Streaming tip: Take a chance on Martin Rosete and Josep Ciutat's nifty little thriller, MONEY

Sick of super-heroes? Can't blame you, particularly after subjecting oneself to the supposed "amusements" of the latest and just-about-worthless Thor installment. If your pleasure runs more to character, dialog and oddball incident, you might enjoy a small but smartly done crime puzzle called MONEY. As written with relish and enough little tricks up his sleeve to last the requisite 86 minutes by Josep Ciutat (his first screenplay) and efficiently and crisply directed by Martin Rosete (his first full-length film after a slew of short ones), the movie also boasts a very good quintet of actors, each of whom captures character and moment with the proper intensity and believability. This little movie is a tasty surprise.

Mr. Ciutat has concocted an unusual but well-thought-out what's-going-on-here? puzzle that plays out quite briskly and felicitously, and Mr. Rosete (shown at right) gives the tale just the right pacing and lustre that it needs to engage and hold us.

One seemingly wealthy couple Kellan Lutz and Jess Weixler (below, right and left, respectively) is having one of the husband's work mates and his date over for dinner. Mr. Lutz captures both the "hot" quality of his slick character as well as the man's weakness, while Ms Weixler unveils quite a reserve of strength under her elegant exterior.

That work mate turns out to be a prime asshole (played  by Jesse Williams, below, with a cocky surety that will have you rooting for him to get his comeuppance), while his date (the glamorous and feisty Lucía Guerrero, shown at bottom) proves to have a bit more on the ball that her hosts might have initially imagined.

Into this quartet arrives a fifth wheel who provides the film with its fuse, trigger and explosives in the form of a very fine actor, Jamie Bamber (below), who would -- were the others not so very good, as well -- steal the movie. Bamber's entrance changes everything. But then, again and again, things continue to change -- in terms of both plot and character.

I don't want to make major claims for the movie, as it does have a bit of the "exercise" about it. Yet it is so well-written, -directed and -acted that it consistently rises above mere exercise into what I'd call nifty entertainment. Also, Money is not, thankfully, super-violent. Yet its occasional use of violence is very smartly handled.

So if you're browsing Netflix streaming and, as usual, find so much to choose from that you can't easily decide, take chance on this original and clever movie about money and its uses. It's also available on DVD for purchase or rental, and probably on other streaming venues, too.

Robert Greenwald's latest agitprop, MAKING A KILLING, takes on the NRA. Good luck, Bob!

You've got hand it to Robert Greenwald, that seemingly indefatigable maker of movies (most of them documentaries) -- 86 as producer and at least 25 as director: He does not seem to have updated his IMDB profile for a few years now -- that are dedicated to setting America back on track. His films on everything/everyone from Rupert Murdoch to the Koch Brothers, Walmart, our use of drones and one of his best, War on Whistleblowers, go after the usual suspects with anger, relish and plenty of statistics.

But the man, pictured at right, does sometimes seem to be beating a dead horse -- or in this case, one that simply refuses to die and instead goes on killing more and more of us in the process. That would be the NRA, which -- no matter how great a majority of Americans want better and firmer gun control in so many ways -- continues to keep buying off our politicians so that, time and again after each and every mass killing and individual murder or suicide throughout the USA, we are no closer than before to living in a safer, better country.

His latest doc, MAKING A KILLING: GUNS, GREED AND THE NRA, takes aim (and good aim, at that) at this behemoth of horror and venality, and shows us why and how this evil continues to rule. But so what? Will anyone who isn't already converted to Mr. Greenwald's view even watch this film? I have my doubts. I watched, because I said I would cover the film, and I hoped I might learn something more or something new. I did not. I still believe thoroughly in what Greenwald believes, but I find the experience of viewing a film like this so frustrating that it could drive me to drink. Or worse. (I am glad I have no guns in my home.)

I did meet a few folk new to me -- mostly relatives of victims of guns, each of whom has a story that will break you heart, as the event in question broke their own -- yet the stories begin to run together with others we've heard time and again over the years.

The movie is divided into several parts, dealing with individual murder and suicide, mass killings (his recreation of the Aurora movie-theater massacre is genuinely creepy and horrifying), and especially (where the poor, beleaguered city of Chicago is concerned) how weapons so easily cross state lines and wreak havoc on innocent citizens (many of whom are shown below).

What to do? The movie takes the stance that activism is the answer, and in a couple of instances shown here -- in which citizens go after certain gun stores in Indiana that have sold weapons that have killed Illinois citizens -- this works in a small and mild way. But what effect has this had upon the NRA, which, thanks to money totally controlling our politics, continues to profit, prosper and murder.

TrustMovies is at a loss to know what is left to do to counter this evil. Our upcoming election -- with one candidate so full of lies and deception that ever he cannot tell the difference between reality and make-believe (his own sanity is now being called into question) and the other so in bed with our financial industry and corporate money that no help will arrive from her -- will solve or settle nothing. Well, with global warming upon us, about which one candidate claims is fraudulent and the other pays little mind (there's just not enough profit in global warming), we're probably doomed, and more quickly that we know.

But see Greenwald's newest, if you dare, and try to come away with some real plan of action. I could not. But maybe I'm just too depressed. Seems to me that the only way change can occur is if we remove money's control of our politics (I see no hope of that from either party). Or maybe this: All those politicians who accept money from the NRA, together with all those who wield the power at the NRA, should lose a loved one, probably a child, at the point of a rifle or gun. Only then will they understand -- and take the necessary action. But where, I wonder, is the deus ex machina to make that happen?

Meanwhile, Making a Killing opens this coming Friday, August 12, in Los Angeles at the Laemmle's Music Hall in Beverly Hills, and on Friday, August 19 in New York City at the Village East Cinema. The film will hit VOD, via Gravitas Ventures, on November1.

Richard Gere stars in Andrew Renzi's what's-going-on-here? movie, THE BENEFACTOR

Richard Gere has been around now for forty years, aging from a sexy young leading man into a sexy senior-citizen leading man, working almost constantly and rarely missing a beat. His performances are usually fine, even if some of the films he stars in are not. A few years back he made quite a stir in the movie Arbitrage, one of the early and quite successful ventures into simultaneous theatrical and VOD release that garnered critical acclaim, good box-office and even some awards. For anyone expecting something as exceptional as Arbitrage from Gere's newest film, THE BENEFACTOR, disappointment awaits.

As this movie unfurls (and finally unravels), it becomes less and less clear what writer/director Andrew Renzi had in mind to create, or even what kind of film this actually is: mystery, thriller, family drama, melodrama, character study (maybe all of the above?). Finally, it works as none of these. A two-generation saga of friendship, love, loss, guilt and retribution, the story pops back and forth between those generations, uncovering plot strands but deepening character not one whit.

What we do know is that our "hero," Franny (Mr. Gere, above), has been a very rich man for a very long time. Now he seems to want to spread his largess to the daughter and soon to be son-in-law of his late best friends (whom, yes, he had a hand in the accidental death of).

That daughter is played by Dakota Fanning, above, looking lovely and somewhat lost in this bizarre mess of a movie. The role of her affianced is essayed by up-and-comer Theo James, below, who looks mildly annoyed through much of the film, and who can blame him?

A slow-burning who-is-this-guy-and-what-is-going-on movie, The Benefactor is well into its second half before some real conflict appears and a secret reveals itself.  Gere laughs a lot, but what does this mean? Is it an acting choice? A director's mistake? And while money, as we know so well, cannot buy everything, what it cannot buy in this film seems more than a little ridiculous.

To say more about plot would spoil what little real mystery the movie possesses, so I will only mention that anyone this rich could take care of his "problem" quite easily -- particularly given the society we inhabit here in America today. When the chips are finally down, instead of confronting reality, filmmaker Renzi opts out for feel good. Too bad. This is one silly movie, despite the presence of an attractive cast and Mr. Gere.

From Samuel Goldwyn Films and running 90 minutes, The Benefactor opens this Friday, January 15, in theaters and On-Demand. Consult your local theater listing and/or cable provider for specifics.

WELCOME TO NEW YORK: Abel Ferrara's puddle-deep look at the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair

Dem mighty jus' keep on fallin'! From Gary Hart to Sheldon Silver -- and, oh, so many in between -- the supposedly powerful figures of the western world discover their own feet of clay, as the rest of us rejoice as much in their fall as we appeared to do in their rise. Certainly one of the more interesting of these figures is Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the fellow who was appar-ently being groomed as the next leader of France, scheduled by the French "left" to take over after Sarkozy's upcoming ouster. Well, that didn't happen.

Why it didn't happen has been much conjectured upon, with very interesting and not so unlikely theories ranging from a set-up job by the opposing party (or maybe someone within Strauss-Kahn's own, or even the good 'ol USA) to the fellow's rather obvious proclivity for sodden misbehavior. In his new movie WELCOME TO NEW YORK, filmmaker Abel Ferrara (shown at right), while giving a nod here and there to economics, politics and social unrest, is really most interested in the "sex addiction" theory associated with our famous Frenchman, along with its accom-panying guilt and shame. Given Ferrara's oeuvre and obsessions, this is not surprising. What is, however, is how much of a major shrug his movie turns out to be.

Starring two well-chosen, senior-citizen movie-stars of talent and acclaim -- Gérard Depardieu (above, right, and below) as Strauss-Kahn (here called by the name of Deveraux) and Jacqueline Bisset (above, left) as his wife -- the film takes on immediate interest, if only for its smart casting. Beyond this, however, while not unwatchable, Welcome to New York grows tiresome well before it concludes.

As director, Ferrara, knows his way around camera-work and pacing, but as co-screenwriter (with Christ Zois, who often works with the director), he is never on particularly secure ground. Much of the dialog, though well delivered via its actors, sounds barely a cut above improvisation -- or the kind of expected blend of research and cliché that never probes deeper than surface level.

Further, Ferrara has decided not to stick all that closely to even what we know about the case itself. The film opens with Depardieu (as himself) explaining to the press something about how he tackles this role, and there is the usual disclaimer assuring us that, while the movie takes off from the famous case, what we're going to see is mostly made-up drama.

Consequently, the made-up maid supposedly attacked by Strauss-Kahn, looks little like the attractive and sexy real woman in the case. Nothing is made of anything politically, either (a shame, really, because there is enough juicy and oddball occurrences in this story to have made a nifty little paranoid thriller), and only a small bone is tossed to the idea of the entitled vs the underlings (above).

So what we are left with, mostly, is sex and more sex, after which, our boy having been caught out, we get the residual guilt and shame. All this has its interest for awhile until longueurs set in, and the little detail we get about the Strauss-Kahn marriage barely suffices.

Ms Bisset proves a strong presence against M. Depardieu's bulk and talent, and I must admit that it was a welcome change to see this actor having to portray, as above and below, a broken man for a change. His time under arrest, in jail, and being harassed by the press goes a distance in helping us sympathize with the guy -- which Ferrara clearly wants us to do.

Entitlement, money, power and the accompanying sex-and-more-sex to which these lead, followed of course by debasement  -- this is what interests the filmmaker most. And while all this is surely part of the Strauss-Kahn scandal, there's so much more here that his movie doesn't begin to approach.  If half a loaf is enough, by all means, crack off a chunk and chew awhile. It's initially tasty but not very nourishing.

Welcome to New York -- from Sundance Selects/IFC Films and running a too-long, two-hours-and-five-minutes -- opens this Friday, March 27, at San Francisco's Roxie Theater. Simultaneously, you'll also be able to see the film via VOD in most major markets. A further, if limited, theatrical rollout is expected over the weeks to come. Or not (See below).

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Addendum: Now that is has come to the fore that filmmaker Ferrara is very displeased with re-cut version released by the distributor, perhaps the above review is not indicative of the "real" movie. Though from what I could gather from the report in The New York Times, Ferrara's reasons given do not sound, to my mind, as if they would make the movie much better. Read the Times story here, then make your own judgment. In any case, I found it very odd that IFC was suddenly not opening the film theatrically in either NYC or L.A. Now we know why.

Nicolas Cuche's ANYTHING FOR ALICE: a cute French rom-com with politics and philosophy

If you're looking for something different in rom-coms (and aren't we all, just about all the time), you could do a lot worse that the new one from Rialto Pictures (via the company's more mainstream division), ANYTHING FOR ALICE (Prêt à tout is its original title). Last year Rialto gave us another winning rom-com that offered something a bit different, The Stroller Strategy, and this new one proves a fine follow-up, as it details the budding romance between two college students, a dorky but charming young man and the politically exuberant, beautiful young woman for whom he falls.

As directed by Nicolas Cuche (shown at right) and written by Laurent Turner (The Prey), the latter with some help from Sabrina Amara and Eric Jehelmann, Anything for Alice, like The Stroller Strategy before it, revolves around, among other things, the plight of a single mother, although in this case, our heroine becomes that mother before she meets the man who is so interested in her. What distinguishes this little rom-com, aside from its sprightly nature and good performances, is its interest in the workplace, class distinctions, and the uses of money. The film is particularly funny regarding knee-jerk values and their representation by us humans on the left and the right.

The premise of the film (way over the top) works surprisingly well, too, so far as the fantasy rom-com formula is concerned: that a fellow suddenly come into a lot of money would purchase an entire factory so that his lady love, who works there, might continue to have a job. The would-be couple in question -- the titular Alice and the suddenly wealthy Max -- are played by Max Boublil (above, left) and Aïssa Maïga (above, right), both astute charmers who know their way around the rom-coms tropes.

What this factory produces is a drink called Bang -- a kind of French version of our own Tang, a drink evidently much beloved by Charles De Gaulle. A lot of fun is had about this substance and its manufacture, and you do not have to be French to appreciate it. The movie is also full of surprising and very funny moments -- such as the destruction of a Rolex watch, together with the reason for doing this -- that keep the pace quickening and the laughs coming fast. Once our hero owns the factory, working conditions do indeed change, in ways both good and not so.

Overall, Anything for Alice is a funny and original fantasy of what might happen if you or I, or maybe many of those we know, found ourselves the recipient of just tons of money. In its way, the movie is a kind of twist on the 1940s Hollywood comedy Brewster's Millions, but with all the spending done for a different reason. (In our current "downer" times, Brewster's is a movie ripe for another remake, as the first one pretty much sucked. I wonder why this hasn't yet happened?)

In the supporting cast are a number of fine thespians, but special note must be made of the actress who plays Max's mom, the delightful Chantal Lauby (shown two photos up). Also very good are Max's two best pals (played by Redouanne Harjane, above, left, and Steve Tran, above, right), and a young and promising newcomer,  Idriss Roberson (at right, three photos above), who plays Alice's son, a boy with a bad case of ochlophobia.

You can view Anything for Alice right now, in West Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. Elsewhere? I certainly hope so, though I find no other cities scheduled as yet. But maybe the movie will surface soon on DVD and/or digital streaming. If you're a fan of rom-coms-with-smarts, it's very much worth seeing.

Blu-ray/DVDebut: James Franco & Kate Hudson in Henrik Ruben Genz's thriller, GOOD PEOPLE

You might imagine that the combination of housing, home construction, the economic downturn, fertility, morality, robbery and murder would make for a fairly heady stew. Add to this an internation-al cast of Brits, Americans, Scandinavians and France's Omar Sy (of The Intouchables), all helmed by Danish director Henrik Ruben Genz (of Terribly Happy), with a screenplay adapted from Marcus Sakey's novel by Kelly Masterson (the Snowpiercer scribe), and you might think, "Wow." Or at least "semi-wow." Maybe this is just too much of a good thing, as GOOD PEOPLE (yes, this is a very ironic title) comes off as both a little too predictable and a lot unbelievable, though it does provide some genuine excitement and dumb fun along the way.

The filmmaker, shown at right, is adept at his action scenes, which begin and end the film, and he draws OK performances from his starry international cast. But Masterson's screenplay piles far too many charac-ters and events into too little time, and thus the plotting feels rushed and too pre-ordained for belief. That said, the movie begins with a knockout scene of drugs-for-money robbery and betrayal, which should have you glued to the screen and waiting for more. But then the actual plot and main characters -- played by James Franco and Kate Hudson -- kick into action and the movie begins immediately to stall.

This is less due to the OK work of the two stars (shown above, in fear, and below, with money) and their co-stars than to a screenplay that gives them so many problems that seem so insoluble that we want to run for cover. But of course we know that, if movie history be our guide, things will all come out for the best.

Money might solve our main couple's woes, but not that of the police inspector on the case (Tom Wilkinson) who suffers from guilt regarding the death of his daughter due to the same drug lord who is now on Franco/Hudson's case.

Toss in Anna Friel who plays a single mom with little baby in tow (guess who is going to be used as kidnap bait?), some scenes of torture-to-obtain-information (one of these is shown above), and the very cinematic M. Sy (below) and you've got a lot on your plate. If there were only some way to make it all coalesce believably.

The prolonged (but I must admit quite exciting) finale puts that home construction theme to interesting use, and adds to the violence on display (Mr. Franco gets beaten to a pulp in the course of things -- this happens so frequently on film to the poor guy that I am guessing it must now be an ironclad clause in the contract he signs for each new movie).

And that's about it. After a very brief theatrical foray, Good People -- from Millennium Entertainment and running 91 minutes -- makes its Blu-ray and DVD debut this coming Tuesday, October 28, for sale and rental.

Matthew Miele's success/money/celebrity fest: SCATTER MY ASHES AT BERGDORF'S

If you follow TrustMovies, you'll already know how little interest he possesses in the subject of "fashion." That said, he did immensely enjoy the recent documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel. So despite a movie's subject, he (almost) never says no in advance. It might have been better for all concerned had he done exactly that regarding SCATTER MY ASHES AT BERGDORF'S, the new documentary about Bergdorf Goodman, the storied store considered by some to be Manhattan's finest retail establishment. The movie itself proves a non-stop love-letter to Bergdorf, celebrity, money and success -- from someone who can't write. Or, in this case, put together a coherent or even vaguely satisfying film.

That someone is a fellow named Matthew Miele, shown at left, who earlier gave us another, so-far-unreleased documentary, and a couple of little-seen narratives. Here he spends the entire first third of his film repeating himself by having one after another celebrity or designer or critic or fashionista babble on and say pretty much exactly the same thing: how amazingly wonderful a place is Bergdorf Goodman  and how it changed their life. Does this get tired fast? Take a guess. Here's my favorite among many nitwit lines: "Stores like this are necessary so that people will want to aspire."

Along the way you may note that Wall Street gets involved with the store eventually. Someday, I expect, after all those ashes have been scattered -- the title of the film comes from that famous New Yorker cartoon, of which one of the celebrities on hand, Susan Lucci, has evidently never heard -- we'll probably see an Occupy Bergdorf movement, too.

After all the praise has been spouted, by many of the subjects seen in the compilation above, we get to the (evidently) famous Bergdorf window displays and the guy who creates them. I probably walk past this store at least a couple of times per month, yet I never pay attention to these windows. Now I know why. According to what we see in this film, they are atrocious, cluttered, garish messes.

Around the midway point we get a little history of the place and its family of original owners. The Goodman couple, shown above, evidently lived on the floor at the top of the building that houses BG. One of the small treats of the film is the anecdote about how the couple was able to live there and circumvent the building code. (I won't tell it to you now, as I don't want to give away one of the only interesting moments.)

There's another story, which I am told is actually apocryphal, about Mr. Goodman and a bag lady -- which is supposed to illustrate how one should never judge a book by its cover but appears instead to suggest judging solely by how much money that lady has in her bag. The liveliest section by far is the one devoted to Betty Halbreich, an evidently rather famous personal shopper associated with Bergdorf Goodman. Unlike the movie, she is anything but fawning and has a very dry sense of humor. You'll appreciate the few minutes you spend with Betty.

When the Bernie Madoff scandal hit, BG took a hit, too -- but has bounced back beautifully. Even (more probably, especially) in this current economy, the store is thriving. At film's end, we finally see those finished "windows" that the designer has been working on throughout. They're as awful as you would have imagined, in which each dress (except the one designed by the late Alexander McQueen), supposedly displayed as central to its window, gets utterly lost in the clutter.

As the end credits roll, we get an ancient clip of Barbra Streisand doing a number from a old TV show in black-and-white that was filmed after hours at BG. Nice. But here was an opportunity to really learn about some history of this fabled retail store and its ups and downs, good points and bad. Yet everything we see and hear is peachy keen and then some. Think of Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's as a very long and very boring advertorial.

The documentary, from eOne Entertainment and running 93 minutes, opens this Friday in New York City at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and on Friday, May 10, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. Elsewhere? Most likely. Though I cannot discover any other playdates currently posted.