Don't bother with NUREYEV, a too-often risible documentary about the famous ballet dancer....

...but do see, if you haven't already, The White Crow, the much-better narrative version of Rudolf Nureyev's early life leading to and including his 1961 trip to Paris with the Kirov ballet troupe, during which he defected to the west. Unfortunately, the new documentary film by Jacqui Morris and David Morris, titled simply NUREYEV, proves about as ham-fisted a display of filmmaking as I've seen in some time.

TrustMovies might not feel so strongly this way, were it not for the many, many filmic interruptions to their documentary offered up by the Morrises -- Jacqui is shown at left, while David (I believe that is he, at least) is below, right -- via scenes of dance and movement meant to underscore or represent what we are simultaneously being told on the soundtrack.

These staged scenes grow increasingly silly as the doc moves along -- first, because they are simply unnecessary. If there were no archival footage that worked with the narration,

why not simply show whoever is currently narrating? (The filmmakers never do this: Their movie is an array of constantly changing disembodied voices.) Further, these "danced" segments are increasingly disruptive, calling huge attention to themselves, even as they keep causing us to wonder, "Why are we having to view all this?"

Whether these danced scenes are well done seems beside the point, as they all are unnecessary. (Some are less ridiculous than others, especially one toward the end that features a strongly-built and talented male dancer and goes on long enough to make us wonder if this one is going to break free and become its very own short film.)

Otherwise Nureyev is full of verbal narrative -- everyone from Yehudi Menuhin, Leslie Caron and Dame Siân Phillips (who oddly enough has been chosen to speak for Nureyev) to Clement Crisp and Pierre Lacotte -- along with the usual archival and/or newsreel footage. There is some previously unseen archival dance footage, some of it choreographed by the likes of Martha Graham and Paul Taylor, but much of this is also so old, worn and out of focus that at times you may wonder just who you are viewing. (Visually, the most stunning shots in the film remain Richard Avedon's remarkable 1961 photos of Nureyev, still the glistening black-and-white wonders we remember. Seen here, on the big screen, they're jaw-dropping.)

By far the most interesting and lengthy sections of the doc involves Nureyev's relationships, romantic and professional, with Erik Bruhn and Dame Margot Fonteyn (the latter shown above and below), both of whom would seem to have been the loves of his life. These sections come already so full of narrative gold, as well as visual material that,  thankfully, none of those aforementioned "danced" sequences are needed.

The encroachment of AIDS into the world of performing arts back in the 1980s is explored somewhat here, and, as the disease eventually took Nureyev's own life, is certainly worth remembering. The documentary earns its bona fides by reminding us that only in the western world is AIDS no longer life-threatening. In the developing world it remains as much of a scourge as ever.

Nureyev takes a chronological approach to its dancer/hero: birth to early childhood, youth and finally that dedication to dance and adulthood, if not maturity. If you are among those who found Rudolf Nureyev as spectacular, sexual and riveting an icon as did I and so much of the rest of the world, you may find the film worth a watch. Certainly, it provides the other bookend, chronologically, to The White Crow. Too bad it is not a better one.

Released by Cinelife Entertainment and running 110 minutes, Nureyev has its New York theatrical premiere this coming Friday, June 7, at Film Forum, and then will move elsewhere around the country. To learn if the film is coming to a theater near you, click here, then click on GET TICKETS and follow the directions from there.

Ralph Fiennes & David Hare's excellent bio-pic of Rudolf Nureyev, THE WHITE CROW, opens

What a fine and fascinating entertainment, as well as one of the better bio-pics of recent times, is THE WHITE CROW -- the very welcome collaboration between director/co-star Ralph Fiennes, screenwriter David Hare, and the very impressive newcomer actor/dancer taking the title role, Oleg Ivenko, who plays the young adult Rudolf Nureyev.

What these three have given us is a portrait of Nureyev that seems nuanced, detailed and believable factually, psychologically and especially emotionally.

Fiennes (shown at right) and Hare go back and forth in time near constantly, and this works surprisingly well, TrustMovies thinks, because the pair concentrates less on connecting the specific what-happened-and-why dots than on the emotions these events raise in both the child and the young adult Nureyev. Thus we are consistently placed within both the heart and mind of the character, and this helps us understand the talented, gorgeous and highly self-centered man at the core of this film.

Mr. Ivenko, below, handles both the dance and the acting with aplomb. Perhaps Fiennes understood how to capture and make best use

of this young man's talents -- which in so many ways mirror those of Nureyev -- without asking him to do too much. In fact, Ivenko's is a paired-down performance -- he is most often shown simply "thinking" -- relying in good part of his handsome face, terrific body and dance skill to bring to life the international ballet idol of the 1960s and 70s. It works.

Aside from the childhood flashbacks, The White Crow concentrates on Nureyev's ballet training, particularly that under the tutelage of his chosen teacher, Pushkin (played with great restraint and a fine undercurrent by Fiennes, above, right), mixed consistently with his traveling in the Russian troupe to Paris, where he first became rightly famous.

There he meets and bonds with the young woman, Clara Saint (Adèle Exarchopoulos, above, right) and the French dancer/choreographer Pierre Lacotte (Raphaël Personnaz, below, right), both of whom prove instrumental in the Parisian life of our dancer, as well as in the choice he must finally make.

Thanks to the ever-invasive Russian officials assigned to chaperone/guard the dance troupe, our narcissistic hero champs harder at his bit until the exceedingly suspenseful climax of this first-rate film, which -- if the details of the finale are maybe not completely as-they-were -- can be forgiven because of the filmmakers' skillful handling of this scene.

Those of us old enough to remember and appreciate Nureyev's talent and beauty -- his famous bisexuality is clearly shown here, too -- will probably revel in how closely Ivenko achieves all this, while younger audiences will at least be given a good taste of what this dancer/icon was all about.

The movie's dance scenes (as above and below), though not so very many, are plenty good enough to convince us of why this then-unknown dancer rose so quickly and permanently to fame. Mr. Hare's screenplay, by the way, is so appropriate and smart that you are mostly unaware of it as the film rolls along.

From Sony Pictures Classics and running a rich and not-a-moment-too-long 127 minutes, The White Crow opened on the coasts last month and is now expanding nationwide. Here in South Florida, it begins its run this Friday, May 10, and will play the Miami area at the AMC Aventura 24, Regal's South Beach 18, and the Coral Gables Art Cinema; in Fort Lauderdale at the Classic Gateway 4; in Davie at the Cinemark Paradise 24; in Boynton Beach at the Cinemark 14; in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood and the Cinemark Palace; and at the Movies of Delray and the Movies of Lake Worth. Wherever you live across the country, click here and then click on GET TICKETS (badly designed but to be found hidden in Ivenko's forehead) to view the theaters nearest you.

RED SPARROW: The Lawrences' (Francis and Jennifer) silly-but-fun, professional nonsense

It'll pass the time and, though the first half proves rather slow, it's at least never uninteresting -- filled as it is with sex, sin, ballet, bloodshed and double-agent spies run amok.

RED SPARROW, which casts Jennifer Lawrence in one of her better (certainly one of her showier) roles, is one of those glossy Hollywood entertainments that, except for its R rating, might have starred Lana Turner or Liz Taylor back in the old days, when this sort of silliness was at its cold-war peak.

Francis Lawrence (shown at right) -- who directed from a screenplay adapted by Justin Haythe from a book by Jason Matthews -- has done a better job of it than I would have imagined, given much of his earlier work. Despite the staid pacing, broken by violence every now and then, Lawrence keeps us alert and enjoying the gloss and giddiness of this oh-those-nasty-Russkies tale, as our heroine, Ms Lawrence (below with famous dancer Sergei Polunin), goes from being a "busted" ballerina to first-class sex-worker/spy for her glorious country, all the while caring for her poor, sickly, sainted mother. Oy.

But most of this does prove foolish fun, especially when actors the likes of Jeremy Irons (below, as spy-master-in-chief),

Charlotte Rampling (at right below, as the iron matron who trains these youthful and quite hunky and/or gorgeous spies),

and Matthias Schoenaerts (below) as our heroine's awfully naughty uncle. All three actors are better than their roles deserve, and they help quite handily in bringing the movie home.

The film's romantic interest is played by Joel Edgerton, shown below, who is always a pleasure to see, and here at least gets to use less of the faux-Russian accent employed by the rest of the cast. They do it pretty well and pretty consistently, however, which rather adds to the old-fashioned fun of the film.

I guess it's time -- what with all of Russia's U.S. election meddling and the recent murdering (in Britain) of its own ex-spies -- for the Soviets to become the world's villains once again. So, yes, we can certainly count on Hollywood to go for it full-throttle and deliver the usual goods.

Red Sparrow, from 20th Century Fox and running a lengthy two hours and 20 minutes, opened wide all over the place a couple of weeks ago. Click here to find a theater near you.

In Valérie Müller and Angelin Preljocaj's POLINA, a young dancer must find her identity

Art, creativity, dance, choreography, and finally finding oneself: all of these themes shimmer and glow, wax and wane in the course of the new and unusual movie, POLINA. A French film with Russian roots, it is co-directed by Valérie Müller and her husband, French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj. This pairing of filmmaker and choreographer results in one of the better examples of a movie that tackles art and creativity and actually allows its audience to discover in a believable and dramatic fashion exactly how these things come into being.

There is still a mystery at the movie's core. There must be where creativity is concerned. But the filmmakers (shown above, with Mr. Preljocaj on the right) manage to get so much right -- from a youth spent in the service of one's parents' desires for their children's future to the awakening of a classical ballet dancer to the surprise and joy to be found in modern dance -- that Polina, both the character and her film, seems by virtue of how she blooms and evolves, to be quite an original creation.

As played by two actresses (Veronika Zhovnytska, above, center, is the young schoolgirl, while Anastasia Shevtsova, below, with Niels Schneider, portrays the more mature version), Polina is fascinating figure who never reveals herself fully. This makes the movie even richer, I suspect. She's very talented, smart and caring, and her love for dance -- ballet, modern and finally choreography itself -- is clearly and beautifully demonstrated by both the actresses and the filmmakers.

Director Müller has made two documentaries previously (this is her second feature-length film) but Preljocaj is both a filmmaker and a rather famous choreographer. This film collaboration seems an inspired one, especially in its use of choreography, which is first-class throughout. In fact, TrustMovies does not recall another narrative film (except maybe The Red Shoes and some of Gene Kelly's work) in which choreography proved this vital and important to the tale being told.

From Polina's ballet training to her sudden but full-out revelation of the beauty of modern dance to her first experience with improvisation and finally to her incipient choreography, each step, and its accompanying dancing, seems wonderfully on-the-mark, giving us access not only to the dance itself, but to Polina's experience of it. The film's finale offers one of the most beautiful, moving, and glorious dance duets I can recall -- giving us Polina, her partner (Paris Opera star Jérémie Bélingard, above, a knock-out) and Preljocaj at the top of their game.

Along the path of Polina's education, she is introduced to modern dance via the choreography and person of the head of dance company, played with enormous heat, heart and understanding by the great Juliette Binoche, above. (Is there nothing Ms Binoche cannot do, I wonder? Except play comedy, when the director is as graceless as Bruno Dumont.) This section is as fascinating and full as the rest of the film, and marks yet another change of direction for our troubled heroine.

Ms Müller allows Polina to work out her pathway and life without resorting to melodramatic flourishes. Thus the movie is relatively quiet, despite the fact of her father's involvement with what looks like the Russian mafia. Without even a mention of it, the film is absolutely feminist, and it also offers life lessons without unduly pushing them upon us. Polina is a positive, engaging surprise in just about every way. (That's Alexsey Guskov, below, who plays Polina's smart, stern and caring ballet instructor with just the right degree of rectitude and sentiment.)

From Oscilloscope Films and running 109 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, August 25 in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. On September 1, it opens in Los Angeles (at the Landmark NuArt) and Washignton DC (at the Landmark E Street), with a limited nationwide rollout to follow. Here in South Florida it opens on Friday, September 15, in Miami at the Bill Cosford Cinema, in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theater, at The Movies of Delray and Lake Worth, and maybe elsewhere, too. Click here then scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Saffire & Schlesinger's RESTLESS CREATURE WENDY WHELAN goes inside a legendary ballet dancer facing age, pain and retirement

A great ballerina coming to terms with aging, a possibly career-ending hip operation, necessary change and the eventual need to do something other than dance -- all this and more is covered in one of the best ballet-dancer-biographies yet brought to the screen. RESTLESS CREATURE WENDY WHELAN, the new documentary from Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger, is right up there with Nancy Buirski's Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq and much better than the recent Misty Copeland bio-doc, A  Ballerina's Tale.

Saffire and Schlesinger (shown at right) appear to have had remarkable access to Ms Whelan -- at rehearsal, in actual performance, at home with her husband (photographer, David Michalek), and with her New York City Ballet "boss" Peter Martins (who, as always, comes across as someone you can trust about as far as you can toss), and with many of her ballet partners, past and present. The result is a multi-faceted look at Whelan that makes the ballerina seems remarkably consistent: a huge talent who is simultaneously a good person. As one of her contemporaries points out far into the movie, Whelan's behavior to everyone in the company -- from security guard to dresser to other dancers -- changed for the better the way that the dance company operated.

Restless Creature (which doubles as the name of the dance project Whelan came up with as a route to her post-NYC Ballet career), though it does not spend all that much time on her past and childhood history, opens in media res, as the dancer is faced with an upcoming hip operation that could end her dancing career. How she handles this, with courage and difficulty, is as exemplary as so much else that we see.

And yet, because the filmmakers zero in so finely and consistently on this woman, we can easily believe what we see and hear.  Whelan does indeed seem beloved of so many of her co-workers and choreographers, and as we see her dance (at first just in snippets, then longer and more involved as the documentary proceeds), we actually get some understanding of how difficult all this is and why dance careers, so like sports careers, are usually quite circumscribed, if not downright short. (At age 47 -- when the movie was shot -- Whelan has had an unusually long and successful run of 30 years.)

We hear from her choreographers, too, and learn something of how they work with their dancers to create the beauty and magic we view from the audience. Though the idea -- first of the operation and what its result might be, and then of the actual retirement that looms  -- seem to have our dancer often on the verge of tears, she never (or the filmmaker have chosen not to let us see this) gives in to them.

The post-operation ups and down are shown us, too, and at times the movie seems almost like a suspense thriller: So the career is over? Wait: Maybe not! "When am I gonna know that I'm safe again?"  the  dancer asks at one point.

Overall, bits from some 20 different ballets are shown us, and at the conclusion, we realize what all this has been building toward: a final dance that is so sensational that you'll fully appreciate and understand both why ballet is such a beloved art form and what Whelan has done to enrich it. Then all the applause and the flowers and the love arrive. What a moment. What a movie!

From Abramorama, Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan opens in New York City this Wednesday, May 24, at Film Forum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center. It hits Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal on Friday, June 9, and will play a number of other cities around the country, as well. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

DANCER: Steven Cantor's documentary about ballet bombshell Sergei Polunin hits DVD

When DANCER arrived in theaters last fall, it was greeted with appreciation by audiences and generally good reviews -- with the exception of The New York Times, Village Voice and San Diego Reader, the first of which, unfortunately, still tends to call the shots where docs, foreign films and independents are concerned.  The negative feedback concentrated mostly on the fact that we see too little of Polunin's dancing and too much of his personal angst. His dancing is spectacular enough to warrant more of it, to be sure, but what we see often so stunning that we're open-mouthed and blown away. Boy, can this boy can move. And leap. He's got a great body and face, too. And, yes, a whole lots of problems regarding family and drugs and maybe ego and discipline, as well.

TrustMovies says "maybe" because the film, directed by Steven Cantor (shown left), for all its seeming entry into Polunin's personal life, ends up leaving us high and dry regarding almost anything that's really personal about Polunin. Is he straight or gay? Did/does he have any kind of relationship, other than to his family (a heavy-duty stage mother and a father who went absentee in order to earn the money spent on his son's training), along with a few seeming "friends" whom we learn even less about?

Our entry into this guy's personality is consistently prevented by the "facts" of his upbringing, training, performing and history as "the bad boy" of dance. Newspaper headlines must stand-in for "character." I suspect that Polunin, shown above and below, actually wants to keep his audience at bay. Well, that's his right.

Fortunately, what we see of him dancing is enough to peak our interest and hold it for the movie's mere 85 minutes -- the final fourth of which is spent on the now famous online video, directed by David LaChapelle, of Polunin performing to the song, Take Me to Church. (The video, a still from which is seen below, is impressive, all right, but it strikes me as not nearly so much so as some of the snippets of his dancing in the ballets we've seen earlier in the film.)

Dancer is especially impressive as a document of Polunin's growing up. His mom -- or someone -- managed to take some remarkable footage, as we see Polunin at ages 8, 9, 11, 13, 15 and onwards, as he learns first gymnastics and then ballet, and then becomes a the youngest principal ever (only 19!) at the London's Royal Ballet.

And then he gives it all up, with the reasons, while clearly stated and obvious, barely explored here. Well, his private life remains private. It's his dancing that counts. The movie is titled Dancer, after all, and that's what comes across most strongly. What a great dancer Polunin was, and still is. I hope he continues to perform.

From IFC Films, the DVD hits the street this coming Tuesday, January 17 -- for purchase and/or rental -- and includes the movie's trailer and some deleted scenes as Bonus Extras. While balletomanes will rightly kvell at what they see here, Polunin is sexy, charismatic and gorgeous enough to build a huge fan base from merely that, whether or not his career in ballet moves onwards.

Blu-ray/DVD/digital download debut: Nelson George's documentary, A BALLERINA'S TALE

Back in the summer of 2010, TrustMovies reviewed a wonderful documentary about a couple of budding black dancers in Brazil entitled Only When I Dance. One of the points the viewer took away from this fine little film was how very difficult it was for black ballerinas to break into the ranks of the best of the world's ballet companies. Giving us a real Black Swan in one of the world's major dance companies, for instance, has not been an easy task, but the career of black ballerina Misty Copeland finally proved that this could be done.

The documentary about Miss Copeland -- A BALLERINA'S TALE directed by Nelson George, (shown at right) -- arrived theatrically in limited release last fall and is now available via DVD, Blu-ray and digital download. Though it is entirely career-oriented and we get to know almost nothing about Miss Copeland's personal life, it's worth a look, especially for ballet fans and anyone interested in how that color barrier, still standing rather more firmly than many of us might like, can be made to quake a bit, if not yet topple.

In addition to its fairly standard this-happened-and-then-that format, the movie does offer up a bit of history of blacks in dance, with emphasis on the women rather than the men. We also hear from dance aficionados and historians, and from various black women in places of power in the entertainment industries. Mostly though, it's Copeland (above and below) all the time, and this pert energetic performer shows us that a black woman with, yes, breasts, muscles and a strong body can dance the roles we may have thought only belonged to flat-chested, somewhat emaciated, white porcelain doll-like creatures,

This "look," explains one of the experts here, was due as much to the tastes and whims of George Balanchine, as to anything else, because pre-Balanchine this kind of dancer's body barely existed. One of the pleasures of the film comes from viewing Copeland in action, as her muscular but lithe body shows us the kind of ballerina most of us will have not yet seen. (Some of Mr. George's camera angles, however -- under the ballerina's skirt? -- could use some adjustment.)

Nowhere near as interesting and full of life, history and surprise as the outstanding 2013 documentary on Tanaquil Le Clerc, the movie should still take its place in the canon of documentaries about notable dancers. From IFC Films and running 84 minutes, A Ballerina's Tale makes its DVD, Blu-ray and digital download debut tomorrow, February 2 -- for purchase or rental.