Dealing with the future in Noble Jones' unsettling, funny, surprising and moving movie, THE TOMORROW MAN

Audiences are not going to want to hear the message of THE TOMORROW MAN, the new movie from Noble Jones (here being billed as Nobel Lincoln Jones), any more than the recipient of the telephone call wants to hear the message being told him by the character, Ed (played so very well by John Lithgow) that opens this unusual film.

That message is this: The world we live in is today in such terrible trouble environmentally, politically, morally that we must do something/anything -- arm ourselves, stockpile, get ready, do something! -- before the shit (whether via our environment or our fellow man) hits the fucking fan.

Now, Mr. Jones, shown at right, whether by intention or maybe accident (I doubt the latter), has peopled his movie with two main characters so oddball and interesting, and then cast his film with two actors of such graceful, aging countenance and top-tier talent that you cannot take your eyes off them, as that aforementioned theme keeps rolling forward.

In addition to Mr. Lithgow (shown below, left), we have Blythe Danner (below, right) in yet another of her impressive senior-years roles (See You in My Dreams, What They Had, The Chaperone), and together these two superb actors bring to life a couple of characters we might not want to spend a lot of time with in real life -- due to their strange

compulsions/obsessions -- but are more than happy to watch in a movie that puts them front and center, then lets them run with the film and, for some folk, at least, steal it from under its urgent and uncompromising message. How uncompromising you will only understand at movie's end. Which I will not go into here.

Taken as a whole, The Tomorrow Man is a lot more than the sum of its clever parts: surly/sweet old codgers who are difficult but loveable; younger generation family members who just don't get it but still provide some love and support; an urgent warning of how we are losing the world we inhabit.

As much fun as the film often is, how terrific are its lead performances, how well-constructed the screenplay and well-written is the dialog, how astutely directed is scene after scene, overall, this is one quietly jolting experience. Sure, we ought to enjoy today -- the now and all that -- as the film points out. But, hello, what about the future?

From that opening scene, as what we hear sounds like some very intelligent, if aggressive, radio or TV pundit prognosticating on our dire future but then turns out to be someone quite different, Mr. Jones knows how to keep us on our toes by subverting expectation. Lithgow and Danner do this subverting, too -- as so many intelligent actors can. They know that surprising us is every bit as important as entertaining and/or pleasing us. And Jones has given them the opportunity to do all three.

The Tomorrow Man is full of ironies -- its title being but one of these. It will probably annoy as many people as it pleases, but it is worth seeing, enjoying, wrestling with and -- yes -- being depressed by. From Bleecker Street and running 94 minutes, the movie opens here in South Florida this Friday, May 31, in Boca Raton at the Cinemark Palace 20 and Regal Shadowood 18, and in Palm Beach Gardens at Cobb's Downtown at the Gardens 16. On Friday, June 14, the movie will expand to The Movies of Delray and the Movies of Lake Worth and to the Miami area at AMC's Sunset Place 24 and Aventura 24, CMX Brickell City Center 10, the Coral Gables Art Cinema, and Regal's South Beach 18. Wherever you live around the country, click here to learn if and when the film will be coming to a theater near you.

Pelicans, as you've never seen them (& never will, actually), in Shawn Seet's STORM BOY

At the end of the end credits for STORM BOY, a new and contemporary re-telling of an Australian classic story, you can just barely read the following: This film is a work of fiction and does not represent the real biology or nature of pelicans. Keeping pelicans requires specialist knowledge. Pelicans are not suitable as pets.

Any viewers who've hung on until now (particularly those who know anything about pelicans) will probably laugh themselves silly at this information, as we've just seen a movie that is very nearly a complete fantasy -- one that goes utterly against those end-credit words of warning.

Based on the novel by Colin Thiele, with a screenplay by Justin Monjo, and directed with decent pacing and visual flair by Shawn Seet (shown at left), this modern-day version (an earlier film was made back in 1976) features Geoffrey Rush (below) as a kindly grand-dad who also sits on the board of an important something-or-other that is being environmentally threatened by mining interests.

Rush's son represents those interests, while his granddaughter is adamantly set against them and wants her grand-dad to help prevent the take-over. As grand-pappy wrestles with all this, he recalls his younger days and tells his grand-daughter the story of his life.

As you might imagine, the movie jumps back and forth in time from now to then, and we see the younger Rush (played by Finn Little, above), as he loses his mother in a car accident and then goes to live on a remote island with his grieving dad (Jai Courtney, below).

There, he and another island loner he meets (Trevor Jamieson, below, left) end up adopting a trio of orphaned pelicans, whom they help survive and then raise to adulthood, and the bond between boy and birds (especially one of the birds) becomes a strong one.

Sub-plots abound and the film is awash with certain stand-bys of Australian cinema, including the very wise and nature-connected Aborigine. There's a good deal of humor and plenty of emotion generated, too (anyone, like me, who is a shoo-in for human/wildlife bonding movies should bring an entire box of Kleenex to the theater).

Despite the near-complete unreality of the pelican/human relationship here, it will probably be difficult not to give in to the movie's beauty and emotional pull. (Bird lovers will simultaneously wince and wish it could be so.)

Past and present eventually coalesce, and we feel as though some sort of climate justice may occur, not to mention the doubling-in-area of the local sanctuary for birds. As I say, this is a fantasy movie, but done with enough skill and smarts to bring it to life -- at least for as long as the images flicker on the screen in front of you.

From Good Deed Entertainment and running 99 minutes, Storm Boy opens this coming Friday, April 5, nationwide. Here in South Florida,  you can see it in Miami at the AMC Aventura 24 and in the Fort Lauderdale area at the AMC Pompano 18. Wherever you live around the country, click here then scroll down to find a theater near you.

Paul Schrader's FIRST REFORMED: an unintentional remake of Beatriz at Dinner

Style- and character-wise, FIRST REFORMED, the new film written and directed by Paul Schrader, has almost nothing in common with last year's movie, Beatriz at Dinner, written by Mike White and directed by Miguel Arteta. Theme- and content-wise, however, the two films are close enough to seem like two sides of the same coin.

Consider: both films present a "religious" protagonist who, in suffering through a spiritual crisis, comes upon a person of wealth and power who is doing indelible harm to the environment, both locally and globally. Our protagonist sees the opportunity to rid the world of this man, and then must decide if and how to act on this.

Granted, Mr. Schrader (the writer/director is shown at right) has a sensibility and style that could hardly be more different from those of the Arteta/White combo. The latters' film is as entertaining and full of life as the former's is bleak and dour: think Bresson by way of Bergman.

Further, though in Schrader's film, his leading character -- a priest in the titular Protestant First Reformed Church (played as well as possible under the circumstances, by Ethan Hawke, shown above and below) --  is an alcoholic in danger of losing the sparse congregation he barely has, the Beatriz character is equally religious, a masseuse and healer who has no "church," yet from all we see and hear about her and her history, has enabled patient after patient to embrace a better life.

Do you find it as odd-yet-telling as do I that so many of our critics so easily embrace the "angsty" and by-now thoroughly done-to-death spiritual crisis of a male priest in a brick-and-mortar church, while pretty much ignoring something just as vital and important experienced by a woman who is simply what you might call "spiritual" but who has no edifice/congregation? (Salma Hayek in the role of Beatriz gives an even deeper and infinitely more varied performance than does the highly constrained Mr. Hawke.)

Both films leave their protagonist, as well as their audience, up in the air, yet Beatriz does this in a manner that is absolutely understandable and acceptable because the question of commiting a murder in order to stop something hugely evil shakes its heroine's individual morality to its core. In both films, the increasingly timely and vital question is asked, What action can we/must we take to help stop the destruction of our world? The answer is right in front of us in both films, but can that road be taken by a supposedly moral person?

Arteta and White cannot answer because they know that there is no answer in terms of a single person being able to change what must come from an entire country/government. Schrader's answer is almost shockingly melodramatic and predictable. Without, I hope, giving away spoilers, what we have here goes something like this: I must do this -- sacrifice myself along with many others, some of them innocent -- in order for good to triumph over evil. And then: Oh, my god, I can't do this because everything has suddenly changed.

How it changes and why makes the damning difference to this pristine-yet-overwrought and very over-rated film. Unfortunately for intelligent audiences who've seen a few movies over their lifetime, the film's climax and denouement are handled so predictably and obviously that viewers will figure out just about every step before it happens. And then be frustrated by the simple-minded silliness of it all. But because this is such serious stuff, folk, we ask that you try not to laugh.

That First Reformed has received near-unanimously good reviews boggles my mind because the movie spells literally everything out and leaves so little room for wiggle. It is also relentlessly dour and slow-paced. On the plus side is the excellent performance from Cedric the Entertainer (as Cedric Kyles), shown above, in the role of the minister of the town's mega-church. Just as he did in the little seen but terrific Grassroots, Cedric brings his keen intelligence and his especially engaging quality to a role that could easily descend into cliche.

In the distaff lead, Amanda Seyfried (above) can do little more than fill out what is a standard female role. Victoria Hill does better playing the church-woman with the hots for Hawke who simply cannot take 'no' for an answer.

TrustMovies rushed out to see First Reformed once it opened down here in South Florida because he is a long-time fan of Schrader's work as both writer and director. As other critics have pointed out, this movie would seem to encapsulate so many of the themes and idea that have been important to the filmmaker throughout his life and career. So true. But, gosh, I wish these ideas had come to better fruition.

From A24 and running 113 minutes, the movie may still be playing in a few theaters. To find one near you, click here.

Business saves the planet in Mark van Wijk and Pedram Shojai's documentary, PROSPERITY...

...and not just any Capitalistic business. Oh, no: It's "conscious business," rather than the unconscious variety we're evidently more used to, that is going to do the trick here. If TrustMovies sounds a tad unconvinced, this is only because it seems a little late in the game to be offering up -- as does the new documentary PROSPERITY -- a very small-potato/band-aid solution to something so major, even as climate change and warming/rising oceans flood entire islands and shorelines and cause hurricanes to hit more often and more strongly. But, hey: Every little bit counts. Or does it?

It does indeed, according to director Mark van Wijk (shown at right) and his subject/narrator Pedram Shojai (below) who together travel some of the globe to interview examples of this new-ish business trend and explain how Conscious Capitalism/Business works, while in the process helping just about everyone. It is indeed encouraging to see and hear some of these business "leaders" explain what they're doing and why: among them, Paulette Cole, a lady who owns ABC Carpet and Home; Naomi Whittel, whose cocoa business out of

Panama is also going great guns; and Thrive Market, which brings healthy organic food to America's heartland at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, among other businesses included here is Whole Foods, the main purpose of which, other than making very rich its owner, has been to provide the elite with food to eat (together with the ability to feel so good about their going organic) and has by now been involved in enough scandals to disqualify its inclusion. The recent sale of Whole Foods to Amazon immediately lowered many of the prices, but against Amazon's increasing monopoly on business worldwide, I am not sure whether all this will play in any kind long-term positive fashion. Of course, neither am I sure that our planet itself will play out in any long-term positive fashion.

The movie grows more interesting when it deals with a company like The Container Store that appears to be dedicated to its employees, who in turn seem very dedicated to their clients, us consumers. You can still make money, some of these business owners assure us. Profit will be there, but it will simply be a smaller one. Of course, that's anathema to many Capitalists.

Things grow even more interesting when we arrive at The Stakeholder Theory vs The Shareholder version. Sustainable investing -- and how to democratize this  -- comes into play, as well, and we even learn about banks that have a conscience!

The documentary ends with a section on how to act regarding all this and what, specifically, we, as individuals, can do. Shops more wisely, support businesses that give back to society, you know the routine.  Many of us have been doing this for years, so perhaps we can be forgiven for not noticing much change -- except for the worse.

Still the movie is beautifully filmed, and it is always encouraging to note even a dent being made in plastic recycling/reduction (toward the end of the film, no less than Proctor & Gamble gets involved with the native Panama community). In my estimation, individuals can help, but for all this to actually "take off," one might think a good push from government would be in order. Good luck with that.

Prosperity, from Well.org, and running 84 minutes, hits theaters (the IFC Center in New York City and Laemmle's Music Hall 3 in Los Angeles)  According to the distributor, the film will also be available via via well.org's Global Online Free Screening as of October 5, 2017.

Andreas Johnsen's edible-insects documentary, BUGS, offers a whole new kind of food porn

Part slasher/torture porn (with insects the recipients), part food documentary, part globe-trotting travel movie, part environmentally-conscious, What-will-future-generation eat? treatise, BUGS, the new doc from Danish filmmaker Andreas Johnsen is quite something: consistently interesting; peopled with smart, thoughtful, caring characters; and often a lot of weird, expand-your-horizons fun. Recommending it to mainstream audiences, however, comes with a few caveats, beginning with the fact that entomophagy has an eeewwww! factor that is awfully high.

Mr. Johnsen, shown at right, above with his three "stars": left to right, Josh Evans, Roberto Flores and Ben Reade, manages, in just 76 minutes, to introduce us to the idea of actually eating insects and enjoying the experience via the two young gentlemen above, Josh and Ben, who seem to think of themselves as "food adventurers," courtesy of the Nordic Food Lab that sponsored their work. That work consists of traveling the world, trying various insects treats -- from Australia to Kenya, Mexico to The Netherlands and even to Italy to try some cheese filled with worms. (If I recall correctly, one of our heroes reaction to the latter is, "It tastes good. But I prefer Camembert.")

Generally, though, the gourmet palates of these two plucky fellows (and the intern, Roberto, who eventually becomes their chef) seem to greatly appreciate the various insects they try. And to their credit, not once do we hear the reaction, "It tastes like chicken!" Oh, no. In fact, one juicy delectable (I think it was ant larvae) is said by Josh to smell like goat cheese and by Ben (above) to taste like avocado." So there.

The movie begins with our chef and what we are told is a skillet filled with maggot fat (ummm!). Very soon, a group of intrepid folk are given what is referred to as "airplane food for the 22nd Century." The menu here is impressive indeed.  One of the more interesting of the team's adventures take them to Kenya, where they discover how tasty termites can be -- especially their hive's queen, who turns out to be more liquid than anything else. Particularly when, by accident, she is squashed.

TrustMovies is making jokes of all this, but Josh and Ben take it very, very seriously. The idea of sustainable food production plays a large part in the movie, late in which, Josh goes to an important meeting in Switzerland, the point of which I wasn't sure I fully understood. (As a filmmaker, Johnsen is bigger on showing than on telling, so we have to make do with what we can garner from the occasional off-the-cuff conversations we overhear via sound design that it not all it might be.) It seemed clear to me that the meeting did not go all that well, yet Josh and the Nordic Food Lab persevere.

You'll grow fond of these two lads, and of Roberto, too, even as some questions do arise. We see an awfully lot of insects killed, often cooked alive, which I guess, depending on your idea about the sanctity of life of species other than human, you will view with alarm or understanding. I can imagine a spin-off from PETA -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Insects -- arising out of this documentary.

But someday, long into the future, when your great-grandkids invite you for a holiday dinner of wasp, cricket and grasshopper stew, preceded by an appetizer of sauteed queen termite (above), just remember: You saw it here first at New York City's Film Forum.  That's where BUGS, from Kino Lorber, opens for its U.S. theatrical debut this coming Wednesday, September 27, for a one-week run. It will also play Seattle at the SIFF Cinema Uptown on October 6, in Los Angeles at Laemmle Monica Film Center on October 13, and elsewhere, too. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Peruvian-style Capitalism meets major opposition in Heidi Brandenburg & Mathew Orzel's WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE

We've heard, over the years, a lot about Brazil's deforestation of its Amazon region but not so much about what neighboring Peru has done. We're brought up to date with with a jolt and much vigor by the new documentary, WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE that takes us back a few years and then forward as two major political leaders in Peru -- the country's then-President, Alan Garcia, and Alberto Pizango, President of AIDESEP, the country's major organization devoted to indigenous rights -- square off against each other and the policies that each represents.

As very well directed and photographed (sometimes in the midst of violent unrest) by Heidi Brandenburg and Mathew Orzel (shown above, respectively right and left), and edited by Carla Gutierrez to maximize our understanding of what is going on from various angles and viewpoints, the documentary brings us up-close-and-personal to power wielded South American style by two men absolutely intent on seeing that their ends come to fruition.

While Progressives and environmentalists will of course side with Señor Pizango (above, center) and American Republicans and other promoters of Capitalism will favor Garcia (below), the filmmakers do an excellent job of offering up both men's viewpoints honestly (Garcia refused to cooperate or give interviews to the the documentarians), but it is clear from what we see that the Peruvian government, under Garcia and his minions, enacted laws that were actually illegal. Under International Convention C169, to which Peru was a signatory, it is mandatory that before the government passes a law that affects the rights of it native people, those people must first be consulted. This was never done, and since these laws have given huge corporations the power to despoil the Amazon and impact badly the heath of the natives, Pizango goes full-out against Garcia to stop this.

How all this is done -- via speeches, actions, and the use of the media to (mostly) bolster the government's case -- escalates into the kind of implacable force that leads finally to violence and death. The film, evolving rather like a thriller, proves intelligent and engulfing, showing us concisely and irrefutably how actions have consequences, many of them unintended -- perhaps on both sides, though the use of what appears to have been unnecessary gunfire by the government forces places a stronger burden of guilt upon Garcia.

The documentary show us once again, but dramatically and with startling immediacy, how the one percent of America -- in the South just as in the North -- exercises its control with an iron hand, consequences be damned. It also shows how, in fighting this control, the limits of behavior can be stretched past the breaking point.

Many scenes resonate, but one in particular, in which a cold and entitled TV talk show host "interviews" Pizango and tells hims that she should not have to be without electricity and lights because of his protests. "What about our rights?" he counters, and she cuts him off, ending the interview.

We hear several times from a scurrilous Minister of the Interior, as well as from various indigenous people, and the most personal and saddest part of the film deals with a father whose son was one of the policeman who were killed during the violence with protesters, when several of the protesters were also killed. The man's son has never been found, and the father spends his days and months searching for any information. What he finds at last is deeply moving and unsettling in ways expected and not.

The two worlds here -- wealthy and poor, the government and the people, the urban and the indigenous -- do indeed collide, and this will happen more often now that, thanks to activists, whistle-blowers and the use of social media, we can more quickly see and understand what is going on in our world and why. Once you've viewed this strong and riveting movie, I suspect that it will come to mind first from now on, whenever you hear of or think about Peru.

From First Run Features and running 103 minutes, When Two Worlds Collide opened in New York last week at Film Forum, where it is continuing its run through this coming Tuesday. It will open in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center on Friday, September 16, as well as in another ten cities and theaters. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

Note: The DVD of this film, also from First Run Features, 

will hit the street come Tuesday, November 15. 2016

Mitch Dickman's documentary, HANNA RANCH, combines conservation, ranching and family

TrustMovies didn't know anything about Kirk Hanna -- or about the Hanna family of Colorado and its rather large ranch -- before viewing the new documentary, HANNA RANCH, from filmmaker Mitch Dickman (shown below). The movie makes a fitting memorial for this unusual fellow and his family; it's one that, should you chance upon it, you won't easily forget. It combines several subjects of particular interest to the USA today -- land conservation (as opposed to development), the business of ranching, and how to make all this work together, though at this point in our environ-mental time, it is most likely too late to learn or profit from any of this.

Above all else, and emotionally-speaking, the documentary will grab you hardest in its look at family, and the feud between brothers Kirk and Steve for control of the ranch. It might also make those of us disposed to think poorly of organized religion to do so once again, as the fight seems to come down to the question of helping the environment via a better method of ranching (Kirk's plan) against selling off the property to developers and making more money (the plan of Steve, who is a member of the Mormon faith).

One of the more interesting articles I've read over the past several years is this one, from Harper's Magazine -- which makes some very pointed connections between money and the Mormon faith. The article blew back into mind as I watched Hanna Ranch and realized how brother Steve was "helping" his religion (and its proselytizing) at the expense of the rest of his family and its ranch.

The movie itself concentrates on Kirk Hanna (shown above in adulthood and below as a kid), and is, I must admit, a kind of love letter/homage to the man, who -- from what we see and hear here -- was a fellow to be reckoned with. Interestingly, his youth would seem to have predicted anything but the kind of man he eventually became.

The manner in which he teased and took advantage of his younger half-brother Jay (who suddenly replaced Kirk as the "adorable youngest child" in the family) is not, I guess, all that unusual among siblings, but how Kirk, as an adult endeavored to bring Jay back into the family and set him up as a kind of co-manager of the ranch is both commendable and interesting.

We hear from various friends and family members, including Steve -- who is constantly trying to justify his actions -- and from Eric Schlosser (above), author of Fast Food Nation, who met and began working with Kirk and found, to his surprise, that rare, ahead-of-his-time rancher who was genuinely interested in bettering the environment.

Kirk was a follower and disciple of Holistic Ranch Management, well before this kind of ranching and farming became known worldwide as the better way to do it. A smart and practical guy, Kirk also understood the usefulness of Conservations Easements. (Watching this film brought to mind the recent documentary being shown on PBS, Rebels With a Cause. Kirk Hanna seems to have been doing individually what the folk in "Rebels" were doing as a group.)

Still, considering what happened to this man, there must have been planted in Kirk as a child some strong religious seed involving shame and self-abnegation, coupled perhaps to a genetic penchant for depression. Though the movie is mostly talking heads (they talk very well) and accompanying visuals of the time, people and place, Mr. Dickman's doc builds quite a head of suspense and emotion.

This is finally a tale of a good, forward-thinking man brought down by a self-satisfied, self-justifying brother who seems to have used religion as some kind of weapon. (Surprise! Isn't that's what faith-in-the-unproveable has been best at throughout history?)

In the post-Kirk world, his widow, Ann (below), and their children, who seem relatively strong women, are doing OK. It's half-brother Jay (above) -- the sweetest, saddest of the family -- who is having the most difficult time. He'll tear at your heart without even trying. Hanna Ranch is one powerful, sad and memorable documentary.

The film, running a brief 73 minutes, opens this Friday, May 16, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and in the L.A. area at Laemmle's Play-house 7, Pasadena, before moving in the weeks to come to Colorado and Texas.  You can see all currently scheduled playdates by clicking here.