Great movies we missed
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What recent movies are recommended in this episode?
This is Ira Glass. On This American Life, one thing we like is a good mystery. Sometimes about really big things, but most times, the little mysteries are the best.
Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know what, I've never seen this happen.
Wait, this is true?
This is true. Mysteries of every size, each week. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
So we cover a lot of movies around here, many of which we adore. But look, we are but mere mortals and some really good stuff is inevitably gonna pass us by. which is why we're taking a beat now to spotlight some favorites we just couldn't get to before. I'm Ayesha Harris, and joining me today to recommend some great movies we missed on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is my co-host, Linda Holmes. Hey, Linda. Hello, Ayesha. Hello. Also with us is NPR film critic Bob Mondello. Welcome back, Bob.
Great to be here.
Great to have you. And rounding out the panel is Walter Chow. He's a writer, critic, and film instructor at the University of Colorado. Welcome back to you too, Walter.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, it's great to have you all here. Let's get right into it. Linda, you're going to kick us off with your pick, which I have not seen yet, but I've been hearing about it for a very long time now. I'm very curious to hear more about this. So tell us what it is.
All right. So I chose Tuner, which I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival. And what I found in my notes when I looked back at this movie is the comment, I saw things at the film festival that were more ambitious than this. I don't know that I saw anything at the film festival that that I found more entertaining than this. It is a crime drama directed by Daniel Rohr, who was the director of the documentary Navalny, which won the Oscar a couple years ago. And it's about a kid played by Leo Woodall, and his name is Nicky, and he has hypersensitive hearing. And it makes it very difficult for him to move through the world because he's very sensitive to loud noises and things. But that exquisite ability to hear,
has made him a good piano tuner. And he works for a guy named Harry, who is played by Dustin Hoffman, who has a piano tuning business and goes around to different places and tunes pianos. So he's basically the apprentice to Harry. Harry's wife, played by Tova Feldsha, they're kind of his surrogate parents. And he loves and adores them. And one thing leads to another. Harry forgets the combination to his safe. And through all of this, Nicky realizes that in addition to tuning pianos, He can crack safes because of his exquisite hearing. It turns out those skills are connected. So he sort of gradually slides into this life of what he considers to be kind of pretty victimless crimes, mostly because he wants to help this couple that he loves and adores who need help.
Naturally, he gets in way over his head. At the same time, he has met a woman played by Havana Rose Liu, who is a musician at a conservatory, at a music school. And while he's tuning a piano there, they meet, they become interested in each other. Part of it is a crime drama. There's a lot of heist stuff. There's a lot of running around and trying, you know, not to get caught doing different things. But it's also really fundamentally a drama about this guy and his close relationship with this couple that he loves and his effort to get into this relationship with this woman. And what I really liked about it is that balance of elements, but also it has a couple of filmmaking pieces that I really responded to.
It has a very jazzy piano soundtrack that I enjoyed a lot. I love a jazzy piano. And if you think about watching a guy crack safes, The worry is it's going to be a lot of sitting there with a guy crouched down by a safe with his hand up to his ear. And what exactly are you going to be watching, right? There's a lot of really cool, well-executed macro photography where they kind of go inside the safes and they go also inside pianos. And I think they do a great job of making it...
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