In John Balazs' RAGE, rape, murder and vengeance all add up to boredom

Despite its relatively early scene of maximum violence (a murder, then a rape, then a beating and attempted murder), the new Australian movie RAGE really ought have been entitled Enervation, so slow-moving and unnecessarily lengthy is the road to would-be vengeance that this surprisingly tiresome film then takes. 

As directed by John Balazs from a screenplay by Michael J. Kospiah, the filmmaker wastes way too much time on "establishing shots" that, once established, just go on and on and on. The filmmaker likes to linger -- which, in this kind of movie, proves deadly. It occurred to TrustMovies, as he was watching, that Mr. Balazs should have perhaps chosen a better editor. But then, as the end credits rolled, he discovered that Balazs himself had edited the movie.

The filmmaker, shown at right, keeps us waiting an awfully long time to learn stuff we ought to have already known -- and then he informs us via a scene of sudden, lengthy exposition. More than one and one-half hours into things, the husband says to his wife, "I can't believe this is happening to us." You will likely echo that sentiment once you realize that you still have another 50 or so minutes left to go.

Then, after so little has happened for so long, convenient coincidences start piling up. At a snail's pace, of course. 

The movie is full of wretched policemen, wretched police work, and, I'm afraid, not very good filmmaking. All of which, it turns out, is supposedly based around poor communication between spouses. Hmmm.

Performances are as good as can be expected under these circumstances, with the three leading actors -- Matt Theo (above) as the husband, Hayley Beveridge (below) as the wife, and Richard Norton (two photos below) as the chief investigating officer -- carrying us along as best they can.

Technical credits, outside of the direction and editing, are very good, as well, and the ideas the film presents are worth considering. Yet the manner in which they're presented leaves so much to be desired that when the movie's biggest "surprise" turns out to be the linchpin of an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV episode, you'll find yourself ready to cry "uncle."

From Gravitas Ventures and running two hours and 24 minutes (yes!), Rage opens digitally on all major VOD platforms in North America, with a Vimeo On Demand release in Australia, this coming Tuesday, Feb. 23rd.  

Charm and goofy fun from New Zealand in Hayden J. Weal/Thomas Sainsbury's DEAD

Other than Canada, TrustMovies would say it's New Zealand whose films overall have a distinct enough feel and attitude that they can, whatever genre in which they might appear, be pretty quickly identified as to their home country. (Of course, with New Zealand the accent certainly helps.)  DEAD -- a most aptly titled otherworldly rom-com, murder, mayhem and mama movie -- proves another such film, one that builds slowly but significantly toward its low-key giggles, slight-but-effective scares, and a number of very nice surprises along the way. I  do not want to oversell this little oddball, but if you stick with it, the rewards are plenteous and lovely.

From the outset as one of our heroes (the dead one, a former cop) comes back as a ghost -- dressed only in a vest, shirt and skivvies -- this bizarre and quirky gem gathers steam and smarts. Our other hero (the live one), a pothead who likes to indulge, has the ability to see ghosts and then try to unite them with their loved ones, thanks to a combination of a certain medicine and other drugs to which he's partial. (Yes, you either suspend your disbelief and accept this or move along to your next movie.)

As co-written and directed by Hayden J. Weal (shown above and at left below), who also plays the dead hero, and co-written by Thomas Sainsbury (below, right), who plays the live one, their movie is in one sense similar to a whole lot of others you've seen, while in another sense proving to be utterly original via its own witty style, charm and, yes,  that specific New Zealand "attitude."

This is a kind of buddy/bromance in which our live hero also begins to bond with the dead's one's very living sister (the gorgeous and funny Tomai Ihaia, below, right), even as he is trying to work out his problems with others (his drug dealer, his mother, and his various bereaved clients).

In addition to our dead cop, a number of other ghosts populate the film and are often nearly as funny as the living characters. On top of all this, the movie deals with another important subject/theme which I am going to refrain from even naming because the way in which Dead handles this one is exemplary: subtle, witty and with increasing humor that reaches its delightful zenith during the end credits, set in a heaven where one's genitalia is covered in, well, the most adorable manner.

This movie is simultaneously dark, dirty, endearing and often off-the-wall hilarious. It also takes its oddball place amongst memorable "mother" movies, for reasons I will also not go into here. Dear reader, you deserve all the goofy surprises in store. (That's Jennifer Ward-Leland, below, as our live hero's mater dearest.) 

I was so thoroughly enjoying this film that I forgot to take any notes. So this review may be shorter than usual.  But I would not be surprised to find Dead ending up on my best-of-year list -- not because it is anything approaching great but simply due to its being such an original: an eccentric, satisfying little bit of the unexpected.

From 1091 Pictures and running 91 minutes, Dead hits certain theaters and virtual cinema today, Friday, September 25, and will reach home video -- for purchase or rental -- on October 6.

Home Video debut for Josh Pierson's noirish and nutty WHERE SLEEPING DOGS LIE

Honor among thieves certainly has a long and storied history in literature and film, even if, in most cases, you could as easily call it dishonor among thieves. It's one thing when the thieves in question -- two brothers and their friend since childhood -- are relatively smart but quite another when they're dumb-as-they-come. Which is the case with the poorly-titled WHERE SLEEPING DOGS LIE. There are no sleeping dogs lying around anywhere in this movie, even metaphorically speaking, with almost every character about as hyped-up, noisy and attention-deficit-disordered as you could possibly want.

The first full-length feature (after half a dozen shorts) from writer/director Josh Pierson (shown at left), the movie's noticeably lax and lank storytelling and style make it something of an effort to sit through. The plot: Three idiotic, would-be criminals mis-execute a robbery with even worse-then-imaginable results.

Initially, the movie seems a bit promising because it is told piecemeal via scenes that go back and forth in time, but eventually the scenes begin to feel like filler -- in particular those set in a bar, below, in which one brother (Jesse Janzen, above, left) tells the other (Dustin Miller, right) about his big plan.

While some of this seems played for dark laughs, the humor quickly curdles due to the sheer ugliness and stupidity of what's going on. Too dumb to make a decent noir and peopled with characters that pretty much defy credibility, the film simply moves ever forward on its crazy death march.

The third wheel here is played by Tommy Koponen (above), who might garner more sympathy if the script didn't have him constantly whining and at odds with just about everything and everyone. Dialog moves from the expected and mediocre to downright bad, so the performers are hardly given much chance, except to over-emote like crazy. (Some of the speechifying sounds suspiciously like improvisation, in which one of the actors has just discovered the word fuck.) Female roles, as is often the case in these buddy-boy movies, are mere fodder for cliché.

The most impressive role, along with the performance of it, is taken by David J. Espinosa (above, left), as the initial victim of the robbery -- perhaps because his mouth is taped shut for much of the movie so he can't spout too much dialog. (I hope this actor got double pay for having had all that duct tape placed around and then removed from his head and mouth, over and over again!) And what the hell -- even the special-effects fire here looks fake.

From 1091 and running a too-lengthy 96 minutes, Where Sleeping Dogs Lie will hit home video this Tuesday, July 7 -- for purchase (and maybe?) rental. Your move...

Our May Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman -- THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: American Crime Story

This 9-part FX series (which follows the celebrity of The People vs OJ Simpson of 2/2016) has considerable depth despite initially not comparing favorably with the starry OJ saga, the first in the American Crime Story series produced by Brad Simpson and executive produced by Ryan Murphy, both of whom helmed Glee. It ended up winning an Emmy for best limited series, beating Picasso, Patrick Melrose, and Godless (my favorite) among others. Now on Netflix (the OJ story is too), the Versace case probes issues that merit attention: the role of ‘nurture’ in causing mental illness and the comparatively secretive (except in major cities) gay world of the 1990’s.

Versace, at the height of his fame, was murdered on July 15, 1997, age 50, at the door of his palatial South Beach, FL, villa by Andrew Cunanan, then 27 (Darren Criss, below), who killed himself 8 days later to prevent being taken by police.

The malignant narcissism of this young killer screams for notice in 2019, his mental disorder being flagrant in the person of Donald Trump, whose own version of compulsive lying, self-aggrandizing, and denial of reality is as toxic and and likely more murderous (if not one-on-one with a gun) than Cunanan’s. (Below, Darren Criss, l, Andrew Cunanan high school photo, r.)

The series title deceives in that The Assassination of Gianni Versace is not a biopic of the designer; it is Andrew Cunanan’s story ending in five murders during a several-month killing spree. Screenwriter Tom Rob Smith (London Spy) used journalist Maureen Orth’s 1999 book, Vulgar Favors, about Cunanan, as a source. Smith, however, used the life and career of Versace to contrast the youth of the two men, providing the viewer with a thought-provoking scenario that works harder than just the seedy tale of a narcissistic desperado. The screen story makes the implicit case here for ‘nurture’ or ‘environment’ as a main ingredient in the failure of one life versus the success of another.

Here were Versace (Edgar Ramirez, immediately above) and Cunanan (behind him), two gay men with wildly different trajectories, both having had to accommodate before homosexuality gained the degree of equality and acceptance that exists today. Versace was helped through youthful bullying by his dress-maker mother who affirmed his talents, supported, and taught him the value of hard work. As an adult we meet him in a committed relationship, and although HIV positive from the random-sex the partners engaged in with others, Versace was nevertheless imbued with the joy of his own creative process and enormous success. (Below, left, Ricky Martin, playing Antonio D’Amico, shown at right, Versace’s partner for 11 years).

In contrast, Andrew, with a genius IQ, the most promising of his siblings, was adulated and spoiled beyond common sense by his parents; they filled him with outlandish dreams of his own perfection until he became unable to tolerate rejection or failure — he was an exhibitionist and prolific liar by his teens (below, Cunanan, r., Criss, l). In the last year of his life he began to lose it — the world was not adoring him, the man he loved was afraid of him, and others saw through his lies. “Andrew was beaten by things other people overcame” said Smith —“it became a very interesting counterpoint” portrayed on screen with contrasting views of their childhoods.

Born to an unhappily married Filipino father (Jon Jon Briones) and pious Italian-American mother (Joanna Adler), it was Andrew, the youngest of four, awarded the master-bedroom of the family home in San Diego, sent to an exclusive private high school, and indulged with a sports car.

His father, Modesto, was a fabulist, seeing in Andrew the genius he attributed to himself, the child who would bring him glory. He succeeded as a stock-broker until he failed, having robbed clients and avoided arrest by fleeing to Manila, abandoning wife and children and leaving them destitute. Andrew’s disastrous visit to Modesto must have been a turning point in dealing with life-as-it-is. Seeing his father’s degraded circumstance in Manila (below) in contrast to the pretense of success in the states, worsened Andrew’s downward spiral in an already peripatetic life; he grew needier, more manipulative, and directionless. Obsessed with fame, he supported himself as a prostitute/drug dealer in which he courted older gay men who bought him the appearance of wealth he craved, the success Modesto falsely role-modeled.

If there are diagnoses for Modesto or his wife’s mental status in some doctor’s file, they do not figure in this telling; Andrew’s parents are shown having raised a pampered prince, unfit for life’s vagaries. And as he reckoned with the contradiction between his sense of entitlement and the cards life was dealing, he began to murder.

First was his friend, Jeffrey Trail (Finn Wittrock), a former U.S. naval officer, who was in recovery from the difficulties of being a gay officer in the service, the episode offering a deeply embarrassing look at don’t-ask-don’t-tell exigencies in the navy. Andrew’s former lover, architect David Madson, was next (below, Cody Fern). Madson was then achieving success as an architect and rejecting Andrew, but still easily manipulated by him. Madson was free to run but imprisoned in a no-escape Stockholm syndrome.

Then 72-year-old Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell), a Chicago property developer who paid Andrew for sex, was stabbed and throat slit after which Andrew stole his car (below with insert of Miglin). Next to last and most random, he shot a 45-year-old man in New Jersey for his red truck. Andrew then hid in plain sight in Miami for two months, stalking Versace whom he had once met, the most enviable target he had chosen to punish for his own failure; Versace was not just rich and famous but an artist. 

Andrew had eluded arrest thus far because of the relative secrecy of gay life in fly-over country. By the time Jeff Trail and David Madson were found in Minnesota and Miglin in Chicago, Andrew was long gone. Death of the beloved icon in Miami, however, focused the mind of law enforcement and Cunanan was found — dead.

The series begins with Versace’s murder and then unfolds in reverse order until the childhood influences on Versace and Cunanan come into focus as unsurprising ‘aha’s’ near the series conclusion. Criss, a product of Glee and half Filipino like Andrew, has blazed into stardom with this heavy-weight lead role, winning an Emmy and Golden Globe last year. Criss’s Andrew dazzles, charms, and mesmerizes his prey and us, his audience.

A few other actors were memorable: Australian Fern’s deer-in-the headlights affect as Cunanan’s lover-cum-victim, David Madson, stays with you, and Judith Light’s portrayal of Lee Miglin’s wife, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Marilyn Miglin never knew what hit her, that her marriage was not peaches-and-cream, or that her husband hid a secret sex life that would lead to his being bound with tape and stabbed to death. Marilyn was the oblivious, blond-helmeted business-woman who sweet-talked her own line of ‘pheromone’ perfumes on a TV home shopping network. Ms Light created Barbie doll’s perfect grand-mom in a perfect pink suit until Andrew Cunanan fowled the whole picture perfect.

On team Versace, Penélope Cruz does a compassionate, loving Donatella (below, top r). Some Spanish language undertones to the Italian-accented English of the Versace entourage were perceptible — never mind, one still followed with interest the glamorous but day-to-day ordinaries of the family business and relationships. But no hedging the obvious — this was multi-talented Darren Criss’s show, fulfilling every fantasy of success that his character dreamed of. He carries the entire star-filled tragedy like a dazzling quarterback. He is one to watch.

The above post was written by 

 our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

Giallo time again with the Blu-ray release of Sergio Martino's 1971 (and just so-so) THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL from 1971

I've finally figured out why I keep watching so many of these only so-so examples of Italian giallo movies: It's the time period (the 1970s) more than any other single feature that keeps pulling me in. These films -- many of them having made their Blu-ray debut from Arrow Home Video -- have been so well-remastered and then transferred to video that viewing them is akin to having the 70s, Italian style, unfurling in front of you all over again. It's nostalgic fun, while the colors, costumes, sets and often the camerawork, too, are eye-popping.

All of the above is true again with the latest example of giallo to hit home video: THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL, directed by journeyman filmmaker Sergio Martino (at right) and written by Eduardo Manzanos, Ernesto Gastaldi & Sauro Scavolini.

The plotting, dialog and direction are mostly rudimentary, although Signore Martino does do some fun things to quicken the pace (a key goes into a lock but when it comes out and the door opens, we've entered a different location).

So rudimentary, in fact, seems the story-line that we imagine there must be some real surprise ahead. Indeed there is, so please hold on. That "hold," however, will take you through some awfully ridiculous behavior from characters who, though their lives are clearly threatened, act as though they had nine of them.

Several of those lives are lost -- this being giallo, they belong to women who are sliced rather nastily, though one young fellow meets his maker, as well -- before the movie reaches the finish line.

The plot has to do with an unfaithful wife (the beauteous Ida Galli, above, here working under the name of Evelyn Stewart), her hubby who dies in a plane crash (featuring a rather obvious model plane, below), and a million-dollar insurance policy.

In the leading man role, Martinez uses, to my taste, one of the most boring and bland actors ever to appear in Italian films, George Hilton (shown below, and four photos up), and his mediocre performance keeps dragging the movie downward.

Fortunately, in the heroine role (the film takes its time revealing just who this will be), we have the beautiful and talented-enough-to-carry-the-film-along Anita Strindberg, who plays a feisty journalist investigating the series of murders and who just might be the latest victim.

Filmed in Greece, and elsewhere around Europe (one of the Bonus Features on the disc is entitled Jet Set Giallo), the location photography is first-rate/vacation-level. Still connoisseurs come to giallo not for the locations, but for the sex, semi-nudity and splatter -- all of which can be found here.

The disc's Bonus Features also includes good recent interviews with lead actor Hilton, director Martino, an analysis of Martino's films by author Mikel J. Koven, a new video essay on giallo by Troy Howarth, plus lots more -- not to mention the excellent Blu-ray transfer in a brand new 4K restoration.

From Arrow Home Video and distributed here in the USA by MVD Entertainment, in both an English dubbed version and the original Italian with English subtitles and running 95 minutes (the Bonus Features last at least another hour or two), The Case of the Scorpion's Tail hit the street last month -- for purchase and maybe (I would hope but I don't know just where) rental.

A murder mystery from Hirokazu Kore-eda? Yes, as THE THIRD MURDER opens in theaters

Really? A murder mystery from Hirokazi Kore-eda, the fellow who has made all those wonderful Japanese films about family and relationships and philosophy and responsibility? Yes.

And THE THIRD MURDER is indeed about family and relationships and philosophy and responsibility. And also, especially, about justice, motive and character --  that last in every sense that you can imagine for this hugely encompassing word.

Mr. Hirokazu, pictured at right, whose classic Maborosi (the new Blu-ray release of which TrustMovies covered only last week) rather set the Japanese standard for films concerning all of the above themes, has now taken those themes and applied them to the murder mystery genre.

The results will most likely please his current fans a good deal more than they may satisfy those who expect anything remotely like a conventional murder mystery.

The Third Murder begins in a dark and deserted field at night in which a rather grizzly murder (followed by a cremation) takes place. Thanks to Hirokazu's skill and subtlety, sound effects jar us more than the visuals.

It seems clear from the beginning exactly who the murderer is. But who he is in terms of his character and why he has done the deed remain murky yet continually compelling. And Kôji Yakusho, above, who plays this very unusual role is equally compelling.

We learn something of the Japanese justice system, meet friends and family of the victim, as well as of that of murderer's defense attorney (Masaharu Fukuyama, above) -- who initially does not want this case but slowly grows closer and closer to the man he is defending.

What is learned about the victim will hardly ingratiate the guy to viewers, and once we've met his sleazy wife and hugely troubled daughter, this third murder begins to become as understandable as the first two, which we learn of in the course of the investigation.

Still, this is murder, and so justice must be served. But how? The defense attorney's father (above, who is himself a judge) offers one solution, but his son keeps soldiering on, hoping for a way to get his client a life sentence (or less) rather than death.

Religious motifs -- yes, that cross (seen above and below) -- figure in prominently,

as do dead birds, a thank-you note and peanut butter. Motives are mulled over and seem initially promising but then unclear, while truth, as ever, is utterly elusive.

Toward the finale, there is a scene of such supreme visual power, depth and even a weird kind of suspense as our two heroes come as close as possible to "joining."

Now, I have seen this kind of visual done previously on a number of occasions, but never as well as here. The sense of separate entities trying their best to understand each other and become one has rarely been brought to such vibrant, emotional and philosophic life.

If you are in the market for any cut-and-dried procedural or even a mystery with some sort of surprise finale, better look elsewhere. But if the ever-amazing and endlessly engaging ideas of family as both salvation and hell, justice as an elusive goal worth pursuing, and character as something that evolves rather than springs fully formed from DNA, then The Third Murder might just be your cup of chrysanthemum tea.

From Film Movement and running 124 minutes, the movie opens in New York City this Friday, July 20, at the Quad Cinema and on August 3 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal, with other cities to follow in the weeks and months to come.