Special effects win out over all else in Nicholas Ashe Bateman's THE WANTING MARE

According to the press release about this new film, "an intimate, dramatic fantasy epic written and directed by renowned digital artist Nicholas Ashe Bateman" (the filmmaker is shown below), the movie is "a technical marvel of digital world-building and independent ambition, the sprawling vistas, fantastical sights, and otherworldly tableaus of THE WANTING MARE were lensed almost entirely inside a warehouse in Paterson, New Jersey."

Yes, I have to admit that nothing I saw on screen at all reminded me, even in the least, of Paterson, New Jersey. Nor, unfortunately of the wonders I encountered in Jim Jarmusch's lovely film set in that city. While TrustMovies supposes that, yes, it is some kind of accomplishment to create a bunch of 

too often dark, muddy, rather ugly visuals that way too desperately try to conjure an alternate world via CGI effects plus whatever you've shot of characters moving across one of those "green screens" in a New Jersey warehouse, still, the end result needs to be measured against a film whose dialog and storyline somehow pull you in and carry you along. The Wanting Mare never even began to pull me in, and by its finale left me so annoyed and frustrated that I couldn't give a shit about anything except getting this tiresome twaddle the fuck over with.

The opening information alerts us to something about horses being transported from a warm climate to a cold one (yes, we do see a horse now and again during the movie), and we get some drivel about dreams, a newborn baby, a pretty young woman and a young man on the run. Soon we're moving between past and present time, encountering older and younger versions of our characters.

After awhile it becomes apparent that the filmmaker is simply feeding us a bunch of the usual movie cliches -- from the "quest" (this time for some much-vaunted "ticket") to boy/girl love story, masked men with guns, murder, vengeance, and must I keep going? -- which are somehow supposed to be more interesting when they are plastered onto a "timeless neverland" locale. And yet everything here seems utterly generic, including that "exotic" locale.

The images are consistently dark and muddy (seems to go with the territory when one is doing all CGI effects). Worse, Bateman's insistence on having his characters near-constantly gazing soulfully into the distance lengthens his movie by -- what -- one full third? (The content level here is nowhere near the actual running time.)

Some critics have described this thing as "poetic." Really? Only for those who have little appreciation for good poetry -- which is usually distilled. This film is instead bloated. Not wanting to beat a dead mare, I'll simply say that this is not my cup of.... anything at all. Rather than belabor any longer, I'll just offer you the viewing details below.

From Gravitas Ventures and running 89 minutes, the movie opened in theaters and via VOD on February 5. Click here for more information on the choices you have to watch this movie.

Armando Iannucci's THE DEATH OF STALIN: Russian history as both tragedy AND farce

They say that history plays out the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. British filmmaker Armando Ianucci has come up with the brilliant idea of playing both simultaneously and then executed that idea in exactly the manner it needs to work best. THE DEATH OF STALIN is at once horrifying and hilarious, ridiculous and rueful and best of all somehow true to the history that we (we older folk, at least) remember hearing -- if not, thankfully, experiencing.

Americans may have to wait for the full-out Donald Trump dictatorship to get a taste of that -- the difference being that Trump and his flunkies don't possess one whit of the intelligence of those Russians, back then or, for that matter, now, particularly that of the putrid Putin. Trump and crew have got the entitlement, vanity and avarice down pat, but more will be needed.

Mr. Iannucci, pictured at right, has shown us what he's capable of many times before -- from Alan Partridge to In the Loop to Veep (the last of which I still have not seen). The Death of Stalin may be his masterwork, something unlike anything I've previously witnessed at the movies.

After giving us just a smidgen of historical facts about the time and place we're about to enter, he tosses us into it -- at a radio concert overseen by Paddy Considine (below) to which Comrade Stalin now wants the recording. Problem is, there has been no recording made.

The uproar, the all-out fear this causes, together with how the situation is handled, proves a master-stroke in bringing out the humor and horror, and the movie simply continue in this vein -- growing more so as events pile up.

One of the more unusual choices Iannucci has made is to have each of his actors use his or her own accent through the film. Consequently, rather than having all the actors ape faux Russian accents (as in the recent Red Sparrow), each simply uses his native one. Since most of the cast is British, most of the accents are, too -- from Stalin's (mouthed by Adrian McLoughlin) to his sexy son's (Rupert Friend) to Lavrentiy Beria, the miscreant who hopes to assume power once Stalin is gone (played by the great Simon Russell Beale, below, left).

But wait, Olga Kurylenko, who plays the concert pianist who helps sets this all in motion, is Ukranian by birth and so uses her own very eastern European accent. And then we have the likes of Steve Buscemi who plays Khrushchev (shown at far right, below)...

...and Jeffrey Tambor (below, as Malenkov), both of whom speak with their own very American accents. While this is initially shocking, given how movies so often handle "foreign-sounding speech," even more shocking is how damned well this works. Our ear gets used to it all in a flash, and the actors can then simply continue with their spot-on performances, which mix smiles and shocks that blend beautifully with the humor and horror on hand. In its entirety, the movie works its magic like little else you will have seen.

The Death of Stalin also brings us a look at the lives of those Russian apparatchiks in ways that other films have not. How they can spin on a dime from yes to no, right to wrong, good to bad -- all the while exhibiting the kind of craven fear, occasionally bolstered by cold fury, that working under the thumb of insane dictator like Stalin could produce. The result looks something like what Mel Brooks might have come up with, had he lived his entire life in abject terror.

While most of the cast is male, and first-rate, we also get a couple of nice turns from the distaff side: Ms Kurylenko and the so-versatile-that-she-is-often-unrecognizable Andrea Riseborough (below) as Stalin's daughter Svetlana. Still, as in Stalin's time, this was a man's game and the various ways he could play it seem as numerous as the characters on view. And while one might win for a time, there was always another schemer waiting in the wings with claws held back but at the ready -- as Iannucci's final pre-end-credits note/visual makes cleverly clear.

In the crack cast, literally everyone manages to stand out at one time or another -- Michael Palin giving the subtlest performance and Jason Isaacs (below), along with Rupert Friend, offering the most over-the-top (all three work perfectly, by the way). I have to acknowledge Misters Buscemi, Tambor and Beale as the standouts here. For sheer versatility and delight, consider Beale's performances in this film, together with those in The Deep Blue Sea and the cable television' series Penny Dreadful to recall how no-limits incredible this actor can be.

Final credit, however, must go to Iannucci and his co-writers. What a brilliant job this humorist/filmmaker and crew have done in not simply combining but also perfectly balancing history, humor, horror and character into something vastly entertaining, thought-provoking and just a little fear-inducing, too. It's happening in today's Russia all over again. Could that kind of terror happen here? If our country grows any dumber and less alert, yes, absolutely.

From IFC Films and running 107 minutes, The Death of Stalin, after opening in some major cities a week or so back, hits South Florida (and elsewhere) tomorrow, Friday. March 23 in Miami at the Landmark at Merrick Park, Regal South Beach 18 and AMC Sunset Place. Beginning the following Friday, March 30, the film will open in Miami at the O Cinema Miami Beach and the AMC Aventura; in Fort Lauderdale at The Classic Gateway Theatre, in Coral Springs at the Regal Magnolia Place 16, in Hollywood at the Regal Oakwood 18, in Pembroke Pines at the Regal Westfork 13, in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood, and in Palm Beach Gardens at Cobb's Downtown at the Mall Gardens Palm 16.

Sexual harassment squared in Sharad Kant Patel's genre jumper, SOMEBODY'S DARLING

A very interesting, often impressive blend of frat house misbehavior, feminist leanings, male prerogative, sexual harassment and the supernatural, SOMEBODY'S DARLING, the first full-length narrative film from Sharad Kant Patel, proves a surprisingly artful concoction -- a movie that hits several of today's hot-button issues head on, even as it successfully morphs into something quite creepy and otherworldly.

Mr. Patel, shown below, is mashing at least two major genres here, and doing this in such a way that be gives both their due, while withholding from us as long as possible the specifics that will eventually enfold one genre, the obsessive love story, into the other -- which is something else indeed.

Before TrustMovies does any over-praising, he must admit that the movie, though only 80 minutes, is still a bit too repetitive for its own good. Yet within those 80 minutes, Patel does such an interesting job of leading and misleading us, dropping hints and clues with skill and panache, that despite the film's refusal to give up its secrets much prior to the finale, he keeps us hanging on. In addition to the screenwriting and direction, our filmmaker is also responsible for the editing, visual effects, some of the music and sound design, and even the color grading and the inventive title sequence. Pretty much top to bottom, this is Patel's baby.

His story of a particular frat house at Williamsburg University (sounds real enough but isn't) and what these bad boys get up to with the girls on campus is typically nasty and unpleasant. But one of the guys, Christian, the frat house President, seems both better and worse than the others. When he becomes smitten with a young lady named Sarah, who prefers to keep her distance from the likes of these frat boys, all the usual bets are off.

As played by Paul Galvan (above, left) and Jessa Settle (above, right) these two characters easily hold the screen, thanks to their talent, looks and charisma, and to Mr. Patel's having given them plenty to do and say that keeps us glued. This is a love story of sorts, and exactly how and why these two feel the way they do is unveiled to us slowly and artfully.

How the filmmaker handles everything from simple (or not so) storytelling to sex, love and past lives is done with enough style and subtlety to impress without appearing pretentious. This is a feat of sorts. And he has also cast his smaller roles well, with an eye to making his young women pretty and slightly vapid and his young men -- for instance, Matt Tramel, below -- pretty and slightly bizarre. It works.

His finale is a shocker that makes exquisite sense. It also makes us think back to what we've seen earlier and how we've misread certain events that now look so different, appalling instead of frat-boy appealing, with the stakes so much higher than we had first imagined.

And yet, ah, what might have been! Somebody's Darling is indeed a love story, but as with almost all obsessive ones, it proves very, very dark.

After a successful festival run, the movie hit VOD -- via iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere -- on December 1, for rental and purchase. It's worth a watch.

On-Demand: Bryan Poyser's LOVERS OF HATE via SXSW and IFC

Mumblecore starts screaming in LOVERS OF HATE, a movie executive-produced by (among others) the Duplass brothers. The arguments arrive pretty much non-stop and often occur with the volume raised. And yet the film is a rather genre-less type. You could call it a dark comedy, but it's also a non-love story, as its three lead characters, however much they try, seem nearly incapable of any real amour. Too light-
weight for a drama, the movie certainly has elements of a mystery thriller, and you'll be amused by some of the clever changes it rings on the old scenario of the "secret intruder in the house."

Written and directed by Bryan Poyser (shown at left, who also made Dear Pillow), the movie -- painless to watch and relatively short -- is most of all about brotherly hate, which is here raised a notch or two above what you may yet have encountered. Jealousy that spikes during a visit of one brother (a highly successful writer of boys' fantasy/
adventure books who's pretty much a loner) to the other (the forever unsuccessful sibling who, at least, is married to an attractive women) sets off the latest competition.

The film moves from the flatlands to a gated resort area of Park City, where the wealthier bro has a mountain home. Here, we're treated to some low high-jinks involving two people who do not realize that a third is on the premises -- leading to some weighty question such as, What do you do when you can't flush the toilet because someone might hear? The ensuing complications are pretty funny-- if a little gross.

Zach Green is charming in the small role of a guard at the gated community. Otherwise the movie is completely dominated by its three leads, and quite good each one proves to be. Chris Doubek (seen on the poster at top and two photos up) plays the harried and harassing failure, Heather Kafka (above, right) is his none-too-faithful wife, and Alex Karpovsky (above, left) is the successful and pompous brother.  Mr Karpovsky, who can also be seen in the just-released-to-DVD Beeswax, appears to be quite good at staying just this side of sleazy in his semi-romantic roles.

Lovers of Hate, which made its debut at the recent SXSW fest, is available now On-Demand via IFC's Festival Direct program. Click here for the how and where to get it.