Quinn Shepard's BLAME proves a humane, if diffuse, look at high school misfits and meanies

The movie may begin as a relatively typical, if darker, Mean Girls look at high-school life. But hold on. By its finale, BLAME, the first full-length endeavor as writer/director by Quinn Shepard (who also stars in the leading female role) stands out from the pack in its ability to find some complexity in both its protagonists and antagonists, as well as in the sometimes fantasy/dream-like quality it brings to occasional scenes along with a welcome refusal to dot every "i" and cross all the "t"s. This subtlety, if you will call it that, also arrives with some possible drawbacks, as some viewers may want a bit more explanation regarding "Did they or didn't they?" and a climax that suggests but does not hammer home its point.

Ms Shepard (above and on poster, left) plays Abigail, a high schooler who, as we learn upfront, has had some problems earlier but is now back in class. Some of her nastier classmates refer to her as Sybil (though one wonders how they even know of a book, along with its popular TV movie versions, as old as that one is).

Abigail's main tormentor is Melissa (played by Nadia Alexander, above), a girl who, as we eventually learn, has her own major problems. When their pregnant drama teacher must take a maternity leave, into class comes a hunky new substitute teacher named Jeremy (the always fine Chris Messina, below), who immediately replaces their production of The Glass Menagerie with The Crucible -- and then, to Melissa's chagrin, casts Abigail in the leading role.

Tempers flare and nastiness ensues, yet each of these three lead characters have their own deep problems to work through, and they use each other to do this -- with results both good and bad. As a fledgling filmmaker, Ms Shepard proves generally adept at both dialog and mise en scene, though her pacing is a bit slow and the film, even at 100 minutes, could either be a bit shorter or explore more within its time constraint.

Among the supporting cast, Tate Donovan (above), as Melissa's step-father, and Marcia DeBonis, as a school administrator, stand out. But the grunt work is handled by the three leads. Ms Shepard proves unsettlingly odd (just how problemed is she?), and Ms Alexander is properly sexy/ugly while setting us up for a little surprise or two. But it is Mr. Messina who makes the film work as well as it does.

His character, weak but willing, and with as many unresolved and maybe even unexamined problems as our two girls, lets things get just far enough out of hand to be maybe culpable, too. I don't know that there is another American actor working today who can smoulder as well as Messina (and without seeming to do a damned thing but just be there). Innately sexy, highly intelligent, and able to consistently make the right acting choices, he's always a pleasure to view. He's worked a lot over his 20-year career, and maybe one of these days, he's going to get the right, major role in a movie that will at last put this guy on the "star" map. Let's hope.

Meanwhile, Blame -- a nicely appropriate title of which there is plenty to go around -- is overall a pretty good addition to the sub-genre of high school angst. From Samuel Goldwyn Films, it opens today, Friday, January 5, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3, and simultaneously around the country via VOD.

Brazil's entry into this year's Oscar sweeps: Daniel Ribeiro's charming THE WAY HE LOOKS

Sweetness and charm can go a long way in making a movie a pleasurable experience, and those two qualities are in abundance in the very sweet and charming Brazilian high-school-rom-com-cum-the-handicapped-and-homosexual, THE WAY HE LOOKS (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho), which turns out to be Brazil's entry into the 2014 Oscar sweepstakes. Written and directed by Daniel Ribeiro (shown below), from an earlier short film he made back in 2010, the film is an easy watch as it probes lightly but effectively into high school, the blind, and the lovelorn.

Mr. Ribeiro has a way with words and visuals, as well as with his actors, all of whom seem to be playing in that once-removed space in which they seem "real" but maybe not quite as real as would an actual group of high school kids. Everyone is "natural," though a bit bereft of the kind of specific behavior that distinguishes actual people. These kids seem to exist for the purpose of playing out the filmmaker's feel-good, "There's a lid for every pot" philosophy. And as long as you don't object too strenuously to this sort of thing, The Way He Looks should give you a very good time.

Our non-sighted hero, Leonardo (or just Leo, played by the gorgeous and so-believable-you'll-imagine-they-chose-a-blind-actor-to-play-the-role Ghilherme Lobo, above) is feeling held back by his overly cautious parents, who have probably over-supervised him throughout most of his life (the character was born blind). Teased by many of his peers at school, below, he has only one good friend,

a schoolmate named Giovana (played by Tess Amorim, below), and the two talk about kisses and love and what the future might possibly hold for them. Life rolls along pleasantly enough (except for those stupid school bullies), and Leo is even considering trying an foreign exchange program for the non-sighted) when...

...into the classroom strolls a new kid, Gabriel (Fabio Audi, below, left) with gorgeous, curly, black locks (which our hero of course cannot see, but we sure can), who takes an immediate shine to Leo and Giovana and before you can say three-way!, a friendship develops -- and maybe moves on to something more. But for whom to whom remains a question.

There a birthday party featuring spin-the-bottle, fights with parents, a class trip, swimming sessions, and even a shower scene, as relationships heat up. Along the way there are two particularly lovely scenes, one involving dad giving son his first shaving lesson, and another -- momentously romantic -- in which, when Gabriel leaves behind his jacket, Leo picks it up to inhale its perfume.

Moments and scenes like these go a long way toward making The Way He Looks an easy-going treat. The film, from Strand Releasing and running just 93 minutes, opens today, Friday, November 7, in New York City (at the Village East Cinema, in Los Angeles (at the Sundance Sunset Cinemas) and in several other cities across the country. It will expand to further cities in the weeks to come.

Fresh on streaming (while hitting DVD Tuesday): the Entin brothers' classy GEOGRAPHY CLUB

Having covered this smart and enjoyable GLBT movie twice already, I'll just mention that it's now playing on Netflix streaming, simultaneous with its DVD release that hits the street tomorrow, March 25. When I first saw GEOGRAPHY CLUB, based on the popular Brett Hartinger young adult novel, and directed by Gary Entin and adapted by his brother, Edmund, I was struck at how roundly mainstream it seemed -- as well as how almost "big-budget" it appeared, as though producer Michael Huffington had spared no expense. It still looks good, and seems every bit as enjoyable upon a second viewing. If you have not yet seen the film at least once, here's your chance to discover just how far gay mainstream has come over the past few years.

With GEOGRAPHY CLUB, from the Entin twins, the GLBT movie goes grandly Hollywood glossy

It may take until the close of this film, when the charming end-credits are rolling, that you'll realize you've just experienced the coming-of-age of the gay rom-com-cum-melodram. Yup. GEOGRAPHY CLUB -- a glossy, smart, sweet little high school movie -- gets just about everything right and entertains like crazy while doing it. A product of the Entin twins (Gary, who directed, and Edmund, who wrote the screenplay, based on the popular Brent Hartinger novel), the movie was produced by Michael Huffington (yes!) and Anthony Bretti, and they've stinted on nothing -- from the excellent cast to the cinematography, editing and all else technical. The movie looks surprisingly like a lovely, glossy Hollywood product that -- hey -- just happens to be GLBT-themed.

Of course, the question then arises: Is this what we need? While the answer is most likely: We need a lot of things, this is certainly one form of "equality" that should help make a difference for mainstream audiences. These young and talented twins (shown above, with writer Edmund on the left and director Gary at right), have somehow managed to juggle themes, characters and actors expertly and corral some terrific technical talent, too. The result is a beautifully inclusive movie that tackles the subject of the high school "outsider" and makes it seem fresh and appealing all over again.

The outsiders here includes guys, gals, gays and lesbians that come in cultures/colors of Asian, Hispanic, Black and White. Best of all, the movie offers in addition a violinist (or is he a violist? It's been a few months since I've seen this movie) who must be gay because he's, well, arty and odd. He's actually straight, but he wants and needs to be included in this group -- which makes it all the more wonderfully diverse. The kids are differentiated and performed with a light touch, and the movie moves along at a fast enough trot that there's little time to get picky.

Yes, there's a dose of the After-School Special in all this, but, damn, it's still done well enough to pass muster. The main story connects two closeted high-schools boys (Cameron Deane Stewart, above, left, and Justin Deeley, at right, the latter playing a popular football player) with a group of kids who've formed a kind of GLBT support group they call the Geography Club. "Nobody'll join, so nobody'll know our secret" is the kind of logic going on here (do school even teach geography any longer?). The Entins get the tone just right: a blend of sweetness and toughness that's reality-based enough to draw us in and hold us through thick and thin.

The movie's feel-good, all right, but it is also a little sad in the manner in which it addresses the reality of "the other." Identity, acceptance and especially self-acceptance are all given a good workout here. Thankfully, the filmmakers don't tie the whole shebang up into one neat package. We can't have everything we want, it seems. But we can work toward and then settle for a better situation. Geography Club is going to make a lot of moviegoers -- kids in particular -- very, very happy.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running a sleek 83 minutes, the movie opens tomorrow, Friday, November 15, in New York (at the Cinema Villlage), Toronto (at the Carlton Cinema), Tempe (at the Harkins' Valley Art), and Stroudsberg (at the Sherman Living Room theater) and elsewhere soon. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. SImultaneously, by the way, any outliers from the above locations, should be able to see the film via VOD.  (The film will not be available on DVD until March 2014.)

Moms & daughters, Hispanic-American style: Patricia Riggen's GIRL IN PROGRESS

Patricia Riggen's new movie GIRL IN PROGRESS begins with a school pre-sentation by our heroine (one of them; her mom is the other) that is very funny and pretty smart. I wish we could have seen and heard the remainder of this little lecture (her abashed teacher cuts it short), for most of what follows in this feel-good-against-all-logic, Lifetime-TV-level movie bounces from the merely overdone to the garishly sentimental to the ridiculous. This is too bad because, when last seen theatrically on these shores, Ms Riggen gave us the also sentimental but keenly observant, funny, exciting, finally trans-cendent mother-son immigration movie Under the Same Moon.

In between times, Ms Riggen (shown at left) directed one of the episodes of the very good, Mexican multi-tale roundup, Revolución, and a TV movie called Lemonade Mouth. If, as I suspect Girl in Progress becomes her most successful release box-office-wise -- it's got the marketing-maven studio supreme, Lionsgate, along with Hispanic arm Panteleon, at the distribution helm, plus three personalities popular with Hispanic audiences (Eva Mendes and Eugenio Derbez for the adults and Cierra Ramirez for the kids) -- TrustMovies will be happy for her success but saddened by the downgrade in the quality of the work on display. Well, concessions must be made to the powers-that-be, I suspect, and so this movie -- unlike, say, the current and so much better, feel-good, mother/daughter/school-themed Norwegian film Turn Me On, Dammit! -- gets there by hook or (mostly) by crook.

Telling the story of a Latina teenager named Ansiedad (the  beautiful, chirpy Ms Ramirez) determined to bulldoze her way into adulthood by any means necessary, the movie takes us along on the girl's very odd journey, which was unintentionally inspired by remarks made in class about the coming-of-age novel by her more than capable English teacher (Patricia Arquette, below, left).

Along for the ride comes her sweet and pudgy best friend (Raini Rodriguez, below, right, and older sister of Modern Family's Rico Rodriguez) and various and sundry other school classmates. On the adult end (and that's stretching it, given the idiotic behavior of most of the adults on view) are mom (played by Ms Mendes), her current (and very married) lover and part-time employer played by Matthew Modine (shown at bottom, left, looking old and terrible and probably wishing he were in some other movie), and an employee at the crab shack restuarant where mom works, played by the versatile and talented Señor Derbez, who is as bad here as he was good in Riggen's earlier Moon movie.

There seems to be little chemistry between the adult actors, or for that matter between Mendes (below, right) and Ramirez, who act together like a mother and daughter who've just been introduced. Everyone mugs and carries on to near-distraction, and the improbable story (which initially works OK as fodder for a high-school rom-com) soon moves from improbable to impossible.

For the most part Girl in Progress seems a movie at war with itself. Ms Riggen's touch with everything from pacing to performance is noticeably off, unless it is simply the screenplay by Hiram Martinez that is lacking in credibility and charm. (There's plenty of ersatz charm on view, as well as ersatz everything else.)  And yet, the movie will occasionally snap to -- like the condom that hits the electric light -- from time to time when a moment, occasionally an entire scene, works correctly. And of course it is interesting to be able to view a little of the growing Hispanic-American community in Seattle. But this only makes the whole thing even sadder. Well, onwards and sideways. Ms Riggen's next project is said to be the remake of the charming Argentine movie Elsa & Fred. This time with Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine attached to star, replacing the irreplaceable Manuel Alexandre and China Zorilla. We'll see...

Meanwhile, Girl in Progress, 90 minutes, open tomorrow, Friday, May 11, for Mother's Day weekend. Click here to see all playdates in the greater New York City and New Jersey areas.  TM thinks that the movie is also opening nationwide but can find no verification of that anywhere on the Lionsgate or Panteleon web sites.