A second DISCLOSURE -- this one Australian from Michael Bentham -- hits home video

To immediately differentiate, the DISCLOSURE under review here is an Australian narrative movie about possible child abuse (by another child), rather than the recently debuted Netflix documentary about the transgendered.

Beyond that, how interesting it is -- one day after another -- to view a movie whose theme is the problematic malleability of something so encompassing as the "truth" of a situation.

The last film reviewed here was indeed The Truth, and now today we have another in which that truth of a particular situation is hugely complicated by everything and everyone that surrounds it.

While Kore-Eda Hirokasu's movie questions how important the truth actually is to the well-being of the family at its center, Disclosure -- written and directed by Michael Bentham (pictured at right) -- does precisely the opposite.

The actuality of learning what happened between the children involved in the abuse is vital, yet the concerns of the two sets of parents slowly come to control the narrative and run roughshod over everything -- including that difficult-but-necessary-to-determine "truth."

Disclosure is Mr. Bentham's first full-length narrative film, and as such it's a worthwhile endeavor. Beginning with a scene of one set of parents filming their own fucking session, Bentham's camera moves to a gliding, slo-mo look at what seems like an idyllic, lily-white, upper-class community, coming to rest on and into one particular house in which mom chats on the phone as a child's screaming is suddenly heard behind a closed door. Mom opens the door and angrily orders those inside to take their problems outside.
End of that situation.

Except it's not. The mother, Bek (Geraldine Hakewill, above) clearly ought to have been paying more attention. We do -- but then we know a bit more about what to expect here -- and that child's scream does resonate. The remainder of the movie takes place on a warm, sunny afternoon around the pool and large, verdant grounds and/or in the home of the parents of the little girl who appears to have been the victim of the abuse. Here, Bek and her husband Joel, a local (and by the looks of things highly successful) politician, played by Tom Wren, below, show up unannounced, determined to make this whole untidy affair go away. Bek and Joel's two sons, you see, were somehow involved in the abuse allegations, while Bek herself was a victim of abuse as a teenager.

This set-up is riveting enough, and the more we learn about these two couples -- the little girl's parents, Emily and Danny are played by Matilda Ridgway and Mark Leonard Winter, shown respectively, left and right, below -- the more complicated everything becomes. Though it does seem clear, from nearly the get-go, that while Emily and Danny may enjoy filming their own fuck sessions, much more toxic is the fact that Bek and Joel are unwilling even to explore what has happened between these children.

Further complications ensue via the raising of the question of what makes "good" parenting (pitting helicopter parent Bek against somewhat absentee parent Emily), an upcoming election for Joel, and an important book deal for Danny. As the needs of the parents slowly seem to outweigh those of their kids, tensions rise and tempers flare, leading to a finale in which you will wish that these four people could be able to stand back a bit and openly laugh at themselves -- before you do it for them. This scene suddenly leaps into near-black comedy.

If the film unfortunately rises to melodrama instead of the drama you might hope for, it certainly holds your mind and emotions taut throughout. And its last shots beautifully convey the importance of what really is at stake here, and who might most benefit from (or be destroyed by) the outcome.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running a just-right 86 minutes, Disclosure made its home video debut this past week -- on VOD and DVD. It is certainly worth a look.

Responsibility, PTSD and culture clash fuel Benjamin Gilmour's unusual Aussie film, JIRGA

Australia’s pick for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2019 Oscars and winner of the Best Independent Film Award from AACTA, the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, JIRGA, the new film by Benjamin Gilmour (shown below), despite its production history being about as fraught as they come, turns out to be -- if you can forgive one whopping bit of coincidence and unbelievability -- a remarkably unusual, thoughtful and finally very moving experience.

Why so fraught? Here's what the writer/director tells us in the press notes for his film:

“I was approached by a Pakistani producer who had found a Pashtun financier ready to put up $100K for the production of my script in Pakistan. My film was set in Afghanistan, but to benefit from the finance we'd need to shoot in Pakistan's Khyber Paktunkwha province. I approached Sam Smith, a talented actor from Sydney (not the singer) who was up for the adventure. We flew to Islamabad, only to discover the financier did not have permission to shoot from the ISI -- the Pakistan secret service -- who actively blocked the production after reading the script, considering it too politically sensitive. The Pashtun financier pulled his money out. Sam Smith and I were stranded in Pakistan with no team and no money and were now being tailed and harassed by the secret service. We could have flown back home then, but instead decided to shift the whole shoot to Afghanistan, risking our lives and investing some crowd funding and personal savings to make it…”

The result certainly proves worth everyone's time and finances (including ours, at least in terms of 78 minutes spent, together with the price of a movie ticket). This tale tells of an ex-soldier who committed an act somewhere between accident and war crime, and who has been hugely troubled by it ever since. He has determined to return to Afghanistan and the village/community where the event took place and offer himself up to "justice."

Fortunately the actor chosen to essay the role of ex-soldier, the generically-monikered Sam Smith (shown above and below), makes a most attractive and believe protagonist. Graced with handsome face and lean, lithe body, Smith is onscreen almost constantly, and he slowly pulls us in to his odd, difficult and sad quest. There are varied ways soldiers and ex-soldiers handle their individual Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder -- from group therapy or out-of-control anger to murder and suicide.

Smith's character Mike Wheeler's choice is certainly one of the more unusual ones, but the filmmaker and actor have collaborated well and made this choice strange but believable, thanks to a generally good script that shows both the difficulty of communication via language and the help that money (taped to our protagonist's body, above) can provide.

Along his journey, Mike encounters a kind and caring taxi driver (Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad, above), who bonds with our hero via music and a strange boat trip on a pink swan raft, before the two must separate suddenly when the Taliban appears.

This "escape" scene, below,  proves the movie's low point, as it is more than a tad unbelievable, as is the wandering in the desert that follows before Mike has somehow been found/rescued by a band of what seemed to me Taliban soldiers but perhaps were just a group of unattached "freedom fighters."

The leader of this group eventually bonds with Mike (thanks to the one fellow in the group who speaks enough English to communicate).

One wonders why the filmmaker did not dispense with the foolish "escape" and simply have the armed men at the road block be the group who captures Mike, keeping him in its underground lair until it eventually understands his mission and helps guide him toward it.

That said, the remainder of the film slowly coalesces into a very believable and moving conclusion involving that titular Jirga (below), as well as the family member (at bottom) of the dead Afghan man who unknowingly set Mike on his crazy but somehow understandable mission.

Though most of the supporting cast are untutored amateurs, they play their various roles well enough to pull us in, and Mr. Smith, via face and subtle acting skill, does the heavy lifting gracefully and well. Gilmour's film highlights the kind of trauma that has bedeviled so many of the soldiers who fought in the seemingly unending and certainly pointless middle-eastern wars -- both Americans and, in this case, Australians who fought in Operation Slipper.

From Lightyear Entertainment, in English and Pashto (with English subtitles), Jirga opens this Friday, July 26, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and in the Los Angeles area on August 2, at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. More playdates should be coming soon. Click here to view the most current schedule of cities and theaters.

Pelicans, as you've never seen them (& never will, actually), in Shawn Seet's STORM BOY

At the end of the end credits for STORM BOY, a new and contemporary re-telling of an Australian classic story, you can just barely read the following: This film is a work of fiction and does not represent the real biology or nature of pelicans. Keeping pelicans requires specialist knowledge. Pelicans are not suitable as pets.

Any viewers who've hung on until now (particularly those who know anything about pelicans) will probably laugh themselves silly at this information, as we've just seen a movie that is very nearly a complete fantasy -- one that goes utterly against those end-credit words of warning.

Based on the novel by Colin Thiele, with a screenplay by Justin Monjo, and directed with decent pacing and visual flair by Shawn Seet (shown at left), this modern-day version (an earlier film was made back in 1976) features Geoffrey Rush (below) as a kindly grand-dad who also sits on the board of an important something-or-other that is being environmentally threatened by mining interests.

Rush's son represents those interests, while his granddaughter is adamantly set against them and wants her grand-dad to help prevent the take-over. As grand-pappy wrestles with all this, he recalls his younger days and tells his grand-daughter the story of his life.

As you might imagine, the movie jumps back and forth in time from now to then, and we see the younger Rush (played by Finn Little, above), as he loses his mother in a car accident and then goes to live on a remote island with his grieving dad (Jai Courtney, below).

There, he and another island loner he meets (Trevor Jamieson, below, left) end up adopting a trio of orphaned pelicans, whom they help survive and then raise to adulthood, and the bond between boy and birds (especially one of the birds) becomes a strong one.

Sub-plots abound and the film is awash with certain stand-bys of Australian cinema, including the very wise and nature-connected Aborigine. There's a good deal of humor and plenty of emotion generated, too (anyone, like me, who is a shoo-in for human/wildlife bonding movies should bring an entire box of Kleenex to the theater).

Despite the near-complete unreality of the pelican/human relationship here, it will probably be difficult not to give in to the movie's beauty and emotional pull. (Bird lovers will simultaneously wince and wish it could be so.)

Past and present eventually coalesce, and we feel as though some sort of climate justice may occur, not to mention the doubling-in-area of the local sanctuary for birds. As I say, this is a fantasy movie, but done with enough skill and smarts to bring it to life -- at least for as long as the images flicker on the screen in front of you.

From Good Deed Entertainment and running 99 minutes, Storm Boy opens this coming Friday, April 5, nationwide. Here in South Florida,  you can see it in Miami at the AMC Aventura 24 and in the Fort Lauderdale area at the AMC Pompano 18. Wherever you live around the country, click here then scroll down to find a theater near you.

DVDebut for Ivan Sen's modern-day, Australian-outback, slow-burn western, GOLDSTONE

The award-laden (in Australia, at least) Australian movie GOLDSTONE harks back to those American westerns (with a sizeable helping of film noir tropes added to the mix) in which an outsider appears in town to investigate what looks like a simple problem that soon opens up into an entire web of corruption and sleaze. So, yes, we've seen this before. (Bad Day at Black Rock, anyone?). The difference in Ivan Sen's movie resides in the compellingly bleak-but-beautiful outback vistas that amaze the eye, and in the two lead performances, especially that of Aaron Pedersen in the role of the mixed-race detective who comes to "town" (we use that word loosely) to investigate.

Mr. Pedersen (above), who was so frighteningly fine as one of the two crazy murderers in last year's best couple-in-jeopardy survival movie, Killing Ground, is even better here as the taciturn fellow who just wants to do his job. The actor is especially good at allowing us to imagine all that roils beneath his quiet-but-deep surface.

His co-star is the younger actor Alex Russell, above, who plays the town's one lone cop, a man in the process of slowly being corrupted by the powers-that-be -- both corporate and political --

played respectively by David Wenham (above, right) and Jacki Weaver (left, getting a piggy-back ride). Few actors do buttoned-down sleaze better than Mr. Wenham, while Ms Weaver is always a delight, especially when she is being sweetly vicious, as here (and in Animal Kingdom).

De rigueur these days is a nod to sex trafficking, here via a bevy of beautiful Asian girls like the one played by Michelle Lim Davidson, above), whom one of our heroes decides he must help.

Also often seen in Aussie films is that sub-plot about native Aboriginal lands being stolen by the sadly winning combination of corporate power and local politics. That surfaces here via two characters: an old man named Jimmy (David Gulpilil, above) who appears to be a kind if spiritual leader to the particular group of Aboriginals and another named Tommy, played by Tommy Lewis (aka Tom E. Lewis), shown below,

who has renounced his tribe to go to work for the opposite side. Both actors -- probably the most seen of all Aborigine performers -- hold a special place in Australian film. Lewis, who died earlier this year, made his movie debut in that classic (and still hugely powerful) The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), while Gulpilil made his in Nicolas Roeg's famous Walkabout (1971). Both have worked steadily ever since, and their contribution to Goldstone, in terms of performances and the movie's underlying theme of the destruction of Aboriginal land and culture add to the undeniable gravity here.

Goldstone opens with a montage of archival photos showing, among other fascinating shots, Australia's use of slave labor via the Chinese and the Aboriginals. What follows brings all this up to date in a tale that offers its own depressing plus ça change effect.

For all its weight and slow-burn build to an exciting climax, the movie will seem to many older viewers not all that original. We've seen its like before, many times over.

And yet writer, director, editor, composer and cinematographer (whew!) Ivan Sen (shown at right) still manages to make most of it seem reasonably fresh and consistently compelling. He draws fine performances from his cast -- and a super one from Pedersen -- leaving us, once again and forever, it seems, watching the "haves" slowly, quietly and very effectively destroy the "have-nots."

From Lightyear Entertainment and running 110 minutes, the movie, after finding a limited theatrical release this past March, hits DVD this coming Tuesday, September 11, via MVD Entertainment -- for purchase and (I hope) rental.

Note to Lightyear and MVD: Please invest in the English subtitles options for any future release that sports thick Aussie accents. We missed probably one-quarter of the dialog, thanks to this omission.

Wanna get REALLY angry? Watch the new Aussie doc, KANGAROO: A LOVE-HATE STORY

It's from Australia -- where else? And if you've ever been there (TrustMovies has, a couple of times) and watched with delight all those kangaroos and wallabies in the wild, you've probably been left with an indelible impression and love for this remarkable species. And trust me: You won't get anything like the same result from visiting a zoo. The first time I journeyed down under -- this was back in the 70s -- I heard from some people about what horrible pests kangaroos really were. But then, when I asked around a bit, I was told by others that this was all bullshit, coming from the industries and government officials that wanted to "harvest them," and that, when dealt with properly, the kangaroo population posed little real problem at all.

That was over 40 years ago, and the situation has apparently only grown worse since then -- with kangaroo meat (eaten by both humans and our pets) becoming more popular and the industries that cater to this growing larger and more powerful. No film I've watched in a long while -- including anything, even, about America's current and unspeakably racist and venal sleazebag President -- has made me angrier and more disgusted than the new documentary by Kate McIntyre Clere (above, right) and Michael McIntyre (above, left), entitled quite properly KANGAROO: A LOVE-HATE STORY. I admit that you probably have to be an animal lover to get this worked up, but the filmmakers do a bang-up job of showing you what is going on (along with why), how awful it truly is, and what might be done to halt this -- if enough citizens finally speak up and hold their elected politicians' feet to the fire.

Those feet, by the way, belong mostly, as expected, to Australian politicians (and corporations), but they also include many others internationally, since Kangaroo meat and skin/hide is sold worldwide. What we learn here about how the industry and their lobbyists tried to subvert our own state of California to their needs will open many eyes and also show us, thankfully, that the USA still has some politicians willing to fight for what's right.

Kangaroo approaches its tale and goal using everything from history to statistics to a lot talking heads (here with their bodes shown as well, since we're so often in the wilds of Australia) who follow our kangaroos as they hop and play and are killed -- in the most awful of ways that allow them to die slowly and horribly by hunters who just don't give a damn. Their joey, too (the term for kangaroo young) are affected just as terribly. There is a scene here of one injured joey trying so hard to hop away that it will likely break your heart.

Sure, the film is biased. It wants to preserve a species, for Christ sake. But it allows the "other side" to have its say, and then pretty much pulls the rug out from under it, whether the speaker is a politician or a farmer who insists that the kangaroo cannot be stopped except by hunting them down. We see the ongoing results (over quite some time) of a public relations campaign to denounce these animals as "pests" and how, when done skillfully and long enough, this can turn a population against its own "national" animal.

Wildlife experts and preservationists have their say, too, and it is equally intelligent and anger-making, as we perceive yet another example of how the wealthy, corporate and "elected" are growing richer even as they destroy our planet and the life upon it. Kangaroo is a documentary you'll want to share with everyone you know, but you'll also have to warn them that it is not an easy watch. It is a salutary one, however. This is a movie that will put you on the alert and maybe drive you to action.

From Abramorama and running 99 minutes, Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story opens this Friday, January 19 in New York City (at the Village East Cinema) and Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Music Hall 3) and will then, over the coming weeks, open in another 15 or more cities. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

"Dreck" the halls: Craig Anderson's "nut"meg eggnog, RED CHRISTMAS, hits a few theaters

Can you make a decent slasher movie while tossing in themes of religion, pregnancy, parenting and abortion, among other things? Yes, if your film is as good as, say, She Who Must Burn. But a big, fat "no," if the new RED CHRISTMAS, written and directed by Australian filmmaker Craig Anderson, serves as a more recent indication. Once the killing starts -- among family members gathered to celebrate here -- these characters begin acting stupider and stupider, breaking even the cardinal rule of this kind of film: When under siege, you idiots, stick the fuck together!

Mr. Anderson, pictured at right, proves pretty good when he keeps his gore effects on the subtle side, as in the "offing" of his first victim (below, left), a nasty Outback outlier who makes quite unnecessary fun of the movie's Michael Myers/Jason/Fred Krueger stand-in, a poor cobbled-together creature named Cletus, who arrives unbidden but hell-bent for revenge at the family gathering mentioned above.  The second killing (but the first, so far as this family is concerned) is also handled with exquisite tact/taste.

Following that, however, the bigtime stupidity sets it, and the movie, as well as all its further killings, never recovers. Characters begin doing things for either no discernible reason that makes any sense -- other than merely separating them from the pack so that each can be "offed" more easily -- or to give the filmmaker another opportunity to grace us with further tiresome past history/exposition.

The cast is mostly Australian, with the exception of Dee Wallace (below), who plays the family matriarch with appropriate fear and ferocity, though even she finally joins the full-out nonsense on parade here. If you're a fan of Ms Wallace, better to revisit The Howling (does she not make the cutest werewolf in film history?), or even E.T., than waste your time with this one.

Other cast members meet either grizzly ends, via very unbelievable-looking "special effects," as below, or find themselves on the wrong end of various lethal objects. Either way, you'll probably be drumming your fingers in something like boredom, waiting for the final body count, as it piles up with tiresome regularity.

What's particularly grueling about Red Christmas is the highly unlikable group of characters thrust upon us by Mr. Anderson. They argue incessantly, while they're not doing dumb things, and as the increasingly obvious chunks of wholesale exposition come plotzing out, you'll find yourself more than ready for this overlong-even-at-82-minutes movie to end.

The film opens with demonstrations pro and con regarding abortion, above, and with a flashback sequence on which a lot of what happens later depends (below), but whatever the filmmaker might imagine he's trying to say here

gets quickly and thoroughly lost within the extreme idiocy of his poorly concocted characters. As my spouse remarked wearily, post- viewing, "What should have been aborted was this movie."

From Artsploitation Films (great moniker, by the way!) and arriving in a Los Angeles theater (Laemmle's Music Hall 3) this Friday, August 25 (just four month prior to the holiday!) for a once-daily showing at 9:55 pm, Red Christmas will then expand to San Francisco, Denver, Dallas and other cities over the weeks to come.