Best Foreign Language Film nominee, OMAR from Hany Abu-Assad, opens in New York and L.A.

Last time we heard from Palestinian film-maker Hany Abu-Assad, it was heralding his fine Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated movie Paradise Now from 2005. He's back this year with yet another Oscar nod for his newest film OMAR, which has also been nominated for and won some prestigious awards. If it does not quite come up to the level of his earlier film, it is still very good and very much worth view-ing, as it demonstrates the culpability of both today's Israel in keeping Palestinians enchained, and the youth of Palestine's insistence on overthrowing Israeli rule by any means necessary.

Interestingly enough, you can side with whichever group you choose and probably still find that this film works for you. It isn't so much that Mr. Abu-Assad (shown at left) is being completely even-handed. No. All the Israelis shown here range from disgusting downwards, yet the Palestinians we see seem to exist in a culture so thoroughly secretive and backward that as much as we might like to root for the film's would-be lovers, the titular Omar and his Nadia, their characters and actions, not to mention those of their peers, keep getting in the way. The filmmaker, who both wrote and directed Omar, has first and foremost concocted a love story, which he then fills with all the elements of a mys-tery thriller. The movie does not jump genres; it consistently exists as a kind of blending of them. I think Hitchcock might have been proud of this one. Even if it offers little of the master's command of visual technique, it offers a plethora of surprising plot machinations and manipulations.

Through it all, what holds the film together is the performance of its star, the titular Omar, played with a riveting combo of heartache and strength by Adam Bakri (above). His lady love, not yet out of school and also the sister of his childhood friend, is played with girlish wonder and perhaps a hint of possible perfidy, by Leem Lubany (below).

Abu-Assad uses simplicity and naivete, together with the charm and beauty of his two young actors, to help us initially believe in this love story. I wish he might have deepened the couple's relationship a bit more; as it is, he manages to pull us in.

Around these two sweethearts orbit her brother Tarek (Iyad Hoorani, above) and their mutual friend Amjad  (Samer Bisharat, below, left), who has his own romantic interest in Nadia.

Once the terrorism/liberation plot is put in motion, we finally meet the Israeli agent named Rami (Waleed Zuaiter, below), who initially presents a kindlier face of Israel.  Who is using who and to what end is a question the movie asks over and over.

After betrayals, expected and not, we finally learn the answer and -- once our shock has subsided -- cynicism kicks in big-time. The ending is as satisfying as possible under these circumstances.

Unlike the excellent Israel/Palestine film, Mars at Sunrise (released a couple of weeks back) and more like last year's dark and probing The Attack, this one offers little in the way of hope. In fact, its nomination as Best Foreign Language Film may surprise you, but it is, as usual, unlikely to win. Just as nominees over the past decade, Ajami and Paradise Now, failed to bring home the Oscar, so I predict, will Omar. Right now, it appears to be all that the Academy can do is to honor Palestine with a nomination now and then.

Meanwhile, Omar -- released here via Adopt Films and running just 96 minutes -- opens this Friday, February 21, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7, Town Center 5 and Claremont 5, and in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. In the weeks to come the film will open across the country. To view all currently playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then click on View Theaters & Showtimes.

Robbie Pickering's NATURAL SELECTION blends fundamentalism, sex, procreation and liberation

In his first full-length film, Texas-born/NYU Film-School-graduated writer/director Robbie Pickering hits the proverbial nail on the head with a small-but-smashing little independent movie that juggles a bunch of balls cleverly and amusingly without dropping a single one. This is quite a feat -- all the more so since Pickering has peopled his film with a group of oddball characters who could at any moment derail the whole shebang. But, no: This one stays right on track, while offering a nice surprise here and there to keep us on our toes.

In his film NATURAL SELECTION, Mr. Pickering (shown at left and who himself looks barely beyond school age) tells a tale of a sexually frustrated wife who is so cowed by her hypocritically religious hubby that she can't even make good use of his early morning hard-on. When he collapses and goes comatose during an activity that makes sense only because his religious fanaticism allows his own needs no outlet, his little wife is in for quite a few surprises, beginning with her discovery of a son this guy has fathered way back when. From there, the movie turns into a kind of road trip, first with the wife alone and later traveling with that lately discovered "son."

In outline, this story doesn't sound all that different from your usual fish-out-of-water and/or road-trips-makes-good-friends movie. Yet it is. This is thanks to the writer/director's smart dialog that seems on-the-mark no matter how crazy things get (and they do) and to his casting his film with excellent actors and bringing them to just the right level of performance to first disarm us, and then entertain us, move us and make us laugh.

In the role of Linda, the wife, Rachael Harris, with more than 100 credits dotting her acting resume, finally lands the starring role that ought to have made her a star -- if little independent films could ever be seen in the way dumb-ass blockbusters always are. Harris is alternately dear, delightful, sad, pushy, confused and determined. It's one hell of a role and her performance matches it in every respect.

Her equal in acting chops, Matt O'Leary (above and below, left), recently so good in both Eden and Fat Kid Rules the World, would seem to be the current go-to guy when you've got a really oddball character you need to bring to life and keep the audience somehow rooting for. He achieves this in film after film, yet you would not mistake one of his characters for another. All he needs, it seems, is a decent script (which he did not get in American Bully) in order to create an indelible portrait of craziness, benign or otherwise.

The film's supporting cast includes the likes of John Diehl, Gayland Williams and the always good Jon Gries (below, right) as, respectively, Linda's husband, sister and brother-in-law. Every actor, down to those cast in the smallest role, shines, and so does each little scene along the way. Mr. Pickering has a knack for figuring out exactly what to show us, and when, and not letting anything go on a moment too long.

Natural Selection is a lot of fun, and though it often seems like you'll know exactly where it's heading, don't bet on it. There are surprises in store, and like everything else in this lovely little movie, they seem genuine and real. You can catch the film -- distributed by The Cinema Guild and running 89 minutes -- on Netflix streaming, on DVD and Blu-ray, and elsewhere, I expect.

DZI CROQUETTES: Issa's & Alvarez's great, barrier-busting doc from Brazil

What a pleasure, what a challenge, what a cause for celebration is the Brazilian documentary that opens this coming week in New York (and opened this past Friday in Los Angeles). DZI CROQUETTES is its name -- and also the name of the infamous group of 13 performers that set its home country afire in the late 1960s and 70s and then did the same across Europe. The Croquettes were about to visit the USA, when -- well, that's part of the amazing story told with love and affection, melancholy, joy and insight by filmmakers Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez (shown below, with Ms Issa on the left).

The Brazil at this time of the formation of DZI Croquettes was under a severe military dictatorship (below) in which freedom of expression -- of all kinds except tow-the-line obeisance -- was demanded and expected. That this peculiar, bent-on-provocation theater group should have come into being at all is strange enough. That it created such a popular stir that the government actually, if haltingly, allowed it to perform is amazing. Finally, when hardly an extant word remained about the group, that these two young filmmakers were able to amass such a wonderful array of archival photos and film and then get interviews from so many of the group's remaining performers and others in Brazil's artistic community is a major accomplishment.

Ms Issa's father was a set designer for the group, and so she grew up within it. (Clearly, the film was for her a labor of love and remembrance, and when, at the end, she tells us about her father and "where he went," you'll not, I think, be able to suppress the sudden surge of deep feeling her words inspire.) It's understan-dable why the documentary has received more than 20 interna-tional awards to become the most honored movie in Brazil's history.

That this group was god-mothered by performers as unique and different as Liza Minnelli (that's she, at center, right, with seven of the performers) and Josephine Baker should give you a clue how special were these guys and perhaps how specialized were their audiences. The Croquettes existed to break barriers and cross boundaries of all kinds, particularly those to do with the sexual or expected. What they achieved -- via a combination of theater, dance and satire about politics, gender, sex and so much more -- and at a time when literally nothing else like this had come along is indeed amazing, shocking even to those of us who lived through this period.

One of the groups two leaders was New York chorus boy Lennie Dale (shown below), who had performed with Bob Fosse (and is such a unique and talented dancer that you may find yourself wondering if Fosse did not get some of his signature moves from this man). The other was an artist who was also something of an intellect named Wagner Ribeiro (no, not the current sports agent -- but try to find anything on the older Wagner web-wise and you'll understand what a challenge these filmmakers were up against). Together these two, and the little troupe they formed, made beautiful, scary, barrier-crashing music/theater/dance.

Issa and Alvarez move their movie speedily along. You'll barely have time to catch your breath between meeting all the performers and discovering what each was best known for. Interviewees includes everyone from Minnelli to director/choreographer Ron Lewis and some of the cream of Brazil's performing stable. The most interesting stuff comes from the remaining "living" Croquettes who help fill in the blanks on what happened, when and why.

That the Croquettes were ahead of their time (and ahead of the rest of the world) is I think beyond dispute. What they gave us was liberation that transcends the merely gay. Said to be inspired by San Francisco's The Cockettes, these Croquettes and their work strike me as much more intelligent and wide-ranging. And the movie, while about them, also shows enough of them in action to serve as thrilling, ground-breaking entertainment of its own.

While the audience for this film would appear to be GLBT, that barely cracks the surface. All artists (who aspire to the term) should take a gander at these guys and their "art," if only to discover how liberating, hilarious, moving and intelligent, performance art can be.

DZI Croquettes, from TRIA Productions, opened Friday, November 11, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Sunset 5, and will open this coming Friday, November 18, in New York City at the IFC Center.

Breillat's THE SLEEPING BEAUTY goes even farther afield--& brilliantly--than Bluebeard

And you thought the princess just pricked her finger and went to sleep?  No, we're in Catherine Breillat territory,
a la last year's Bluebeard, and so, yes, she does get "pricked" -- finally in both meanings of the word. But what an event-filled and fanciful tale this lately more quietly transgressive French filmmaker has given us! From the start in her newest film, THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, eschewing the use of heavy duty special effects, this writer/director simply has the princess' mom unable to see the evil or good fairies that curse and then (sort of) lift same from her newborn daughter. (The good fairies' bickering in this scene proves a surprise delight: ladies, please!) 

Jumping off from the original  Charles Perrault story and using a mix of periods in the costumes, as well as a blend of fantasy and reality, the filmmaker, shown at right, also negotiates a sweet combination of poetry and naturalism in the dialog, as she explores the ways in which this primal tale continues to impact women (and men). Or maybe it's all about how we continue to play the roles in which history, psychology and DNA have cast us. If Breillat's illusions are sometime illusive (her allusions are allusive, too), all the better: Who wants to be whacked atop the head with insistent "meaning." 

Overall, The Sleeping Beauty truly is enchanting and -- oh, yes -- sexual. And dark, though there's light at the end of the tunnel. Sort of. One of the great pleasures of late (I should say mid-life) Breillat is that, while her works grows less transgressive, it is not in the least less challenging or less entertaining. It is also less blatantly, in-your-face sexual -- remember Romance?  Anatomy of Hell? -- and while I have to say I loved Breillat in that mode, I'm perfectly willing to watch and hear her in this one, too.

The kind of road trip the filmmaker has her "beauty" take, while sleeping, is so much more interesting than mere sleep, or the usual dreams/
nightmares most movies offer (along the way, she seems to have mashed-up to interesting effect The Sleeping Beauty with bits of The Snow Queen). The odd and unforgettable people (and animals) our heroine meets on her journey are all worth their weight, as well. Made for French television, the film pretty much nails the differences between Europe's and America's sophistication levels where entertainment and age-appropriate viewing is concerned. 

The Sleeping Beauty made its New York debut during the Film Society of Lincoln Center's most recent Rendez-vous With French Cinema. Here in the states, Strand Releasing is distributing the movie, which opens today in New York at the IFC Center, and on July 29 in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Sunset 5.  It'll play theatrically elsewhere, too, I am sure.

The photo of Ms Breillat, above, comes courtesy of IndieWire.