TrustMovies

David Frankel's THE BIG YEAR: that rare movie for birders arrives on DVD

2012-02-02T14:58:00.001-05:00

Someone at Fox studios must be into bird-watching bigtime, no? Otherwise why greenlight a movie based around an activity (and that activity's "annual event") of which few in the mainstream audience will have heard or probably care. Still, Fox did it, and Trust Movies is glad -- for the result, while no ground-breaker or record-setter in any category, remains a very pleasant comedy with enough charm and laughs to entertain for its 100 painless minutes. Plus, it gives those of us who know little about bird-watching the opportunity to understand a bit of its quiet, though colorful, allure.

Directed by David Frankel (shown at left, of Marley and Me and The Devil Wears Prada) and written by Mark Obmascik (from his book of the same name) and Howard Franklin, the movie, which takes place over approximately one year, details the trials of three bird-lovers who hope to win the award for spotting the most rare birds within a single year. This means hopping from one part of our vast country to the other -- and even abroad -- to see and/or hear the song of the birds in question. Interestingly, this contest proceeds on the honor system, something that appears to have practically died out in the western world. (In the eastern? Forget it. Honor just means you can kill your sister for her infraction of being human.)

Because these "birders" are played by Owen Wilson (above, as the guy who already holds the crown for bird-spotting), Steve Martin (below, right) and Jack Black (below, left), it should be clear that we are in for some fun -- though all three of these fine performers, while exhibiting the stuff we have come to enjoy and expect from them, keep their worst habits in check, playing instead for some subtlety and humanity. Their characters (and their lives) are a bit more complicated than is necessary for mainstream. This makes the movie perhaps less "riotous" but a lot more bearable.

Almost a rom-com, the film does not finally provide the ladies on view with enough control or screen time to do more than stand by their man (for awhile, in one case; in the other, to first discover that he is her man). But the three -- JoBeth Williams, Rosamund Pike (below) and Rashida Jones -- do more thsn enough with what they are given.

No great shakes, the movie would not have called out for me to cover it were it not for its unusual theme -- which is treated decently, I think, right through to the end credits -- in which all 750-odd birds spotted that year are given a visual (albeit, a very brief one) on the left hand side of the screen, as those credits pass by on the right. The Big Year is available now on DVD and Blu-ray (it looks smashing in the latter venue).

Ben Wheatley's KILL LIST hits theaters, while DOWN TERRACE streams on Netflix

2012-02-01T19:40:00.001-05:00

Flavor of the bi-month (in the FSLC's current issue of Film Comment) and flavor of the quarter (as his film makes the cover of Cinema Scope), Ben Wheatley would seem the current darling of the British independent film scene. Well, we're all always looking for something new-and-different, and Wheatley, at first glance, does provide it. But after a moment-or-two's reflection, it seems to TrustMovies that new-and-different may not quite be synonymous with extra-special. Since KILL LIST, Mr. Wheatley's second feature as director and co-writer, opens theatrically this week, we'll tackle it first, though I might suggest that, before viewing Kill List, you stream his first feature (also-much-loved-by-Brit-crits), DOWN TERRACE (it's available now via Netflix), if only because Kill List will then seem a step upwards in some regards.

Mr. Wheatley, shown above, likes meshing (and messing with) various genres. Kill List, which begins but one step above current Brit miserabilism and family dram/com, goes on to enter the crime-and-hit-man areas, and finally comes out looking like an only-slightly-updated Hammer horror of, say, The Wicker Man sort -- but with some ersatz politics tossed into the mix. The big problem is that, despite relatively good work by all in the writing, acting and directing arenas, this genre-jumbling does not feel the least organic. Instead, it goes along clunk, clunk, clunk.

The first clunk comes with practically the opening frame, in which we see what looks like some kind of Blair Witch insignia. Aha! we think: Scary horror film. (I understand about foreshadowing and all that -- we learned it in school -- but this very early and not at all subtle hint is a bit much.) But then we're suddenly in family rom/dram/com territory, as hubby and wife argue about money and responsibility and what not. Along the way, we note that hubby and his buddy are involved in some kind of military or government-sponsored "business" that went a little haywire some time back.

And then we have a family dinner, in which buddy's date, during a visit to the loo, does something that sounds the second "clunk" of the evening, in an even less subtle manner. And then the killings start (Or maybe they've already begun -- it's been several months since I've seen the film, so its timeline is growing a bit foggy.) One by one, each grows more graphic than the one that preceded it. The second is so bloody/ghastly that my female guest said she came close to rising and talking back to the screen as she walked out of the auditorium, but she stayed silent in her seat, so as not to embarrass me.

By the time we get to the finale Hammer horror section, which really does seem like it is taking place in another movie (we and our two heroes have to traverse underground tunnels to get to this section, and what could be more organic than that), we're primed for just about anything. Which is pretty much what we get. The finale, however, would seem more of a transgressive shocker if A Serbian Film hadn't beaten it to the punch a year or two previous.

Kill List remains impressive on some fronts, chiefly the idea of melding these specific genres rather than its execution. And the cast is quite good, too. I found it a step up from Wheatley's first film in its ambitions, while the psychology of the characters -- at least those in its first two sections -- are quite a bit more on-the-mark.

***********

Down Terrace is certainly more of-a-piece than its predecessor. It does not switch genres but is from the outset what you'd call a dark family/crime comedy. Unfortunately it seems to be rooted in the kind of movie-making that says, "Wouldn't it be funny if such-and-such happened?!" and then sets out to make such-and-such happen -- despite everything we know about psychology, human beings, family bonding, and even drug trafficking (and other popular movie endeavors).

The film begins with father and son leaving the local police station where they appear to have "beaten the rap," though we don't know now (hell, by the end of the movie, we still don't quite know, though we can hazard a good guess) of what that rap consists.

We meet Ma (very well played by Julia Deakin, above) and then several of her's and Pa's friends and neighbors, as well as son's new girlfriend -- all of whom are involved in the family's unsavory whatever. Someone mentions a possible police informant -- and suddenly the shit hits the fan. What had initially seemed a family of weird people soon degenerates into a group for whom Charlie Manson would blush.

When the killing starts in this film, it never stops, growing crazier and less believable with each new "hit." And the film is only occasionally funny, though, as with Kill List, very well-acted. These characters are so very unbelievable as human beings that all credibility soon flies out the window. How could people this nutty have even begun to successfully man (and woman) an illegal business without screwing things up almost at once? The plotting here is by-the-book but pretty weak, and the psychology is nearly non-existent.

Why would the son, for instance (he's the first character in the film to be seen as clearly off-his-rocker) not take to heart word that his pregnant girlfriend (above, left) might just be preggers by another guy? Instead, it's like he never ever heard it, and what happens then, well, you'll see....

It's all just dark, darker, darkest -- with more than a trace of, gosh, aren't we smart/cute! Which is why I give the nod to Kill List as the better of the two films. It opens (at 95 minutes, via IFC Films) this Friday, February 3, in New York City at the IFC Center (and perhaps elsewhere around the country), after playing VOD for the past month or so. Down Terrace (89 minutes, from Magnet Releasing), as stated earlier, is available for streaming via Netflix and perhaps other VOD-type venues.

Sci-fi/romance/meditation: The brilliant PERFECT SENSE is a best-yet for Mackenzie

2012-01-31T12:19:00.002-05:00

The most thrilling thing about this job (other than it pays no money) involves sitting down one evening in front of your widescreen monitor and placing a screener of a new film, which you know almost nothing about, into your Blu-ray player, pressing "play" and... omigod, finding yourself fucking blown away. Excuse the French, fans, but that was my experience this past Sunday evening as we watched PERFECT SENSE, the latest from Brit filmmaker David Mackenzie (Young Adam, Asylum, Mister Foe and, yes, Spread). Written by Kim Fupz Aakeson -- the Danish screenwriter whose best-known films over here are probably last year's A Somewhat Gentle Man and Soap (from 2006) -- the movie works brilliantly as science fiction, love story, and meditation/
philosophy on how resilient we human beings can be in the face of one devastating loss after another.

This movie surprised me, scared me, moved me, entertained me and made me think, feel and (very occasionally) smile. How much better does it get? (There is not a lot of humor here; look elsewhere if you must have that.) I don't want to say too much about the film's plot, as part of the joy of this experience is discovery. Ewan McGregor (above, right) plays a chef who can fuck -- quite well, it would seem -- any number of ladies but must always sleep solo, while Eva Green (above, left) is an epidemiologist with problems of her own. When an outbreak of heavy-duty sorrow, followed by the loss of the ability to smell, infects people around the globe, these two meet and slowly bond, as the world (as they've known it) begins to change rather hugely.

We see this change mirrored in the lives of our twosome, as well as in clips from various spots around the globe, and perhaps the smartest move of the filmmakers was to shoot short segments on various continents -- Asia, Africa and the like -- and then to place these carefully, cleverly into their film. Using old (or even new) newsreel footage would not have worked nearly as well, because that non-specific footage of course would not include what is happening to the world under this particular scenario -- which is nothing like anything that has happened before.

MacKenzie -- pictured above, looking out the window of what, I believe, is the apart-ment of our hero in the film -- has managed some truly adroit genre-jumping in this movie. He, together with Mr. Aakeson, makes the mystery of what is happening both exciting and suspenseful -- better yet, believable, in a way that many bigger-budget films do not manage -- building ever more quickly and sadly toward the inevitable. Yet because he has cast the film so well, using some of his regulars like McGregor and Ewen Bremner (at right, in the photo above), the characters easily pull us into their lives, so that the romance of the movie demands as much caring and attention from us as does the sci-fi plot. This is a balancing act your rarely see accomplished this well.

Casting McGregor and Ms Green was particularly fortuitous because these two are such beautiful people, with gorgeous bodies and warm, open faces, as comfortable unclothed as clothed (McGregor's package is on display again, though not nearly as fully as in Young Adam or The Pillow Book). As the troubled lovers who center the film, these two are also good enough in the acting department to make us care about their relationship -- which finally stands for whatever love is left alive in this dying world.

I'm not going to say more about the film -- except see it, and deal with it. It may remind you, on one hand, of a movie such as the delicate and lovely The Five Senses or maybe that still-the-best-end-of-the-world work, Last Night (both via Canada) and on the other something like Blindness but raised to the nth power. I hesitate to compare it to Never Let Me Go, since so many people I know loathed that movie for its darkness and despair (I loved it for its overpowering humanity). Perfect Sense is not as political as Never Let Me Go, in which the "haves" demand everything, including the final sacrifice, from the "have-nots." But because Perfect Sense exists to make us think about and care for civilization, it is also a most humane and wonderful film.

From IFC Films, Perfect Sense opens this Friday, February 3, in New York City at IFC Center, and elsewhere I hope. It can also currently be seen on IFC's In Theaters & On-Demand program. Click here to learn how to view the movie via VOD.

Green Sleaze: Laura Israel's WINDFALL tracks wind energy in upstate New York

2012-01-30T18:31:00.001-05:00

How disappointing is the experience of viewing WINDFALL, the award-winning documentary by longtime editor and now filmmaker Laura Israel about the coming of wind energy to a small farming town in upstate New York? Hugely. And I don't mean the movie itself -- which seems the very model of a smart, thoughtful documentary about a timely and important subject. No, I am speaking of the reaction that many of us who thought we were "green" -- welcoming all forms of safe and effective alternative energy -- are likely to have after experiencing this 83-minute movie. It will turn many of our preconceptions upside down.

Ms Israel, shown at right, starts slowly, introducing us to the townfolk of Meredith, New York, one by one or two by two. They all seem like such nice people, and indeed they were until a certain company dedicated to installing windmills in upstate New York came calling. The manner of this calling is on the individual person or family, and when any interest is shown, the company requires a confidentiality agreement to be signed. Why? We soon discover that the reason is damned sleazy. When word gets out, as of course word does in a small town, neighbor is soon pitted against neighbor, as some of the less trusting townspeople want to know many more facts and explanations than are being provided.

The one young man who represents the company (and has since parted ways with it), does seems like a decent sort (perhaps this is why ways were parted), and as we learn more of the facts about the windmills to be installed (they are 400 feet high and are to be built awfully close to the surrounding buildings), we also learn about some other communities in New York State and abroad in which windmills have become the bane of residents' existence: health problems, noise pollution, sleep deprivation and so on. ("Imagine, one fellow tells us, "your vacuum cleaner running right beside your bed all night!")

How can all this be? Wind energy is green, after all! Yes, and so is the money that (oh god, here they are again) corporations and shadow banks are making (as well as enjoying heavy-duty and repeated tax breaks) from the construction and operation of the windmills. And yet it seems that the town of Meredith is deeply divided over allowing wind energy into its midst. We hear from various people on this subject, and get to be flies on the wall at town council and planning board meetings. Finally it becomes a question of, if possible, kicking the bums out and voting in a entirely new slate of town leaders in order to stop this incursion. And yet, not all of the pro-wind townsfolk are bums. Many have been good, solid citizens for years, though Ms Israel manages to let us see the conflicts-of-interest that appear to have attached themselves to some elected members of the council who are also -- surprise! -- among the most prosperous of the town's population.

In a sense, little Meredith is a microcosm of big America, where money walks, talks and rules. We're there for all of it, thanks to Ms Israel and her crew, and we come away from the ordeal, I think, a lot wiser than we went in. We can be for "green energy" (god knows, the Meredith residents still are) but done on a scale that matches the community. I was sorry that Ms Israel did not stop the soundtrack's music or commentary long enough to let us simply listen to what one of these windmills sounds like from inside a nearby home. Otherwise, however, she's given us plenty to chew on and mull over. Perhaps it's time for a new rendition of the ever popular British folk song Greensleeves. This time out, it's Green Sleaze, with lyrics to match: Alas, my love, ye do me wrong, to build yer windmill so close to town...

Windfall, with theatrical distribution via First Run Features, opens this Friday, February 3, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and in eight more cities over the next couple of months. Click here for all currently scheduled playdates.

Getting a jones for Preston Miller's JONES, an earlier film from the God's Land director; it's on FANDOR now -- for free!

2012-01-29T18:59:00.005-05:00

Since God's Land was (and still is) my favorite film from last year -- this doesn't necessarily make it the "best" film, by the way, just my personal favorite because it went places and did things for me that no other movie accom-plished (my earlier review is here) -- I wanted to take a look at something else from its filmmaker, Preston Miller. Mr. Miller was kind enough to send me a DVD of his earlier movie JONES, which I finally got around to watching the morning. It's different enough in some ways, similar in others, to make Miller seem an even more interesting director and one worth keeping an eye on.

What the two films have most in common, I think, is Miller's interest in filming in real time (the filmmaker is shown at left). He edits a good deal less than do many other filmmakers, and while this made God's Land pretty lengthy (nearly three hours), Jones is surprisingly short -- just 76 minutes. The title refers to the title character (played oddly but indelibly by a Brooklynite from Texas named Trey Albright), and also -- perhaps not by intention but by the way art is created sub-consciously -- to both the Jones Mr. Jones has for many things Asian, and the Jones some of us viewers may get from watching Albright (below) in the altogether, full-frontal and (in one scene, at least, semi-erect.

The actor has a good body: muscular (but not "toned"), pale and freckled, and he uses it naturally and easily, whether clothed in a business suit (below: Jones is up in New York City on business, shooting a video for a legal deposition) or in nothing at all. Most odd is his non-business attire, as he strolls around Manhattan in what is clearly chilly weather, clad only in a jeans and a t-shirt, while everyone around him wears sweaters and/or jackets.

This creates an odd tension, setting Jones apart in yet one more manner, as he wanders the Big Apple,

drifting into a bar and engaging in conversation with a fellow (Bob Cabrini, above, right) who just might be a "made" man,

taking a subway to the end of its line,

and hiring a call girl (Amy Chiang, above, but below Jones).

The single really odd thing in the film is how we finally cannot hear all of Jones' dialog. We hear what the other person is saying, but sometimes (unless this was a glitch in the DVD*) we can't hear what actor Albright is saying, particularly in that bar scene. Whether this means that what he is saying is relatively unimportant, or maybe boring (the dialog is not what you would call slick) I don't know. I think this cutting-it-out, however, is somewhat misjudged, but as a stylistic "tic," it's no deal-breaker.

The sex scenes are quite realistic, so if this sort of thing disturbs you, be warned. They are not, however, unpleasant. They're just there, and every bit as natural as is Jones himself. Since the character, we have already learned, is happily married to a woman expecting his child, the question of why he is doing what he is doing does crop up.

Mid-sex, he suddenly seems to either lose his erection or have his attention wander. We learn why, in interesting fashion, at a later point in the film. But for now, as we know he craves Asian culture, I would say he is simply acting like men often act when on a business trip -- getting what they cannot get at home, adultery and Moses' commandment be damned. (Jones also engages with a young woman in the street -- photo at bottom -- who's having a problem with her new infant, and we see him react a bit haltingly to the prospect of being a father.)

Needing more of this special Asian hospitality, Jones craves a second night of pleasure but maybe wants to save money by going to the establishment itself (it's $200 a pop for the girl to come to him, but only $150 if he goes to her). This leads to the film's quiet climax, in which our hero gets a bit more (and less) than he bargained for.

Jones seems to me a nice precursor to Miller's later film: thoughtful, never less than interesting and very well-acted and directed. Made in 2005, it shows a filmmaker exploring and taking chances, both of which pay off here -- but even more beautifully and spectacularly in God's Land. You can savor Jones on Fandor now. In fact, the film site is offering a free 7-day pass, and if you log in with Facebook, you can watch the whole movie free. Might be a good way to get acquainted with Jones and with Fandor.
Or, you can purchase a Jones DVD here.

* It apparently was a DVD glitch. Preston Miller has informed me that the Jones character is indeed meant to be heard throughout the bar scenes, and that the DVD I obtained had somehow mis-fired. For those of you watching the film via Fandor, don't worry: Miller quickly went on Fandor to make sure that its copy was OK. It is.

GREEN FISH: Lee Chang-dong's first great film is worth a rent from Netflix

2012-01-27T18:57:00.002-05:00

For those of us who have wondered from where the likes of Poetry, Secret Sunshine and particularly Oasis may have sprung, I advise a look at GREEN FISH (Chorok mulkogi), the first great film to be directed (and the second one to be written) by the successful South Korean novelist Lee Chang-dong. It's all here -- everything we now love about this filmmaker's work -- how he corrals before us a whole society, but one in which there are no villains nor heroes, only men and women composed of varying levels of good and bad, trying to negotiate life in today's South Korea. Which, by the way, Lee (more than any other Korean filmmaker I can name) makes a perfect stand-in for the modern, "civilized" world as we know it, whether east or west.

Mr. Lee, shown at right, has the good novelist's knack for creating rich characters rooted in psychological realism, as well as in their culture, who behave with a simultaneous consistency and surprise that, while it keeps us guessing, never strains credibility. Whatever his people choose to do at a given moment usually works -- and on a number of levels. This is particularly true of the movie's "hero," a young man named Makdong (played beautifully by Han Suk-kyu, below, right) who is just out of the military and on a train speeding toward his family and maybe, if he's lucky, decent employment.

On that train, as Makdong stands leaning into the breezy open doorway at the end of his car, he sees a young woman (played by the lovely Shim Hye-jin, above, left) doing the same thing at the other end of the car. In a sudden, perfectly accomplished moment, her purple scarf blows off of her and down the outside of the speeding train-car into the young man's face, literally covering his entire head. When he pulls off the scarf, she has disappeared inside the train.

The young man goes to look for her, and so begins a series of meetings and partings, feints and parries, connections made and missed that take Makdong into much stranger and dicier territory that includes his own fractured, down-on-its luck family (one of his brothers, like the girl in Oasis, is a cerebral palsy victim); the dream-girl (who turns out to be the girlfriend of a mob boss); that mob; the boss (a smart, sad performance by, I believe, Mun Seong-kun, above, right) a competing gang; the police; and more.

Here is everything from one of the great screen kisses (above) to a funny, family "pee" (below). Through it all, Makdong learns and grows, even as he remains the truest, most reasonable and probably the kindest and most genuinely courageous of all the people on view. (This makes the movie's climax something especially difficult but also salutary.) Yet no one here is a total loser; each is given moments of understanding and intelligence, even if he or she uses these to little avail. And the ending, as in all of Lee's films, is simply amazing -- going past that unusual "climax" into a denouement that allows us to see this sad, beautiful, troubling world more fully than we could have imagined.

This film, like all of Mr. Lee's, is a gift. Accept it, please. (The DVD, by the way is in one of those old-fashioned, full-screen formats, and the quality is not first rate. No matter: Within minutes, you'll be hooked, though the only placed I think the movie is still available for rent is via Netflix. Or you can purchase it on Amazon and Ebay.)

Lionel Rogosin's problematic COME BACK, AFRICA, re-released after half a century

2012-01-26T20:17:00.004-05:00

Hot (well, warm) on the heels of its autumn 2010 re-release of Lionel's Rogosin's 1957 classic On the Bowery comes Milestone Films' re-release of Rogosin's follow-up COME BACK, AFRICA (made surreptitious-ly in darkest South Africa in 1959): a movie as odd and memorable in its way as was On the Bowery (a film that kept winning documentary awards -- although it was and is no documentary at all).

Come Back, Africa is even less like a doc than its predecessor, yet there, on the IMDB, in black and white, it is categorized as -- yup! -- a documentary. Instead it is a narrative movie about a relatively young black man living in South Africa during that country's dreadful near-half-century of apartheid. In it, Rogosin, shown at right, tracks the activities of this man (his name is Zacharia, and he is played somewhat haltingly but exceedingly believably, and with great humanity and warmth by Zacharia Mugabe -- shown below) in his first and only role as a performer.

Rogosin made his film on the sly, so to speak, fooling the South African powers-that-were into thinking that he was making, first, a travelogue for an airline company, then a movie about South African native music, and finally (to the delight of those in power) a film about the Boer War. But he did it. Despite incredible obstacles, the fellow got his film.

Before I go further, however, I need to make clear that, despite its being an amazing endeavor and coup, I don't think Come Back Africa is a terribly good film. Yet it is an important one as a social/political document and a project that shows what an engaged filmmaker can accomplish against great odds. No one else had attempted anything as bizarre and dangerous as this -- to show the world what life for Blacks under Apartheid was like -- but Rogosin had the courage and strength to try it, and succeed, even if the finished product is wanting.

What's wrong with Come Back, Africa? A lot. The story grows more melodramatic as it goes along, ending up in a frenzy that, as sad as it is, and as good a job as the leading actor manages, is still too heavy-handed by half. (Not that the events themselves are unbelievable, but as Rogosin shows them, they're just too much -- shown too quickly.)

The white (liberal, anti-apartheid) folk recruited to play nasty white South Africans are also not very good. But they're not actors, and so they overplay it. Again, not that real people weren't as obvious and unpleasant as we see here. But they were undoubtedly a lot more real, for the acting on-view tends to be one-note. The screenplay strains to encompass a wide swatch of Black life, but is almost always most effective when it simply shows rather than speaks. The street scenes of young musicians performing before a white audience (above) are clearly documentary and much more real than most of the "acted" situations.

There is one particularly interesting scene in which a group of Black men discuss everything from socialization to religion to the behavior of one of their own criminals. This scene has the sound of improvisation -- from men who know what they're talking about, and so it grabs you. The guys are joined eventually by Miriam Makeba who sings a terrific number that suddenly takes the movie into ultra-professional territory. As was the case with the documentary The Perfect Team, made by the filmmaker's son Michael Rogosin, and which told of the filming of On the Bowery, I believe you should not see the original Come Back Africa without also seeing the documentary (again made by the younger Rogosin), An American in Sophiatown (where much of the film was shot, and which the whites-in-power tore down soon after Rogosin's visit), which tells of the making of this difficult-to-film movie.

The excellent, 52-minute documentary fills in a lot of gaps and also allows us to understand why some of the film doesn't work all that well. As its fine Swiss co-cameraman, Emil Knebel explains, "Some sequences are weaker, but the spirit of the film is very strong." They are, and it is. But it is Ms Makeba, the single most professional person to appear before us -- whom we learn eventually rejected Rogosin's help and went off with Harry Belafonte; hell, even Marlon Brando got into this act) -- who puts the nail in the coffin of Rogosin's "art." She is said, according to a newspaper article of the time, to have called the filmmaker an "amateur." Once you've seen Come Back, Africa, you'll understand what she meant. Rogosin's work was necessary and important, and it is also amateur in many ways.

Come Back Africa -- black-and-white, 85 minutes -- returns to theaters after a 50-year absence (in order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the African National Congress) in a beautiful new restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna, with the assistance of the Rogosin Heritage, with a one-week run at New York City's Film Forum, starting tomorrow, Friday, January 27 (you can order tickets for Film Forum here). If there will be other theatrical playdates prior to a DVD release (which I suspect and hope will include Michael Rogosin's documentary). The first of these will be in San Francisco, at the Roxie Theater, beginning February 3. More to come...

ALBERT NOBBS is back: This feminist fable from Garcia & Close enchants and saddens

2012-01-25T19:07:00.004-05:00

The one-week "Oscar" qualifying run proved more than worth it for ALBERT NOBBS, as this delicate new jewel of a movie from the director of some of the most delicate work in film history, Rodrigo Garcia -- nabbed three nominations this week: Best Actress (Glenn Close) Best Supporting Actress (Janet McTeer) and Best Achievement in Make-up. Set in Ireland a century or more ago, the movie has its "look" down pat, and although it is what you'd call a small movie (small major cast and done at a surprisingly low budget, considering the need for historical veracity), it seems "right" in all respects.

Colombian-born filmmaker Garcia, shown at right, has worked with Ms Close several times now, and their rapport is a good one for this tale of a woman (the, yes, title character) who has been posing and working as a man for several decades. The subject is never brought up, and the word is never spoken aloud, but Albert Nobbs is a feminist film down to its toes because it shows (without "telling") the plight of women, probably more so in Ireland than in most western countries, in terms of their choices and what little means of making a living was available to them at the time.

A man had infinitely wider choices, even a "man" who was not quite a man, as Albert discovered at a young age, when s/he dressed up in drag and began working a job that would have been unthinkable had s/he looked like her own sex. Pretending tends to be easier if a person can go relatively unnoticed, and this appears to have been Albert's modus operandi.

Just as our "man" disappears into his job, so does Ms Close disappear into Albert (she had a hand in the screenplay, as well, which was based upon a short story by George Moore). The actress keeps things quiet and simple. This is definitely not a "showy" performance and yet it is certainly one of the most subtle displays of acting I've seen -- all the more so because it occurs in a role that would seem to call for some bravura stuff. (Well, "bravura," I guess, is what you make it, and Close has made of it something new and different.)

However, all this subtlety and quiet has a downside -- threatening to grow boring -- but just when it does, a new character is introduced, one Hubert Page, above, played by Ms McTeer (yes, we have another cross-dresser in the film). However, McTeer is what we used to call a "big girl" -- and in every way. Standing more than six feet tall, full of energy and courage, this actress grabs the Hubert character and runs with him, turning her "man" into everything that Albert is not: proud, strong, unafraid and as "male" as can be.

The two actresses balance each other -- and the movie -- nearly perfectly. Were they both to win their "Oscar," that would be lovely, though I expect the Academy members will be more impressed with McTeer's strength than with Close's subtlety. We shall see. Meanwhile, content yourself with the other ace performances that Garcia draws from his superbly chosen cast.

There's Pauline Collins as the main-chance innkeeper into whose employ both Albert and Hubert have come; Brendan Gleeson, as the helpful and caring doctor on premises; and Mia Wasikowska (above, left) and Aaron Johnson (below, and lately John Lennon) as two employees at the hotel/restaurant. Ms Wasikowska especially impresses here. This young actress has turned in such differing performances -- Jane Eyre, Alice in Tim Burton's verison of Wonderland, Restless, The Kids Are All Right and That Evening Sun -- as to be nearly unrecognizable from role to role.

In Mr. Johnson's character of Joe, we have a young man who might very well be the movie's hero -- if times were not so bad, and Joe had a bit more feeling for others. His and Ms Wasikowska's story is the other engine that keeps the movie rolling, and through it, we see the pain of class distinction among several injustices. We also see how an epidemic of sickness cuts through society, and how the bourgeoisie fawns over "royalty" (in the person of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, below, doing a couple of walk-ons here).

Albert Nobbs, from Liddell Entertainment and Roadside Attractions, opens nationwide for its return theatrical engagement this Friday, January 27, in what is really an enormous release for a small, independent movie like this. More power to ya, Albert! Click here to see all cities and theaters.

Valérie Donzelli's and Jérémie Elkaïm's DECLARATION OF WAR -- France's submission for "Oscar" bait -- opens

2012-01-24T18:32:00.001-05:00

How odd -- and a little unsettling -- to have found nearly irresistible the first feature film by up-and-coming French movie-maker Valérie Donzelli (that was The Queen of Hearts [La reine des pommes] shown at last year's Rendez-vous With French Cinema--my review is here; click and scroll down) and now to find myself so heavily resisting her second feature work, DECLARATION OF WAR, a film that proved much more popular than her first in her native France. (So popular in fact, that it became France's submission for this year's Best Foreign Language Film, though it made neither the final nominations nor even the short list).

Since first viewing Declaration of War a couple of months back, I've been asking myself why I could so easily resist it, and I think I understand at least some of the reasons. Fortunately (or maybe not), most viewers will not be in my shoes, for they will not have had the opportunity to see The Queen of Hearts. (Though I hope they do, as it is delightful and original.) Ms Donizelli's style (the filmmaker is shown above) in both movies -- hectic, quirky and extremely self-involved -- is quite unusual, and I found this worked exceptionally well for the first film (a rom-com with enormous psychological smarts) and much less so in this new film, which details a pair of young parents whose child develops a life-threatening illness.

Donizelli and Jérémie Elkaïm (above, right, who co-wrote and co-stars in the film) -- are (or were) real-life partners who, we are told, went through an experience quite similar to the parents in the film. Initially Donzelli locks you into things via fast pacing and plenty of incident. I wonder, though, if the couple could have been quite so frenetic and ever on-the-move.

From the super-cute names the pair give themselves (he's Romeo and she's, you got it) to the soundtrack that never shuts up to the super-energetic non-stop movement of the actors and editing, the movie soon begin to seem a little -- no, a lot -- overboard and cute. Eventually, I swear, it could further curdle your buttermilk.

The filmmakers are quite right in their insistence that the movie be about the parents. It is their responsibility, after all, to see that their child survives. The kid himself, at his young age, can do little more than look sweet and get our sympathy. Yet I think Donzelli and Elkaïm mis-step by concentrating so thoroughly and heavily on themselves and their quirks. After a time, they seem to be, above all, prime narcissists.

The two leads are certainly up to snuff with their energy, and their supporting cast -- which includes some fine French actors like Frédéric Pierrot, Anne Le Ny, Brigitte Sy and Elina Löwensohn (the latter's actually Romanian) -- does a great job with barely sketched-in roles.

Voice-over, slow-motion, a musical number and more -- Donizelli has packed it all in, and while some of this indeed works, it is finally too much. For me, anyway. You might have quite a different opinion. And since, at this point, I don't know that America will ever get to view The Queen of Hearts, I hope you do see Declaration of War. At the very least Donizelli's style, I think, is sure to seem unique.

The film, from Sundance Selects, opens this Friday, January 27, in New York (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the IFC Center), San Francisco (good luck trying to search the web for the specific theater!) and Los Angeles (at Landmark's Nuart Theatre) -- followed by a national rollout beginning on Friday, February 3, which also marks the day the film will be available nationwide via Video On Demand.

Eric Schaeffer's AFTER FALL, WINTER probes pain, death, love and relationships

2012-01-23T19:07:00.009-05:00

AFTER FALL, WINTER opens in Paris with a scene of a sick, maybe dying woman, who says to the man caring for her, "Call Sophie." He does. Turns out Sophie is a beautiful young caregiver-to-the-dying, and as the phone conversation proceeds, we get one whopper of a surprise which, if it doesn't immediately glue you to this film, you had better check your pulse. The movie then cuts to New York City, where our hero, Michael, played by Eric Schaeffer (shown below) who also wrote, produced and directed the movie, is having a very bad time.

Michael's latest book can't find a publisher, the guy just sold his NYC co-op at a huge loss, he's moved into a crummy third-world apart-ment, and he's over $600,000 in debt. (But is he happy?) So, when a good friend calls him from Paris and suggests he come visit for awhile, why not? As you might surmise, Sophie and Michael are going to get together. How they do and what happens makes up the meat of the movie (and an exceedingly meaty one it is).

Since 1993 Mr. Schaeffer has made eight full-length films, beginning with his debut effort, the OK-ish, sort-of-real-life comedy about trying to make a movie entitled My Life's in Turnaround. He followed this with the rom-com When Lucy Fell (featuring his starriest cast -- before they were stars), and then the darker Fall, followed by Wirey Spindell -- his exploration of bi-sexuality and romance as an adult and youngster. Then came the Jill Clayburgh/Jeffrey Tambor older-folk rom-com Never Again, and his ensemble rom-com-dram Mind the Gap, and then the follow-up to his first film, this time called They're Out of the Business.

For me, Schaeffer's movies have always been up-and-down affairs, promising more than they delivered. When I say that this is also true for his newest film, I must add that After Fall, Winter is far and away his best work, an often brilliant exploration of modern love-and-need that goes deeply into territory that is primal -- sex, love, pain, death -- and more often than not does that territory full justice. His dialog is real, witty, amusing, and deeply felt. And his situations, as bizarre as they sometimes are, work surprisingly well.

Performances are excellent all-round, with his luminous leading lady -- Lizzie Brocheré (above and below) in her first mostly-English-language performance, proving herself once again an actress of immense talent and beauty. Seen six years ago in the 2006 fraught, French teen-age transgression One to Another (her character here, Sophie, could almost be seen as the outcome of her character Lucie in that earlier film), Ms Brocheré was also first-rate in The Wedding Song (2008). The chemistry between the two leads is simply terrific, whether they are circling each other warily, bonding, spatting or screwing.

I've mentioned the word pain twice already, but I hesitate to go into detail for fear of spoiling things. As a filmmaker, and I suspect as a human being, Mr. Schaeffer wants us to refrain from judging his characters -- any of them. To that end he has arrayed before us their best and their worst qualities (and a lot in between). We're privy to some pretty awful stuff here, and to his credit the filmmaker lets us understand it better than almost any other movie I can think of that dares to go where this one does. From the gypsies to the mistresses of pain, the movie makes us understand things from a very different perspective than we are used to.

Schaeffer continues to learn about film-making technique, as well. After Fall, Winter is certainly his most beautiful movie to date. By using those spectacular Paris locations -- even the deserted warehouses look good -- perhaps this was not so very difficult to achieve. In any case, bravo.

But now: about the ending that Mr. Schaeffer has contrived. By the time we arrive there -- there may be a spoiler ahead -- the filmmaker has taken his story to a crescendo of drama and suspense. He has also painted his "hero" into the kind of corner from which there would appear to be little escape (his heroine perhaps even more so). When I say that we are in Romeo and Juliet territory, I mean it in both a good and bad way. How you'll react to the finale is anyone's guess. But just try to remember all the great stuff that has come before.

After Fall, Winter opens this Friday, January 27, in New York City at the Quad Cinema. Digital distributor FilmBuff (created in 2008) is releasing the film on VOD and Cable on January 31st. The film will play at the Quad through next week, at the Cinekink Film Festival at the Anthology Film Archives on February 8, and at the FACETS CINÉMATHÈQUE in Chicago on February 27. Any DVD release is not yet confirmed.

Norbert López Armado's & Carlos Carcas' architecture doc opens: HOW MUCH DOES YOUR BUILDING WEIGH, MR FOSTER?

2012-01-22T18:57:00.001-05:00

Architects are more and more in the movies these days. Over the past few years, we've had the likes of Louis Kahn, Frank Gehry (and why isn't the Gehry film listed on the IMDB or as part of the oeuvre of its director Sydney Pollack?) and Charles Eames getting their very own movie (though Chas had to share his with wife Ray). Now comes Sir Norman Foster, a knight of the British realm, whose name is new to me -- clearly, TrustMovies doesn't follow architecture: at least, not until a movie is made about that architect -- but whose work, when you see it all together as you do here, is pretty damned impressive.

Filmmakers Norberto López Amado and Carlos Carcas (shown above, with Señor Carcas on the right) have put together a relatively short but slick and quite enjoyable documentary, HOW MUCH DOES YOUR BUILDING WEIGHT, MR. FOSTER?, about the man, his history and work to date, which takes in an enormous array of projects -- office buildings to airports to bridges -- worldwide.

Beginning with (and repeating again at nearly the end) a group of skiers, Foster among them, the movie shows us why this odd skiing event takes on rather incredible meaning, once we have gotten to know the man and his mission for himself and his buildings. Mr. Foster (above) is one of those rare British birds who have managed to escape their "class" and rise to the pinnacle of their field -- no mean feat for a lower-middle-class boy who loved everything "airplane" but who managed to become one of the word's great architects rather than an airline pilot (though he does, now, pilot his own plane).

López Armado and Carcas connect some of the larger dots along Foster's route to stardom (how he came to apply for architecture school in Manchester, England, eventually ending up here in the U.S. at Yale University) but spend even more time showing us his generally wonderful work (one of which, the Swiss Re Building, is above), explaining with brevity and fine visuals, why it's so important. (The end credits give a helpful listing of each building shown -- under an even more helpful heading of the country in which each has been built.)

Along the way, we see and/or hear from an interesting array of other architects and personages -- the ubiquitous Bono, Buckminster Fuller (who is responsible for the film's somewhat bizarre title), Richard Rogers (Foster's former partner, above, and no, not the late Broadway composer), Paul Goldberger (who has called Foster the "Mozart of modernism") and artist/sculptor Richard Serra, among them.

But mostly, it's the building (above), the bridge (below), the airport (two photos down) -- what they are, where they are, and how they came about -- that count. As befits Foster's work and career, the film seems more than a little international. (In these difficult financial times, "Building a global practice is the key to survival," the architect notes.) Certainly his largest and most spectacular edifice is the airport in China, but Great Britain's Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts or that HSBC bank in Hong Kong (in its time, the most expensive building in the world, and one that nearly bankrupted Foster's business) are pretty special, too.

From almost the first, Foster has been concerned with the environment, building the first British hi-tech office building, and using 20 per cent less steel -- most of it recycled steel, at that. These days the fellow is working on creating the first carbon neutral city in the world. A dream? Maybe. Certainly a wake-up call. And if anyone might do it, it's this guy.

The film has been written and narrated (the latter quite well, in a quiet, almost whispered voice, as though some important secrets will be revealed -- which perhaps they are) by Deyan Sudjic. In addition to its Spanish co-directors, there are some estimable members of the Spanish film and television community associated with its production: Joan Valent (composer), Imanol Uribe (associate producer, and a fine director in his own right) and Elena Ochoa (who these days doubles as Mrs. Foster).

Oddly, it's the Foster building closest to me that I find the least impressive (and only from a exterior, visual aspect): that very modern tower atop the old Hearst Building at Eight Avenue and 56th Street in Man-hattan (shown at right). I've only been in it once or twice and can't vouch for what it's like to work in, but visually, from the exterior view, it does not at all fit into its surrounding environment and so stands out like the proverbial sore thumb. The AOL-Time Warner building just a couple of blocks away, on the other hand, works better -- if only by virtue of being able to dwarf everything around it into de-sign submission. However, as befits Foster's insistence on "green" architecture, the Hearst Tower is the first office building in NYC to receive a Gold LEED rating from the US Green Building Council, and so, environmentally speaking, it is way ahead of the game.

How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?, yet another fine documentary from First Run Features, will open this Wednesday, January 25, in New York City at the IFC Center, having already played Chicago, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Cary, North Carolina. Click here for all currently scheduled upcoming playdates.

All photos are from the film itself except those of the directors, courtesy of the San Sebastian International Film Festival,
and of Richard Rogers, which is by Andrew Zuckerman,
and Hearst Tower, cribbed from the web.

Korean Cultural Service hosts free series of films by up-and-coming filmmaker Jang Hun

2012-01-21T22:10:00.002-05:00

NEW YORK CITY -- The Korean Cultural Service's 2012 film series began last week at New York City's Tribeca Cinemas, with the East Coast premiere of Korea's submission to this year's Academy Awards, The Front Line on January 10th and will continue, with a movie shown every other Tuesday night at 7pm, through February 28. (This Tuesday's movie is Rough Cut -- see below.) All screenings are free and open to the public -- a situation that TrustMovies dearly loves -- and this initial series is dedicated to the work of up-and-coming Korean filmmaker Jang Hun (it's titled, poetically, Jang Hun Plus One). Details are listed below:

Korean Movie Nights at Tribeca Cinemas
from January 10, 2012 - February 28, 2012
Courtesy of the Korean Cultural Service

Screenings take place every other Tuesday @ 7:00PM
Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick Street, Manhattan
(on the corner of Canal Street, one block from the A, C, E, and 1 train Canal Street stops)

Admission is free, but all seating is first-come, first served. Doors open at 6:30PM -- so arrive early!

Series One: Jang Hun plus one!

Starting out as an assistant director to Kim Ki-Duk, with his first film, Rough Cut, Jang Hun (shown at right) is said to have established himself as Korea's answer to Steven Soderbergh: a director making big budget movies with an independent sensibility. Three of the films shown in this series -- Rough Cut, Secret Reunion, and The Front Line -- have all become massive South Korean box office hits without making compromises or talking down to their audiences. The series will be rounded out with the North American premiere of a film that's in a similar genre as Jang's but directed by Park Shin-woo: White Night.

Tuesday, January 10 @ 7PM

THE FRONT LINE (East Coast Premiere, 2011)

(Yes: this screening has concluded but the film itself just opened and so can still be seen)

One of the biggest Korean hits of 2011, The Front Line is the simple story of a hill: Aerok Hill, a small rise on the Eastern Front of the Korean War that changed hands 30 times over 18 months of fighting. A military investigator is dispatched to see if allegations that the South Korean soldiers tasked with taking the hill are collabora-ting with their North Korean enemies to deliver letters to their families. It turns out that they are, and that's the least of it. A movie about men (and some women) trying to hold onto their humanity in the midst of war, The Front Line is Korea's official submission to this year's Academy Awards. The film opened this past Friday, January 20, in New York City at the AMC Empire 25 and in New Jersey at the AMC Loews Ridgefield Park 12, and in Los Angeles at the CGV Cinemas and in Monterrey Park the AMC Atlantic Times Square 14.

Tuesday, January 24 @ 7PM
ROUGH CUT (2008)

Kim Ki-Duk wrote this wonderfully high-concept (Asian-Mafia-meets-moviemakers) genre-mash-up that's part thriller, part love story, part identity-changer. It concerns a spoiled actor, famous for playing gangsters, who, for reasons that make excellent sense when you see the film, hires a real-life gangster to appear in his new movie. Filmmaker Jang probes personality, how we see ourselves, and how others see us -- while layering his movie with humor, anger, social comment and fights aplenty.

"Acting" (indeed the whole moviemaking process) gets a good going-over, and both leading men -- So Ji-Sub as the gangster (above, right) and Kang Ji-Hwan as the actor (above, left) -- are gorgeous, sexy and charismatic. This is probably as good an introduction to Jang's work as any, so if you're interested and live in the Tri-State area, try not to miss it.

Tuesday, February 15 @ 7PM
SECRET REUNION (2010)
TrustMovies hasn't seen this one yet, so the below is what the film's publicist has to say about it: I'll post my own thoughts here, just as soon as I've had time to watch the screener....

Two of Korea's best actors face off in this blockbuster action flick that manages to be sly, subversive and really funny while delivering white knuckle thrills. Song Kang-Ho (The Host) is a South Korean secret agent who fumbles a sting operation on a North Korean spy. Pop star Gang Dong-Won (Haunters) is the North Korean assassin who has been embedded in the South. After the botched operation, both men are cut loose by their respective agencies and Song becomes a private eye, while Gang sinks into deep cover, trying to survive long enough to go home. Years later, they cross paths and what audiences are treated to is a buddy movie to end all buddy movies.

Tuesday, February 28 @ 7PM
WHITE NIGHT (North American Premiere, 2009)

TrustMovies hasn't seen this one yet, so the below is what the film's publicist has to say about it: I'll post my own thoughts here, just as soon as I've had time to watch the screener....

White Night is a sprawling, evil epic about an unsolved crime that happened 14 years previously that has spilled its poison out over the subsequent years. Based on a best-selling Japanese novel, and featuring a riveting performance by Ko Soo, star of The Front Line, director Park Shin-Woo turns this movie into a slick, beautifully realized film about true evil, as a detective refuses to let go of this single case, instead insisting on following its threads for years no matter where they lead. And where they lead is dark and truly shocking. This hit film has been called the best Korean film of 2009 by several critics and once you've seen it, it's hard to forget.

Currently, only The Front Line is viewable anywhere except this Korean festival, though both Rough Cut and Secret Reunion can be saved to your Netflix queue (whether "saving" on Netflix means eventually "getting" is debatable these days). White Night is available nowhere on DVD (in a North American NTSC version) that I could find, but maybe, after this premiere screening, some company will get wise and pick it up.

DVD surprise: J. Singleton's ABDUCTION is not the worst movie of your year/lifetime

2012-01-21T10:27:00.001-05:00

So what's with the near-zero score that ABDUCTION rates on Rotten Tomatoes? (Only four critics out of nearly 100 had anything good to say about it.)

TrustMovies is not necessarily going to recommend it, either. He only watched it because Blockbuster, in its usual obtuse fashion, neglected to stock Dirty Girl this week, so there was practically nothing new to take out of the local store. (Yes, TM has gone back to BB, after receiving a free month during which the company promised to show him how much better its "Total Access" program is now than when it first began trying to compete with Netflix some years back. How's it doing? Not so well, but more on this later.)

Meanwhile, back to the movie that was to launch Taylor Lautner's post-Twilight-franchise career. Abduction is slick, shiny, silly, by-the-numbers, fast-moving fun -- boasting a cast of supporting players much better than it has any right to possess. Isn't that Maria Bello (above)? Yes, and there's Jason Issacs, too (below).

And oh, my: Signorney Weaver (shown at right), Alfred Molina (at bottom, left) and Michael Nyqvist (the hero of the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, though, here, he's something less of a good guy). Really now -- how bad can watching these people be? Not bad at all, once you realize how by-the-book this enterprise is. Then you can sit back, relax and enjoy the "moments." And there are a number of fun ones.

My point is, should there be a teenage family member dead set on seeing this movie, don't worry: You can have a good time, too. Enjoy the slickness of the look and the fast pacing that director John Singleton, shown at left, provides (for my money this one's the most fun he's given us since his Shaft remake). Savor the little moments the keep happening when high school kids try to look and act like action/
adventure stars. That's what makes the movie both silly and a little endearing.

The two ostensible leads, Lautner (above, left) and Lilly Collins (above, right), are good-looking youngsters who may someday impress us. For now, they're serviceable but little more, and their would-be love-scene in the compartment of a fast-moving train is a real hoot. These kids strike love-making postures/poses they've clearly seen adult actors handle with aplomb, but when they do it, it's closer to funny. (Not to worry, parents: The two stop before anything untoward happens -- which is itself not particularly believable).

Much of what makes the movie watchable is its sense of kids out of their element and over their heads into everything from espionage to murder, car chases and sex. At one point, their friend Gilly, nicely played by Denzel Whitaker (above, right), asks if these two on the run will be all right, and Ms Collins simply crosses her fingers, as if begging heaven for some good luck. Very childlike, very sweet. It turns out that playing at being grown-ups can still be fun.

Abduction, from Lionsgate, is available now, on Blu-ray or DVD, for sale or rental.

2nd annual MyFrenchFilmFestival.com has smart art/mainstream movies & nice price

2012-01-20T16:05:00.001-05:00

It's back -- and it's better than ever ("ever" being its first appearance last year). MyFrenchFilmFestival.com is the brainchild of UniFrance, Allocine & its partners, who are currently bringing much of the world some of the sharpest French films from the past couple of years, which you can watch via computer or TV monitor -- if you've got the hardware for such a set-up. In French, of course, but with subtitles in the language of the country in which it is being shown, each feature-length movie in the 12-film feature series (there are also 11 short films you can view) costs less than $3 when viewed individually. You can get the entire 23-film series for less than one buck a shot (only $21.11 for the whole shebang). This has got to the be one of the best deals of the year for film buffs, particularly those with a Francophile streak.

Whoops --did I say 23 films? For U.S. audiences, there are only 22, because one of the best of the bunch -- Valérie Donzelli's The Queen of Hearts (La reine des pommes) has not been licensed for U.S. rights. I hope this means that some distributor has picked the film up for U.S. distribution because it is a prime example of what the French do best: rom-coms based in psychological and other real-world truths, done with style to spare. The film -- that's Donzelli and her co-star Jérémie Elkaïm, above -- was first shown here in last year's Rendez-vous with French Cinema but has not been seen in New York since then, and it ought to be because it is even better than Donzelli's about-to-break Declaration of War, which was France's selection for this years Best Foreign-Language Film award (but did not make even the shortlist). I'll have more to say about her new film next week.

Other worthwhile films from this year's group include 8 Times Up (8 Fois Debout, above), Love Like Poison (Un poison violent, below) and Living on Love Alone (D'amour et d'eau fraîche, at bottom of post). For a capsule review of each, click on the title links just above, then scroll down until you hit the film.

This year's festival began over a week ago, but I was not informed of it until just recently, so I apologize for the late post. There are a number of other good movies on the program which I'll hope to see -- and hope that you will, too. Meanwhile, click here to view the entire schedule and to order films.

That old panderer Jean-Luc Godard gives us something to ponder in FILM SOCIALISM

2012-01-19T13:33:00.003-05:00

Oh, am I using that headline word incorrectly? I don't think so. According to my dictionary, a panderer, in addition to a sexual procurer, can be someone who "caters to or exploits the lower tastes and desires of others." While one does not necessarily think of intellectual pursuits as part of the "lower" tastes and desires, it seems to me -- and has for some time now -- that Jean-Luc Godard has become, intentionally or not, a fake who appeals to our pretensions more than anything else. And to my mind our pretensions qualify as lower tastes and desires.

Once upon a time, this filmmaker (shown at right) made a ground-breaking but not-very-good movie (Breathless) and then a much better one (Le Petit Soldat -- so important that France banned it for a long while). Otherwise, he's mostly been jerking us around. Misogynistic and misanthropic (the latter can be more easily forgiven than the former because it is at least all-inclusive), like Warhol in art, Godard makes us look at things differently. But not, unfortunately, in ways particularly edifying. So, having given up on JLG some years back, I decided to take a look at his latest, FILM SOCIALISM, with as open a mind as possible (what? You say it's sieve-like?) under these already greatly prejudiced circumstances.

Surprise! I wouldn't call the film a complete waste of time. Here are so many verbal and visual tricks and tics -- subtitles that sometimes do and sometimes don't translate what's being said in the dialog, plus a soundtrack that goes in and out at odd times, and subject headings that seem deliberately unhelpful -- that for a time you can't help but marvel at the filmmaker's use of distraction. Much of the film was also shot aboard a cruise ship, on which we're sailing with a bunch of tourists. Until we're not. (That ship, a friend of mine pointed out this morning, is the lately-infamous Concordia, the captain of which was recently immortalized by the NY Post, in one of its better recent headlines, as "Chicken of the Sea.")

I think you might call this movie another provocation by a provoker of long-standing, in which -- after all the nonsense (with maybe some sense buried deep within) -- the speech and the written word begin to somewhat coincide. Along the way we get a llama (above, left) and a mama (below, right).

We're treated to some Chopin and some Patti Smith (shown below), and on Blu-ray, the movie is often drop-dead gorgeous, with its scenes of the sea and sky pretty damned ravishing. (One character's blue eyes almost look like a special effect.)

We're whisked off briefly to the Palestine of 1926 and elsewhere, and moments from famous old movies are woven in throughout. And, oh, yes, there's politics, consumerism and immi/emigration, too -- though anything Godard might be saying about them that even approaches originality is lost on me. It's all style (I use the word loosely) but little real content here.

Then, near the end, we are shown a wise, old owl (no doubt a stand-in for our filmmaker), followed soon by the words NO COMMENT. Which is why TrustMovies decided to make his own comment via the above post.

Film Socialism, at a rather long 102 minutes, is available now -- for sale or rental -- on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Or you can watch it via Fandor, where it has just become available. Bonne chance, mes amis!

Chad Freidrichs' THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH explores an iconic public housing landmark

2012-01-18T14:03:00.002-05:00

THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH, the fascinating, deeply-felt documentary directed, as well as co-written and co-produced by Chad Freidrichs, takes us back to the post-war years of the 1950s, into the 60 & 70s and up to present-day to tell the tale (debunk it, too) of one of America's most iconic public housing projects -- probably the one that came as much as any to stand for "why public housing never works." As they say: bullshit.

St. Louis, Missouri, was the site of this project, which opened in the early 50s, and Mr. Freidrichs, shown at right, gives us some of the pre-opening PR of the day, making clear that Pruitt-Igoe was indeed a grand vision, as public housing often is. So why this did this one fail, he asks, and then gives some of the possible reasons that have been put forth -- from bad design to the encroachment of the "welfare-state," poverty-level residents that caused all the problems, bad planning and segregation. Yet even before we get to this point in the film, Freidrichs has begun with a present-day interview with a fellow who was a child when he lived in Pruitt-Igoe. He -- and the camera -- go back to the wasteland that is all that remains of the once enormous project, and he tells us a story of the time he returned to this spot, how a dog appeared, and what happened. It's all a little strange and sad; these are the two moods that hang over this documentary and that prepare us for what is to come.

The filmmaker has found a small group of ex-Pruitt-Igoe residents willing to speak about their experience in the project, and these interviews, together with some excellent archival footage, numerous newspaper headlines and stories, and interviews with local historians and officials, weave an all-too-typical tale of -- to TrustMovies' mind -- a project doomed to fail because, while funds for the building's opening and for stocking it full of tenants were provided, the money for maintaining it properly was not. Intentionally, too.

While the project had its supporters (or it would never have been built), it certainly had its enemies: banks, realtors, the Chamber of Commerce among them. Cries about the "erosion of the free market" were shouted and the label Communist! affixed to those who campaigned for the project. Sound familiar? In an interview with the man on the street, that "man" makes it clear that the kind of people who live here are, as he so carefully puts it, "trash."

There's no mention of negro or colored, but the fellow makes his point. All this took place around the time that the cause of civil rights was coming to the fore. During this period, TrustMovies was a student at Principia, a religious college for Christian Scientists, based in southern Illinois, to which St. Louis was the closest "big city." When we students made weekend trips into the city, we were warned to stay away from places like the area where the project was set. At our college at the time, arguments among students often ensued about why no negros were permitted to enroll there, nor at the religious high school located in St. Louis itself. Public housing in St. Louis, according to the historians interviewed, was long used as an issue for segregation,and urban renewal, we are told, was a euphemism for negro removal.

From the interviews with ex-Pruitt-Igoe tenants, we learn of the some of the "rules" enforced by the state at the time: that no able-bodied man could live in the subsidized home, thus breaking up families and making the place, notes one tenant, seem more like a prison from which you'd want to escape.

Some of the anecdotes are wonderful: the mom who could not afford school supplies for her kids and so paints one of the white walls black and provides chalk and erasers so that her kids can always do their homework; another involves the necessity for fighting that a mother makes clear to her son.

The history here is full of hope, questioning, and sadness, with some heartbreaking testimony from tenants who loved the place in its good times and tried to help save it as the bad times grew worse. "A lot of bad things came out of Pruitt-Igoe," notes one ex-tenant early on, "but they don't outweigh the good."

We go through the rent strike in 1969, as life in this project grows nearly untenable. More and more tenants move out, making it even more difficult for those who remain -- because there is now even less income to be used for maintenance. Drugs and crime rise, of course; without proper maintenance of the project, how could they not? The sonorous narration provided by Jason Henry (so different from the narration in yesterday's documentary) is a huge plus to the film, as is the terrific archival footage Freidrichs has provided.

By the time of the project's complete destruction (in the mid 70s), the strongest feeling you'll probably experience is one of sadness at this incredible and unnecessary waste. Once built, Pruitt-Igoe ought to have been maintained. Had it been, it would never have become the landmark-for-failure that this fine documentary now debunks.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth -- from First Run Features, 83 minutes -- opens this Friday, January 20, at the IFC Center in New York City. Click here to see future (and past) screenings, complete with cities, theaters and dates.

Ian Cheney's THE CITY DARK documents what light pollution's doing to the night sky

2012-01-17T14:24:00.003-05:00

Yikes -- another environmental disaster to worry about! If you're anywhere near as old as TrustMovies, you'll be able to remember yourself as a child, looking up at the night sky and seeing the stars. No matter where you lived -- big city or out in the country -- you could still see 'em, though much better in the latter location. Well, no more. Here in New York, and I wager in Los Angeles -- the two places I've spent most of my life -- you're lucky to be able to see even a few of the brighter stars on any given night. According to THE CITY DARK, a new documentary from Ian Cheney (shown below), things are getting worse. We need the dark -- for our and our planet's health and well-being -- so we'd better work on turning down the lights.

You may remember Mr. Cheney from a few years back as the co-producer/writer/star of the very entertaining and useful documentary King Corn. His new film is not so entertaining, due perhaps to its quiet-to-the-point-of-placidity tone, apparent in everything from its pacing to its music and narration. The last is handled, I think, by Cheney himself, who has a reedy, slightly-nasal tenor voice that exhibits little variety or depth. This is not a deal-breaker (the subject at hand is interesting enough to surmount these caveats), but you may need to pinch yourself now and again to keep focused and alert.

Initially, the film seems like simply an ode to the missing night and stars, but as it moves along, we learn that there are some very real threats to our and other species' well-being from this loss of night. (If the title were not already recently taken, they call could have called this one, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.") Birds use the night skies and stars as a kind of map for travel, and we learn of the increase in bird deaths due to slamming into buildings thanks to faulty navigation. (One scientist, below, keeps a feathered record -- drawer after drawer of different dead species -- that he lets the filmmaker peek into.)

Hatching turtles in Florida are experiencing something of this same directional problem. As for we humans, Cheney uses recent statistics drawn from women who work night-shifts (and are thus exposed to much more round-the-clock light) to demonstrate a rise in breast cancer among these darkness-deprived workers.

What about killer asteroids? (Yes, them again!) We visit astronomers in Hawaii -- which Cheney calls the best place in the world to view the heavens (despite another documentary, the award-winning Nostalgia for the Light, that places the "best" in Chile's Atacama Desert facility) -- to view the telescope (above) set up to be able to see these invaders at an early stage.

There's more -- including some smart tips on how to better light our world so that the light shines down where we need it, for safety, rather than every-which-way, particularly up, to obscure more of that precious sky. "All this may seem more spiritual than practical," notes one person interviewed. Yet, it is, in the end, a practical thing, if this loss of darkness impedes our health and safety, which Cheney pretty much proves it is doing.

The question may come down to a matter of priorities. In saving our environment, what's most important: The air? The oceans? Renewable energy sources? Since our great and powerful political leaders seem unable, at this point, to save much of anything, we can hardly hope for great help in saving the dying dark. Still, Mr. Cheney has now brought this to our attention, so we can't say we didn't know. And we're rootin' for you, night sky!

The City Dark , distributed by Argot Pictures and running 84 minutes, opens this Wednesday, January 18, in New York City at the IFC Center. Other playdates across the country will soon follow; click here and scroll down to see all cities and theaters scheduled.

On MLK Day post, a word about THE HELP plus an additional one about THE LEDGE

2012-01-16T20:13:00.001-05:00

Not being invited to see THE HELP prior to its theatrical release, I caught up with it recently on Blu-ray and thoroughly enjoyed it. As obvious a movie in some ways as it is, it is also full of wonderful performances filling out a raft of terrific characters, and of course its theme of overcoming racism is still strongly with us. I have heard criticism from both blacks and and whites about its typical use of whites in the role of the enablers who make it possible for change to come for southern blacks. Yes. Well, there it is: they/we helped. Forgive us, please. But the blacks did the real work. They took the action and paid for it, often, with their lives (as did whites like Goodman and Schwerner).

Seems to me that The Help honors all this in its thoughtful, entertaining way, and since it won several awards, including Best Picture, from the Black Film Critics Circle, it's clear that plenty of blacks out there think so, too. TrustMovies has not put together any Best List for last year because he has not seen nearly all the movies yet, particularly the mainstream variety. When and if he does, The Help will certainly be mentioned.

Meanwhile, let's talk about another important movie from last year that will barely be mentioned because it comes down foursquare against organized religion and faith-in-god as any kind of intelligent principles upon which to base one's actions. The film is titled THE LEDGE, written and directed by Matthew Chapman, and my original review of it appears here. But since it is MLK Day I want to take some extra time to call up a very brave black performance from an actor who is always good and often much more than that: Terence Howard.

For Mr. Howard (above, center) to appear in a movie that disses unintelligent, by-rote faith and to be the catalyst that ends the movie on a wise and thoughtful note of wait-just-a-damn-minute-before-you-automatically-pray -- and then to give that movie his all, as Howard is wont to do in every role -- must have taken some balls. I would think that the black community, with its far-too-encompassing reliance on religion (a religion, I might add, that usually ostracizes gay black men), was not particularly pleased. But this movie deserves to be seen. I wonder what Dr. King, himself a preacher and a "sinner," according to his religion, would have thought about it. I would like to imagine that he'd have been shaken, yes, but over-all pleased. (I think he would be pleased, too, by how far the GLBT community has come in the decades since his untimely death. In fact, these days he would probably not have given a second thought to keeping Bayard Rustin on-staff as one of his right-hand men.) Anyway, see this fine film, a riveting thriller in its own right, and decide for yourself. (You can purchase or rent it on Blu-ray and DVD.)

Frederick Wiseman's CRAZY HORSE: world's most famous documentarian explores world's most famous strip joint

2012-01-15T18:10:00.002-05:00

The great skill that distinguishes the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman is that this filmmaker is so often able to capture the truth of his subjects via their occupations or endeavors and the skills (or not) with which they practice these. As I recall, this ability dates all the way back to Wiseman's first film in 1967 -- Titticut Follies, in which he and his camera visited the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Bridgewater, a prison hospital for the criminally insane -- and to the following year's High School and then Hospital (1970), Basic Training ('71), Juvenile Court ('73) and Welfare ('75: most of his titles are utterly self-explanatory) through to his most recent work, La danse - Le ballet de l'Opéra de Paris (2009), Boxing Gym (2010) and now CRAZY HORSE, in which Wiseman takes us into the world's most famous strip joint, located, of course, in Paris -- the land of l'amour.

Mr. Wiseman, shown at left, has already tackled two very different icons of French culture: the Paris Opera Ballet (with La danse - Le ballet de l'Opéra de Paris) and La Comédie-Française (in his film La Comédie-Française ou L'amour joué. Now, turning his attention to a perhaps less upper-crust subject, he proves without a doubt, TrustMovies thinks, that the Crazy Horse produces art of its own kind every bit as spectacular and enduring, if not quite so cerebral, as those other two institutions. From the "paradoxysm of eroticism" spoken of as female nude bodies swerve and sway beneath a unique polka-dot lighting design, this movie is something else.

These lighting effects -- ranging from bizarre to bananas -- are as much a part of the art as are the bodies, choreography and (very skimpy) costumes. And Wiseman's camera (using his longtime cinematographer John Davey) catches everything in a manner both on-the-fly and at rapt attention so that you don't want to blink in fear of missing something extraordinary. At one point, I swear that the camera comes in close enough on an undulating crotch to put you in mind of cunnilingus.

But that's the point: Nearly everything at the Crazy Horse -- each tiny movement, teensy costume, fashion-forward wig and formidable body (the accent, as preferred so they say by most Frenchmen, is always on the butt and pelvic area rather than on the breasts) accentuates sex and is nearly guaranteed to turn you on. Bob Fosse must have studied here.

The choreographer and man most important to the show turns out to be Philippe Decouflé (above, left), who is rehearsing his newly-developed show titled DÉSIR (Desire) which made its debut in the fall of 2009 and is still being performed. We and Wiseman watch as the dancers learn their moves, struggle with recalcitrant costumes and lighting effects, and along the way perform parts of the show. We even, toward the end, watch as a new group of dancers auditions for Decouflé and crew. (This is particularly interesting because, by now, having seen so much, we understand what is necessary and so can do a pretty fair job of judging which dancers will make it and which will not.)

We even get conflict -- a "must" for all good dramatic films, which this of course, is not -- as Decouflé struggles with management and the venue's owners over some "down" time for him and his dancers. "To have the best nude dance show, we must close for awhile," he tells them. But the answer is no. The choreographer's perfectionism, coupled to the dancers' draining schedule -- seven days per week, two shows nightly and three on Saturday -- would give our own Radio City Music Hall Rockettes nightmares. (Perhaps it's easier doing a show dedicated to producing hard-ons rather than family entertainment, though the Rockettes have been noted -- unintentionally, of course -- to create both.)

Among the crown jewels of the film is a mirror dance that has orifices appearing where they never could, anatomically speaking. We don't spend too much time, however, with the girls themselves (above: the dancers' dressing rooms are completely off limits to men, so guys, this is a one-time only chance to grab a peek); consequently we can't come to know much about them or their lives (they exist here mostly as perfect bodies and dance machines). But we do hear a little from a couple of Decouflé's underlings, who consider themselves fortunate indeed to be able to work at the Crazy Horse.

As are we, to be able to take in the glories of the feminine form when its gilded with the artful use of light, color, silhouette, and more. This one, a must for the art-house trenchcoat brigade, should find favor with a surprisingly wide spectrum of film-goers and ensure a host of new patrons who'll want to see it all "live" at its home base in Paris.

The film, two-hours-and-fourteen-minutes long, glides by surprisingly fast. From Zipporah Films (Wiseman's own distribution company), Crazy Horse opens this coming Wednesday in New York City at Film Forum for a three-week run, after which it will play some 22 cities throughout the country. For a look at playdates, cities and theaters currently scheduled, click here and then scroll down. Note: Frederick Wiseman will appear in-person at Film Forum on Wednesday, January 18, at the 6:45 show!

All photos are from the film itself, courtesy of Zipporah Films, except that of Mr. Wiseman himself, which is by Montse G. Castillo.

DVDebut -- Todd Haynes' MILDRED PIERCE proves mostly drama in place of melodrama

2012-01-14T19:39:00.001-05:00

Money talks, walks & squawks throughout the new-on-DVD HBO miniseries MILDRED PIERCE. They could have called it Mildred Purse. For those of us (most of us, I suspect) who know the work via the 1945 Curtiz/Crawford movie, rather than the original James M. Cain novel, the biggest surprise may be that the damn thing registers more as drama than the melodrama (a delicious one) that the highly telescoped movie provided.

In the hands of Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven), as director and co-writer, we would expect the right look for the time and place, as well a smart approach to a movie so centered on a woman and her travails (Safe), and one in which the social milieu (Velvet Goldmine) and the mysterious shards of character (I'm Not There) count for so much. Haynes, pictured at right, does not disappoint. Neither does his star Kate Winslett, who makes Mildred a full-bodied (and -brained) woman of her time whose solution to her money problems (the story takes place during the years of the Great Depression) catapults her and her family and friends into tasty success (this series will make you crave pie).

One of the keenest pleasures to be found is derived from the fact that Haynes (and maybe Caine, too) sees no villains here. Even Mildred's daughter Veda, certainly the least likable of the pack (even her musical mentor calls her a snake), is simply behaving true to form and to what she perceives are her own best interests. Everyone here does this, including Monty Beragon, played with a relaxed grace and built-in hauteur, in what is his best performance in years, by Guy Pearce (above).

In addition to Monty's character being much more fleshed out and believably human, the biggest surprise to me in the film is the handling of Mildred's first husband, given decency and strength by Brian F. O'Byrne (above, center), a fine actor who registers extremely strongly in this role.

The more than five-and-one-half hours of running time enables Haynes and Winslett to to explore character and motivation more deeply than the 111-minute earlier film, and we we're treated to a better understanding Mildred's difficulties in first finding a job then rising to the top via her own skills and the help of others.

Those others include a starry supporting cast of well-chosen actors, all of whom deliver -- from Melissa Leo as Mildren's best friend and neighbor, Mare Winningham as her mentor in waitressing, a newly rotund James LeGros helping out her business interests, and Hope Davis (above) as the rich-bitch director's wife who comes into Mildred's life early on and then again a decade later.

A word must be said, too, for the actresses who essay the role of Veda: Morgan Turner (at left, three photos above) as the younger version and Evan Rachel Wood (above with Winslett) as the older. Both are exceptionally fine, turning what could easily become a caricature into, granted, a very odd but quite sadly believable young girl and young woman.

This Mildred Pierce is so spot-on regarding period and place, and so full of fine acting and writing, that you come away from the series -- we watched the five episodes over three evenings, as the last (at 82 minutes) is nearly a full-length film -- with renewed respect for these very interesting characters, what they go through and what they learn. We might have wished that Mildred did not need to be punished for her night of unbridled passion -- by god? misogyny? Cain's 1930-era morality? -- with the loss of something irreplace-able. But that was the woman's role back then. Back then, right?

On DVD: Everything's nuclear in Overbey's and Ryan's doc -- THE FORGOTTEN BOMB

2012-01-13T20:11:00.002-05:00

No, this is not the tale of a distantly remembered, really bad movie. THE FORGOTTEN BOMB, the 2010 documentary by Bud Ryan and Stuart Overbey, takes us back to the beginnings of nuclear weaponry through to its current (and unfortunately thriving) state. The movie is part history (told closer to correct than we Americans have usually been given it), part overview, part warning and even, against all odds, part celebration of what human beings might do -- if only they united to some extent and put their minds and hearts to the task of de-nuclearizing the world.

Ms Overbey (shown at left) and Mister Ryan (below, left) have done a pretty sharp job of combining the above topics into a consistently engrossing whole, even if you (as did I) already know much of what they are telling us. Unlike 2010's other anti-nuclear documentary, the loud, hectoring and repetitive Countdown to Zero, this five-minute-longer movie (94 against Countdown's 89) is much quieter, thoughtful and inclusive of other opinions besides those of its makers. In addition, unlike Countdown, which strove to scare us by describing a future nuclear catastrophe, The Forgotten Bomb goes back to history and shows -- and tells (toward the end of the film, a survivor recites her story, one of the most harrowing accounts I've yet heard) -- what Hiroshima and Nagasaki were like.

The movie comes down squarely on the side of those who say that the droppings of the atomic bombs were unnecessary because America had already effectively won the war in the Pacific, and that the widespread holocaust resulting from the bombs and its horrific after-effects were in no way justified. On the other side, Dr. Harold Agnew -- a Manhattan Project scientist and former Director at the Los Alamos lab -- tells us that when he visited Japan and was confronted by two Japanese survivors of the bombings who wanted an apology, his only words to them were "Remember Pearl Harbor." As though the 2,402 military lives lost at Pearl Harbor justified the killing of between 150,000 and 246,000 Japanese civilians by our twin bombs (and that's the death toll for only the first day).

Overbey and Ryan cover everything from the difference between how Japanese and American museums explain the bombing to chats with civilian and military regarding today's nuclear energy and just how safe it currently is (not). The film was shot prior to the latest tsunami-led nuclear disaster in Japan, but the moviemakers offer of plenty of preceding disasters, including the ongoing one involving where to place the forever-toxic waste that nuclear energy produces. Because both the filmmakers and those they interview are so intelligent, well-spoken and not given to exaggeration,what they're telling us might almost seem small potatoes -- except for the many details: in uranium mining country, rabbits with tumors and bald sheep; the "kick and roll" technology of dealing with radioactive waste; and especially how, when our crew tries to get interviews with New Mexico's public officials -- senators, congressmen, even the Department of Energy itself, they get nowhere at all.

Want to add a bit more power and ballast to the Kennedy Assassination theories? Try linking, as one of our talking heads does here, JFK's 1963 address at American University in DC regarding his stand against nuclear energy with his untimely demise -- similar, our man says, to Martin Luther King's famous address on taking a stand against the war in Vietnam, soon after which came his assassination. Mutually Assured Deterrence (MAD, a fine acronym) is still with us, the movie points out, and by the close of the film, you will have a difficult time not believing that America -- hell, the whole world -- is in love with and worships Thanatos. Good luck. Although I must say that the penultimate words of one talking head (John Dear, a Jesuit priest and author) about real Christianity brought sudden tears to my eyes. And I not ever religious. But what this man has to say hit a nerve, I guess.

The Forgotten Bomb, from Cinema Libre Studio, makes its DVD debut this coming Tuesday, January 17 -- for sale only at this point, as neither Netflix nor Blockbuster plans to carry it. Perhaps it'll be stream-able some day soon. Hope so, for this one deserves a wide audience.

Mike Woolf's MAN ON A MISSION: Space travel can be yours (if you can afford it)

2012-01-12T14:19:00.001-05:00

TrustMovies had an interesting thing happen to him at the press screening for MAN ON A MISSION: RICHARD GARRIOTT'S ROAD TO THE STARS (which should win the Lengthy-Title compe-tition for this year). The projectionist at the screening venue, with whom TM occasionally chats pre- or post-screenings, mentioned how much he had enjoyed this particular film. As this was the first time I'd heard a projectionist talk about actually enjoying a film, I asked him why. "Oh, I've just always loved space travel and NASA and rockets and all that." Then he looked at me and noted, "You're the right age for that, too. Didn't you grow up loving it all?"

Well, not so much, actually. Oh, I loved fantasy sci-fi and space travel, all right, but give me too much of the science and not enough fiction, and you'd lose me. As an older adult, the reverse seems to be taking place. And so I did indeed enjoy Man on a Mission, and I suspect that many older adult males (and maybe some females) will do likewise. Yet, because the film won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2010 SxSW film fest, it evidently has a "draw" factor for the younger set, too. Director Mike Woolf, shown at right, tells his main character's story simply and well: Richard Garriott (shown below), the son of one of the earlier American astronauts, Owen Garriott, was a bright kid who excelled at early video games (not only playing them -- but creating and designing them). He made a literal fortune from his Ultima series (unknown and unplayed by yours truly, who last handled a joystick in the era of Pac-Man), but Garriott's strongest desire through the years was to follow his father into space.

To get thrust into orbit, as dad did via NASA, however, you cannot be near-sighted (Richard always was), and so he invests his fortune (or certainly a lot of it: $30,000,000!) into planning and preparing for space travel via Russia -- the only country that has a space program offering space travel (for a hefty cost) to private citizens. This is not, however, simply a matter of paying your money and taking the trip. There's a lot of training, pre-flight, much of which we see here. And it is pretty interesting. Via his dad and NASA, Richard also creates some experiments aboard the space station and brings along his high-def movie camera to record them (and other transactions) below. So this is indeed, as the unduly nasty review in this week's Village Voice points out, a kind of "home movie." (What is it with the V V's increasingly negative, second-string reviewing staff? Angry, smart-ass youth in action...)

The movie is mostly a straight-out, how-I-got-there-and-what-happened-when-I-did kind of thing, without a lot, it must be said, of surprise along the way. Yet I think you'll find most of it interesting and quite possibly be moved by what Garriott has to say regarding what he learned most and felt strongest about during his space trip. (This probably accounts for why he continues to support private space advancement and environmental causes.)

Man on a Mission, from First Run Features, arrives tomorrow, Friday, January 13, in theaters in New York City (Cinema Village), Detroit (Detroit Film Theater), Chicago (Facets CINÉMATHÈQUE), and Lake Worth, Florida (Lake Worth Playhouse) -- and elsewhere through the country in the weeks to come. Click here to see a complete roster of scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Xavier Gens' THE DIVIDE: Here comes a particularly unsettling apocalypse

2012-01-11T12:47:00.002-05:00

After a nasty, envelope-pushing Frontier(s), followed by a better-than-you-heard-but-still-not-very-good Hitman, French genre director Xavier Gens looks to have found his stride with his latest -- THE DIVIDE -- an ugly, apocalyptic scare fest that is also profoundly sad and all-too unpleasantly human.

An ensemble piece that begins with a memorable shot of New York under nuclear siege as viewed through the eyes of the character with whom we come to identify most, a young woman named Eva (played with a smart combo of steely reserve and pop-up vulnerability by Lauren German), the movie soon becomes the tale of survivors holed-up in the fallout shelter basement of a Manhattan high-rise -- where the usual happens but in a decidedly unusual manner.

M. Gens, pictured at right, both wrote and directed Frontier(s) but only directed Hitman and The Divide, which accounts for the tightness of the formers' screenplay, plotting and characterization. What makes The Divide work as well as it does is the fact that he and his writers (Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean) place characterization above all else (except the main situation, of course) and then let character control the outcome. This adds immeasurably to the movie's believability and helps keep us watching through the most horrible of several wretched occurrences. Unlike those in so many genre movies, you won't find these people doing a lot of out-and-out stupid things along the way. Nasty, character-driven things, perhaps. But not necessarily stupid.

Along with the fine Ms German (above), the cast includes Iván González as her less-than-helpful boyfriend, Michael Biehn (standing, below center, and very good as the super whose basement bunker this is), Rosanna Arquette as a bereaved mother whose bereavement takes an unusual course, Ashton Holmes as the single sensitive guy, and Milo Ventimiglia (second right, below) and Michael Eklund (below, right) as the two most "problemed" males in the bunch.

Among the several intelligent surprises the movie has to offer is the revelation of the identity of the "towelheads" (as Biehn's super calls them) who attacked us, and the short excursion that one of our fellows makes outside the bunker -- the results of which you'll wish you didn't know.

No rom-com day-at-the-beach, The Divide is grueling but satisfying (in dark ways, yes). The movie, from Anchor Bay Films and running 110 minutes, opens this Friday, January 13, at midnight screenings only (it deserves better and more) in Austin, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and New York, and will hit a flock of other cities beginning Friday, January 20. Click here (and then click on SHOWTIMES) to find all currently scheduled cities and theaters.

Fábio Barreto's LULA, SON OF BRAZIL opens, but the movie belongs to mom

2012-01-11T00:47:00.002-05:00

Hagiography's a tricky thing and pretty much unavoidable when a movie is dealing with a famous political figure. When that figure happens to be Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known affectionately for decades as simply "Lula" and evidently the single most popular politician in that country's history), a warts-and-all bio-pic is probably not in the cards. So, from the outset, when a drop-dead gorgeous kid plays the very young Lula and even more beautiful one does the honors as an adolescent, straight through to the end-credits, during which we see photos of Lula posing with practically every great (and not so) world leader, it is clear that the movie-makers have primed us to go "wow," "Wow!" and "WOW!" once more.

Interestingly enough, as terrific a guy as the movie LULA, SON OF BRAZIL makes its Lula look, the film, directed by Fábio Barreto (shown at left), and written by Daniel Tendler, Fernando Bonassi and Denise Paraná, seems even more interested in serving up mommy hagiography. And when the mommy is as fascinating a character as Lula's mother evidently was, and when she is played by as riveting an actress as the award-winning Glória Pires (below, right), we can only be grateful for the result. If the movie were as consistently powerful and commanding as are its initial scenes, it would be one for the books. As it is, Lula SOB (whoops: I was abbreviating for the sake of space, but I think perhaps not, in this case...) proves a reasonably creditable and certainly enjoyable biopic about a fellow of whom -- until I read Nicholas Lemann's recent article (about Dilma Roussef, the woman who took Lula's place as Brazilian President) in The New Yorker -- I had known very little.

Lula's (and the film's) beginning takes place in a dirt-poor section of Brazilian countryside and shows us the hard-scrapple life of the family, prior to Lula's birth -- after dad has deserted mom and their many children to go live with his younger paramour (and her child, presumably by him) in the big city. These early scenes are simple but powerful, brought to life by Baretto's talents and that of his actors, particularly Ms Pires.

This fellow's first love and early marriage is given more than its share of time and energy, with a very appealing actress -- Cléo Pires (above) -- in the role of his unlucky wife.

It's when Lula goes to work as a machinist, joins the union and eventually becomes the workers' leader that the film grows most interesting. Lula's a smart boy/man from the outset, and his ability to know when to compromise and back down would seem to be key to his political success. The film takes place during the same period as that of the recent Brazilian documentary DZI Croquettes, and it cannot have been easy working with, around, and under the thumb of the military dictatorship of that time. But Lula managed it, seemingly as much by constantly proclaiming that he and his workers were no Communists as by his political skills (actually, this "We're not Communists!" stance was one of his political skills).

The movie grows more like a soap opera as it moves along -- with the good people all very good and the villains... Well, funny thing, but there aren't any -- except of course that military dictatorship, which is relatively faceless here (and Lula's not-so-nice dad). Practically everybody we meet is good and true and trying his or her hardest to make things work. Thanks to the good work of the filmmaker and his cast, you buy it, at least for the time that you are watching. But I suspect Lula's life was a hell of a lot more complicated and problematic that what we see here.

Lula, the Son of Brazil, from New Yorker Films, with a running time of 128 minutes, opens this Friday, January 13, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Quad Cinema. In the Los Angeles area, look for Lula to open on January 27 at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 and Playhouse 7. (I would assume the film will soon be playing elsewhere around the country, but I could not find any information about this on the company web site.)

KEVIN's back and Tilda's got him, as Lynne Ramsay's film opens (again) in theaters

2012-01-09T14:22:00.012-05:00

If it seems to you as though WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN only recently opened theatrically and was reviewed by most critics, you're right: That was its one-week, end-of-year, "Oscar" qualifying run. Starting this week Lynne Ramsay's movie is back in theaters for a longer stint, which should give audiences a better chance to see this unusually artful and riveting updating of The Bad Seed.

Consisting of one bravura scene after another, the movie is one of those fractured films, the splinters of which are each so well thought-out and crafted that you easily follow what's happening, placing together these splintered scenes to guide you toward... the inevitable. That "inevitable" is both the crowning achievement of Ms Ramsay's movie (the director is shown at right) and its biggest problem. Is that it? you'll be asking as the final credits roll. And, yes, folk, that is indeed it. There's a hole at the heart of We Need to Talk About Kevin that must remain there because there is simply no single "big" answer to the question that haunts the film, How could this happen? Oh, we get a bunch of smaller answers which, taken together as they must be, offer salient clues aplenty.

This story of a student who goes on a killing rampage is by now old hat -- periodically in the news and in movies made from that news (among them: Elephant, Dark Matter, Beautiful Boy, and now this one). Fortunately, each of these films has its own style plus a nice variation in surrounding content. Ramsay's use of the splintering effect to create tension between past and present, adult and child, and action/response places this film near the top of the heap.

There's a scene early in which a woman approaches our heroine, Eva (another superb performance from Tilda Swinton, above) and suddenly slaps/slugs her. It's a visceral moment, utterly shocking and provocative. While it seems to come from nowhere, we already know enough from the splinters we've seen to understand it deeply -- from both the perspective of the woman who throws the punch and her recipient

Likewise a scene in which Swinton pushes a baby carriage into a zone occupied by a crew of men using jackhammers. Again, utterly odd but fully understandable, given what we already know of Swinton's character, and of her new baby.

The movie is full of these scenes and moments. By film's end, a mosaic has come into shape that fills in a lot of blank spaces around an even larger blank in the center of it all. It's clear Eva should never have become a mother; it's clear that her weaker husband, Franklin (John C. Reilly, as good as ever), is little help; it's clear that there is something horribly wrong with their child Kevin -- played as a toddler by Rock Duer, elementary-school age by Jasper Newell, and as a teenager by the uber-talented Ezra Miller (shown above, from AfterSchool, City Island, Every Day, Another Happy Day). What's unclear is that something could have legitimately been done to correct any of this -- short of enormous (probably impossible, certainly unbelieveable) character change, or abortion, or maybe mercy killing.

The standoff ending makes it clear that there will be no peace here, no cure. The cards are on the table, and finally, at least, everyone knows where s/he stands. What we have here is much more powerful and unsettling than anything that some sort of cheap "closure" might provide.

Nothing in Ms Ramsay's earlier career (the dawdling and disappointing Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar) appeared to pave the way for a breakthrough like this one. Perhaps it was the topic itself that vitalized the woman's filmmaking skills. Whatever, the filmmaker has done an exceptional job, and so have her actors, making the movie one of this new year's must-sees.

From Oscilloscope Laboratories, We Need to Talk About Kevin opens this Friday, January 13, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and the Angelika Film Center. The following week will see it play the Los Angeles area, and in the weeks and months to come, it'll be all over the country. Click here for a listing of cities, dates and theaters.

Patric Chiha's DOMAIN--from last year's Film Comment Selects--opens theatrically

2012-01-08T15:33:00.016-05:00

No less than one of our own favorite transgressive filmmakers, John Waters, has declared the movie under consider-ation today -- DOMAIN, from Vienna-born filmmaker Patric Chiha (shown below), who now works in France -- his favorite film of 2010. First seen in New York last year as part of the annual Film Comment Selects series via the FSLC, it is finally being given a theatrical opening here in New York (and perhaps elsewhere). No world-beater, the movie's still worth seeing, particularly for those buffs with a taste for the gay or outré.

Starring the still-gorgeous star of Betty Blue, the ever-exotic Béatrice Dalle (on poster above, and below), this is a quieter and much less transgressive movie that you'd imagine (given Mr. Waters' history, though perhaps not his taste in film) as it tracks the evolving and devolving relationship between an older woman (a mathematician with an alcohol problem) and her young nephew (played by an interesting newcomer Isaïe Sultan, two photos below), who is probably gay and definitely attracted to the "otherness," as well as the sophistication, of his aunt's circle of friends.

The film is particularly smart about the manner in which youth and age perceive the world and how callous the former can sometimes be about the latter, perhaps simply for purposes of its own survival.

At times, the film may remind you of a very French Auntie Mame, were Auntie losing it and her nephew Patrick old enough (and with taste enough) to choose her clothes for an evening out. As often happens in French film, there is so much going on -- philosophically, emotionally, even family-wise (the boy's mother and her sister are not close) -- that little can come to full fruition in the mere course of the time frame that the movie offers us.

Nonetheless, the writer/director shows us the seasons as beautifully and richly as he captures character, and if the film is somewhat slow-paced and typically French in its insistence on little exposition, it still offers mature audiences much to mull over, during and post-viewing.

From Strand Releasing, with a running time of 110 minutes, Domain opens in New York City this coming Friday, January 13, at the IFC Center. If TrustMovies can learn where else you can see this interesting film -- prior to DVD, VOD and other at-home or on-the-run viewing -- he'll add it to this post.

Useless "art" -- Steve McQueen's SHAME shows Fassbender & Mulligan to little effect

2012-01-07T15:58:00.002-05:00

You may want to steal the first shot from SHAME -- the follow-up film to Steve McQueen's impressive debut, Hunger -- and hang it on your wall in pride of place. It's that close to perfect. Simple, as so many near-perfect things are, it's just a shot of Michael Fassbender between the sheets, his pale, slightly pink skin stark against the monochromatic gray-green of the bedclothes. But the composition, the cropping -- literally everything that goes into art and photography -- simply nails you. Then the movie begins, and that, you soon discover, was pretty much it.

With Hunger, McQueen, shown at right, used his photographic art to tell the story of Bobby Sands (Fassbender again), the IRA and the hunger strike that eventually took the rebel's life. It was a grueling movie, and a gorgeous one. Sometimes a little too gorgeous: a shit-scrawled wall was probably never meant to look like a work of art. With Shame, this director seems less concerned with making every frame artful-to-the-max. But, whether due to the constraints of the "story" (such as it is), he has also neglected to make it much of anything else.

Fassbender, above, whom I have never seen give anything less that an excellent performance -- until now -- plays a sex addict named Brandon, whose sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan, below) arrives unexpectedly and asks to stay with him. I would call Sissy his "estranged" sister, except that Brandon appears to be estranged from everything and everyone, except the call of his needy prick.

Sissy's being around makes our guy increasingly uncomfortable. But then so does everything else: his boss, his co-workers, even the many hits with whom he has sex. That's it for the movie's plot (until heavy-duty melodrama sets in and we get an embarrassing mea culpa scene in the rain and mud), and there is even less characterization. This emptiness of character occurs despite performances from literally everyone that -- in another movie in which the director and his writer (The Iron Lady's Abi Morgan, with the help of Mr. McQueen) had endowed their cast with anything approaching complex characters -- would have had us at "hello."

This film is one lengthy goodbye, and as the never-explained negatives pile up, we can't wait to see the thing end (its 101 minutes begin to see like hours). I am more than willing to believe that sex addicts, like most addicts of any kind, are never really having much fun. But you can't build a scenario around sex-addiction as your main character's sole feature -- even with an actor as gorgeous of face and body as Mr. Fassbender, who unveils both, from front and rear, and proves engaging and beautiful from all angles. There is one incredible shot of him -- from the rear, standing above a toilet with his legs slightly spread -- in which his body makes a perfect "V" on top and then a perfect inverted "V" from the waist down. (Although we were told that his full-frontal shots were quite something, as well, the movie proves a cheat on this score, as the actor's seemingly ample package is mostly shown in shadow. (Perhaps, for the U.S. theatrical run, the movie was trimmed slightly?)

Ms Mulligan gets her time in the full-frontal sun, too, but she really shines brightest during her very odd gig, singing in a restaurant (or it it a night club?) in which she warbles, above, in a reedy, faint but lovely voice, Kander & Ebb's New York, New York as though it were a dirge. And damned if the song doesn't work like that -- beautifully, too.

Otherwise the movie itself is a dirge, a deadly one in which, for all his artful framing and muted color palettte, McQueen has nothing to say except embarrassing cliché. Hints (if they are even meant as that) to various meanings abound at every possibility from the incest taboo to closeted homosexuality to intimacy inability. But when anything and everything is possible, nothing much matters.

Shame, from Fox Searchlight, is currently playing around most big cities, at various venues, hoping to pick up some Academy nomina-tions. (Good luck.) Click here to find those venues nearest you.

Maysles premiere: Vivian Ducat's ALL ME: THE LIFE & TIMES OF WINFRED REMBERT

2012-01-06T06:06:00.004-05:00

TrustMovies doesn't follow fine art that much, even less fine folk art. So the new documentary titled ALL ME: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WINFRED REMBERT came as a complete surprise to yours truly -- and an immensely pleasurable and moving one, at that. From the title, one could almost expect some campy and funny ego trip, but the "all me" takes on depth and feeling, once you understand where it is coming from -- and why. Drawing on his own memories and those of his forebears, Winfred Rembert (not Winifred: our artist is a man) produces autobiographical paintings in an unusual medium (colored dye on leather!) that depict in primitive, folksy fashion the daily existence of African Americans in the segregated American south of the century past.

The film's director, Vivian Ducat (shown at left), is a native New Yorker who began her film career in London. She's new to me (and probably to you) but she has collected and then packed into her 75-minute movie memories, talking heads, archival photos and present-day doings that form a remarkable story of a memorable artist and man. In our first view of Winfred (below, left), the fellow looks like a single-toothed -- no, we see a bit later that there are two teeth, then even more -- heavy-set man with a sense of humor, big talent and a good memory. We travel from his home town in Cuthbert, Georgia, to New Haven, Connecticut, and back again, and we soon meet his wife Patsy (below, right), as well as a daughter and a son. We also begin meeting the artist's many fans who include museum directors, art gallery mavens and just-plain collectors.

Mr Rembert's life was probably not all that different from so many other blacks in America's south -- except that he could draw. His style, which appears to be slowly changing and growing over the decades, combines naïveté, primitivism, color, beauty and authenticity. Given his unusual medium, the result is a heady, intriguing mix that's easy on the eye while engaging the mind.

The stories that Wnfred has to tell -- often horrible, ugly and sad -- are told with such immediacy and feeling, as well as an ever-present sense of humor that they never fail to engage. One such shows us the lynchings that make up a kind of triptych of art of which the artist explains that he and the other children did not actually see the ropes placed around the necks of the lynched men or the hangings themselves; the children were brought in only when the rope was removed from the bodies and the burials proceeded.

This is a man who protested along with Martin Luther King, worked on a chain gang (which he says was the absolute worst time of his life -- and where the title of the film actually comes from), and is now seen addressing a class of current high schoolers. This particular scene is especially moving because it is so immediate and "felt," bringing these kids of today in touch with things that they probably would rather not know, but need to nonetheless.

Of the art show in his home town of Cuthbert, Rembert notes that nothing -- not shows at Yale University Art Gallery, in New York and elsewhere -- compares to coming back to Georgia. And you believe him! You'll wonder what those Wilson Brothers, who blithely told Rembert's mother that her son would never amount to anything, would have to say now. See this movie and weep, laugh, rejoice.

All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert, a Paladin release, will be shown one time only at the Maysles Cinema, this coming Wednesday, January 11, at 7:30 -- with a special reception to begin at 6:30 that evening. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with both the film's director and the artist himself. I cannot believe that this fine piece of work, which won the Silver Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival, will not garner a longer and larger release, ending up eventually on television or cable. It will introduce you to an artist and man you'll be so pleased to have met and learned about. It is simply too good to miss.

Michael Cuesta's ROADIE gives Ron Eldard a plum role (but not a lot otherwise for us)

2012-01-05T07:07:00.001-05:00

TrustMovies has been a Ron Eldard fan ever since True Love, the actor's first foray into film. The guy was -- still is, 22 years later -- so delightfully boyish-but-trying-to-grow-up. Last year his sad, real performance helped humanize and lock us into Super 8, and now, opening at the beginning of our movie year, comes ROADIE, a new film from writer/
director Michael Cuesta, in which Mr. Eldard plays a character who has given up the idea of growth (except perhaps around his middle) almost entirely.

Having been a fan, as well, of Mr. Cuesta, shown at right, throughout his career (which includes L.I.E., Twelve and Holding, the more recent Tell Tale and some TV/cable work), I am sorry to report that Roadie left me cold. Aside from fine performances from his entire cast (that's pretty much a staple of Cuesta (and the work of many other good filmmakers), the movie is so heavy-handed and obvious that you keep waiting for some kind of shoe to drop -- even a bedroom slipper -- but nothing even slightly unexpected happens.

This is the story of one, Jimmy Testagross (Eldard, above, in a down-on-his-luck moment), who has been a roadie for the band Blue Oyster Cult for a couple of decades but has just been let go. You get the definite sense that Jimmy wasn't all that good at his job in the best of times, and these days the times are not so hot. So he comes back to his home in Queens, NY, where mom (the always fine Lois Smith) spends her time between gardening and losing what's left of her fragile mind. He also makes a pit stop at a bar where -- coincidences abound -- his old high school nemesis Bobby (played by Bobby Cannavale, below, right) happens to be hanging out.

Bobby is now hitched to another ex-high schooler Nikki (Jill Hennessy, below, right) of whom both guys were enamored. She also happens to be in the bar, practicing for her gig as a singer/guitarist who'll be performing that very evening (she's not a bad singer, either.) Memories, jealousies, re-acquaintances ensue. All of which is so by-the-book and expected that you soon give up hoping for any surprise.

All this is very depressing because our "hero" is such a loser that, no matter how "real" Eldard makes him (and he makes him very real), we quickly tire of having to spend anymore time with this nincompoop who has clearly learned not one single thing in the 20 years since high school. In fact, the movie is full of sad, ugly people who can't/won't face up. This state of affairs also makes what passes for a happy (well, you might call it less-than-unhappy) ending all the more unbelievable.

Eldard (who is in every scene), Hennessy, Cannavale and Smith are all fine, as is David Margulies as a "concerned" neighbor (who gets the film's least believable scene but manages it with aplomb), and Cuesta captures a very small portion of the "outer borough" of Queens well enough. But the story is tired and tiring. Maybe you have to love Blue Oyster Cult to get it.

Roadie, from Magnet Releasing, opens this Friday, January 6, at the Cinema Village in New York City, after playing via VOD since December 2. Click here for any upcoming playdates.

Tran Anh Hung's film of Haruki Murakami's NORWEGIAN WOOD: sex, love, death and responsibility among 1960s Japanese youth

2012-01-04T06:16:00.002-05:00

Given how specific is NORWEGIAN WOOD (Noruwei no mori) -- the filmed version by Tran Anh Hung of the novel by Haruki Murakami -- to the time, place and culture of 1960s Japan, TrustMovies found the film remarkably accessible, on all levels. While TM has enjoyed, to various extents, four of the five full-length films Tran has given us so far (The Scent of Green Papaya, Cyclo, The Vertical Ray of the Sun), this latest is by far his best. (Will we ever get the chance to see his 2008 film, I Come With the Rain, a crime thriller with Josh Hartnett and Byung Hun-Lee? This director would not seem at first glance a perfect choice for the thriller genre, so that may account for its non-release here.)

Mr. Tran, shown at left, is well-known for the beauty of place that he and his crews instill into his films. His former three, however, were set in Vietnam, a land and culture quite different from Japan's. Not surprisingly, the beauty in Norwegian Wood, while every bit as visual (nearly tactile), is also tinged with a darkness and an emotion that often roils. This is a hugely arousing and expressive movie, but it is one that never wears out its welcome, so finely attuned is it to the nuances of its characters' feelings.

Though there are seven major characters here, three of these stand out: the young man Watanabe (played by Ken'ichi Matsuyama, above and below) and the two young women with whom he connects, Naoko (played by Rinko Kikuchi, above), and Midori (played by Kiko Mizuhara, below). One of the seven, a suicide, departs early on, though he lingers in word, deed and memory throughout, and his action is to some extent responsible for what happens to some of the others.

Responsibility -- along with sex and love -- is one of the key themes of the film, and how the characters handle their responsibility (or lack of it) in terms of themselves and others is the motor that drives the movie. One of the characters, Nagasawa, is a responsibility-free ladies' man, a condition to which his lover, Hatsumi, must condition herself.

For a time, one of the characters is institutionalized and her caretaker/friend, Reiko takes on a particularly important sense of responsibility. But it is finally Watanabe, above, and his dilemmas that become central. All this takes place as the Japanese student protests of the 60s are being carried out, and our characters are part of this by virtue of having to discover their own place in society and in terms of each other.

As in all Tran's films, nature is ever-present, and the beauty he finds in both the natural world and in the expressive faces and bodies of his actors is often extraordinary. The manner in which he has nature mirror the feelings of his characters is especially so. (The astute and breathtaking cinematography is by Mark Lee Ping Bin, who shot In the Mood for Love, Millennium Mambo and Flowers of Shanghai.)

Both culturally specific and yet easily understandable to those outside that culture, Norwegian Wood is a strange, compelling and believable entrance into the story of youth coming to terms with approaching adulthood. That, of course, makes this film part of the coming-of-age genre, but in its beauty and emotion, it is so much more. Think of it as East meets West. At last.

Norwegian Wood (from Soda Pictures and Red Flag Releasing, 133 minutes) opens this Friday, January 6, at the IFC Center in New York City and at the West End Cinema in Washington DC. Click here and then click on THEATERS (on the screen's top bar) to see an updated listing of further playdates, cities and theaters.

From Iran, Rafi Pitts' THE HUNTER proves DIY filmmaking for both director & audience

2012-01-03T06:06:00.007-05:00

The two movies are from Iran, but you could hardly ask for more different ones than last week's A Separation and this week's THE HUNTER. The first withholds a couple of important things along the way that a viewer might have preferred to know, but the second? Whew. It withholds just about the whole shebang. The film's director, writer and star (who appears in nearly every scene), Rafi Pitts, shown in all the photos below, is on record (in the film's press kit) stating that "keeping things open to interpretation is an important element of my film-making" and further, "I respect the audience by allowing them the choice to think as they would like" and further (on why his main character, Ali, just released from prison, was there in the first place), "Who a person is will decide why he or she thinks Ali was in prison." This, I suggest, makes for a very odd sort of Do-It-Yourself film-making on both sides of the camera.

So, go into The Hunter with rather lower expectations than you would generally place in a movie that you imagine will "fill in the blanks," and you may have a better experience than did I in figuring out, not just what is happening and why, but why we should give a damn about the main character, whose behavior goes from merely not-very-communicative to stoic to utterly clammed-up and finally to anti-social in the extreme. Mr. Pitts, above and below, has a certain charisma and some acting ability, but here he relies too heavily on our willingness to care. (Notice the hugely varied expressions on his face in the shots above and below...)

Granted, life in present-day Iran is no picnic (the picnic's nearly over here, too), but as a filmmaker, Pitts' pacing has a sameness that eventually drags things down. He seems determined to show us a grey, colorless, stark city and grey, colorless, stark lives -- and he succeeds all too well. (His outdoor shots of nature in all her glory are pretty grey, too.)

Early on, we get some family time, as Ali... hmmm, "cavorts" is far too strong a word, so let's say walks and/or drives with his wife (Mitra Hajjar) and daughter (newcomer Saba Yaghoobi), both shown above, through a car wash and then an amusement park. Overall, there is very little dialog in the film but a lot of automobile use. Neither of these is conducive to learning much about our hero. And when, some time into things, the event happens that changes all, this simply drives our guy further into isolation -- from his surroundings and from us.

The moral, I suppose, is that in a very repressive society, those acts of repression by the state -- as well as those of supposed liberation by the individual -- have as many unintended consequences as they do the intended variety. The Hunter (92 minutes, from Olive Films) -- not an uninteresting movie, but a very slow and circumspect one -- opens this Wednesday, January 4, in New York City at the IFC Center for a one-week run.

Dennis Quaid channels Tony Perkins in Martin Guigui's BENEATH THE DARKNESS

2012-01-02T15:33:00.003-05:00

What is it with these murderous morticians? A year or so back we had Liam Neeson's low-key, subtle and very funny ("Oh, you people!") version in After.life. Now, Dennis Quaid takes on the emblematic embalmer, coming at you like gangbusters and appearing to want to channel the late Tony Perkins as nutcase extraor-dinaire. Of course, Perkins had Psycho and the talents of Alfred Hitchcock surrounding him. Quaid has a little number titled BENEATH THE DARKNESS and the Argentina-born director Martin Guigui (shown below) to serve his needs. The result has its moments, all right, but it's not what you'd call memorable.

It's hard to make a good thriller. Something as fine as Wes Craven's Red Eye (or the recent Point Blank from France) comes along maybe once a decade. Mostly, these would-be scare-fests reply on dumb character behavior to result in mayhem. This is indeed a problem with Beneath the Darkness, and the problem is made even worse by a screenplay (from Bruce Wilkinson, which he evidently has been trying to bring to fruition for quite awhile) that conflates would-be ghosts with a cuckolded husband, jealousy, revenge, murder, insanity and some very silly teenagers. I suspect that if Wilkinson has just dropped the "ghost" angle from his screenplay and concentrated on the mortician/revenge and the interloping teens, he'd have had a tighter, shorter and more riveting thriller.

But we must take what we're given, which is Quaid (above) -- hamming it up quite nicely, even affectionately, as the villain -- and our set of teens, brought to life by a quartet of attractive youngsters who are believable enough actors (mostly from TV) but are asked to do some rather unbelievable things. Oh, those kids!

After their first bit of idiocy (breaking into the Quaid character's house, above) results in one death and an entire town that seems to side, as dumb towns will do, with the villain and against our heroes, what do these young troupers do? Go back into that house, of course. And not just once, but twice! Well, teenage nit-witery knows no bounds.

Things get sillier -- but also, I must say, with some nice moments of suspense and jolts (that's Quaid with our heroine played by Aimee Teegarden, above) -- ending up in a cemetery, below. Well, where else would any reputable mortician be -- although perhaps not in the dead of night.

This cemetery scene will put you in mind of, among many other movies, I Know Who Killed Me (not one you'd want to be put in mind of), the film that seemed to begin Lindsay Lohan's long slide into public service. That's our hero, played by Tony Oller, above (digging up a storm) and below, right, with Ms Teegarden and Stephen Lunsford, left, who plays his friend/competitor.

Beneath the Darkness, from Sunset Pictures and Image Entertainment (98 minutes, and a little too long for what it has to offer: good B-movie thrillers usually come in under the hour-and-a-half mark), opens this Friday in New York City at the Village VII and in the Los Angeles area at the AMC Citywalk Stadium 19, the Regency Plant 16, and the Krikorian Buena Park 18. The film will also be appearing in another half dozen cities here and there around the country. Click here to see the complete list of playdates.

Turkey's BFLF entry, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA, opens

2012-01-01T16:59:00.001-05:00

The first of the year is a notorious time for dumping bad movies on the public (by the major studios, at least). But the first film to open in New York theaters in 2010 -- a little indepen-dent, of course -- proved a comic gem of dark, sparkling humor, A Film With Me in It. Then last year, we got another good (though not great) Romanian movie to start our year, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle. For 2012, however, we may finally have a great one: ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA, the latest film from Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan and not coincidentally, that country's submission for this year's Best Foreign Language Film "Oscar" race.

Up till now, TrustMovies has remained warm-to-luke regarding the work of Mr. Ceylan (pictured at left). The three films I've seen from this sometimes interesting and always visually stunning writer/
director have ranged from the style-heavy/content-light Distant to the better-balanced relationship movie Climates to the problematic and melodramatic Three Monkeys. (After seeing that last film I did wonder if this filmmaker had finally lived up -- well, down -- to his middle name). Now, with Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Ceylan appears to have made a quantum leap regarding his storytelling skills while losing nothing of his consummate visual panache.

Once/Anatolia is all about a killing. Unlike, however, something on the level of AMC's recent, pretentious murder-as-entertainment-porn series The Killing, Ceylan's film takes us deep, deep into the personal and societal ramifications of this murder. At two hours and 27 minutes, we've plenty of time to ingest the unhurried pace and breathtaking cinematography, as well as to slowly come to appreciate and understand the many characters on view.

The film begins just post-sunset (see poster image at top) and the first half takes place at night. We're on some kind of investigation involving the search for a particular location, two handcuffed men, several police officers, a doctor (Muhammet Uzuner, above, right), and a chief investigator. There's small talk of yoghurt, then business talk of fields, trees and a hole dug. For buried treasure? A body? Slowly we learn, in the most non-expository, off-handed conversation, of which the below is a fine example:

Are they paying you overtime?

Don't know. I expect so.

They will. They money's good when it's a corpse.
Look at Tevfik. He never misses a chance:

All that overtime, and suddenly there's a second story on his house.

In a few short, very real lines, we learn content (the corpse) and character (a little of Tevfik's, as well as that of the fellow who's speaking). The screenplay, by Ceylan, along with Ebru Ceylan and Ercan Kesal, is full of just this kind of smart writing. Its funniest line (there are a number of darkly humours bits), given what's happening throughout Europe just now, is probably the one in which the inspector reprimands a brutal cop: Is this how we'll get into the European Union?!"

Once/Anatolia is a male movie. It's over an hour before we get even a glimpse of a woman, and she's something to behold (Cansu Demirci, above). However, as a female in the provinces, she's simply there to serve (and maybe be bartered in marriage).

As the journey and the investigation proceed, we learn more about the suspect (Firat Tanis, above), as well as about the chief investigator, well-played by Taner Birsel, whose story of a gorgeous woman who somehow knew she was going to die eventually commands enormous importance.

By the end of this quietly stark movie, its event -- the killing -- has taken on a rare weight and resonance. The film starts small and specific then slowly grows and expands to take in so much: death, family, grief, employment, the place of women, the responsibility to children, the behavior of men.

With the addition of this film to the already released Pina and A Separation, I would say that the competition for Best Foreign Language Film is certainly heating up. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, a Cinema Guild release, opens this coming Wednesday, January 4, in New York City for a two- week run at Film Forum. Click the FF link for showtimes, or here for upcoming playdates, as they appear.