David C. Coffin's BEYOND HOARDING proves a worthwhile, hour-long cautionary tale about a too-often overlooked neurological disorder

At least TrustMovies thinks that hoarding stems from a neurological disorder. That seems to be the consensus of the "experts" gathered together for this surprisingly winning little documentary about the very problematic (to the individual afflicted and to the surrounding society, as well) condition said to affect somewhere between two and five per cent of the U.S. population. If you've seen anything about hoarding via television, you may be primed for the usual skeevy, sleazy TV approach to things.

BEYOND HOARDING is a lot better than that. As directed by David C. Coffin (I believe the filmmaker is shown at right, but there is no photo of him on the film's web site to corroborate his identity), the movie turns out to be a very personal project. Back in 2007 Mr. Coffin's great uncle was involved in a terrible accident in Woodmere, New York, that was caused by hoarding, and this led the filmmaker to make his movie. As the film begins, we see the results of that accident, which revealed a barely living body buried beneath several feet of refuse, and then, days later, a second body, dead.

How all this happened and why, together with the reactions of relatives (none of whom lived nearby) and neighbors (two of which are shown below) combine to offer a picture of a condition/disease that is not at all well understood.

From Long Island, we move to Seattle and a father/daughter relationship (below) coming apart due to hoarding, even though this hoarder (the father) is a relatively clean and even somewhat neat one. Still, that hoarding takes its toll. One of the strongest points of the movie is how it warns us to be careful of passing judgements too easily without learning all the information necessary to understand the individual situation.

Beyond Hoarding broadens its scope with the introduction of its third set of characters: an older Boston hoarder, and the younger man -- Jesse Edsell-Vetter, of Metro Housing, Boston, shown below, left -- who works very hard to help the hoarder understand what his affliction is all about and how to circumvent it, even in very small steps and stages.

Our final character is a Minnesota woman, below, who clues us in to some important "do's and don'ts," hoarding-wise. It turns out that this woman was utterly traumatized by the act of some of her "helpful" friends, who cleaned up and actually emptied out her house of all of its glut -- without telling her in advance and which sent her on a unnecessary and very unhelpful shopping spree. Hoarding cannot be easily solved via good natured but unknowing "others."

What causes hoarding? The jury is still out, but evidently it is not actually related, as many imagine, to obsessive-compulsive disorder but rather to a kind of neurological impairment. Until further research is done, however, we'll have this little film to help guide those of us with friends or relatives suffering from this problem.

The documentary arrived on Blu-ray/DVD and most major Digital Streaming and Cable platforms last month and is available now for purchase or rental. 

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.

Hoarding and its discontents: Antonio Tibaldi and Alex Lora's sad doc, THY FATHER'S CHAIR

Orthodox Jewish twins, maybe identical, though it's difficult to tell under their very bushy beards and hair that seems not to have been cut in perhaps a year, Abraham and Shraga live in the Brooklyn home they've inherited from their now deceased parents. Over time, they've found it difficult to part with just about everything that most of us would consider trash -- old food to clothes, books, papers, appliances that no longer work to broken furniture. Hence the movie's title -- THY FATHER'S CHAIR -- which is brought up at one point and then promptly let go.

As directed by Alex Lora (shown at left) and Antonio Tibaldi (below) in a cinéma vérité style by which we learn nothing about the background of anything here -- except via the bits of conversation along the way between the twins and the men who come, as an intervention, to clean the apartment and who have, by film's end, pretty much emptied it out.

The head cleaning man, in fact, also turns out to be something more than mere "cleaner," as he bonds with the twins, trying his best to help them understand what is going on here and why

they need to rid themselves of so much that they've hoarded over the recent past.

As the movie's brief 74-minute running time unspools, we manage to learn quite a bit about the emotional state of the twins, shown below, one of whom is an alcoholic -- if not so much about their history. Instead, we meet their upstairs neighbor, who complains -- no doubt rightly -- about the stench coming from the apartment. And we see the several stray cats the pair has brought in to share their space. (These cats groom and keep themselves clean as cats will do -- unlike their hosts -- despite the gross conditions that surround them.)

The documentary is divided into seven chapters (and-on-the-seventh-day-god-rested, maybe?) plus an epilogue that sort of brings us up to date. But don't expect to get much more information here than the movie itself presents via its you-are-there narrative.

The interaction between the twins and their "celeaners" makes up much of the film, and it is oddly sad and even haunting to see how hard the head man tries to makes the problem clear so that our boys understand what's going on and why.

And yes, hazmat suits are worn and indeed appear quite necessary, as bedbugs are among the apartment's unwanted dwellers. One scene shows in passing the arm of one twin, utterly bitten up and scabbing over.

Slowly the apartment begins to look livable again, and just as slowly the twins appear to be maybe learning how to exist with a bit more clarity and purpose. We can hope.

After playing numerous festivals nationally and internationally, Thy Father's Chair opens this Friday, October 13, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and in Los Angeles on October 20 at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities, and theaters across the country.