Art and the folk who make it, sell it and buy it get a good going-over in Michael Walker's terrific little indie, PAINT

The best movie about art that I have seen in a long, long time, PAINT, written and directed by Michael Walker, plays fast and fair with all its characters -- most of whom are all too hypocritically human and a little too full of  themselves -- from the Pratt students determined to make great art and their cynical professor to the older successful artist, and especially the people who sell that art, along with the wealthy public that buys it. 

Paint may be a comedy -- much of it is gleefully funny -- but it is also serious about the desire to create art, where this comes from and how it is manipulated every which way on its journey from imagination to creation to sale (or not). The beauty and surprise Mr. Walker (the filmmaker is shown at right) has in store comes from his understanding that this need to create is genuine -- even if, especially if, the creators are often so unformed and clueless that they unable, at this point in their life and career, to achieve anything resembling their best impulses and ideas.

So these three art students/friends, played by (above, left to right) Olivia Luccardi, Josh Caras and Paul Cooper, bumble along in art, life, love, sex, theft, marketing and much else, and that bumbling is often so much fun that anyone genuinely interested in art and/or creativity will want to come along for the ride. 

The filmmaker mixes in young and old artists (the wonderful David Patrick Kelly plays the funniest and maybe smartest character in the film), students and teachers (Austin Pendleton, above, gets a lovely rant early on in the film), parents and children, buyers and sellers -- and all to great effect. His plotting and pacing are as much fun as his people, so that the 95 minutes whiz by in no time.

As one of our main character notes early on, "Is it my fault I haven't suffered? I just think there's more to life that that!" But what? And so he comes up with an idea -- oh, my! --  that is indeed something rather new, and then he gets his best buddy to help him. Which leads to a lot more fun and games at the same time that the female in this crew is finding her own success via a road not so often taken, at least not via the very amusing route we have here.

Along the way filmmaker Walker fills us in on all kinds of art theft, even as he gives us a group of characters who, for all their insecurities, occasional nastiness and naivete, are rather sweet, fun and almost always funny. 

The third wheel in this group finds his own way of connecting to the art world and its wonders (including sex), and the film's finale could hardly be bettered, giving us not just a sudden and surprising look at another kind of  "real" art, but also showing us the unintended consequences that creativity can sometimes bring. 

From Gravitas Ventures (though I dare you to try to find it on the firm's web site), Paint was released via VOD on most major platforms last week. It is definitely worth a watch, as it introduces quite a raft of talent -- in front of and behind the camera. Click here and/or here for more information.

Michael Walker's riveting THE MAID'S ROOM: Whew--talk about a hot-button-issues movie!

Immigration, class war, the use/abuse of power and money: THE MAID'S ROOM, a new film by Michael Walker (Price Check, Chasing Sleep) covers the hot-button bases -- and then some. And yet, thanks to an acting ensemble that remains committed and on-point throughout, and to a screenplay and direction (Mr. Walker handled both) that stays within the realm of possibility, while offering believable surprises along the way, the movie succeeds in holding us fast, while making us consider all the possibili-ties at play in Walker's tight, difficult scenario.

The filmmaker, shown at right, has also created full-bodied, multi-dimensional characters -- every one of them -- whose motives we observe as, well, mixed. Nobody here is completely guiltless or guile-free. Yet what happens to them is truly awful. By film's end you might very well imagine you've experienced something modern that comes awfully close in its effect to Greek tragedy. Yet nothing feels unduly pushed. One thing leads, quite believably, to the next. The stakes keep rising and the behavior grows more shocking.

A wealthy family in the Hamptons area of Long Island are in the process of hiring a new maid -- one that simply must speak better English than their most recent helper. The interview, while raising some red flags, goes well enough that our young and quite beautiful Drina (Paula Garcés, above) is hired, effective immediately.

Mom and Dad (Annabella Sciorra and Bill Camp, above, left and right) are decent enough people, once we get past their imbued sense of entitlement, while their teenage son, Brandon (Philip Ettinger, below), initially seems like the apple that has fallen all too near the tree.

They say that people really don't know who they are or what they are capable of until faced with a life-changing emergency. That would be the case here. When the emergency happens, no one is ready for it, and the behavior of everyone is up for grabs. Try to predict, and you are likely to be as wrong as right. Even if you are right, things will have changed in another instant or two.

The first-rate cast is splendid, right down to the smallest role, with the lovely Ms Garcés offering up a surprising store of strength and complexity as the movie proceeds. It is wonderful to see Ms Sciorra once again, away from TV for a change, and as good as she always is. Mr. Ettinger scores well, too, turning the weak son into a figure of almost frightening sadness and desolation. But it is Mr. Camp (above) as the quiet, seemingly distant dad who finally commands the movie. An extraordinary actor, he looks, acts and sounds utterly real at every moment, never more so than when he doing unconscionable things.

Shot in a widescreen that make full use of excellent composition and of character vis-a-via space, the movie is beautiful to observe. The filmmaker does not offer a heck of a lot of hope regarding topics of such concern to the U.S. and the western world today -- immigration, illegals, and the 99 vs the one per cent. But the scenario Walker has cooked up tastily then served with such relish should make a deep and lasting impression.

The Maid's Room, from Paladin Films and running a just-right 98 minutes, opens in theaters this Friday, August 8. In New York City, it plays at the Cinema Village; in Los Angeles, look for it at Laemmle's Noho 7.

A fine ensemble lights up Michael Walker's smart workplace dramedy, PRICE CHECK

What an interesting -- in so many ways -- new movie is  PRICE CHECK, the comedy-drama of workplace politics and preoccupations written (with an eye toward the inevitable compromises we make on our rise to success) and directed (quite competently) by sophomore full-lengther Michael Walker. That title, for instance: Fast, smart and to the point, it's a phrase we often use while trolling the aisles of our local supermarket. It has another, deeper meaning, too, which you'll probably roll around a bit in your mind once this surprising yet oddly quiet movie concludes.

The venue here actually is the supermarket, though (until the finale) we don't even enter one. Everything here concerns the corporate, backstage as it were, world where all the decisions are made. This is doubly interesting because we soon note that this corporate world appears awfully similar from business to business; whatever the end product being sold, the behavior on view seems nearly the same. Mr. Walker (shown at left), who over a decade ago gave us his first film, the odd thriller Chasing Sleep, has cast this one (with the help of Kerry Barden, Paul Schnee and Allison Estrin) quite well, bringing together a lively, believable group of actors that make up an excellent ensemble, with three of these most prominent.

Indie queen Parker Posey, above, who has hung on that title better and longer (pace Brit Marling) than many of us would have imagined possible, has the lead role and offers one of her best performances as the extraordinarily driven, not-quite-young woman who is given the job of turning an unprofitable supermarket located in the Long Island hinterlands into a winner. Ms Posey is -- as usual -- in your face, funny, smart and real.

Matching Posey extraordinarily well, by playing as quiet and close-to-the-vest as she is broad and (seemingly) open, is Eric Mabius, an actor who gets better as he gets older. Mabius has an unusual ability to look and act like an everyman, while holding back just enough to remain both mysterious and sexy without appearing to push either quality in the least.

The third wheel here is Annie Parisse (above, right) as the Mabius character's wife. Thanks to the combo of her fine performance and Walker's excellent screenplay and dialog, she, too, come across as multi-dimensional and dauntingly real. Everyone here, full of good points and not-so-good ones, acts at some point as both hero and villain. Mostly though, they -- as do the rest of the ensemble of characters -- just want to get ahead and somehow live a comfortable life. Like most of us in the 99 per cent.

Also in the cast are actors as disparate as Edward Herrmann and Cheyenne Jackson (above, center), both doing their usual fine job. The film is timely, all right, coming as it does in the midst of our continuing economic crisis, and its look at the workplace, below, seems nicely on-target, quirky yet real. But Price Check is also a quietly thoughtful movie about the unfortunate necessity for compromise (about so many things) -- and what this does to our lives and to those closest to us.

The movie, running 92 minutes and from IFC Films, has been playing via VOD for the past month and will open theatrically in a limited release tomorrow, Friday, November 16, here in New York City at the IFC Center, and next Friday, November 23, at the Laemmle NoHo 7 in the Los Angeles area.