PAPI CHULO: DVDebut for John Butler's comedy/drama of Latinos and Gringos in L.A.

A movie full of small surprises (and one major surprise), PAPI CHULO is the work of Irish filmmaker John Butler, the fellow who, back in 2016 brought us Handsome Devil and in 2013 The Bachelor Weekend (which I've not yet seen).  His latest film would seem to be his first time working in the USA, and TrustMovies must say that Butler has nicely nailed the peculiarly Los Angeles dynamic involving Latino and Gringos, class and economics, and especially those cliched attitudes that permeate so much of what goes on between the two.

Mr. Butler, shown at right, doesn't so much upend those cliches as he does simply lay them out in front of us (and the characters), simultaneously revealing their silliness. This is a smart way to handle a tricky subject, and the filmmaker manages it throughout the entire film, often leaving a smile on our faces, even as we wince in recognition.

The plot pf Papi Chulo has to do with Sean, a gay L.A. TV weather reporter suffering from a break-up with a longtime lover, from whom he is having a very difficult time separating. To complete the painting of his deck, Sean hires an older Hispanic laborer, Ernesto (Alejandro Patiño, below, right), who is waiting in one of those pools of men seen on the sidewalks of L.A., New York and now probably in most cities throughout the country, hoping to find work.  Slowly, haltingly and often humorously, a kind of bond begins to form between the two.

Sean is played by Matt Bomer (shown above, left, and below), an "out" gay actor who has often played gay roles, including an excellent representation of a trans woman in Anything. This role, however, seems to me different in some important ways because the character of Sean is so sad, silly and needy, often simultaneously, that he is as funny and charming as he is unhappy and sometimes even obnoxious.

Mr. Bomer is actually quite extraordinary in the role, so alternately loose and easy, frightened and protective is the actor that he makes Sean into one of the most vulnerable of gay characters I have seen on screen. He is also enormously funny, as he tries every which way to connect to his new friend. Mr. Butler's delicious dialog, coming from the mouth of Bomer, often sounds utterly spontaneous, and all the better for it.

How the movie, along with relationship of the two men, progresses comprises the simple plot, which takes quite a turn midway. In retrospect, this makes perfect sense but it may still throw you -- the way the certainty of an assumption proven wrong often does.

As complete and "out there" as the character of Sean is, Ernesto's appears quite the opposite. Guarded and near completely unable to demonstrate affection, he is a good example of Hispanic machismo, non-toxic variety, in which those signs of love must be shown via his wife and children. Señor Patiño imbues his character with clear-headedness and a quiet grace that is believable and touching.

As in Handsome Devil, Butler allows in sentiment without letting it gush into sentimentality. You'll be charmed, surprised, entertained and/or moved by just about everything here, without feeling ill-used the following morning. Think of it as a guilt-free pleasure.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running 98 minutes, Papi Chulo hits the street on DVD  this coming Tuesday, November 5 -- for purchase or rental.

Catching up with one of 2017's best films: Cristian Mungiu's quietly riveting GRADUATION

Out now on Blu-ray/DVD from The Criterion Collection and brimming with first-rate Special Edition Features, GRADUATION, the latest film from terrifically talented Romanian writer/director Cristian Mungiu, was first seen theatrically in the USA back in April of 2017. It is by far the best of the four of his films I've so far seen -- which also include Beyond the Hills, Four Months Three Weeks and Two Days, and the smart, ironic and underseen Tales From the Golden Age -- and it is a major leap forward for the amazing Mr. Mungiu, shown below.

Graduation is all about connections and their usage. So many of the movies that have come out of the Eastern Bloc over the past decade -- since the fall of that wall and the splitting off of the Soviet empire -- have dealt with this idea of how all-important were/are  "connections" during and since the end of Communist rule.

Once again the Romanian writer/director bears out this idea in his story of a family soon-to-be in crisis, due to its use of connections, together with a very slippery morality amongst just about everyone involved in this sad, gray tale.

A bricked tossed through an apartment window begins the film. Why? And by whom? We wonder, as does the family at the center of the film: a father (Adrian Ttitieni, above) and mother (Lia Bugnar, below) intent of having their only daughter graduate with honors so that she can attend a university and then a medical school in the west. Present-day Romania, it seems, is nowhere in which you'd want to your beloved offspring to grow into adulthood.

The daughter herself (Maria Dragus, below), as we learn from the outset, seems not so keen on this idea, having grown a little too close to her boyfriend and not wanting to leave behind her other friends. When the girl appears to have been attacked on her way to school and may not be able to take the tests she'll need to graduate, Dad goes into immediate action, using every connection he has and calling in every debt he is owed (or imagines that he is owed) to ensure his daughter's welfare/endeavor.

Then morality of all this is suspect from the outset and simply grows worse as the movie moves along. How everyone involved proves so easily corruptible, together with the lengths to which most of them will go to ensure their own welfare, is handled just about perfectly: neither too heavy-handedly nor too easily. We see each person's problems, as well as the "bigger picture," and so we understand how this is all happening, even as we also wonder how we would react in such a situation.

Mungiu is by now a master at this kind of dark social satire. He is also uber-competent at finding just the right situation -- important yet nothing too awful or life-threatening -- to bring out the kind of behavior he wants to point up. Yet he is also a grand entertainer with an ability, via exceptional casting, writing and directing, to bring out the worst in the best way.

The film fairly drips with irony, though the drips are so light and frequent that you barely notice some of them. Eventually, they're a flood. TrustMovies is sorry he did not see this film sooner, for it would have made his 2017 Best List for certain (he'll place it there now, in any case). From Criterion, in Romanian with English subtitles and running a lengthy but consistently engrossing 127 minutes, it is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.

Among the grand Special Features included on the disc is a terrific new interview with filmmaker Mungiu, and wonderfully informative video of the Cannes Film Festival press conference from 2016 featuring a Q&A with the director and several of his actors, including the very hot-looking young man (Rares Andrici, below) who plays the daughter's interesting but quite unsettling boyfriend.

Home video debut for Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini and Nuccio Siano's impressive and beautifully written Italian drama, TAINTED SOULS

Note: This excellent film is now available

-- as of September 2019, at least -- via Amazon Prime

The original Italian title of TAINTED SOULS -- a new drama about a neighborhood, bisexuality, drugs, money and power -- is Il contagio, which translates, as you might guess, to The Contagion. Perhaps that sounded like too much of a sci-fi thriller for proper international distribution, but it makes a much better (and less pompous) title than Tainted Souls There is nothing at all pompous about this beautifully wrought and gorgeously written exploration of love (mostly unrequited), loss, and life among Italians trying so hard to better themselves with little hope of actually achieving this.

The films directing duo --  Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini (shown above, with Signore Coluccini on the left) -- also wrote the film, with some help from one of its stars, Nuccio Siano, who plays (and very well) Carmine, the major villain of the piece. One of the many characters in this tale of a Rome neighborhood, which looked to me maybe lower-but-still-striving-middle-class, is a successful novelist in the midst of an affair with a 40-year-old body builder, Marcello (Vinicio Marchioni, below), who is married to a woman who loves him, even if they rarely, if ever, have sex. Marcello's main goal is going to the gym and keeping that still-beautiful body in shape.

His writer/lover, called The Professor, and played to perfection by Vincenzo Salemme (shown below, center), sort of narrates the film. It is his words we hear at the beginning, and again those same words at film's end. Yet what a difference that second time around! If you are not moved to tears or perhaps experience a kind of catharsis at all you have seen and what it has meant, as those words resonate again, I shall be very surprised.

In the midst of the film, the professor speaks at length of what Marcello means to him, and the words are perhaps the most beautiful and moving I've ever heard expressed about "the love object." If this is not art, I don't know what is. I was certain at this point that the movie must have been based on a novel, with this portion of dialog taken word-for-word from the source. Evidently not. We have one, two, maybe all of the three co-writers to thank, as well as Signore Salemme's beautiful delivery of those words. (My mistake: Upon a second viewing of Tainted Souls, during the end credits, I found that the film is indeed based upon a novel, Il Contagio, written by Walter Sitti. I hope Signore Sitti was pleased with the film version.)

We also get to know a number of other tenants of the building and experience a peek into their lives, some of which are sad indeed (a robbery and fur coat figure into things). In the second half (there's a Three Years Later title card), the film turns its attention from Marcello to the character of Mauro (Maurizio Tesei, below), who plays second-in-command to Carmine's crime lord.

Mauro has earlier been instrumental in saving Marcello from the wrath of Carmine (Signore Siano, shown below). It is not clear if there may be a sexual attraction between Mauro and Marcello or simply the chance for a special and perhaps deep friendship.

Either way, that increasing contagion of the power/drugs/wealth combo will eventually destroy this relationship, too. Though the filmmakers deal with some awful and violent stuff, they never rub anything in our faces. We understand what happens and feel its horror and weight but are not subjected to anything approaching slasher-movie nonsense. (A stoning, below, is handled with a surprising, Saint Sebastian-like combination of terror and grace.)

Instead we get a good dose of everything from philosophy and religion to economics, politics and class (there are divergences in that latter category, it seems, even among the criminal set). Finally, as the end credits roll, we feel that we've lived with and loved these people. We understand them, suffer with them, and feel deeply their humanity -- even, in some cases, when there is almost nothing of it that remains.

The film also treats its female characters with unusual clarity and affection, especially Marcello's wife (played by Anna Foglietta, below, of Escort in Love and the recent Diva!), who handles her "other woman" role with the sadness, hope-against-hope and gravity it deserves.

From Breaking Glass Pictures, running 112 minutes and in Italian with English subtitles, Tainted Souls makes its home video debut tomorrow, Tuesday, July 24, on DVD and VOD -- for purchase and/or rental.

Agnès Varda's back, with JR in tow and maybe her most delightful doc yet: FACES PLACES

She is not only one of France's most sublime national treasures, but that of cinema, too, and her worth simply grows from film to film. Agnès Varda's latest -- and perhaps her last (she turns 90 next May, and both her general strength and eyesight seem to be slowly failing) -- turns out to be a lovely collaboration with a photographer and muralist who goes by the name of JR. (His moniker is not a nod to Dallas, I am guessing).

The collaboration turns out to be a near-perfect one, with the pair complementing and setting each other off in the most wonderful of ways. He (shown at left) is tall; she's short. She (shown below) is old; he's young. He is hugely private, never removing his dark glasses, while she could hardly be more transparent. And they're both so full of talent and creative juice that spending 90 minutes with them will seem as though you've died and gone directly to art/cinema/ photography/mural

heaven. Not to mention all the lovely people and animals you'll meet along the way. I don't think you will even need to have viewed other Varda pix to fully appreciate this one, for it bubbles along with such life, energy and good will that it rather dares you not to immediately fall in love with it, its creators and all the folk you meet within. (If you're new to Varda, I would suggest Cleo from 5 to 7 and The Gleaners and I for starters.) The more you've already seen of her films, however, the more you will understand and appreciate why this one seems maybe the culmination of all she has accomplished.

How does she do it, one wonders? By "it," I mean the ease by which she manages to connect all these people and the "art" they contribute here by simply allowing themselves to be filmed and photographed -- JR's amazing enlargements of the photos then being glued to their local buildings -- as well as by speaking with the filmmakers and sharing bits of their lives. All this coalesces into something simple and very pleasurable yet also somehow rich and profoundly humane.

As one of the interviewees mentions en route, "Art is supposed to surprise us, right?" Absolutely. Hence the surprise and delight we take in meeting everyone from the woman, above, who refuses to move out of her "condemned" row of old houses formerly occupied by French miners (she was a miner's wife)

to the flock of goats we meet, along with the folk who raise them. Some goats no longer have horns; the how and why of this is explored quite interestingly, with no judgment made but nonetheless giving us the information we need to make our own.

Then there are the wives of the dockworkers whom we meet and get to know just a bit, before their images (at left) are attached to the huge containers that the workers must fill and empty. We go from towns to countryside to the Louvre (through which JR pushes Varda in her wheelchair, as an homage to Godard's running-through-the-Louvre scene in Bande à part.

She still rather worships Godard (foolishly, in my estimation, for she is twice the filmmaker that this over-rated, misogynistic pretension-artist usually is). Varda and JR go to Godard's "new house" for breakfast, and his response should not surprise anyone who follows the man's films.

Among some genuinely precious moments here are a look at a town's "bell ringer," the worker in a salt factory who tries to keep the place "accident-free," and the dear old (and now deceased) friend of Varda, Guy Bourdin, whom we see as a young man who was Varda's model. How Bourdin's youth becomes very briefly immortalized, below, is wonderful, strange and sad.

The final gift that these filmmakers offer each other at film's end is so take-your-breath-away perfect that Faces Places (Visages, villages in the original French) immediately becomes a movie that, like all of Varda's work, you'll want and need to view again.

From Cohen Media Group and running just 90 minutes, opens theatrically this Friday, October 6, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and on October 13 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 and Royal theaters. Elsewhere. Yes, nationwide, in limited release, but I have not found a link to the list of theaters, as yet....

Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest, AFTER THE STORM, opens in New York via Film Movement

For those of us who love the work of Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, the chance to see another of his graceful, beautiful explorations of family connection and growth will not go unattended. In the last couple of Hirokazu's films that TrustMovies has seen, however --  Our Little Sister and his latest, AFTER THE STORM -- it seems to me that the slow pace is slackening even further, while any surprise has gone almost completely missing. While these elements might be deal-breakers for some movie-makers, where Hirokazu is concerned, they don't matter so much. This is due to the rich, human detail he always provides regarding his main characters. You come away from his films steeped in the many individual idiosyncrasies of character, as well as a greater understanding and appreciation of the culture at large.

There is also a grand sense of kindness experienced here, both from the individuals shown and via directorial intent. This is not to say that the people we meet are all good and sweet all the time. Hardly. Our main character here, Dad, played Hiroshi Abe (below, of Hirokazu's I Wish and Still Walking), is a novelist with writer's block who now works as a sleazy private detective, catching husbands or wives in extra-marital affairs to pay his bills (which he rarely seems able to pay, in any case). He is also not above selling out his client, if he can make some extra money off the spouse. Yeah: nice.

This guy also loves to gamble, much to the consternation of his ex and his mother, each of whom is brought to lovely life respectively by Yôko Maki (shown below, of Like Father, Like Son) and Kirin Kiki (of Sweet Bean), shown further below. Both actresses bring such truth and concern to their characters that they help keep the movie on track, given Dad's consistently bad behavior.

In fact, the movie threatens to go off the track, due to Dad, who seems so unable to change, learn or grow in a better direction that, given what you know from Kirokakzu's other films, his "turnaround" is simply going to be unbelievable: too much too late. Stick with After the Storm, though, because the filmmaker manages, as usual, to give us growth in such tiny but smart increments that we not only buy it, we finally revel in it.

There is one scene in particular, in which the poignancy of a failed marriage that both participants -- plus offspring and older generation --want to see repaired is captured with such beauty, sadness and delicacy that, all on its own, it makes the movie worth seeing.

Hirozaku is also finely attuned to the manner in which that apple never falls far from its tree (we learn quite a lot about the recently deceased grandfather, too). Yet in this filmmaker's world, both apple and tree are decidedly mixed bags -- plenty of negatives but some redeeming positives in the mix -- from which Dad's young son (a very good performance by a young actor, above, left, whose name I am not certain of) will also grow and change.

The film is firmly anchored by the excellent performance from Mr. Hiroshi (above and below), a tall, rangy, immensely sexy actor with charisma to spare. Watching him repeatedly fuck up and then try to make up for this, will keep you alternately annoyed and hopeful, desolate and delighted. He is a pleasure to watch in action or repose -- as is, finally, the movie itself.

From Film Movement and running a lengthy but packed-with-detail 117 minutes, After the Storm opens this Friday, March 17, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the IFC Center, Here in South Florida, it opens on Friday, April 7, at the Living Room Theaters, Boca Raton; the Tower Theater, Miami; and at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. To see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed, click here and scroll down.

The year's first absolute must-see makes its CineFamily debut in L.A. -- Adam Curtis' HYPERNORMALISATION

Anyone who has watched British documentarian Adam Curtis' films, including The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares, will not want to miss his latest effort: the mind-bending, mind-boggling HYPERNORMALISATION. Why? Because it will allow you to see and understand with utter clarity how and why the world has come to the disastrous point at which it now stands. Why, for instance, do our politicians either ignore or downplay (and certainly do very little about) climate change and instead devote their time and effort to ensuring the continued power of the financial industry and major corporations? Interestingly enough Curtis' documentary does not make this particular connection, though he makes plenty of others. Once you've seen his film, however, you will make them, too.

Curtis -- the filmmaker is shown at right -- states his thesis almost immediately: We have arrived to the woebegone and crazy state we now inhabit thanks to our politicians, who early and resolutely refused to engage with the growing complexities of the modern world and instead withdrew into the cocoon of a much simpler world, which was and is make-believe. They have now found the means to confuse the populace between fact and fiction and are using this to produce a consistent state of destabilized perception in order to manage and control us. And we're letting them.

If you have any doubt as to the veracity of this thesis, simply think of Russia under Putin, and now the USA under Trump, and what has happened to facts (or alternative facts, as certain Trumpists would call them) as we used to (or currently) know them. A correct thesis is one thing -- and the movie has it in spades -- but it is in the history provided by Mr. Curtis that HyperNormalisation truly shines. This man has a gift for revealing history, understanding it, and then making connections from what he has found. You may disagree with some of these connections, but it will be difficult, I think, to easily discount them, as so many of these are fact-based.

Curtis' film posits that 1975 was a landmark year in two locales: New York City (when the city was going bankrupt: Remember that famous newspaper headline, FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD?) and Damascus, Syria. That was when the banks first took control of New York, and that trend has only continued and grown since then. In Syria, President Hafez al-Assad faces off against Henry Kissinger, the results of which have only grow worse and less reality-based down the decades.

Soon enough, in Russia, the Communist dream collapses, as the country turns to pretense (according to Curtis, it was a Soviet writer who first coined the term HyperNormalisation), while here in the U.S. Ronald Reagan preaches god and American Exceptionalism, as a sheeplike public follows happily along. Soon we have the birth of suicide bombing (an idea that had no place in Islamic religion prior to this), the realization and continued spread of financial markets controlling governments, and then the creation of cyberspace and banking technology's almost immediate connection to and use of this new venue.

Computer utopians like John Perry Barlow versus the early hackers (whom we should thank for their prescient warnings); Muammar Gaddafi (below), who went -- thanks to the US refusal to engage with reality -- from hero to terrorist to savior back to terrorist and thanks to Reagan's attacking Libya rather than the actual culprit, Syria, we got a preview of Bush's despicable Iraq-War response to 9/11; and those wonderful UFO stories (ah, anything that might prevent our politicians from having to deal with the complexities of the real world).

It's all here, as well as a look at Jane Fonda's career, political activist to workout coach; Larry Fink, Black Rock and Aladdin; the computer therapist, Eliza; Donald Trump (again and again: his connection to a gifted Japanese gambler and the Yakuza's slice-and-dice proclivities were new to me); Pan-Am's Lockerbie bombing and America's deliberately incorrect finger-pointing; the financial crisis, Occupy, and Arab Spring -- they're all here and connected in a manner you may or may not have imagined. (The filmmaker also uses clips from famous movies  -- from Dr. Strangelove to Carrie -- in ways you will not have seen previously.)

Then finally we're back to Syria again, to come fully to terms with what 1975 has wrought, and to our new President-elect -- a man to whom truth and fact have little importance or use. I notice that the excellent movie site, MUBI, has HyperNormalisation listed under two categories: documentary and horror. Perfect. By electing politicians this venal and stupid, then following them along sheep-like, we've made it clear that humanity, in all its hypocrisy and stupidity, does not deserve to -- nor very likely will it -- survive. Future generations (if there are any), or maybe some alien life form, trying to figure out how we managed our own demise, will have much of the evidence they need right here.

HyperNormalisation, originally shown on British television and running a long but consistently urgent and compelling two hours and forty minutes, makes its Los Angeles theatrical debut this coming Friday thru Sunday, March 17-19, as that indispensable venue The CineFamily presents In the Zone: A Weekend with Adam Curtis, during which Mr. Curtis will appear in person for Q&A's and will be introducing his new film, as well as acting as host for some of his favorite movies. Click here for the full program. If you don't live in L.A, however, just how might you experience this must-see? Once The CineFamily weekend's festivities have ended, I'll try to find another way for you to view the documentary, and I'll give you an update here. So, much later... Here's a link where you can watch this truly important documentary.