Scott Z. Burns' riveting THE REPORT offers a long-term, tied-to-a-desk brand of heroism

Wow. Filmmaker Scott Z. Burns has finally done it -- giving us an actual adult "action" movie in which the action comes from a quiet, determined man who insists on getting the truth out to the public, as well as from the supporting folk who help (or sometimes hinder) his doing it. The result is one of the year's best films: suspenseful, exciting, provocative and about something important -- the torture that our nation's CIA engaged in during the early part of this new century (the excuse for which was of course 9/11) and the congressional report about that torture and how that report came close to never seeing the light of day.

In THE REPORT, Mr. Burns (shown at right) -- best-known till now for his writing and producing credits -- shows us the ins and outs of everything from the torture itself (via well-done flashbacks that conjure the horror, ugliness and, yes, stupidity and uselessness of it all) to the long, hard, detailed road to piecing together a case against the CIA and bringing it to fruition.

Burns' screenplay well crafts all of this (his choice of events, along with how much of each to offer us, is precise and telling), while his dialog is cogent, to the point, and smart without ever seeming overly witty or too clever. The style may be documentary-like but the movie has all the narrative drive it needs.

If Burns' filmmaking style is straight-ahead and no-frills, this seems fitting. And he draws spot-on performances from his entire cast, which is filled with big names in even the smaller roles. In the leading roles are Adam Driver (above) as the young desk man who leads the investigation and puts together the titular report, and Annette Bening (below) as the Senator -- Dianne Feinstein -- whose power drives the report. Both actors could not be bettered. Driver excels at making even the smallest detail come to bright life, while Bening tamps down any kind of excess so that we see a politician trying to do what's right, even as she must continually play the political game.

The starry supporting cast includes everyone from Corey Stoll and Jon Hamm (below) to Maura Tierney, Michael C. Hall and so many other noticeable names, all of whom excel in even the smallest roles. Along the way, we revisit some shameful situations, from Abu Ghraib and EIT (enhanced interrogation technique) to break-ins, cover-ups and more. By the finale, while you'll be galvanized and moved, you may also be prone to consider just how far we've devolved, over a decade or so, into a culture and political administration for which just about every action these days demands a cover-up.

From Amazon Studios and running two hours, The Report opens in theaters this Friday, November 15, and will be available via Amazon Prime Video at the end of this month.

Pieter Gasperz & Sabrina Gennarino's AFTER tracks the trying turmoil of a fractured family

After what, you might wonder? I did, and finally determined that this movie's title had to do with "after" the diagnosis of Alzheimer's or some other sort of dementia was laid upon one of the movie's characters. But after watching the entire film, and seeing the dedication at its end -- For those who have fallen. To those who remain. -- and then taking into consideration the movie's time frame (it's set back a decade or more), I suspect it has more to do with the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. In any case, AFTER, a thoroughly tiresome and woefully conceived and executed little movie written by Sabrina Gennarino (who also plays one of the ensemble roles) and directed by Pieter Gaspersz (shown below), is such a plodding affair about a family of such clueless assholes, starting with mom and dad on down, that I really don't know why the film is being given a theatrical release.

There are some very good actors in the cast -- John Doman, Kathleen Quinlan, Pablo Schreiber, among others (Ms Gennarino is pretty good, herself) -- and god knows, they give it their best shot. But the screenplay manages to be both repetitive and ridiculous. Spoilers ahead: After treating us to his impossible prejudices, Dad has such a sudden change of heart and mind and probably liver and kidney, too, that you can only wonder what miracle has happened. Further, when his business is utterly trashed so that the big job that needs to be done can't be, he saves the day by calling in every able bodied man in town -- all of whom seem to be available and versed in stone work! If you buy this kind of nonsense, by all means, line up now for tickets. After spending the first two-thirds of the film showing us what nitwits most of her characters (shown at bottom) really are, Ms Gennarino, shown below, does one of those "happy ending" rush jobs that defy explanation, gravity and every other rule of science and art.

Full disclosure: the press screening link I watched via Vimeo worked so poorly that it stopped, started and skipped every couple of minutes. I've only has this bad an experience with one other film --  the Easy Money sequel -- yet that one I enjoyed immensely and gave it a good review. After I did not enjoy, and I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone except maybe those of you so new to film viewing that you're still able to bask in just about anything and everything tossed your way.

The movie -- from Paladin, in partnership with Accretion Films -- opens this Friday, August 8, in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and New York City, and next Friday, August 15, in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Tampa. You can see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed, by clicking here. The movie will be released simultaneously to VOD platforms nationwide through Virgil Films.

Continued & unsettling 9/11 stuff: Eric Stacey's UNTHINKABLE: AN AIRLINE CAPTAIN'S STORY

To find the official version about Marshall Philips, a former airline pilot and 9/11 conspriacy theorist said to have murdered his two children and family dog before comitting suicide, if you Google the name, you'll need to go to Britain's Daily Mail, even though the event in question seems to have occurred in the Santa Barbara area of California. It's the unofficial version that writer/directed Eric Stacey is after in the new narrative-done-in-mostly-documentary-style movie, UNTHINKABLE: AN AIRLINE CAPTAN'S STORY.

No spring chicken, Mr. Stacey (shown at left) has directed half a dozen films over the past decade and written, produced and acted as cinematographer on five of these. He's clearly a hands-on filmmaker whose understanding of and work on both documen-taries and narrative films is put to use on Unthinkable -- but not, I have to say, to very good use. The movie is, first and last, a 9/11-themed conspiracy film, and it seems to me that when one is dealing with this sort of thing, one must go out of his way to dot one's i's and cross one's t's. Not only does this not get done, but there are times as you're watching this movie that you'll feel that the alphabet itself has been left out.

Evidently, from what we can gather from the film, ex-pilot Philips (played by Randall Paul, above) was concerned with the question of where the terrorist pilots of the 9/11 planes got the kind of flight training that would enable them to have done what they did (no easy feat), and further, how this connects to Saudi Arabian intelligence, our own government and the Bush administration.

According to the film, Philips was on the brink of getting (or maybe had just recevied) a photo and/or information that would prove his case. He's frightened for what this might mean to the security of himself and his children (that's Shannon Churchwell as his son, above).

Federal agents (above) pay a call, and later that day (or was it the next?) dad, kids and dog are dead, and the event is immediately declared a murder/suicide. Now, if even a couple of the things shown us in this film are true -- take your choice: it took 18 hours for the police to show up after calls were made to 911 (several of them), the police report got important details wrong, anything but normal proceedure was followed, the bodies were immediately cremated without permission, and on and on -- the whole thing reeks of lies and "cover-up."

Immediately after, dad's reputation is tarred and feathered with every-thing from his being paranoid and abusing drugs to being depressed because of family problems, none of which appears to have been true. The policeman involved (Drew Barrios, above) is so nasty you expect him to start twirling his mustache (except he's bald and clean shaven), while his deputy gives the dead son's schoolmates (below) a demonstration of pro-paganda that George Orwell would have understood but not appreciated.

It seems to me that all this would be fairly easy to document and build a case around. In the movie that case is made by Dad's best friend, a journalist named Madison Feeman (Dennis Fitzpatrick, below) who acts as our guide and hero, once Dad is no more. Also on board is the son of the family's best friend, Mike (played weakly by Shade Streeter) whose scene of biking away from the bad guys is the film's single attempt at action/suspense.

I wonder why all those involved did not simply choose to make a documentary about this case? Facts could have been marshaled and evidence built in a more convincing manner than is done here -- with mediocre writing and acting that moves from the acceptable range into the not so. Whatever the truth behind Philips' claims about the training of those pilots, the death of this man and his children deserve better investigation and memorial.

Unthinkable: An Airline Captain's Story -- from Movies on a Mission and running 85 minutes -- opens this Friday, April 11, in New York City at the Quad Cinema.

More 9/11 misery: Danielle Gardner tracks the ups and downs of Cantor Fitzgerald in her film, OUT OF THE CLEAR BLUE SKY

The 9/11 industry continues apace. The latest effort, arriving maybe a decade too late, proves quite the valentine (deserved or not, TrustMovies couldn't tell) to Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm that occupied several floors atop the World Trade Center and which lost between 600 and 700 hundred employees when the planes hit the towers. I happened to be in Greenwich Village that early morning, walking up 6th Avenue when the first tower fell. When I saw the sudden shock on the face a young woman who was passing me, I spun around to see the tower mid-fall, and that sight is indelibly fixed in my memory. But what our media and then-government did with this event, however, is unforgivable and always will be. How many hundreds of times did we need to see those planes hit and the towers fall before these idiots decided we were sated? And the Patriot Act? What a despicable and sleazy use of the "P" word, which, in any case, remains as always the "refuge of scoundrels."

Now, none of this is the fault of Danielle Gardner (shown at left), the woman who made this documentary that has been hanging around unreleased for the past year or so. We are finally seeing a theatrical release happen now, on the 12th anniversary of 9/11. (I caught up with the documentary at a special screening yesterday in a conference room at the United Nations.) The film, after showing us all over again (and again) what happened -- yes: planes crashing, towers falling, the rubble aftermath -- concerns itself mostly with Cantor Fitzgerald and how its CEO Howard Lutnick (below) was turned by the media into a (very) tearful sort of mascot for the bereaved (he lost his brother on that day) who promised to aid the families of his lost employees, but then, when help did not come quickly enough, was turned on and vilified by that same, ever-caring media.

It's an interesting enough story, though Gardner sticks mostly to its surface, interviewing Lutnick and certain of his family members, and then a handful of Cantor Fitzgerald's affected families, who initially seem angry with Howard, only to come around later, as he begins to make good on his promises and they appear to understand that he, too, is grieving. Lutnick himself narrates much of the doc's beginning, as he relives the story of that special day (he was taking his kids to school and so had not yet arrived at the World Trade Center), as Ms Gardner tries to keep up with him via her own visual effects. This is to no avail, for Lutnick proves quite the performer in his own right (you may wonder why he never became an actor, so animated, and clearly enjoying that animation, is he).

We see almost too much of his tears (little wonder he became the media's poster boy for concerned employers), the most convincing and telling of which comes when he looks at all the posted notices of missing Cantor Fitzgerald employees (above) and starts to reminisce about each. This is quite moving.

But the movie goes on and on and begin to repeat itself in some tiresome ways. Each time figures are given, they appear in white on a black screen and then disappear line by line so that we're left with only the last line that, of course, tells us of the final death toll. This happens over and over. Sometimes, even those figures are not quite true. At one point, were told that 658 people went to work at Cantor Fitzgerald that morning -- but, no, many more than that figure actually went to work on 9/11. The 658 is used so that we can then be told: None of them survived. Please: we don't need this kind of induced, masochistic memorial.

Yet the movie (above and below) mostly relives and relives so much we've already seen: Bryant Gumble and Larry King and all the rest. At one point, though, something odd and telling comes out, as we learn that J.P. Morgan did an accounting of Cantor Fitzgerald's books! Nothing is made of this, but it certainly sounds to me like the fox guarding the hen-house (or perhaps another fox's lair), but then the financial meltdown had not happened as yet, nor were we as privy as we now are to the wonders of the one per cent.

Over time we learn of the CF Victim Compensation Fund, and at one of those yearly memorial services, we're treated to more speeches and tears. At film's end comes a surprise from Ms Gardner that shakes everything up.  So far as I am concerned, this is something that ought to have been stated up front, rather than at the end of the film, for it calls into question her motives for making the movie. I suppose she wanted to tear us up a little more, but this may not have been the most intelligent way to do it.

Out of the Clear Blue Sky, running 107 minutes (far too long for what it has to show and tell) will open in New York City tomorrow, Friday, September 6, at the Regal Union Square Stadium 14. It will have a number of special showings around the country -- 28 cities in 17 states -- this coming Wednesday, September 11. Click here (then scroll down) to see theater, time and how to purchase tickets.

9/11 craziness in Angelo Guglielmo's docu-mentary THE WOMAN WHO WASN'T THERE

Among the many 9/11 tales of hardship and heroism, this one -- THE WOMAN WHO WASN'T THERE -- stands tall -- if only as the tallest tale of them all: the story of New Yorker "Tania Head" (née Alicia Esteve of Barcelona), who conned New York and much of the world into believing her totally fabricated story of being a World Trade Center survivor.

Writer/filmmaker Angelo Guglielmo, above, had surprising access to Ms Head/Esteve (shown below) and to many other survivors and relatives of same, and from this he has put together a fascinating account of the hoax and its aftermath. Building his story methodically and smartly, the filmmaker is at the same time building suspense.  Most of us will know what happens, but not especially the "how" and "when," and it is these that make the documentary so riveting.

Unfortunately, just when the film should start to percolate, it ends. What happens after that last shot? We need to know, but whether we'll find out in some follow-up, or not at all, is left hanging.  As The Woman Who Wasn't There is but a mere 65 minutes in length, one might reasonably question why it is being shown solo in a theatrical venue. Not that those minutes aren't worth watching. But they cry out for more.

The film opens today in New York City at the Quad Cinema -- three showings daily -- before appearing on cable TV this coming Tuesday, April 17, at 8pm (EDT) on a channel/program that I had not heard of previously: ID Investigation Discovery.  To learn where and how you can access this channel, click here and then enter your zip code and TV service provider.

Paul McCartney stars in the Albert Maysles & Bradley Kaplan doc THE LOVE WE MAKE

When TrustMovies invited a friend to the press screening of the new documen-tary THE LOVE WE MAKE -- a film by Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan that details the experience of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney during and after September 11, 2001 -- the response was immediate and firm: "Although I'm an admirer of Maysles, I cannot abide McCartney. Thanks, anyway."
I was surprised. What's not to abide?

While I haven't paid that much attention to the fellow above, since his Beatles days, at least, but in the meantime hearing and liking (or not) an occasional song, I am indeed a fan of Maysles and would want to view whatever he was currently interested in. And "currently," I guess, is the key word here, because the film is anything but, as it celebrates McCartney and the concert he organized that took place a decade ago last month.

On that "historic" morning when the attacks occurred, McCartney was on an airplane waiting to fly out of New York City. Grounded, he came back into the city and saw some of what was going on and determined to organize an all-star benefit concert which eventually took place on October 20, 2001, as The Concert for New York City. Kaplan and Maysles (shown respectively, at left and right, above), shooting on 16mm, black-and-white film, recorded McCart-ney in and out of his chauffeured car, meeting fans, organizing the event and rehearsing with his band, and at various interviews (Dan Rather's and Howard Stern's stand out, for differing reasons).

McCartney on the streets of the city, interacting with fans, is shot with Maysles' usual fly-on-the-wall footage, in which the photographer never intrudes. In fact, the only intrusive moment comes when McCartney introduces the documentarian to Billy Joel -- who clearly doesn't know who the filmmaker is and cracks a joke about measles and Maysles. Some interesting moments come as McCartney tries to be genuine and friendly with fans while keeping his distance and nurturing the ability to beat a hasty retreat when necessary. I suspect that the film will prove most affecting to fans who hang on the musician's every word. Others of us may find our mind wandering.

The in-rehearsal sections, which are strewn throughout (the editing, swift and conscious of pacing, is by Ian Markiewicz), are interesting, as well, and lead into the final section of the film, in which footage of the actual concert -- in color, and I am guessing not filmed by Maysles or Kaplan -- is inserted so that we get the sense of closure/nostalgia that may result, for some, in an emotional wave of remembrance and feeling. There is no doubt that Mr. McCartney deserves immense praise for having organized this concert, corraling so many top names, and bringing it all to fruition a mere 40 days from the time of the attack.

Hearing all the songs again, and seeing the policemen and firefighters being honored cannot help but bring back memories and pain. But for some, perhaps many, there may be other things going on. After a time, when one famous person, and then another and another shows up and takes his screen time, an unappealing sense of celebrity-its and entitlement affixes itself to the proceedings. And snippets of song after song, does not allow any of them to register as strongly as they might (for me, the one song, as performed and heard here, that seems to hold up brilliantly, deeply is James Taylor's Fire and Rain).

Even the then-new song that McCartney has written for the proceedings, Freedom, comes freighted with much more baggage now than the then-current and rather simple idea that we can't let the terrorists win by taking away our freedom. So much has happened to the USA meantime -- revealing our country to be as much of an aggressor as a victim, and to be so much less concerned with the welfare of its people and their environment than with the welfare of its rulers -- that McCartney's song, which the musician is shown rehearsing over and over and then performing, takes on a much darker shade. Instead of what I imagine the musician wanted us to think about then, now we might recall Orwell's Newspeak, or at the very least that Janis Joplin lyric: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." 

The Love We Make (an Eagle Rock Entertainment release, running 94 minutes) is an interesting documentary, all right, if not quite in the way the filmmakers originally intended. It opens for a two-week run at Film Forum beginning this Wednesday, November 9, when Maysles and Kaplan will make personal appearances at the 8pm screening that opening evening. As you may be able to see (if you squint those eyes) at the head of the poster, top, this is "A Showtime Original Documentary," and so we shall see it eventually on cable TV.

(All photos are from the film -- except for that of Kaplan and Maysles, which was taken as the two accepted an award 

for their film Muhammad and Larry at 

The New York Festivals Film & Television Awards in 2010: 

photo courtesy of Marc Bryan-Brown Photography) 

Straight-to-DVD: Dave Rodriguez's AMERICAN BULLY embarrasses badly

American Bully? More like a psychotic asshole who needs to be incarcerated forth-with. The original title of this shock-ingly unnecessary movie was Anytown (click on the link for the original poster), which should pretty much alert you to the subtlety-level on display through-out. (You mean, it could happen here? Sure could, kids!) Still, the movie is timely. Just this weekend, the new Mr. Norway snuffed out around 100 lives on the basis of some loony-tune political non-thinking. In his "new" film (made two years ago), director/co-writer (with Zak Meyers) Dave Rodriguez, pictured below, pulls out all the stops regarding bullying, immigration, terrorism, 9/11, the "Muslim menace" and America the ugly, and in the process creates so much noise and nonsense that you'll soon cry uncle.

Yes, bullying in high school can certainly lead to some nasty stuff, both at the time and later on, and you might even take our lead character (played with pretty much a single grim expression by Matt O'Leary, below) as a metaphor for the "red" half of our country. But so what? You'd still have to come up with a story that contained more than one thud-dingly obvious cliche after another in order to keep your audi-ence half-satisfied.

Here, the set-up is all bully, all the time, and Mr. O'Leary is as yet nowhere near an interesting, versatile or charaismatic enough actor to carry off a role like this. Consequently, his three friends (below) and the two girls who go off for a fuck-fest/trash-talk-the-immigrants afternoon are so poorly conceived that no real people can be developed. Lines of dialog are dropped into their mouths with little regard for consistency or character.

What we get for the first half of the movie is the usual boys behaving (very) badly scenario, followed by a second half that hands us kidnapping, murder, suicide, betrayal, the works. Except that, since we haven't remotely believed what's come before (except as a primer of cliche's seen in earlier, better films), putting us through the horror of what follows is like a near-constant slap in the kisser.

Technically, and construction-wise, the movie is a wasteland, too. The opening scene, involving an uncredited John Savage and a couple of sleek, lawyer-looking broads, seems inserted only to let us immediately know that something horrible has happened so we'll hang on through the slop that follows. Night scenes are so dark as to be a complete mystery, through which we have only some bad dialog to guide us. And the deserted house (below)? Is there a building in the movies of late that has called more attention to itself?

I cannot claim to fathom the motives of the people who made this movie, perhaps with what might be called the best of intentions. I can say, however, that what they've ended up giving us is a "kill-the-immigrants" movie that will most appeal to folk who want to do exactly that and who will happily watch and shout, "Right on!  But we're a lot smarter that these bozos, so we'll get away with it."

From Green Apple Entertainment, American Bully makes its straight-to-DVD debut this Tuesday, July 26 -- for sale or rental.