Streaming tip--Netflix's Ayer/Landis BRIGHT: It's more fun than most critics have suggested

Yes, you have to be willing to accept a tale of Los Angeles cops -- good ones and bad ones -- that also involves fairies, elves and orcs (the latter will be lost on older audiences unfamiliar with those Lord of the Rings movies), but once you do, BRIGHT, the latest Netflix-released movie to find its way onto the streaming miasma, is actually a lot of fast-moving-if-silly fun that simultaneously offers its own ever-timely look at and lesson on racism and prejudice. For some nonsensical reason, our critical establishment, who just loved Wonder Woman, has seen fit to pillory David Ayer, first for giving us the more-fun-than-you've-heard Suicide Squad movie and now this fantasy follow-up that traffics equally in make-believe and mayhem.

As directed by Ayer (shown at right) and written by Max Landis, Bright makes good use of both the director's past abilities regarding cop movies (Training Day and Dark Blue, which he wrote, and the fine End of Watch, which he wrote and as directed) and his newer-found ability to offer up comic book stuff in the style that it deserves: not taking it at all seriously while making it move and amuse. One can only laugh in utter derision at critics who accused Ayer of making Suicide Club unbelievable -- as though any of these goddamned super-hero/stupid-hero movie were even remotely believable? Well, "great minds" do think alike.

Meanwhile, Bright posits one of those alternate-universe L.A.s in which elves have taken over as the elite, mere humans are relegated to underling status, fairies simply fly around and occasionally get swatted, and orcs are clearly at the bottom of the food chain: think Blacks.

There is one scene in the movie in which cops descend and beat practically to death an orc that will put you immediately in mind of Rodney King. Will Smith and Joel Edgerton (above and further above, left and right, respectively) play the usual unlikely cop partners (with Edgerton as the first orc ever allowed on the L.A. police force). Smith seems more relaxed and willing to let his easy charm shine brighter than in recent films, while Edgerton (of Animal Kingdom and Loving, even under very heavy make-up and/or CGI, manages to grab us and move us, as ever.

The minimal plot has to do with a, yes, magic wand (called exactly that), the getting of which seems awfully important to various elves, cops, gang members and everyone else on view. Our two cops manage to meet and protect a lone woman elf named Tikka (Lucy Fry, above) who seems to have changed sides from bad girl to good, and now needs to keep that wand under her wing.

The leading naughty elf is played by Noomi Rapace, above, a talented actress with a great face who is wasted here. Much of her role must have ended up on what we used to call the cutting room floor, or she was simply given too little to do in the first place. In the very large supporting cast are actors like Ike Barinholtz and Margaret Cho (as dirty cops) and Edgar Ramírez (below) as a sexy federal-agent elf.

All told, this one's a time-waster, but it is a lot of fun and not at all difficult to sit through -- if you've a mind to and are in mood for fantasy and action.  From Netflix, Bright, running just under two full hours, began streaming this past Friday, December 22.

In the dark, delicious fairy TALE OF TALES, Matteo Garrone comes through once again

Are you a fan of the kind of fairy tales that don't have a Disney happy ending but rather explore the darker recesses of human nature, along with the results that go with those recesses? If so, you won't want to miss a major surprise from Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone (shown below), who earlier gave us Gomorrah, Reality, First Love and The Embalmer. Maybe I oughtn't call TALE OF TALES (Il racconto dei racconti) a surprise, since it is every bit as dark -- spirited, imaginative and thrilling -- as the rest of Garrone's oeuvre. But who'd have thought the filmmaker would decide to explore fairy tales?

TrustMovies will be eternally grateful that he did, however, for his addition to the genre proves as good as, and very likely better than just about anything else you can name. As sumptuous and beautiful as a fairy tale demands, the movie also manages to look both "period" and "real" (something that, say, the recent Disney Cinderella, despite being quite lightly enjoyable, never managed). Tale of Tales is consistently eye-popping, and this makes it seems utterly exotic when compared to others in its genre. The movie has everything: terrific stories, amazing beauty, a tricky but genuine morality, and some really great monsters, too. This must be the biggest budget Garrone has yet had to play with and, by god, he makes the most of it. The movie is lavish, all right, yet it never seems wasteful.

Among the many Italians on view (yes, Alba Rohrwacher's here!), the movie sports an international cast to die for: Mexico's Salma Hayek (above), France's Vincent Cassel (below, center, with Stacy Martin) and Britain's Toby Jones (two photos below) --  all playing the kind of entitled royalty that hasn't a clue how to care for anyone other than themselves, including, unfortunately, treasured family members.

These "royalty" stories, while separate, are entwined via the theme of justice served (one way or another), as Garrone bounces back and forth between the tales with high energy and great elan. His stories are taken from the work of the 16th-Century Italian, Giambattista Basile, who did for Italian fairy tales what Charles Perrault did for French and the Grimm Brothers for German -- but Basile did it first. And the fact that we are nowhere near as familiar with Basile's tales as we are with the Grimms' or Perrault's makes them seem all the more entrancing and special.

We don't know the outcomes here, and there are a number of surprises along the way, each of them dished up rather spectacularly. The "special effects" are as good as you could imagine, while the "monsters" are especially creative -- particularly the rather adorable "giant flea."

All the tales are dark, cunning, amazing and often funny, but the best probably belongs to the daughter (a fine performance by Bebe Cave, above, right) of the king played by Mr. Jones, who, thanks to that flea and her father's selfishness, finds herself wedded to an ogre (Guillaume Delaunay, above, left). Their final scene together is sad, stern and rigorously unsentimental -- something that can be said about all of Garrone's work, it seems to me.

So, should you take the kids to see Tale of Tales (it's in English; there are no subtitles to rankle)? That depends on how willing you'll be to discuss the movie afterwards. (There'll be a lot to talk about.) If those kids are thoughtful, intelligent and aged maybe 8 or 10 or beyond, I'd say, sure. It's a film that they -- you, too -- are likely to remember and even think about for quite some time. (That's John C. Reilly, below, left, playing the one member of royalty who does the right thing -- and pays for it. There's always a price to be paid, as one character points out early on.)

From Sundance Selects/IFC Films and running 133 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, April 22, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and on Friday, April 29, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Monica Film Center. Elsewhere? Sure hope so. A film this spectacular and special deserves to be seen on the big screen. But if you don't live near any major cultural capital, be assured that Tale of Tales will appear on VOD simultaneously with its theatrical release.

THE COBBLER: Tom McCarthy's humane fantasy flick turns out to be worth a look, too

After being quietly blown away by Spotlight, and recalling the article in which New York magazine noted that filmmaker Tom McCarthy had been the recipient of both the best and worst reviews of the year for his two most recent movies, we decided to take a look at that "worst-reviewed" film --THE COBBLER, an Adam Sandler vehicle that, after garnering less than sterling notices at last year's Toronto Film Festival, bypassed theaters for a straight-to-video USA debut. In the afore-mentioned article McCarthy noted, "We knew what we were doing with The Cobbler. It’s just how people responded to it was different than we figured.” Fair enough. So spouse and I settled back on our sofa last night to see just what that movie was all about. (It's available now via Netflix streaming and elsewhere.)

The film is full of surprises, beginning with Sandler's performance, which is low-key and a tad depressive. The story itself has to do with a magical stitching machine passed down via generations of cobblers to the latest one (played by Sandler), allowing that cobbler to step into the shoes he has repaired and then simultaneously "become" the person who owns those shoes. As fantasies go, this one has a myriad of possibilities, many of which are mined by Mr. McCarthy (shown above) -- though not in the manner one might expect.

Those expectations are subverted in ways that are mostly surprising and charming, in keeping with McCarthy's humanist tendencies. First off, rather than having Mr. Sandler use his so-called "comic gifts" to impersonate this myriad of shoe owners, instead it is all the other characters (and the actors who play them) who must impersonate the cobbler that Sandler plays -- as well as playing their own characters. This makes for less wild and crazy humor than it does a kind of steady, low-key charm.

The other character here include everyone from a pretty, feisty, community organizer (Melonie Diaz), shown two photos up) and a tough and scary criminal type (Method Man, above)

to a best-friend barber and neighbor (Steve Buscemi, above, left) and a wealthy real estate mogul (Ellen Barkin, below). No less than Dustin Hoffman even makes a couple of fine appearances here.

Look for Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens (below) playing a smooth 'n semi-sleazy Brit, and the ever-lovable Lynn Cohen (shown at bottom) as Sandler's mom. The whole cast, in fact, is glossier and more on-point than fantasies like this usually deserve or receive.

As co-writer (with Paul Sado), McCarthy gives good vent to his kindlier side, making the movie a more pleasant fit for a family outing than are most Sandler comedies. How our cobbler chooses and uses those many different shoes contributes mightily toward making this movie such sweet, comic fun.

If The Cobbler is certainly nowhere near the don't-miss category, it is still a pleasant surprise. I suspect the bad reviews were as much a reaction to the dislike so many critics feel toward Mr. Sandler than to the movie itself. 

Art About Art: Moore/Twomey's surprise Academy pick THE SECRET OF KELLS opens

Standing tall next to Disney, Pixar, Focus and Fox is now GKIDS.tv with a film that is surely the surprise nomination of the year: THE SECRET OF KELLS, an animated narra-
tive movie from director/story guy Tomm Moore (shown below), co-director Nora Twomey and screenwriter Fabrice Ziolkowsky. Done in what TrustMovies calls old-fashioned flat, colorful, highly stylized animated line drawing (supplemented, according to the director's statement, by some computer anima-
tion), the film probably cost what Pixar pays for its press materials.  And yet so rich in story, ideas, and beauty is this little 75-minute film that it certainly gives the other nominees a run for their money. So far as simplicity is concerned, it wipes the floor with them.

The Secret of Kells combines Celtic mythology, an illuminated manuscript, history and magic into a kid's adventure tale that is short on dialog and explanation but long on lovely visuals.  I found this enchanting and often gripping but I do wonder what young kids will make of it.  Will they "get" it?  Probably not completely, but they should understand enough to carry them along and then use their own imagination to complete the parts of the tale they may not fully comprehend.

The movie takes place in a multi-cultural, multi-colored monastery in which the abbot is having constructed a huge wall to protect his flock and the locals from marauding Vikings.  His nephew (and our hero) little Brendan becomes involved with a master "illuminator," who, with his cat, has come to take shelter in the Abbey.  As Brendan learns about illumination and drawing, he also visits the forbidden forest outside the abbey where he meets a strange and magical little girl and her wolf pack.  Complications ensue.

The animation -- all of it wonderful -- ranges from frightening and awesome (lots of red and black and jagged edges) during the siege, to bright and earthy-colors when the environment is front and center (below), to the highly geometrical (further below) when magic -- and art -- are needed.  All the while, color choices are vital, as is the abstract style necessary to give the proper tone to the various scenes and their differing moods.

The movie finally offers a very smart mix of adventure, scares (which most young kids love), fantasy and magic (also high on their list) -- and art.  In fact the movie succeeds in being art about art: acquainting its viewers with the beauty of illuminated manuscripts in a manner that I suspect may stick with them for life.  On one level the "secret" of kells has to do with myth and magic.  On another, that secret is simply the importance of art to our individual lives and to the life of the world.

The Secret of Kells open Friday in New York City at the IFC Center and will open in Boston and Philadelphia on March 19th. A nationwide roll-out will follow, beginning April 2.