Art/criticism/truth/crime combine in Giuseppe Capotondi's THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY

You may recall the name Giuseppe Capotondi from the crackerjack mystery, The Double Hour, released in the USA back in 2011. Signore Capotondi is back this year with another (sort-of) mystery entitled THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY, which, though not as extraordinary as his earlier film, still provides a lot of surprise, sophistication and fun -- especially if you enjoy movies about art, including a critique of the approaching-nonsensical criticism often written about it.

The filmmaker, shown at left, could not have cast his new film any better, had he a billion-dollar budget to waste. His quartet of performers does an extraordinary job creating full-bodied characters that alternately amuse, surprise, move and entertain us within the brief time  -- just 98 minutes -- that the movie lasts.

That cast includes the increasingly impressive Claes Bang (shown at left, below, and further below, of the recent Dracula series, as well as another very good film about art, The Square), who plays James Figueras, a relatively famous art critic whom we first meet rehearsing for and soon after giving one of his popular talks about the subject.

Into his audience, made up it appears of mostly and probably wealthy seniors, comes a very pretty young woman, Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki, at right, above and below) who remains after the "show" to spar a bit with the speaker and then ends up in bed with him.

Soon after, the two are on their way to Lake Como to meet with a famous and wealthy art collector named Cassidy, who has set up for the art critic a rare-to-impossible interview with a famous and reclusive artist named Jerome Debney.

Now, the rich collector is played by none other than Mick Jagger (above), and what a delight it is to see him acting on screen once again. You will think, 'Why doesn't he do this more often?!' and follow that with, "Well, of course: He doesn't have to; he's Mick Jagger.'  But, damn, he is good.

As the famous artist, we have no less than Donald Sutherland, giving another of his lately low-key and close to perfect performances, so you see what I mean about this great cast. As for the film's plot, it is one of those What's really going on here -- and why? explorations. Which is just fine until, toward the end, the movie takes quite a turn for the nasty.

This is jarring, to say the least, but it is not, TrustMovies thinks, the deal-breaker you might suspect because everything that happens has, in one sense, been prepared via the themes already opened and explored: art, avarice, power and, yes, the patriarchy.

Mr. Bang does a bang-up job in all respects, whether boning up his audience on art or simply boning his lady friend. He's sexy, charming and edgy -- continuing to take his place as perhaps the most prominent homme fatal of our time. Ms Debicki, lovely as always, is here even more vulnerable than she often is.

The excellent screenplay and dialog by Scott B. Smith (from the novel by Charles Willeford) is smart, subtle and sophisticated. By the finale of this artful little movie, you may find yourself with a lot of very mixed feelings. But you'll have been entertained and maybe knocked for a loop or two.

From Sony Pictures Classics, The Burnt Orange Heresy -- regarding that title, which doubles as the name of one of the artist's works, it is, notes the painter himself, "a bone tossed to the critics. They can wear themselves out chewing on it" -- opened last week in a few cities and will hit many more in the weeks to come. Here in South Florida, it will arrive on Friday, March 20, in Miami at the Coral Gables Art Cinema, and in Palm  Beach county at the Cinemark Boytnon Beach and Cinemark Palace, the  Regal Shadowood, the Living Room Theaters and the Movies of Delray. Wherever you live, click here to learn if the film is (or will be) playing at a theater or two near you.

Discover the perfect marriage (a couple of 'em) in Laura Gabbert's doc, CITY OF GOLD

OK: the first of these marriages -- of the Los Angeles-based food critic Jonathan Gold to his wife Laurie Ochoa, his former editor -- seems to work wonderfully well both personally and professionally. But it's the second one -- Mr. Gold as a superlative food critic to his hometown and still favorite city, Los Angeles -- that is the proverbial marriage-made-in-heaven. Thanks to the work of filmmaker Laura Gabbert, shown below, we learn a lot about both of these couplings, while enjoying the experience immensely.

Ms Gabbert has the good sense to keep her documentary, CITY OF GOLD, focused heavily on her subject, and Mr Gold (shown above and below, in two of his haunts) proves an intelligent, thoughtful, warm and gracious host -- in the process almost convincing TrustMovies, a former born-and-raised Angeleno who used to hate this would-be city, that it might be pretty damned wonderful, after all. It certainly offers the most amazing array of tasty and varied restaurants that anyone could ask for -- even if you have to drive for hours to get to many of them. Lengthy drives, usually in heavy traffic, have become -- ever since the destruction of the city's fabulous public transportation system during the late 1940s and early 50s -- indigenous to Los Angeles.

Ms Gabbert gives us only snippets of Gold's writing, but these are enough to make us want to go to the source and read more. She weaves history, tradition, diversity and all kinds of food and restaurants -- all of which are filtered through Mr Gold's lovely sensibility -- into the tale of a "critic" who ups the standard for criticism via... well, you'll see. And hear. His thoughts about just about everything seem well worth knowing. He calls one little place a "miracle of entry-level Capitalism" and he and his director have a good time making fun of the "anonymous restaurant critic" (below) -- an idea which he thoroughly pooh-poohs.

We come to understand how and why this critic chooses the restaurants he does -- often family run and what some of us might call a tad "low-end." The reason is because the owners and chefs are cooking for their community, rather than for critics or tourists or "haute cuisine-ists." It turns out that Gold never reviews a restaurant until he has frequented it several times (I believes he mentions that his record is 17 times prior to review). Clearly this is no rush-to-judgment kind of guy. He also, toward the end of this really excellent documentary, explains something that is epidemic to criticism and that he attempts to derail: the idea of "contempt prior to investigation." Gold appears to lack the former but works hard to accomplish the latter.

That last explains a lot about this man and his mission, I think. (He's as likely to cover someone's "taco trailer," above, as go to a sit-down restaurant.) So sit back and enjoy the many interviews with restaurants owners, chefs, and other critics (Ruth Reichl makes an appearance here, too), along with Gold's family and friends. Together all this becomes a genuinely new and revealing look at a place we often take for granted, its enormously diverse people, and the food they cook, eat and share.

City of Gold,  from Sundance Selects/IFC Films and running 96 minutes, after opening in New York and Los Angeles hits South Florida tomorrow in the Miami area at the O Cinema- Wynwood.