Sexual harassment squared in Sharad Kant Patel's genre jumper, SOMEBODY'S DARLING

A very interesting, often impressive blend of frat house misbehavior, feminist leanings, male prerogative, sexual harassment and the supernatural, SOMEBODY'S DARLING, the first full-length narrative film from Sharad Kant Patel, proves a surprisingly artful concoction -- a movie that hits several of today's hot-button issues head on, even as it successfully morphs into something quite creepy and otherworldly.

Mr. Patel, shown below, is mashing at least two major genres here, and doing this in such a way that be gives both their due, while withholding from us as long as possible the specifics that will eventually enfold one genre, the obsessive love story, into the other -- which is something else indeed.

Before TrustMovies does any over-praising, he must admit that the movie, though only 80 minutes, is still a bit too repetitive for its own good. Yet within those 80 minutes, Patel does such an interesting job of leading and misleading us, dropping hints and clues with skill and panache, that despite the film's refusal to give up its secrets much prior to the finale, he keeps us hanging on. In addition to the screenwriting and direction, our filmmaker is also responsible for the editing, visual effects, some of the music and sound design, and even the color grading and the inventive title sequence. Pretty much top to bottom, this is Patel's baby.

His story of a particular frat house at Williamsburg University (sounds real enough but isn't) and what these bad boys get up to with the girls on campus is typically nasty and unpleasant. But one of the guys, Christian, the frat house President, seems both better and worse than the others. When he becomes smitten with a young lady named Sarah, who prefers to keep her distance from the likes of these frat boys, all the usual bets are off.

As played by Paul Galvan (above, left) and Jessa Settle (above, right) these two characters easily hold the screen, thanks to their talent, looks and charisma, and to Mr. Patel's having given them plenty to do and say that keeps us glued. This is a love story of sorts, and exactly how and why these two feel the way they do is unveiled to us slowly and artfully.

How the filmmaker handles everything from simple (or not so) storytelling to sex, love and past lives is done with enough style and subtlety to impress without appearing pretentious. This is a feat of sorts. And he has also cast his smaller roles well, with an eye to making his young women pretty and slightly vapid and his young men -- for instance, Matt Tramel, below -- pretty and slightly bizarre. It works.

His finale is a shocker that makes exquisite sense. It also makes us think back to what we've seen earlier and how we've misread certain events that now look so different, appalling instead of frat-boy appealing, with the stakes so much higher than we had first imagined.

And yet, ah, what might have been! Somebody's Darling is indeed a love story, but as with almost all obsessive ones, it proves very, very dark.

After a successful festival run, the movie hit VOD -- via iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere -- on December 1, for rental and purchase. It's worth a watch.

THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK: Wendy Jo Cohen's mockdoc does Civil War, Gays, Blacks, Asians and women up proud

So where were all the "others" during our much-vaunted, -heralded, -written-and-filmed-about Civil War? Over the past 12 months alone, we've seen Lincoln, Saving Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies hit theaters (or in the case of that last one, DVD). Hell, these films even manage to include fantasy/horror elements like vamps & zombs before dealing with the contribution of the GLBT community, Asians, Blacks and Women Warriors to the cause of saving our great Union and thus America itself. Well, folk, this great wrong has now been righted by the new and awfully endearing mockumentary THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK, from first-time, full-length-film filmmaker Wendy Jo Cohen, pictured below, who is much better known as a producer.

No less a documentary filmmaker than Ken Burns is on record as loving this movie, and it's easy to see why. Not only does it send up oh-so-sweetly and gently, the kind of documentary that Burns specializes in, it does this with the sort of skill and stealth humor that has you believing (almost) what you're hearing one minute and then suddenly guffawing the next. If you did not already know that this was a mockumentary, I am not sure you wouldn't watch most of it in a state of blithe, if a little uncertain, credulity. This is thanks to the film's writer/director and her ability to parrot so spectacularly well the kind of talking-heads-cum-historical-photographs documentary we've seen so much of over the past couple of decades (with which Mr. Burns has so often graced us).

Ms Cohen is spot-on in her use of these "talking" heads (above and below), often accompanied by heavily in-motion bodies, and in her and her cinematographers' ability to create ancient-looking photos that are probably composites and/or who knows what else.

There is quite a bit of fun to be had, too, in her decision to give us the story of all these outsiders -- star-crossed gay military men (above and a below)...

a China-man divided between the practice of military art and laundry (below)...

a simply fabulous tale of a Black man (below) totally unaware of slavery and his own state of being, who ends up bizarrely serving the cause...

and a dear female child (below) who goes, Dickens-like, from poverty to orphan to prostitute to cross-dresser to one-armed vigilante in search of her nasty pimp. Oh, the woe!

And the fun! These tales are told us by "experts" who often disagree, making the information we learn all the more enchantingly screwy. So, is there a downside to all this? Yes, but it's not a deal-breaker. The movie has even more in common with the work of Mr. Burns: It's too long. Not by all that much, but clipped judiciously of 10 minutes, it would have been absolutely aces, I suspect.

As it is, it is still a lot of good fun. Particularly for mockumentary fans, and especially for those "others" who themselves reside (or have had progenitors) in any of the aforementioned camps. It is also a prime choice for those who know and love these historical documentaries and don't mind a little fun being made at the docs' expense. God knows, if Mr. Burns can love this one, you all should be able to, as well.

The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek (running 96 minutes, in black-and-white and color) opens tomorrow -- Friday, March 1 -- in New York City exclusively at the Quad Cinema. I would hope it will play other cities soon. If so (or if not), it will certainly make its way to DVD, VOD and streaming eventually.