John Butler's HANDSOME DEVIL embraces school ties, rugby, friendship and the GLBT life

A difficult movie not to like because, although it trods a road a number of other films have also taken, it does so with enough spirit and surprise -- together with a refreshing lack of the typical and expected -- HANDSOME DEVIL ensures that its entire experience will be easy to enjoy and embrace. Beginning with a young man telling us of his most embarrassing moment, and ending with this, too -- but with just enough of a twist to put a smile on our faces -- as written and directed by John Butler (shown below, who earlier gave us The Bachelor Weekend), the movie makes for swift, engaging fun.

Taking place in one of those British (or maybe Irish) boys' prep schools ripe for redress and comeuppance, where sports -- specifically rugby -- seems to be all-important, Butler's film has one of its two leading men, a bullied and bottled-dyed redhead named Ned (Fionn O'Shea, at left, below) forced to room with a new boy, Conor (Nicolas Galitzine, below, right), who turns out to be an ace rugby player.

How this relationship works out is not quite what you may expect, nor are the other major relationships in the film, which exist between Ned and his teacher, Mr. Sherry (the always on-target Andrew Scott, shown two photos below) and between Conor and his homophobic-but-hot rugby coach, Pascal (Moe Dunford, shown at left in the penultimate photo below).

There are a number of other subsidiary characters, but it is this quartet that carries the movie: they -- and the interesting plotting and byways down which the story carries us. Handsome Devil is not a "love story" in any usual sense of the word. Instead it's about friendship, sexual preference identity, and finding the strength to stick to your guns.

Granted all this is a tad easier when you're a crack sport star than when you're a bullied nobody. And the movie seems to understand this and take it all into account as it wends its way toward its expected happy ending.

But the way in which the movie reaches that ending is filled with enough growth and change to satisfy, I think, even some naysayers. Little wonder the film has done so well on the gay festival circuit. It's feel-good without the often accompanying baggage of feel-stupid.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running a just-right 95 minutes, Handsome Devil opens in limited theatrical release this Friday, June 2, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 and in New York City at the Cinema Village. The film's VOD and DVD release will arrive hot-on-the-heels the following Tuesday, June 6.

Clay Tweel's GLEASON charts footballer Steve Gleason's rise to fatherhood and fall from ALS

TrustMovies, who does not follow sports, knew little-to-nothing about Steve Gleason, the ex-football star and now victim of ALS whose main goals in life over the past decade or so have been becoming the best father he can to his son (born soon after his initial ALS diagnosis) and calling the world's attention to this horribly debilitating and eventually fatal disease. From the new and eponymously titled documentary, GLEASON, it would seem he has succeeded at both -- at the former about as well as any dad with this disease could possibly do it, the latter surprisingly well -- as the much lauded and much criticized 2015 dump-a-bucket-of-ice-water-over-your-head fund-raising campaign certainly proved, in both capturing attention to ALS and fund-raising for it.

We see only a very little here about Steve Gleason's days as a great football player (shown at right: college ball at Washington State in Pullman and then professionally for the New Orleans Saints). But the movie does seem to make clear that this fellow was a greatly skilled, dynamic and very well-liked team player. And what we see and hear of him post-ALS-diagnosis bears all this out. Most of the film details the time from his diagnosis until very nearly now, as we watch his decline at the same time as he and his wife, Michel Varisco, do their best, first to prepare for the birth of their child, and then to raise the boy at the same time as Michelle and others must care for the declining Steve.

This is very difficult stuff to watch, and the movie certainly doesn't sugar-coat anything -- from Steve's difficulties coping with the disease to Michelle's and others' in cleaning up his sudden bowel movements. From early on (and very fortunately so far as the documentary is concerned) Gleason liked to videotape himself and his family, and this only grew stronger and more necessary once the diagnosis arrived. So the film's director Clay Tweel (shown at right, who earlier gave us a dear little doc about up-and-coming magicians called Make Believe) has a treasure trove of video already prepared and which he uses quite well, along with his own footage, to bring this inspirational, if horrifying, story to life.

We learn of Steve's relationship with his parents (who argued, fought and then divorced). His dad has since embraced some kind of fundamentalist, faith-healing religion, which he pushes his son to embrace, too. This makes for difficulties that are later smoothed over -- but then perhaps only incompletely. We meet Michel's dad, as well, who toward the end of the film, tells us something sad but compelling about what we've just witnessed: Michel and Steve, he explains, used to have "the ability to tell each other anything and everything. That has been lost in this process." We can certainly understand how and why this would happen, given all that we see here.

Back in 2013, there was a ground-breaking and better British documentary about a young man trying to cope -- along with his wife and newborn child -- with ALS. Titled I Am Breathing, it detailed the struggle, the strength and the loss in only 73 minutes (Gleason lasts around 40 minutes longer) and was even more artful and thoughtful, to boot. But it did not have an ex-sports star at its center, so almost nobody went to see it. A shame. But that's our civilization. And at least Steve Gleason's fame has helped draw more attention to an ugly, debilitating disease.

Overall, Gleason, though moving and compassionate, proves mostly an endurance test. But it is one that will make you realize that if Steve and Michel can go through years and years of this hell-on-earth, the least we viewers can do is spend  two hours of our own, so-much-easier life, watching him and his family trying to cope.

From Amazon Studios via Open Road Films and running a very long 112 minutes, Gleason opened theatrically yesterday in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New Orleans, and will hit theaters across the country in the weeks to come. You can click here to view all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed.

Rauch and raunch in the gymnasty/feel-goody sports, sex and drugs movie, THE BRONZE

Full of raunch and Rauch (the Melissa variety), one of this week's theatrical debuts, THE BRONZE would like to be a very naughty, very dirty exploration of sports and would-be stardom. But what it really wants is to give you a typical feel-good time at the movies. That it manages both of these fairly well is to the film's credit. But whether this is worth the price of a night out at your local theater is somewhat questionable, given the cost these days of admission, popcorn and baby-sitter (you do not want to take the kids to see this one).

As written by its star and her husband, Winston Rauch, and directed by Bryan Buckley (shown at left), the movie begins as a kind of can-you-top-this? wallow in dirty talk and bad behavior and then slowly turns its tables so that we begin to like its leading character -- a former bronze-winning gymnast who, while competing, had an awful accident, after which she continued competing under very dire circumstances, which allowed her to take home that third-place medal and then coast on its fame for a decade or more.

All this has made our little girl a walking, cussing horror, and her road back to quasi-normalcy is a relatively interesting one, peopled by fun and funny characters and achieved via only tiny increments, so that we can better accept this major change and where it will lead her.

Via plot turns that prove alternately predictable and surprising, she becomes involved with an up-and-coming talented gymnast (the sweet and delightful Haley Lu Richardson, above), her encouraging mom (SNL's Cecily Strong),

a former lover and competitor (Sebastian Stan, above, who engages with Ms Rauch in a funny, lengthy sex-by-gymnasts scene that is indeed one for the books!), and our heroine's father (Gary Cole, below) who has spoiled his daughter into a return to near-infancy and must now find some way to atone for this and help change her course.

Also on board is the lap-dog fellow with a twitch or two who's been carrying a torch for our heroine for most of his life (Thomas Middleditch, below. left). It all works out for the best, and even, occasionally, in ways that will surprise and amuse you. If you're not too picky. TrustMovies is damning with faint praise, I know. But so be it. There's nothing terribly wrong with The Bronze. But there just isn't a whole lot that's great about it, either. It's pleasant enough (even when it's being raunchy) and will entertain you adequately.

From Sony Pictures Classics and running 108 minutes, the film opened yesterday all over the place. Click here and then keep scrolling down to find the theater nearest you.

HELENO: José Henrique Fonseca's bio-pic about Brazil's mid-20th-century soccer star

Who was HELENO (full name: Heleno de Freitas)? This famous syphilitic soccer star from Brazil was perhaps the first bad-boy media-darling of the sport. He predates even Pelé, let alone a late-comer like Britain's Beckham, and his warts-and-nothing-but story -- or as much of it as director and co-screenwriter (with four other collaborators) José Henrique Fonseca chooses to show us -- is a relatively interesting one.

If Fonseca, shown at right, indulges in most of the standard clichés of the genre, he does it using performers who are talented, committed and plenty gorgeous to view. He also made the smart decision to shoot the film in black-and-white, which helps enormously to capture the ambience of the mid-20th-Century world of South America (the crack cinematographer is Walter Carvalho (Central Station, Carandiru and To the Left of the Father). For a time, the filmmaker's use of impressionistic "takes" on the various events in Heleno's life -- Fonseco dashes back and forth in time and place -- helps keep us nicely off-balance, imagining that we'll be getting something more from this particular bio-pic. In a way, we finally do -- because, although those clichés keep building up, so does the strange character of our non-hero.

Heleno de Freitas came from money, studied law and could easily have led a cushy, entitled, no-sweat, upper-class life. His passion -- for women, sports, sex -- was so great (as was his temper) that he could not abide anything less than perfection or near. As Heleno, Rodrigo Santoro (above and below, from Lions Den, Che and I Love You Philip Morris) captures this crazy passion so well that you spend your viewing time alternately loving this guy and wanting to deck him.

The two main women (at least as shown here) in his life are played by Aline Moraes (above) and Angie Cepeda (below) -- who bear enough resemblance to each other to make us imagine that Heleno had quite specific tastes in the physical appearance of his women. We never see his mother in the film (though he talks to her often on the phone) but I would bet that she looked a lot like these two.

As the syphilis continues to eat away at him (the doctors knew and he knew, but he refused to do anything about it: "I don't want to be soft," he says, meaning, we guess, below the belt), his mind and body deteriorate.  The make-up artists and Santoro's willingness to lose weight combine to give us, as seen below, a surprisingly real pre-cadaver. In the sanitarium where he spends the final time, we witness some psychologically creepy stuff, as Heleno eats his press clippings off the wall. But even there, as ever, everyone continues to serve him, while he serves no one but himself.

As angry as we get with Heleno's own anger and near-constant harangues, even so, the final scene -- which flashes between this fellow's heyday and his end --  is very well done. It should bring a tear to the dryest eye of even those, like me, who care not a fig about sports of any kind. Here, the the filmmaker and his star find a visual means to address that gap between who we are and who we want to be, what we reach for as opposed to what we are able to grasp.

Heleno, from Screen Media and running just under two hours, opens tomorrow, Friday, December 7 in New York City, Los Angeles and Miami. Click here and then click on THEATERS on the top line to see all specifics.

Ben Hickernell's & Sarah Megan Thomas' BACKWARDS: Vanity, thy name is woman (with a pair of oars)

For a "vanity" production -- and I'm afraid there is no way around classifying this movie as anything but, since it is said to be based on the life of Sarah Megan Thomas and was written, produced and executive-produced by Ms Thomas, who also plays herself in the starring role -- BACKWARDS isn't half bad. It's competently acted, written and directed and is almost completely uninspired in any way. The Lifetime and Hallmark channels give us this sort of thing with thudding regularity. But it is certainly as watchable (lovely to look at and filled with pretty performers) as most anything else of this ilk.

Ms Thomas (above and on poster, top) plays Abigail Brooks, a young woman of almost thirty who has spent her life training for the Olympics in the women's rowing competition, who, one day, sees what looks like her final opportunity go down the drain. Living with her widowed mom (the always fine Margaret Colin, below), she spends some time licking her wounds before getting back to business and becoming a coach to some younger rowers.

This not-unattractive young woman does seem to have a "thing" for her coaches; she's romantically involved with her current assistant coach (we find out next to nothing about this, however) and appears to have had a fling, too, with her former coach (James Van Der Beek, below), who has suddenly come back into her life.

The story, simplicity itself, takes our heroine along a prescribed path (which may very well have been the way it went in her life), leading up to a fateful decision she must make, which will show us -- and her -- whether or not she is a caring or a selfish person. If you have seen a few movies in the genres of either the sports biography or the romantic drama, you'll have little trouble figuring out her decision before she does.

The most interesting scenes in the movie involves Abby's coaching of her two high-schoolers, and some of the scenes set on water are lovely to look at. Ms Thomas proves herself a capable enough actress; Van Der Beek is stalwart and hunky, as ever; and the two younger girls (newcomer Meredith Apfelbaum, above, front, and Alexandra Metz, rear) register strongly. Director Ben Hickernell (shown below), who last year gave us the very personal and moving Lebanon, PA, here seems simply to be doing the bidding of his star/writer/producer.

The biggest problem with Backwards is that everything in it seems near-generic and, plot-wise, achieved a tad too easily. The movie glides along pretty much as do the those rowers we see from a distance. As Abby herself tells the girls at one point, rowing may look easy, graceful and beautiful, but there's a lot of hard work behind it. Maybe, in terms of what our heroine is going through, and what this movie really needs, some of that hard work, in this case, should be experienced.

Backwards, from DADA Films with a running time of 89 minutes, opens tomorrow, Friday, September 21, in New York, Los Angeles and three Pennsylvania locations (Philadelphia, Bryn Mawn and Ambler), and will expand to several other cities in the week(s) to come.  You can see the entire currently-scheduled playdates by clicking here, and then clicking on SHOWTIMES and then on Theater Locations.  The movie will also be playing, starting Sept. 21, via VOD.

Marcel Rasquin's HERMANO: brotherhood, futbol, life & death in one swell melodrama

If the opening of HERMANO -- the sound of a baby crying and what follows -- doesn't grab you immediately, you probably shouldn't bother with this exceptionally skilled piece of Latin American melodrama, the first full-length narrative from young Venezuelan filmmaker Marcel Rasquin. This beginning is at once a huge cliche, but one that is filmed with such immediacy and acted with such feeling and specificity that -- boom -- you're hooked.

The award-winning Señor Rasquin, shown at left, has been able in this sturdy little movie to give us life -- in all its complicated beauty and terror -- in the barrios of Venezuela. He shows us (with very little "telling") via his complicated, intertwined plot, how family, sport, drugs and crime are inextricably connected, to the point where, it seems, you can't choose one or two of these without the rest tagging along.

Likewise the feelings the movie engenders, both in its characters and us viewers. These are complicated, too, never more so than in a series of ugly incidents, as one bad thing leads to the next and the next and finally to a kind of mini-holocaust that is simply horrific and all too believable. Drugs, murder, betrayal; help, love, sacrifice -- they're all on display here, often even within the same person at various times.

The story is that of two brothers -- related by chance, love and time rather than by blood -- and their mother: a wonderful family of the kind that we should all be lucky enough to experience.

Both brothers love futbol above all else (except family): Julio, the old, bigger and brawnier (gorgeous newcomer Eliú Armas, above, right) is a stronger but less talented player than the younger Daniel (Fernando Moreno, above, left), but both play together so well that Daniel insists that their duo not be broken up -- even when he is recruited by the Caracas Futbol Club.

Events are important to this movie, but they never trump character-- which, in everyone we see, including the drug lord, is complicated. (Even he proves to have some decency, along with his own understanding of familial responsibility.)

The finale, when it arrives is as surprising, moving and -- yes -- as complicated as all that has come before. Rasquin has captured life here, using melodrama as his genre, and in doing so has made a simply splendid little movie.

Hermano, from Music Box Films and running 97 minutes, opens today, all across the country. Click here and then click on THEATERS (just below the film's title) to see all currently scheduled playdates with cities and theaters.

Duplass brothers' short, smart DO-DECA-PENTATHLON brings mumblecore full circle

Like The Puffy Chair on steroids, the newest film from those ubiquitous Duplass brothers, Jay and Mark, seems in one sense to have brought their mumblecore experience full circle. In the decade since the arrival of m'core (and the few months since its critically-declared demise), these two brothers have gone on to make several more m'core movies and then bring their own distinctive brand of it to (or near) mainstream with films such as Cyrus and Jeff, Who Lives at Home. Not to mention the burgeoning acting career of Mark, who has graced a number of films of late -- from Darling Companion to Your Sister's Sister and Safety Not Guaranteed with perfor-mances good enough to indicate a possible second large career.

Now, with the advent of THE DO-DECA-PENTATHLON, the two film-making brothers -- shown above, with Mark on the left (and, look, there room for you to squeeze in between them!) -- are back at the mumblecore spring. And rather than showing it to be dry, they prove it's bubbling up a gusher of fresh water. Instead of the often passive protagonists found in so much of the m'core genre, these writers/directors give us a pair of brothers (nothing autobiographical here, I am sure), who, since childhood, have not stopped competing -- their most recent foray into the fray having led to an estrangement that has gone on for some time.

Now, during a birthday-centered family reunion (to which one brother has noticeably been uninvited but shows up anyway), this competition flares again -- with results that are funny, sad and, yes, sentimental, but, thank goodness, also short and sweet.

What makes this movie so much different from so much else in the m'core archive is its fraught situation (time is very limited) and the utter insistence of the two guys that they will/must finish this com-petition. All this gives the movie a forward thrust unlike any other m'core I can remember. (Even the in bro's would-be mystery thriller Baghead, there was quite a sense of dawdling to be observed.)

These filmmakers have clearly been learning on the job, for they now waste no time before pushing us into the midst of things and getting their very capable cast cracking with more than able performances. The roles of the brother are of course key here, and as Mark, the one who is now married and gone somewhat to seed (and fat), Steve Zissis, above, is a consistent delight.

As his also seedy, but a lot sexier, brother Jeremy, Mark Kelly (above) proves a perfect foil for Zissis, and together they make the film consistently enjoyable. Supporting roles are just that, but the rest of the cast does a bang-up job of providing that support -- especially Jennifer Lafleur (below, right) as the wife, Julie Vorus as the pair's mother, and newcomer Reid Williams (evidently not on the IMDB yet) as son and nephew to the bros.

As filmmakers, the Duplass brothers keep growing. Their choice of incident and how to frame same grows ever smarter (their Jeff, Who Lives at Home, is also terrific in this regard -- despite the additional task of having to keep several plot balls in the air simultaneously). They still feel the necessity to do that odd zoom-in thing, with the camera sort of hiccuping as it moves. This loony zoom is strange, calling undue attention to itself, but it's no deal-breaker. (Maybe they see this camera move as some kind of signature? Or perhaps it's just an accident?) If I ever get the chance to interview the pair, that'll be my first topic of discussion.

Meanwhile, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, 78 minutes, from Red Flag Releasing and Fox Searchlight, opens this coming Friday, July 6, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, and in Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Pasadena Playhouse 7.