Family, food, art and renovation fuel a sweet/ sad story in James D'Arcy's MADE IN ITALY

One of those feel-good movies that boasts a beautiful location (Tuscany), a big star (Liam Neeson) surrounded by excellent supporting players, and an estranged father/son story (with a deceased mother right out of the Disney cannon).

If you can't quickly figure out where MADE IN ITALY is going, you are probably somewhat new to the notion of the motion picture experience.

On the other, more productive hand, if you'd be interested in something to take you away from the threat of Covid-19, the idiocy of Donald Trump, and wherever the next big hurricane/tropical storm might be headed, this just might be the best medicine currently available.

As written and directed by noted actor James D'Arcy (shown at right, this is his first full-length film), Made in Italy  proves consistently lovely to look at, with dialog that -- if it doesn't exactly sparkle -- has at least enough intelligence and wit to keep your ears open and willing to continue, and it offers enough back story, incident and momentum to bring its tale home with a few mini-surprises that hold boredom at bay.

If all of the above sounds like "damning with faint praise," it is not. The experience of watching Made in Italy is probably as close as one can come these days to taking a gorgeous, enjoyable and safe vacation.

D'Arcy's plot has to do with the fractured relationship between Robert, a blocked-artist father (Neeson, above), and his son Jack (Micheál Richardson, shown below), who runs a London art gallery which is about to be sold out from under his control. The two still own a villa in Italy that, were they to fix it up and then sell it, could help Jack buy that gallery. Complications ensue.

Along the way to fixing up what is indeed a gorgeous villa in dire need of repair, dad and son encounter a couple of local women who prove invaluable to them and to the story. Lindsay Duncan (below, right) plays her usual strong, smart, classy character as the local real estate agent who helps the pair ready the house for sale,

while the beautiful Italian actress Valeria Bilello (below, from Honey and Sense8) takes the plum role of the local chef and restaurateur who provides some good food, romance and design suggestions for our boys.

It's all, if not quite paint-by-numbers, close enough for you to figure out most of it. But as you'll be sitting there enjoying the scenery and fine performances, TrustMovies suspects you won't mind much at all. Neeson is, as ever, very good, and it is particularly nice to see him in something other than an action film again. The whole shebang proves a thoroughly professional job, so I'll look forward to the next movie that Mr. D'Arcy writes and/or directs.

From IFC Films, running 93 minutes and in mostly English (with a few lines of English-subtitled Italian now and again), Made in Italy opens in theaters and via VOD this Friday, August 7 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Art, deliciously animated, in Milorad Krstic's delightful RUBEN BRANDT, COLLECTOR

What a treat for art aficionados is the new movie from Hungarian animator Milorad Krstic! With animation that nods to a plethora of art "greats" (or supposed greats: Warhol's Double Elvis figures into things here), RUBEN BRANDT, COLLECTOR offers up everything from Velásquez to Botticelli, Caravaggio to Renoir, and all looking like they were somehow re-conceived by a certain guy named Picasso.

Animated by Mr. Krstic (shown at left) with the kind of super style you might call cubism squared (or is it squarism cubed?), I can't immediately think of any other animated movie in which I've enjoyed the actual animation more than this one (it makes this year's Oscar winner, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse look every bit as paltry as it truly is). Downright gorgeous, and just as amusing and fun, this 94-minute movie is an absolute knockout.

And if the movie's content doesn't quite live up to its style, when that style is so far above all else that it's off the chart, are we going to complain?

The story here takes in everything from family, parenting and parentage to art, art theft and performance art and handles it all with sublime wit, charm, subtlety and speed.

And for those who demand action, car chases and even murder, hey -- they're here, too. Along with Haydn and Mozart.

TrustMovies was having so much fun watching this film that he had to give up taking his usual notes and simply stay glued to the screen, for fear of missing something else that was special.

If you know and love fine art -- both the older and newer varieties -- I can't imagine your not heading straight out for the theater nearest you. If you're not an art fan, then at least half the film will be lost on you, but what's left, animation-wise, might still be enough to ring your bell. (Mine rang so often and loudly I'm surprised I haven't gone deaf.) In addition to the many art references, there are plenty of nods to movies and other touchstones of culture, as well.

The film has two protagonists, one a crack psychologist suffering from terrible nightmares who is soon to become an art thief, the other an ace detective with a missing-father issue. Supporting characters include a group of thieves who happen to be patients of our psychologist/thief (he's teaching them how art can save their sanity and life).

That's all you need to know. Now find a theater near you, sit back and let you eyes widen and your mouth drop open. From Sony Pictures Classics, Ruben Brandt, Collector opened on our uber-cultural coasts a couple of weeks back and will hit South Florida (in Fort Lauderdale at The Classic Gateway, and in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters and Regal Shadowood) and elsewhere across the country this Friday, March 8. Wherever you live, simply click here and then click on View Theaters at the bottom of the screen to find those nearest you.

Marc Fusco's THE SAMUEL PROJECT opens in South Florida theaters

The Holocaust meets an After-School Special, and the results are actually a bit better than you might expect in THE SAMUEL PROJECT, a new film co-written (with Chris Neighbors), directed and edited by Marc Fusco. Yes, this is what we like to call "Holocaust-lite," yet as easy-going, obvious and predictable as the movie often is, it is not insulting nor stupid.

And if the idea of a Holocaust survivor not wanting to share his story of family murder and Nazi genocide with his son, let alone his grandson, this kind of secrecy was certainly not that unusual amongst survivors.

Filmmaker Fusco, pictured at left, does a decent, if standard, job of bringing his story to life, helped along by some classy cinematography (Stephen Sheridan), good performances from his cast, and some nice animation/illustrations by Donald Wallace. The movie is a mix of melodrama, slight comedy, animation art and generation gap, as its tale of grandfather (Hal Linden, above and below, right) and grandson (Ryan Ochoa, above and below, left) get to know each other and help each other out.

The two actors, both long-time professionals (young Mr. Ochoa already has 26 imdb credits, Mr. Linden 74), bounce off each other pleasantly and charmingly, with good supporting work provided by Michael B. Silver (below) as the middle-generation dad,

and Mateo Arias (below, left) as Ochoa's bizarro school-chum musician. The plot involves grandson, a hopeful artist still in high school, who begins questioning his grandfather regarding the latter's life during World War II, which leads to a long-buried story unfolding -- which is slowly turned into "art" via the grandson's drawings and some accompanying music, courtesy of that best friend.

While the tale, as well as its telling is quite unsurprising, the finale -- which is the showing of the grandson's complete video -- is charming and worth the wait. And the pretty and not-so-oft-seen San Diego shooting locations are attractive, too.

From in8 Releasing and running a swift 92 minutes, The Samuel Project, opens this Friday, October 12, here in South Florida in the Miami area at the Regal Southland Mall, in Fort Lauderdale at the Tamarac Cinema 5 and Cinema Paradiso Hollywood, and in West Palm Beach at the Movies of Delray & Movies of Lake Worth.

Bart Layton's AMERICAN ANIMALS: an original heist film w/charm, humor, suspense, sadness

When Bart Layton's The Imposter opened theatrically back in the summer of 2012, it caused a stir of sorts, mixing as it did both documentary and narrative tropes into a single very hybrid movie about identity theft, among other things. Despite a certain queasy-making factor, the movie mostly worked.

Now, six years later, Mr. Layton (shown below) is back again with another mix of narrative and documentary about a true-life tale -- the heist of some uber-valuable artwork/books by a quartet of naive-but-daring college kids. This one works even better.

AMERICAN ANIMALS (a name that doesn't really do full justice to the subject matter, while setting its audience up for something more violent/vicious than it should or could deliver) is a heist movie with heart, soul, sadness and lots of humor -- as well as the requisite amount of surprise and suspense. The ace up its (and Mr. Layton's) sleeve is that it very cleverly and successfully mixes the real people involved (a decade or more after the fact) with some very good actors who play these four kids in their college days.

The effect, rather than something startling or unbalancing, instead slowly gives additional credence to both the story and characters at hand. The fact that the real people here often contradict each other (sometimes even themselves) makes the story told seem somehow yet more truthful. (As we know by now, even eye-witnesses can get their facts wrong.) What the real people say, and how it jibes (or often doesn't) with what we see, adds welcome surprise and humor to the events, filling out these characters (the "acted" ones) with additional layers of reality and humanity.

Mr. Layton, as writer and director, also manages to include themes of class differences, economics and privilege into his scenario without ever belaboring his points. Overall, these add weight and sinew to characters and events so that we never lose sight of what's at stake, despite the ongoing fun and suspense of the heist itself.

There is also very little actual violence in the movie, and what there is is handled so well that it registers exceedingly strongly -- instead of hitting us like the repetitive and mindless violence-as-entertainment we're constantly confronted with via our super-hero and action movies. All this puts American Animals in a class by itself and makes it easy to forgive the film's occasional minor blunder -- such as placing a real character and his actor counterpart in a car together and then making so little or this that it seems merely a directorial stunt.

The cast of actors is first-rate -- Barry Keoghan (shown two and three photos above, of Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer), Evan Peters (above, and the standout here), Jared Abrhamson (shown at bottom, center) and Blake Jenner (below) -- with each individual doing a fine job of bringing to immediate life his character, sometimes with only minimal but pungent dialog.

In the supporting cast, it is Ann Dowd who (as usual) shines brightest as the unfortunate woman in charge of what is being stolen: a cache of John James Audubon's originals! Also on view and always fun to see is Udo Kier (below, right) as a possible fence for the upcoming stolen goods.

What makes the movie especially memorable is the manner in which it captures the craziness of youth in all its dumb glory, even as it offers the adventure of a good (well, maybe bad) heist, along with the sadness involved in lives gone so wrong for such silly (but understandable) reasons. Ah, kids: They just want to be special!

From The Orchard and running a long but never boring 116 minutes, American Animals --after opening on the coasts and maybe elsewhere -- hits South Florida tomorrow, June 22. In the Miami area, look for it at MDC's Tower Theater, AMC's Aventura 24 and Sunset Place 24, CMX's Brickell City Centre, and the O Cinema, Miami Beach. In Broward Country it will play AMC's Pompano Beach 18, Fort Lauderdale's Classic Gateway Theatre, and the Regal Sawgrass. In Palm Beach Country, see it at the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton, the Movies of Lake Worth, AMC's CityPlace 20, Cobb's Downtown at the Gardens, and AMC's Indian River 24. Wherever you live across the country, to find the theater(s) nearest you, simply click here.

THE SQUARE: Ruben Östlund's Cannes winner boldly explores the western world's hypocrisy

OK. Ruben Östlund may indeed be something of a smartypants (as certain reviewers would have you believe), but the "smart" part of that word Mr. Östlund possesses in spades. If Force Majeure and now THE SQUARE are any indication, this fellow is a bold, inventive and creative filmmaker who knows what he wants to say and how to deliver it in an entertaining, surprising, thought-provoking fashion. Anyone who can keep me (not to mention my often less-than-easy-moviegoing spouse) glued to the screen for two-and-one-half hours, as he does with this latest endeavor, and make it feel like maybe only as long as a 90-minute movie, has my vote.

To my mind, what Östlund, shown at right, is doing here is nothing less than indicting today's western society for all its many and major sins. He tackles everything from the art world and its big-money benefactors to family values, PR/marketing, feminism, free speech, the masculine ego, political correctness and more. And nobody gets off the hook: not the wealthy, the poor or those in between. That he does all this while situating his film in Sweden -- one of several Scandinavian countries long known for their progressive, forward-looking, pro-people values -- makes the indictment all the more powerful. And maybe more difficult to accept. Setting the film in the USA would have been too easy, particularly these days. But handing it to us from one of the countries many of us so admire is really rubbing-it-the-fuck-in.

The filmmaker's main character (played by the suddenly memorable Danish actor Claes Bang, above) is named, and probably not coincidentally, Christian, and he's the head of a popular and prestigious art museum where he is planning a new and important show. Divorced but also a reasonably caring father of two girls, he is first shown to us waking up from a nap and having to do yet another interview with a journalist. Then later, on his way to work, when someone (a woman, it sounds like) screams for help but no one immediately comes to her aid, Christian and one other fellow do. From there, surprise topples upon surprise and we are soon utterly hooked.

The Sweden we see here -- from the art museum to the marketing firm who handles its needs, to the poor who beg, and the folk who (mostly) don't pay attention to them -- is expectedly, maybe wonderfully diverse. Pets and children are welcomed in a workplace where women have risen to (or very near) the top. Much of the society we see here is just as we might want it -- but so seldom get it.

And yet, humanity's penchant for hypocrisy keeps spurting out like the cum that fills Christian's condom (post-sex with that journalist, played by the marvelously reliable and increasingly versatile Elizabeth Moss, above), the laying-to-rest of which becomes one of the film's funniest and most provocative set pieces.

The museum's dinner for its benefactors, together with the entertainment provided (above), is another of these. But perhaps the most special and incisive continuing thread throughout the movie pertains to stolen property, all that goes into its retrieval, and the unintended consequences that follow.

How Östlund threads it all together, while making us laugh and wince and drop our jaw is simply a marvel. And to those who call the film, as did The New York Times' A.O. Scott, "complacent, craven and clueless," I can only wonder if they are demanding something sweeter and more humane. Not here, buddy. Human, yes, you'll get plenty of that. And if you do not find some, maybe much, of your own behavior mirrored here (if you are man or woman enough to admit it, that is), I shall be very surprised.

From Magnolia Pictures and running an amazingly swift 152 minutes, The Square opened in the cultural centers a week or so back and hits South Florida this Friday, November 10, in the Miami area at both the Tower Theater and the Miami Beach Cinematheque, as well as elsewhere around the country. Wherever you live, click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.

Warhol (again) in Lisanne Skyler's family-and-"fine"-art documentary, BRILLO BOX (3¢ off)

As one of the several interviewees points out in the new and thankfully short documentary, BRILLO BOX  (3¢ off), regarding Andy Warhol, his art and career: "He got what we're about." Warhol sho 'nuff did: marketing, together the kind of with lemming-like herd response that has only grown more pronounced down the ensuing decades. The doc does try to take in some of the mixed responses to Warhol's art over the years, but mostly it comes down firmly on the side of money. If something brings in millions on the auction block, it damned well must be art.

The writer and director of this interesting little film is Lisanne Skyler, shown at left, whose parents, Rita and Martin, bought one of the now famous faux Brillo soap pad shipping boxes dreamed up by Mr. Warhol back in 1964 when he silk-screened the original Brillo packaging, designed by abstract expressionist James Harvey, and recreated it on wooden boxes that were the same size as the originals. The Skyler family paid $1,000 for the box (a not-insignificant amount back then) and hung on to it for some time. Martin Skyler claims to have been a bit more interested in investment than art, but Rita says she always loved the piece and did not want to part with it. They did, however, and their daughter has now tracked the history of that very box, as it made its way from the Skyler household to various owners until that red-letter day when it fetched its three million dollars at the Christie's auction shown below).

Ms Skyler's filmmaking is peppy and fun to view and hear, no matter what your opinion of Warhol and his art might be. There's a wealth of old Skyler family footage, and the filmmaker has done her legwork, getting interviews from various important names in the art world.

The anecdotes served up along the way -- particularly one about how Martin managed to get Warhol to actually sign his name to the Skyler's box -- are also fun. And the decades-later meeting between Martin and the artist Peter Young, a piece of whose art Skyler's purchased by first selling the Warhol Brillo Box, is both amusing and ironic. The movie's rah-rah attitude about art may have you ready to re-see other, more contrarian art movies such as Art Bastard or the recent Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back. But the documentary's finale, during which we see the youngest members of Skylar family getting their own "art education," makes a nicely appropriate, family-still-loves-art wrap-up.

From HBO Documentary Films and running just 40 minutes,  Brillo Box (3¢ off) makes its debut exclusively on HBO beginning this Monday, August 7 (the day after what would have been the late artist's 89th birthday).

Andrzej Wajda's final film, AFTERIMAGE, opens in theaters from Film Movement

Multi-award-winning (including an honorary "Oscar") Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, who died this past year, directed some 56 movie and television projects and wrote, co-wrote or supplied the idea for 36 of them. Seldom out of the spotlight for long, his work, beginning in the 1950s with classics like Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds, continued through the decades and included his famous "Men" movies (Marble and Iron), Danton, his well-received Katyn (2007), and now finally AFTERIMAGE -- his latest and last film.

Wajda, shown at left, has moved, over the decades, from a somewhat experimental and challenging filmmaker to a more conventional one, albeit with a very good understanding of film technique, storytelling and visual smarts. If this final film -- that details the downward spiral of the career of the Polish artist Władysław Strzemiński, once Poland had come, post- World War II, under the thumb of the idiotic Russian Communist rule --

is something less than much of Wajda's oeuvre, it is still worth seeing, as a goodbye to this talented, innovative filmmaker, as well as introducing many of us to the life and work of this renowned Polish modern artist. As portrayed by Bogusław Linda (above), Strzemiński is seen as both a talented artist and teacher, obsessed with art to the dereliction of his duty as husband and parent. His wife, as best I can recall, has already died when the film begins, but his daughter -- sadly but beautifully portrayed as child forced to grow up too soon by Bronislawa Zamachowska (below) -- is in desperate need of a loving and providing parent.

This is clearly beyond the scope of our artist's understanding or ability, and the movie does not try to sugar-coat his failings. It is much more interested, however, in Strzemiński's work as artist and professor at the art school he helped to found and run.

We see how, once Russia controls Poland, Communist philosophy and politics rule all, and how the career and indeed the entire life of someone who opposes this in the name and spirit of art, is all too easily destroyed. In this case, the artist -- unlike so many others in so many places throughout the world -- refuses to kowtow to the power of the new state and so pays for it by having his art destroyed, his opportunity for any employment taken from him, and finally by being unable to eat and eventually to live.

This downward spiral is beautifully filmed, however, with some exquisite compositions and, amidst the drab Eastern European surrounding, an occasional popping of color (via that modern art), and some lush outdoor landscapes (the cinematographer is Pawel Edelman).

We also meet the artist's students (above), who clearly love and cherish him and his ideas, a few of which we hear over the course of the film. I wish the movie has given us more of these, however, as the primary one would seem to be: Be true to yourself in your art. Even if, as appears the case with some of these students, you have not a lick of talent.

The look the movie gives us into "state-sanctioned art" (above) proves fun and interesting, too. Ah, those paintings of "workers" and posters depicting the Communist leaders that keep popping up -- particularly in the factory where Strzemiński finally finds work (until the state gets wind that he's employed once again and immediately has him fired).

Overall, the tale told here is so unrelentingly bleak and obvious, with nary a surprise in store, that we know exactly where we're going from scene two onward. (The movie's opening scene, taking place in the lush outdoors, is gorgeous and funny. Hang on to it.) Granted, the lessons to be learned from the history of dictator-led Communism (none of them benign) bear repeating, lest we forget. And now, with Donald Trump at our helm, together with a large percentage of our populace that appears neither to know history nor care about it, I suppose we'll have to learn that "dictator" lesson all over again. And it really does not matter whether the political philosophy behind the dictator is Communism, Capitalism, or -- as in the case of Trump -- just make money and garner fame. The result is the same: Toe the line or else.

So, Mr. Wajda's final film, then, is a warning, as well as a history lesson and a look at a famous artist whom many of us will not know. It's worth seeing, even if we may choose to remember other of Wajda's movies more fondly and/or find them more memorable.

From Film Movement, in Polish with English subtitles and running just 98 minutes, Afterimage opens tomorrow, Friday, May 19, in New York City at n NYC at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on May 19th and in LA at Laemmle's Royal andPlayhouse 7 on May 26th. A national release will follow.
Click here (then scroll down) to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.