HBO's YEARS AND YEARS: Another surprising gem from the brilliant Russell T. Davies

We have been graced so far with only two episodes of the six-part series, YEARS AND YEARS, but if the following four are as good -- timely, prescient, frightening and utterly serious (yet with a lovely, light touch) -- this might just be the cable television series of the year. It is the creation of one, Russell T. Davies (shown below), who has already given us Torchwood, Cucumber, Banana, A Very English Scandal and Queer as Folk (among much else), so he hardly needs further bona fides. This new series, however, breaks new ground and may be his best yet.

Mr. Davies begins in the just-about now, in England, a country which, though frightened of the increasing stupidity, venality and craziness of America's Donald Trump, seems to be taking a turn toward increasing right-wing nationalism -- in the person of fledgling politician, Vivienne Rook (played to perfection by Emma Thompson, below).

Technology continues to give us new toys and surprises, a few of which are seen here, but employment and wages also continue to falter, even as the banking industry sleazes to new lows, while the wealthy grow even wealthier.

Same old same old, yet in Years and Years, the focus in on family, one extended example in particular. And Davies has created its individual members with his usual brilliant use of specifics and generics that join to give us a wonderfully alive and believable bunch.

Some of these folk are surprisingly into the politics of the scary-but-all-too-real Ms Rook (above), mostly because she seems to be speaking "truth to power" (just as some foolish Americans imagined was true of Donald Trump). Her slow, steady rise mirrors ironically the decline of our "group hero" family, as it endures problems of love relationships, immigration and deportation, Lehman Brothers-like collapse of banks, and a willingness to allow technology to take over one's entire body. (That last one takes us firmly into Black Mirror territory.)

Yes, we're only one-third into this series, but already we're hooked, frightened, amused, turned-on, and a whole lot more. The ace cast includes Russell Tovey (he of those magnificent ears, above, center right), Rory Kinnear (at left, top row, below), Anne Reid (below, above the computer), and lots more -- each of whom may be doing career-best work.

As is Mr. Davies. The man has given us the here-and-now, as well as a remarkably astute preview of what is to come. And while it ain't pretty, the fact that our family (some of them, anyway) soldiers on and maybe survives, is something to cherish. For as long as it lasts....

This British production, originally seen via the BBC, is being shown here in the USA on HBO, on Monday nights. Set your DVR.

Dealing with the future in Noble Jones' unsettling, funny, surprising and moving movie, THE TOMORROW MAN

Audiences are not going to want to hear the message of THE TOMORROW MAN, the new movie from Noble Jones (here being billed as Nobel Lincoln Jones), any more than the recipient of the telephone call wants to hear the message being told him by the character, Ed (played so very well by John Lithgow) that opens this unusual film.

That message is this: The world we live in is today in such terrible trouble environmentally, politically, morally that we must do something/anything -- arm ourselves, stockpile, get ready, do something! -- before the shit (whether via our environment or our fellow man) hits the fucking fan.

Now, Mr. Jones, shown at right, whether by intention or maybe accident (I doubt the latter), has peopled his movie with two main characters so oddball and interesting, and then cast his film with two actors of such graceful, aging countenance and top-tier talent that you cannot take your eyes off them, as that aforementioned theme keeps rolling forward.

In addition to Mr. Lithgow (shown below, left), we have Blythe Danner (below, right) in yet another of her impressive senior-years roles (See You in My Dreams, What They Had, The Chaperone), and together these two superb actors bring to life a couple of characters we might not want to spend a lot of time with in real life -- due to their strange

compulsions/obsessions -- but are more than happy to watch in a movie that puts them front and center, then lets them run with the film and, for some folk, at least, steal it from under its urgent and uncompromising message. How uncompromising you will only understand at movie's end. Which I will not go into here.

Taken as a whole, The Tomorrow Man is a lot more than the sum of its clever parts: surly/sweet old codgers who are difficult but loveable; younger generation family members who just don't get it but still provide some love and support; an urgent warning of how we are losing the world we inhabit.

As much fun as the film often is, how terrific are its lead performances, how well-constructed the screenplay and well-written is the dialog, how astutely directed is scene after scene, overall, this is one quietly jolting experience. Sure, we ought to enjoy today -- the now and all that -- as the film points out. But, hello, what about the future?

From that opening scene, as what we hear sounds like some very intelligent, if aggressive, radio or TV pundit prognosticating on our dire future but then turns out to be someone quite different, Mr. Jones knows how to keep us on our toes by subverting expectation. Lithgow and Danner do this subverting, too -- as so many intelligent actors can. They know that surprising us is every bit as important as entertaining and/or pleasing us. And Jones has given them the opportunity to do all three.

The Tomorrow Man is full of ironies -- its title being but one of these. It will probably annoy as many people as it pleases, but it is worth seeing, enjoying, wrestling with and -- yes -- being depressed by. From Bleecker Street and running 94 minutes, the movie opens here in South Florida this Friday, May 31, in Boca Raton at the Cinemark Palace 20 and Regal Shadowood 18, and in Palm Beach Gardens at Cobb's Downtown at the Gardens 16. On Friday, June 14, the movie will expand to The Movies of Delray and the Movies of Lake Worth and to the Miami area at AMC's Sunset Place 24 and Aventura 24, CMX Brickell City Center 10, the Coral Gables Art Cinema, and Regal's South Beach 18. Wherever you live around the country, click here to learn if and when the film will be coming to a theater near you.

Time, memory, mortality, character converge in Michael Almereyda's MARJORIE PRIME

It's the future, right, so this must be sci-fi? Yes, but writer/director Michael Almereyda has more on his mind than space ships, aliens, replicants or time travel. His latest film (his last one, the personal-history/documentary, Escapes,  just opened a few weeks back), MARJORIE PRIME, is more concerned with the way we use the latest technology we're given, and then -- as in Spike Jonze's wonderful Her, and the British TV Black Mirror segment, Be Right Back -- goes just a few steps beyond where we currently find ourselves and into quite a new world. This world looks a lot like our own, yet allows us to do so much more -- the end results of which are both helpful and maybe not so. With new technology comes new challenge.

In my last review of Mr. Almeyerda's work, I noted how empathetic this director, pictured at right, so often is. Here, that empathy extends to the "Prime" of the title (there are, it turns out, a number of these). A "Prime" is a kind of holographic creation of a recently deceased person, whom those left behind -- wife, husband, daughter, whoever -- can use to assuage the grief, guilt and any of those many feelings/problems that remain unresolved once a loved one has died. The first Prime we meet in the film is Walter, Marjorie's late husband, embodied here by actor Jon Hamm (shown at left, above and below), as a younger version of the man. Marjorie herself (played by Lois Smith, shown at right, above and below) is now aged and suffering from off-and-on dementia.

The film's other leading characters are Marjorie's adult daughter (Geena Davis, below) and her husband (Tim Robbins, further below), who clearly have mixed feelings about this use of a Prime, even if, as it does indeed appear, this is helpful to mom.

Almereyda, who both wrote and directed, gives us movies that are always intellectual feats. This one is just such a film -- and even more so than usual, I would say. It is supremely elegant and quiet, full of discussion about the uses and mis-uses of memory, along with how it works. Characters' memories allow us to see flashbacks of certain important moments, as well as to better understand the ongoing relationship between these four people, one of whom, Walter, exists almost only as a Prime.

Along the way, two other characters also become Prime, which makes for some surprise and further investigation (of mortality and grief, among other things). In Jonze's Her, the "machine" develops feelings, personality and much else that we might call human. Almereyda's Primes seem to do so, as well, but on a much less obvious scale and manner.

While the filmmaker and his creations are subtle and never push for our sympathy, they do empathize with our human feelings and failings -- and very well, too. Yet the film itself is rigorously unsentimental.

The performances are striking, intensely specific and deeply felt. The ensemble works beautifully together, keeping us ever on our toes as we watch and listen intently, calibrating who these people are -- both humans and their Primes -- and how much the latter are becoming, or at least mimicking quite beautifully, the former. All the actors are terrific, but Mr. Robbins, ever under-rated, is as good here as I have seen him.

The movie's final scene is one of great beauty, sadness, and surprise. You will wonder at it in both amazement and acceptance. Almereyda, like Jonze, seems non-judgmental (hence, perhaps, his great empathy), and unlike Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker, he does no finger-wagging. In any case, he has come up with one of the most unusual films of the year -- a must-see, I think, for thinking audiences.

From FilmRise and running 97 minutes, Marjorie Prime opens this Friday, August 18, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Playhouse 7  and Monica Film Center, in San Francisco at The Roxie, in San Rafael at the Smith Rafael Film Center, and in Arlington, MA, at the Regent Theater.  The following Friday, it will open in another ten venues. Click here (then scroll down) to view all currently scheduled playdates, theaters, and cities.

THE FUTURE looks grim in the film of the same name by Ms kitty-cute Miranda July

THE FUTURE?  There ain't much. Or so it'll probably seem to many viewers who brave the new movie by Miranda July, the lady who, a few years back, gave us the much lighter (on its feet and otherwise) Me and You and Everyone We Know. Folk who loved her last film (yours truly, for one) will flock to her latest endeavor. Their feelings upon exiting will depend heavily on how far they are willing to go down Ms July's increasingly dark road.

Her movie begins with a cat narrating (with Miranda, shown at right, providing the animal's near-ideal voice). This seems amazingly right (to me, at least; detractors will loathe it), including the cat paws, one bandaged from an accident. (See the final photo in this post for a look at that.) Paws and voice collude to create an indelible presence, who immediately takes us in with its own story of abandonment, near-death and then salvation, at the hands of a very odd couple, Sophie (played by Ms July) and Jason (played by Hamish Linklater, below, right). The cat's story -- it comes back and back again as the film progresses -- is of equal importance to that of Sophie's and Jason's, for the animal's future is dependent upon these two twerpy "adults" adopting it prior to euthanization.

The thought of taking responsibility -- the movie's theme -- for someone (or even some thing) sets these two would-be free spirits into a terrible fright about aging, creativity, attractiveness, and lots more. So they quit their respective jobs -- he works from home as an IT helper, she teaches dance to pre-school-age kids (the kids are under that yellows cloth, in the shot below) -- in order to pursue their dreams while there's still time. Yes, these are dumb choices, but our twosome does not radiate like a bright bulb.

What happens to these two (they are generally more passive than active at any given time) makes up the meat of the movie and involves another man for her (for him, too -- but no, it's not sexual). Jason's man (Joe Putterlik, below) proves one the film's true delights and distractions. As quirky as its lead characters, Joe composes dirty ditties for his late wife and later on in the movie becomes the voice of the moon in a conversation with Jason.

As for Sophie, she gets involved with Marshall, a widower dad in suburbia (well, this is L.A., so it's all sort of suburbia) whose daughter (below) is growing more and more desperate.

Sex with Marshall is good, or at least better, or maybe just different from that of Jason, but poor Sophie is followed literally by her own crunched-up yellow t-shirt or chemise (the color yellow must mean something here, but what?) and in one of the film's most telling and odd scenes, below, she dresses/hides in this large piece of material and does a strange/wonderful dance of sorts -- a kind of re-birth, perhaps?

TrustMovies doesn't usually give away so much of a film's plot, but in this case, the connections and meanings, more than the incidents themselves, are what count. And The Future does count -- as a strange ode to failure and hope. That hopeful cat has, if not the last word, probably the best. What happens to it and what it tells us coincides, I think, with what Patricio Guzmán has to say in his wonderful docu-mentary Nostalgia for the Light. The Future, simplicity itself, may also be a little simple, but it is not simplistic. July and her characters are struggling, just like me and you and everyone we know. We are not growing up, But things are indeed growing darker.

And yet, could Rogers & Hart, in their wildest dreams, have imagined how one of their most durable songs would be used in a movie? I doubt it. See for yourself, as The Future -- 91 minutes and distributed in the USA by Roadside Attractions -- opens this Friday, July 29, in New York City at the IFC Center.  There'll be more cities and theaters to come, I am sure, though Roadside isn't telling, as of the time of this posting, at least....