Home-vid debut for old-fashioned, don't-miss, highly collaborative film, THE ETRUSCAN SMILE

One of those rare examples of a huge international collaboration -- an Israeli directing duo (Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis, shown below, with Ms Brezis on the left), five screen-writers adapting a popular Spanish novel by José Luis Sampedro, filmed in Scotland and San Francisco and featuring actors from both sides of the Atlantic -- THE ETRUSCAN SMILE works better than you could possibly imagine, thanks to the skill, talent and sheer love gifted by everyone involved. Sure, the plot is probably as recycled as anything you've lately (or formerly) seen, yet every would-be cliche is either turned a tad askew or simply brought to such pulsating and believable life that you don't simply go along with it, you fucking embrace it.

Let's start with the movie's star, Brian Cox (at top and below): If this versatile and amazing actor is not considered one of England's "national treasures," along with the likes of Maggie Smith or Judi Dench, it must only be because he has fought so long and hard for Scottish independence from Britain. Here he plays an aging fellow named Rory, diagnosed with a disease for which he must travel from his home on the beautiful coast of Scotland to the USA for proper treatment, and to the San Francisco home of his estranged son, his daughter-in-law and his new grandson. Yes, you can easily predict the outcome, but getting there is so filled with beauty, fun, small surprises and spot-on performances that it's the journey, as they say, and not destination that proves most important.

Mr. Cox, utterly penetrating, specific and aglow -- whether he's the star bad guy, as in the current series Succession; a mere supporting player, as in the recent what's-going-on-here? thriller Last Moment of Clarity; or merely the best Winston Churchill I've yet seen -- adds luster to anything in which he appears. He's also a gracious, giving actor who never seems to "hog" the screen. Consequently, all the supporting performers shine, too, including the very fine JJ Feild (below, right, one of the great movie villains in the delightful and under-rated thriller, Not Safe for Work) and Thora Birch (below, left) as, respectively, the son and daughter-in-law.

Rosanna Arquette (below, left) is lovely, too, as a museum official and unexpected romantic interest, while actors like Peter Coyote (at center, two photos below) and Treat Williams (three photos below) bring the necessary professional-polish-plus to their roles.

Sub-plots such as the son's wanna-be chef career, the protection and survival of original Scots languages, and the too-helicopter parenting of that grandson are nicely woven into the whole, so the movie bounces along beautifully throughout.

Speaking of that grandson, TrustMovies does not usually have all that much to say about performances by very young children, but the little boy in The Etruscan Smile (shown at bottom and played by two youngsters, Oliver Epps and Elliot Epps) is as adorable as any kid this age I've seen on film.

My spouse noted that the filmmakers must have spent literally days and days getting all this amazing footage of the child. Either that, or those Epps toddlers are just naturally happy little scene stealers.

A word also must be said the for the sparkling and often gorgeous widescreen cinematography (by the great Javier Aguirresarobe) whose exteriors or Scotland (above) and interiors of lush apartments and/or museums (below) help make this a don't-want-to-take-your-eyes-off-it movie experience.

It is also a very moving one. We were not dried-eyed by the finale, nor do I suspect you will be. But all your attention here, as well as your smiles and tears, are well earned. This is old-fashioned, classy, story-well-told moviemaking at its finest.

From Lightyear Entertainment, running 107 minutes and distributed in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group, The Etruscan Smile, after a virtual theatrical release in April and May, is available now on home video via DVD, Blu-ray and digital streaming. 

Guy Maddin's newest, THE GREEN FOG, gives film buffs a terrific entry into the new year

A consistent delight and amazement, as well as a kind of luscious puzzle -- every frame of which you'll probably want to watch again right after you've finished it the first time -- THE GREEN FOG, a 63-minute ode to San Francisco, as seen via cinema, is the creation of a certain Guy Maddin (yes, him!) along with his Forbidden-Room collaborator, Evan Johnson, and also this time, Galen Johnson.

Mr. Maddin (shown at right) and the Misters Johnson have contrived to make an "assembled" film all about San Francisco and how it has appeared in film and on television over the decades. Although I did not read the following information about the film prior to seeing it (and I am loathe to even mention it to you now because the movie might be more fun to view without knowing this), it is also a kind of homage to Hitchcock's Vertigo, made without using a single frame of that actual film and instead using just about every other San Francisco-set movie and TV show you can name or remember.

The Green Fog is just so much fun -- at least it will be, I suspect, for movie buffs, especially Maddin fans. But it may prove the ultimate head-scratcher for the rest of the world. Still, I would not have missed it for anything.

From the likes of Rock Hudson to Sidney Poitier to Joan Crawford (above) to (I think) Roddy Piper (and then what seems like a ton of Chuck Norris); from rooftops to streets and hills to bell towers and museums (and the viewing of, yes, portraits inside them); we get such a good dose of San Francisco, with Vertigo so often coming to mind, that -- for someone like me, who grew up in Los Angeles and considered trips to that northern California metropolis a kind of re-discovery of civilization -- we're soon steeped in the city that, outside of New York, movies maybe always loved best. (Well, there's Paris, too, of course.)

All that driving! And phone calls! And portrait viewing! Plus a terrific score composed by Jacob Garchik and performed by Kronos Quartet (below). Expect scene after scene of elided moments, the dialog of which has carefully been removed so that what remains is fraught with possibility and maybe danger. This is hilarious stuff, and when, after almost a quarter hour, we finally get a tad's worth of dialog, it, too, will have you chuckling and scratching your head. (There's one scene in particular, with John Saxon, Richard Basehart and Virginia Grey, that's a knockout.)

If you love to watch actors simply looking at each other, here's your big chance. And what an array of stars are on display here. The amount of movies and TV shows used (and the brevity of each) will astound you, too. At the end we get a listing of them all, but even this is shown so quickly that you will not be able to actually read all the titles. Too bad.

In all, The Green Fog lasts 63 minutes, but this is an hour-plus, the creation and use of which you will not have experienced anywhere else. Yes, this may be Maddin's oddest work (among an oeuvre of utter oddities) but for some of us, it will resonate and delight like little else.  The Green Fog was co-commissioned by SFFILM and Stanford Live and is opening un-rated (but don't worry, I can't recall seeing any dirty parts).

The movie opens this Friday, January 5, in New York City at the IFC Center, with select screenings presented as double feature with Vertigo. Consult the IFC schedule to make sure you're getting either the single show or double feature that you want.

Attn: San Franciscans, your annual Jewish Film Fest is nearly here. What a line-up!

One of the glories of the internet is that TrustMovies can sit here in Queens, NY, posting about an upcoming event -- the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival -- July 24 through August 9, in California, having received a bundle of screeners to watch and so get some sense of what this year's event looks, sounds and feels like. We're all connected, as they say, and even more so, since TM has already seen several of the films on the San Fran program via this past year's NY Jewish Film Fest and Rendez-vous with French Cinema, both sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

from the SFJFF's centerpiece film, Anita.

Some of you may already be asking why someone as anti-religious as I (click here for one of my jeremiads regarding religion that even my lifetime companion refused to continue reading, so angry did it make him) would want to cover yet another film fest that arrives freighted with the taint of "the deity."  (Would I cover a Christian Film festival?  A Muslim?  Not likely.  A pagan one, maybe.) Part of the reason, at least, has to do with the word Jewish, which for me, anyway, suggests cultural/historic significance than religious.

One of the splendid films on view at the SFJFF, in fact -- The Family Wolberg (photo, above) -- made its NYC debut as part of the FSLC's French Cinema series this year and will always seem to me much more French than Jewish. Another, the opening night attraction (as it was here in NY) Saviors in the Night, shown just below, details a Westphalian family's experience during WWII and so becomes, for my money (if not that of the nitwit Holocaust deniers) about history rather than religion. (You can find my earlier coverage of "Saviors" here.) When a film does deal specifically with religion, chances are it may very well offer a much more negative than positive view of same (as did the terrific Eyes Wide Open, which debuted at the NY Jewish fest and went on to garner a nationwide limited release).

The films at literally all the Jewish fests I've covered offer culture, history, competing viewpoints and much more, so that each fest become a kind of education in itself -- one I would rather partake in than miss. This year's SFJFF is no exception.  Movie after movie sounds intriguing.  The Army of Crime (below), another fine film shown at the FSLC French fest, details the stirrings of the French Resistance movement against the Nazi's during WWII, while A Room and a Half (shown at bottom), which opened in NYC a few months ago, provides a fantastical, dreamlike pseudo-return of poet Joseph Brodsky to his native Russia and combines memory, fact, animation, live action and more. By the time I've finished watching the five screeners (in addition to the films already seen), I'll have sampled but a small portion of the treats on hand.

There is literally so much of which to partake -- oodles of movies, special programs and events, panel discussions, in-person guests -- that the SFJFF is like some amazing, 17-day, potluck supper in which nearly everything is likely to prove delicious.  You can find the entire film & event program here, the special progams here, the panels/discussion programs here and find a roster of the in-person directors and other special guests here.  In fact, surf the whole SFJFF web site.

Plan to spend awhile, though: There's so much to see....