Short take: Scott Cooper's endlessly annoying HOSTILES proves this year's favored "fart" film

Or maybe last year's, as HOSTILES, the new movie from Scott Cooper, was released in limited fashion on December 22, in the rather ridiculous hopes of becoming an Oscar contender. "Fart" film, for those new to this site, is TrustMovies' special name for a failed art film, and few I've sat through in the past 12, maybe 24, months, have failed on the level that this one does. Oh, its themes and intentions are all good -- pointing up unfairness of the treatment of our Native Americans, while allowing that, yes, some of them, did some pretty nasty things to those white settlers.

Unfortunately, filmmaker Cooper (shown at right), who both wrote and directed the film (after giving us, also in the writer-director category, Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace), is a fellow who insists on making certain we get the point. Every single last lick of it. Over and over. And as slowly as possible so that it has to SINK IN. Lasting two hours fourteen minutes, Hostiles may seem to you, as it did to me (and others in our audience) about as slow-paced a movie as you'll have so far seen. At one point in the theater, a patron near me asked, and very loudly, "When it something gonna happen here?!" This was followed by several voices adding, "Yeah!" and "Right!" I tend to keep quiet most of the time in movie theaters, but I must say I could not blame them. Though in all fairness, the movie does begin with an action scene, as a family of white settlers is summarily massacred by a group of wild Indians, with only the wife (the always excellent Rosamund Pike, shown below) barely surviving.

From there we go to a military fort, where an officer (the also always excellent Christian Bale, below, center, surrounded by his men) who has a multitude of reasons for hating the "red man" is given the assignment of bringing an Indian chief and his family (the Chief is played by Wes Studi, at left, two photos down), who had formerly slaughtered a number this officer's friends and has now been imprisoned for years, to an out-of-state Indian burial ground, where the Chief, who has been graced with terminal cancer, will surely die.

If you maybe feel that this rather oddball situation smacks of heavy-handed manipulation -- does it ever! -- just wait. Along the journey, Bale and his crew discover Pike, in mourning for her own family, and of course they must bring her with them. Their journey is fraught with a couple more Indian attacks, but mostly it is burdened with a whole bunch of angst on Bale's part. And while this actor is often particularly good with angst, here the stuff is piled on so hot and heavy that it drags the film consistently downwards. The screenplay, dialog and the visuals are as heavy-handed as the themes, and this tends to make even those few scenes that resonate emotionally hit you over the head so hard you'll want to run for cover.

At least half the film's "moments" last far too long, as well, so that you're muttering throughout, "We get it, we get it." Robert Aldrich and Alan Sharp, in their excellent Ulzana's Raid from 1972, managed much of these same ideas so much better and stronger. Plus, their movie is a half-hour shorter. If you know that film, it will make sitting through this one all the more difficult. Finally, it is Hostiles' undue length, resulting in a kind of constant, overweening pomposity, that most thoroughly does it in.

Yes, indeed, as the poster at top declares, We are all... HOSTILES, in yet another example of "we-insist-that-you-fully-understand-this-idea" mode. And the movie does finally bring whites and redskins together at last (while killing most of them in the process). But if, considering all that has now been done to the Native American population, you can actually buy the sweet/sad finale without wincing, you're a better man I am, Gunga Din.

From Entertainment Studios Motions Pictures, the movie has now opened in a number of cities around the country. Click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.

NO DRESS CODE REQUIRED: Cristina Herrera Borquez's tracks Mexican same-sex marriage

Whatever any of us have had to go through to finalize our same-sex marriage, including, I suspect, even Americans who live in the South (remember Kentucky clerk Kim Davis?), our journey will probably pale when compared to that of Victor and Fernando, two guys who own a beauty salon in the Mexican state of Baja California and who want to get married, once the Supreme Court of the country of Mexico has given its imprimatur to same-sex matrimony. If only the city of Mexicali, where they plan to wed, could see its way clear to abide by Federal law. Good luck with that.

NO DRESS CODE REQUIRED (Etiqueta no rigurosa), the new documentary by Cristina Herrera Borquez (shown at left) follows this sweet and intelligent couple as it decides to wed and prepares for the upcoming nuptials. From the outset, these two guys make an adorable pair: They're fun and funny, and when the tide takes a turn for the deep and dark, they buckle down and fight. They are helped enormously by their two lawyers -- one gay, the other straight -- who not only know their legal stuff but are willing to go that extra mile not only often but, as it turns out, any time of the day or night. We should all have such fine men in our corner.

Ms Borquez's doc gives us a little history of the two guys -- Victor, above, is in the front seat, Fernando in the back -- their families and the manner in which each man dealt with his homosexuality and his understanding of it from early on. (One of their mothers asks only that her son not be the one in the wedding party who carries the bouquet.) We're there with them as they take the required "pre-marital education" course, in which they are told, "You have to invite God into the bedroom before you have sex."

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling that same-sex marriage is now legal, Mexicali's mayor, city clerk and other officials, as well as a good portion of the public, rejects this law. As one of these "officials" notes in passing, "They are only five men. They don't understand how so many more of us feel here in our city."

What these officials put our boys and their lawyers through, over and over again, will probably have you climbing the wall. It isn't simply shocking and indefensible, it is as obviously fraudulent, as well as mean-spirited and nasty, as you will find. (The post-wedding finale, as one of the lawyers muses aloud, is a must-see/hear. He quietly speaks volumes as to politics, history and what the fight for our rights really means -- and costs.)

I am not sure how many of us could take the same journey as did Victor and Fernando and see it through to the finish. But they, their lawyers, family and friends manage it, while keeping spirits as high as possible, which helps quell the anger that will keep popping up in viewers. There is a lengthy scene midway in the movie, detailing how local officials try to stymie the two marriage applicants, that is a keeper of sorts: a test case in how prejudice and injustice will use any and every means imaginable to stop what it so thoroughly hates.

Ms Borquez might have shown us a tad more dissension between our two heroes, just so we're reminded that they're human beings. Still, it is hard not to appreciate and love these two guys, as much for what they've been through as what they stand for. They're icons, all right, of Mexico and the gay rights movement, both of which they make proud.

From Outsider Pictures, No Dress Code Required opens theatrically in New York City at the Village East Cinema this Friday, November 3, with a limited national release to follow.

Prosecuting those "big" banks? Yeah, right. Steve James' invigorating, infuriating doc, ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL

Those of us who lived in the New York City area back in 2012 may remember a news story about a small community bank located in Manhattan's Chinatown, the heads of which were arrested and taken off in handcuffs as they kept their faces from being seen -- to major media coverage, of course -- due to their supposedly falsifying loan applications for mortgages. This sort of thing was what nearly brought the world economy to its knees, right? So, hey: finally law enforcement is going after the bad guys? Yeah, sure.

Steve James, shown at left, who has over the years given us some pretty impressive documentaries (Hoop Dreams and Life Itself come immediately to mind), now offers up a doc -- ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL -- that practically defines the word injustice, showing it masquerading as its very opposite while simultaneously taking in other American preoccupations such as racism, bullying and toadying to wealth and power. All of this is shown so clearly, quietly and therefore all the more shockingly by Mr. James -- via the Chinese-American family that owns the bank and who had to endure years of prosecution and its accompanying trauma and stress -- that the viewer's response at the end of this 90-minute documentary is likely to be one of relief coupled to immense anger.

How Mr. James weaves his tale of how and why and what happened next is exemplary, letting us watch and learn how this bank, that had served its community so well over decades, came into being and continued to operate. We meet the bank's founder Thomas Sung (above), his wife Hwei Lin (below) and and their daughters. shown further below -- one of whom worked for the very justice department that prosecuted the bank.

We also learn how the bank handled -- in the kind of exemplary fashion that, had the bigger banks done the same, might have prevented the financial crisis -- the loan officer who it discovered was arranging fraudulent loans. The trial itself, that we see via courtroom drawings, is handled with verve and suspense. Thanks to the media coverage, which as usual is very big on initial arrest and less so regarding further results, you may not know or remember how things turned out.

We get to know the family somewhat, too -- from Mr. and Mrs Sung's loved of everyone's favorite "banking" movie (It's a Wonderful Life) to their eating habits and how the kids must care for their dad -- as the film wends its way to completion.

How the prosecution, led by District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and his staff, built its case (out of very little and yet cost taxpayers 10 million dollars and five years of time) adds to the anger that arises and should make those of us who voted for Vance very sorry for our misplaced trust. How the prosecution reacts to its failure proves even more sour and troubling.

What rankles most, however, is the constant sense of injustice that hovers over this entire movie. Why this bank -- when its record concerning solid loans that were paid off was among the very best? Why this bank -- which, when it first learned of the irregular practices of its loan officer, fired the man and immediately reported the incident to compliance? Why this bank -- which served its community's needs for so long and so well?

See the documentary, arrive at your own conclusions, and start seething. From PBS Distribution, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail opens this Friday, May 19, in New York City at the IFC Center, in Los Angeles on June 9 at Landmark's NuArt, and will then have a limited release nationwide.
Click here to find the theater nearest you.

Back on the rez again, in Jack Pettibone Riccobono's documentary, THE SEVENTH FIRE

Is there a cinema subject as consistently, singularly depressing as that our American Indians and the
"reservations" on which they are living -- and hopefully, leaving? (Except that, since it is usually the most promising of those young Indians who leave, this just makes it more depressing and difficult for those who remain.) Add to the list of worthwhile movies on this subject, both narrative and documentary, the new one by filmmaker Jack Pettibone Riccobono (shown below), THE SEVENTH FIRE.

The reason for the depression is twofold: first, what our country's "settlers" gave the Indians (smallpox, death and destruction) and how we have treated them ever since (hoarding them into ever smaller and less comfortable living quarters; even now we continue to take away their tribal land). "Make America Great Again"? Yeah, right, Mr. Trump. Maybe you could think about starting here. For all the horror of slavery, many Blacks survived, while the Indians were mostly decimated. What remains are condoned off and hidden away from most Americans.

The Seventh Fire -- that title has to do with some kind of spiritual incantation/episode/journey about which we learn very little -- takes us into the White Earth Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, where we meet, among others, two males important to the reservation. The older of these is 37-year-old Rob Brown (above and below), a big, beefy, good-looking guy who, during his life, grew up in some 39 foster homes, has already served five prison terms, and is now, as we first meet him, about to go away to prison once again.

Rob is the "criminal kingpin" of the rez, even though his supplying drugs and what-not to the locals seems to extend no further than the borders of the reservation. He also has a young daughter whom he loves and tries to care for -- clearly at somewhat of a distance.

The other male is a young man named Kevin, above and two photos below, who appears to be a kind of acolyte of Rob, striving to carve out his own large patch of the kingdom. Early on, Rob (or maybe it was another of the characters) tells Kevin, "If you're gonna risk your freedom, make sure the reward is worth it." Quite. Notes another rez resident, "One out of ten young people, every ten years, will make it out of here." This is not exactly a happy prognosis.

Mr. Riccobono takes a discursive, disjointed, seemingly haphazard and sometimes near-surreal (above) look at all this, bouncing from time and place so that we are not always sure what's going on or why. Some of his images are strange and compelling, and the film never loses our interest for long, but had I not had access to the press kit that accompanied the film and that did some explaining that The Seventh Fire itself fails to do, I am not sure I would have understood the documentary nearly so well.

On the plus side, Riccobono proves something of a smart investigator, following young Kevin around discreetly and perhaps on the sly. Initially we see and are charmed by the fact that Indians and whites in the local town get along so well. Well, sure and why not, since Kevin proves to be their drug dealer? We're privy here to everything from doing drugs and fighting to sexual connections. We even get an afternoon filled with Bingo.

All of this is, as expected, depressing as hell. You leave the film as you probably have so many others down the decades, narrative or documentary -- from Smoke Signals (one of the most positive of these movies) through Drunktown's Finest to the recent Songs My Brothers Taught Me --  with that gnawing sense of justice trampled in perpetuity, with nothing at all being done about this.

From Film Movement and running only 76 minutes (we probably could not take much more), The Seventh Fire has its U.S. theatrical premiere on Friday, July 22, in New York City at the new Metrograph theater, and on Friday, July 29 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. Another ten cities are scheduled for screenings in the weeks to come. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Noaz Deshe's WHITE SHADOW shows us the frightful, lurid, awful life of an African Albino

Uncompromising. That might be a pretty good word to describe a movie like WHITE SHADOW, which, though it sounds like a possible dog or wolf tale (or a remake of that popular TV series from the late 1970s), is actually a story about a young Albino man in Tanzania, Africa, who is almost constantly on the run because Albinos -- like elephants, rhinos and other animals -- are prized most in the Dark Continent for certain of their body parts and organs, which are used by the local Tanzanian witch doctors to make "magical" potions. We're not talking fantasy here. What happens in the film is evidently more the rule than the exception regarding African Albinos.

Co-written (with James Masson) and directed by Noaz Deshe (shown at right), this nearly two-hour movie begins with a lovely visual fantasy/dream. Treasure these few moments because they are just about the only positive and beautiful things you'll be seeing. Post-dream we encounter our hero, an Albino named Alias (played by Hamisi Basili, below) and his family, only to witness the horrifying slaughter of his Albino father. Soon Alias is himself slaughtering a chicken and, with the help of his mother, spilling its blood over Daddy's grave.

We also meet Alias' little friend Salum, (played by Salum Adballah, below) and their friendship goes some distance in making the movie a bit more filmgoer-friendly--story-wise, at least. Yet, finally, loss is every-where for our hero, who spends his time alternating mourning with fleeing.

Impressionistic to a fault, Deshe's film hops and skips all over the place -- from character to character, countryside to city and back again, from witch doctors to the workplace (such as it is), dragging us along as though we had any idea of where were or why. The confusion is effective for a time, but eventually some of us -- yours truly, at least, want a deeper and better understanding of the characters, their background, and the traditions that have helped form the culture we're observing.

These things are certainly hinted at, but the constant motion, the choppiness of the editing, together with the truly horrific tale being told of the persecution and murder of Albinos becomes an endurance test. I watched and finally finished the film, more out of a sense of guilt than anything else -- for a situation this dire deserves to be witnessed.

If the movie succeeds in bringing to light the plight of Albinos in Tanzania (and probably elsewhere in Africa, as well) then it must be credited as a major success. No doubt this is what pushed the likes of Ryan Gosling to act as executive producer on the film.

White Shadow -- from IndiePix, running 117 minutes, and in Swahili with English subtitles -- arrives on DVD and digital platform this coming Tuesday, September 29. Click here to view options for purchase or rental. 

Hell on earth for folk without a country--Charles Shaw's dark EXILE NATION: The Plastic People

The filmmaker's name is Charles Shaw (don't mix him up with that "famous" brand of wine sold by Trader Joe's). His film -- his first full-length documentary -- is an unsettling one about those men and women without a country, mostly Mexican illegals, many of whom have been in the USA for decades, who, after 9/11 and with Obama's disgusting "take" on our immigration policy, were suddenly deported to Mexico.  Mexico, unfortunately, does not want them, either. So they are dropped off in Tijuana with no money or any source of income, only to learn that local authorities and the police will harass them day and night, steal the clothes off their back and shoes off their feet, destroy their makeshift homes time and again, beat them and sometimes ever murder them (is there anything quite so wonderfully reliable as a Mexican cop?).

The documentary, titled EXILE NATION: THE PLASTIC PEOPLE, is homemade in the extreme. From its too-long and too-confusing title to its poorly designed poster (above, in which the sub-title seems to be replacing the title), to its intentional and necessary use of cell phones as video cameras (the police crack down on anyone seen filming) -- Mr. Shaw (shown at left) tracks a perilous creative course but still manages to end up with a relatively brief film worth seeing and thinking about. As the movie's narrator, Edward James Olmos (below), explains early on, because these sudden "immigrants," though born in Mexico, are now American by culture and nurture (sometimes they don't even speak Spanish well enough to get by), they do not at all fit into their new environment and thus are referred to by the locals as a term that translates to "plastic people."

We get to know briefly and anything-but-completely several of these newly deported people, especially one fellow, Javier Godinez Mondragon, who goes by the nickname of Dragon (below) and acts as our tour guide to this new environment -- a kind of hell on earth into which you would want to see no one you care about have to enter. Little wonder, given what they must endure, that so many of these immigrants end up on drugs (the cartels are an ever-present fact of life here) -- or dead.

We also meet and see the work of Chris Bava (below), who photographs many of these people and offers them help when he can, and Jonathan Espinoza, a newly married young deportee who has spent his life since five years old in America and is suddenly deported. According to the film, the 9/11 attacks began a long period of anti-immigration policy, most of which (97 per cent) has been taken out, as it ever has been historically, on Latinos, most of which have been Mexican-Americans.

These new displaced persons (we don't need another Nazi Holocaust to produce a mini-nation of DPs) are fighting for their very lives in front of us, and although the film often looks and sounds as if the filmmaker simply tossed aloft all his materials and let them fall where they may (we sometimes aren't sure who is speaking at a certain moment), the result remains unsettling and disturbing. At times the film may remind you of John Carpenter's They Live, in which the police have become "legal terrorists."

We learn of the Tijuana prison (from a fellow who was incarcerated for awhile), and discover how Mr. Bava helped Jonathan and his extended family (and also what happened to Bava himself). There is a little joy amidst all the horror, but mostly this hell-on-earth tale points up the staggering cost to illegals caught in this vise. Perhaps Obama's most recent moves on immigration will relieve the situation for those still here in America. But for those already condemned, there seems little hope.

Exile Nation: The Plastic People was released to Digital VOD this past December 16 and is now available via iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, PlayStation, Xbox, Vimeo on Demand, VHX, Gumroad, Google Play and elsewhere. That pretty much covers it -- except for Netflix, on which it might eventually appear. 

Yoav Potash's CRIME AFTER CRIME: This agenda doc has us nearly rabid with anger

Of late we've seen some terrific documentaries that seem nearly-and-pleasurably agenda free (Buck, If a Tree Falls, Battle for Brooklyn: the later may have an agenda, but the filmmakers bend over backward to keep it in check). Now comes a film that absolutely has one: CRIME AFTER CRIME by Yoav Potash. This documentary, that pursues justice above all, brought my anger, beginning in the stomach and rising slowly until I could feel it in my throat, to a point at which few movies have managed. Yet the film never screams, reflecting perhaps its leading lady, Debbie Peagler, shown on the poster above and in two of the stills below.

As Potash (left) shows and tells it, Ms Peagler, some 35 years ago, was the oft-beaten girlfriend of one, Oliver Wilson, her boyfriend who decided to pimp her out to local johns on a regular basis. Six years later, after Debbie has separated from Oliver and he and his thugs threaten to kill her family, she and her mom turn to local gang members who were to beat up Oliver but instead went a little too far in their punishment, leaving the pimp dead. Deborah is eventually arrested for the murder and remains in prison for twenty years -- until her case, which clearly involves abuse-of-women, is taken up by a couple of diverse pro-bono lawyers, Orthodox Jew Joshua Safran (below, left) and marathon-runner Nadia Costa, (below, right).

For very nearly the entire first half of Crime After Crime (which sounds like a play-on-words of a certain Cyndi Lauper song but actually involves the sleazy activity of the Los Angeles County D.A.'s office), we move along a more-or-less expected route, garnering information about our protagonist and the situation, with the full expectation that wrong will be righted.  Then a roadblock occurs, and another and another, and very soon, we are feeling, tenfold, the injustice of it all.

Because Joshua, above, saw his own mother repeatedly abused, and Nadia, below, is a former Social Worker for Children's Protective Services in Los Angeles, both are primed for the task at hand. And what a task it turns out to be. Your blood pressure should rise accordingly as the D.A.'s office stonewalls and thwart's justice at every turn (one of the reasons why TrustMovies, who grew up in Los Angeles, prefers to live elsewhere).

What Ms Peagler endures (along with her family), even as her own health deteriorates, is shameful and unnecessary. And some of L.A.s public figures like D.A. Steve Cooley and a certain Lael Rubin are shown up as some of the most disgusting examples of "the law" that you will have seen. When the powers-that-be array themselves against justice, this is what results. Little wonder that Peagler, below, turns to religion -- the hope of the disenfranchised.

But what real hope is there? You will see. Crime After Crime, from the new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), opens this Friday, July 1, at the IFC Center in New York City, and on July 8 in the L.A. area (at Laemmle's Sunset 5 and Encino Town Center). Click here to see further playdates, cities and theaters around the country.