Sweet, smart, feel-good fun: Jeremy LaLonde/ Jonas Chernick's JAMES VS HIS FUTURE SELF

Can a sci-fi premise, already a tad unbelievable simply by virtue of its being science-fiction, succeed via the strength, intensity and just-plain-earnestness of its performances? Yes: If it has all that plus some very good writing and direction. JAMES VS HIS FUTURE SELF -- a smart, sweet, witty combo of sci-fi, rom-com and important life lessons -- is on my best-of-year list already. It left me in tears, not of sadness but outright delight, due to how well-handled, in every way, it so thoroughly is. Movies that succeed this beautifully often get that reaction from me, and this one managed it in spades.

Sci-fi films, historically, have been replete with life lessons -- though many of the bigger would-be-blockbusters tend to offer those of the apocalyptic, end-of-humanity-in-one-way-or-another sort. The absolute joy of James Vs His Future Self comes via its small-scale, just-one-guy-and-his-problems premise: the eponymous James, played by the film's co-writer and co-star, Jonas Chernick (below, left of another marvelous Canadian movie, My Awkward Sexual Adventure). Oh, the film does have humanity headed for a not-so-nice time, but this is used predominantly for toss-away humor (oh, god -- the end of tomatoes!). What Chernick and director and co-writer Jeremy LeLonde (shown above) make certain we care about most is James and those very few but vital folk who surround him.

These would include BFF and maybe more, played with complete, fall-in-love-with-her charm, sex appeal and beauty by Cleopatra Coleman (above, right) and an actor we just don't see enough of anymore, Daniel Stern (below).

Stern plays the other part of the eponymous title, and he plays it so damned well that the fact that he and Chernick possess completely different faces and body types doesn't matter in the slightest. Both actors are so alert, incisive and in the moment that they carry us along like a river run wild.

Time travel is the sci-fi theme here, and the fact that we've seen this more times than can be counted on fingers and toes matters not one whit. The filmmakers bring such spontaneity and wit, along with charm and surprise, to their mix that I suspect, from first scene onward, you'll be hooked.  (That's Frances Conroy, above, who does a bang-up job with her two or three scenes.)

Four of the five leading characters in the film are physicists; only James' sister, played by Tommie-Amber Pirie, above) is not among the uber-intelligentsia, but she's a nice addition, in any case. This is such a genuinely delightful movie, I can fully understand why, as of now, it's at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

From Gravitas Ventures and running just 95 minutes, James Vs His Future Self has been available on VOD since the beginning of the month. Check your local service provide or go to the usual suspect to find it fast.

All hail Paul Verhoeven, as the 1987 sensation, ROBOCOP, makes its grand Blu-ray debut

Only the other day I was complaining about an unusually poor Blu-ray transfer from the almost-always excellent distributor, Arrow Video. The firm more than makes up for that faux pas with the release it has coming out next week: a sleek new Blu-ray of the groundbreaking sci-fi/action/satire ROBOCOP.

Though beaten to release by James Cameron's The Terminator three years earlier, that film (still the best by far of all the Terminator movies) did not have Robocop's sterling social satire and anti-Capitalist stance, via screenwriters Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner and its internationally acclaimed director Paul Verhoeven.

Mr. Verhoeven (shown at right) doesn't pile it on here as much as did in his later Starship Troopers, but the satire still sparkles and penetrates. From the first scene of a television newscast (these just don't change much over the decades, do they?) through our trip to corporate America and its plan to eviscerate society by pretending to help us, the movie is often simultaneously violent and hilarious, as was/is often Verhoeven's wont.

And don't worry if the image during that and other newscasts seems low-def. So will the scenes involving computer screens and imaging (as below). But once we leave TV and technology screens behind, the rest of the movie's narrative -- seen in utter hi-def sharpness and juicy chrome-bred colors -- proves amazing and a joy to view.

The tale here is one of a would-be corporate take-over and privatization of Detroit's police force. The movie was released during the British "reign" of Margaret Thatcher, during which privatization became a kind of holy watchword, with the fall of British unions the sad byproduct. (Or maybe privatization was actually the byproduct of union demise.)

The introduction of a new policing machine (above) at film's beginning is both funny and horrific, and Verhoeven's and his writers' wit and humor are further seen when this same machine, later in the film, must negotiate a flight of stairs.

The cast is aces, too. In the leading roles, Peter Weller (above), as the rookie cop who soon becomes robo and Nancy Allen as his policing partner could hardly be bettered. Weller spends much of his screen time behind his robocop attire (below), but there' no mistaking those luscious lips.

Ms Allen (above, left, and below), far too infrequently seen after her role in Dressed to Kill -- movies just didn't seem to know what to do with her or how to best use her -- brings enormous humanity to the film (and to robocop himself), and she's a treasure to watch in action. (There a very nice close-to-present-day interview with the actress among the enormous Bonus Features on one of the discs in this two-disc set.)

Verhoeven knows when to give us down-and-dirty action and violence. But he also understands less is more, just as he does the occasional need for more is more. His pacing is on the mark, and his excellent use of lost memory (and how to give this to us on screen) remains about as good as we have yet seen, even after the many times we've by now endured this Oh, gosh, I'm starting to remember! routine.

Dan O'Herlihy, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer (horizontal, above, in the third photo from top) and Robert DoQui lead the fine supporting cast, but the film's ace-in-the-hole is probably Ronny Cox (above), who plays the smartly tailored, extremely nasty villain with just the right combination of relish and disdain.

As with almost all the Blu-ray of Arrow Video, the Bonus Features are plentiful, but Arrow has  really outdone itself here: TrustMovies counted a total of 32 (you can peruse them all by clicking here and scrolling down).

Distributed in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group/MVD Visual, Robocop hits the street this coming Tuesday, November 26, in both a Blu-ray limited edition and a Blu-ray Steelbook edition -- for purchase (and I hope, somewhere, for rental, too).

Netflix streaming must-see -- EXTINCTION gives the idea of the "other" a real workout

Gosh, do we need a movie like this one now. In our age of Trump-fueled hatred toward anyone who's different  -- Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, and whoever else is not white shite -- along comes EXTINCTION, a new film from director Ben Young and writers Spenser Cohen, Brad Caleb Kane, and perhaps Eric Heisserer (who. if so, now goes uncredited on the IMDB), that gives "the other" the kind of workout this subject has not had in quite some time.

Extinction effectively turns inside out our expectations and assumptions and in the process forces us as gently and completely as possible to embrace that other because we have already so firmly put ourselves in its place.  This is an accomplishment I can't recall another movie managing, and certainly not this well. This is due to the smart script and direction but also to the fine performances of its leading characters, a father and mother -- played by Michael Peña and Lizzy Caplan (above and below) -- of a family under siege from alien invaders.

Though the movie begins with our hero having dreams about the very thing that's about to happen -- which already sounds a bit been-there-done-that -- once reality has made it self clear, so many plot points are suddenly explained that don't simply make sense but also seem to be an especially clever manner in which to have conceived and executed the story.

How good it is to see Mr. Peña in a leading role as a smart, caring family man. He's a perfect "everyman," which is just what the role needs, and Ms Caplan adds her usual spunk and charm to the proceedings. The scene in which the two of them first meet is as graceful, lovely and warm as anything you'll have seen -- and twice that, given the context here.

The supporting cast is fine, too, with Israel Broussard a standout as the unusual character named Miles with whom our current President could never begin to understand or identify. I hope I have not said too much already to result in a spoiler. Just stick Extinction on your Netflix queue and watch it ASAP. You're in for a wild action ride, especially in the first half of the film, and then, in the latter half, oh, boy. 
Oooooooooh, boy.

With BEFORE WE VANISH, the prolific Kiyoshi Kurosawa has a new film -- one of his best -- opening in theaters

With 48 directorial credits (beginning in 1975), Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose movie, Daguerrotype, only recently opened here, already has another one hitting theaters this week. Better yet, his new alien-invasion-like-you've-never-seen-it sci-fi/thriller/comedy/drama, BEFORE WE VANISH, may well be one of his best ever. More surprising (to TrustMovies, at least) is how very poignant and moving it turns out to be.

Mr. Kurosawa, shown at left, though he has made nearly 50 films, has had only seven of these (to my knowledge) released here in the U.S. Of those, I've found Dagguerrotype the least enthralling and Before We Vanish the most.

The film is a kind of alien-invasion movie as seen through the view of only three of these aliens -- you might call them "scouts" -- whose job it is to assess the human population and gather what information they can from that populace before the real invasion begins and all human life is destroyed.

As directed by Kurosawa with a screenplay adapted (from the play by Tomohiro Maekawa) by the director and Sachiko Tanaka, the movie immediately dumps us into the middle of things as we see a man in a hospital, recovering from an accident and attended by his wife. Concurrently, a young girl comes home from school to suddenly massacre her family and leave some other very odd damage in her wake. A third young man (below, right), wandering the street, picks up a human journalist (below, left) we've only just met to be his "guide."

Yes, these are our three aliens, each of whom has taken over a human body (a nod, without pod, to Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and it is through them -- along with the several humans with whom they come in contact and interact -- that we come to understand who they are and what they want.  Kurosawa is best-know for his nerve-jangling supernatural thrillers in which much of the scares come via indirection, surprise and sheer creepiness (the perfectly titled Creepy is one of his most effective), but here this talented filmmaker instead uses the scenario to explore another famous sci-fi trope used in films from well prior to the original Blade Runner to its recent woeful follow-up: What does it mean to be human?

For my money Kurosawa and company do the best job so far of bringing this particular theme to grand, moving and even very funny life. The two younger aliens are brought to life well enough that we can glean a good deal of info about their "alien" character, one quite different from the other, and we come to understand and appreciate that cynical human journalist quite well, too.

But the character who really nails this movie belongs to that third alien, the young man (above, left) who we first see in the hospital, along with his human wife (above, center). As a human, prior to his being "taken," our guy was evidently something of a rotter: a caddish player who treated his wife like trash. Now only his very attractive shell is left, inside of which resides a being who wants to learn all it can about humans and their lives.

How this comes to be changes everything, and the journey that our very odd "hero" and his wife take, along with that journalist and a few other hangers-on makes for one of the most unusual, often amusing, and finally utterly moving and thought-provoking trips that alien-invasion movies have so far given us.

Our aliens have the ability, as above, to draw out of us humans the "concepts" they want to understand. Things such as "work" and "play" and, yes, "love." How the removal of such concepts leaves the humans provides some of the more amusing moments in the film, but how these work on the aliens makes for even more confusion and surprise.

Kurosawa has larded his movie with a little gore, violence and action occasionally, yet special effects are kept to a minimum. (Has a small budget ever achieved quite this large a movie?!) What holds us are the ideas and the wonderful subtlety with which the filmmaker works. How well he achieves this can be ascertained by how almost shockingly believable the movie is. You buy it, hook, line and sinker. This is also thanks to the marvelous performances from his well-chosen cast: Masami Nagasawa as the wife, Hiroki Hasegawa as the journalist, and especially Ryûhei Matsuda (above and below) as the alien hubby. Mr. Matsuda has a face that is so beautiful yet vacant and pliable, especially in repose (which it most often is here), that he turns this alien into something quite special.

There's a scene maybe two-thirds along that takes place in a church into which the husband has wandered in order to understand the concept of love. Inside a children's choir is singing, and the priest sits with our guy and tries to explain a few things. This may be one of the most perfectly realized bit of sci-fi wonderment ever seen, and it changes the course of the film. Though the concept may be Christian, I am quite certain both Buddha and Mohammed would appreciate it equally well. Moses? With his stern commandments rather than Jesus' loving beatitudes, maybe not so much. But then the Jews are still waiting for their Messiah. In any case, this is a less a religious movie than a humane one.

I find it odd that, with all the supposed triumph-of-the-human-spirit movies made these days (many of them sentimental, silly hogwash), it would take an alien invasion film to truly (and so quietly!) make this theme resonate.

From NEON's new boutique label SUPER LTD, Before We Vanish opens this Friday, February 2, in New York City at the IFC Center and will then play a number of Alamo Drafthouse theaters throughout the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates and/or to find a theater maybe near you. If you can't find this film in a movie house, at least stick it on your list for future streaming, DVD or Blu-ray viewing. It is simply too good to miss.

On Home Video: Daniel Espinosa's LIFE proves to be everything the latest Alien movie wasn't

This is just a quick heads-up that if you're looking for a genuinely scary, suspenseful, smart and swift sci-fi thriller featuring an extraterrestrial who makes the recent "alien" look like the rather dumb-and-ugly monster it is, take a gamble on LIFE, from Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa (don't worry, the film's in English), which is definitely this up-and-down director's best work to date.

Cleverly written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the movie pays good attention to everything from plotting, pacing and surprise to creating characters you care about while filling you in on (some of) the science of what's possible (or not) regarding space travel.

The movie's not perfect but it is so much better than anything else like it in a long while (particularly the recent and execrable Alien: Covenant, which offered Michael Fassbender and very little else) that the fact that it was so lukewarmly embraced by both critics and audiences seems a pretty clear statement of how dumb and undeserving both have now become.

I won't go into plot, except to say that, yes, the movie does the very same thing as the Alien franchsie and other space-travel-cum-monster movies: maroon a crew with the monster on board and then let things "work out." Yet how Life works them out is so much better than the other examples (save for the original Alien) that you'll be alternately on the edge of your seat and actually moved and amazed by it all. (And surprised and shaken by the ending.)

With Jake Gyllenhaal (three photos up) in fine form, Rebecca Ferguson (two photos above) supporting and Ryan Reynolds (above and below) again choosing to do a role that surprises in several ways, the entire cast is first-rate. And, yes, we lose some of them along the way, but how and why they expire is done with such novelty and feeling that this makes most other films in the genre look paltry indeed.

From Columbia Pictures/Sony and running a just-about-right 104 minutes, the movie hit Netflix DVDs yesterday (and is now -- this update comes two days later -- available on Redbox). In any case, if you're an intelligent fan of this genre, don't miss it. Click here and scroll down to view options for purchase or rental.

Isaac Ezban's THE SIMILARS takes smart, low-budget sci-fi to a new high-water mark

It is so rare to encounter a genuine original, especially in the realm of science fiction/horror, that when a movie like THE SIMILARS (Los parecidos) arrives, one is quite heavily tempted to stand up and cheer. This new movie from Mexican filmmaker Isaac Ezban is so immediately engrossing and unusual that you'll hooked within a minute or two. Then it simply gets better and better until... oh, my god.

And while it is vastly amusing in a manner than becomes darker and darker, it is also so rich and strange that its humor -- which is completely organic and never slick or precious -- is as pivotal and important to the film as are its scares and surprises, of which there are many. Señor Ezban, pictured at right, has taken a great idea and run with it so far, fast and completely that its ramifications keep unfurling as his film moves along until they reach a brilliant ending that in no way disappoints.

This in itself is pretty spectacular. That the filmmaker keep you gasping and smiling in equal proportion every step of the way is even more amazing. The plot? Let's just say that a group of disparate people have been forced to gather at a small, out-of-the-way bus station due to a staggering rainstorm that seems to be hitting the entire world simultaneously. Impossible? Quite.

Ezban sets his movie back in 1968, and this makes it even more intriguing because it can then incorporate much that was going on at the time -- from student unrest and the music of the era to the effects of acid rain -- and it does this is an equally unsettling manner, leaving things open to further discussion, except that everything moves so fast that discussion (or even much thought) is the last thing these characters, along with their audience, have time for.

The filmmaker has assembled a crack cast to do his bizarre bidding -- he both wrote and directed the movie -- beginning with an fine actor you may have seen in another unusual Mexican film called Leap Year: Gustavo Sánchez Parra (above, left), who plays the first arrival at this nearly deserted bus station. There is also a pretty and very pregnant young woman (Cassandra Ciangherotti, above, right, and below). Both are trying to get to Mexico City, which seems to be blocked off due to the rain.

A very odd indigenous woman who does not speak Spanish is also present, along with the ticket seller named Martin, and a young female friend of his, as well. Soon will arrive a woman and her young son (below) who is clearly in need of medical help, along with a young man who may just be one of those student revolutionaries we keep hearing about on the bus station radio, the reception for which repeatedly goes in and out.

Once this group has arrived, the plot unfurls. From here it is mostly a matter of what is happening -- I'll tell you right now that it's a lulu -- and then why this is happening (which turns out to be even more bizarre). There's some blood and gore, all right, but mostly, there is amazement coupled to odd, dark humor at the very weird situation here.

Comparison has been made to the old TV series, The Twilight Zone, but I'll tell you right now that this film is better, richer, more thoroughly thought out than any Twilight Zone I ever saw. Ezban's filming technique is to drain almost all color so that, initially, the movie looks like it was filmed in black and white. But then we catch sight of a little light blue, or yellow. Or, ummm...yes, red.

So much depends on what is happening visually here that for awhile I wondered why the print looked like something redolent of an old (and not that hot) videotape. There is a reason for this, too: In order to show us what he wants us to see, the moviemaker must ensure that his film always looks a little muddy so that the premier visual effect here -- and it's a knock-out -- will be believable. We see, but often not all that clearly. But we see enough to always understand what is happening.

OK: enough said. If you sci-fi/horror/mystery/creep-out aficionados aren't yet hooked enough to make sure you view this movie, then I give up. I've done my part without -- I hope -- delivering a single spoiler. God knows, Señor Ezban has done his part by making one of the finest, most assured and original genre films in the long and varied history of low-budget sci-fi.

From XLrator Media and running a sleek 89 minutes, the movie is said to have opened in theaters yesterday (I cannot find a single one of them, however). But its distributor promises that it will open on cable VOD this coming Tuesday, November 15, and then via iTunes and digital platforms the following Tuesday, November 22.  I urge you -- nay, I command you -- to seek it the fuck out. 

A don't-miss sci-fi goes straight to DVD/Digital; Antonio Tublén's amazing LFO: THE MOVIE

How's this for irony: One of the best sci-fi movies in recent years -- LFO: The Movie, by Swedish filmmaker Antonio Tublén -- doesn't even get a theatrical release in its home country, let alone in America. Oh, it's played film festivals around the world (nearly two dozen of 'em) before finally making its DVD and digital debut here last month. I guess we can be grateful for that. But, still: One has to wonder at the obtuse nature of film distribution in these days when almost everything else hits theaters.

Film buffs will be grateful for what they're able to see -- in whatever format -- but what straight-to-DVD-and-digital means in this case is that a genuine "original" won't get the publicity necessary to put it on the map. Too bad, but consider this your alert -- LFO: The Movie is just too good to miss. Mr. Tublén, shown at right, has graced us with a sci-fi film that, if I am not mistaken, traffics in zero special effects. That's right. In this case, it's all about your mind. What you know, what you see, and what you hear -- and how you can piece all this together.

Don't get me wrong. LFO is not a difficult film to follow. It's rather simple, in fact. A nerdy, techie who specializes in sound (a wonderfully rich and expansive performance by Patrik Karlson, above and below) discovers how to control the minds of others via sound and begins to put this to use in his local neighborhood.  Now, I think this is done via sound waves. The science here may take some suspension of disbelief, but then that is true in almost all sci-fi movies, right? Once you accept the movie's premise, you're in for a shocking, funny, dirty, surprising and finally moving ride.

How our non-hero uses his new discovery/toy on his friends and neighbors is one thing; how the filmmaker delivers the guy's family -- wife and son -- is something else entirely, and this is handled, as is everything here, simply and spectacularly well.

Basically, the movie is a entertaining treatise on the uses of power -- first as our guy lords it over his attractive new neighbors, Lin and Simon (played nicely by Izabella Jo Tschig, above, right and Per Löfberg, above, left) and then any of the odd folk (police, insurance investigator, and another would-be scientist/competitor) who show up unwanted -- initially in ways rather minor but soon more and more widespread.

If at first this story seems small and housebound, wait. Eventually its reach will become huge, going places and dragging you along where you would never have expected, given the film's beginning and much of its continuation.

LFO also allows that a character can indeed change and grow, something one does not always get from sci-fi films these days. And if it is, to boot, a comedy, as is noted in the press materials, it's a very dark one. That, as much as anything else, is what probably scared off a theatrical release.

You can view LFO: The Movie -- from Dark Sky Films, in Swedish with English subtitles and running 94 minutes -- now on DVD digital and streaming. It is more than worth a watch.