Michael O'Shea's THE TRANSFIGURATION offers a new twist to vampire tales

The vampire movie, even more than most genres, can always benefit from new blood. Unfortunately, the red stuff provided by a film opening this week and titled THE TRANSFIGURATION, written and directed by Michael O'Shea, is mostly anemic. What we have here isn't merely low-budget film-making. it is also low-end and very low-energy. 

The movie begins in a public rest-room stall where something that sounds (and then looks, to the fellow taking a piss nearby who hears what's going on and so kneels way down to take a peek under the stall door) like sex. It's something else, however, but already this movie is coming up sloppy and unbelievable.

Would a rest-room occupant go to that much trouble for a view unless he were also interested in the sex? Doubtful. If he were worried about the health of the stall's occupant, wouldn't he instead call out, "Are you OK in there?" Yet our guy goes to all that trouble to get a view and then simply leaves, once he sees what he thinks he sees. OK: We'll let that one pass. 

Mr. O'Shea, pictured at right, whose first full-length film this is, has certainly cast his movie well. The performers look their part and, as actors, are also quite believable and real. 

The tale told is one of a young man named Milo (played by Eric Ruffin, above) with a vampire fixation. Or obsession. For some very odd and never adequately explained or even properly imagined reason, he has decided that he can become a vampire by killing folk and drinking their blood. Otherwise, he's a sweet kid who is, of course, bullied by the neighborhood toughs and who meets an equally sweet young girl named Sophie (Chloe Levine, below) who lives in his building in a housing project in the city, who is herself also bullied into sex by the local boys.  

Are you getting flashes of Let the Right One In, with the genders reversed? No surprise, as that excellent vampire film is mentioned a few times in the course of this one -- along with a number of other landmarks of the genre -- both good and bad. Milo is a fan of Near Dark, while Chloe prefers Twilight. Can this relationship last? More important: Can this would-be vampire tale make any kind of logical sense so that we have a reason to keep watching.

The answer unfortunately is no because this isn't a vampire tale at all. Instead it's the story of what might be the sweetest nutty-serial-killer of all time, one whose exploits repel without fascinating and whose story finally makes too little psychological sense to be at all convincing. The most believable character in the movie turns out to be Milo's brother, Lewis, played very well by Aaron Moten, who becomes more interesting (and sad) the more we learn about him.

Chloe and Milo are paper-cut-out characters, and even though both actors give it their all, there's too little detail in their conception and characterization from which they can create much. In the supporting cast we find the likes of Larry Fessenden, wasted and barely seen facially, as one of Milo's victims.

Movie-making skills are at a minimum here, too, with the visuals noticeably low-budget without being at all interesting (there are a couple of OK compositions now and again, as above and below), but O'Shea is so lax at times that we can too easily miss a would-be important moment, as when our hero checks to see if his girl has absconded with his loot. Was it there or not? We had to go back, via rewind, to make certain. Finally, the energy level is so low that we had to keep pinching ourselves to stay alert and on board. This is no way to make a vampire movie, certainly, nor for that matter a serial killer film.

From Strand Releasing and running a too-long 97 minutes, the movie opens this Friday in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and on Friday, April 21 in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt. To view all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed, click here.

An original new movie musical arrives: Paul Chau's LIFE OF AN ACTRESS: THE MUSICAL

There are so few new and original musicals these days -- it's all of the jukebox variety, with at least half of them schlock -- that the idea of one popping up on your local movie theater screen is, at the very least, enticing. Imagine: a new musical with original songs, characters, story and plot. Be still, my heart. Further, this one has a cast of professionals who can sing and dance and act, and who've already made their mark on Broadway and elsewhere.

LIFE OF AN ACTRESS: THE MUSICAL has a cast in which there is not a lemon in the bunch. The story -- of three actresses/waitresses (above: age 25, 30 and 40) continually trying to crack into the big time, middle time, even the small time, by landing a role -- is a perfectly acceptable one, if certainly tried and true. And the performances are so good -- real, energized and, as the parlance goes, always in the moment -- that watching them work is a pleasure.

But what about the music and lyrics, which of course supply the measure by which a musical lives or dies? You had to ask. The writer and director of the film, as well as the man responsible for the music and lyrics, is Paul Chau (above, second from right, with some of his cast members), whose only other film, according to the IMDB, was the 2009 thriller called Scalp, which, to the best of my knowledge, was never released. Mr Chau's work here is not acutely embarrassing, in the manner of last week's Isn't It Delicious. It's simply... well... not very good.

Mr. Chau has bitten off quite a bit more than he can chew. It pains me to have to say this, too, because the movie does have its moments, some scenes that are rather nice, and a few songs that work pretty well. And the actors are good enough to merit better, which is, in its way, the most difficult part of watching Life of an Actress. You keep praying, hoping that it will take off for the sake of these performers who are clearly giving it all they've got.

And it does take off, sort of, in the final, title song, in which all that we've been watching comes together. But by then it's too little, too late. The major problem here is that Chau's music sounds far too much alike from song to song (featuring style and tempo that are too similar), while his lyrics are the sort that rhyme "bad" with "sad" and use not-quite-rhymes too often along the way. (Chau does flirt with a tango tempo in one song, but it comes to little.)

Everything is unnecessarily repetitive, as well. How often must we hear that Carlos and Jen (above) should be together, or wonder whether Sandy will give in to that slimy, would-be producer or if maybe Charlie's coughing is going to lead to something worse? Too often, as it turns out.

The movie does try to show us bits and pieces of its titular "actress' life" -- the ridiculousness of auditions (three photos above), the difference between SAG and non-SAG performers (in one of the better songs from the movie, above), the frustrations of the "callback." And its tackling of the specific fears of the aging actress, brought to wonderful life by Orfeh (shown below) in the film's best performance, is brave and moving. She takes, as do the other performers, Chau's straw and spins it into something approaching, well, at least gold leaf.

As a filmmaker, Chau has much to learn. His movie literally cries out for split-screen work and added energy from its opening number onwards. Whether his budget was simply too minimal to allow this, I don't know. He finally gives us a touch of split-screen in a much later number, as well as some choreography and chorus work, but the filming is mostly pedestrian.

In the role of the youngest actress, Jen, Taylor Louderman (above, left) is nimble and cute, while Allison Case (below), as the intelligent, on-the-cusp Sandy, brings occasional fierceness a bit of fire to the proceedings.

In the male roles, Bart Shatto (below, left) as the diner owner, Charlie, and Xavier Cano as Jen's boy, Carlos (shown two photos up, at right), are both fine, with Mr. Shatto particularly compelling. His final scene, which ought to be silly, he and Orfeh manage to make moving instead. And, as the villain of the piece, Richard H. Blake (below, right) proves mean, smarmy -- and sings well, too.

I can't honestly recommend Life of an Actress: The Musical to anyone except die-hard musical fans, who might want to catch it for its occasional moments.  They're there, all right, along with all the rest. The movie opens this Thursday, December 18, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's NoHo 7, and here in New York City on Friday, December 19, at the Quad Cinema.

Personal Appearances at New York's Quad Cinema: 

Q&A with director and cast moderated by Michelle Park (TV Host & Lifestyle Expert) after the 6:30 PM show on Saturday, December 20. Q&A with cast moderated by Paul Chau (Producer and Director) after the 6:30 PM show on Sunday, December 21. Q&A with director and cast moderated by Paul Wonterek (Creative Director & Editor-in-Chief of Broadway.com) after the 6:30 PM show on Monday, December 22. Q&A with DP Ben Wolf and Editor Dan Loewenthal moderated by Paul Chau (Producer and Director) after the 6:30 PM show 
on Tuesday, December 23.

Kiss the fish! With A HIJACKING, Tobias Lindholm keeps us uneasy prisoners at sea

Oy -- It's the Stockholm Syndrome in spades! A HIJACKING, the new film from Tobias Lindholm, places us aboard a soon-to-be hijacked Danish freighter (a small one, with a small crew, too). When we're not with the hijacked ship, we're back in the board room with the CEO (or whatever the Danish equivalent is called) trying to arrange the release of the ship and crew -- but not, of course, for the ransom requested by the kidnappers. Oh, no: First we've got to play Let's Make a Deal. If you absolutely love the negotiating process -- or have ever wanted to know what the behind-the-scenes business of hijack negotiations might be -- honey, this is the movie for you.

I don't doubt for a minute that A Hijacking might be very true-to-life, from both the viewpoint of the captives and those trying to negotiate their release, but, fuck, this is one tiresome, boring movie. Mr. Lindholm, shown at left, allows us to learn almost nothing about the pirates themselves, except what they want their captives to know. And while this is realistic, I'm sure, it deprives the movie of an entire and huge layer of plot and characterization possibilities. Although the film mimics the documentary style, it is not a doc, it's a narrative and thus, to my mind, carries a certain responsibility to, if not entertain us, then give us a lot of interesting detail. The detail here mostly sucks: It's prosaic in the extreme. Trust me, with a couple of exceptions -- that Kiss the fish! scene mentioned in my headline is one of these -- you could write most of this screenplay yourself and come pretty damn close to the level than Lindholm achieves.

This is one of those movies divided into sections separated by title headings that clue us in to which "Day" we have reached. I noticed Day 119 and Day 127, out of maybe another eight or ten "days." So what? These all seem utterly arbitrary and tell us nothing except that, yes, time is passing. We sort of knew that.

The film is also extremely low-budget (just how did these pirates arrive and take over?), which I usually find economical and sometimes charming. Not here. Characterization is also flat, to be expected, I suppose, in a film this telescoped. The cast is as good as it is allowed to be (not very). In the leading roles are Pilou Asbæk (above) as the ship's cook (this actor is so much more interesting as one of the leads -- the PR guy -- in the great Danish TV series Borgen) and Søren Malling as the CEO (below, also from Borgen: He plays the nasty politician turned media mogul), who gets to exhibit a mood or two more than does Mr. Asbæk.

TrustMovies is rather flummoxed by the amazing advance critical notices this film has received. What suspense there is simply built-in. Of course, we care about these poor suckers, pawns in the corporate negotiations. And there is a surprise or two toward the finale. Still, by the end of this too-long, 99-minute movie, I felt hijacked myself.

A Hijacking, from Magnolia Pictures, opens tomorrow, Friday, June 21 in New York City at Film Forum and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema; in Los Angeles it plays at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7, and will also open on Friday in San Francisco, San Raphael and Irvine. For all currently scheduled playdates, click here.

Ciaran Foy's foolish/fine CITADEL is alter-nately atmospheric/creepy and silly/dumb

TrustMovies would be quite surprised if filmmaker Ciaran Foy has even a nodding acquaintance with the human species known as babies. Yet a baby acts as the sort-of lynch-pin of this writer/director's new sci-fi/horror/
thriller CITADEL. Consequently, as good -- dark, decaying, ugly, ghastly, gory -- as much of his movie is, one of those unsightly and offending red flags arises almost as soon as that baby comes upon the scene. Given over to the care of her only remaining parent, Dad, who -- from what we can tell by scene two of the film -- is a basket case, this poor baby could barely have survived up to now, let alone what she is soon to be put through.

Babywise, Mr. Foy (shown at right) simply strains the movie to its breaking point and then bashes to smither-eens all remaining credibility. What do babies ingest for nourishment? From this film, it looks to be all bottle, all the time -- except for one attempt at cereal. Further, whenever she is being fed, it seems that she and dad are about to be attacked, so the formula preparation is a tad hasty and half-assed, with baby remaining unfed. Further, although the movie's tag line is "They see your fear" (They referring to the movie's very odd villains), instead, it's that poor baby who's most likely to see and feel the fear.

That's because her father, our would-be hero, Tommy (played by the very beautiful Aneurin Barnard, above and below), maintains a near-constant, bug-eyed state of terror, grabbing the poor little tyke, crushing her to him, then running around screaming like a nut-case and dragging his kid with him. If baby isn't totally fucked up already, she soon will be -- and probably for the rest of her life.

So what is it that has Tommy so terrified? It's the event that begins the film -- indeed, one for the books -- handled by Mr. Foy in fine, scary fashion. But when Tommy gets out of hospital, nearly a year later, and moves back home, it turns out that home is a very weird place indeed.

Granted this is a low-budget movie, but an entire housing project -- hell, the whole town -- seems to be deserted, except for Tommy, baby, social worker, a crazy local priest, and a couple of other figures, added as extras no doubt, to give the movie some sense of "scale." The film exists in a kind of literal no man's land between a believably run-down/failing housing project and some loony-tunes hell-on-earth.

Decay stalks this movie. It's all over the place: on the walls, doors, windows, stairs, ceilings and especially in the people we see. Citadel is like a nightmare come to life, which might be a good thing, except that we're never given any remotely real sense that a place like this could exist.  Consequently, our minds wander to the usual scenarios: Is this guy nuts? Is the whole thing a dream? And so forth. Ditto the characters here.

Let's take that priest (James Cosmo, above, left): He's one of those movie characters who becomes whatever the filmmaker needs him to be at the moment -- nutcase, helper, hero, explainer of the movie's entire back-story (wait until you get a load of the humongous exposition on display!) -- and then suddenly he's simply expendable.

Likewise (spoiler ahead) his bizarre little helper, Danny (Jake Wilson, shown above, with Tommy), who goes from being unafraid (and thus unseen by the evil ones) to suddenly absolutely afraid. Tommy, on the other hand goes from constantly terror-stricken to absolutely cured of fear. Ah, well: the magic of movies.

And that social worker or hospital employee (Wunmi Mosaku, above, right) seems equally out of place. Does she really think everything is OK, as she tries to convince Tommy, or is either she or he nuts? The movie often feels as if the filmmaker is making this whole story up as he goes along.

The ending? It is as unbelievable -- though even more ridiculous -- than what has preceded it. And yet...  Citadel is wonderfully atmospheric, and as shot (by Tim Fleming) and edited (by Tony Kearns and Jake Roberts) to a fare-thee-well, it keeps you hooked by virtue of its swift pacing and terrible ugliness.

So it's a draw, I guess. Mr. Foy and crew are as technically adept as this kind of film ever manages, but as a writer, the filmmaker needs to put some more thought into things. And either use that baby believably -- or ditch the idea. (Or play the film only to young audiences who've never come near responsibility for a kid.)

Citadel, from Cinedigm & Flatiron Film Co., and running just 84 minutes, opens this Friday, November 9. In New York City, it's playing at the Angelika Film Center. Elsewhere around the country, who knows?  And the film's web site is no help here.

Photos above are from the film itself, 

except for that of Mr. Foy, which is by Tim Whitby 

and comes courtesy of Getty Images Europe.

Matthew Avant's looney LUNOPOLIS takes conspiracy to the nth degree -- and beyond

Film buffs who double as conspiracy theorists may take a particular liking to the straight-to-DVD release LUNOPOLIS, which makes its debut this coming Tuesday, October 11. After playing at what seems like countless festivals -- Nashville , Orlando , Boston Sci-Fi, Buffalo Niagara, Roswell UFO, Shockerfest, Acadiana, Sci-Fi-London and Fantaspoa International Porto Alegre -- and even winning a few awards along the way (Best Director, 2010 Fantastic Planet Film Festival, Sydney; Best Feature Audience Award, 2010 Big Easy Film Fest; Best Sci-Fi Screenplay, 2010 International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival; Best Screenplay, 2009 Maverick Movie Awards; Future Vision Award, 2010 Glen Rose Neo-Relix Film Festival), the DVD release should at the very least turn a few heads in the direction of the film's writer/director, Matthew Avant (as in avant-garde?).

In what now seems like standard moc-doc fashion (since Blair Witch, at least), Mr. Avant, shown at right, gives us a crew of documentary filmmakers, including himself, suddenly turned on by and to a possible cover-up/ conspiracy involving everything from time travel and the space-time continuum to a race of people (an awfully lot like us) living on the moon but periodically visiting earth, to a certain Church of Lunology -- which, yes, will remind you of a certain other Church of ___ology and its brainwashed disciples, below, who look a lot like Mormons wearing sunglasses. Oh, yes -- and The Mayan Calendar and that very scary upcoming year 2012. There's more (this is a conspiracy movie, after all), but them's the basics.

Never uninteresting (not when it's covering such a lot of territory), the movie nonetheless proves too long at 98 minutes. Being no-to-very-low budget, it's generally pretty ugly to view, too, though it manages to come up with a few surprising special effects (one of these involving a car) that are fun. And for all of its comprehensive coverage, it's too repetitive. (How often must we see those threatening Church disciples -- who still mange to accomplish just about nothing?)

Yet by tackling so much -- and generally pretty intelligently -- then weaving it together with enough finesse to keep us hooked, the filmmaker and his cast/crew deliver at least half of their goods. The cast, which has evidently been cobbled together via relatives and friends, proves pretty good to so-so, with one standout: a fellow named David Potter, shown below, who plays the key character David James. This guy is a find. Oozing intelligence and senior charisma to spare, he's someone I think we'll be seeing more of -- and we'll certainly be hearing further from filmmaker Avant.

Lunopolis, via Walking Shadows and Virgil Films & Entertainment, will be available Tuesday October 11, for sale or rental.