Tyler Cornack's BUTT BOY arrives for Easter Sunday. And, no, it's not a gay porno film.

It is, however, just about everything else you can imagine, should you decide you mash one genre into another into another into another until you've exhausted the field, yourself and perhaps your audience, as well. 

BUTT BOY, the new film directed and co-written (with Ryan Koch) by Tyler Cornack (who also co-stars) is an utterly weird combination of (all deadpan) comedy, workplace/business satire, fantasy, family movie, kidnap thriller, police procedural, and neo-noir featuring kinky-sexual-pleasure. There's no science-fiction, however (even if the publicity material suggests there is), because there's absolutely no science present here, just some bizarre fantasy.

Mr. Cornack, shown at right and in some of the stills below, has created something different, all right, and for a good portion of this 100-minute movie, his initial quiet, suggestive style -- perhaps due to a very low budget not allowing for many special effects, which he saves in any case for his finale -- keeps us guessing and often in thrall.

The story here takes us into the seemingly tired, boring workplace and marital life of a man named Chip (Cornack, below), who, during a routine visit to his urologist/proctologist. experiences something so life-changing that he discovers he is able, and so begins, to suck various items -- these grow larger and larger -- up his butt. When a local child goes missing, things come to a halt and suddenly it's nine years later, when Chip's s addiction re-surfaces.

Oddly enough, the movie Butt Boy most reminds me of is the very recent film, Swallow, in which a newly-married and wealthy housewife begins swallowing small-but-dangerous items until something needs to be done about this.  The style and theme of both films are quite different however, but the premise of a woman who inserts odd objects down her mouth and a man who does this up his butt seems bizarrely similar. (Even one or two of the swallowed/sucked-up objects are rather alike.) 

Swallow is a serious film, while Butt Boy is anything but, and so, for a while, the deadpan comedy -- as a suspicious detective (Tyler Rice, above) tracks our non-hero -- helps keep things afloat. How and why this detective has managed to put together his theory is neither intelligent nor believable (one single clue is all it takes?), but once past this point the movie opts for total fantasy and then, during the final third, the special effects kick in and the film becomes downright silly/crazy.

One must  give Butt Boy, along with Cornack, credit for doing something original, at least, even if his movie goes on for ten to twenty minutes too long. With this kind of thing, less is definitely more. And during the first half of the film, Cornack's elliptical, suggestive style works well with his deadpan humor; then the too-muchness takes over.

Those who prefer "too much" may embrace Butt Boy more easily than did TrustMovies. Either way, this is pretty much a one-off kind of film -- something you might have seen in days of yore from Troma Entertainment, but handled with more taste and subtlety (for awhile, at least.) And the film's final "they are risen!" moment makes it a shoo-in for coverage today, Easter Sunday.

From Epic Pictures and running 100 minutes, the movie makes its debut -- now that theaters seem a thing of the past -- via VOD, digital streaming and Blu-ray disc, beginning this Tuesday, April 14. Click here to learn how you can view.

Unearthed Films digs up another fun "classic," Jean-Paul Ouellette's THE UNNAMABLE

Celebrating its 30th anniver-sary this year, the cult horror film THE UNNAMABLE -- which TrustMovies had heard of occasionally over the years but never actually seen until now -- turns out to be a bit of good, old-fashioned horror/ supernatural fun, for reasons that begin with its surprisingly well-imagined and executed "monster" and include some decent dialog, well-placed scares, and better-than-average performances from most of the cast members. (The musical score is far too over-the-top, however.)

As directed and adapted (from an H.P. Lovecraft short story) by Jean-Paul Ouellette (shown at right), the movie's main problem (today, at least) is that the tale it tells seems awfully been-there/done-that, so audiences -- cult audiences are likeliest to fall for this one -- will simply have to ignore or forgive these trespasses and stick with what makes the movie the most fun.

The late Mr. Lovecraft, whose work has been adapted or inspired into nearly 200 movies so far (according to the IMDB, at least), did have a knack for scares & fright.

He knew how to make use of "the unknown," while turning the "knowing" of it into something much worse than one's previous ignorance.

In The Unnamable, we begin maybe a couple of hundred years previous, in a large New England house in which a very naughty "being" is semi-imprisoned. When it misbehaves, carnage ensues.

Cut to present day (present day circa 1988, anyway), where a very attractive bunch of university students plus one dweeby nerd (yes, the usual suspects) are discussing the rumors surrounding that house and what they might mean.

Before you can say "pile on some more exposition," sure enough, one of the fellows (two photos above, at left) decides to explore the place. Yes, say goodbye to him. Then we meet a couple of hot and hunky frat boys (clearly quite expendable victims), who talk two female students -- one hot, the other sweet, and all four shown above -- into exploring the house with them as a ruse and a road to some nooky.

All this is followed by suspense, scares, and more gore and carnage. And a little near-sex. One of the girls, played by Laura Albert, (above), possesses one of  the nicest nipples I've seen in a long while, and her character also keeps her on pearls on during sex -- always a sign of class.

Our hero is played by an actor who went at the time by the name of Charles King (but later became Charles Klausmeyer), shown being menaced, above. He is adorable and naive and properly sexy, at least to the girl (Alexandra Durrell, below) who pines for him but whom he does not notice properly until the finale. Well, the course of true love never did run smooth, as Willie the Shake told us way back when.

Now, to get to the main reason for watching The Unnamable: that really scary, amazingly put-together monster, of whom, as befits all good horror movies, we view only snippets until fairly close to the finale, when she (yes!) appears in all her gory glory.

What a creation this one is, and despite all the ugliness, there is more than a hint of sexuality and carnal desire present here. One gets the sense that if only one of our hot and hunky young men had pulled a nice, big boner for our creature, he might have remained alive. Or at least enjoyed himself a bit before the end. Ah, well. Best not to dwell on what might have been.

From Unearthed Films and running 87 minutes, the movie hit Blu-ray and DVD last month via MVD Entertainment Group -- for purchase and (I would hope) rental. The disc is full of Bonus Features, as well (click here for details), so fans can really dig in.

Digital debut for Ela Thier's sweet time-travel/feel-good film, TOMORROW EVER AFTER

Unless I missed something, there is but one single special-effect in the whole of the sort-of sci-fi, definitely time-travel, and very, very feel-good movie, TOMORROW EVER AFTER. That quite effective "effect" turns out to be a small "card" our time traveler carries with her as a sort of updated means of communication and identity. This little card, that occasionally lights up and displays messages, turns out to work on ATMs, in the NYC subway system and probably everywhere else, too.
What a blessing. You'll wish you had one, for sure.

Shaina, the woman who owns this card (played by the film's writer/director Ela Thier, shown at left, above and below) hails from the future and is said to be some kind of historian who has come back in time from several hundred years to take a look at our current, early 21-Century period, known in later times and quite appropriately, as The Great Despair.

When Shaina gets separated from the rest of her party, she must subsequently fend for herself as she tries to find someone who can help her "reconnect."

That's pretty much it regarding the plot of Tomorrow Ever After, but the movie's charm -- and it is surprisingly charming, given its probably miniscule budget -- comes from Ms Thier's bizarre behavior vis-a-vis New York City's current denizens, all of whom seem to be barely surviving our current you're-either-wealthy-or-slave-labor environment.

Shaina's joyful demeanor and positive expectations befuddle those she meets, and Ms Their is good enough at making her character believable-if-obvious that we go along for the ride. She meets and ends up staying with a very sweet-if-slow apartment tenant (played with low-key charisma by an actor named Memo, above),

gets involved with a deadbeat mugger (Nabil Vinas), above, left) and his angry-but-caring girlfriend (Ebbe Bassey, above, right), the former of whom repeatedly takes advantage of our girl, while the latter grudgingly provides some help, and finally ends up connecting with a relative (below) with a drinking problem and little memory of what happened "the night before." It's all rather silly but sweet, and the performances are quite good. The film's biggest problem, for those who insist on "thinking" rather than simply feeling good, comes in its rush toward a finale that proves one of those let's-be-happy-at-all-costs things.

After offering us countless examples of unhappy people unable to properly connect, Shaina is finally so taken with our current abilities to survive and care about each other that Ms Thier reams home her message with a little too heavy a hand -- having Mr. Vinas deliver an emotional speech (he does this very well, by the way) that completely goes against the character we've so far seen him exhibit.

I didn't buy it, nor could I so easily accept the aren't-we-all-wonderful finale Ms Thier has in store, but maybe you will. God knows, it would be nice to feel good for a change in this time of being Trumped into oblivion by our disgusting President and the Republican Party (not to say that the Democrats, once elected into office, are all that much better). In any case, for a good portion of its 95-minute running time, the movie certainly delivers some charm and fun. After opening theatrically earlier this year, Tomorrow Ever After will make its digital debut via iTunes and Amazon this coming Friday, December. 22. 

Blu-ray/DVDebut for Ivan Tverdovskiy's strange/moving/funny Russian hit, ZOOLOGY

Featuring a dynamic, one-of-a-kind performance by an actress new to me -- Natalya Pavlenkova -- and a story that seems almost as fantastic as its story-telling style is documentary-like reality, ZOOLOGY should prove utter catnip for cinema buffs.

As written and directed by Ivan Tverdowskiy, the movie introduces us to a middle-aged woman who will almost immediately charm and delight us before eventually very nearly breaking our hearts.

Zoology works on a number of levels, but primarily, I believe, it's a look at the plight of the "outsider" in relationship to the society in which she lives -- in this case modern-day Russia. So, yes, as usual with Russian filmmakers, we're in the land of corruption, hypocrisy, and small-minded folk who use what power they have in ways that alternate between abuse and cowardice.

Yet here, the filmmaker (shown at right) does not hammer it all home with the force and repetition that we often see coming out of Russia.

Instead, he allows his heroine (Ms Pavlenkova, shown at right, above and below) and hero (Dmitriy Groshev, ar left, above and below) to charm us and each other into a world of their own making that, for a time, takes them out of the despair of daily life.

As usual with a good movie, the less you know about plot going in, the happier you'll be coming out, having experienced the surprises that the filmmaker hopes to bring you along with the fun and challenge of piecing the story together. The tale here has to do with an unusual addition to the usual human anatomy and what this does to and for our heroine, along with how it affects those around her.

One one level this is pure fantasy, yet it works rather deeply on other levels, too: psychological, social, sexual, emotional. And our two lead actors could hardly be better. Ms Pavlenkova is a revelation: sad, needy, charming, sexy, and yet almost always mysterious, while Mr. Groschev proves her match. Younger, yet clearly very attracted to this woman, the character has his own quirks and needs, yet does as much as he can to satisfy our leading lady's.

Along the way we get a good dose of the Russian workplace -- the city zoo (for her), the medical establishment for him -- and the scenes with the animals are as beautifully handled as those in the hospital/doctors' offices are sterile and unwelcoming. Religion, along with a self-help guru (below), get trashed along the way, as well.

In the end, we're left with our heroine, her plight and the direction she chooses to take -- which is, TrustMovies thinks, not at all the necessary or right one. And yet, you'll fully understand why she's choosing this, even if you wish it were otherwise. So much more could have been had by and for our twosome, if only they, particularly she, were able to stretch and embrace it.

But maybe this is also the point: Russia and its population -- along with those of so many other countries -- can not yet accept (nor even want) change or evolution. It's simply too scary, too different, too demanding. And so we do what we think we must. Sad.

From Arrow Films/Arrow Academy and running an exemplary 91 minutes, Zoology hit the street this past November 14 -- for purchase and, I hope, rental, on both Blu-ray and DVD. The Blu-ray also contains a  lovely and informative interview with actor Dmitriy Groschev that's very much worth viewing. The film's distributor in the USA is MVD Entertainment, and you can learn more information here. 

August's Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman -- Game of Thrones (GOT): it's about what?

Chaos is a ladder...

only the climb is real; 

the climb is all there is. 

 .....Littlefinger 

 House Rep Ted Lieu, D, CA, panelist on an MSNBC news program, pushes forward his toy replica of the Iron Throne, announcing that what's missing from GAME OF THRONES on Capitol Hill is beheadings -- we've got collusion, lying, coverups..... Lieu's glee speaks to the GOT phenomenon -- as though each TV moment were happening in real life. Slavish analysis of every episode in multiple media outlets reflects peak fever over George R.R. Martin's popular saga, The Song of Ice and Fire turned HBO-blockbuster as it moves into its concluding seasons directed by writer/show-runner team, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. (See Martin, center; Benioff, left; and Weiss, below.)

Novelist Martin has been called 'the American Tolkien' in the epic fantasy genre. There is plenty of fantasy to go around -- a lethal army of walking dead, dragons the size of 747's, three-eyed ravens who see everything there is or was, and a messiah-king risen from the dead. But the hard core of GOT is human and political drama in a medieval setting (inspired by medieval European monarchies -- the British War of the Roses is cited). It is a time of wood, steel, leather, fur, and fire in which magic takes a back seat to complex human relationships, intertwined familial connections, political intrigue and wars of conquest. The writers offset warring with just enough lingering, quiet intimacy among characters to make you feel their world is real. These bits of human magic are the series' glue.
(Below, Jon and Daenerys.)

In its favor, the story make us care a great deal about its main characters; it stirs thought about religion, politics, ethics, and especially power; and wanders the globe for gorgeous visuals-- Ireland, Croatia, Spain, Iceland, Morocco. On the down side, GOT tirelessly offers up nudity, sadism, and gore. There are two or three heart-warming scenes of love-making to date, the unsexy rest are rapes or annoying soft-porn panders to male juvenilia. The project overall is better than its lowest common denominators, but the quality is demeaned by all that pandering.

The narrative begins in Winterfell, Land of the North, one of the seven kingdoms of the continent of Westeros, and it shifts to other kingdoms involved in the power struggle over the Iron Throne in King's Landing, the rule of which includes dominion over the seven kingdoms. The very first scene in Season One introduces us to Westeros's unseen threat -- the Night King and his Whitewalker army who will come from the frigid north. The threat makes a nice stand-in for modern-day global warming -- an incipient catastrophe that nations are too busy fighting each other to band together and vanquish. Three great families fight over the Iron Throne (below, l to r. Khal Drogo, siblings Daenerys and Viserys Targaryen, the Lannisters, King Baratheon, the Stark family).

Our sympathies are engaged foremost by the appealing Starks in their northern home of Winterfell -- headed by Ned (Eddard), the Warden of the North, his wife Catelyn Stark, and six children. In the first episode, they are visited by the ruler of Kings Landing, Robert Baratheon and his entourage including his Queen, Cersei Lannister, her soldier twin brother, Jaime Lannister, their articulate, sardonic brother, dwarf Tyrion Lannister, and the three young Baratheons (unknown to King Robert, the offspring of Cersei and Jaime's incestuous relationship). 

The King, old warrior companion of Ned Stark, has come to offer Ned the post of 'hand of the king' (chief domestic and military advisor). Events that transpire there and soon after lead to enduring hostilities between the Lannisters and the Starks. Cersei is the luminous and power-mad villain of the saga, and dwarf Tyrion, the intellectual and pragmatic center. (Tyrion, Cersei, Jaime, below).

The Targaryens have ancestral claim to the throne. Robert Baratheon became king by deposing the mad Aerys Targaryen. The Targaryen children escaped assassination by fleeing to the (Asian/African-like) tribal continent of Essos. Daenerys Targaryen matures with the drive to re-take the Iron Throne. Meanwhile she has conquered some Essos peoples, freeing slaves and working toward establishing humane rule. Her reputation, however, is based on her having emerged unscathed from the ashes of husband Khal Drogo's funeral pyre carrying three reptilian offspring; she becomes known thereafter as the Mother of Dragons (below).

Ned Stark's bastard son, Jon Snow, is destined to join the Nightwatch, a group of misfits/warriors whose job it is to guard the 700-plus ft high, 300-mile long wall of ice that separates Winterfell from the Wildlings in the North (a concept reminiscent of Emperor Hadrian's wall built to divide Roman Britain from the unruly, unconquered tribes of Scotland).

Jon Snow befriends the wild folk beyond the wall, a rugged free people one might compare to medieval era Scottish Picts or Scandinavians (below, Jon and Ygritte, a Wilding, and yes their adventures together, love affair, and her death offset the tacky brothel scenes).

Menaced by the Night King (below) and frigid climate, the Wildings are persuaded by Jon to move to the Winterfell side of the Wall, where he hopes they will have easier lives and also join the coming battle against the Night King's army. For this strategic wisdom, Jon is killed by some in the Night Watch who have always fought Wildlings and are too conservative to think outside the box. GOT's audience is grief-and horror-struck -- there was something beyond ordinary about Jon Snow.

Grief lasts until the following season when Jon Snow rises from the dead and is declared King of the North. Jon's parentage is disclosed in Season 6; he is revealed not to be Ned's son but his nephew -- the child of Ned's sister Lyanna Stark and her lover, Rhaegar Targaryen (much older sibling of Daenerys and Viserys). The knowledge goes with Ned to his grave to protect Jon from assassination, as the Baratheons and Lannisters want no living claim to the throne other than their own, which they prove early and often.

We are now in Season 7 where Daenerys and Jon have a frosty first meeting, the fire and ice of Martin's saga title, on whom the battle for the Iron Throne and the struggle to turn back the Whitewalker army will depend. The dwarf, Tyrion Lannister, having killed his father and escaped his sister Cersei's wrath, has become Daenerys 'hand' and helpful guide to the sociopathy of the Lannisters.

The above brief omits the separate story lines of each of the Stark children in their sometimes plodding, far-flung travels and other villains, heroes, and minor characters. As the series and years have progressed, we've watched children and dragons grow up and many die whom we mourn but must be gone before the final battles occur. There's a story line exploring the rise of an extreme religious sect, the Sparrows, with its twisted Iran-like authority, and we've adventured to other Westeros kingdoms and met some minor characters with possible importance. One is Gendry, a bastard son of Robert Baratheon who missed his rendez-vous with death by the Lannisters; another is schemer Lord Baelish, called Littlefinger; and there is also kind Samwell Tarly (below), who studies to become a Maester (healer, scholar, advisor), discovers the means to kill Whitewalkers, and may even be the author of the fire and ice origin tale (a fan theory).

It is soap opera, adventure, and spectacle for a mass audience but what heightens it now is the politics of authoritarianism in our own century. Lately, GOT has become a convenient narcotic to help sublimate anxiety over an infantile U.S. president and his scary responses to environmental and military threats.

Jon Snow poses the global threat to Tyrion Lannister: "Grumpkins and Snarks you called the Whitewalkers...How do I convince people that don't believe me that an enemy is coming to kill them all?". Tyrion replies: "Peoples' minds aren't made for problems that large...It's almost a relief to confront a comfortable, familiar monster like my sister [Cersei]."

In Season 7 (and 8 to come) the remaining players reconnect after terrible solo adventures. Little Arya is now a lethal assassin; Bran, after a crippling fall has become a seer (our vehicle to know things other characters do not, such as Jon's origins); and Sansa, a shallow pre-teen, has grown into commanding womanhood; they have now reassembled in Winterfell. Jon Snow has made his case to Danerys about the coming onslaught of the Night King's army and the need to fight them together -- dragon fire against Whitewalker ice. The two extraordinary Targaryens size each other up with suspicion and the hum of attraction.

Jon tells Daenerys that her followers believe she can make the impossible happen -- build a world that is better than their old one; but "if you use your dragons to melt castles and cities, you're not different, you're just more of the same." Season 7 is a turning point in which we move from picaresque adventure into the confrontations among the main characters that will lead to resolution, filling watchers with dread and hope. Jaime leading Cersei's army and Daenerys leading hers, fly at one another, blasting the battlefield with unimaginable results, all "fire and fury, the likes of which the world has never seen". But Danerys' first battlefield is a desolate plain -- not a castle or city.

Note: There are too many actors to name but American-birthed GOT is populated by top talent from the largely UK acting establishment such as Sean Bean, Diana Rigg, James Broadbent, Anton Lesser, David Bradley, Jonathan Pryce, Mark Gatiss, Charles Dance, Ian McShane, Iain Glenn, Ciaran Hinds, Clive Russell, Aidan Gillan, Julian Glover, James Cosmo, Michelle Fairley, Lena Headey, Max von Sydow, Natalie Dormer, Rose Leslie, Ellie Kendrick, Oona Chaplin,and Gemma Whelan, to name some. A few young Brits have gotten career boosts since GOT's first season in 2011: Richard Madden, Kit Harington, Maisie Williams, Sophie Turner, Isaac Hempstead Wright, John Bradley. Americans are few but notable: Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), Jason Momoa (Khal Drogo) and the exceptional Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell).

Added note: This slide-lecture features GOT's costume designer and the research, design process, and constraints that go into costume design.

The above post was written by 

 our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

The Little (Sexy, Naughty) Mermaid and her sister show up in Agnieszka Smoczynska's genre-blending THE LURE

Whew! What to make of THE LURE, the new Polish movie from director Agnieszka Smoczynska and writer Robert Bolesto that my spouse insisted simply had to have been made during some former decade because every last one of its accoutrements -- its "look," production design, props, costumes, hair styles, even its music and lyrics -- seem so perfectly attuned to a time past. But, no: The film was indeed made in 2015 and is finally getting its U.S. theatrical release this week. Perhaps the best way to approach the movie is as a kind of singing-dancing, fairy-tale. fantasy, horror movie. It embodies each and all of those genres, and the most remarkable thing about The Lure is that it conflates these genres so well that it arrives on-screen and into our consciousness as something damned near sui-generis.

Ms. Smoczynska (at left) and Mr. Bolesto (below) have worked together previously on a short film and evidently have an awfully good rapport, so they have been able to create a kind of alternate universe in which the most bizarre things happen. And yet they happen so "reasonably" (given the oddness of the time, place and situations) that we simply accept them at face value -- even though that "face" is one we've never quite viewed before. After all, when a pair of young girls rise from the dark water, calling out to the men on shore for help -- while promising not to

eat them -- we've got to know that we're in pretty heady, unusual territory. Soon our girls, claiming to be named "Silver" and "Golden," are living with this on-shore family of entertainers who work in a kind of upper-end strip club, performing as a special attraction and using their ability to change from mermaid to fully human to give their audience an extra treat. And, boy, do they!  (The special effects here are used sparingly but they are done with such skill and imagination that they keep entirely within the movie's special blending of fantasy, sexuality, music, horror -- and romance. It is soon clear, however, that horror will be vying for top dog here (or, in this case, top fish).

The filmmaker's cast, which I will not single out individually, is remarkably good at delivering just what the writer and director ordered. Down the line, each actor's performance seem on target and able to convey via acting, singing, movement and more exactly what's required to keep us in the audience alternately charmed and flabbergasted but always entertained.

Channeling myth, folk tale, romance, sleaze and shock, while providing strange songs that will have you reading the English subtitles quickly and carefully for meaning and enjoyment, the movie races along from scene to scene as sex, romance -- along with the need to feed -- rears their rueful little heads.

TrustMovies did not notice any rating given for this movie -- which he suspects means that it remains unrated. The manner in which The Lure deals with nudity and sexuality (inter-species, at that) means that it most definitely is not for children -- unless parents are willing to spend a rather long time explaining things that may lose much of their magic and/or shock value in translation.

What does it all mean? That question is not even pertinent, I think. The film is what it is. And what it is proves outrageous and rather spectacular, colorful, breathtaking fun.

At the very least it might provide a nice corrective for those folk taken in by all the Hollywood hype over La La Land who were then a tad disappointed when they finally sat through this musical-of-the-moment.

From Janus Films and running a fleet and sometimes quite darkly funny 92 minutes, The Lure opens this Wednesday in New York City at the IFC Center. Elsewhere? I sure hope so. Laemmle's Noho 7 in Los Angeles is said to be presenting a movie called The Lure come early March, but one can't tell from the advance posting whether this is the same film discussed above. I don't understand why the Janus web site for the film is not more helpful in this regard. Posting playdates would be of great benefit to viewers who might want to see the movie.