TrustMovies bonus: Watch HOTEL NOIR -- Sebastian Gutierrez's latest (and still in limbo) charmer -- for free!

Made in 2012 but, after a brief pay-per-view window, still stuck in distribution limbo, HOTEL NOIR is the latest film to have been written and directed by one of TrustMovies' favorite filmmakers: Sebastian Gutierrez. No other movie-maker that I can think of has this guy's oddball sense of humor coupled to an enormous love of women (in so many ways). His product is as charming, enjoyable and off-the-wall as it gets, as demonstrated by his trio of "lovely lady" movies -- Women in Trouble, Elektra Luxx and Girl Walks Into a Bar.  This trilogy (I'd call it that, anyway) offers non-stop delight, with the additional "plus" of an anything-goes attitude that views sexuality as something that ought above all to be enjoyed as pleasurable and joyous -- hell, even humorous, too.

Gutierrez, pictured at right, may not be the first to make a movie that harks back to 1950s noir, but it is certainly one of the more lovingly recreated. It doesn't so much make fun of noir as it does pay it a grand homage -- while at the same time taking the kind of multiple stories and plot strands that this filmmaker so dearly loves and bouncing them into each other with pizzazz and finesse.

My biggest surprise here in that the movie does not have quite the buoyancy and lightness of that earlier trilogy, the reason being, I suspect, that the themes and concerns of film noir -- mystery, murder, betrayal and love (generally unrequited when not out-and-out trashed) -- don't exactly lend themselves to things graceful and lighter-than-air.

Still, what Gutierrez has accomplished here is quite lovely to look at -- the black-and-white cinematography is aces -- with performances from some fine actors, many of whom have graced his earlier work, that pull you in and keep you amused and impressed throughout.

Chief among these is Gutierrez regular, Carla Gugino (above), as a cocktail lounge chanteuse with connections to quite a number of other characters in the film. One of these is the good-looking cop played by Rufus Sewell (above, right. and below, whom the filmmaker used earlier to fine effect in his "naughty mermaid" cable movie She-Creature).

Malin Akerman (below, center) plays a night club performer with ties to the mob and a yen for Mr. Sewell, while Kevin Connolly (in the rain-soaked auto three photos up) plays a nasty piece of work who evidently has attributes that make him very good in the sack.

Since its title would indicate than there's a hotel involved here, most of the film indeed takes place in one -- in which another of our favorites, Rosario Dawson, below, works as a maid who moonlights as, well... other things. 

Along the way she encounters another Gutierrez delight, Danny DeVito, below, who actually begins this movie with a shaggy dog narration that leads to.... No. I don't want to give one more thing away.

Completing the major cast members is another favorite, Robert Forster, below, playing the older, kindly and more seasoned cop who is partner to Sewell. Sex, mostly straight with a little gay tossed in, rears its lovely head, as do a robbery, several killings and a number of surprises along the way, a couple of the best of which are saved for the last.

For folk who are partial to noir, you can relax into this one, knowing that for all the fun to be had, the movie still plays it straight, never descending into camp. The actors are all on the same page regarding style, and much of the fun comes from their very genuine, straight-faced line readings provided by Gutierrez's smart and charming script.

The filmmaker tells me that Hotel Noir came about because YouTube, which commissioned Girl Walks Into a Bar, asked for a follow-up (not a sequel but a similar size/cast movie), so he responded with the idea of a black-and-white period film noir.  

Shot in just 15 days (by Gutierrez regular, Cale Finot), the result can now be viewed by TrustMovies' readers free-of-charge. Gutierrez has graciously agreed to keep the movie up on line for a month, but don't wait too long. I'd hate to have you all ready for a nice evening of noir, only to discover the movie is suddenly gone. To access the film, click here , and if that does not work for you, copy and paste the following link into your web browser: https://youtu.be/PIWxLniIi9c .  Oh -- and Mr. Gutierrez suggests that you view the movie in as high a definition as possible because, yes, it does look good! . 

QUEEN CRAB attacks, as Brett Piper takes us back to the sci-fi days of early Roger Corman

What goofy, old-fashioned fun (for awhile, at least), as filmmaker Brett Piper does a funny, often nifty homage to everything from stop-motion monster movies to the old American International sci-fi films to some of the early Roger Corman movies. QUEEN CRAB is such an intentionally silly story of science run amok (does it ever not, so far as movies are concerned?) and a cute little crab found by an adorable little girl that grows to something like the size of a house, terrorizing a small town and spawning lots of nasty, naughty offspring who also provide a certain amount of blood-and-guts mayhem.

Mr. Piper (shown at left) has fashioned a straight-forward 80-minute horror/monster movie using old-fashioned stop-motion photogra-phy, in which our crabby crab goes on the rampage, destroying life and limb with aplomb and finesse. That almost everything about this movie looks "fake" but fun is part of its charm, and that goes right down (or up) to the writing, direction and acting -- about which you can never be quite sure if the actors are being intentionally semi-bad, or trying to rise to the occasion. Either way, there's a certain frisson provided by this odd viewing experience.

"What does omnivorous mean?" our little cutie, above, asks her scientist daddy early on in the movie, and you can bet that by the time she grows up (below), she will fully understand the meaning of the word (while still loving her pet crab, despite its predilection for destruction).

Even at only 80 minutes, it's still a tad too long, and the filmmaker, who both wrote and directed, hasn't given us enough real humor or scares to fill those minutes, though he's done some fun stuff with the characters, situations and mayhem.

While I can't recommend the movie to just anyone, I do suspect that oldsters who fondly recall those Corman movies (Not of This Earth, anyone?) or the stop-motion delights of Ray Harryhausen, may want to take a look.

And you can, when the film -- from Wild Eye Releasing -- goes straight to DVD this coming Tuesday, September 29. Get ready to giggle. And maybe show your kids or grand kids what scary movies used to look like.

Rodney Ascher's ROOM 237: a Kubrick feast and fest for fans of The Shining

What fun (for awhile, anyway) is ROOM 237, which, after playing a bunch of fests around the globe (including our own 50th NY Film Festival), finally opens theatrically tomorrow here in Manhattan. This odd, often delicious deconstruction of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, is the work of one Rodney Ascher, who in his press notes, tells us that, as a kid, he ran out of the theater playing The Shining, 20 minutes after sneaking into that theater to view it. For a kid, it probably was scary. Ever since, Ascher has been obsessed with the movie. What we see here in the fruit of that obsession.

TrustMovies first saw The Shining during its initial run in Queens, along with a sneak preview of Dressed to Kill. (Or it might have been the other way around: he can't remember now which film was the sneak preview.) In any case, talk about memorable double bills! He does remember how impressed he was with the De Palma film; with the Kubrick, not so much. And when he saw The Shining again, maybe 10 or 15 years later, he found it even less effective on any level, or as any kind of genre movie.

Kubrick stooping to make a genre film? This may be the point. Or part of it. According to the fans/theorists whose ideas fill Room 237 (the title of which comes from the infamous room at the Overlook Hotel in which the family stays), there's a lot more going on in this movie than mere cheap scares (on a quite expensive budget).

Still, how you react to Room 237 will depend in large part on how you react to the Kubrick oeuvre as a whole. If you're a die-hard fan of his work, I can't imagine your missing this film under any circumstances. If you're one of those people who feel that Kubrick was a hit-and-miss movie-maker (but certainly more hit than miss), you'll most likely be wired to view it. Even if you've found The Shining to be one of his least successful endeavors, you may find yourself surprised at what Mr. Ascher (shown at left) and his small crew of interpreters mange to uncover. Such theories you'll see and hear! Along with those hidden (in plain sight) symbols you'll discover! And the strange messages you'll manage to de-code! Or not.

As the movie moves along, theories of fake moon landings (above) and Indian genocide may hold you fast. After all, those cans of Calumet must mean something).

Even the theory about the Holocaust should carry some weight. (That shot of Jack Nicholson embracing the body three shots above may bring to mind, showers, naked Jews and the Final Solution.)

However, by the time you get to the subliminal images and Barry Nelson's symbolic hard-on (above), a nincompoop alert will probably be flashing. And when you learn what happens when you project Kubrick's film forward and another print in reverse -- at the same time! -- you may be ready to cry uncle. (Die-hard Kubrick/Shining fans will not, but most of the rest of us will.)

One thing this alternately funny/surprising/depressing movie did make me realize: The Shining never really worked that well on its stated, conscious level as a scary movie because its director was far too preoccupied with its subtext, or gave over too heavily to his unconscious, or cared little for film continuity (the last is most unlikely). Yet it is when cinema (or novel or any kind of art) meshes naturally and simultaneously on both the conscious and unconscious levels that you get the really good stuff. Kubrick must have known how this sort of thing. But perhaps he didn't care -- or was simply too tight-assed to produce that kind of spontaneous art. (Jack Nicholson, above, left, does this automatically, but his work is not enough to save the movie.)

So The Shining gets nowhere near that level of art. But, as Room 237 very gamely proves, as a puzzle and/or exercise for enthusiasts, the movie may be very nearly non-pareil. Mr. Ascher's film, released via IFC Films and running a little long at 102 minutes, opens this Friday, March 29, in Manhattan at the IFC Center and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.  The following week it will open in six more cities, and from there further across the country in the weeks to come. You can find all currently scheduled playdates here.