With BITCH, writer/director Marianna Palka gives Jason Ritter his most important role yet...

...and he runs with it like crazy. Mr. Ritter's is the best performance from an actor I've seen this year, and if the storied Academy members ever deigned to really look at small indie movies in the way they should, fit praise would be forthcoming around "Oscar" time. Don't get too hopeful; remember how they treated last year's best actress, Rebecca Hall in Christine. Meanwhile, take a chance on the unusual new movie entitled BITCH, written and directed by Marianna Palka, who also co-stars. Back in 2008 Ms Palka gave us the very fine Good Dick, also starring Mr. Ritter, and her new film is even better: stronger, original and hugely surprising.

Palka, above, plays a put-upon housewife named Jill Hart who is literally suicidal when we first meet her. At first we imagine this is due to her clueless and unfaithful hubby, Bill Hart (played by Ritter, below) and her four (count' em!) kids who we assume are the sort of impossible, narcissistic brats driving their mom 'round the bend. But things are not quite so simple. Note the dog outside their house who barks constantly, and with whom Jill may be identifying.

And, no, this is not a 21-Century update on that popular TV show, Hart to Hart. What happens here may be about as strange as American indie movies get, and yet on even a realistic level, Bitch never quite leaves the realm of the possible -- if the hugely unconventional and bizarrely, brazenly ugly. TrustMovies is not going to go into plot detail because viewers deserve to experience what happens here -- and then decide why it happens -- on their own. I'll just say that Ms Palka has been awfully brave and ballsy in her choices.

First off, she cedes the film's most important role to Ritter, who makes an absolute meal of it. From his early and very funny scenes as the self-involved, utterly clueless husband from hell to the movie's mid-section as his character falls screechingly apart (above) to the finale in which Bill begins to change, this is first-class movie-making in both conception and execution, as well as superior performing. Palka herself does a remarkable job as the titular bitch. This kind of performance is something you will not have previously seen, and yet it is also clearly a supporting role.

Also giving fine support are Jamie King, above, left, as Jill's sister, and Brighton Sharbino, Rio Mangini, Kingston Foster and Jayson Maybaum as her four children -- all of whom turn out to be more caring and helpful that we would have initially imagined. So what's the big problem? Sure, feminism rises to the surface here, but not at all in the manner we most often see it. The key lies in the relationship between husband and wife, and how this unfurls is near-miraculous in terms of original and surprising movie-making.

There is a speech given somewhat past the halfway mark that is so succinct and devastating in terms explaining the care and effort a woman brings to a marriage that hearing it should make many of us ex- and/or present husbands cringe in recognition and guilt.

Bitch is finally a love story, and considering what has come before, what occurs subsequently seems doubly moving, rich and profound. Yours truly was in unexpected tears toward the end. As much as anything he has seen in a long while, Palka's film raises and then gives a very possible answer to Freud's famous question, What does a woman want?

From Dark Sky Films and running 93 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, November 10, in New York City (at the Village East Cinema), in Chicago on Friday, November 17 (at the Facets Cinémathèque) and on November 24 in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Music Hall 3), as well as in a number of other cities across the country this week and those following. Click here then scroll down to see (some of the) currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters (perhaps Dark Sky will want to update this list soon so that the Los Angeles opening is added).

Prevarication reigns (and rains): Phil Allocco's goofy, funny rom-com, THE TRUTH ABOUT LIES

Though it has been sitting around for two years now, hitting the festival circuit while waiting for release, a rom-com called THE TRUTH ABOUT LIES -- written and directed by Phil Allocco (shown below), who earlier made a name for himself as guitarist in the band, Law & Order  -- turns out to have been worth the wait. The movie is funny, charming and goofy as hell, and it sports a first-rate cast of good-looking actors who also know how to create the proper chemistry together, as well as nailing the humor as easily as the romance. 

You will have to suspend your disbelief a bit at some of the whoppers you'll be asked to accept here, but since Allocco has made his movie all about lying, and his leading man, the hugely under-appreciated comedic hottie, Fran Kranz (shown below in romantic mode and and further below in comedic), handles these lies with such amazing aplomb that, for maximum enjoyment and fun, it's best to simply go along on this wild ride. 

The filmmaker's point would seem to be that we all lie to each other all the time, but if we can just ground those lies in a healthier life style -- a decent job, apartment, mate, diet and more -- then we'll get by just fine. What? How dare he! 

Mr. Allocco dares, all right, and he pretty much gets away with it, too, thanks to some clever writing, decent direction, and the ministrations of his first-rate cast. Mr. Franz has long been one of my favorite rom-com actors, and once again he acquits himself royally. Whether he's falling in love, above, or killing time in the men's room, below, with a couple of rolls of toilet paper, he's alternately sexy and funny and always fun. 

His suddenly former and soon-to-become girlfriends are played by Mary Elizabeth Ellis (below) and Odette Annable (further below), the former with a lot of anger and sass, the latter with such graceful beauty and charm that she'll sweep you off your feet, just as she does our hero his.

Allocco peppers his movie, via title cards, with frequent and often terrific quotes about lies and truth -- and their effect on us all. Many of these quotes are first-rate, and they'll make you think (and laugh) as much as does the movie itself. 

In the supporting cast are other good (and good-looking) performers such as Miles Fisher (below, as Kranz's best friend) and Chris Diamantopoulos (at bottom, playing Annable's husband). 

From time to time the movie will put you in mind of early-Woody Allen. But, hey, early Woody Allen ain't bad. And neither is The Truth About Lies. And if the movie will not set the world on fire (we can leave that to Donald Trump), it's nonetheless a pleasurable enough outing for those who appreciate the rom-com genre.

Opening theatrically in some 25 cities across the country this Friday, October 27 -- in New York City, it hits the Cinema Village; in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center -- the movie, running 94 minutes, will be available digitally, as well. Click here, then click on Screenings in the task bar, to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Tao Ruspoli's MONOGAMISH continues the everlasting search for what works best re marriage, love, sex, kids and all the rest

A not-uninteresting combination of visual/verbal confessional, educational films from the 1940s and 50s, other archival snippets from film and TV, the filmmaker's family history, along with that of the idea of marriage itself, and talking-head interviews with sociologists, marriage counselors and advice columnists, MONOGAMISH, a new, four-years-in-the-making documentary from Tao Ruspoli (shown two photos below), reopens (once again) that seemingly eternal discussion of whether or not monogamy really works and is the best resolution for folk who are in love, want to marry and start a family -- or who would simply rather fuck for awhile, before moving on to greener, or at least other, pastures.

Now, if you're anything like me, you had your first discussion about all this during college (for TrustMovies, that took place back in the late 50s/early 60s), and the same subject reared its fascinating head again during the late 1960s with the hippie crowd and its anything-goes sexuality, and then the following decade with the me-generation, its swingers and the explosion of the porn industry.

Part of the charm -- and, yes, it must be also said, the naivete -- of this documentary arrives, for us old folk, at least, from the realization that, oh-oh, here it comes again: that old question, Does monogamy work? Of course not, or not very well. But, as one of the many quotes from the famous featured in the film (and paraphrased here) reminds us, monogamy may not work well, but it's the better than anything else we've got. Or is it?

By the surprising, amusing and fairly jaw-dropping finale of this film, much of what you've seen and considered will be called into question. (No answers will be provided, however, for that would require a re-visit to or by Rispoli in perhaps another ten years.). This filmmaker first arrived on my map some eight years ago, with his narrative movie (done in documentary style) called Fix, which was unusual and great fun, too. Since then he has concentrated on documentaries, none of which I've seen -- until this one. One of the reasons for his making this film was the split from his significant other, actress Olivia Wilde, and its repercussions.

The talking  heads from past and present includes everyone from the right-wing uber-idiot, George Putnam to the sensible and quite easy-to-take gay columnist Dan Savage (above), who is clearly a good friend of Ruspoli whom the director turns to for help in his time of need. As his film tackles monogamy and its discontents, it also explores history, women as property, and the rise of feminism. As one fellows asks in the course of the film, "Do you want to overturn thousands of years of civilization?" No, but maybe thousands of years of patriarchy, yes.

Along the way we get a great quote about marriage and second marriage from Oscar Wilde, a lovely poem by William Butler Yeats, interviews with a number of folk who are experimenting with what we used to call "alternate life styles" (above). The director even includes a little narrative interpolation featuring a hitchhiker (below) and the lucky pair who pick her up.

The movie may be all over the place, but it manages to -- yet, again -- raise enough interesting questions about an old, old subject to hold our attention. And that ending, a humdinger, does indeed make the trip both thought-provoking and worthwhile. And please, Tao, let us know what happens here. (Since the movie was finished back in 2014, I suspect that plenty has already occurred.)

From Mangu.tv/Mangusta Productions and running a lean 74 minutes, the movie opens tomorrow, Friday, October 13, and will expand to wide release in November. Theaters? Well, in New York City, it's playing at the Roxy Cinema in Tribeca. That's all I know so far....

Fiddling w/philosophy, flirting w/significance: Jérôme Reybaud's FOUR DAYS IN FRANCE

At this point in time there is really a rather amazing amount of diverse -- in both style and content -- filmmakers who cover the GLBT territory internationally. From François Ozon and Gregg Araki to João Pedro Rodrigues and newcomer Händl Klaus, the list keeps growing. To it we must now add Jérôme Reybaud, a Frenchman (France may very probably have the largest number of these, percentage-wise, at least) whose first narrative film, 4 DAYS IN FRANCE (Jours de France), has its U.S. theatrical release this week in New York City.

France being the country that appears (in TrustMovies' estimation anyway) to most pride itself on philosophy and its discontents, it would make sense that M. Reybaud (shown at right) and his film would concern itself with this. And so it does, but in ways very different from any of this country's other movie-makers who cover the GLBT scene (think of the work of Ozon, filmmaking duo Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, Alain Guiraudie, or that of Patric Chiha, to name four of many off the top of my head). Every moviemaker's "take" on humanity and homosexuality is different, as it should be, which makes so many of these movies varied and interesting.

In M. Reybaud's tale, Pierre Thomas (whom I will refer to henceforth as PT), one of a pair of lovers (played by Pascal Cervo, above) makes his very early morning exit from the other (and perhaps from the relationship itself), setting off on what he hopes will be a kind of buffet of sexual experience around the country and countryside. When his mate, Paul (Arthur Igual, below), awakens to find his PT missing, it is only when he notices the other's toothbrush gone as well that he realizes this is probably more than a mere night on the town.

Though PT has taken off in  the pair's white Alfa Romeo and has a good head start on Paul, the latter hightails it out after his love, and so the movie becomes a kind of "chase" film -- though of the most modulated variety you can imagine. Slow does not begin to describe this particular car chase.

Along PT's route, the nearing-middle-age man discovers one after another woman who appears to need help (at least in Pierre Thomas' mind) and so his journey becomes anything but a sexual romp. The first of these is played by Fabienne Babe (above), whose car has broken down and who needs a lift to and from her work. Another is an old lady (played by the now-deceased Dorothée Blanck, below) who turns out to be more interested in hawking god than receiving help.

Not that our boy doesn't have a little hot sex along the way, with the Paris-smitten sweetie shown below. Don't worry: No full-frontal here, except via cell phone photo, the close-up shot of which sets off immediate recognition in Paul of his lover's genitalia (I'm not sure I could have done that with any one of my partners' packages over the years).

Each of these tiny hook-ups (a couple sexual, most not -- Paul, evidently bisexual, even gets a blow-job from a randy waitress along the way) results in the very minor exploration of a wide variety of topics: old age, education, thievery, identity, theater, Italian automobile manufacturing, geography, passion, separation, religion, and even death.

Since Paul is following PT via apps like Grinder, we get some technology tossed into the mix, too, as well as a little of the sort of inter-generational sex (below) found in the films of the great gay-bi filmmaker Guiraudie. Yet nothing is explored here in any depth. Instead Reybaud flits from one topic to another, with enough coincidence that you begin to imagine that happenstance is more the man's style than his content.

Certainly 4 Days in France wants to explore the gay (maybe it's just the male) urge to fuck around. It does this, but it also takes two hours and twenty-two minutes to do so. Finally it seems that our filmmaker is telling us little more than certain popular old chestnuts: Yes, "the Grass Is Always Greener," but isn't it probably best to be "Back in Your Own Backyard?"

I'm pleased to have seen this film, and will now add Reybaud's name to my list of filmmaker's to watch. Recommending the movie to others, however, comes with the above caveats. (Did I mention that the film also features a nice turn by Liliane Montevecchi? That may be reason enough for some of you to view it.)

From Cinema Guild, in French with English subtitles, this gay "art film" opens Friday, August 4 in New York City at the Quad Cinema. (There will be a Q&A with the director Jérôme Reybaud on Friday, Aug. 4 & Saturday, Aug. 5, at the 6:40 shows.) In Los Angeles, the film will open August 11 at Laemmle's Ahrya Fine Arts, with a limited national release to follow.

Gillian Robespierre's sophomore effort, LANDLINE, hits South Florida theaters

Well, its credentials as a piece of American Independent Cinema are certainly flawless: actors the likes of John Turturro, Edie Falco and Jay Duplass, along with newer members such as Abby Quinn and Jenny Slate, the latter of whom director/co-writer Gillian Robespierre collaborated with a few years back on the funny, original and much better indie movie, Obvious Child. Their newest collaboration, LANDLINE, though it boasts a number of lovely moments and scenes, doesn't fare nearly as well overall.

Set in 1995, the movie opens on Labor Day, with some awfully laborious (and, yes, funny) sex taking place on screen. Ms Robespierre, shown at left, together with her co-writers Elizabeth Holm and Tom Bean, have fashioned a movie about family set back some 22 years, at a time when technology, computers, the internet (but not yet cell phones) were beginning to control our lives. This will initially make the movie a nice nostalgia trip for some of us. (Benihana, the restaurant most seen in the film, was also perhaps a bit more newsworthy then.)

The themes here, in addition to the perennially popular one of "family," are those of intimacy, fidelity, trust and betrayal -- and how important these actually are (or maybe aren't) to a successful, long-term relationship. All good -- if nothing we haven't encountered at the movies many times before.

When the family's younger daughter (Quinn, above right) discovers -- a little too easily, it seemed to me -- what looks like an affair their dad (Turturro, at right, two photos above) is having with another woman, she eventually apprises older sibling (Slate, above, left) of the goings-on.

They keep mom (Falco, above, center) out of it while they (sort of) investigate matters, even as the older daughter, though engaged to a nice fellow named Ben (Duplass, in bathtub below), nonetheless falls into an her own affair with an old friend she has recently encountered at a party (Finn Wittrock, at left in photo at bottom).

That's about it -- except that the chickens, as they say, do come home to roost. (Oh, there's a little drug-dealing here, too.) The problem is that nothing we see or hear is all that incisive, interesting, funny or moving. (It's certainly not original, either.) Performances are as good as can be, given the material, and the movie is never unwatchable. But we keep waiting for it to take off. Instead it stays firmly grounded until it finally rolls into its predetermined destination.

From Amazon Studios and running a little too long even at 97 minutes, Landline, after hitting the major cultural centers a week or so back, opens here in South Florida tomorrow, Friday, July 28, in the Miami areas at AMC's Aventura 24 and Sunset Place 24, Regal's South Beach 18 and the O Cinema Wynwood. The following Friday, August 4, it expands to Fort Lauderdale, the Palm Beach and Boca Raton areas at The Classic Gateway Theatre, Regal's Royal Palm Beach 18 and Shadowood 16, the Living Room Theater, and the Cinemark Palace 20. Wherever you live across the country, just click here to find a theater near you.

A digital debut for Joan Carr-Wiggin's HAPPILY EVER AFTER: Lightning does not strike twice

When the terrific (and still woefully underseen and under-appreciated) rom-com If I Were You burst upon us in March of 2013, TrustMovies thought that he, as well as the world at large, had found a fabulous new filmmaker: Joan Carr-Wiggin. Granted, he had also seen and not much liked her earlier film, A Previous Engagement, but because If I Were You remains among the best rom-coms he has ever seen, he was more than a little excited to view her new one: HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Unfortunately it skews to that former film's weaknesses rather than to the strengths of the latter.

Those would include the just-about-perfect performances of If I Were You's stars, Marcia Gay Harden and Leonore Watling, as well as a plot that grew ever more interesting, off-kilter and appealing as the film moved along. Carr-Wiggin (the filmmaker is pictured at left) has, in her latest work, appeared to revert to her earlier problem of putting preaching prior to plot and entertainment value. And this only grows more so as Happily Ever After runs its course. Yes, the filmmaker wants to point up western society's penchant for hypocrisy and denial, but having the characters almost constantly wag their finger at each other (and us) is perhaps not the best way to do this. (The film's title itself is problematic, as there have been by now dozens of movies and TV films to use this same moniker. By calling your film Happily Ever After, you're immediately in used-tire territory.)

In addition, there are so very many oddball couplings, "surprise" connections and reversals/revelations in the course of the film that, after awhile, we stop counting -- and caring, (My spouse stopped watching around 80-minute point; I lasted out until the end.)

This is too bad because Carr-Wiggin has assembled a pretty good cast to people her romp and occasionally given them some smart dialog to perform. Shown at left in the two photos above is the movie's OK co-star Janet Montgomery and her even-better co-star Sarah Paxton (shown at right in both photos).

The two play high school best friends, whose friendship disappeared suddenly when the former headed out of town without notifying anyone some years previous. Also involved are the Paxton character's mother (Alex Kingston, above left) and current best friend (Claire Brosseau, above, right).

The guys -- usually a lesser breed in the Carr-Wiggin oeuvre -- are represented by our two heroines' dads (Peter Firth, left, and Al Sapienza, right) and Alex McCooeye (center) as a somewhat baffled groom-to-be. As I say, the performers are good, but the hoops they are asked to jump through would prove tricky to the most seasoned and talented performers. (Harden and Watling in If I Were You, for all the bizarre situations in which Carr-Wiggin placed them, had much stronger characters to play. And the actresses are damned strong, too.)

So, on balance, Happily Ever After proves more trying than entertaining. But the filmmaker is said to have yet another film coming out later this year featuring a very good British cast. We live in hope. Meanwhile, this one -- running a too-long 112 minutes and distributed by Alchemy -- makes its digital debut this coming Tuesday, March 15, on major platforms from Amazon to Xbox and most everything in between. 

Paul Verhoeven's bizarre TRICKED proves an enjoyable -- if misfired -- cinema oddity

Even though his resume is rather up-and-down -- The Fourth Man to Showgirls, Spetters to the original Robocop, Basic Instinct to Black Book -- anything Dutch director Paul Verhoeven hands us is worth at least a look, if not an occasional repeat viewing. So it is with his latest film (and one of his oddest) to reach our shores, the 2012 TRICKED, which is advertised to be (though I rather doubt it) "the first user-generated film." This supposedly means that a bunch of film fans had their say in writing the screenplay, along with maybe a half dozen more-or-less professional writers, all of whom "developed" the movie as the filming process went along.

Verhoeven, shown at left, has long been noted for his diversity -- he doesn't like to do the same thing twice. So tackling this "user-generated" thing probably had some appeal to the guy. Yet it is difficult to believe that a filmmaker this accomplished would not have seen some of the insurmountable problems coming a mile away. The biggest of these is the fact that using so many "screenwriters" (I think I heard the number 70 mentioned) all working independently and handing in their own "scenarios" that took off from an original four-page set-up could not help but result in a movie that has little continuity and certainly no momentum or satisfying finale. Eventually this multi-writer idea had to be scrapped, with the final film using the input from only a few of the scribes. (So much for this truly being a user-generated film.)

We learn all of the above and more from the first third of the movie, just over a half-hour, which is a kind of documentary about the creation of Tricked. Then we see the resulting film (stills from which are shown above and below). While that documentary is not uninteresting, it is clear to any intelligent viewer, almost from the beginning, that this was a terrible, a genuinely stupid idea. All of which makes that first half-hour rather a slough, even though there is an occasional bright moment seen or smart thought expressed.

When we get to the film itself, the Verhoeven we know and love takes over, and things get juicy and spicy and melodramatic and generally lots of fun. The plot is full of lust and betrayal, heavy-duty emotions, family problems and business deals. The performances -- all from pros, young and old -- are just fine, as is always the case in Verhoeven's films, and the technical aspects (editing, sound, cinematography, and all the rest) are great, as well. But the finished movie, coming in at just under one hour, seems like something that would work better on television. Its highly melodramatic plot (it must be, under this kind of time constraint) involves so much "incident" that it often seems to approach a level of "camp."

Verhoeven has always been a director who fills his films with so many happenings, including incident and coincidence, that you're zipping along at a super-fast pace. When this works well, as in Black Book, and a number of his other films, the entertainment quotient is very high. And when the film's running time also allows for some character deepening and theme development, the result can be quite fine. Here, though, it all seems rushed and TV-level (old-fashioned television, like a Twilight Zone episode but without the supernatural or fantasy elements).

And yet, such an old pro is the filmmaker that by the end of Tricked, I found myself hurling right along with all this nonsense, which involved a rake of a husband and his mistresses, current and past; a corporate takeover; and a birthday party with a bulging surprise at its center. I suppose it was decided that releasing a mere 55-minute movie would not be a smart marketing move, so the documentary footage was added to make something full-length. How much better it might have been, TrustMovies suggests, to have made a full-length Verhoeven film instead: one in which all that juicy melodrama was given the kind of backup development it ought to have had. Post-viewing, you're likely to start imagining what all this could have been, and you'll be disappointed not to have seen it, instead.

From Kino Lorber and running a total of 89 minutes, Tricked opens in New York City this Friday, February 26. at the Cinema Village theater and simultaneously via digital streaming on Fandor.