Punk rock and Buckminster Fuller join forces in Peter Livolsi's THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW

You won't find much odder combinations that those that come together in THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW, the first full-length film from Sundance alumnus Peter Livolsi. The two families that slowly begin to meld here could hardly be more different -- one whose father embraces religion as a kind of escape, the other pure-science-oriented who lives in one of those geodesic domes designed by architect/ environmentalist/ inventor Buckminster Fuller. The son in each family seems like the proverbial oil/water mix, as well.

If Mr. Livolsi's movie (the filmmaker is shown at left) has the whiff of manipulation -- his adapted screenplay is based upon the novel by Peter Bognanni -- the performances by the film's six leading actors are spot-on, alternately funny and moving, while the writing and direction allow those performances to carry the weight of the somewhat too telescoped story.

The result is a film that lives and breathes vitally as it unfurls before you, even if you might find yourself picking it apart once it's over and you've recovered from being in-the-moment with these terrific actors.

Sebastian (Asa Butterfield, above, seated) and his Nana (Ellen Burstyn, above, hair-cutting) live and work (as caretaker/guides) in the geodesic dome/home designed by the late, great Mr. Fuller. On a tour one day comes a church group led by a dad (Nick Offerman, below, left), his two kids, Jared (Alex Wolff, below, center) and Meredith (Maude Apatow, below, right), and some other young church members. The very small but vital interplay that occurs between Sebastian, Meredith and Jared -- just a little conversation, touching and then a boner -- leads to these kids' increasing connection with and reliance on each other.

Teen-age rebellion, planned and otherwise, is something movies have always served up, from the Rebel Without a Cause of my own teen years until now. This film, however, with its hugely different philosophies at work, as well as its two families suffering each in its own way from great loss and neither quite able to properly cope, offers an odd but enticing tale that grows wilder as it moves along.

That the movie does not spin out of control is due mostly to those wonderful performances and to Livolsi's ability to keep us hanging on in hopes that the film will not finally betray itself and its ideas/ideals. It doesn't, but due to that telescoping, a little too much goes on for its own good. Still, there are a number of lovely high points along the way. Why people sometimes act as they do, in a manner that doesn't seem to help themselves or those they love, is brought home quite beautifully in a scene between Sebastian and Meredith in a hospital waiting room, above.

How we can imprison ourselves, even in a remarkable, environmentally friendly house full of light that brings the outside in, is demonstrated very nicely, too, as is some punk rock music that, for the first time in my movie-going experience, actually made some sense -- musically and philosophically -- while advancing the plot-line along.

If you can accept a little manipulation in service to some thoughtful ideas and wonderful acting, I suspect you'll be happy to have seen The House of Tomorrow, a title that becomes more and more ironic -- and yet absolutely truthful, too -- as the movie moves along.

I wonder what Buckminster Fuller would think of the film. I 'd hope that, as surprised as he might initially be, he would also enjoy and approve. From Shout! Studios and running just 85 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, April 27, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Noho 7 and Playhouse 7, and here in South Florida at the AMC Aventura 24, Miami.  To see the listing of all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here.

At AFI Silverdocs: Jukka Kärkkäinen's & J-P Passi's crockbuster THE PUNK SYNDROME

We're always looking for something new, right? And these days documentaries seems to be dishing up nouvelle with alarming regularity. Still, I warrant you won't have seen anything quite like THE PUNK SYNDROME,(Kovasikajuttu in the original Finnish) a new film from Jukka Kärkkäinen and J-P Passi that has its U.S. premiere this coming week at the AFI Silverdocs festival.

OK: Punk bands are new to neither narrative nor documentary filmmaking. But this punk band? Decidedly. Our four fellows -- above, from left to right: Kari, Pertti, Sami and Toni -- are mentally and even, I think you could argue, physically disabled by Down Syndrome and other disabilities. And yet they make music (not being a fan of punk rock, I wouldn't quite call it that). But, hell -- they're as good as a lot of other skunk punk that I've encountered. Really, they don't sound half-bad, at least when the two elders in the group (Kari and Pertti, below) can remember how many choruses and verses there are in a particular song.

The filmmakers -- shown below: That's J-P Passi at left, with Jukka Kärkkäinen doing the pointing -- catch these guys in all sorts of activities, from composing lyrics ("How do you spell 'human being'," one asks the other) to the prelude to lovemakling ("Darling, you'll get some when they leave," Kari tells his girl, a propos the camera crew). Pertti's diary set to lyrics and music becomes something quite sad and wonderful. Soon after, however, Pertti is told that he smells like shit and asked if he has changed his underwear lately. (And so he does, in front of us -- which should send into rapture any guys or gals who have a thing for full-frontal nude seniors.)

While the music often sounds quite alike from song to song, as the film progresses and we hear more of it, there is indeed some noticeable difference, the band's lyrics -- which we can clearly understand because of the English subtitles -- are full of anger and sorrow. This is not unusual with punk bands, but in this case the anger is directed at society for reasons that are perhaps easier to understand and appreciate.

We've often been told about the link between genius and insanity. Now we seem to find one between disability and creativity. Along the way, Sami (above) helps a local politician with her election campaign, while Kari (below) tries to reschedule his pedicure. When he can't, he grows disproportionately angry -- but then offers the best song we've heard (so far, at least) to his pedicurist!

We spend some time with Toni, the band's drummer (below) and his parents, as they and others try to get him to move to a group home. Nothing doing. But then, when we see that home, and some of its occupants, particularly one young lady, Toni is all for it.

We're there soon after for the birth of a healthy baby -- not in Pertti's family, as I had originally imagined, but (as the film's PR person has pointed out) to Kalle, the social worker in whose cultural center the band was begun and where its members rehearse. We see what this birth means to our group (it leads Pertti, below, to speak about the death of his mother). I would have liked to have learned more about the group's patient and forbearing manager, Kalla Pajamaa -- who tells Pertti that playing in the band has made an old speech defect of his disappear. Instead, we stick close only to the band members themselves.

"One must take care of both business and women," notes Kari, at one point, and soon after the band leaves for its first trip across the water to Germany, where it scores something of a hit. And yet those disabilities remain, lending the band's actions and songs, as well as the movie itself, an almost constant slap of reality (in addition to the ever-present poignancy). One-of-a-kind and very much worth seeing, The Punk Syndrome deserves to be picked up for U.S. distribution in some manner or other: theatrical, DVD, VOD or streaming.

 At Silverdocs, the film will screen on Tuesday, June 19, 

at 10:45pm in the AFI Silver Theatre 3; 

on Wednesday, June 20, it will be shown 

at 4:45pm in AFI Silver Theatre 1. 

Co-director J-P Passi will be present at both screenings.

In Andrea Blaugrund Nevins' THE OTHER F WORD, punk rockers turn dads. Oh, my.

The idea of punk rockers, those anti-authoritarian, obscenity-screaming fellows from -- when was it? the 80s? -- becoming not just fuckers but fathers (THE OTHER F WORD that also serves as the title of Andrea Blaugrund Nevins' new documentary) probably seemed nearly foolproof as a jumping off point for a film that wants to explore two very different states of being that must now somehow work together. Wow: just imagine! Punk rockers as fathers. What would that be like? It's a cute idea, worth a chuckle and a moment's pause. But a 98-minute movie? Yes and no.

Ms Nevins (pictured at left) seems amazed, again and again, by the whole idea. Well, she's young, so why not? TrustMovies, being old (and already a father by the time the punk scene hit New York) was not surprised by much of anything he saw in the movie -- funny, charming and moving as some of it is. Nor, he suspects, will any parent be surprised by the fact that fatherhood (and, hey, motherhood, too) changes your life more than any other single thing that happens (except death, of course). This is true for everyone from architects to zoologists and includes punks, heavy metalists, alternative rockers and the crooners like Como and Crosby from decades past. If parenthood does not change your life, reordering certain priorities rather drastically, then something's wrong and you probably oughtn't to have become a dad or mom in the first place.

So despite the jiggering of punk and parenting, a lot of viewers will, after a time, be asking, "Yes?  And...?"  And while Ms Nevins' decision to use tons of stylistic touches does make the movie look slicker, these add little to its depth -- which rises and falls on the many interviews (maybe too many) with various rockers that the film includes. The longest and most in-depth of these involves Jim Lindberg (above), lead singer of the skate punk band (I'd never heard that term before) Pennywise, whose book about being a punk rock dad brought the idea for the documentary to original life.

We see and hear from a number of other punks, too: Michael John Burkett (aka Fat Mike, shown above with his daughter, of NOFX), Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 (shown with his son, two photos below), Lars Fredriksen (of Rancid, shown from waist down with his son, in the photo at bottom), Ron Reyes (of Black Flag), and Flea (of the Red Hot Chile Peppers, shown below, with his daughter), among a cast that includes some 27 musicians.

Some of what we hear is quite interesting, some of it, not so much because it's a little too expected. Fortunately, Ms Nevins turns her attention from parenting to how these bands still eke out a living -- in the age of the internet when content is more and more expected to come free. Notes one interviewee: "Our fans think nothing of paying $3.95 at Starbucks or paying big money for a pair of Nikes -- but they go crazy and call us sellouts of we make a commercial for Nike or charge 99 cents to download a song!"

About as crazy as these guys currently get can be seen as Josh Freese tosses a dirty diaper back and forth with his son in the backyard. So many of these musicians had either abusive or missing-entirely parents that it seems a wonder that more of them did not turn out like that. Instead, they seem remarkably good role models. (Or at least they've managed to keep their worst habits off-screen.)

The Other F Word would seem a shoo-in for new or prospective parents and especially for fans of punk rock. While Nevins' stylistic tics do get trying, there's enough in the film to hold your attention -- unless, of course, you have zero interest in either parenting or punk. The movie opens this Wednesday, November 2, in New York at Film Forum and on Friday, November 4, in Los Angeles at the NuArt. A dozen other cities are scheduled to open the documentary in the weeks to come. Click here to see them all, with theaters and playdates listed.