Five fine films on Netflix streaming: LADY J, YOUR SON, MIRAGE, THE CLAPPER and A FUTILE AND STUPID GESTURE

Will Forte and Dohmnall Gleeson (shown below, left and right, respectively) are terrific in this very cleverly handled bio-pic about the two guys -- Douglas Kenney and Henry Beard -- who started the National Lampoon magazine and went on (one of them, at least) to give us a couple of raunchy/weird comedy classic movies: Animal House and Caddyshack. As written by Michael Colton and John Aboud, and directed with unshowy finesse by David Wain, the film grabs you from the outset via its very interesting narrator, who only grows much more so by movie's marvelous end. Filled with oddball fun and a main character who, though not all that likeable, via Forte's rich performance, holds you in

sway just fine, the film is abrim with nostalgia, all right, but even more with crack performances and smart writing that, thanks to Wain's great pacing, keeps things bouncing along delightfully until the bill must be paid. How this is handled is every bit as wonderful as all that has preceded it. The movie resonates emotionally without being at all sentimental or cloying. It's a great memorial to a very funny and special magazine and to the guys (and gals, one of these played by Natasha Lyonne, above, center) who created it.

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Special for a number of reasons, chief among these that, even as it holds a very necessary mirror up to the ways in which would-be "reality" TV corrupts us all, THE CLAPPER also manages to show us the kind of Hollywood characters that almost no movie wants to get near. These are the barely-making-it, little people, some of them pretty bizarre indeed, who live and work in a Hollywood that is anything but the land of our dreams. Writer/director Dito Montiel may not be a critics' darling, but even so, the lousy reception this unusual little film received seems to me very unfair.

Ed Helms (above, center right) and Tracy Morgan (center left) make a sad but quite believable pair of "clappers" -- those folk who act as supposed "real" audience members made to laugh, gasp and applaud on cue -- while Amanda Seyfried is sweet and pretty as the gas station girl on whom Helms has a crush. Where this movie goes and how it gets there is full of smart little touches and a quietly angry attitude toward fake fame. It's certainly not a perfect film, but it's so much better than so much that's out there, you ought to give it a try.

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Anyone who's been wondering why they don't make a romantic time-travel movie like the popular 1980 hit, Somewhere in Time (which was only so-so in any case), don't miss the Spanish film now streaming on Netflix entitled MIRAGE (Durante la tormenta is the original Spanish title). It's maybe ten times more convoluted and interesting than was that earlier time-travel romance, and in fact is much more than mere love story (which doesn't even kick in until half the movie is over). This is also one hell of a mystery -- about death and love and life and caring and very oddball electronics -- that should keep you guessing and more right up to its not-quite-good-enough conclusion.

Don't worry: So smartly paced, beautifully acted and cleverly invented (by writer/director Oriol Paulo of The Invisible Guest) is the tale, that I think you'll forgive an ending that doesn't quite make enough sense. With the fine Spanish actress Adriana Ugarte in the lead, and a very hot young actor, Chino Darín, as the cop on the case, the movie offers plenty of eye-candy as well as a nearly first-rate story, niftily told. I'd watch the entire movie again just for the marvelous scene of a young man waiting at a railway station and literally growing up in the process.

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Get to know your children. Please! That would seem to be the important message of YOUR SON (Tu hijo), another Netflix movie from Spain and one of the darkest I've seen in some time. When the handsome late-teenage son of a successful doctor is beaten nearly to death outside a night club, his father becomes obsessed with finding out who did it and why. The journey takes him into uncharted territory, as this fellow -- who clearly has paid much more attention to his work than to his family -- slowly uncovers more and more ugly and unsettling information.

As directed and co-written by Miguel Ángel Vivas, of Kidnapped fame (or infamy), this much less "showy" movie is also a lot deeper. Extremely well-acted by the entire cast and especially by leading actor Jose Coronado (on the poster above), who brings gravity and tension to every one of his many scenes. He controls the movie, and by the time the film has reached its dark conclusion, you're with Señor Coronado in body, soul and hopelessness.

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Is there another current filmmaker who can write witty, scintillating, intelligent dialog about love, sex, relationships and hypocrisy better than Emmanuel Mouret? If so, I sure can't think who that he or she might be. After Shall We Kiss and Please, Please Me!, his latest endeavor, LADY J (original French title: Mademoiselle de Joncquières) should only burnish his reputation even brighter. Mouret has always seemed to me to be a modern-day Marivaux, but with this film he actually places his period a couple of centuries in the past to tell a tale of love and seduction, betrayal and revenge.

What makes this so very special, however, is Mouret's light-hearted and near-comical take on it all. Truly awful things transpire here, but so charmingly, graciously are they unveiled that we bounce right along with them, only slowly becoming aware of the cruel nature of what is going on. Still, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, in any of its incarnations, this ain't.

The movie stars three terrific French actors: Cécile de France (at right, two photos up), Edouard Baer (left, two photos up) and Alice Izaaz (above), each of whom proves so right for the role that you can't imagine anyone else managing it this well -- with fine support from the likes of Call My Agent's Laure Calamy as the "best friend." As we watched, my spouse and I kept marvelling at the wonderful dialog, of which we wanted to savor every subtitled word: It's that delicious. Miss this one at your peril.

All five of the above films are streaming now via Netflix. I suggest a watch soon, however, as one never knows when a film will suddenly disappear from view.

Li Lu's complicated love-at-first-sight tale, THERE IS A NEW WORLD SOMEWHERE

A young woman named Sylvia -- whose boss at a New York art gallery explains that her work is not good enough to be included in even a group show -- is so fed up that she quits, leaving town to attend the wedding of a friend in Austin, Texas. At the night-before party she makes eye contact with a hot-looking guy who, on this first date, invites her to come away with him. This could be the start of a movie in any number of genres, from kidnap thriller to feel-good love story. In the hands of writer/director Li Lu, however, it becomes something more complicated and interesting.

Ms Lu (shown at right), a Chinese-born filmmaker whose first full-length film this is, seems most interested in slowly developing character, and while the manner in which she does this may seem initially rather typical, if beautifully filmed, stick with THERE IS A NEW WORLD SOMEWHERE. It gets better as it goes along, and in its two attractive and talented leads, Agnes Bruckner (two photos below) and Maurice Compte (below), it boasts actors who can hold the screen and our attention well enough to hit pay dirt thoughtfully and quietly by movie's end.

A psychotherapist friend of Trust Movies once told him that any two individuals could form a lasting relationship, the only prerequisites being that the two were autonomous and that they wanted that relationship. Ms Lu's movie would seem to bear out this theory, even though our two characters here are not yet autonomous. But they're trying to be, and by movie's end they've made some growth in that direction.

The ups and down, stops and starts of that growth, as well as the small bits of information we begin to learn about Esteban, the male part of this duo, is what gives the movie its slow, quiet propulsion. The dialog ranges from simply OK to a good deal more than that. "You don't trust anyone, do you?" he asks of her early on. And this seems, unfortunately, to be true.

She also does not appear to enjoy sex all that much, though the pair has it with some frequency. (It may be that he does not know how to or care about satisfying her, but she may also not be able to be satisfied so easily.) And yet they are drawn to each other both physically and emotionally.

So "New World Somewhere" is a road trip/getting-to-know-you kind of movie -- which turns darker as more and more reality, along with the past, begins to intrude. Leaving the wedding party so suddenly was a selfish thing to do, and Sylvia will eventually cop to and pay for this. Esteban, for his part, has major abandonment issues resulting in an inability to "try."

When, at a particular moment, an early lie in the relationship is uncovered, everything seems to change. But even then, Ms Lu has more on her mind that simple closure and conclusion. There is indeed a new world somewhere. But getting on the right road to that world can take an awful lot of work.

From Emerging Pictures (in its theatrical release) and Gravitas Ventures (for its VOD release, which began this past Tuesday, August 2), the movie, running 103 minutes, is worth seeking out and wrestling with. Click here to see all further theatrical screenings. VOD platforms include iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, Playstation Store, VUDU, Amazon Video, Microsoft and Hoopla.

A quick Q&A with the stars of APARTMENT TROUBLES: Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler

If you follow TrustMovies regularly, yes, you've already seen the below post. But as Apartment Troubles is one of those little movies that has gone straight to video, it's likely to get lost in the shuffle. And that's too bad because it has much to recommend. And since, post-viewing, I had the opportunity to chat via phone with its two stars/writers/ directors -- Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler -- it seems like a good idea to post again, this time including as much of the interview as time and memory permits. (My typing skills, never very good, are definitely lessening with age, and although I thought I understood how to record via my new SmartPhone, I obviously did not, so score another point for technology in the ongoing struggle for comprehension by us senior citizens.)

Though I've seen Ms Prediger in several movies, especially Joe Swanberg's Uncle Kent, this one actually set me to wanting to remember her. I've been a long-time fan of Ms. Weixler since The Big Bad Swim, Teeth, Alexander the Last, Peter and Vandy and many other movies. So here again, is that review of Apartment Troubles, followed by a short Q&A with the young ladies.

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OK: The movie's a mess. But, gheesh, it's sort of an endearing mess -- funny in odd ways rather than the expected, and as ditsy, charming and irritating as its two leading ladies, Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler, who also wrote and directed the film. You might call this a "vanity production," except that the filmmakers are as apt to show their worst sides as their better ones. Also, they do have a bundle of talent, even if it's oddball rather than mainstream.

Ms Prediger (shown at right) and Ms Weixler (below) both have a barrel of indie-film credits (Weixler has 37, Prediger 22) so they've been around the block a few times. Here, they take a well-known fact of life these days (nobody except the very wealthy can afford an apartment in New York City or its environs) and use it a leaping-off point for their adventures -- which prove to be a kind of first-class road trip to Los Angeles and back again.

That their film lasts only 77 minutes is probably wise, and the fact that it ends on a strange, lovely

and appealing note will send any Chekhov lovers in the audience levitating in a state of grace. The Russian master and his work figure in this film a couple of times and in major ways -- firstly in a weird piece of performance art that the two girls, Nicole (Weixler) and Olivia (Prediger) decide to act out on a kind of America's Got Talent TV show. It's a odd homage to Anton Chekhov and his play, The Seagull, in both the kind of amateur theater production it appears to be imitating and in its use of some of the dialog from the play. What's more, these lines appear again at film's end, this time performed by Weixler in what is the most beautiful rendering of them--visual and verbal--I've yet seen/heard.

I am guessing either or both of these actresses did Chekhov in high school or drama school and probably fell in love with him and his creation, Nina, from The Seagull. In any case, the movie's use of these few lines at the finale gives it a strange and slightly Armageddon-like quality, which is probably not amiss in our current times (just as it would not have been in Chekhov's own).

Also in the cast are three more noted and popular performers who were somehow corralled into joining the cast, which proves all to the good. Jeffrey Tambor -- shown above, right, and currently riding and definitely adding to the heights of Transparent (the double meaning of this terrific title word only became apparent to me as I typed it now). Tambor plays the girls' odd landlord (everything and everybody in this movie is odd), who for some reason enjoys showering in their apartment but is not happy about their consistently tardy and under-market rent payments.

Once they arrive in Los Angeles, they're given a lift by an even odder character played by Will Forte (above, right), who appears again toward the end to goose the movie into a kind of "full circle" thing. Forte is fresh and funny (and real), as usual.

But it is Megan Mullally (above, left) as Nicole's odd aunt, who gives the movie a consistent lift. Clearly sexually attracted to Olivia, as well as wanting to help the pair, she simply can't keep her hands to herself, making Prediger's character as uncomfortable as it makes us viewers amused. (That Mullally and Prediger could pass for mother and daughter adds a soupçon of further naughtiness to the proceedings.)

And that's pretty much it: They come to L.A., they do silly things, and then they leave again for NYC. But beneath the veneer lies longing and frustration of artists and women who cannot express themselves and be heard, so the expression comes out in, yes, odd ways. In a sense, both these young women are Ninas -- but let's hope as in the earlier, rather than the later, portion of Chekhov's play.

Prediger, looking like a lost little girl struggling to grow up, has a lovely, true and dulcet singing voice, which we hear only haphazardly at the aunt's dinner party. I'd like to hear it again.

Weixler, whom I have in the past compared to a young Meryl Streep, here looks more like the youthful and oddly beautiful Bette Davis. The actress has an edge that she knows how to use, as well, and she does so quite purposefully here.

If it sounds like I am raving about this strange little mistake of a movie, well, so be it. It certainly will not prove to be to most audiences' tastes. But for those willing to take a chance, or who love Chekhov, or enjoy any of all of the performers mentioned above, it is worth that chance. As a whole, it may go right by you, but certain little scenes, I swear, you'll remember for quite some time (particularly if you're a cat person).

Apartment Troubles, from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Gravitas Ventures, will appear on DVD Tuesday, October 6, for purchase or rental. One hopes it will soon become available digitally, as well.

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TrustMovies:  How and why did you do this movie? Have you known Jess Weixler for a long time?

Jennifer Prediger: It's really "small world" stuff. She rented my apartment when she had to be here in New York doing The Good Wife for awhile, and then three months later, here we are writing a movie together!

TM: I know you've worked with Joe Swanberg, but I don’t see Apaprtment Troubles as anything like mumblecore.

JP: I learned a lot from watching Joe work. He doesn’t suffer, he just makes it happen -- I’m a big sufferer as a writer -- but Joe creates an outline, gets his group of actors together, and they improvise it. For our movie, we wanted something more structured. I’d say 85 per cent is structured and 15 improvised.

TM: Are you a Chekhov fan? Because Anton figures pretty heavily in your movie.

JP: It’s funny. My actual cat was named Pigeon, and, like the cat in the movie, he actually died while we were working on the movie, so he became a real part of the movie. He had a heart attack, and my producer and Jess had to get him to the vet with me. So for the new cat in the movie – I came up with the name Seagull. We were thinking of some kind of performance piece, and I had written something about how you could figure out your approximate death date. We wanted to add something to that or like that. Jess had been in The Seagull and had played Nina a couple of times. So we inserted one of the speeches, and it all came together somehow.

TM: I thought there was something smart and thoughtful to it all, kind of philosophical in nature. By the way, I loved your singing in the movie. You have such a true, clear voice. Have you sung professionally?

JP: No, but my "secret" profession is that I would have loved to be to be a jazz singer. But of course I don't do that -- except when I am a little drunk at a karaoke bar. I am always intrigued when people find their own special meaning in things and find strange things in creative work. What else did you find that seemed special in the movie?

TM: A lot, really. My favorite thing was your use of Chekhov. But my spouse, who watched the film with me, loved the scene just before your appearance on the "talent" show, where you two come up against the other pair of girls who sort of act as "doubles" for you -- just a little younger and more "mainstream." He thought the two seemed like your counterparts in some alternate universe, and he found the scene fun and very funny, too.

JP: Thanks! You know: That scene was hard for us – because we had to get to a place where we could attack the girls. But the two girls were just so nice, so lovely, that we found this really difficult to do.

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TrustMovies: I found your film a very interesting and encouraging start for you as writers and directors. Will you write and direct again?

Jess Weixler:  Yes, I sure hope so.

TM: Are you working on something now.

JW: Well, both Jenn and I were writing about our fathers, so maybe something will happen with that.

TM: Jennifer said that you two really hit it off from the first.

JW: Yes -- we got along so well right away. And she had some friends with some money who told us, "If you have a script that we like. we'll produce it." So it just sort of worked out.

TM: I am particularly interested in the Chekhov connection to your film. Tell me about that.

JW: I'm so glad you noticed that! I was lucky in that I went to Julliard, and so I had the chance to do the classics. And I think that the character of Nina is, for women, like Hamlet is for guys: a role to treasure, and everyone wants to play it.

TM: I'd never thought about it in that way before, but I'll bet you're right.

JW: I think it all came about because both Jennifer and I love the movie Withnail and I.

TM: Yes, that is a good one -- and certainly an original of sorts.

JW: We wanted to do a kind of homage to Withnail and I because it's so funny, but it's also such a great story about about people, and about such unusual characters.. At the end of Withnail, they do the Hamlet speech, and we thought, let’s do something like that, but using Chekhov.

TM: Ah...  I get it. It's done first in that wonderful scene where Jennifer does the audition for the American Idol-like show. And then again to wrap up the film. I have to say that, in all the times I've seen The Seagull performed, I've never heard that particular speech done as beautifully as you do it. You made the words sound not just meaningful but somehow even timely, too!

JW: Wow. Thank you. You've made my day.

TM: Well, your rendition of that speech certainly made mine!

JW: What we really hope is that, for anyone who hasn’t already seen Withnail and I , maybe our movie will send them there. 

Nice try: Justin Simien's slow-paced look at race and class at college, DEAR WHITE PEOPLE

The characters in DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, every last one of them -- or nearly (a few seem not to have the smarts to consider such things) -- are almost desperate to discover their "place" in the world. While their current world consists of university life, they clearly have their eye set as well on the life to follow. Some of these folk are black, some are white, and some may be mixed race, but all are trying to figure out where they belong in terms of not just race but class. This is a terrific set-up for a modern-day, age-of-Obama movie, and I dearly wish that the writer/director Justin Simien had been able to do more with it.

The filmmaker, shown at left, has certainly provided an interesting array of characters -- mostly students, but a couple of administrators, too -- and given each their character "quest" and/or problem. The trouble comes when he tries mixing it all up. He doesn't seem to understand how to make a movie come to life. Instead he sees to it that all his characters, just about all the time, talk about race and class and what to do with or about them. Yet the dialog does not, shall we say, bubble. Instead it just sits there, sort of like Whit Stillman on a rare bad day. Or Spike Lee in his School Daze days, but without the pizazz. Nor do these characters seem to exist much beyond their "race" and "class" blather. That's what they're here for, and that's what they give us.

The timing and pacing are way off-kilter: slow and tired. After the screening I attended, a young woman who rode down in the elevator with me blamed this on the editing -- by Phillip J. Bartell, of the Eating Out series. Whatever you might think of those films, they certainly had no pacing problems, so perhaps the responsibility remains in Simien's hands. In any case, maybe ten minutes could profitably have been cut from this too-long movie, had someone possessed the balls to just tighten it up.

Among the cast there are a number of first-rate performers -- or at least some actors who look like they could be: Tessa Thompson (above) and Tyler James Williams (below, center) to name but two -- under better circumstances.

We see so few intelligent movies about race and class that I don't want to put this little movie down too harshly. It's worth viewing and arguing over, and I'll be interested to see what Simien does next.

Meanwhile Dear White People -- from Lionsgate & Roadside Attractions and running 100 minutes -- opened yesterday, October 17, in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington DC. Click here to see theaters and further playdates. 

Driven drummer comes up against maniacal mentor in Damien Chazelle's WHIPLASH

Another case of inflated expectations (not entirely sinking but) dragging down a serviceable, feel-good (after feeling really bad) movie featuring a few terrific scenes, WHIPLASH is musical melodrama writ very large. One of those "if you'll believe this, you'll believe most anything" compilations of unlikely events growing even more unlikely as they lead to a thrilling, if ridiculous, climax, the film is certainly fun in its over-the-top way. As written and directed by Damien Chazelle (his follow-up to Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench), this second full-lengther also features an all-stops-out performance from an actor, J. K. Simmons, whom people will now claim has suddenly come into his own.

Except that Simmons has been his very capable "own man" for almost three decades now. He's never given anything less than a good performance that I've seen. It's just that here, he finally gets star billing -- along with a one-note role that he rips into and tears to shreds. Simmons plays Professor Fletcher, the much-feared music teacher and orchestra leader of the famed New York-based music school which our hero, Andrew (Miles Teller) attends in the hopes of becoming a bigtime drummer. Neither one-note role offer much in the way of recognizable human nature or nuance. Writer/director Chazelle, shown above, makes Fletcher, below, a mustache-twirling villain, the likes of whom we've not seen since Snidely Whiplash (whom I suddenly realize must have been the inspiration behind this film), pitted against the naive-but-talented, obsessively driven Andrew.

What happens in the course of the movie defies credibility a number of times, but for those who like their melodrama lip-smackingly pungent, this one offers plenty of juice. The ongoing duet of symbolically (and once nearly literally) death-defying stunts keeps upping the ante until, if I'm not mistaken, we're at Carnegie Hall, for Christ's sake.

Performances are quite good, working wonderfully well for melodrama (Joan Crawford would have loved this movie), including the supporting performances from Paul Reiser (lovely and low-keyed as Andrew's dad), Melissa Benoist (below, left, as his unappreciated girlfriend), and Chris Mulkey (as Uncle Frank). The one dinner scene in which Mulkey appears seems to have been written, as has so much else in the movie, with a clear point to make and so comes off as a little unreal, unlike any actual dinner you might have witnessed. Chazelle does not yet have the ability to finesse dialog in the manner that real dialog happens -- unless it's super-confrontational. He's certainly good at that.

Chazelle also keeps trying to give the Fletcher character a saving grace or two, and this grows a bit silly over time, as Simmons is clearly playing the guy as evil, even and especially when he appears to be going for "nice."

The film's final scene, which offers the what-you've-been-waiting-for showdown, also contains some of the worst, back-and-forth, tennis-tournament cinematography I've viewed all year.

While it is indeed great to see Simmons in another leading role (most people missed him in The Music Never Stopped), next time I'll hope for something a little more believable (but probably not nearly as much fun). Mr. Teller, below, who bids fair to become the best actor of his young generation, is fine once again. He does a bang-up job on the drums, too, and will certainly convince you that he can beat the hell out of 'em. But, as called for here, he is either cowed or loud, so this is nowhere near as nuanced a performance as he gives in the current Two Night Stand or has given elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong: Whiplash, eminently watchable, is and a hoot and a half. But people, please: Are you really taking this movie seriously?

The film -- from Sony Pictures Classics and running 106 minutes -- opens theatrically this Friday, October 10, in Los Angeles (at The Landmark, AMC Century City 15 and Hollywood Arclight) and New York City (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, Regal Union Square and Cinemas 123) and will expand throughout the country in the weeks following. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

John Slattery's directorial debut, GOD'S POCKET, is strange, wise, dark, crazy, funny and original

How often, when watching a movie in which the bad guys are about to wreak havoc on the good ones and this seems unavoidable, have you found yourself wishing against all hope that the good guys could do something, anything, please!? After the fact, when that damage has been done (this is usually a set-up for revenge -- sometimes it's the set-up for the entire movie that follows), things go on, as usual. But how often, following that first moment of threat, does somthing good and just and necessary actually occur? Right: You can count 'em on the fingers of one finger. Well, prepare yourself, folk, because this kind of jolting joy happens not once but twice in GOD'S POCKET, the new and quite unusual movie directed by and co-adapted (with Alex Metcalf, from the Pete Dexter novel) by John Slattery. And it happens in a manner that, though surprising, you can actually believe.

If this were all that Mr. Slattery's film offered (the director is pictured at left), I would still be inclined to give it a pass. But there's so much more in this exceedingly dark, moody, bleak, black-comedic movie that it earns mostly high marks all-round. Evidently based on a terrible and life-changing event in the life of Mr. Dexter that ended one man's career and started another's new one, the movie is by turns resolutely grim and bleakly funny. It involves a death that happens to one of the most agravating and unpleasant characters you're likely to have encountered on-screen of late, and as which Caleb Landry Jones is memorable indeed.

What evolves from this death is by turns wacky and awful, unreasonable and understandable -- given us human's beings propensity for self-delusion. It also turns the movie into a joy/horror-ride of major proportions. As you might expect from a smart Hollywood semi-insider like Slattery (whose indelible mark has been made on our consciousnesses via his work in Mad Men, the consistently finest piece of dramatic American television yet to air), he and his casting director, Susan Shopmaker, have done a yeoman job of collecting and then bringing to fruition a fabulous cast of some of independent film's finest actors.

In the lead is a man we'll be missing mightily until those of us who remember him are also dead: Philip Seynour Hoffman, above, who turns in yet another outstanding -- living, breathing, huffing and puffing -- performance. As his wife, Christina Hendricks (below) adds another feather in her growing cap of odd movie roles, as does Richard Jenkins (two photos below), as the newspaper reporter whose work sets off the final fire storm (and evidently recalls author Dexter's own story). Also on board is John Turturro (bottom, left) as a pleasantly criminal type (compare his work here with that of Fading Gigolo to better appreciate this guy's versatility).

Standout support is provided by the likes of Eddie Marsan and Joyce Van Patten, among many others. Finally, it's the tone of the tale -- it keeps moving back and forth from comic dark to just-plain-black -- that makes God's Pocket (the name of the little community in which our story takes place) such an unusual film. I have deliberately left out much mention of plot because you deserve to experience first-hand the surprises the movie has in store.

While we can and do appreciate many of these characters as oddball individuals, we can also understand the gut feeling we're left with at the film's conclusion, when the "general public," as it were, has run amok. The movie leaves you with the strong sense that "we, the people" are the last ones to be trusted to do the right thing.

God's Pocket is an original that's as black as they come and almost as quietly funny. Filmmaker Slattery and his cast deliver the goods to the point that I can safely predict: Like it or not, you won't forget this movie.
The film opens today, Friday, May 9, in New York City at the IFC Center, and in Los Angeles at The Landmark. Elsewhere? Don't know, but by next Wednesday, May 14, it'll be available nationwide via VOD.

Note: Mr. Slattery will appear in person on Saturday, 

May 10, for a Q&A after the 7:45pm show, and on 

Sunday, May 11, for a Q&A after the 3:15pm show.