and lore wherever he can find it--even on Bonanza--in order to earn his warrior name. He's even got his war pony, Protector: a beat-up old wreck of a car. Buddy's sister has been arrested in Santa Fe, and together Buddy and Philbert set off on a road trip to look after her kids and go bail her out. However, Bonnie's arrest has something strange about it as her friend Rabbit points out. As the miles roll by, Philbert's faith challenges Buddy's hard-edged view of the world (and occasional bout of reckless violence), and together they face the realities and dreams of being Cheyenne in the modern-day US as they fight to free Bonnie and her children and elude the Feds. Via the criterion channel app. 8 November.
6. Small Kitchen, Big Thanksgiving with Alison Roman. Nytimes.com and youtube. 14 November.
7. The Warrior Tradition. The Warrior Tradition tells the astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands? The film relates the stories of Native American warriors from their own points of view -- stories of service and pain and courage and fear. via the PBS app. 16 November.
8. Indie Alaska. I Am an Alaska Native Dancer. Haliehana Stepetin is a master Alaska Native dance born in Akutan, AK. Teepetin has made it her life goal to promote and teach the many styles of dance found throughout the diverse Alaska Native cultures. via the PBS app. 13 November.
9. The Arbor. Directed by Clio Barnard. 2010. Starring Manjinder Virk, Natalie Gavin, Christine Bottomley. One of the most formally inventive, fascinating, and radical films in recent memory, Clio Barnard's electrifying debut feature combines documentary, performance, and fiction as actors lip sync to recorded interviews to tell the harrowing life story of Andrea Dunbar, the brilliant but deeply troubled British playwright who won acclaim for works like "The Arbor" and "Rita, Sue, and Bob too." Tracing her dark upbringing in the notorious Buttershaw estate In Bradshaw, her turbulent relationship with her family, and her tragic death at the age of twenty-nine, The Arbor is both a thrillingly innovative work of creative nonfiction and a deeply affecting account of a brief but remarkable life. via the Criterion app.17 November.
10. Un Flic (A Cop). Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. France. 1972. Starring Alain Delon, Richard Crenna, Catherine Deneuve. Jean-Pierre Melville's final film finds the legendary director paring his minimalist-cool style down to its essence as an impassive police detective (Alain Delon) and a daring bank robber (Richard Crenna) find themselves inextricably linked by their love for the same woman (Catherine Deneuve). The centerpiece of this masterfully stripped-down policier is a transfixing twenty-minute heist sequence involving a helicopter, a speeding train, and nary a word spoken. 19 November.
11. N. Scott Momaday: Words From a Bear. Delve into the enigmative life and mind of Pulitzer prize-winning author and poet N. Scott Momaday, best known for House Made of Dawn and a formative voice of the Native American Renaissance in art and literature. American Masters. via the PBS app. 22 November.
12. Elevator to the Gallows. Directed by Louis Malle. 19 58 France. For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau, evocative cinematography by Henri Deae, and a now legendary jazz score by Miles Davis. Taking place over the course of one restless Paris night, Malle's richly atmospheric crime thriller stars Moreau and Maurice Ronet as lovers whose plan to murder her husband (his boss) goes awry, setting off a chain of events that seals their fate. A career touchstone for its director and female star, Elevator to the Gallows was an astonishing beginning to Malle's eclectic body of work, and it established Moreau as one of the most captivating actors ever to grace the screen. via the Criterion app. 20-something November.
13. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Directed by John Hughes. 1987. Starring Steve Martin and John Candy. Neal Page is an advertising executive who just wants to fly home to Chicago to spends thanksgiving with his family. But all Neal Page gets is misery. Misery named Del Griffith -- a loud mouthed, but nevertheless, lovable who leads Neal on a cross-country, wild goose chase that keeps Neal from tasting his turkey. Stever Martin (Neal) and John Candy (Del) are absolutely wonderful as two guys with a knack for making the worst of a bad situation. If it's painful, funny, or just plain crazy, it happens to Neal and Del in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Every traveler's nightmare in a comedy-come-true! Purchased from iTunes and seen via the movies app. 28 November.
14. The Irishman. Directed by Martin Scorsese. 2019. Starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci. Hit man Frank Sheeran looks back at the secrets he kept as a loyal member of the Bufalino crime family in this acclaimed film from Martin Scorsese. via the Netflix app. 29 November.
15. Jim Thorpe, All-American. Directed by Michael Curtiz. 1951 Starring Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford, Phyllis Thaxter, Steve Cochran. Screen legend Burt Lancaster stars in this action-packed adventure about Jim Thorpe, famously deemed "the greatest athlete in the world" by Sweden's King Gustav V after the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. Thorpe, a Native American, captured two gold medals for the decathlon and the pentathlon, only to have them taken away. The story follows Thorpe's life filled with controversy and tragedy, but marked by personal triumphs and hope. In recent years, the athlete's daughter has successfully won the reinstatement of her father's medals from the International Olympic Committee, rightfully commemorating the great man. From the director of Casablanca. Purchased from iTunes and seen via the movies app. 30 November.

Comments:
It is surprisingly difficult to find good movies about American Indians made by American Indians -- Powwow Highway and Smoke Signals are two excellent comedies worth seeking out if you have not seen them. Jim Thorpe is a towering figure in the first half of American athletics even if he is largely forgotten now. I thought Burt Lancaster did a great job, but he in no way looks like Thorpe. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is THE thanksgiving movie. The late Roger Ebert pointed this out nearly twenty years ago. I loved The Irishman -- Joe Pesci has a subtlety that is amazing -- I need to see it a couple more times to appreciate its depth.