Barry Jenkins' groundbreaking MOONLIGHT: It's everything you've heard it is -- and more

Personal filmmaking raised to about as high a level as TrustMovies has so far seen, MOONLIGHT proves as quietly magnificent, immediately engrossing and enormously powerful as any film in years, if not memory. How does writer/director Barry Jenkins manage this?  Rather than expound at great length (so much of this has already been done by others), I'll first ask that you see for yourself. You'll be glad you did. (And now I'll expound just a little.)

I must admit that having seen and semi-enjoyed Mr. Jenkins' earlier Medicine for Melancholy, I would not have expected anything this momentous. What this filmmaker, shown at right, has done is give us the Black experience in a way that seems both utterly specific and hugely encompassing. That he has chosen to show us this via a character who is gay (something not exactly considered a "plus" in the Black community) makes it all the more amazing. Further, he has used three very different actors -- who look almost nothing alike facially or in body type! -- to portray the character as a boy, an adolescent and a young man.

Here they are, at left (Alex R. Hibbert, as the boy), below (Ashton Sanders as the adolescent version), and further below (Trevante Rhodes, as the young adult),

What unites these three so disparate-looking males is their very "essence," which Jenkins and his actors have captured beautifully and profoundly via the situations, the dialog (kept to a minimum) and the all-round filmmaking skills. This essence is what holds the film together and slowly allows us to understand the meaning of "character."

The movie is also about identity, where it comes from and what it means to each of us, and how, in terms of responsibility, it is up to us to form our own.

Character building and identity are ongoing things, which Moonlight also helps us understand. The movie begins in media res and ends there, too, In between, we get all we need to enter, understand, and live in the life we encounter here. This is no small potatoes, particularly where the Black experience is concerned, and it's what makes Moonlight such an achievement.

Further, I suspect that this achievement will impact both the black and white communities. Whites will come away from the film more empathetic to the black experience than via any other fictional tale except perhaps The Wire (which still holds the prize for showing us that experience more fully and empathetically than anything else).

The mainstream Black community also has a surprise in store, as it should come away from Moonlight with its own richer and more empathetic understanding of the Black gay male.

Sure, there are all kinds of lessons to be learned here, yet Moonlight seems anything but dogmatic and "teacher-y."  It engulfs you from its first scene and holds you fast through smart storytelling and expert performances. How Jenkins worked with his actors to gain their trust and let them discover that "essence" is an award-winning move all by itself.

The drug culture is a large part of this movie, too, though you will not have seen it expressed in quite the way it is here. (Again, only The Wire can top it in this respect.) That fine actor Mahershala Ali, shown above and below (from House of Cards), plays Juan, the mentor of our youngest iteration, and he's both a drug dealer and father figure.

Women play their own major roles here, too, with Naomie Harris (below) alternately horrifying and heartbreaking as our boy's drug-addled mom, and Janelle Monáe (at bottom) as his more caring, surrogate mother.

There's so much that can be said about this unusual film, the main thing being: Experience it yourself. For its penultimate scene alone, in the restaurant, below (that's André Holland, at right, as our boy's longtime best friend, Kevin), the movie will have you hanging on every heartbeat.

From A24, who clearly has another major Oscar contender here, and running 110 minutes, Moonlight -- after huge critical and box-office response to its NYC and L.A. openings -- hit the Miami area this past weekend at the O Cinema Wynwood, Regal South Beach & AMC Aventura Mall.

Friday, November 11, it opens here in Boca Raton and in the West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale areas, as well as expanding further around the entire country. In Dade County, it will play the Cinepolis Grove 15 in Coconut Grove; in Broward County at the Cinemark Paradise 24 in Davie and the Gateway 4 in Fort Lauderdale; in   Palm Beach County at Cobb's Downtown at the Mall Gardens Palm 16 in Palm Beach Gardens and at the Cinemark Palace 20 in Boca Raton. Click here to find the theater nearest you. Then go!

César winner Arnaud Desplechin's MY GOLDEN DAYS: Growing up absurd, French style

"Golden"? How ironic, almost anti-nostalgic, considering that the days shown here -- the whole life, really -- are pretty damned fraught. The films of Arnaud Desplechin, who just recently won a César award as Best Director for this movie, just keep getting better. On-the-job training is certainly paying off for this guy, who in recent years has given us the likes of A Christmas Tale and Jimmy P.  With MY GOLDEN DAYS (Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse), opening today in New York and Los Angeles, Desplechin has created in some ways his best film yet, the one that is likely to be the most appreciated by American mainstream/arthouse audiences.

M. Desplechin, pictured at left, begins with his hero as an adult (played by the always terrific Mathieu Amalric, below), who has a little passport trouble, as is often the case in these post 9-11 times, and while speaking with the authorities (in the person of the great André Dussollier), relives some of those golden days for our delectation. And while the movie may be a kind of memory piece, the style in which Deplechin has chosen to film it is every bit his own.

The young actor selected to portray the adolescent and young adult version of Amalric -- newcomer Quentin Dolmaire, below -- is so exquisitely beautiful (he possess one of those faces on which the camera simply dotes: think the young Alain Delon) that you may have trouble imagining that he could turn into the older Amalric. But his beauty is such that I doubt you'd want to replace him. Dolmaire proves up to the role, acting-wise, as well. He brings a quietly thoughtful, almost deliberately philosophically transgressive presence to these proceedings which helps carry the film along.

Divided into not particularly necessary "episodes" -- Childhood, Russia, Esther, Epilog -- the movie tracks our hero, Paul Dédalus, and his longtime, long-germinating affair with another oddball, but more obviously transgressive character, Esther (played by first-timer, Lou Roy-Lecollinet, below). How these two meet, spar and slowly join forces makes for quite an original look at "first love."

The first half of the film moves pretty much like a house afire, what with a school trip to Russia, during which Paul and a friend take a sidetrip into helping some Russian Jews illegally emigrate to Israel. Later our hero gets a nasty beat-down (below) by a jealous would-be boyfriend. (Desplechin also offers up some of the kind of split-screen moviemaking that will take us oldsters back to the 1960s.)

The movie. being both French and well-done, is philosophical without even trying, and when at last the lovemaking begins, it is gentle and exploratory, which seems exactly right, given Paul's history and situation at this point in those "golden days." Our boy will confront death, loss and, most important, living -- and at one point along the way, you'll realize with shock that, OMG, for his mate he has chosen someone far too like his mother. Oh, right: We all do that....

The film also includes a lovely, direct and no-nonsense fantasy sequence that further shows off Desplechin's growing skills, and if the movie's pace lessens noticeably during its second half and the on-again/off-again romance grows just a tad tiresome, things pick up toward the end. (That's the very fine actor, Olivier Rabourdin -- of Eastern Boys -- above, left, as Paul's dad, with Lily Taieb, as his sister, Delphine.)

The finale brings us back to Amalric, and it may briefly put you in mind of Paolo Sorrentino's recent Youth, in that it involves young men's sexual jealousy still potent in later years and even includes a bit of operatic song. Not to worry: It will also be quite clear how very different these French are from those Italians.

Distributed by Magnolia Pictures and running 124 minutes, My Golden Days opens today at The Landmark in West Los Angeles and in New York City at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, with dates, cities and theaters shown.

Feelings, responsibility and autonomy compete for attention in James C. Strouse's grown-up rom-com, PEOPLE PLACES THINGS

If at first this new rom-com-dramedy seems like the usual bill of fare -- man catches wife in flagrante delicto with another man -- just give the film a few extra minutes. That should be all it takes to allow the cast and especially the film's main character (that befuddled hubby played by the extremely versatile Jemaine Clement, shown on poster, left, and below throughout) to win you over. PEOPLE PLACES  THINGS proves the best of the three movies written and directed by James C. Strouse (the other two are Grace is Gone and The Winning Season) because it keeps character more important than situation,  thus allowing that situation to avoid much of the supposed feel-good necessities that so many other rom-coms embrace.

Filmmaker Strouse (shown at right) has here fashioned a film about a number of different and interesting subjects -- from working as a comic book artist/teacher and marital infidelity to middle-aged dating and joint parenting -- and he juggles them quite well. Further, he has devised a set of fine supporting characters, each one of whom allows us to view his main character, Clement's Will Henry, in a different and increasingly expansive light.

These include his student Kat (a sassy and winning Jessica Williams, above) and her mom (given a nice blend of sophistication, sex appeal and vulnerability by Regina Hall, shown below, left, with Mr. Clement.)

Also on hand are Will's two daughters, below, played by twins Aundrea and Gia Gadsby with the kind of wise-beyond-their-years affectation that here manages to charm rather than annoy us.

Especially well-drawn and well-acted is the character of the girls' mom, played with a alternately funny and annoying combination of befuddle-ment/entitlement/confusion/anger by Stephanie Allynne, below, left.

Strouse's one big slip-up -- for me, at least -- concerns his belief that a professor of American literature who teaches at New York's Columbia University would have had over her life and career no connection to or appreciation of comic books and graphic novels. This rather beggars belief, but I would not let it stop you from viewing and appreciating what's so very good in this film -- which handles growing up, facing stuff and finally moving on about as well as I have seen in some time.

Oh, yes -- and the animation, the art for which our hero is noted, is expert, as well, including Will's explanation to his class about why what's between those comic book frames of art (and the connection that viewers make in their mind) is sometimes as important as the art itself.

From The Film Arcade and Alchemy, the movie hits DVD, VOD and early EST this coming Tuesday, October 6 -- for purchase or rental.

QUEEN AND COUNTRY: His current retrospective ends, and the new John Boorman film arrives

There are but a few days left to see on the big screen at New York City's Film Forum a selection of the work of British filmmaker John Boorman, an auteur whose films are always worth seeing (often the least regarded of which -- Zardoz, The Tiger's Tail -- offer the most surprising rewards). One of Boorman's most popular films, and the one that brought him the largest arthouse acclaim, as well as a bunch of Oscar nominations and BAFTA awards (Deliverance brought him his first batch of Oscar noms and mainstream popularity), was 1987's Hope and Glory. Now, nearly three decades later, arrives the sequel-of-sorts to that earlier biographical film that covered the filmmaker's days as a child during World War II. This new one, QUEEN AND COUNTRY, tackles the character's young manhood in the British military during the Korean War.

What a pleasure and a joy this new film is! Wonderfully funny, gorgeous to view (the period details are scrumptious and on-mark) and finally quite moving, too, Queen and Country proves there is still immense life and talent to this now 82-year-old filmmaker. The love -- of family, of country (with an often ironic and telling eye) and of the men and women in his life -- that Mr. Boorman (shown at right) conjures here is likely to find a hugely empathetic audience in English-speaking countries, surely, and perhaps far beyond those borders, as well.

Utterly accessible yet absolutely specific in its grasp of details concerning time, place and person, the movie's great achievement -- as is so often Boorman's too -- lies in how it shows us life in its rich comic/sad complexities and its characters as complicated and problemed people who are sometimes simply impossible to set right.

The filmmaker's beautiful tapestry includes his stand-in, Bill Rohan, wonderfully played by Callum Turner (above) and his best pal Percy Hapgood (a firecracker performance by Caleb Landry Jones, below).

Around these two revolve the rest of the wonderful cast of oddball, important characters -- from the beautiful, troubled young woman Bill encounters one evening at a concert (Tamsin Egerton, below)

to the discipline-crazed officer and bête noire of the boys, Sgt. Major Bradley (David Thewlis, below center, in yet another of his amazing, scary and deeply-felt performances)

to the no-one-does-more-with-less Richard E. Grant (below) as the superior officer, Major Cross

and a simply terrific performance from Pat Shortt (below), as the company's supreme grifter, Redmond, a role that even Phil Silvers' Sergeant Bilko might envy.

Add to this a first-class (though not upper class) funny and disparate family for Bill, and you have the makings of a hugely memorable hit that should delight arthouse audiences (perhaps into repeated viewings) before moving into even some mainstream venues, too.

The scene of that family (and friend) watching the coronation of the current Queen Elizabeth on their new television set -- a similar scene occurred in the little-seen (you really ought to) but excellent remake of The Scapegoat -- and who they suddenly see in the background provides yet another surprising twist and jolt to this splendid movie.

How it all comes together -- anything but perfectly, but believably and with a fine mixture of revelation and rue -- makes for one of the year's loveliest movie gifts. And one that just might find itself in memory when it comes time for next year's flock of awards-giving. (The movie ends, by the way, with a perfectly delightful nod to the career that will come.)

Meanwhile, Queen and Country -- via BBC Worldwide North America and running a never-too-lengthy 115 minutes -- gets its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, February 18, at NYC's Film Forum and in Los Angeles the following Friday, February 27 at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. In the weeks to come the film will open across the country in most major cities. To see the entire list of playdates, with cities and theaters, simply click here.  (To view the schedule for the remaining Boorman films in the current Film Forum retrospective, click here.)

Griffin Dunne seizes the day (& the film) in Justin Schwarz's dysfunc family pic, THE DISCOVERERS

What a year it's been for Griffin Dunne -- whom those of us of a certain generation probably best remember for An American Werewolf in London and After Hours. This actor has never stopped working in film and TV, though there was a period from around 1995 through 2000 that we saw very little of him. This year, already, he's back in spades, giving two terrific performances in one good film -- THE DISCOVERERS, under consideration here and in which he plays the lead -- and another absolutely splendid one: Rob the Mob, which opened this past March and in which Mr. Dunne, in a choice supporting role, plays one of the most memorable employers in film history to the two leading characters.

Justin Schwarz, the fellow pictured at right who both wrote and directed The Discoverers, had the weirdly amusing idea of conflating a typically broken American family with Americana of another bizarre kind -- the sort that recreates famous events from our country's history as though they were happening right now (you know: Civil War battles and the like). In this case, it's playing out a piece of the famed journey taken by explorers Lewis and Clark, which began outside of Pittsburgh and then continued westward.

Mr. Dunne, above, plays Lewis Birch, a professor, author and historian, working on a mammoth book about the slave who accompanied the Lewis & Clark expedition. Divorced, with two high school/college aged kids -- son (Devon Graye, below, left, of the recent 13 Sins) and daughter (Madeleine Martin, below, right, of the recent Refuge) --  dad and children are about to take a planned vacation when life intrudes -- in the form of an unexpected phone call from a brother informing our hero of major problems with the family's mom and dad. (Yes, this sudden phone call is practically verbatim of what happens in yesterday's film -- A Short History of Decay.)

Mom is gravely ill, while Dad, it seems (grandpa to the kids), has gone a bit 'round the bend. As played by Stuart Margolin, below, right, he's both comic and sad, a figure of fun -- until he finally becomes an angry and very real person (and problem). The theme of "exploration" -- as done by history's famous duo, and now the rather silly re-creators of this event, against that of our Lewis Birch, who must do some real exploration of his own to discover who the hell his children are -- is handled pretty well, if stated a little obviously by the filmmaker. Fortunately, Schwarz is helped enormously by his talented cast.

This would include some smart women, as well as our leading men: Cara Buono (below, left), Becky Ann Baker (second left) and Ann Dowd provide ace support, while the always dependable David Rasche, as the near-lunatic in charge of the re-creation, provides plenty of laughs.

On a journey like this one, the destination is never really in question. Rather it's the events along the way that make or break the movie. These are oddball, interesting and funny enough to carry us along. The daughter's encounter with two younger, over-sexed boys in a pharmacy is simply hilarious (Ms Martin is at her adorable/ironic best here), while the son's rapturous encounter with the pretty young daughter of the Rasche character (Dreama Walker, above, right, and below, left) helps bring things together.

Initially quite low-key, offering more sadness than jollity, the movie takes off into something more comic and strange once the expeditions begin, and there is one scene along the way between Lewis and another character that absolutely nails America's current view of race. While there's much to enjoy in the movie, I'll wager you'll find Mr Dunne's sidelong glances, raised eyebrows and wry humor the biggest reasons to discover The Discoverers.

The film opens tomorrow, Friday, May 16, in New York City at the Village East Cinema and in Los Angeles on May 30 at the Arclight Cinema, Hollywood.  You can see other currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters, by clicking here.

Michael Maren's A SHORT HISTORY OF DECAY: an American indie film that spins cliché into gold

A quietly elegant little movie (because it refuses to push anything) about family and the finale of the older generation, A SHORT HISTORY OF DECAY, written and directed by first-timer Michael Maren, is a beautifully rendered piece of Americana as it exists today, mid economic (and most every other kind of) decline. And yet this movie is not actually depressing. Oddly enough, it is simply too plain and too real for that. It accepts what is and must be (even if its characters have some difficulty doing so) and therefore liberates us, the audience, to look upon reality and understand it.

Mr. Maren, shown at left, is no spring chicken; his career and interests prior to filmmaking seem to have groomed him to look at life and people and events with a dry, incisive eye. Along the way in this movie, and without making any big thing of it, he quietly nails odd moments of family behavior, sibling (and spousal) rivalry, right through to that instant in which our near-hero sees an attractive woman on the beach and a moment later we realize that it's his aging mother -- mistook or maybe remembered from a much earlier time. You don't get this kind of stuff in most American independent movies, and certainly not served up as well and in such unshowy fashion.

We begin in the ever more gentrified Brooklyn, in which our slacker leading man, Nathan (the first-rate Bryan Greenberg, above), less a failed writer than one who has simply never finished anything, begins a morning dispute with his significant other, Erika (Emmanuelle Chriqui, below), a high-powered woman with a first novel about be published. How this scene ends is both funny and surprising.

An unexpected phone call regarding his parents sends Nathan down to Florida, to mom (Linda Lavin, below, right), dad (Harris Yulin, below, left) and -- eventually -- older brother (Benjamin King), where, of course, family history, along with past and present problems bubble up and spill over. Aging, Alzheimer's, stroke, money problems, love and lust jockey for position, but Maren never lets any one thing take the lead for long. He juggles character and events with consummate skill, balancing the comedy of life with its inevitable tragedy -- and shows us a lot of the interesting moments in between.

You might call the film a kind of comedy, but it's so quiet and unforced that you'll smile more readily than laugh out loud. The drama is certainly there, yet it's so unforced that it never for a moment becomes melodrama. Characters are written and acted very well by the entire ensemble cast -- which includes a lovely, radiant and savvy Kathleen Rose Perkins (below) as mom's manicurist; a hot, svelte Rebecca Dayan as the young lady Nathan meets at a local bar/restaurant; and Barbara Weetman as the smart, if slightly pushy bartender.

What is especially remarkable here is how clever are the performers, together with their writer/director, in never going too far. They behave, rather than "act." Less is more has rarely proven so enjoyable or so on-the-mark.

A Short History of Decay -- from Paladin and running a just-about perfect-for-its-content 93 minutes -- arrives in theaters this Friday, May 16. In New York City look for it at the Village East Cinema, and elsewhere soon, I hope.