Su Friedrich's GUT RENOVATION returns -- this time in Dumbo, Brooklyn, at the reRun

Anger fuels GUT RENOVATION, the documentary by filmmaker Su Friedrich about "development" and "gentrification" (D&G) in Williamsburg, and how a neighborhood full of manufacturing and artists' residences and studios is suddenly turned into a playground for the wealthy. In my experience, living for a long while in Manhattan's Upper West Side, D&G usually takes time to make itself felt; it can often be two to three decades before a neighborhood changes drastically -- particularly if the gentrification occurs slowly, with the development more or less piecemeal.

That was not the case in Williamsburg, where a sleazy and unnecessary (except to make developers even more wealthy) zoning change took place that opened the door for an almost immediate and quite shocking level of demolition-followed-by-building within a very small amount of space and time. One of the saddest, yet darkly funny, continuing jokes of this movie is the map (shown below) the filmmaker has constructed, showing us how -- property by property, block by block -- warehouses, manufacturing facilities and residences fall to this "development." So much in such a small area! There's a lot of humor in the film, too, bleak and black as it is, which saves the documentary from becoming too much of a diatribe. Though, as a resident of the area who soon loses her home, Ms Friedrich can hardly be blamed for her immense anger.

The filmmaker gives us some history of the area, especially of the Ironworks that figures prominently into things, and then offers up a commercial from the real estate industry about the upcoming development that promises buyers "Your own authentic style." Huh? The "style" we're shown in some of these new apartments (of which the filmmaker pretends to be a possible buyer, in order to gain access) looks pretty chintzy. The movie, by the way, is almost entirely personal and anecdotal, so don't expect, as I did going into it, something on the order of that great doc Battle for Brooklyn.

Friedrich's film is much smaller potatoes but it is deeply felt and very depressing, despite the almost constant humor, verbal and visual. (Ah, the dogs of the wealthy!) The sense of powerlessness that results from the form of unethical "eminent domain" shown here, uprooting a neighborhood and displacing its tenants from their homes and jobs, is overwhelming and awful.

Honest to a fault, at one point, Friedrich tells us that a friend of hers suggested that she simply title her movie "I Hate Rich People." And sometimes she does come across this way. More energy might have been devoted to exploring the how and why of that rezoning and the official report that was initially demanded but then ignored because it showed that industry was actually thriving in Williamsburg. It was, after all, the usual cabal of real estate/developer/politician cronies who enabled and were responsible for this entire fiasco. The rich who moved in simply took advantage of what they were offered.

The film's funniest and most sustained bit of humor derives from a huge boulder (above) that neither man nor machine can seem to move or break apart. I'd imagine that the filmmaker began to identify with that boulder. Change is inevitable, however, and eventually the boulder is broken. And Ms Friedrich and her companion must move.

If you live in, or anywhere near, a neighborhood ripe for gentrification, I think you'll want to see this movie. After its initial run last month at Film Forum, Gut Renovation -- from Outcast Films and running 81 minutes -- is back, starting tomorrow in Brooklyn, at the reRun theater. Click here for further information and/or tickets.

Get ready to shake, rattle and roll: Castaing-Taylor and Paravel's LEVIATHAN

OK. TrustMovies admits that experimental cinema is often not his cup of tea. But he tries to see some of it, occasionally, just to keep alert to the new. Once in awhile -- as with Denis Côté's recent Bestiaire, or a few years back, Il Divo, in which the Paolo Sorrentino under-stood just how experimental he could be and still create an actual movie -- the result can be shocking and ravishing and unique. In LEVIATHAN, the new and quite experimental documentary from Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel (shown below, with Ms Paravel on the left), the result is a near-non-stop "assault on the senses," as my screening companion put it.

As usual, I found some interesting moments along the way, and some zowie film tech-niques that, even as I write this, are likely already being incorpor-ated into more main-stream movies, probably those of the horror genre. (Like Psycho, this film has its own shower sequence: see below) Well, terrific, for this is where I think experimental film proves most useful. When viewed on its own as a single entity, for me at least, it tends to be repetitive and tiresome. Yet bits and pieces of what it discovers will find their way into other movies and will be used in a manner that can be understood and appreciated by us doltish masses (some of us, anyway), thus furthering the art of the motion picture.

That said, Leviathan is one of the most unremittingly grueling experiences, visually and aurally, that I’ve ever had in a movie theater seat. So much so, it became a badge of honor not to leave that seat for any reason: not to use the bathroom, not to seek the solace of the noisy Manhattan streets outside, not to do anything but just sit there and drink it in until those final credits rolled (which were rather difficult to read; someone could have chosen a clearer typeface). But I did it – and I am proud!

The film takes place on a large fishing vessel in the North Atlantic, where we see a "catch" being made, though it takes a long time to even know where we are or what is going on. Slowly (very) and noisily (very, very) things are revealed. The filmmakers' style is to put us so very up-close-and-personal to the crew, the machinery, the fish and all else that we almost feel like a cog in the machine.

There is almost no intelligible dialog, either, only a man or two mumbling now and again. Instead there are crashes (of the waves, and the machines), clunks (as the huge net of fish bangs back and forth), and other ambient sounds -- but more loudly than you will have heard them previously.

Yet I question the filmmakers’ choice of shooting methods – deliberately refusing to pull the camera back to give us a stronger sense of where we are. They do pull back occasionally (see those birds, below) but not nearly often enough. I understand that part of the point is to confuse us and make us feel vulnerable and frightened, like those poor fish (it'll be awhile before you want to dine off ocean life again). But enough, already.

It takes only a very short time to achieve this in-the-middle-of-it-all effect, yet the filmmakers go on and on. There is about 40 minutes of content here -- if that -- stretched to double time. And then they bore us to distraction with an interminable shot of Mr. Tatoo in the ship's galley. Sure, we're getting one of those long shots we've been craving, but to no purpose that I can ascertain. (Still, I hope that Hellman’s mayonnaise product-placement on the dining table netted them enough money to make their next movie.)

Leviathan, an endurance test of major proportions, makes Castaing-Taylor's earlier bleating-sheep-and-depressed-cowboys documen-tary, Sweetgrass, seem like a James Bond adventure. The movie, from Cinema Guild and running 87 minutes, opens this Friday, March 1, in New York City at the IFC Center. The exclusive Los Angeles engagement of the film begins Friday, May 10th at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters shown.

ADVENTURESS WANTED: Tom McAlevey & Yoshiko Kino make a fine DIY documentary

It ain't easy getting your film from the "shot" stage through to distribution. Even when, perhaps especially when that film is DIY in the extreme, shot solely by its two participants, on a for-real road trip that the two take in a bright red beach buggy all the way from Sweden to the tip of South Africa. Not only will one of the two filmmakers make his movie the DIY route, he will also, it seems, have to distribute it this way -- after a deal with some supposedly professional movie people did not pan out.

The guy in question is an American man, then living in Sweden, named Tom McAlevey (shown at right), who loves adventure and hooking up with women and so decided to combine the two into this particular trip -- and then film it all as it was going on. Hence his movie's title, ADVENTURESS WANTED, which was also the headline of the classified ad McAlevey ran, hoping to entice a relatively smart and attractive young woman into joining him. It worked. He had more than enough applicants (we see some of these at the beginning of the film), but decided to go with the woman, Yoshiko Kino, below, whom he knew first (if I got this part right) as his exercise/yoga instructor.

TrustMovies learned about the film from a press release emailed to him, giving him a video link to access in order to watch the film in high-definition. He did -- and now declares the viewing world fortunate indeed to be able to see this unusual diary-cum-movie. The documentary manages to combine so very many genres -- real-life adventure/love story/road trip/psychological profile/relationship manual/wild animal menagerie/and more -- that it proves both sui generis and surprisingly generous to both parties -- the adventuress and adventurer -- involved.

Adventuress Wanted is so utterly fresh, vivid and vital; so funny and even occasionally moving that one can easily understand why it won Best Directorial Debut at the 2010 NY International Film Festival. I've never experienced anything quite like this film. So impressed was I at its conclusion that, although I could have (in fact, had) watched for free, I got out my credit card and made a contribution to Mr. McAlevey's fund. Something this entertaining and unusual deserves a helping hand.

Now, you should perhaps know something more about these two performers/filmmakers. McAlevey's originally a New Yorker, now well into middle age, who lost an arm (see above) in a motorcycle accident in the late 1980s. A trouper, he handles himself and his loss with about as much grace and ease as would seem possible. He is a slight and somewhat scrawny man, as well -- though usually full of energy -- and this, together with the missing arm would, I suspect, make him a fellow that the average person would want to help along his way.

This may account for the fact that Tom tells (and shows) us how incredibly kind and helpful were almost all the Arabs he and Yoshiko met along their journey through Northern Africa and downwards. (The Tunisian garage-owner seems a particular gem of a guy.) In our current age of Muslim-bashing, this registers strongly and healthily, though, on the other hand, no mention is ever made in the movie about the northeastern and neighboring state of Israel.

Ms Kino, on the other hand, is most definitely all there, with a softig little body and lots of spirit to go with it. She offers an alternately good/bad foil for McAlevey (and he for her) and the pair makes no bones about its sexual encounters along the way and its bonding (and sometimes ripping apart) as the trip continues. As the prime filmmaker, McAlevey appears to be shooting straight and playing as fair as possible under sometimes trying circumstances. Conse-quently, we come away from the film with very good feelings toward both of the participants.

With Tom and Yoshiko doubling as their only crew for visuals and sound, the result here is surprisingly rich and -- with the wild animal footage -- exciting and real. Along the way, we travel through Italy and then over to Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and finally South Africa, with each country offering its own oddities, problems and help. There must have been a truckload of visuals to deal with, but the film has been edited down to a fast 85 minutes, thanks to the work of lead editor Jean Frédéric Axelsson and co-editor McAlevey.

By the end, we learn what has happened to Yoshiko and Tom, and if you stay through the bitter end, you'll see what a player this guy is. But I think you'll love him anyway -- and his film.  To watch Adventuress Wanted, simply click here, then click on Download Now toward the upper right hand column of your screen. Then scroll down and click on either of the green buttons that say Download the movie for PC or Download the movie for MAC.

And if you find the film even halfway as good as I did, I suspect you'll want to contribute something toward its continued success.

John Lavin captures the Lane twins' sweet road trip in HOLLYWOOD TO DOLLYWOOD

A pair of hot, cute, gay twins with a fixation on Dolly Parton; a road trip in a rented van they name Jolene; and a screenplay they've written for that blond, buxom star that they intend to deliver personally into her hands -- all this and lots more is wedged into a just-out-on-DVD docu-mentary titled HOLLYWOOD TO DOLLYWOOD, a sweet, sentimental, 79-minute home movie that just might charm your pants off.

As directed by John Lavin (the hottie, above) as though he hadn't (this is a compliment, by the way), the film-it-as-you-go movie takes off from frame one, when we meet the twins, Gary and Larry Lane, below, formerly of small-town North Carolina whose immediate family knows they are gay, though the townspeople do not. "They know we're out in Hollywood," one twin explains," but they don't know we're out in Hollywood."  The pair is delightful, though telling who is who proves difficult. Check out "the cheek gash," one notes, and then explains how said scar came into being.

Before we actually get going on that road trip, the twins take us to meet actors Beth Grant (below)

Leslie Jordan (below)

and a special hero, "Oscar"-winning screenwriter-turned-director Dustin Lance Black (center right, below).

Though they show their screenplay to everyone, no  one gives them any feedback (perhaps this is just as well) -- except to say that it is way too long. So the boys decide to cut it down to size as they make their way across country.

Accompanying them on the trip is one twin's boyfriend (and the movie's co-producer), Mike Bowen, shown above. Along the way, little surprises (to me, at least) are dropped: The boys were contestants on Fear Factor -- and won -- and then appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show. Who knew? They stop and pray with a nice couple they meet at a rest stop (below). And they visit an old friend of someone or other (maybe the boyfriend), a hairdresser who was married and has a son and has now come out in his own town. (The story of how he explained his situation to his little boy, and what the boy's reaction is, provides one of the movie's highlights.)

These twins also fight occasionally, getting angry at each other, understandably so. But we see very little of this. Instead, we notice how these guys, all of them, love Ms Parton something fierce, and they're not stingy with their reasons. At one point, they decide to start a Dolly for President 2012 campaign. (Sorry, boys -- that's not going to happen.)  A flood in Tennessee hampers their progress, and for awhile it appears they might not make it into the big city, below, to pick up their special tickets for entry into Dollywood.

Do they get there? Do they meet Dolly? (To whom does those boobs -- below -- belong?) And then what happens? No spoilers, please. Just know that the film continues short and sweet and so all-surface that it nearly -- but, fortunately, not quite -- outstays its welcome.

After travelling with this threesome on so long a journey, we feel badly for the twin who doesn't have a boyfriend. But then, at the finale we meet a new addition to the group -- and damned if he doesn't look enough like the other twin's blond bf to be the guy's brother. Well, why not? Twins this cute should have mates who looks "twinish," too, I suppose.

Hollywood to Dollywood -- from Breaking Glass Pictures -- after a very brief theatrical stint, is now available on DVD. Pounce and, if this is your cup of tea, enjoy.

THIS IS NOT A FILM -- or so Iran's Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb explain it

As you may have surmised by now, TrustMovies' favorite way of seeing a film is simply to know as little about it as possible and then plop down in his seat to watch. Many, if not most, good movies work fine this way because what you need to know to appreciate the movie is usually built into the film itself. Not so with THIS IS NOT A FILM, opening this week in New York City and next week in the Los Angeles area. Even though some upfront information is given at the beginning and end of the movie, I can't imagine a film-goer -- even one who appreciates foreign, arthouse, independent and/or experimental movies -- stumbling into this film, made by Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, and being able to appreciate it fully without having known, and long enough for it to register and sink in, the history and background of this (not a) film, as well as the prior work of Mr. Panahi.

In 2010, Panahi (at left)-- a multi-award-winning Iranian filmmaker (The White Balloon, The Mirror, The Circle, Crimson Gold, Offside) was given a six-year prison sentence plus a ban of 20 years from making films and having interviews with foreign press, due to his open support of the opposition party during Iran's 2009 election. This sparked an immediate and ongoing protest from the worldwide filmmaking community, although who did (or more to the point, did not) rally to Panahi's support inside Iran caused some surprise and name-calling. (Trust me, it's much easier to support this particular cause when you're outside Iran, a country not noted for its freedom-of-speech, either during the pre-fundamentalist era or today.)

For some time, Mr. Panahi has been under what appears to be the Iranian version of "house arrest," and This Is Not a Film -- shot surreptitiously on a small DV camera by Panahi's friend and collaborator, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (shown at right) and on an iPhone by Panahi himself -- endeavors to show us some of the filmmaker's daily life. And a not uninteresting life it is. First of all, take a gander at the gorgeous apartment in which he lives. This is upper-middle-class by any standard, including, I would say, the pet iguana, below, that provides some exotica and humor. (Iguana sales should spike nicely in any cities where the movie will be shown.)

During the film, we get an interesting crash course in some of Panahi's earlier films, and learn some of his filmmaking tips (how someone new to acting often invents wonderful things; how a wisely chosen location can, in a sense, direct itself). Along the way friends and relatives call and Panahi talks to his lawyer, learning that his case is not proceeding very well. Another friend (Mirtahmasb, now also banned from filmmaking) appears, and Panahi sets out to tell him the story he wants to film (about a young girl locked into her room by her religious parents), marking off the perimeters of the imagined set on his beautiful Persian rug. "You take a shot of me," requests his co-director/cameraman in the middle of things, "in case I'm arrested."

Once or twice, the filmmaker seems to be on the brink of giving in to despair, but he holds back. Finally, when a young man appears at the apartment door -- he's a temporary replacement for the regular janitor -- Panahi seizes the opportunity to interview him with the DV camera. On the building's elevator, as the young man goes from floor to floor collecting trash, Panahi talks to him about life, work, school and options. You can feel the liberation that the filmmaker experiences, just being able to communicate and ply his trade again. These are lovely moments, made all the richer by our understanding of the director's plight. And then the end credits -- particularly humorous and ironic -- roll. The finished film was smuggled out of Iran and into France in a cake, just in time for submission to Cannes, where it had its world premiere.

Only 74 minutes long, This Is Not a Film is certainly not a film like any other you'll have seen. In its circumspect, circumscribed manner, it manages to be a smart, plucky defense of art threatened by the state, as well as an implied message to the rest of the world's filmmakers: Use your freedom.  The (not a) film opens, this Wednesday, February 29, at Film Forum in New York City. On March 2, it will open in the Los Angeles area, at Laemmle's Music Hall, Beverly Hills; Encino Town Center; and Pasadena Playhouse 7.  But sorry, folk, no personal appearances by the filmmakers this time around.

SCN finale : the Shortmetraje program, plus a round-up & wrap-up for this year's series

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Instituto Cervantes' annual event Spanish Cinema Now came to an end over a week ago, but TrustMovies is still trying to catch up and juggle postings covering new films opening here in New York City with this tasty series that combined new movies from Spain and a retrospective of films (one of which is below, and yes, that's our own Edmund Gwenn in The Rocket from Calabuch) by the late Luis García Berlanga. At the press conference at Instituto Cervantes that opened the series this year, one of the most memorable comments from the podium was this: "Spain has no oil; culture is our oil." Indeed.

The "culture" viewers take away from this singular series each December is always varied and meaningful. And while Spanish film and Hispanic film often share a language, there are enough differences between Spanish Cinema Now and, say, LatinBeat (the FSLC's annual late-summer series of new Hispanic films) that most viewers would seldom confuse the two. For this year's SCN, between the scheduled press screenings, the few "screeners" made available to the press and the public screenings, TrustMovies managed to see all but one of the new films (due to the last-minute scheduling of Ventura Pons' Year of Grace).

It seems to TM that this year's series -- despite some wonderful, must-see new movies (Extraterrestrial, 23-F, Barcelona Before (above), Double Steps) and the Berlanga retro, of which he saw five of the ten films -- disappointed somewhat. Whether this was due to lower quality of the new films overall (and this, due perhaps to the current and continuing economic situation in Spain) or to TM's own slightly depressed mood these days (weeks, months), he cannot say for certain. There were also fewer films to be seen this time. The 2009 SCN series, for instance, hosted 18 new films, this year there were 15. (One of these -- Black Bread -- was first shown in last year's series, and another -- José & Pilar -- is actually a Portuguese movie, so this brings the count of new Spanish films down to 13.)

The Spanish Civil War and its after-effects (above, from 23-F) were on display as keenly and interestingly as ever this year, and the series managed, as usual, to include some art films (Double Steps, The Waves, along with the mainstream-tasteful (Ispansi!) and mainstream-not-so (Torrente 4). Filmmakers with their own distinct voices were on display, too: Otero's Crebinsky and Trueba's Every Song Is About Me (below). Just going over these film again brings them back with a jolt of pleasure and a smile. As usual, even with a slight dip in quality/quantity, Spanish Cinema Now is one of the special delights of the year -- one that I wouldn't and couldn't bear to miss.

And now to Shortmetraje, the yearly program of short films from Spain (which also, overall, seemed a little less exciting than usual), discussed below in the order in which they were shown:

Dying Every Day / Morir cada día
Aitor Echevarría, 2010, Spain; 11minutes
In a very short time, this filmmaker dissects a dysfunctional family over dinner, bringing to the fore all sorts of veiled unpleasantness. We've been here before (and so, I think, have a number of full-length Spanish films) but Echevarría and his very good cast capture these individuals with gravity, humor and panache.

Stereoscopy / Estereoscopía
Xacio Baño, 2011, Spain; 12min
The Eye kind of thing -- done short-film style, and very nearly as good as the full-length (original version, not the dumb American remake). Strange, disconected, original visuals (left eye/right eye) accompany this tale of a fellow who gets someone else's eye and begins seeing things. The ending manages to be about as shocking but surprising as anything you could image. This one's just lovely (in a very sad way), and filmmaker Baño should be heard from again.

Gentlemen / De caballeros
Adrián Orr, 2010, Spain; 17min
Watching this film about a barber and his clients (I hadn't read anything about it prior to viewing), I thought it was a narrative, albeit with a documentary style and structure. But it's not. It is evidently pure documentary. The talk, as you might expect in a all-male barbershop, often turns to sex and the differences between the sexes, but 17 minutes with the barber and his clients proves a bit boring after awhile. Though the movie certainly has its moments, I might have wished for different clients, or maybe a different day on the job.

Birdboy
Alberto Vázquez & Pedro Rivero, 2010, Spain; 12min
The one animated short this year offers a simple but creepy and original style to go with its dark subject matter: industrial accidents, environmental despair, nuclear holocaust, among other things. In a world where, increasingly, everyone is becoming "the other," birds, mice and fish begin to change before our (and their own) eyes. The use of masks is telling, as are so many of the little touches here. This one's quite good, so remember the name Birdboy -- and if you ever notice it playing on cable or elsewhere, catch it. Vázquez and Rivero's little film definitely belongs in a animated anthology.

Beds / Camas
Manuela Moreno, 2010, Spain; 10min
In this quartet of bedtime/sex stories, we meet four couples and their rooms and beds. Nothing much new, or all that interesting here, But it's short. And that's Raúl Arévalo, above, and anything that features this talented and ubiquitous actor is worth watching.

The German Pavilion / El Pabellón alemán
Juan Millares, 2009, Spain; 14min
In this very interesting little documentary, we learn that the great French photographer Eugène Atget thought of his own photography as showing "the scene of the crime." This makes filmmaker Millares begin to look at other photos as such, including those of the 1929 Universal Exhibition of Barcelona, at which Mies van der Rohe unveiled the famous German Pavillion. Is there some mystery hidden here? Millares says yes, then no, then maybe -- in his somewhat over-reaching and under-budgeted documentary that fascinates, all the same.

My Friend / Lagun mina
Jose Mari Goenaga, 2011, Spain; 12min
Male friendship gets an good going-over in Goenaga's narrative short, as Ekaitz and Román meet in a hostel during their holidays and vow to be friends -- but with quite a different meaning attached to the word on both their parts. Or so we learn as time goes on. This themes and these characters could easily be expanded, I think, to make an interesting and worthwhile full-length feature.

A Shitty Boyfriend / Un novio de mierda
Borja Cobeaga, 2010, Spain; 4min
The funniest of the shorts is also the shortest, as a girl gets a surprise visit from her ex, and we learn just exactly to what the title of Cobeaga's film refers -- and how some women ought to be spanked for settling so easily. This could have been one of the stories in Camas (above), and it would have made that film a little more interesting and original.