Cooper Raiff's new indie, SHITHOUSE, offers college life from the view of the shy outsider

 

As has been duly noted elsewhere, SHITHOUSE -- the movie named for a college fraternity that hosts particularly popular parties -- deals with the sort of student, a young man named Alex, whom we've not seen as the center of attention in most examples of this genre. 

He's male, all right, but he's also very close to unhealthily shy and uncertain. Frightened, really -- about leaving his warm and loving family, as well as encountering and interacting with the rest of the college students. His stupid and somewhat abusive roommate clearly thinks Alex is a needless nerd and, other than because we audiences usually root for the underdog, we come pretty close to agreeing with that assessment.

As written, directed, co-edited by and also starring Cooper Raiff (at left) in the lead role, Shithouse, were it not as good a film as it is, would probably be pegged as a vanity production. It's still smacks somewhat of the vain, but it's worth seeing, and Mr Raiff at least has qualities that might indeed produce some degree of vanity.

He's handsome, intelligent and possesses a view of humanity -- concerning the circumscribed world of family and college shown here -- that proves to be encompassing enough yet less typical and judgmental than first glance might indicate. And in his two leading characters, Alex and Maggie, the odd girl he meets with whom he becomes quickly entangled, he's given us two people worth knowing.

Maggie is played by Dylan Gelula (above, left), an actress who is fine match for Raiff in terms of nicely offsetting his aw-shucks charm and rectitude. She's acerbic, witty, a little nasty and, of course, as it turns out, a lot needy. Yes, Shithouse deals in some of the usual youth cliches, but it is smart enough to disguise them for awhile.

We also get those frat parties, perhaps the single most boring, repetitive and tiring iteration of "youthful fun" movies have yet given us, and that are not, it must be said, any more interesting here than elsewhere. (Animal House has much to atone for.) But as the film slowly centers around this main relationship and how it builds then falters and builds again, its strengths becomes more apparent.

Amy Landecker does a lovely job playing Alex's caring, somewhat hovering mom, while Logan Miller (above, left) has the even more difficult task of turning obnoxious roommate Sam into someone maybe worth caring about -- which he manages quite well. 

Overall, there's nothing here to set the world aflame, and at 102 minutes, the movie does seem overlong for what it has to say. Yet considering what it does accomplish -- and well -- we'll be eager to view the next step for Mr. Raiff.  From IFC Films, Shithouse opens this Friday, October 16, in theaters and via digital and VOD. 

Family trauma meets feel-good: John Sheedy/ Lisa Hoppe's adaptation, H IS FOR HAPPINESS

Stick with this recent Australian movie, please, despite its initial unsure footing. H IS FOR HAPPINESS -- directed by newcomer-to-film theater director John Sheedy (shown below) with a screenplay by Lisa Hoppe from the popular young-adult novel My Life as an Alphabet by Barry Jonsberg -- combines family dysfunction with feel-good filmmaking in a manner that (finally, at least) manages to come together quite beautifully. Initially, if it appears a somewhat uneasy mix of coming-of-age, family tragedy, pretty scenery, humor and even maybe a little mysticism, do hold on. 

Once our heroine Candice (newcomer Daisy Axon, on poster above), about to celebrate her 13th birthday and waiting for impatiently for breast development, tells us: "Waiting for progress in the chest department is like watching grass grow," we listen with a knowing smile.

Then, when Candice receives a very special birthday present from a certain important new friend, the film kicks into action and simply gets better and better with each succeeding scene until its joyous, surprising and delightful climax -- which proves to be just about everything you want (but so seldom get) from most feel-good finales.

The plot of the film has to do with a family fractured from a death and a possible financial betrayal by a sibling, all of which Candice is now trying to repair. When an unusual new boy enters her classroom (Wesley Patten, also on poster, top) and confides to Candice that he is from "another dimension," our heroine is hooked.

The movie's large and talented cast includes some of Australia's finest -- from Richard Roxburgh as dad (above, right), Emma Booth as mom (above, left), and Miriam Margolyes as Candice's wandering-eyed schoolteacher (below). Young Ms Axon and Mr. Patten could hardly be better, both bringing a genuine sweetness and innocence to the proceedings.

The ins and outs of the plotting include a seemingly mystical pony (three photos up), the proprietor of a local costume shop (George Shevtsov, below, right), and even a little quantum mechanics. It all comes together nicely though, with that special birthday gift popping up again and again, each time funnier and even more appropriate than the one before.

From Samuel Goldwyn Films and running a just-about-right 96 minutes, H Is for Happiness will make its American debut via VOD and digital streaming this Friday, September 18 -- for purchase and/or rental. 

Blu-ray debut for Zhang Yimou's gorgeous and dark period piece, SHANGHAI TRIAD

Don't know how I happened to miss SHANGHAI TRIAD when it was released theatrically in the USA during the turn-of-the year holiday season of 1995-96. Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and his star Gong Li were at the height of their critical and arthouse/ mainstream success around then, and the film itself -- a beautiful and quite dark costume/ gangster melodrama set in Shanghai in the 1930s -- holds up exceedingly well.

In any case, it's great to be able to catch up with the film in its new and very fine Blu-ray transfer from Film Movement. Visually, this is one of  the more beautiful movies you're likely to encounter, even if you will wonder if and why Zhang (shown at left) decided not (or simply neglected) to bother with any day-for-night effects. Nighttime has never looked this bright or sunny.

The initially-simple-but-soon-grows-more-complicated story involves an adolescent Tang family member (Wang Xiaoxiao, below, right) from the provinces who has come to Shanghai to work for the boss of an upper-echelon crime family, more specifically for that boss' spoiled and nasty showgirl mistress (played by Ms Gong, below, left).

Betrayals of many types soon follow, and characters (some of them, at least) grow and change. By the end of this breathtakingly gorgeous and quite dark movie, the lessons learned have come at a huge cost. If Shanghai Triad does not have the obvious political and emotional heft of To Live, nor the historical/political/feminist framework of something like Raise the Red Lantern, all of these things remain essential to the film nonetheless. They may seem buried under the melodrama, but in a sense this makes them register all the more oddly yet strongly

There is only a single Bonus Features on the disc, but it's a whopping good one: a video essay by Grady Hendrix entitled "Trouble in Shanghai" that goes to town on all the ways one can view Shanghai Triad -- including as a kind of unintentional biopic/biography of both Zhang and Gong and the filmmaking process itself. This is a witty, funny, hugely intelligent piece of criticism/provocation, but do wait until you've seen the film to watch and listen to it.

From Film Movement Classics, in Mandarin with English subtitles and running 108 minutes, the film makes its Blu-ray debut this Tuesday, August 4 -- for purchase (and eventually, I would hope, for rental, too).

This time they got it right! Éric Barbier's fine film of Romain Gary's PROMISE AT DAWN

Back in 1970 director/adaptor Jules Dassin, together with stars Melina Mercouri and Assaf Dayan, took a crack at filming for the first time Romain Gary's autobiographical novel, Promise at Dawn. The results were "iffy," despite some very good scenes/moments now and again, with the can't-help-it-if-I'm-glamorous Ms Mercouri hamming it up some, as ever, even as the good-looking but talent-challenged Dayan kept threatening to disappear into the wallpaper.

The very good news this week is that the second-time-round version of the late M. Gary's "memoir" (or "autobiographical novel," as it is also known) is so much better that comparisons between the first film and the new PROMISE AT DAWN are pretty much pointless.

As adapted and directed by Éric Barbier (shown right) -- whose earlier, darkly pleasant heist film The Last Diamond certainly did not prepare me for how fine a film this one is -- the movie adheres pretty closely as best I can recall to Gary's original, while bringing to wonderful life and delight the mother and son characters that make up this unusual, alternately hilarious and moving tale.

The Russian/Polish mom is played with her usual command of everything from steely subtlety to off-the-rails humor and craziness by the splendid Charlotte Gainsbourg (above, and on poster, top), while her doted-upon offspring is handled by three excellent actors: Pawel Puchalski (below, left, as the young Romain),

Némo Schiffman (below, right) in the adolescent segment,

and finally by the terrific Pierre Niney below, left, and further below, (from Frantz and two extraordinary performances back in 2011), who plays Romain as both a young man and adult.

M. Niney and Ms Gainsbourg work together beautifully, playing off each other with understanding and great skill to turn this sometimes unsettling but more often hilarious and moving mother-son relationship into something unforgettable.

The movie moves from darkest, anti-Semitic Poland to the sun-speckled shore of Nice, from Paris to wartime London and Africa, and all the while that mother-son bond continues to grow, even as our Romain is fucking the daylights out of various young things in various locations. No matter: His heart (and ours) belongs to mommy.

Promise at Dawn is that most unusual art/mainstream movie that begins well, gets even better along the way, and then goes out with the kind of build-up and bang that should leave you surprised, smiling and maybe holding back, if not wiping away, a tear. Is the movie all that believable, and is most of what M. Gary told us even true? Probably not. But my god, did this guy know how to tell a whopping good story!

All the movie's technical aspects are first rate -- production and set design, cinematography, music, the works -- and supporting performances are as good, though much smaller (Jean-Pierre Darroussin's is especially grand), as those of the two leads.

Released here in the USA by Menemsha Films, Promise at Dawn opened this Friday, September 6, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, and should hit other cities soon, I would hope. Click here and scroll down to view any additional/upcoming playdates, cities and theaters.

Mafia offshoots, teen variety, in Claudio Giovannesi's Italian melodrama, PIRANHAS

We get so few Italian movies opening theatrically here in the USA of late that TrustMovies tends to be thankful for just about any new movie from Italy that comes our way. (He greatly misses being in New York City for the yearly Open Roads series of new Italian cinema that turns up each June.)

Consequently, he was pleased to hear about and then view PIRANHAS (Italian title La paranza dei bambini, which translates, I believe, to something like a netful of children), a film directed by Claudio Giovannesi from the novel by Gomorrah scribe, Roberto Saviano, with a screenplay co-written by Saviano, Giovannesi and Maurizio Braucci.

As with Gomorrah, the new Piranhas deals with the mafia/cammora as so integral and longstanding a part of Italian society as to be practically inseparable from what we might call "life itself." Taking place in the streets, clubs and homes of Naples, Italy (some of those homes are impressive indeed), the film begins as a gang of Naples teenagers steals a huge Christmas tree from a public place, while warding off an attack by a rival gang.

Giovannesi, pictured at right, has staged this, along with a number of other "action" scenes quite well, initially pulling us in via a single character then expanding to more and more, until his movie opens up in surprising, often impressive, ways.

If Piranhas tells us little that is new, as this small gang of willful, mischief-making but rather sweet boys (above) turns into a batch of profiteering murderers, it tells its tale in smart, swift, gorgeously photographed scenes (by Daniele Cipri, who directed and shot It Was the Son and handled cinematography on several of the recent films of Marco Bellocchio).

Piranhas also thrusts into prominence a young man appropriately named Francesco de Napoli (above, right, and below, left) who, at 15 years of age, gives a star-making debut performance in the leading role of Nicola, the boy who leads this gang of newbies. Signore Di Napoli, has a face that the camera eats right up and then asks for more. He's beautiful (he may remind you in certain scene of the young Alain Delon), but he's also full of energy and specificity in terms of his performance. He's not content to simply look good (though at all times he certainly does).

As Nicola turns from a somewhat tender, intelligent, hopeful young man (who wants to protect his mom and her dry cleaning establishment from camorra predators) into a killer, Di Napoli charts the course with plenty of energy and character-defining detail. His attraction to and maybe love for the young girl (Viviana Aprea, below) from a neighboring community is handled with the kind of youthful bravado and carelessness rife among youth in just about all western cultures.

The film also offers yet another object lesson in the danger to society of kids with guns, as consequences -- intended and unintended -- come to pass with a finality that these youthful idiots simply cannot or will not appreciate. Though the end results here will clearly go against our protagonists eventually -- as newer, smarter, younger folk come into power --  filmmaker Giovanese (who also gave us the sweet and unusual prison love story, Fiore) spares us the sadness, pain and bloodshed by simply ending on the road to an oncoming act of vengeance.

If this seems too easy, it is also somehow appropriate. Younger audiences can revel in the immediate thrill, while us older folk shake our heads and murmur, "Sure, kids: just wait...."

From Music Box Films, in Italian with English subtitles and running 112 minutes, Piranhas opens in New York City this Friday, August 2, at Film at Lincoln Center, and then expands to another 17 cities -- including Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt on August 9 -- over the coming weeks. To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then scroll down to click on Theatrical Engagements.

Dominga Sotomayor's TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG: a Chilean artists' commune circa 1990

A kind of banner year for the country of Chile, 1990 saw the end of the murderous dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The dawn of that year embodied by a New Year's Eve party proves the pivotal point in TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG, the new film by Dominga Sotomayor, in which the filmmaker attempts to recapture a very specific period and place of her own youth, a small Bohemian commune in the hills far above the city of Santiago.

The result is a slow-paced but not uninteresting look at the young, the teenage and the adult world of that day, but without ever -- unless TrustMovies missed some offhand but loaded Chilean reference -- mentioning anything remotely political at all.

Instead, Ms Sotomayor's movie (the filmmaker is shown at right) covers the budding romantic, sexual and jealousy-laden lives of the teens, the often angry and sadder lives of the parents, and the free-wheeling fun had by the very young. The film opens and closes with a dog running along a road. But what a huge difference in feeling each of these scenes conveys. The filmmaker also uses a foreboding brush fire somewhat in the manner of Chekhov's gun.

In between there's a load of quite realistic, if somewhat generic dialog and behavior from pretty much all the characters involved here. (The filmmaker has used all fledgling performers to essay her leading roles.) And while we don't expect anything close to the liveliness and wit of, say, Noel Coward on display, one occasionally longs for something more from this mostly very non-communicative bunch.

The leading character is a budding young woman named Sofia, played very well indeed by newcomer Demian Hernández (shown above), whose activities and feelings pretty much anchor the movie. Sofia is being courted, sort of (if only he had more courage), by Lucas (Antar Machado, shown below, under Sofia)

but Sofia herself prefers the older and much more confidant Ignacio (Matías Oviedo, below, right), who knows just how to be, sequentially, appealing, seductive and shitty.

Señor Hernández -- the actor was in the middle of transgendering while the film was being made; he has now, we are told, made the transition fully -- is particularly good at looking pensive and confused, so that Sofia pulls us in and easily holds us in her questioning, questing grasp. (In an earlier rendition of this post, I had assumed that Hernández was transitioning from male to female; I apologize for that assumption.)

Still, it is the youngest generation, personified by Clara (Magdalena Totoro, below), who eventually makes us think and feel most. Clara proves the moral center of the film: Who she is, how she reacts, and what she finally does brings the movie to its fitting close.

Though the pace is slow and meandering, you may find a day or two after viewing it, that the film has stuck with you in ways you might not have expected. It is odd, too, that for or all the fraught historical baggage that the year 1990 carries for Chile, this particular movie could be taking place just about anywhere and at any time -- it's that "universal."

From Kim Stim and running 110 minutes, Too Late to Die Young (Tarde para morir joven), in Spanish with English  subtitles, opens today, Friday, May 31, in New York City at Film at Lincoln Center (the unnecessary new name for what we used to call the Film Society of Lincoln Center: Was the latter one too many words for today's audiences?), and then the following Friday, June 7, it will open at the Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles. Another eight cities across the country are scheduled for the weeks to come. Click here, then scroll down to click on PLAYDATES to learn if you're in the vicinity of any of these. Blu-ray, DVD and digital opportunities are also promised soon by this increasingly prolific distributor.

Matan Yair's SCAFFOLDING: from Israel, a beautiful, believable, nuanced look at a troubled boy on the cusp of manhood

Yet another fine Israeli film reaches U.S. distribution, as SCAFFOLDING -- an unusual character study of a troubled-but-hugely-worth-caring-about Israeli high school student -- written and directed by Matan Yair, hits VOD and DVD via Breaking Glass films.

As a filmmaker, Mr. Yair, shown below, often begins his scenes in the middle of something and/or ends them abruptly, also in the midst of things. This works pretty well, too, as it forces us to observe and contend with a life -- that of the main character, Asher, beautifully played by newcomer Asher Lax -- that seems as fractured as does the ongoing narrative.

Slowly we ascertain that Asher is the only son of a problemed single father -- given to telling jokes, each of which seems more misogynistic than the last -- who owns a construction company specializing in scaffolding and expects his son to take over dad's business rather than pursuing the arts/academic career that apparently beckons him.

Young Mr. Lax, shown above and below, proves a natural -- an enormously attractive and charismatic performer who never needs to push, yet thanks to his talent and beauty, holds the audience securely in his alternately warm and angry grip.

In contrast to his single-minded and physically declining father, Asher's favorite teacher, Rami (played by Ami Smolartchik, shown at left, above and below) seems as physically and intellectually different as could be. We get snippets of how Rami teaches and how effective he is at reaching the difficult Asher. At one point Rami suggests to his student, "Try to be less prickly" -- a quiet and lovely manner in which to make the young man consider his words and actions.

When something totally unforeseen (but not at all difficult to accept) occurs, Asher must find ways to deal with this, as well as with his father and future. (Dad is played by Yaacov Cohen with just the right combo of incivility and caring that he never quite loses us. Nor his son.) On the feminine side are a good friend of Asher (not exactly a girlfriend, however; the young man's sexuality seems at this point maybe indeterminate), various educators, and the wife of the teacher, Rami.

Coming to terms with all this is not at all easy for Asher, but as orchestrated by Yair and Lax, the ongoing movie continues to hold us -- and afterward to haunt us -- via its marvelous combination of observation, compassion, detail and suggestion. The finale takes us just so far, making its quiet point in a moving and compelling fashion that doubles as a kind of memorial to that exceptional teacher.

Running a just-about-perfect length of 94 minutes, Scaffolding, from Breaking Glass Pictures, comes available on DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, January 1 (for purchase or rental) via iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Vudu, FandangoNOW, iNDEMAND, Direct TV and elsewhere, too. For folk who appreciate foreign films, particularly well-done character studies, I can't think of a better way to begin the New Year.

The reason we love French films: Diastème's sparkling THE SUMMER OF ALL MY PARENTS

Looking for some real sophistication? The sort that casts a wide, maybe wild but also smart and true eye on family dynamics, including parenting, discipline, love, trust, caring and, what the hell, good old humanity itself in so many of its surprising guises. Then of course, you would probably want a French film. Your search is over, as the 2016 delight titled (for the American market, at least) THE SUMMER OF ALL MY PARENTS, has just arrived on DVD last week. The French title, Juillet août, which translates simply as July-August, is much simpler and more appropriate, too, as this small-but-sterling movie deals with a pair of siblings who spend one summer month with their mom and step-dad, and the next one with their father.

The film is directed and co-written by a fellow named Alain Dias, who has now evidently re-christened himself as the single-monikered Diastème (shown at right). Under whatever name, the guy would certainly seem to know what's he's doing, for he's given us an unusual look at a typical "fractured family." But this time, what may initially appear to be the usual clichés soon morph into something quite a bit richer, stranger, more truthful and compelling. How Diastème and his co-writer Camille Pouzol achieve this sneaks up on you via characters who grow slowly and rather quietly, in every case, into something more and better than you will have expected.

Summer/Parents is first of all a movie about character. And growth. That younger sibling, Laura, played with just the right combo of insecurity and ferocity by the terrific little actress, Luna Lou, above, right, and below, left) is coming to terms with late maturation, a lot of anger issues, and the possibility of boarding school. Her gorgeous older sister, Josephine, acted by Alma Jodorowsky (above, left, and below, right -- and, yes, she's the granddaughter of a certain Alejandro), is a young woman discovering what is perhaps her first major love.

Unfortunately that love is for a hot-looking young man (Jérémie Laheurte, above, center) who is a member of a small but somewhat smart criminal group. Meanwhile mom (Pascalle Arbillot, below, right) and stepdad (the fine and funny Patrick Chesnais, below, left) are having their own problems -- physical and monetary -- which eventually spills over to the rest of the family.

By the time August arrives, and the two girls get to Normandy and their very hands-on father (Thierry Godard, below, whom you may recognize from his roles in French TV's police/justice series Spiral and the WWII occupation tale, A French Village), events have taken quite a turn.

How all this resolves is handled with such intelligence and delicacy, avoiding melodrama while offering up a most interesting brand of conflict-resolution that I suspect you will be both charmed and warmed by the insight and kindness on hand.

Along the way, you'll get a very special scene of a girl's first menstrual cycle, a criminal henchman with surprising sense of morality to offset his aroused sexuality, a jewel heist, a teen pool party and lots more -- each of which stands the typical cliché on its head.

If this is not a great film (and I don't think it is), it is still such a very good one that it makes a must-see addition to anyone's list of films about family dynamics. Quiet, smart, funny, believable and full of a sincerity that is never naive, it will, I'm pretty certain, make my extended list of "best movies" come year's end.

Arriving on DVD last week via First Run Features (which most often deals in documentaries but in its choice of narrative films, offers almost consistently some little-known but very worthwhile gems), The Summer of All My Parents, in French with English subtitles and running a just-right 97 minutes, is available now -- for rental, purchase (and probably before too long) streaming.