Suzannah Herbert/Lauren Belfer's WRESTLE is a riveting, heartfelt teen sports documentary

The best documentary about high school sports competitions TrustMovies has seen since the Oscar-winning Undefeated (from 2011), WRESTLE, the new film directed by Suzannah Herbert, co-directed by Lauren Belfer, and co-written by both of them, along with Pablo Proenza, has been compared to the basketball documentary Hoop Dreams but strikes me as much closer in form, spirit and running-time to Undefeated.

So richly, quietly and thoroughly does the filmmaking team manage to embed you in the lives, needs, problems and desires of its quartet of high school wrestlers, by the time you leave this modest but hugely compelling little movie, you may feel that these four  young men and their wonderful wrestling coach have become part of your own family.

This is because Ms Herbert, shown at right, and Ms Belfer (below), along with Mr. Proenza (shown two photos below), who did the ace editing on the film,

became so close to their wrestlers, their families and and the team's coach that they were able to obtain footage in which emotions are real and often quite raw; humor is plentiful, too; then all of this has been edited so that what we see slowly grows into characters who are so much more than mere wrestlers. We view their young lives, as well as those of their family, friends and -- in one case, paramor -- as fraught, tentative yet hopeful.

Wrestle, finally, is about much more than merely winning the game,

though the suspense and hope registered along this route, is terrific, too.

In addition to some interesting wrestling -- we see enough of the game to begin to appreciate the moves of the team members that lead to their wins or losses -- we also view the boys' love for family, coach and each other.

Three of the team members are black (Jaquan, Jamario and Jailen) and one white (Teague), and as the film takes place in Huntsville, Alabama, at J.O. Johnson High School, which had been on the state's list of "failing schools" for years, we also note the local cops' interactions with two of the (surprise, surprise!) black team members. Race seems less of a problem among the team mates than in society at large. (The movie's sweetest, most tender moment comes as Teague places his head on Jaquan's shoulder.)

The co-directors actually lived in Huntsville full-time while filming, and this must in part account for the enormous intimacy achieved here, as well as for the filmmakers' ability to be in the right place at the right time so often.

The four boys are wonderfully diverse; we root for them all, including their coach. And, yes, he's white, but I hope we don't have to hear any more bullshit about why we should not show a white man helping poor, deprived black kids. (For anyone who insists upon that, may I recommend you read this splendid and appropriate article, The Trouble With Uplift by Adolf Reed from that great progressive magazine, The Baffler.) Who wins and who loses will surprise and move you. And the final end-credit notes regarding Where are they now? will do the same.

In terms of intimacy and accomplishment, Wrestle is also on a part with 2017's wonderful documentary, Night School. And though we learn the usual things we'd expect from a documentary about a team hoping to win a championship, the filmmakers seem to deliberately stop short of providing any kind of actual "happy ending."

The lives of these boys have barely begun, yet already, the challenges ahead seem massive. This movie will entertain you, sure, but it will also make you think and feel and care and, yes, wrestle with the idea of what America was and is and could be. I mean, really: what more could you ask from a movie today? Oh, right: explosions, car chases and lots of special effects.

From Oscilloscope Films and running 96 minutes, Wrestle opens this Friday, February 22, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and on Friday, March 1, in Los Angeles at the Monica Film Center. I can't find any other between-the-coasts screenings listed on the film's web site, but perhaps once the rave reviews and great world-of-mouth appear after opening, we'll see more availability around the rest of the country. Hope so!

THE KING -- Eugene Jarecki’s fascinating doc about Elvis and America--opens in So. Florida

Not a great film but one that is consistently interesting and often thought-provoking, THE KING offers, on one level, an intellectual experience something akin to viewing a splatter artist’s painting for the first time and out of all that color and form discovering a lot of fascinating connections. On another level – and done in an unusual manner but very well -- the movie is a smart bio-pic of Elvis Presley, as it moves back and forth in time and place until it has given us a surprisingly cogent account of his character and career.

As written and directed by Eugene Jarecki (shown at left), who has given us some terrific and important earlier docs (Why We Fight, The House I Live In and a section of Freakonomics), this film seems to TrustMovies to be one of this filmmaker's most free-form and impressionistic works. It's alternately allusive and illusive.

At one point in the doc, the director himself  (who makes a now-and-then appearance) allows that he isn't even sure what's he's doing here. By the end of the film, however, he has put together a compelling enough array of connections to make a pretty fair case. Mr. Jarecki sees Elvis' life, his rise and fall, as a kind of stand-in for America itself -- certainly for that elusive but so often remarked upon "American Dream."

Both Elvis and our country seemed to stand for something important and unusual. The country has now imploded, sinking into its own worst features and fears. Elvis did, too, though even in one of his final appearances, he managed to sit down at the piano and play and sing Unchained Melody like the great performer he could be and often was.

Jarecki wisely and movingly ends his film with this song, set against an array of fast, vast, nearly subliminal visuals that hit and highlight American history. It's impressive, as has been much of the lengthy movie itself -- which travels, via Elvis' own Rolls Royce (shown above, and which breaks down occasionally) across the country, east to west, with stops including Tupelo (Elvis' home town in Mississippi), Memphis, Nashville and the armpit/cesspool of the USA, Las Vegas.

Along the way we meet and hear from celebrities such as Ethan Hawke, Alec Baldwin, Ashton Kutcher and Public Enemy's Chuck D (shown below) and just-plain-folk: one of Elvis' longtime best friends, an ex-girlfriend (above) and the housekeeper who was with him at the end. What the latter have to say seems very bit as interesting as that of the former, though Mr. Kutcher does make a statement of about fame and talent that shows he's "woke" -- regarding himself, at least.

Not everyone here agrees with Jarecki's "take" on things (chief among these is David Simon, noted TV writer of The Wire and other shows), but the filmmaker seems perfectly OK with disagreement. This is part of what makes his film all the more interesting and acceptable. The connections he makes, ranging from easily accessible to pretty far afield, are nearly always understandable, even if you may sometimes nay-say.

We're treated to some good music along the way (Elvis', of course, and that of some others, shown above and below). By film's end, you'll have been made privy to a theory/thesis that should keep you on your intellectual and emotional toes, as well as to a Elvis bio-pic that -- depending on what you already knew about the legendary performer -- will make you both appreciate and lament this "king" all over again.

From Oscilloscope Films and running a lengthy but never boring 109 minutes, the movie, after opening in major cities over the past month, hits the South Florida area tomorrow, Friday, August 3. In Miami, look for it at the Bill Cosford Cinema and the Miami Beach Cinematheque, and in Palm Beach County at the Living Room Theaters of Boca Raton, and the Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth and at the Lake Worth Playhouse. Click here to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters across the country.

Netflix streaming tip: Oliver Stone's THE UNTOLD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES is more than worth its twelve-hour running time

If you are familiar with certain "alternative" history books that cover the real story of the U.S.A. -- say, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States -- or peruse the pages of the progressive magazine, The Nation, much that you'll see and hear in the new documentary series, THE UNTOLD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, will be familiar. But this does not mean that you won't be any less hooked by this excellent piece of sifting/judging/reporting of much that has happened down the decades, even as the U.S. public was being told the opposite.

Director and co-writer (with Matt Graham and Peter Kuznick) Oliver Stone, shown at right, has (or at least had) a reputation for outrage and in-your-face moviemaking that has been tamped down considerably here. This is all to the good, since Stone and his team are telling us things that many Americans will not want to hear or accept, and so his careful rendering and explaining (it's Stone's quiet, measured and easy-to-listen-to voice we mostly hear narrating), interspersed with those of many of the historical figures -- from the greatly-known (like Churchill, Stalin and Hitler) to the less-so but, it turns out, vitally important to know and understand, such as Roosevelt's Vice-President Henry Wallace (two photos below) and a certain popular and greatly-decorated soldier named Smedley Butler (shown just below: for more on Butler, click here), who served the U.S. in war after war but who finally took stock of his own career by saying that he had continually served the interests of the corporations and the powerful rather than those of the American people.

That the USA is still serving those interests, as much today as then, is a large part of the series' theme, and the filmmakers flesh this out with plenty of ammunition and panache. Much of the information presented us is verifiable, and when it is conjecture, it is backed up with enough history and reasoning to pass muster.

It is not a pretty picture of the USA as any kind of leader regarding democracy -- neither here at home nor worldwide. It has of course outraged the conservative right, but it should prove a near-perfect entry into the upcoming "reign" of Donald Trump. At the end of that reign, it will be interesting to see, if any of us still remain, how much of what we learned here was practiced all over again -- enriching the wealthy, corporate and powerful while leaving the rest of us further bereft.

Caveats: I could have done with much less interspersing of movie clips throughout. The series does not need these, and they merely call attention to their own "fictional" feel. Some of what we see, thanks to the organization of the series, is repetitive. And while it appears to end with a moving and rousing tenth chapter, there are actually two more -- eleven and twelve -- that are very much worth seeing, even if some of these final two hours, particularly the last, is initially quite repetitive. Yet there is so much important information to be gained here, too, that I was very glad I'd finished the entire twelve chapters.

Originally made for Showtime, with a few early chapters making their debut at The New York Film Festival a few years back, the entire series, running nearly twelve hours, is available now to stream on Netflix. It is worth every one of those hours.

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT: Michael Moore's most entertaining, funny and moving doc yet

While some critics have found the new documentary WHERE TO INVADE NEXT -- from long-time filmmaker Michael Moore -- to be his most pro-American, certain others seem to loathe it for the very opposite reason. In a sense it's both pro and con because it finds much fault with the way America is run today, even as it goes country-hopping from continent to continent to discover ways in which each new place we visit provides much more productive living than what we have here. And yet, time after time, the people in those countries who are interviewed by Mr. Moore tell him that the ideas they have put into practice to make their habitat better originally came from America.

Moore, shown above, at right and below, takes off from the rather silly, as-if premise that he has been called in by the three branches of America's military in order to pick his brain as to why our country has lost every war it has been involved in, starting back in the 1960s with the Vietnam conflict onward to today's misadventures in the middle east. So off our our intrepid fellow goes in search of answers, to at least nine different countries around the globe.

Much of what he learns may be already known to those who follow other countries and cultures. Yet, as brought together here under this single "fact-finding" mission, the evidence of how and why America could be a much better -- kinder, healthier, more productive -- place for its citizens to live and work seems near indisputable.

In Italy, we discover the workplace -- shorter hours, more vacation and lunch time  -- while France offers up a school cafeteria to make your mouth water. Finland's extraordinary education of its youth and Slovenia's free college education (for foreigners, too!)  are something to discover and consider.

In Germany we not only visit an exemplary pencil factory, but we see how a country has helped its citizens come to grips with their country's fraught past -- Nazis and The Holocaust -- and healthily move beyond this. The way that Moore compares this to our own country's history of Indian genocide and Black slavery, as well as our paltry and tardy attempts to come to terms with all this provide the film with some of its finest, and most moving scenes.

How a country has all but exterminated its drug problems is viewed via Portugal, and again, the comparisons we see are telling indeed. Ditto the prison system in Norway, including an interview with the father of one of the many students murdered in that awful island massacre of a few years back.

Most surprising, for me at least, is the visit to Tunisia, a Muslim nation boasting free, government-funded women's health clinics and abortions, where a male official explains that "Prayer comes before power. So does avoiding conflict and bloodshed." Imagine: Conservative Islamists allowing personal choice by women. Bill Maher desperately needs to see this film.

Many of us were surprised some years back at the smart and efficient manner in which Iceland handled its economic meltdown. We visit all this again and talk to a number of women who helped and guided that little country through its travails. Here, Moore gets, well, feminist, and how he does it is inspiring and moving. "Where might have been were that company titled Lehman Sisters" one person wonders. Declares another, a propos the behavior of the banks and Wall Streeters: "Anyone who has kids will know this. If the kids get away with their crimes, they will do it all again." Amen.

What makes the movie so enjoyable is Moore's consistent sense of humor and irony at what he sees abroad and what goes on here in America. His movie is a lot of fun but every bit as serious and important because of that humor and irony. Sure, the filmmaker leaves out the fact that Italy is in a lot of financial trouble and that business there is more often dependent on "connections" rather than on abilities. But that does not mean that the country's treatment of its workers is somehow wrong.

The points Moore raises here are valid and secure. America could be one hell of a lot better country for its people, rather than for those corporations and that one per cent. Which is why Bernie Sanders' popularity continues to grow. America may also be simply too big and sprawling and diffuse to govern properly. But if its populace ever wakes up to what it needs, rather than what it imagines it wants, who know what might occur?

Meanwhile, Where to Invade Next opened up yesterday in theaters all across the country. See it, argue, and discuss. But miss it at your peril. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. Here in South Florida, it has opened in Miami, Miami Beach, Davie, Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Palm Beach Gardens and West Palm Beach. Check that listing for specific theaters.

New from Hal Hartley --via FANDOR-- the highly theatrical, diverse & funny potluck MY AMERICA

Just about the perfect "watch" for Independence Day (on which day the film made its debut via FANDOR), MY AMERICA, the new work from Hal Hartley, is almost nothing like what you usually get from this man, one of America's premier independent filmmakers ever since his first full-length feature premiered in 1989 -- the same year, by the way, that Steven Soderbergh premiered his first full-length feature. While you could hardly find two more divergent career paths, for me it has long been Hartley who has kept the faith, so to speak -- even if some of his more recent films have failed to find much or nearly any audience. Still, Hartley (shown below) has maintained his "quirk," offering us many good films and one great one (Henry Fool), while Soderbergh bounces from independents to commercial blockbusters (or would-be) and back again with ease.

Hold on, though: If you're expecting anything like the usual Hartley endeavor, better set your expectations differently. My America is a compilation film with its roots in legitimate theater, made up of around 20 short monologues written by 20 different playwrights. These have been culled from the 50 monologues that were first presented at Maryland's Center Stage in 2012. From those 50, these 20, I guess, were chosen to grace Hartley's 78-minute finished film. Since the left-out playwrights include the likes of Anna Deavere Smith and Christopher Durang, one can only marvel or worry at the process of selection.

As good as many of these monologues are, My America also made me pine for Hartley's writing, nudging me to realize that, as a filmmaker, his work is even more dependent on his screenplay and dialog than on his visual sense. So, once you've set your mind to enjoying these varied and interesting, funny and not-so theater pieces, photographed in differing locations, some of which could easily be (and maybe were) the stage itself, you can relax into appreciating what these writers have to say about America today. And also appreciate the consummate skill with which most of the actors perform the playwrights' work.

The fact that these monologues are at least two years old hardly changes their worth or timeliness, since our country is in pretty much the same shape now as it was in 2012. As with any series of individual pieces, some are better than other. None take a nose dive, however, and several -- including Bekah Brunstetter's piece in which a Southern mom (two photos up) talks about food, death and the one percent; Dan Dietz's soldier's tale (above) of Afghanistan; and Kristen Greenidge's "Hit & Run" (below) -- are splendid little gems.

The performers are often quite wonderful, too, helping their monologue take off into the stratosphere. Kristine Nielsen, shown at bottom, plays a lady in pearls who tracks the decline of modern civilization back to a very odd and funny source, while Thomas Jay Ryan (below) essays a half-hidden fellow who tells us of fallen Presidents and asks if we are the cat, the mouse, or just "one of these assholes." Mr. Ryan is, as he often proves to be, funny perfection.

Themes covered here range from our current economic times to the "magic" of real estate, from our non-ending war(s) to our ever-present racism, prison, aging, Asians and more. There's even a Southern musical interlude, written by Polly Pen and performed by Jeb Brown (below), about little Jimmy spinning in a baseball field.

Think of the film as a welcome antidote to the latest confusion from Dinesh D'Souza and his America. The only piece here that D'Souza might cotton to is the first: Gyydion Suilebhan's monologue about a dad going all teary-eyed patriotic at a sports event.

All in all, My America is a rich feast of hors d'oeuvres, rather than dinner. Yet I suspect that it may seem even better and more nourishing a few hours after viewing. Which you can do now, thanks to Fandor.
Click here for specifics.  (If you live in the NYC area, you can also see the film at a one-time screening at the IFC Center, this coming Wednesday evening, July 7, at 7pm, hosted by Hal Hartley and Fandor's Ted Hope.)

Michel Gondry's THE WE AND THE I: beaucoup energy (from the performers), anger-and-joy combo (from the audience)

When TrustMovies recalls high-school movies during the time he has remaining, it will no longer be The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller, Andy Hardy or Project X that comes first to mind. Nope. THE WE AND THE I, the new amazement from Michel Gondry, has pretty much wiped that slate clean. What a wonderful film this is. And what an enormous surprise.

M. Gondry, shown above, appears to be a filmmaker, like Mr. Soderbergh, who wants to try everything. When he succeeds, as he so firmly does here, despite a few blips along the way -- some sentimentality, a little over-the-top behavior --  the filmmaker and his amazing and very game cast of young people (together with a few oldsters) finally allow you to see these kids whole. This is an opportunity rarely given and almost never as fully achieved as here.

The filmmaker's ace in the hole is his unique setting: a MTA bus here in New York (in the Bronx, I believe) which takes the kids from their last day of school (we see them leaving the school, and boarding that bus) to their various destinations. Along the route they interact with each other and the adult passengers, some of whom immediately leave the bus once the kids have boarded: smart move. (The filmmaker uses a tiny model of the bus in the opening credits, which are a delight.)

Were it not for the truly amazing energy level of these youngsters and the smart, realistic manner in which Gondry has captured them, I admit that I would probably not have finished the film. So rude and crude is some of their behavior toward the older people on the bus (they could be me!) that I found myself asking, "Where is Bernie Goetz when you really need him?" Other kids will laugh at this behavior, of course, but those of us to whom it is directed can only cringe.

And yet so vital and energetic are the performances of these youngsters (truly, they are amazing) that I found myself hooked, despite my anger at their behavior. And slowly, they and Gondry won me over completely.

The director has spiked his movie with tiny moments of fantasy, as well as flashbacks, in which, for instance, one of those old folk goes after her tormentor with a tree branch and sends him sprawling. At other times we see moments of the kids' own wish fulfillment, or their history. These are generally short and sweet (or sour) and help fill in the blanks of the characters nicely, without undue pushing.

Among the enormous cast are everyone from the school bullies, who commandeer the rear of the bus to a gay male couple who, rather than receiving the brick-a-bats you'd expect, seem to occupy a place as some sort of exotic species. Their heart-to-heart late in the movie is surprising and moving.

The young ladies are as varied and interesting as your could wish; ditto the nerds, the musicians, and the occasional single -- one of whom (above) comes into his own as the finale approaches, and another whom we see only in captured video moments, whose story comes full circle only at the end.

The movie is fictional, I am guessing, but documentary technique has certainly been used to make it pulsate so winningly. While the acting occasionally stumbles, the step is never long enough to do real damage. And often the acting is superb, so much so, that you begin to wonder if this is not a documentary.

As the bus ride continues and more passengers depart the vehicle, the film grow quieter and even stronger. If M. Gondry ever makes a better, more important movie than this one, we're should start polishing the crown. In its way, The We and the I (the title of which I suspect refers to the kids' behavior in a group, as opposed to that as an individual) is like nothing we've seen. In a time when the world as we know it appears to be about to undergo either huge and terrible changes, if not a full stop, how refreshing to see a film that imbues humanity with such hope.

Gondry's film opens in New York City this Friday, March 8, at the IFC Center and the Mist Harlem Cinema; in Los Angeles, it will open on March 22 at the Landmark NuArt, followed by other venues in cities across the country as the weeks go by.

BOMBAY BEACH, from Alma Har'el, fancily fuses doc, dance, fantasy and more....

Yet another in the ever-expanding realm of hybrid documen-taries, BOMBAY BEACH, the unique new film from Israeli artist/filmmaker Alma Har'el, should prove unlike anything you've yet seen. Because the film won Best Feature Documentary at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, I was prepared to watch a documentary. But as I did, time and again, "What's this?" I would find myself wondering. For clearly, the film is not just about a film-maker pointing a camera at her subjects and recording them. No: She arranges them, even at one point producing a kind of dance. According to the press materials, which I read only after seeing the film, she also used improvisation -- which we generally think of as a narrative technique -- and she ends her movie with a fantasy that, given what we know by then, just might break your heart.

Moving in with her subjects and remaining with them for months, Ms. Har'el (shown at left) has come up with a kind of highly impressionistic canvas on which these people glimmer and glow briefly (the film lasts only 79 minutes), yet make their mark. The filmmaker must have had a lot of footage by the time she finished shooting, but so carefully has she chosen what to show us that, in a surprisingly short time, we feel we understand and even care for her subjects. This is smart, empathetic art.

The characters we meet and grow fond of include the Parrish family, particularly little Benny (above, with his mom, in a pinkl girl's wig, and below, getting a haircut). A problemed child, for a few good reasons, Benny is medicated (maybe over-so) but full of life, intelligence -- and anger.

We learn this family's history, strange but understandable, and also some of the history of the old man "Red," below, who explains why his marriage ended and why he is estranged from his children -- which leads to his philosophizing about why the races must not mix.

Which is exactly what seems to be going on with CeeJay, a young black man from South Central L.A. who is embarking on a relationship, shown below in one of those dance sequences, with a white girl in the local high school.

That CeeJay has come to Bombay Beach to escape the fate of his murdered cousin seems at once intelligent and bizarre. That he feels he can succeed here is surprising but understandable, given who he is and where he comes from.

And this is the beauty and mystery of the film. In the case of all the characters on view, success (or at least the ability to survive) seems both at odds with -- yet an oddly fine example of -- what we generally tend of imagine/believe about America. Is life in Bombay Beach the American Dream turned inside out and then made new and bright again?


That ending -- which imagines a fantasy of one of the characters whom we care so much about -- may strike some as beyond the pale of the documentary process. TrustMovies no longer knows where that pale ends, so quickly and in so many varied ways has documentary changed over these recent few years. But in the case of Bombay Beach and little Benny, who "stars" in the film's finale, I would like the think of this fantasy as a gift of hope from the filmmaker to her subject.

Bombay Beach -- which, whatever else you might call it, is a legitimate work of art -- is presented by Boaz Yakin and self-distributed theatrically, opening this Friday, October 14, in New York City at the IFC Center, and in Los Angeles on October 21 at Laemmle's Sunset 5.