The hot new Netflix series from Spain, entitled ELITE, proves sensational twice over

There are two major meanings of the word "sensational," and both easily fit the new Spanish series streaming now on Netflix. The first refers to something causing great public interest and excitement (synonyms: shocking, scandalous, appalling), the second tackles the quality of that thing: very impressive, gorgeous, stunning, captivating, and so forth. ELITE, which is set in an uber-high-end prep school in Spain in which the students, hormone-fueled to the max, engage in all kinds of sex -- straight, gay, and even threesomes -- proves sensational on both fronts.

The product of a pair of well-known Spanish writers/producers (shown above, respectively right and left), Darío Madrona (Vive cantando) and Carlos Montero (The Time in Between), Elite will be quite enough for some viewers interested in watching a group of gorgeous young actors, clothed and unclothed, getting it on. That we come to know and understand these kids so well and begins to care about them more and more as the series progresses is due to the exceptional writing and the crack performances given by every last cast member.

In conception and execution, Elite proves exactly that. The plot kicks into action as a trio of new students -- a Muslim girl and two boys of clearly working-class status, above (above, left to right: Itzan Escamilla, Mina El Hammani, and Miguel Herrán) -- are introduced into this high school made up of the sons and daughters of Spain's exclusive and entitled one per cent (two of which are shown below: Ester Expósito and Álvaro Rico)  Divisions are immediately drawn -- by the end of the first episode we know that a murder has been committed -- and the following seven episodes are devoted to blurring those divisions.

We soon find that we are seeing some good in the kids we initially despised, while finding fault with those we liked and most rooted for. In short, the characters here are rounded; they grow and they change. Some more than others, and some very little (especially the nasty, rich bitch below, played to near-perfection by Danna Paola), and their movements back and forth as they learn who they are, along with who their friends really are (or aren't) makes the series grow ever richer.

The Spanish, bless 'em, may be the best purveyors of melodrama in the world (followed perhaps by the South Koreans). Grand Hotel is of course the sterling example for our millennium, with so many other series like La casa de papel (known as Money Heist on Netflix) not far behind. Is this creative ability built into the Spanish DNA? One does have to wonder because -- so clever is the plotting, so fine the casting and characterizations, and so spectacular the production design and visuals -- little else compares.

The series is said to have raised eyebrows and hackles in its native Spain, ostensibly for its sexuality. (That's Arón Piper , left, with newcomer Omar Ayuso, above.) But I do wonder if, on a deeper level, it's the cynical "take" on the children of the one per cent, and their powerful, mostly despicable parents holding onto to power by any means necessary, that has riled the powers-that-be even more.

The attitude here is mostly progressive, including even the sex-and-sin portions, which are plentiful. Though we know the murder victim early on (this is nothing like Big Little Lies), the identity of the murderer remains hidden until the finale. (That's Miguel Bernardeau, above right, as the most entitled and pushy of the elite crew.)

Any justice, however, will have to be meted out during Elite's second season. There will surely be one, as the first season has been a major hit, with its popularity only growing as more countries discover its pleasures. Above, right, is Jaime Lorente, who plays the pivotal older brother of one of the new students. Both he and Senor Herrán (standing, below, center, and at bottom, left), are also stars of the Money Heist series. The two are clearly talented and versatile performers, with Herrán quite the little scene-stealer.

Probably the most problemed and difficult of all these characters is our sort-of heroine, Marina, played by María Pedraza, below, whose behavior and decisions will have you rooting for her one minute and wanting to smack her the next. Ms Pedraza was also in Money Heist, playing the pivotal character of Alison Parker. She is so different here as to be very nearly unrecognizable, yet in her own strange way, she holds the series' first season together.

You can stream Elite now, here in the USA and elsewhere via Netflix. Do give it a try. TrustMovies' blood pressure is still raised a bit, thanks to all the provocative goings-on.

Another look at Sleazywood: David Cronenberg and Bruce Wagner's louche MAPS TO THE STARS

Does anyone have a more jaundiced, delightfully despicable view of Hollywood and its dank denizens than writer Bruce Wagner (shown below)? From his comic Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills to the masterful I'm Losing You (novel and film) to this latest lollapalooza -- MAPS TO THE STARS -- Wagner shows us la-la-land with an incredible blend of black humor and rapier wit tempered with just a dash of feeling so that we can't quite dismiss his nasty satire out of hand. To bring to fruition his latest foray into our narcissistic depths, he's landed David Cronenberg, shown above (or maybe to the right), to direct, and the combo turns out to be a marriage made in an absolutely heavenly hell.

Maps to the Stars begins rather quietly, if bizarrely, for we haven't yet understood the depths to which the characters we're meeting will soon sink -- how their insatiable need for constant acknowledgment and fame outdoes any human instinct they might have once possessed. Yet so interesting and strange seem all the people we encounter that we're hooked from scene one.

Mr Wagner's dialog definitely helps. Notes one character early on: "I met the Dalai Lama! He's the kind of guy you just want to hang with. But you can't. Because he's, like, you know, the Dalai Lama."

It isn't long, however, before the characters we're laughing at and with turn darker, nastier. Darkest of all and the woman we probably get to know best is the famous actress named Havana Segrand (played by last night's Oscar-winner Julianne Moore, shown above and below, right).

Also proving a strange character we learn to care about (and become a bit frightened of, as well) is Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska, above, left and below). Agatha, who now possess an unsightly scarred body and face, is the daughter of a famous self-help guru, Standford Weiss, who serves the Hollywood set and is played with his usual panache by John Cusack (shown in the penultimate photo), who seems to be taking to darker roles like that proverbial duck to water.

Into Agatha's life also comes a handsome chauffeur-cum-screenwriter, played well by Robert Pattinson, below, who has by now thankfully gotten that stupid-but-successful Twilight series out of his system and can move on to roles that call for some actual acting. He's the character through whom we see much of what is happening (and is said to be based upon Wagner's own early Hollywood history).

The Weiss family also includes a mother, played with rigid intensity by the fine Olivia Williams, and a drug-addled TV-actor son, Benji, whose name and interaction with a dog should bring to mind a certain (in)famous series of animal movies. As played by the terrific and creepy Evan Bird, below, Benji complete this family of would-be Hollywood royalty, a matched set of major nut-jobs.

That Weiss family dances with and around our gal Havana, who pretty much rules the movie in the same manner as she does her retinue. There is a particular scene -- between Ms Moore and another actress playing an actress (Jennifer Gibson) on a Beverly Hills sidewalk outside one or another swank shop -- so perfectly on the mark and full of friendly sweetness masking outright hatred that it becomes an instant classic. The interaction demonstrates to a "t" how Hollywood folk are never scarier than when they're being "nice."

Ms Moore -- always a great actress who rarely makes a misstep or chooses a project that is not worthwhile -- is so very fine in this rich, rabid role that she actually makes what happens to her character somehow enjoyable. And that is indeed what they call "going some."

Well, that's Mr. Wagner for you. He turns us all into the kind of people who can take schadenfreude to unspeakable new heights. Or, rather, depths. "Juicy" does not begin to describe this amazing film.

Maps to the Stars -- from Focus Features and running 111 minutes -- opens theatrically this Friday, February 27, in various locales.

Here in the NYC area, it'll play at Manhattan's IFC Center, the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn and the Kew Gardens Cinema in Queens. In the L.A. area, look for it at the Sundance Sunset Cinema, and at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and their NoHo 7 in North Hollywood. Elsewhere? Maybe, and if I can find a link to playdates, I'll post it later....

Driven drummer comes up against maniacal mentor in Damien Chazelle's WHIPLASH

Another case of inflated expectations (not entirely sinking but) dragging down a serviceable, feel-good (after feeling really bad) movie featuring a few terrific scenes, WHIPLASH is musical melodrama writ very large. One of those "if you'll believe this, you'll believe most anything" compilations of unlikely events growing even more unlikely as they lead to a thrilling, if ridiculous, climax, the film is certainly fun in its over-the-top way. As written and directed by Damien Chazelle (his follow-up to Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench), this second full-lengther also features an all-stops-out performance from an actor, J. K. Simmons, whom people will now claim has suddenly come into his own.

Except that Simmons has been his very capable "own man" for almost three decades now. He's never given anything less than a good performance that I've seen. It's just that here, he finally gets star billing -- along with a one-note role that he rips into and tears to shreds. Simmons plays Professor Fletcher, the much-feared music teacher and orchestra leader of the famed New York-based music school which our hero, Andrew (Miles Teller) attends in the hopes of becoming a bigtime drummer. Neither one-note role offer much in the way of recognizable human nature or nuance. Writer/director Chazelle, shown above, makes Fletcher, below, a mustache-twirling villain, the likes of whom we've not seen since Snidely Whiplash (whom I suddenly realize must have been the inspiration behind this film), pitted against the naive-but-talented, obsessively driven Andrew.

What happens in the course of the movie defies credibility a number of times, but for those who like their melodrama lip-smackingly pungent, this one offers plenty of juice. The ongoing duet of symbolically (and once nearly literally) death-defying stunts keeps upping the ante until, if I'm not mistaken, we're at Carnegie Hall, for Christ's sake.

Performances are quite good, working wonderfully well for melodrama (Joan Crawford would have loved this movie), including the supporting performances from Paul Reiser (lovely and low-keyed as Andrew's dad), Melissa Benoist (below, left, as his unappreciated girlfriend), and Chris Mulkey (as Uncle Frank). The one dinner scene in which Mulkey appears seems to have been written, as has so much else in the movie, with a clear point to make and so comes off as a little unreal, unlike any actual dinner you might have witnessed. Chazelle does not yet have the ability to finesse dialog in the manner that real dialog happens -- unless it's super-confrontational. He's certainly good at that.

Chazelle also keeps trying to give the Fletcher character a saving grace or two, and this grows a bit silly over time, as Simmons is clearly playing the guy as evil, even and especially when he appears to be going for "nice."

The film's final scene, which offers the what-you've-been-waiting-for showdown, also contains some of the worst, back-and-forth, tennis-tournament cinematography I've viewed all year.

While it is indeed great to see Simmons in another leading role (most people missed him in The Music Never Stopped), next time I'll hope for something a little more believable (but probably not nearly as much fun). Mr. Teller, below, who bids fair to become the best actor of his young generation, is fine once again. He does a bang-up job on the drums, too, and will certainly convince you that he can beat the hell out of 'em. But, as called for here, he is either cowed or loud, so this is nowhere near as nuanced a performance as he gives in the current Two Night Stand or has given elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong: Whiplash, eminently watchable, is and a hoot and a half. But people, please: Are you really taking this movie seriously?

The film -- from Sony Pictures Classics and running 106 minutes -- opens theatrically this Friday, October 10, in Los Angeles (at The Landmark, AMC Century City 15 and Hollywood Arclight) and New York City (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, Regal Union Square and Cinemas 123) and will expand throughout the country in the weeks following. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

Looking for a smart, anti-fundamentalist thriller? Try Shan Khan's juicy melodrama, HONOUR

This is the kind of movie I would refer to (if I used that sort of language) as hot shit. The new melodrama/ thriller about the terribly constricted lives of certain Pakistanis -- female variety, of course -- who dwell in London is not exactly a feminist film (the word is never even used here). Yet by its very nature and the story it tells so well, HONOUR, written and directed by Shan Khan, is hugely feminist. It's no stretch to suggest that, by its conclusion, it will have turned you to a raging, anti-fundamentalist feminist, too.

The film's clever construction gets an A-plus in my book. Beginning with a rancid, racist event on a moving train that shames us, even if we don't quite know why it is there or what it means to the movie as a whole, this first full-length film, written and directed by Mr. Khan (shown at right), turns out to know exactly what it is doing at each moment. If, at the climax, the filmmaker relies a bit too much to the standard and cliched, so good has he given us up to that point that you'll probably go along for the rest of the ride. (The denouement -- which answers an earlier question you'll have asked -- is quietly fraught and absolutely priceless.)

In between all this, because the filmmaker moves back and forth in time, we're not always sure where we are. Yet so cleverly has he managed his plot (and our fears) that we follow along, eventually understanding the entirety of this nasty family saga that -- due to the increasing number of honour killings against Muslim women -- seems all too true and twice as disgusting. (Honour may be one of the most anti-fundamentalist films you'll ever see.)

Our heroine, Mona, played with zest and finally -- considering all that is done to her by her disgusting family -- a finely controlled fury by the beautiful actress Aiysha Hart (two photos above and above, left), is a successful realtor in love with one of her co-workers, Tanvir (played by the handsome, full-lipped Nikesh Patel, above, right). Tanvir, however, has been promised since birth to another. When word gets out in the com-munity about the lovers' plans to run away together, while Tanvir's life is threatened, it is Mona, being a Muslim woman, who pays the dearest price.

When we first meet her stern mother (Harvey Virdi, above) and angry brother Kasim (Faraz Ayub, below, right), we don't much like them. Soon, however, they do something so rotten and shocking that we hold our breath in hopes that what we've seen somehow did not happen. Via his fast-paced use of back-and-forth, past-and-present, the filmmaker keeps us on tenterhooks so that we don't always know in what time frame things are taking place. This can be confusing, but so solidly has Khan hooked us that we stick with him until we learn the answers.

With the introduction of a bounty hunter, hired to find and bring back the missing Mona, the film turns into a kind of chase thriller. Our bounty hunter (played by the fine Paddy Considine, below) has guilt issues of his own with which to deal, and soon Mona has an ally of sorts.

How all this works itself out makes, on one level, for a fast-moving, crackerjack thriller. On another level, it simply adds ammunition to the arsenal of those of us who would like to see this kind of cretinous, fundamentalist thinking wiped off the face of the earth. Good luck. We've got about as much of a chance of turning around Muslim fundamentalist attitudes in Britain, as we have of bringing real and necessary gun control to these United States.

But at least we've got smart movies with a mission like this one to keep us entertained, even as our minds are made to consider what's happening in our culture and the world around us. In fact, this is probably the best feminist melodrama thriller since the amazing French film, Chaos, from 2001. (That's the younger and kinder of Mona's two brothers, played by Shubham Saraf, below.)

From 108 Media and running a tight, just-right 104 minutes (there's hardly a single moment you'd want to see cut), Honour opens this Friday in theaters and via VOD. Here in New York City, it plays the Cinema Village, and it will also hit one of the Laemmle theaters in the L.A. area soon (date and theater are yet to be determined). Don't let this one get lost in the usual, Oh-but-there-are-just-too-many-movies-to-see! shuffle.... If you're so inclined, try it via Vimeo-on-Demand.