Lovers of unintentional camp, rejoice! RUSSIAN DOLL (A Thriller) hits DVD

The box art for RUSSIAN DOLL explains (or maybe proclaims) the movie to be, via its subtitle description, (A Thriller) -- in parentheses, yet, in case, I guess, we might want to consider this as parenthetical. Indeed there is not a single thrill to be found here. There is, however, a whole lot of genuine laughs, most of these completely unintentional, I fear.

Which means that this movie takes its place among those hallowed few films that rise, completely of their own accord, into the realm of unintentional camp.

As written and directed by Ed Gaffney (shown at right, whose earlier work as screenwriter, The Perfect Wedding, this reviewer thoroughly enjoyed), Russian Doll begins and ends with a genuine surprise. The first of these turns what has initially looked just slightly off-kilter into something that makes perfect sense. The final surprise has to do with identity, and I admit that I did not at all expect it. So I applaud. Very good, Mr. Gaffney!

The problem, however, is that between these two surprises, almost everything else seems bat-shit crazy, including the performances of much of the cast, especially our leading lady, Melanie Brockmann Gaffney (I suspect she is the filmmaker's wife), who, whatever other talents she possesses, acting is not among them, and Jason T. Gaffney (the filmmaker's son?), who was so very good in his rom-com role in The Perfect Wedding, but here plays a villain (shown below with his victim, played by Aly Trasher) who keeps making us laugh. Unintentionally, I admit. But that's not what villains are supposed to do.

The plot has to do with a theatrical play, the authorship of which may have been stolen; a sudden kidnapping (that actually makes very little sense overall); and a theatrical production of said play (named Russian Doll) that is occurring simultaneously with the kidnapping and a budding romance between our heroine, a police detective (Ms Gaffney, at left on poster, top) and a very pretty, sexy young woman with whom the detective's mom (Kristine Sutherland, below) has set her up.

All comes together in as clunky a manner as the above description sounds, with the kidnapper and his kidnapee especially hilarious, as the latter keeps escaping and the former keeps telling her that he's going to kill her if she keeps this up. She does, of course, and he doesn't. Somewhere along the way, the filmmaker inserts a song, the lyrics of which prove as awful (and as funny) as everything else on display. (We happened to have the English subtitles on as we watched and so got a double dose, aural and visual.)

At one point or another, my spouse and I began laughing aloud at the increasingly silly goings-on and, as can happen with this kind of laughter, it simply grew and grew until we were actually having a pretty good time. Add to this the automatic corrective that a truly awful movie can provide to just about everything else you've seen, mediocre on downward. Russian Doll managed this, and I am grateful. Now I truly understand what bad looks like. (That's the other leading lady, played by Marem Hassler, above, right, and Sarah Hollis, below, right, as our heroine's police partner, who tries to be smart and sassy but is defeated at every turn by the script.)

Distributed by Wolfe Video and running at least a short 82 minutes, the movie hits the street on DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 17 -- for purchase and/or maybe rental. To all of you -- performers, filmmakers, audiences -- good luck!

ME, MYSELF & HER: Lesbian rom-com-dramedy fluff from Italy's Maria Sole Tognazzi

TrustMovies moves up and down re the work of Italian filmmaker Maria Sole Tognazzi (he's quite high on A Five-Star Life, somewhat lower on The Man Who Loves, and maybe in the middle regarding her newest movie, ME, MYSELF & HER (a much simpler and more intelligently worded Io e lei, in the original Italian). Though there have been a number of Italian movies with full-out gay themes, this is said to be the first relatively mainstream Italian movie to tackle a lesbian relationship.

Ms Tognazzi, shown at right, casts her movies expertly, with some of Italy's finest actors in leading roles. Here she uses that always wonderful, multi-Donatello-winning Margherita Buy in one role and a quite beautiful and talented actress (from The Great Beauty), Sabrina Ferilli, in the other. The two play off each other with skill, precision and great believability, as they take us into the shoals of a five-year-old relationship that appears to be badly fraying.

As is her wont, Ms Tognazzi deals with the upscale bourgeoisie -- this time, an architect named Federica (Ms Buy, above) and her lover, an ex-actress and now-restaurateur, Marina (Ms Ferilli, below), who appear to have a relatively placid relationship -- except that Federica wants her sexual preference to remain private, while Marina could give a good god-damn about all that. When the opportunity arises for Marina to act again in an upcoming movie, the pair's relationship is put to the test.

The two actresses, as well as the rest of the supporting cast, are all first-rate, but the scenario itself seems second-hand and lacking in much depth. Everything hinges upon the relationship here, and what we see of it, despite the good work of the actresses involved, seems awfully, well, typical. There's an indiscretion, followed by anger, separation, sorrow and resolution. And all of it is just a little too easy.

All this surprises me a bit because the film was co-written by the writer and director, Ivan Cotroneo, of one my my favorite Italian films of the past decade, Kryptonite! (click and scroll down to view particulars). Still, we have the beauty and talent of Buy and Ferilli, and some gorgeous locations in which to bask (though nothing like those in A Five-Star Life), and a nice serving of Italian rom-com fluff. So the time is spent painlessly and pleasantly.

Just don't expect much depth or surprise -- which is too bad. If indeed this is the first lesbian rom-com-drama from Italy, the gals deserve a little more interesting scenario than we get here. (There is, however, a terrific looking cat, above, to help bide our time.) Even Federica's relationships with her son, ex-husband and new/old man-in-her-life (Fausto Maria Sciarappa, below) are shown so lightly that they seem to skip along a surface of what must have more interesting stuff roiling beneath it.

Ditto the relationship between Marina and her business associate, which looks as if it could have been given a scene or two all to itself. But if you're looking for something pretty and classy and nicely acted by some of Italy's finest, Me, Myself & Her should adequately fill the bill.

From Wolfe Video, In Italian with English subtitles, and running 102 minutes, the movie goes straight to VOD and DVD here in the USA this Tuesday, December 6 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Romance and history get a good going-over in Jenni Olson's hour-long doc, THE ROYAL ROAD

A combination of California (and U.S.) history, lesbian confessional, geography lesson and meditation on the human condition -- who we are and what we want -- THE ROYAL ROAD, from documentarian Jenni Olson, offers a good deal of pleasure via its unusual tone: quiet, inquiring and a little sad. The visuals, too, are equally quiet, staid & beautifully composed via a stationary camera before which passes a parade of boats, cars, water, birds, but no people.

Ms Olson, too, goes visually missing from the movie, though it is her voice that narrates the film. I would have liked to have seen what our narrator looks like, but I am sure it was intentional that the director leaves herself, along with all other human beings, out of the visual mix. (That is she, shown left.) You can see and hear more of her by watching the charming and interesting interview with the filmmaker by Guinevere Turner and Rose Troche that appears on the Bonus Features of the new DVD -- which makes its debut this coming Tuesday, Sept. 6, via Wolfe Video.

From its outset, The Royal Road (that would be California's famous El Camino Real that links northern and southern California) tackles Olson's pursuit of unavailable women (we hear about an earlier would-be "love" in Los Angeles and then in Chapter Two, a more current one residing up north). At the same time the filmmaker goes into at length the history of California's famous (or infamous) Father Junípero Serra and his bringing Christianity to the early indigenous population. From there, we jump off into U.S. history, the Mexican-American War, the Louisiana Purchase, and the early colonization of America by the British, Spanish and French.

What do these two themes -- personal love and national conquest -- have in common? Perhaps the kind of hypocrisy that would deliberately choose would-be partners who are by their very nature (maybe straight, certainly married) unavailable, and deliberately refuse to see or understand a history in which a country practices war and genocide in order to expand its borders. (God knows, they never taught us kids any of that in my California elementary school history class. Maybe they do now.)

Whatever, Olson's honesty about both subjects is quietly bracing, and when at last she adds the famous Alfred Hitchcock movie, Vertigo, to the mix, the results are even more invigorating. Her final statement (or one of them) about what both she Hitch managed to reveal via their films is smart, funny and as engaging as all that has gone before.

Although much that we see and hear will probably be obvious to history buffs (and therapists who deal with folk who fail at relationships), I did learn some new things from the film: Did you know that both Abe Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant were opposed to the Mexican-American War? And while I thoroughly love Vertigo, I had never made the connection that Olson makes about how the choice of the name of one of Kim Novak's characters, Madeleine, might be a nod to Proust. I also loved her idea that "the re-romanticizing of California's Missionary Era," occurred just as the state's tourism was burgeoning.

The film is full of just such contemplative and thoughtful asides, and those visuals -- a shot of the side of a Northern California house and driveway as the fog begins to roll in, a bird seen in the middle of an empty alleyway -- are so consistently interesting that you won't want to blink. (The fine cinematography is by Sophia E. Constantinou, while the precision film editing comes via Dawn Logsdon of the wonderful Big Joy.)

There is even a short side trip into the pros and cons of nostalgia, with the help of Tony Kushner. One might have wished for a bit more variation and energy in Ms Olson's narrative voice; on the other hand, it makes the film more personal because it's she who is speaking. All in all, if you're of a mind and in the mood for some quiet movie contemplation, you could do well spending 65 minutes with this lovely film.

From Wolfe Video, the documentary hits the street this coming Tuesday, September 6 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Todd Haynes' superlative, exquisite CAROL comes to Blu-ray, DVD, VOD and Digital HD

So much has already been written about Todd Haynes' latest outpouring of nostalgia, beauty and closeted "forbidden" love that TrustMovies, finally catching up with this multi-Oscar-nominated film (that ended up winning nothing), can only second most of the praise he's already read and heard. Watching the film unfurl in its fine Blu-ray transfer is such a visual pleasure that buffs are likely to have to view CAROL a second time to fully appreciate the remarkable performances from lead actresses Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

Mr. Haynes (shown at left), in bringing to the screen Phyllis Nagy's adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith tale of a lesbian love affair and its consequences, is in territory he loves best, including the 1950s time period. And he has brought all this to such fine fruition that the viewer can simply relax and, as it were, go with the flow. It seems to this critic, at least, that with each new work, Haynes grows more confident and secure in his craft. Here he allows the subtleties of the story, characteri-zations and performances to carry the day. And, my god, do they.

By now we know all too well how great an actress is Ms Blanchett (above); the surprise here is how perfectly Ms Mara (below) complements her co-star, while proving every bit as glamorous and talented. Above all, Carol proves a splendid, rich and deep love story about coming to terms with so much -- back when handling this kind of situation was nothing like as easy as it is today.

As fine as were the winners of this year's actress and supporting actress prize (Brie Larson and Alicia Vikander), no one, I think, can deny that Carol's co-stars are every bit as good. Ms Larson's role in Room is such a great one, as well as a great opportunity (think Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve), that it would be difficult to deny any actress who played the role properly this prize. Ms Vikander is always good; the Oscar here seems as much deserved for her better role in Ex Machina, which, being a genre movie, not so many of the Academy voters probably saw.

Carol's lack of "wins" can also be attributed to its being a lesbian film. The Academy might gives prizes now and again to a tear-jerker, triumph-of-the-human-spirit movie like Philadelphia (which is about men, after all, even if some of them are gay), but a quiet, strong and subtle one about women such as this? Not likely.

No worries. The nominations were enough to honor the amazing contributions here. And Carol will continue to find its audience, now and in perpetuity. With its theatrical release via The Weinstein Company and its video release from Anchor Bay Entertainment, the movie hits Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD this coming Tuesday, March 15 (it has been available via Digital HD since March 4) -- for purchase and/or rental.

Mika Kaurismäki's THE GIRL KING: Queen Kristina, with her sexuality front and center

An interestingly, if not entirely successfully, imagined rendition of the early adult life of Sweden's famous Queen Kristina, crowned, according to this film at age six and ruling for around a decade from age 18 to 28, THE GIRL KING presents us with the 1600s seen very much through the lens of modern-day thought and feeling. (Queen Margot, it ain't.) As such it will expand somewhat the horizon of American viewers who manage to see it -- mostly likely those in the GLBT segment of the populace -- while giving them a relatively entertaining time at the historical bio-pic well.

The movie was written by Michel Marc Bouchard (the "English version" is credited to Linda Gaboriau) and directed with some flair and appreciation for pomp and circumstance, time and place by Mika Kaurismäki (shown at left). The costumes, especially, are quite beautiful and eye-popping, and the locations and props seem equally at home in their far-off time period. Initially, it seems as though the film will deal with its subjects -- history, feminism, sexuality and the ways of royalty -- with irony and a sense of humor (note the use of the fly in a very effective pre-title credit sequence). But then, post-title, this mostly gives way to cliché.

Still, there is a certain amount to charm and even reliability to be found in the clichés of bio-pics about distant figures of history, and the filmmakers have mined this for some effective results. In the 1933 Hollywood movie Queen Christina, Garbo played the Queen as a woman who wears mannish clothes but still falls in love with the dashing Spanish envoy to her court. Yeah, right. At least these days, we can call a spade a spade (and a lesbian a lesbian), so here, our heroine (very well limned by Malin Buska, above, right) falls in love with a countess at her court (Sarah Gadon, above, left), mostly to the detriment of all concerned. (That's Lucas Bryant, below, left, with Ms Buska, who plays one of the several male, would-be paramours of the Queen.)

When the film sticks to the politics and religions of the day, it fares much better than when it tries to probe the women's intimacy because, as conceived and written, the Countess barely exists except as a love object for Kristina. There's no "there" there, and given the empty characterization, Ms Gadon is unable to provide much in the way of specificty. This finally drags the movie down rather heavily: They're in love. We get it. So, what's new and interesting about that? The movie hasn't a clue -- except to let us know that lesbian love was frowned upon back then.

However, when Kristina's guardian (the excellent Michael Nyquist, above) and his Queen get involved in politics -- she wants to promote peace instead of war, which is an affront to most of her court -- the movie takes occasional flight. As it also does when it probes Kristina's interest in philosophy and that famous Frenchman Descartes (the two evidently met and had some interesting interactions, which may have even led to the philosopher's untimely death).

As played by the always fine Patrick Bauchau (above, right), Descartes and his ideas are a winning part of the movie. So, as depicted here, is the relationship between Kristina and her mother (played with fine ferocity by that expert German actress Martina Gedeck, below, center).

Perhaps the most interesting sections of all are provided by the "plot" to return Sweden to a Catholic country, which involves Kristina's "friend," the French Ambassador Chanut (smartly played by Hippolyte Girardot, below, right). This, as we learn from both history and the title cards just preceding the end credits, had a most interesting result.

Overall, The Girl King is worth a watch for its weaving of facts, historical figures and a pretty good pass at "what might have happened" into an entertaining, informative look at a particular part of the world as it was evolving during the mid-1600s.

From Wolfe Releasing, the film -- running 106 minutes -- opened yesterday in a very limited run at theaters in Los Angeles, Larkspur (California), San Jose and Minneapolis, and arrives on video and digital via Wolfe Video this coming Tuesday, December 8.

A young Dutch woman discovers her sexual identity in Colette Bothof's film, SUMMER

It's a hot one -- temperature-wise and otherwise -- in the new movie from The Netherlands titled SUMMER (Zomer in its original Dutch), in which a girl on the cusp of young womanhood, who is both attractive and smart yet never feels that she quite fits in, discovers what her sexual wants and needs really are. In gay men's movies, we call this "coming out." In lesbian women's films, the event often tends to be less raucous and dramatic, more inner and "felt."

In the hands of seasoned director Colette Bothof (shown at right), fledgling writer Marjolein Bierens and the fine cast assembled here, this ongoing "event," which I must admit we've seen many, many times previ-ous, takes on new interest and appeal, mostly by virtue of the movie's locations and setting. We're in a small and quite provincial country town in The Nether-lands, in which, as our narrator and heroine, Anne (Sigrid ten Napel, below), explains it, "nothing changes."

Well, dear: better get ready. This little community lies nearby a nuclear plant which provides it with electricity, a plethora of employment, and probably some not-so-healthy radiation. But the populace is behind the plant 100 per cent; they make short work of any environment-minded protesters who show up.

While Anne seems relatively content to be just "one of the boys," she also resists the romantic craving of one of them and then one day in her art class using a live model (above), something appears to click -- in all the boys, of course, but in Anne, as well.

At this same time, our girl encounters a newcomer to town, an exotic beauty (exotic especially to this white-bread village, in which one of the boys is nicknamed Negro by his compatriots who evidently have never seen one) played by Jade Olieberg, below, who immediately charms the pants off Anne, and the two begin a courtship dance that involves much back-and-forth, yes-and-no behavior from Anne.

For TrustMovies, the film's main interest derived from it concentration on the subsidiary characters, each of whom is well-drawn and well-acted: Anne's parents and siblings (one of whom is handicapped), her peers (both girls and boys), and especially the "tenor" of the little town and its environs, where "if a girl falls off a horse, she belong to the local farmhand."

This latter event is shocking and strange yet seems quite in keeping with the ideas of the local populace and even the Church. The film is clearly against the idea of organized and powerful  religion, yet it also allows us to see and object to an unpleasant bit of cat-calling against those who follow that religion.

The film's pièce de résistance may be its very interesting conflagration of the Virgin Mary, Nuclear Power and blinkered attitudes -- all presided over by a useless church.

As I mentioned earlier, films about women finding their way into a lesbian relationship tend not to be as testosterone-fueled as their male counterparts. Summer manages a confrontational scene that, for me, seemed somewhat short of believable -- needing either to go farther into confrontation, given that's it's already gone this far, or to draw back from confrontation earlier along so as not to give us the kind of "pussyfooting around" that defies credibility.

This is not a deal-breaker, however, because there's too much else good in the movie, from parent-child relationships to how citizens too often look the other way when things go bad, instead of stepping up to the plate and handling the problem while it's hot. In fact, what happens to the various friends and relatives here actually reduces the central love story to something less important in the grand scheme of things. Intended or not, this makes the movie richer and more interesting that many other lesbian and gay coming-of-age tales.

In any case, Summer is a film worth seeing ,and I am glad that Wolfe Video has stepped up to that plate, distributing the film via VOD, across all digital platforms including iTunes, Vimeo On Demand, and WolfeOnDemand.com .

Butterflies, S&M sex games, an all-female society and Borgen's Sidse Babett Knudsen highlight Peter Strickland's THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY

Not having been blown away (I was mildly impressed) with Peter Strickland's last film, Berberian Sound Studio, TrustMovies was at least more prepared for this auteur's newest ramble into the kind of bizarre visual world that can only be accessed via film. In its opening moments, THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY (the title refers to Hamearis lucina, a butterfly also known by this titular name) initially seems like a typically lovely European film: gorge-ous photography of a small country village, with babbling stream, plentiful greenery and charming architecture.

Ah, but what mysteries reside in this bucolic landscape! For one thing, there ain't no men. That's right: We're in a world of only women, no matter where we turn or go or look or lay our head, at work or at play -- it's all gals, all the time. Interestingly, nothing is made of this fact. It simply exists as a given.

Are we in an alternate universe in which men don't exist? Or this this some strange, fantasy dream? (The movie does indeed seem like a dream -- if not an outright nightmare -- from time to time.) Could this be meant as something psychological -- men's fears/fantasies of what women would get up to if given their rein/ reign? You'd have to ask these questions of writer/director Strick-land, pictured at right, and even then, the fellow might not be so forthcoming, for film-makers often prefer that you work a bit to ferret out meanings.

Meaning may not come so easily here, but I think you will have some fun and games just watching the goings-ons, which involve two attractive and sensual women, one of whom -- Sidse Babett Knudsen, at left, above, who played the lead in one of  the best television series ever made (Borgen, from Denmark) -- is worth seeing here in quite a different role.

The other woman, Chiara D'Anna, above, left, is younger, less tutored and more subservient. Or so it would seem. The Duke of Burgundy is also about role playing and shifting identities. Like a dream, the movie floats along, refusing to be pinned down. It is also, like a dream, quite repetitive, except that dreams, or so they tell us, take place very quickly. This one goes on for 104 minutes, which is good deal longer than its content -- however bizarre, sensual and transgressive it initially seems -- can handle.

Still, amidst the re-occurring sexual games there are a few upticks along the way, the chief among these being the visit to our pair by a woman (Eugenia Caruso, above) who specializes in what appears to be the procuring of some very odd sexual equipment for the bathroom. Along the way, you'll take stock of this relationship and realize that it is probably quite difficult to keep an S&M bond fresh and fun when one partner has an urgent need for masochism while the other isn't truly a sadist.

You may also imagine that you've wandered into a movie made by Radley Metzger, now working in tandem with Peter Greenaway -- not a particularly happy blend. Someone has called this film a melodrama, but it is hardly that. Or at least not a good melodrama -- which needs pace and plot and a little fire. After an initial viewing, The Duke of Burgundy seems all naughty titillation trying to approach sophisticated decadence.

Fun for awhile and certainly sometimes a visual treat, the movie -- from Sundance Selects/IFC Films -- opens this Friday, January 23, in New York City (at the IFC Center) and Los Angeles (at Landmark's NuArt), and simultaneously on VOD in most major markets.