TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN: Blu-ray debut for Stanley H. Brasloff's would-be cult classic

Whew! It's been awhile since TrustMovies has seen a movie -- even one from the early 1970s -- quite as bad as the please-mommy-let-me-become-a-cult-classic! piece of nonsense from one, Stanley H. Brasloff, entitled TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN.

According to the funny and certainly striving Bonus Feature on the disc about this would-be moviemaker, Mr. Brasloff based his film upon a supposedly true tale he had heard that I guess he felt might make a groundbreaking movie.

It probably did break some ground back in the 70s -- badly, but what-the-heck -- regarding sexuality, psychological disorder and especially incest. Yet so thuddingly poor is much of the dialog that the actors hired to speak this silliness should not be held fully responsible for the result. They try. Oh, god, do they try. (As director, Brasloff would seem to have encouraged them in this mode.)

Chief among them is the film's star, Marcia Forbes, shown above (with some of those titular toys) and below, right, whose only movie credit this film turned out to be. Talk about a career-stopper. In truth, Ms Forbes is asked to do what Meryl Streep perhaps could not (Ms Streep would have had the sense, however, to turn this movie down flat), but Forbes certainly gives it her best shot, playing a young woman whose very bad-parenting parents have managed to raise a real nutcase.

But she's a very pretty nutcase, so she pulls in just about everyone within her small orbit. Supposedly afraid of sexuality (especially from her young husband, played by Harlan Carey Poe, above, left), when she finally gets some, she's immediately ready to go for broke.

Much of the movie is devoted to our heroine's desire/attempt to locate her father, whom she has not seen for years and years, a task for which she uses a local Manhattan whore (Evelyn Kingsley, above, left), who has own designs on our girl, along with her pimp (Luis Arroyo, below, right).

Dad (Peter Lightstone, below) finally does make the expected appearance, and we have a family reunion to end all family reunions. At times, the movie does indeed approach the glories of unintentional camp but never quite goes full out enough to make us snort properly. And because it was made during those sexually-groundbreaking 70s, you can "read" it as a plea for heightened sexual awareness and openness -- until, that is, we get to the lesbian scene. Then it's all ooooh, naughty, naughty!

Ah, well. You can't have everything. And in the case of Toys Are Not for Children, you can't have much of anything. But if you are an aficionado of this sort of thing, be my guest. The new Blu-ray, from Arrow Video (distributed here in the USA via MVD Visual) -- running 85 minutes, and including a few of those usually notable Arrow special features -- hits the street today, Tuesday, October 8, for purchase and (I would hope) rental.

Pawel Pawlikowski's moody, ambiguous THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH hits theaters

Noirish, glum, gloomy and very weird, THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH, the latest from critical darling Pawel Pawlikowski left me baffled and then some. Granted, I nodded off a couple of times during the screening -- not for more than a second or two -- but the movie finally made no sense to me on any level or in any genre whatsoever. Not as a mystery, broken family saga, ghost story, crime thriller, and certainly not as an immigrant tale (though the immigrant in question, for a change, is a white guy from the USA). Maybe it's a comedy? Without any laughs.

If you read TrustMovies much at all, you'll know he hates to give away plot elements, but he swears that he could spend the rest of this review spelling out the entire plot, and you would still finish up this piece with a "Huh?" In fact, isn't that rather like the look on the face of the filmmaker himself (shown at left)? Mr. Pawlikowski -- who earlier gave us the much-praised Last Resort (When, I wonder, will this one be available on DVD? I am still trying to see it....) and the also well-liked My Summer of Love -- has directed and adapted his screenplay from the novel by Douglas Kennedy, which TM has not read but is tempted to, if only to learn if it makes any more sense than does the movie.

The film's tag line, which you might just be able to make out on the poster at top, notes "What you can not resist you may not survive." OK. But given what we know by the end of the film, this has the ring of a marketing copywriter at wits' end and wondering, "What the fuck else can I say about this movie?!" Our "hero" Tom, played by Ethan Hawke (above, demonstrating that, sometimes, a pair of glasses is just a cigar), is a writer who's come to town (Paris) to see his daughter (shown in the photo at bottom, also wearing glasses).

Tom quickly ends up broke and homeless but manages to land in tiny hotel above a bar, in which the owner, played by the fine Samir Guesmi (above left), allows him to stay in exchange for working in a very odd location doing very odd stuff -- all of which has "criminal element" writ large in flashing neon.

A propos the title, there is indeed a titular and mysterious woman, played by the always exquisite and exciting Kristin Scott Thomas (above), whom our hero meets and greets and does some other interesting things to.

In that bar works a barmaid, played by the lovely Joanna Kulig, above, whom we recently saw putting her best features forward in another terrible movie called Elles. (Don't worry, Joanna: a worthwhile film is sure to appear on the horizon eventually.)

Things happen, and then more things happen, and then the movie is over. Or maybe these things don't happen, because this whole enterprise may be simply a figment of Tom's writerly imagination. Perhaps it's his next novel! Or, he's simply insane. Either way, did I give a shit? No. But maybe you will.

The Woman in the Fifth (arrondissement, I am guessing) -- from ATO Pictures and running 85 minutes -- opens this Friday, June 15, in New York City, DC, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. In the weeks to come it will screen in other major and minor cities across the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled cities, theaters and playdates.

Exhibitionism nonpareil! Matt D'Elia's AMERICAN ANIMAL gets limited release

When does performing turn into pure exhibitionism? Truthfully, Trust-Movies isn't certain of the answer, since all performing is a kind of exhibitionism, with any line of demarcation so constantly crossed that it becomes less a line than a large smudge. Still, as someone once said regarding pornog-raphy -- "I know it when I see it" -- and Matt D'Elia's new film AMERICAN ANIMAL comes about as close to the definition as I've seen in a long while. (The definition of exhibitionism, that is, not pornography.) Mr. D'Elia, pictured below, is the writer, director, co-star (he's the star, really, as he gets a lot more screen time than co-actor Brendan Fletcher), co-producer and co-editor of the film.

When I began watching American Animal, my companion was seated next to me on the sofa. Within five -- max ten -- minutes, he had taken a powder and I was left alone. At that point, I have to tell you that, were I not watching a screener sent to me by the film's publicist, I would have joined him. (TM has a rule that, if he receives a free screener or goes to a free screening, he finishes watching and then covers the movie in question, no matter what.) Cleaning out the cat litter would have seemed preferable to watching Mr. D'Elia (who plays a fellow named Jimmy) -- looking like a gangly, near-nude, long-haired freak -- scream and rant (sometimes in his own made-up language) at his roommate James (Mr. Fletcher), his life, himself and, I guess, us.

This screaming and ranting goes on and on and fucking on until, if begging for mercy would do any good, we surely would. Why does James put up with Jimmy, we wonder? Are they perhaps gay lovers? No. That idea is put to rest almost immediately. Well, maybe Jimmy is wealthy and is "allowing" James to stay with him. No. Both young men are wealthy and will never have any "money" worries. So the behavior on display makes even less sense.

Two young women stop by -- whom the cast list calls Blond Angela (Mircea Monroe, above) and Not Blond Angela (Angela Sarafyan, below). Ah-hah. Do we see a metaphor forming? Could James and Jimmy be two sides of the same coin: Jimmy the exhausting rebel and James more the conformist type? And the women, their ministering angels? (Well, they would have to be to put up with these two guys.)  Even if this interpretation is valid, so what? "Give my world a chance!" begs Jimmy at one point in the film. "I'm not even charging admission." No, dear, at this point it's we who should be charging you.

Soon the blond is having sex with Jimmy (well, he is rich -- could he have hired these girls? -- and if the outline we so noticeably see under his shorts is any indication, he might have a big cock, and he did shower during those first few minutes of the film so presumably he doesn't smell, although he does spit up blood....) All this runs through one's mind as one tries to come up with any possible reason that these two young women have remained in the apartment. For the first half-hour and then into the next half hour, so much time is wasted with shenanigans that are only mildly interesting (is or is not Jimmy "off" drugs?) and dialog that is repetitive in the extreme (why say something once when you can scream it five or ten times?!) that the movie becomes little more than an endurance test.

The plot, such as it is, turns on the film's single event up to now: James (above) has surreptitiously taken an office job, and Jimmy feels betrayed. Then, at the hour point, another event happens and Jimmy is revealed nude, full frontal and semi-erect (did I mention exhibitionism?). Now, at least, all that teasing in his tight boxer shorts is given closure. It's at this point that D'Elia's movie begins to take on vague power and a forward thrust (no pun intended).

As Jimmy begs James not to go to work, at last we hear something that could be construed as a philosophy, and a few somewhat interesting ideas about (de)evolution, wealth, capitalism, consumerism, couch potato-ism, and other things of current interest or importance. At last. This makes that final half hour (the film is 95 minutes long) infinitely better than the first hour. But why set up a crazy, unpleasant endurance test for your mice before you finally give them a piece of cheese? Plus, this is not what you would call, in your most forgiving moments, profound cheese. It'll appeal most to the younger set and those insisting on something different -- damn the intelligence quotient. But at least it is more nourishment than we've been given up to now.

Also on the plus side are some pleasant visuals, occasionally interesting framing, bright catchy colors, and nice classical music. Mr. D'Elia has certainly concocted a movie guaranteed to divide critics and audiences, and it will be interesting to see if and what he comes up with next. Meanwhile, American Animal opens tomorrow, Friday, May 18, in Manhattan at the Village East Cinema. More playdates may follow around the country if enough of an audience turns out here in New York City.