Netflix streaming tip: Karl Mueller's creepy (and timely) REBIRTH is worth a watch

Initially, REBIRTH looks like one of those would-be thrillers in which a character (often a male) is sucked into a cult-like organization that demands his body, soul and finances. And, yes, this movie turns out to be pretty much that. But how it sucks our guy in is very well done. Very.

That the guy is played by one of TrustMovies' favorite actors -- Fran Kranz -- helps inordinately, too. Mr. Kranz, shown below, as usual, gives himself over to the role wholeheartedly and turns in an excellent performance.

The film's writer/director -- Karl Mueller (shown below)-- proves as adept at pacing as he is at dialog and much else. For all the would-be clichés the movie offers, it must be said that Mueller is able to bring those clichés to resonating life.

The "cult," which of course denies it could ever be conceived as anything so awful as a cult, turns out to be something akin to a combo of Scientology and Amway -- and twice as toxic as either.

How it entraps our hero seems amazingly on-target and will be difficult for any intelligent viewer, I suspect, to easily discount -- using, as it does, everything from sexual longing to male entitlement and just-plain fear and confusion to pull the lead character into its web. Sure, this guy works for a bank and is involved in social media, but it is clear from the outset that he is also simply walking through his days -- as both worker and family man -- and so is ripe for the pickings.

As usual, I would prefer not to get into spoilers here, and there are plenty ahead for intrepid viewers to encounter. Leave it to say that Kyle (Mr. Kranz's character) is, from the beginning, a problemed fellow -- zombie-fied by everything from his job to his home life -- and that Rebirth, the company involved as well as the title of the movie, does indeed offer him a certain kind of seemingly necessary "outlet."

But at what cost? You will find out. That is, if you stick with this unusual and very necessary movie for our current times. The supporting cast -- which includes a fine array of actors, from Harry Hamlin and Nicky Whelan (above) to Andrew J. West (at bottom), Adam Goldberg (as Kyle's old friend and new nemesis) and Sheryl Lee (below) -- makes the movie even more enjoyable (in its uber-creepy way).

I suspect that Rebirth's receiving an only 5-point rating on IMDB has to do more with its (depending on how you look at it) negative outcome than with anything else. Audiences today want feel-good, and they get it from almost every outlet they view. They won't find it here, and righteous hosannas are due for that.

Available to stream now via Netflix, Rebirth runs just 100 minutes and is well worth your time and trouble -- if you are in the market for something thought-provoking and unsettling.                                             

Werner Herzog's look at the Internet age: LO AND BEHOLD, Reveries of the Connected World

As someone who runs hot (Into the Abyss) to lukewarm (Cave of Forgotten Dreams) regarding the work of Werner Herzog, TrustMovies would call his new documentary, LO AND BEHOLD, Reveries of the Connected World, one of his better endeavors. In it, this peripatetic filmmaker, whose interests seem to be about as vast as our universe, concentrates on some of the ways our world has changed and continues to change thanks (and sometimes not) to the impact of the Internet.

Herr Herzog, shown at right, is present here, as so often, not only in the visuals he's chosen to shoot but in the interviewing and narration he supplies. He questions his subjects but lets them go on into whatever tangents might interest them (and him, and us). He has divided his doc into something like ten chapters, beginning with The Early Days -- in which he gives us the chance to meet and enjoy web pioneer Ted Nelson, whose remembrance as a child of the way water worked around his fingers is quite lovely and profound -- to his final chapter, The Future, in which he notes how all our movies and TV shows got the future so wrong. No flying cars, space travel or aliens -- but something nobody quite managed to imagine back then: the Internet!

It's this kind of notion -- charming, surprising, observant and wry -- in which Herzog excels. In between the beginning and end of his new film, the filmmaker covers all kinds of odd and interesting stuff. One chapter is devoted to the dark side of the Internet, with one particular family and their terrible history shown front and center.

We also see and wonder at people today who can (sometimes must) avoid the Net: those allergic to cell phone towers and frequencies. We are made privy to what might be the end of the Net, as well (solar flairs, anyone?). We meet some smart hackers (Kevin Mitnik is one of these), hear and see Elon Musk talk about possible life on Mars (his view is thoroughly demolished by one smart woman), meet some intelligent robots and watch them work, and even hear from the man who invented the self-driving car.

It's all thoughtful and fun and occasionally scary and moving, too. Overall, this is one of Herzog's loveliest, most discursive (in a good way) and far-reaching works.

From Magnolia Pictures and running a just-about-right 98 minutes, the movie opens all across the country on Friday, August 19. In New York City, look for it at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center; in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt, and here in South Florida at the Bill Cosford Cinema in Coral Gables and the Lake Worth Playhouse in Lake Worth. To see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and t heaters listed, click here.

Matthew Saville's NOISE: a good deal of sound and fury signifying... what, exactly? Your choice.

A provincial Australian town on the route of a major railway that has lately experienced a mass-murder must now deal with the after-effects of this hideous and confusing crime. The shooter has left one possible victim alive, which perplexes her, as well as the police. In Matthew Saville's quiet and unsettling movie, NOISE, we get to know the municipality's police, some of the little town's citizens -- a pretty bizarre lot -- and especially one particular policeman, and his live-in lady.

As written and directed by Saville (shown at left), a veteran of Aussie television, the film weaves from character to character, incident to incident, connecting them in offhand ways that eventually pay off -- to some extent. The film's opening is almost guaranteed to keep you watching, both surprising and quietly breath-stopping in its revelations. The film's star and centerpiece is an actor named Brendan Cowell, below, who plays a cop named Graham with a physical problem, Tinnitus (an occasional ringing, sometimes roaring, in the ears), that seems to bring on other physical problems. Graham would like to be let off work for awhile, but then this massacre happens and he's put on duty in this little outpost of weirdness that only adds to the weirdness he's already experiencing.

Meanwhile that left-unhurt victim of the massacre (a nice performance from Maia Thomas, shown with Cowell in photo at bottom) has her own problems -- particularly the fear that the murderer, whom she clearly saw, will come after her now.

Graham and his girlfriend, herself a policewoman (played by Katie Wall, above right) bicker and screw, odd locals pop in and out of the ersatz headquarters where Graham and other cops work, and we begin to get a picture of life in this rather strange community.

Yet that picture does not go very far or very deep. While the film is consistently interesting, it refuses to coalesce, and this cut-off experienced by the characters from each other and their own life, as well as what we viewers experience from the film itself, is intentional, I suspect. The noise of the title, the noise in Graham's head, the noise, static, distraction and disconnect of modern life makes it impossible for us all to properly connect. (Or not.)

That's what I got out of this odd film that offers little closure, but which I found, on balance, worth seeing. My spouse did not -- and unusual response from him to any film from Film Movement, the distributor that released this movie in the U.S. You can view it now via Netflix streaming, Amazon Instant Video, or on DVD.

Schulman bros & Henry Joost's CATFISH: Best documentary of the year (so far)

TrustMovies is going even farther than his usual don't-spoil-the-movie commandment by saying damn little about the "plot" of CATFISH, the one-of-a-kind documentary from first-time/full-length moviemakers Ariel Schulman (below, left) and Henry Joost (below, right) and starring Shulman's immensely photogenic and charismatic photographer brother Yaniv (also known as Nev).

I knew nothing about this movie when I planted my aging bones into a seat at Manhattan's Kips Bay theater a couple of weeks ago, along with a full-house audience, to view a special screening of the film. I suspected it might be a documentary, though I also wondered it might not be faux or mock. After a few minutes of watching, it certainly seemed real enough. And yet, in our Internet age, from Blair Witch to I'm Still Here, who knows?  So I was prepared to go with it either way -- doc or narrative. But so quickly did I get wrapped up in this tale of a filmmaker and his friend who begin to follow the love life of the filmmaker's brother as it blossoms and evolves over the Internet that I soon did not care a whit whether the movie was real or fake.  Either way, it was f-ing good -- and in my book that's what matters.

After finishing the film, I do believe it is a real documentary, but as I say, if it were exposed as a fake, I would still bow down to the filmmakers for creating such an amazing tale, no more of which you will find detailed here. Read as little as possible about Catfish prior to seeing it, please, because this film, particularly, deserves your tabula rasa going in. So, instead of events, I'll talk about the filmmaking, the themes and audience reaction -- in hopes of not spoiling your pleasure of discovery.

Catfish is about the way we live now -- at least, the way that more and more of us, particularly the younger crowd, are living it. As movie-makers, Schulman and Joost do the hand-held thing, of course, as this is off-the-cuff filmmaking.  But in Schulman's brother Nev, shown above and below, they have found a "leading man" of such charisma, charm and beauty (of body and face) that he easily commands the screen. And since he appears in almost every scene, this makes viewing Catfish a pleasure, even in its creepier and/or ultra-homemade moments. Nev also allows his film-making friends (and thus us) to see him at his most vulnerable, from absentmindedly scratching his nether regions to bouncing into -- and then back from -- some very disappointing events.

The scene in which Nev talks about his "phone" sex (above) is funny, sad, smart and extremely revealing.  If he'd done full-frontal with a boner, I doubt he'd have come across as any more "naked" than he does in these moments. If this film, in fact, were revealed as a hoax (web rumors have already begun, as they seem to do about literally everything these days), Nev Schulman's "performance" might seem even more impressive. (And he is performing, of course; you can't not be when you're aware that a camera -- whether narrative or documentary -- is pointed at you.)

As the film moves along on its journey, which is both literal and metaphoric, it is by turns delightful, extremely creepy, and finally moving in ways to which  few other documentaries come close, partly because this is a new world we have entered -- the virtual one of the internet -- and we're still quite "young" in our understanding, appreciation and negotiation of it. Plus, as soon as we seem to have conquered it, some new technology opens the door to another room full of possible booby traps.

It is interesting and timely that one of the most buzzed-about movies of the year, The Social Network will open on the heels of Catfish. The David Fincher-directed film (which I hope to see and report on next week, as part of the NY Film Festival press screenings) and this movie would seem to complement each other in some very interesting ways.

What the film's title signifies does not come clear until almost the finale. Even then, while it would appear to apply to one person, after a bit of mulling you'll realize that it might as easily be used to describe some other people in the movie. In either case, it offers wonderful, poignant food for thought.  Watching Catfish with a "real" audience, rather than in a screening room or at home, seems a good idea, too. The audience of which I was a part was audible in its fear, delight and surprise during the first half of the film; during the second portion it grew more and more quiet -- for reasons that will be apparent when you see the movie. Which I hope you will.

Whether you choose to view it now -- theatrically -- or wait for DVD, streaming or On-Demand -- its effect should still be thoughtful and powerful. Catfish, from Rogue Pictures, opens this Friday in New York (at AMC Loews' Lincoln Square, Regal's Union Square and City Cinema 1, 2, 3) and Los Angeles, and will expand (exponentially, I hope) in the coming weeks and months.

Look for it to pop up, deservedly, at awards time, too.