The glorious Brian Cox brings János Edelényi's THE CARER to pulsating and delightful life

A love letter from Hungarian film to British actors, acting and Shakespeare himself (whoever the hell he actually was), THE CARER is also the second film I've seen in as many weeks to star that great actor Brian Cox in yet another role of a dying old man.

Again, as in The Etruscan Smile, Cox is a treasure, and the movie itself, even as it proves filled with many of the usual dying-senior-citizen tropes, is so specifically designed around Cox and his (along with director and co-writer János Edelényi's) love of acting, in particular the Shakespearean variety, that this movie immediately becomes a gift and a treat for anyone who shares these affections.

Hungarian filmmaker Edelényi (shown at right), along with his co-writers Gilbert Adair and Tom Kinninmont, tells the story of a once hugely popular (if not hugely loved) stage and screen actor Sir Michael Gifford (played by Cox, above and below), now suffering from Parkinson's disease, mostly reclusive, and given to firing one caregiver after another, to the frustration of his daughter (Emilia Fox), his driver-and-ex-dresser (Andor Lukáts), and his nurse and ex-lover (Anna Chancellor). Into this unhappy little hothouse comes a possible new caregiver (played sweetly/feistily by an alliterative newcomer named Coco König), a pretty young woman who brings along her own agenda.

How all these characters bounce around and off each other -- in ways that often go differently than you'll expect -- helps make the movie a lot more enjoyable that it might initially seem. And the acting ensemble, led by Cox, is both ultra-talented and eminently watchable.

Additionally, the script, direction and performances do not play fast and loose with senior years or end-of-life situations, so there is a certain verisimilitude to the proceedings that makes whatever feel-good you take away from the film unsaddled with guilt.

Shakespeare lovers will revel in both how much of the Bard they'll enjoy during the course of the film, and Mr. Cox does such a fine job with it all that you'll wonder why he has not been tapped to play all these roles already.

The Carer is one of those well-made, old-fashioned films that should resonate both with older audiences (for obvious reasons) and younger ones willing to take an interest in what maybe lies ahead. As for the lovely, intelligent and deeply felt speech that Sir Michael makes at the film's conclusion, if you are not already aboard this very special slice of entertainment, this should fully wrap you in its wonders.

From Corinth Films and running a just-right 89 minutes, The Carer hit home video last month -- for purchase and rental. Amazon Prime members can view it now free of charge it as part of their membership.

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.

Streaming must: Ignore the critics -- Carlo Carlei's ROMEO & JULIET is visually stunning

Yes, this new ROMEO & JULIET is even more beautiful than the famous Franco Zefferelli version because its interiors and exteriors, its sets and costumes are much less "busy," though every bit as gorgeous design-wise, while the amazing architecture -- the buildings and piazzas -- are simply breathtaking. The beauty on display here staggers the eye. If that were all, it would still be enough for me. Fortunately the film offers quite a bit more, beginning with the most beautiful Romeo ever to grace the screen (Pasolini would have been devastated) via the young actor, Douglas Booth (shown at right, above and below, of Christopher and His Kind), who, though British-born, looks utterly Italian. The Juliet of Hailee Steinfeld (shown above and below, left, of True Grit) is no match for Booth beauty-wise, but she's sweet and full of energy.

So the two make a lovely pair of young lovers (Booth was but 20 and Stenfeld 16 when they made this movie). The accent these days for R&J seems to be on speed, foolhardiness and youth. (We're long past the Leslie Howard/Norma Shearer 1936 version, made when those two actors were 43 and 34!)

Youth and its discontents are captured well by Julian Fellowes, shown at right, the screenwriter/adapter of Willie the Shake's original, and the man whom critics appear to have held most to blame here. Bull, say I. Probably because Mr. Fellowes has dared to diddle occasionally with the Bard's words, and even change things around in certain scenes -- was Friar Laurence (a terrific job by Paul Giamatti, below, right) ever in the crypt with a living Juliet immediately prior to her demise? -- certain critics seemed to feel that this prominent and highly successful British writer (Gosford Park, Downton Abbey) deserves the rack.

Yet his changes mostly work well because they add to the suspense and the hope we -- still, even now! -- hold out that what must happen somehow won't.

Fellowes even conspires to give us the chance to see what it would be like had the good Friar's plan have worked and the two lovers be finally united in marriage. The adapter posits that the Friar does what he does partially to help defuse the Capulet/Montague antagonism. For younger audiences, all this will add to the surprise and suspense; for us older folk, we get a little extra joy prior to what comes after.

What most distinguishes the Fellowes' version, it seems to me, is his accent on the pain inflicted by idiotic blood feuds between families/clans. Beyond its love story, Romeo & Juliet is primarily distinguished as Shakespeare's earlier version of something like the Hatfields & McCoys. What surfaces time and again, and more strongly here than I have seen it in earlier R&J's is the enormous waste and sadness inflicted by these "fights unto death."

The cast includes strong performances from its Mercutio (Christian Cooke), Tybalt (Ed Westwick, above, center) and even Paris (Tom Wisdom), while Romeo's dearest friend Benvolio -- a lovely job by  Kodi Smit-McPhee -- has, in the film's perfect close, a silent gesture and moment that beautifully brings home the moral of this tale.

Expected strong work is also garnered from Damian Lewis (above, left) and Natascha McElhone (above, right) as Mom and Dad Capulet. Romeo's parents, the Montagues -- played by Tomas Arana and Laura Morante -- are, as ever, less seen and heard.

And if the characters of R& J this time around seem more a part of the greater ensemble than usual, this is all to the good. There is no way, after all, that we can escape their story, its meaning and sadness, and so a cast of fine supporting actors is a blessing here, bringing the theme of blood feud against peace and prosperity to new heights. (Stellan Skarsgård, shown in photo at bottom, center, makes a fine and regal Prince of Verona, by the way, while Lesley Manville (above, second from right) is funny and concerned as Juliet's nurse.

Add to this the exquisite beauty constantly on display (the eye-popping locations alone should attract a huge influx of tourists to Italy), and you have an R&J for the ages. A word must also be said for the film's director, Carlo Carlei, a fellow whose career I've been watching since his explosive and brilliant early film, Flight of the Innocent, some 22 years ago. (It's still the best movie yet about Italian kidnappings, family feuds, guilt and redemption.) This R & J is his best work since that early film -- in every aspect from performances to pacing to the exquisite "look" -- so it is wonder-fully fulfilling to see Carlei back in form.

This latest version of the world's best known love story, from Relativity, running 118 minutes, and which hit theaters last fall, is available now for streaming via Netflix, and is also viewable on DVD. But why no Blu-ray? Better to see this one in glorious high-definition streaming.

Quick Lick: ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE UNDEAD

How can you resist a title like ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE UNDEAD? I couldn't. Tom Stoppard himself might be enticed. But be warned (if the reviews that greeted this clunker upon its very short theatrical release last June didn't do that already): the film, written and directed by Jordan Galland, is the most resistible 85 minutes I've encountered in several years. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the script or the direction of that script, works. Despite vampires and bloodletting and sex and crazy theater people, every moment is as flat and dry as yesterday's pancake. There is no "tone" to this film. It misses on satire, comedy, horror, drama and everything else, remaining but a clever idea never brought to life by a filmmaker who possesses -- on the basis of what we see here -- no talent for anything at all.

Within this mess, a number of actors who've been better elsewhere are buried alive. Devon Aoki and Jeremy Sisto simply stink, while Ralph Macchio has some good moments but, playing in a vacuum, he can't properly bounce off anything or anyone. Only John Ventimiglia (shown at right), an actor who always comes through, manages to rise above the mess by virtue of sheer intensity. Ventimiglia, as consistently different as he is on-target, tends to be unrecognizable from role to role: Artie Bucco in The Soparanos, an odd cab driver in last year's The Missing Person, an unhelpful bouncer in this season's The Hungry Ghosts). Here, as the vampire author of the play at hand, he is always watchable and emerges with his honor intact. No one else connected to this fiasco gets off as easily. The movie does have "provenance," however: It's would-be star is Jake Hoffman, son of Dustin, and the music is by Sean Lennon, son of John. "What's in a name?" the Bard once asked. Not much, if this film be any example.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead should be available some day on DVD, but as of now, I can't ascertain exactly when....

Taymor's TEMPEST, a visual treat, stays true in spirit to its great source material

What a beautiful piece of filmmaking -- and how true in spirit to Shakespeare's great play -- is Julie Taymor's renditon of THE TEMPEST.  As this is a Disney/Miramax co-production, I would normally -- being the frugal fellow I am -- suggest you wait until its scheduled release date (as of now, December 10) to plunk down your cash. But if you can obtain a ticket to its second and final NY Film Festival screening at 10pm tonight, Saturday, October 2 (the first one, at 7pm, is sold out), go for it. The enormous screen at Alice Tully Hall should do this gorgeous film justice, and you may want to see it prior to reading much about it. Not that there is much to spoil for buffs of The Bard, but Ms Taymor has indeed made a few interesting changes in her paired-down, theme-heightened version -- chief among these is the casting of Helen Mirren as Prospera (yes, that's an "a" at the end). And why not?

If The Great Shake were around today, he'd embrace the rise of women. He was too smart not to, but being of his time and knowing quite well which side of his bread was buttered (and by whom), he played along regarding the "fair sex," just as he did about most else. Casting Mirren is no stunt, either; she's equal parts moving and commanding in the role. And hearing much of the play's words out of her mouth (as well as that of others in this fine cast) is a pleasure. Other than Prospero, The Tempest tends to live or die by its Caliban and Ariel.  Yes, certain other characters in certain productions stand out now and again, but as this is a play about justice and the uses of authority (via magic), audiences tend to look to the magical characters -- Prospero, Ariel and Caliban -- for their thrills and joy.

Djimon Hounsou makes a spectacular Caliban. He is such a handsome, full-bodied actor, and his rich voice has seldom been put to better use than here. With make-up and costume that manage to accentuate his blackness and his "whiteness" (you'll see), he becomes a slave whose enormous possibilities lie just beyond our ken -- and his ability to tap into them.  Caliban is one of Shakespeare's strangest creations, and Taymor and Hounsou make the most of this. They don't (and we can't) explain Caliban -- this marvelous "other" -- but we also can't take our eyes off him. We are fully engaged, as we should be, by who he is and, at the film's moving conclusion, what might become of him.

As Ariel, Ben Whishaw adds another feather to his growing cap. Androgynous and beautiful, fairy-like and asexual, alternately powerful (frightening when need be) and pliant, the actor is a great choice for this role.  Granted the role is half special effects, but Whishaw's skills are such that his performance and the effects seem joined at the hip-- and everywhere else.  I'll have more to say about this remarkable film upon its release.  But if you can make it to Lincoln Center today and can afford the $25, I'd advise the trip.

Check out the entire New York Film Festival here.  For The Tempest, click here.