Blu-ray debut for Robert Altman's lesser-known but first-class film, KANSAS CITY

I remember seeing KANSAS CITY at the time of its original theatrical release (1996) and enjoying it a lot. Yet viewing it again, in a glorious new Blu-ray transfer from Arrow Academy, it seems not simply very good but up there with its director and co-writer Robert Altman's best films.

So why is this remarkable movie so little know or even much talked about anymore? I suspect it has to do with how little, style-wise, the movie resembles so much of the other work for which Altman, shown at right, is now most remembered. By style, I mean in particular this filmmaker's much vaunted use of over-lapping dialog, together with the so-much-going-on visuals that have you scanning the screen, ever alert to what to watch and to whom to listen as the movie moves ahead.

No. This film, by conventional standards of Altman's work (if the word conventional can even be used here), seems almost traditional. Aside from a clever opening taking place in two time frames that soon come together (as well as coming clear), the film moves forward with the plot unfurling and characters developing, just as in so many more standard movies.

What sets Kansas City apart --  in addition to the first-rate set and production design, cinematography and all other technical aspects -- are the themes Altman so often pursued, especially the ways in which power congregates and corrupts, no matter the race or class represented.

The movie begins with a kidnapping of one woman by another, the reason for which only slowly comes clear. These women are played by Jennifer Jason Leigh (above, as Blondie) and Miranda Richardson (below, as Carolyn), each of whom is as good here as she has ever been. Their story is front and center, and their characters are wonderfully written (by Altman and his four-time collaborator Frank Barhydt) and beautifully acted by the two women, whose relationship grows oddly closer as the film progresses.

Simultaneously, Kansas City is a love story -- fueled by Blondie's love for her guy, a good-looking nitwit named Johnny, played with brainless charm by Dermot Mulroney, below -- and a non-love story in terms of the relationship-of-convenience between Carolyn and her husband, an ex-politician now working for President Roosevelt (Michael Murphy). The tale unfurls on and around election day, as the local Democratic candidate is jammed through via everything from voter fraud to cavalier murder.

Blondie's Johnny has stupidly planned a robbery of a rich gambler that goes awry but brings in the man who own the gambling house (a nifty Harry Belafonte, below, essaying a role unusual for him). How all these plot strands bounce off each other, finally coming together in a manner that is shocking, horrible, inevitable and completely understandable. It will leave you satisfied and musing, I think, on exactly the subjects Altman wants you to be considering, even as you are impressed all over again with what this great filmmaker could accomplish.

Kansas City is a violent film, but never unduly so, with that violence ranging from the merely casual to the grizzly. Yet it all seems appropriate to the period, the locale, and the situations, while the writer/director's take on race in particular is strong and true for this time and place.

In addition to all of the above, Kansas City boasts some wonderful music -- jazz of the day played right and real -- taking place in the club owned by the Belafonte character. As critic Geoff Andrew tells us in the excellent, newly-filmed appreciation of the movie that is a part of the Bonus Features on the disc, this was perhaps the most personal of all of Altman's work, in so many ways, and the filmmaker's attention to detail in every aspect comes through quite beautifully.

TrustMovies believes this new Blu-ray release will help place Kansas City much higher in the canon of Mr. Altman's oeuvre. It should attract both his die-hard fans for a re-look, while garnering a bunch of new ones, too.

From Arrow Video, distributed here in the USA via MVD Visual/MVD Entertainment Group, the film made its Blu-ray debut last week -- for purchase (and I hope, somewhere, rental).

Suzannah Herbert/Lauren Belfer's WRESTLE is a riveting, heartfelt teen sports documentary

The best documentary about high school sports competitions TrustMovies has seen since the Oscar-winning Undefeated (from 2011), WRESTLE, the new film directed by Suzannah Herbert, co-directed by Lauren Belfer, and co-written by both of them, along with Pablo Proenza, has been compared to the basketball documentary Hoop Dreams but strikes me as much closer in form, spirit and running-time to Undefeated.

So richly, quietly and thoroughly does the filmmaking team manage to embed you in the lives, needs, problems and desires of its quartet of high school wrestlers, by the time you leave this modest but hugely compelling little movie, you may feel that these four  young men and their wonderful wrestling coach have become part of your own family.

This is because Ms Herbert, shown at right, and Ms Belfer (below), along with Mr. Proenza (shown two photos below), who did the ace editing on the film,

became so close to their wrestlers, their families and and the team's coach that they were able to obtain footage in which emotions are real and often quite raw; humor is plentiful, too; then all of this has been edited so that what we see slowly grows into characters who are so much more than mere wrestlers. We view their young lives, as well as those of their family, friends and -- in one case, paramor -- as fraught, tentative yet hopeful.

Wrestle, finally, is about much more than merely winning the game,

though the suspense and hope registered along this route, is terrific, too.

In addition to some interesting wrestling -- we see enough of the game to begin to appreciate the moves of the team members that lead to their wins or losses -- we also view the boys' love for family, coach and each other.

Three of the team members are black (Jaquan, Jamario and Jailen) and one white (Teague), and as the film takes place in Huntsville, Alabama, at J.O. Johnson High School, which had been on the state's list of "failing schools" for years, we also note the local cops' interactions with two of the (surprise, surprise!) black team members. Race seems less of a problem among the team mates than in society at large. (The movie's sweetest, most tender moment comes as Teague places his head on Jaquan's shoulder.)

The co-directors actually lived in Huntsville full-time while filming, and this must in part account for the enormous intimacy achieved here, as well as for the filmmakers' ability to be in the right place at the right time so often.

The four boys are wonderfully diverse; we root for them all, including their coach. And, yes, he's white, but I hope we don't have to hear any more bullshit about why we should not show a white man helping poor, deprived black kids. (For anyone who insists upon that, may I recommend you read this splendid and appropriate article, The Trouble With Uplift by Adolf Reed from that great progressive magazine, The Baffler.) Who wins and who loses will surprise and move you. And the final end-credit notes regarding Where are they now? will do the same.

In terms of intimacy and accomplishment, Wrestle is also on a part with 2017's wonderful documentary, Night School. And though we learn the usual things we'd expect from a documentary about a team hoping to win a championship, the filmmakers seem to deliberately stop short of providing any kind of actual "happy ending."

The lives of these boys have barely begun, yet already, the challenges ahead seem massive. This movie will entertain you, sure, but it will also make you think and feel and care and, yes, wrestle with the idea of what America was and is and could be. I mean, really: what more could you ask from a movie today? Oh, right: explosions, car chases and lots of special effects.

From Oscilloscope Films and running 96 minutes, Wrestle opens this Friday, February 22, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and on Friday, March 1, in Los Angeles at the Monica Film Center. I can't find any other between-the-coasts screenings listed on the film's web site, but perhaps once the rave reviews and great world-of-mouth appear after opening, we'll see more availability around the rest of the country. Hope so!

ROMA: Yes, Alfonso Cuarón's much-lauded movie is indeed one of the year's best

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Sorry for the delay in covering Alfonso Cuarón's very impressive movie ode to the Mexican woman who helped raise him and his rather large immediate family, but due to a scheduling glitch with my monthly correspondent Lee Liberman, the film fell through TrustMovies' cracks for a bit.

So: Is ROMA -- named for the Mexico City neighborhood in which Cuarón (shown below) grew up -- as good as the blurbs on its poster, left, would indicate? I think it is, though I must admit that several good friends of mine, intelligent movie-lovers all, found the film slow-moving enough to have to stop and then return to it two or three times, in order to finish watching.

How shall I put it, exactly? This is not an "action" movie. Yet for anyone who can appreciate a film about family dynamics, separation, child-rearing, not to mention class and economic differences, racism, and the many different and equally important forms of love involved in the life of a shy, quiet but remarkably morally-centered young woman, Roma hits the sweet spot again and again.

Aside from the sometimes breath-taking and always lovely black-and-white cinematography by Cuarón himself (as was the direction, screenwriting and even much of the editing: this is a very "hands-on" movie), what impresses me most about the film was how much of it has been shot in mid-range/middle distance and how very few enormous close-ups we are asked to view.

This has the effect of not allowing the viewer to so easily or immediately get "close" to the characters. Instead we have to spend the time noting the small details and tiny incidents -- the parking of a car, for instance -- that slowly build character and lead to our further involvement. Middle distance also helps avoid the easy sentimentality found in so much of what we see in film and on television.

As you might expect from this sort of endeavor -- a near-documentary approach to showing us life -- the performances are all terrifically real yet about as unshowy as seems possible under these circumstances. In the leading role of the maid, Cleo, newcomer Yalitizia Aparcio (above) is quietly extraordinary, as befits a character whose job it is to serve others. Less quiet but equally fine is the much-more-seasoned actress Marina de Tavira (below, right) in the role of the broken-hearted mother of the family.

Though much of the movie is given over to small, seemingly sort of static scenes of daily life, there eventually arise a few whoppingly amazing moments that build into some unforgettable situations that Cuarón handles equally well. The first of these occurs as Cleo's boyfriend, Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrrero, below) does a nude and full-frontal demonstration of his martial arts skills that, while impressive (in several ways), leaves us wondering just who this guy really is. That slowly, clearly becomes more and more horribly apparent.

Roma also boasts the most memorable and moving birth scene I've yet experienced (for reasons that would be a spoiler to dwell on), and another that suddenly shows us the result of government brutality to its student population that is as sudden as it is spectacularly ugly and believable.

The film climaxes with the scene shown on the poster, top. Before I viewed the movie, this "family hug" --  used extensively in the publicity materials and posters for the film -- looked rather sentimental. Once you've actually seen the whole film, I think you'll agree that this landmark moment, thanks to the filmmaker's style, story, and in particular his skillful use of middle distance, arrives completely and absolutely earned.

From Netflix and still playing its limited release in theaters, even as it streams most everywhere else, Roma, running two hours and fifteen minutes, is definitely one of last year's best film. I am adding it to my list right now. 

From Brazil comes a genre bending/busting marvel: Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra's "family" film, GOOD MANNERS

Hugely feted and probably fated to go down in cinema history as one of the great love stories/family films/horror films -- yes, there are not so many of these! -- the Brazilian movie, GOOD MANNERS (As Boas Maneiras), is like nothing you've so far seen.

When TrustMovies was a teenager back in the late 1950s and especially in love with werewolf movies, he always imagined that someone would make a werewolf love story that could bring an audience not simply to fear, but to tears and maybe even a weird kind of joy. The South Koreans managed this to an extent with their lovely A Werewolf Boy back in 2012, and now, finally, the movie-making team of Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra (shown above, left and right, respectively) have gone even deeper and more thoroughly into genre-jumping/mashing to bring us a film that is at once, as the quote on the poster at top makes clear, a fairy tale/horror movie/romance/musical/social parable that works beautifully in every single one of those genres, even as it becomes, at last, something sui generis and quite amazing.

Good Manners is so good, in fact, that it rather sneaks up on you, growing better and stronger as it moves along until its final moment that should leave you as stunned and moved as any genre film you'll have viewed.

Low-budget, independent movies -- let alone genre jumpers -- rarely make for Oscar bait, which is a shame in itself. Even more so when the lead performance in one of those films is as full, rich and deep as is that of Isabél Zuaa (above), who plays the nanny, cook, cleaning woman, friend and finally lover to the pregnant woman (Marjorie Estiano, below) who hires her,

and then becomes the surrogate mother to the shape-shifter at the core of the film, the beautiful and gifted young actor, below, who bears the too-perfect moniker of Miguel Lobo (could that be his actual name?).

Though I hadn't yet realized it as a teenager who would soon identify as gay and eventually bisexual, the strong pull that these movies about "the other (in whatever form)" had on me came from the idea that one could be punished and destroyed for being different, even though one had no control over that difference.

Difference is paramount in Good Manners, whether it is seen via skin color, class, religion, or finally species. How the filmmaking duo brings this to the fore by melding their genres so skillfully is impressive enough; that they also manage to bring the emotional content home so strongly is even more so. Oh -- and did I mention how lovely the songs are?

One of the movie's odd strengths comes from its use of children -- as both aggressor and victims. These scene are as surprising, awful and moving as any I can recall in the genre, and while they do involve some bloodshed, the filmmakers never rub our noses in it. They show what they must and let our mind and heart do the rest. How well they also use some of the genre cliches -- the aroused mob of townspeople on the march to destroy Frankenstein and his monster -- is also admirable.

Good Manners is utterly transgressive in so many ways, and yet it is also one of the sweetest, kindest examples of the horror genre imaginable. The combination proves bracing and the movie -- together with its lead performance from Ms Zuaa (above right) -- unmissable.

From Distrib Films US and running a surprisingly lengthy 135 minutes (not one of which you'd want to part with, post viewing), the film opens theatrically in New York City this Friday, July 27, at the IFC Center and on August 17 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. Elsewhere? Sure hope so, but if not, the film will surely reach DVD and digital eventually.

SHAKESPEARE WALLAH: early Merchant-Ivory collaboration gets 2K Blu-ray/DVD restoration

Made in 1965 and released in U.S. theaters the following year, SHAKESPEARE WALLAH, though not the first collaboration between producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory, was the film that put the two on critics' and the art film circuit map. TrustMovies was too young and untutored to nearly appreciate the movie back then (he found it dull and weird), and he knew little about Britain's long-term "adventure" in India.

Seen now, more than a half-century later, the movie shimmers and glows with typical Merchant-Ivory (the pair is shown above in a 1983 photo by Lord Snowden) subdued wit and a crisp and glorious transfer of its black-and-white cinematography in this new restoration via the increasingly important Cohen Film Collection.

The film follows an itinerant group composed of a British family (father/mother/daughter) and their native helpers (you'd have to call them lackeys, as they barely get paid for their work), as it travels about the provinces of India putting on scenes from (or entire but heavily cut-down) plays by Shakespeare. If the actors are not great, neither are they bad. They do their art as best they can under increasingly difficult circumstances.

Ditto the actors who play these actors -- Geoffrey Kendal (dad, above, center left), Laura Liddell (mom, above, center) and Felicity Kendal (daughter, above, center right) -- a real family, the parents of which actually toured India for decades doing exactly this, while their daughter, Felicity, who was born in India, went on to make quite an important career for herself in British film and television.

When their barely-making-it automobile breaks down between stops, they are helped and befriended by a local man (a young and so sexy Shashi Kapoor, above) who immediately sets his sites on the daughter.

Trouble is, this fellow is also the boyfriend of a top Bollywood star of the day, played to perfection by Madhur Jaffrey (above, right). Complications ensue, and sure enough, they're handled with the usual flair for irony, subtle wit and entertainment provided by the Merchant/Ivory combo and their oft-times writing collaborator, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Along the way, we're treated to scenes that show how change is always with us, then as now -- and, as usual, just as difficult to accept. While politics don't seem to matter much here, economics certainly do, as do the usual themes of class and race where India and Britain are concerned.

Overall  though, this remains a mostly light-hearted, romantic entertainment touched with a melancholy that grows ever more pronounced as the film moves along. In the years since Shakespeare Wallah arrived, Mr. Ivory has proven enormously assured in his skills (he won an Oscar this past year for his adapted screenplay to Call Me By Your Name). Of the filmmakers and major actors on view only Ivory, Ms Jaffrey and Ms Kendall are still with us. Thankfully, their movie is, too.

From the Cohen Film Collection and running two hours and two minutes, this newly restored treat arrived on DVD and Blu-ray this past April -- for purchase and/or rental.

U.S. Blu-ray debut for Abdellatif Kechiche's stunning, if overlong BLACK VENUS

Tunisian-born filmmaker
Abdellatif Kechiche, who has lived in France since the age of six, has now written and directed eight (very) full-length films. One of his hallmarks, in fact, is length. The four of his films that TrustMovies has seen are too long. His shortest (Games of Love and Chance) runs just over two hours, and his longest (Blue is the Warmest Color) a three full hours. His latest, in fact (not yet seen in the USA), is so long that it had to be split into two parts, with the first one running nearly three hours all by itself.

While judicious editing anywhere from ten to thirty minutes would improve each Kechiche film mightily (the filmmaker is shown at left), still, I would not have wanted to miss any of them. BLACK VENUS (from 2010), which makes it U.S. Blu-ray debut this coming week via Arrow Academy, may be the best of the lot -- even though at the time of its international festival/theatrical debut, it was rather roundly panned for being exploitative and/or sleazy in terms of its handling of story and lead actress, the memorable Yahima Torres (shown below). Again, I suspect this stems as much from America's ever-prudish sensibilities as from the too-lengthy scenes of the degradation of the film's main character, a black woman known during the time frame of the film's setting -- 1810 through 1815 -- as the Hottentot Venus. Audiences quickly got the point M. Kechiche was making -- yes,  this is awful stuff! -- but the filmmaker's refusal to tighten his scenes comes off as though he's unduly rubbing it in.

And yet, in many ways this is Kechiche's most powerful movie: Stunningly beautiful and eye-poppingly gorgeous in its new Blu-ray transfer (Arrow offers some of the best transfers I've seen), it captures the time and place in all their despairing, often ugly glory. And the story it tells of the abuse of this woman, born Sarah Baartman in South Africa, is such a staggeringly amazing and ugly one that it practically becomes an instant and major historical marker for the Me Too movement. (In this sense the movie was nearly a decade ahead of its time -- as poor Ms Baartman was a couple of centuries ahead of hers.)

Performances from the entire cast  -- Kechiche's usual "unknowns" (here led by the amazing Ms Torres, who, sadly, has done no acting work at all since this, her debut role) mixed with some very "well-knowns" (Olivier Gourmet (above and below), Andre Jacobs (below, right), and the incomparable Elina Löwensohn).

M. Kechiche proves himself once again a born filmmaker, despite his love of length and overkill. How he tells his tale -- beginning with a lecture given by and to France's leading doctors and professors regarding the sexual organs of the Hottentot, then arriving full circle, once we've learned the history and current-day story of our black beauty -- could hardly be bettered, save for the occasional need of those editing scissors.

The costumes, sets, and ace cinematography (from Lubomir Bakchev) all conspire to make viewing the movie a consistent pleasure, even as we move from the "peep" show staged in London (below)...

to the British high court (below), where our little "theatrical troupe" is brought up on charges to the environs of French royalty, who at least act somewhat better toward our heroine than do England's hoi polloi.

All the while, and despite (sometimes because of) the despicable circumstances of our hottentot, we find ourselves, over and over again, entering her mind, soul and heart. And Ms Torres' remarkable performance enables us to do this so easily, thanks to her seeming innate ability to simply be this young woman: to bring us into her thoughts and desires, her abilities and her hopes.

Where Sarah Baartman goes and how she gets there will amaze and disturb, and the filmmaker sees to it that every jolt sinks in, along with the very occasional moment of kindness or delight.

Despite its flaws, Black Venus is an extremely powerful film. I believe it only received a minor limited theatrical release some years back, so I hope viewers will be able catch it in this current format.

From Arrow Academy and distributed in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group, the film hits Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, May 22 -- for purchase and (I would hope) rental.