Lovers of unintentional camp, rejoice! RUSSIAN DOLL (A Thriller) hits DVD

The box art for RUSSIAN DOLL explains (or maybe proclaims) the movie to be, via its subtitle description, (A Thriller) -- in parentheses, yet, in case, I guess, we might want to consider this as parenthetical. Indeed there is not a single thrill to be found here. There is, however, a whole lot of genuine laughs, most of these completely unintentional, I fear.

Which means that this movie takes its place among those hallowed few films that rise, completely of their own accord, into the realm of unintentional camp.

As written and directed by Ed Gaffney (shown at right, whose earlier work as screenwriter, The Perfect Wedding, this reviewer thoroughly enjoyed), Russian Doll begins and ends with a genuine surprise. The first of these turns what has initially looked just slightly off-kilter into something that makes perfect sense. The final surprise has to do with identity, and I admit that I did not at all expect it. So I applaud. Very good, Mr. Gaffney!

The problem, however, is that between these two surprises, almost everything else seems bat-shit crazy, including the performances of much of the cast, especially our leading lady, Melanie Brockmann Gaffney (I suspect she is the filmmaker's wife), who, whatever other talents she possesses, acting is not among them, and Jason T. Gaffney (the filmmaker's son?), who was so very good in his rom-com role in The Perfect Wedding, but here plays a villain (shown below with his victim, played by Aly Trasher) who keeps making us laugh. Unintentionally, I admit. But that's not what villains are supposed to do.

The plot has to do with a theatrical play, the authorship of which may have been stolen; a sudden kidnapping (that actually makes very little sense overall); and a theatrical production of said play (named Russian Doll) that is occurring simultaneously with the kidnapping and a budding romance between our heroine, a police detective (Ms Gaffney, at left on poster, top) and a very pretty, sexy young woman with whom the detective's mom (Kristine Sutherland, below) has set her up.

All comes together in as clunky a manner as the above description sounds, with the kidnapper and his kidnapee especially hilarious, as the latter keeps escaping and the former keeps telling her that he's going to kill her if she keeps this up. She does, of course, and he doesn't. Somewhere along the way, the filmmaker inserts a song, the lyrics of which prove as awful (and as funny) as everything else on display. (We happened to have the English subtitles on as we watched and so got a double dose, aural and visual.)

At one point or another, my spouse and I began laughing aloud at the increasingly silly goings-on and, as can happen with this kind of laughter, it simply grew and grew until we were actually having a pretty good time. Add to this the automatic corrective that a truly awful movie can provide to just about everything else you've seen, mediocre on downward. Russian Doll managed this, and I am grateful. Now I truly understand what bad looks like. (That's the other leading lady, played by Marem Hassler, above, right, and Sarah Hollis, below, right, as our heroine's police partner, who tries to be smart and sassy but is defeated at every turn by the script.)

Distributed by Wolfe Video and running at least a short 82 minutes, the movie hits the street on DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 17 -- for purchase and/or maybe rental. To all of you -- performers, filmmakers, audiences -- good luck!

Ridley Scott's ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD brings back the 1973 J.P. Getty III kidnapping

Overlong, ham-fisted, tiresome and melodramatic, ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD is but the latest in a long line of Hollywood product that takes an ugly and sensational real-life incident and turns it into schlock entertainment. As directed with his increasingly heavy hand by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa (from the book by John Pearson), the movie gives us the kidnapping and lengthy imprisonment of the grandson of the then-world's-richest-man, John Paul Getty and lets us wallow in it, even as the young Getty's mom does all she can to convince the kid's grand-dad to cough up the ransom money.

As per usual -- of late, at least -- with his woeful returns to the Alien franchise (Prometheus and Covenant) and his hugely overlong The Martian, Mr. Scott (shown at left) dawdles and extends when brevity and crispness are most called for. His new movie, which lasts 132 minutes, could easily have dispensed with twenty or more of those and turned out all the better for their loss.

Most annoying, however, are the melodramatic touches that dot the film -- note the early morning scene outside the Getty estate with the delivery of those newspapers -- culminating in a supposedly exciting will-he-survive? finale that simply reeks of this-never-happened Hollywood contrivance.

Random moviegoers, who pay any attention to those reams of trailers thrust upon audiences prior to the movie we've come to see, may recall a particular trailer for this film that starred Kevin Spacey as the older Getty. Gosh: How come Christopher Plummer (above and below) is up there on screen in the same role now? Well, even though the movie was ready for release earlier this year, once the current sexual predator scandal engulfed Spacey, a series of reshoots -- probably the most lengthy and expensive in the history of modern Hollywood -- was done so that the film could be released without any "taint." Which simply adds a new layer of sleaze to the whole enterprise.

Does anyone else out there find this idea of "disappearing" a performer seem like something out of Stalinist Russia? Sure, Spacey, the man, ought to be pilloried for his actions, but his terrific array of acting over decades now ought to remain untouched.

All the Money in the World is certainly not a complete loss. Plummer is very good, as the man of the year that moviegoers will hate the most. And as young Getty's mother, Michelle Williams (above) gives yet another of her wonderfully lived-in, every-moment-real performances. She's a pleasure to watch, as always. Mark Wahlberg (below, center right), more tamped down than usual and in a much less "heroic" mold, proves adequate, too, though audiences expecting more action out of him may be disappointed.

The story itself is interesting and fraught with enough tension to keep most viewers occupied, even if the cannier among them may do some eye-rolling at the coincidence that pops up now and again. The movie sticks at least somewhat close enough to what happened in this kidnapping to keep those of us who remember it semi-satisfied. (It certainly makes Italy of that day look like a heap of criminally connected sewage, including even certain small town police departments.) Charlie Plummer, below and consistently beleaguered, is as good as he's allowed to be in the role of victim. Overall, however, this movie seems very nearly unnecessary.

From Sony/TriStar Pictures, All the Money in the World opened nationwide this past week and is probably playing in your area. Click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.

A North Korea we've never seen -- in Cannan & Adam's fun doc, THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT

How strange that the most enjoyable (and bizarre) film about North Korea so far -- and this would include even The Interview -- would be a documentary that pairs North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il with a South Korea film director and his actress wife that the little dictator first has kidnapped and then "persuades" to make movies up north instead of down south. THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT takes us back to the 1970s and 80s, while giving us a view of Kim Jong-il that is not quite like anything we've heard or seen.

Granted, as viewed in this dishy and often delightful documentary directed by Rob Cannan (shown below) and Ross Adam (shown at left), little Jong-il comes off nothing much like the man his better (or was it worse?) father, Kim Il-sung, but maybe slightly better (worse?) than his own son, successor and current ruler, Kim Jong-un. Because what we outsiders can learn and understand about this little country that has for decades been shrouded in secrecy remains so paltry -- also so uncertain:

how do we know much of anything we hear is even true? -- North Korea has taken on something of a mystical nature in our minds. It's weird and awful, of course, but -- come on now -- it's kind of fascinating, too. And because most docs we've so far seen about this country have had their filmmaker's access restrained to the point of why bother? -- while the one narrative movie to tackle the subject, The Interview, proved much more successful as a satire of the American media and our drive for success at any cost than of North Korea itself -- The Lovers and the Despot immediately takes its place at the forefront of reality, despite its pretty loony-tunes content.

To get  right to it, that content tells the tale of a Kim Jong-il so besotted with love of movies -- and of the Hollywood and South Korean variety, rather than that of his stodgy, home-grown product -- that he (or maybe someone on his staff) comes up with the idea of kidnapping South Korea's leading actress, Choi Eun-hee (pictured above, in one of her roles) and maybe getting her to make movies for him.

Ms Choi had been married to one of South Korea's leading filmmakers, Shin Sang-ok (above), though the two, I think, were already divorced by now (turns out that Mr. Shin was an unfaithful hubby), and the couple had two adopted children (whom we see and hear from throughout the doc). Shin, bereft at the loss of his leading lady (and maybe still his love), gets depressed and can't find work at home, so when rumors arise of this possible North Korean kidnapping of Choi, he somehow arranges for himself to be "kidnapped," too, so he can join his woman.

Initially, Ms Choi is kept under a kind of easy-going house arrest, with periodic meetings with dictator Kim, while Mr Shin is shoved into a real prison and spends several years there. Eventually the little dictator reunites the pair, apologizes for their previous and not-so-hot circumstances, and the creative duo begin making movies for him. When these films becomes successful enough to find their way into film festivals in the east and finally the west, escape seems like a real possibility,

We see all this via what look like surprisingly well-done re-enactments that adhere to the look and feel of the the time period (grainy film stock, in-period fashions, cars and the like). Much of the North Korean footage could easily be real, taken by the folk who did the kidnapping (Kim and his henchmen seems very camera-oriented). Verbally, we get much of our remembrances from Ms Choi and her two children, as well as from a few "critics" of that day, and finally from some of the folk involved with the western powers. (Yes, the U.S, was part of all of this, too. Aren't we always?). Mr. Shin, for reasons we later learn, is not present verbally.

Turns out that, while credence is generally given to Ms Choi's story, disbelief is mostly the case where Shin is concerned. Whether he was kidnapped or "defected" is still up for grabs in both South Korea and in the west. (And yet his defection, after all, would have been in search of his wife.) All told, what we see and hear here makes about as much sense as anything else to come out the blinkered and hidden world of North Korea. Interestingly, what takes place in the old North Korean footage in this film often mimics what we've seen in other recent docs (such as Under the Sun and Songs From the North) about this hidden little country: parades, awards, ballet classes, and the ever-conforming populace involved in group displays of pride, joy or grief when the dictator dies. (We're told here that, if one's grief did not seem real enough, one could be "disappeared.") All of which underscores the sense that nothing -- not now, not then -- comes out of North Korea that is not micro-managed.

The most fascinating piece of this new doc is the look we get at Kim Jong-il, who, for all the horror that he, his dad and his son have inflicted on this sad country, would seem to be a fellow who genuinely loved movies and was affected/afflicted by them. Under his hand, Shin and Choi made some 17 features films, including the first actual love story to come from North Korea. (Shin remarks at some point about how wonderful it is not to have any more "money problems" while directing a movie. Take that, Capitalism!) These three had what appears to be a "real" relationship, so one also wonders about the betrayal, even sadness, Kim must have felt when his prize possessions suddenly hi-tailed it back to the south.

A United Kingdom production, released in the U.S, via Magnolia Pictures, The Lovers and the Despot -- in Korean, Japanese and English, with English subtitles when needed -- runs 98 minutes. It opens this Friday, September 23, in New York City, Washington DC, the Los Angeles area, Boston, and Philadephia, with further expansion across the country in the weeks to come. Click here and then click on GET TICKETS to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed. 

Gimme that old-time religion -- but maybe just not on film: Shawn Justice's RECONCILER

TrustMovies makes it a point to try to view a 'Christian' movie once a year (which is a lot more often than he goes to church), and this year he is getting it out of the way early via a film entitled RECONCILER, directed and co-written (with Scott Galbraith) by Shawn Justice, shown below. The film is relatively short (just 86 minutes) and has a storyline that encompasses everything from a kidnap mystery and the supernatural (some would call this religion; I call it otherworldly) to estranged brothers, a devolving police partnership (shown at bottom), a father-son conflict, the importance of giving to religious charities, and of course faith in god.

The problem with most faith-based films I've seen is that their first intention is always to teach a lesson about the importance of faith in Jesus and god. And since I personally feel that this is the least of what human beings should be doing right now (or ever) and instead should be placing their faith in what they can see and hear and feel and understand with some rationality rather than a concept that organized religion (of all kinds) puts in place to keep power where it always remains -- with the wealthy and already powerful -- I find most of these faith-based films near-farcical and something that indeed preaches to the choir.

Reconciler (formerly known as The Reconciler), while doing absolutely all of the above, is at least a bit more entertaining than some of its brethren movies because it involves a kind of mystery: Who is kidnapping all these people and making them remain locked up in some way until they can solve their differences? It is also generally well-acted enough to not make one cringe. After a very nice opening (above), the movie begins bouncing back and forth between this original kidnap tale and that of a reporter who has been assigned by her editor to do some sort of investigation of the state of America and religion. Then, thanks to another "reporter" who is one of the kidnap victims, we start bouncing between various other tales involving the kidnapper's work -- who has evidently done this before to various estranged families and workplace partners.

That editor mentioned earlier is played by the late Roddy Piper (above), the wrestler-turned-actor who starred in one of the classic sci-fi/political films of all time, They Live. Here, Piper has a very small role, but he makes a perfectly professional job of it. The DVD also offers a very nice tribute to Mr. Piper from the director and his cast and crew. (That's newcomer Levi Davis, below, who plays the movie's needy son.)

Movie-wise, Mr. Justice has a lot to learn about storytelling and how to handle exposition. His film does seem to clunk along in second gear most of the way. On the plus side, he had roped in an attractive cast of actors, including a set of twins (Jeremy and Jourdan Steel) who play the kidnapped brothers, and he lets them all do their thing -- while the soundtrack provides some faith-based soft-rock music which makes a fine accompaniment to the simplistic message of "Come back to god, people!" A sweet and happy, feel-good ending offers up absolutely nothing to offend -- or to challenge.

You can find Reconciler on DVD now, available at Walmart stores across the country. Once February hits, it will spread to other venues, too. You can learn more about the film by clicking here.

LAMB: Ross Partridge adapts, directs and stars in this doozy about trust and betrayal

Tragedy hangs over the new movie, LAMB, like a beautifully wafting shroud. One of its two stars, Ross Partridge, directed the film, as well as adapted it (from the novel by Bonnie Nadzam), and he has come up with something rather extraordinary: a kind of character study about characters who've gone missing -- in at least a couple of senses of that word. Mr. Partridge, shown on poster, right, and below, plays a fellow who appears to have no character. He's a kind of semi-benign sociopath who lies constantly: to his wife, boss, mistress and then, maybe to the other important character in the film, a young girl he meets and gloms onto, who, in the course of the movie, goes missing herself.

Or is this guy, called both David and Gary as the movie wends its ways along, really something else?  Maybe just a poor, addled, lonely, middle-aged man looking for some genuine connection. And what, finally, has he wrought -- does he wreak -- by movie's end upon that young girl, called both Tommie and Emily?  Has he helped or harmed her? The mystery, as well as much of the ferocity, of Lamb is that you will find potent arguments on both sides of these questions. Whatever your answer, you'll be forced to consider this unusual situation from a new perspective.

While Mr. Partridge excels in all three roles -- as adaptor, director and actor -- the real find is the young actress, Oona Laurence (above), who plays Tommie/Emily. Ms Laurence possesses a level of maturity and focus that even most adult actors never achieve. (She reminds us, in this regard, of the younger Saoirse Ronan.) The actress has the ability to look and act both her own age and that of a much older, wiser person -- without ever losing her grasp on the reality of the situation at hand. Her performance here also avoids, thank god, any hint of the "cute."

How these two characters meet and bond is of great help to the film's reality quotient. What happens then, while coming up against our current understanding of pedophilia and child abuse. turns the film into a kind of open-ended morality play, with plenty of ammunition provided for either side of the argument.

Lamb is mostly a two-hander, with the only other major role essayed by the fine Jess Weixler, who plays the mistress of David/Gary and whose character is intelligent enough to finally provide us a small "fix" on this guy's modus operandi. At one point she tells him, "You can't go around making the whole world angry, just so you'll know where you stand."

From its initial not-so-cute meet, the movie morphs into a kind of road trip and from there into an increasingly fraught situation in which love and need jockey for position with fear and pain. Through it all, Ms Laurence has us in thrall, while Mr. Partridge keeps us guessing -- and hoping.

Similar in certain ways to another odd-and-finite-relationship movie -- last year's Like Sunday Like Rain -- this pairing seems as wrong and unhelpful as the earlier film's twosome was beneficial and valuable. But that's my "take" on things. Partridge's film is definitely worth seeing, arguing over, and finally coming to your own conclusion about what our guy has done to or for our girl.

Distributed by The Orchard and running a just-about-perfect length at 97 minutes, Lamb opens this Friday, January 8, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 and in New York City at the Cinema Village.