The (female) worm turns in Abner Pastoll/Ronan Blaney's A GOOD WOMAN IS HARD TO FIND

One can only assume that the filmmakers of A GOOD WOMAN IS HARD TO FIND mean their title to be taken ironically (and not simply because of their diddling  with Flannery O'Connor's famous short-story title), since every last woman we meet in this movie is pretty damned good. Every single man, however -- save one lone trash collector, who pays dearly for his decency -- is a piece of shit.

Thankfully, neither director Abner Pastoll (shown below) nor screenwriter Ronan Blaney underscores this fact. Over time, it simply exists and builds, and so we make of it what we will.

What we make of this duo's new movie is something else again. Though highly praised as "painfully real," "kitchen sink drama," and a "refreshingly astute gangster thriller," it strikes TrustMovies as none of the above but rather a put-upon-woman-gets-her-revenge brand of entertainment that's very bloody, not very believable, but a lot of nasty fun.

Think of it as Death Wish meets feminism with an Irish twist.

The story concerns a single mother (Sarah Bolger, above and below), widowed via the murder of her husband that appears to have left her young son (who witnessed the event) mute and her only slightly older daughter given to repeating certain words, one of which helps kick the coincidence-prone plot into high-gear.

Pastoll and Blaney's plot is serviceable and the pacing here is smart and swift, so before we know it, we're pretty much hooked and wondering just how our pretty young widow can get herself and her kids (below) out of this fix with their bodies and souls intact.

The males on view -- whether they be cops, crooks, or the security guard at the local market -- are utter swine. The lead gangster, played by Edward Hogg, is one of those criminal clichés who possesses not one redeeming feature nor even a single even pleasant moment to view or hear. He's a vicious, nasty, loves-to-torture-and-kill creep, the likes of whom you probably have not seen on screen for at least a day or two.

The bad guy who sets things in motion is a petty drug-dealer (nicely played by Andrew Simpson, above) who does have maybe one-quarter of a redeeming feature (he gives our mom her share of his drug sales). But, as usual, for the men here, women are seen as nothing more than a necessary appendage for pleasure or perhaps something utilitarian  Things come to a head pretty quickly -- Tito and Yugoslavia figure amusingly into the mix --  and before you can say, Get me an axe, our girl is up to her ears in blood and body parts.

There's a sad and lovely turn from Jane Brennan as Bolger's mom, and their scene together toward the finale marks the highpoint of real feeling in the film. Otherwise, it's a straight-ahead, feel-bad but feel-good-about-revenge tale, told well enough to help fill the current Corona-fueled void.

From Film Movement and running 97 minutes, A Good Woman Is Hard to Find hits On-Demand and Digital this coming Tuesday, May 8 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Felix Randau's tale of murder, vengeance and a long road trip -- 5,000 years ago -- in ICEMAN

Der Mann aus dem Eis is the German title for ICEMAN, and as of now, that's the only way you'll find the film on the IMDB, since that site has not seen fit to update its title of the movie. After a very limited North American theatrical release this past mid-March, the movie arrives on DVD and digital streaming this week, and it's definitely worth a watch -- for both its raw and riveting revenge-set plot and its unusually fine cinematography, as gorgeous to view as it is appropriate and compelling.

The cinematography here is from Jakub Bejnarowicz, while the writing and direction come via Felix Randau (shown at left), a name new to TrustMovies but one we're sure to hear from again soon. Herr Randau's movie begins in what I believe is known as the Chalcolithic time period or Copper Age, some 5,000 years ago, as agriculture and animal husbandry were spreading from Asia to Europe and everything from language to religion was exceedingly primitive. We see what looks like a couple of one-room, made-of-wood huts and a very small community of folk who seem to live and perform as one large family.

In the first scene, a man and woman fuck, as small children run about the hut and a neighbor enters to announce something that stops the sex midway, after which the apparently alpha male goes off to hunt. Language seems minimal and is not translated via subtitles at all during the movie. Not to worry: You'll have no trouble following the story because, very soon after, three males enter the scene to kill everyone (children included), steal what appears to be an important religious icon, and then set fire to the entire community.

The fire is seen from afar by our alpha male, but by the time he can get back, all hope and life are gone. His search for the three men and his need for vengeance seem to be as much about that religious icon as about the killings, and off he goes on a road trip that lasts the remainder of the film.

If this sounds at all predictable and obvious, Iceman turns out to be more beautiful and surprising -- due to the extraordinary scenery constantly captured and the oddly occuring moments of quiet humanity found in our "hero" and others -- than it is a somewhat typical revenge thriller.

What happens along the way helps keep the film paced very well, with the quiet scenes nicely threaded among the more actionful. Performances, which require the cast to excel at playing early humanity, are all first-rate; I doubt you'll grouse about any of them, with especial kudos to leading actor, Jürgen Vogel (above), who is onscreen almost constantly and proves up to everything -- action to acting -- asked of him.

Among the few female characters, Susanne Wuest (above) registers for a moment or two early on, while the still-manages-to-be-glamorous Franco Nero (below) pops up, too, in a small but pivotal role. But it is almost entirely the rough-hewn plot, smart pacing and surprisingly real-seeming look at this unusual time period -- together with the eye-popping scenery -- that should keep you glued to Iceman.

From Film Movement's Omnibus Entertainment division, and running 96 minutes, the movie hit DVD and digital streaming yesterday, Friday, May 24 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Marcelo Mayen's BULLOCK THE BRUISER screens at NewFilmmakers New York at AFA

Normally, TrustMovies does not cover short films, given the amount of new full-length features he is asked to view and review. But since he was told that BULLOCK THE BRUISER, a film by Marcelo Mayen (shown below), had won "Best Feature" at the Monthly Film Festival, he decided to take a chance. Surprise: Full-length it is not, since it comes in at just 40 minutes. But that, perhaps, is best, since much more might have proven too much, as these minutes pack in every typical trope of the revenge-thriller genre.

Or is this actually a send-up of that genre? Either way, the film keeps toppling over into cliché, while showing us that, yes, violence is clearly the only answer. Along its short journey, Bullock the Bruiser does offer up a very handsome hero, the titular bruiser played by Will Parker (shown below); a fairly typical film-noirish bad girl, played in a bright red wig with not quite enough strength by Alice Dessuant (shown further below); a couple of not-

so-interesting "good" girls, played by Esther van Zyl (in the photo at bottom) and Danielle DeWulf (in the penultimate photo), one of which has already come to a sad end; and a "bad guy" (Max Turner, two photos below) who turns out to be not-so-bad after all.

Mr. Mayen has staged his "action"scenes with all the finesse and inadequacy of Christopher Nolan in his early Batman mode, with the plot, such as it is, made up of mostly exposition with which one character regales another.

So what's the point here? Well, I'd guess, Bullock the Bruiser is supposed to act as a kind of "calling card" short that can show that Mr. Mayen is capable of handling something larger and longer.

Considering the low-intelligence level of so many of our major movies these days, particularly the increasingly would-be super-hero block-busters, I'd say our filmmaker is more than ready to tackle the big league.

Meanwhile, if you'd care to take a look at his work, Bullock the Bruiser will screen, via NewFilmmakers New York, this coming Wednesday, June 7, at 7:30 pm at the Courthouse Theater at Anthology Film Archives.

Boy, oh, Baye! Nathalie is terrific in Ali & Bonilauri's French thriller, THE ASSISTANT

If you haven't yet met Nathalie Baye, here's your chance, in a new French thriller just making its VODebut entitled THE ASSISTANT (La Volante). This four-time César-winning actress is always good and usually a lot more than that. In her current movie -- directed by Christophe Ali and Nicolas Bonilauri, and co-written by the two, along with Philippe Blasband and Jacques Sotty -- she plays Marie-France, the mother of an adult son on whom befalls an accident that changes her life and, it turns out, the lives of a number of others some years after.

The movie begins with both death and birth via a sudden shocking situation that no one would ever want to endure. We catch our first sight of Ms Baye in the scene just after, and the manner in which her character handles her grief is so awful and intense that this enables us to accept and believe what follows. And what follows is, as they say, something else.

The filmmakers Ali and Bonilauri (shown above, with Ali on the left) intend their film to be first and foremost a thriller, and they succeed in this regard quite well. Ms Baye, being the fine actress she is, intends to give us character above all else, and this combo of character and thrills make the movie a cut or two above the usual for this genre. This is the duo's third full-length film, though TrustMovies has only previously caught their second one -- a bizarre little character study/thriller released to DVD stateside as Wild Camp starring two indelible French actors Isild Le Besco (A tout de suite) and Denis Lavant (Beau Travail).

In The Assistant, the filmmakers begin with a whoppingly intense few minutes, after which they quickly cut to a few years later. It is here than the "revenge" would seem to start (though the plans for it have clearly been laid for some time previous). Or is this wholly about revenge? Perhaps, we wonder, it might be something more. The directors and their fine cast keep us ever alert and guessing, with Ms Baye in particularly good form as an obsessed woman whose many talents -- if used toward other ends -- could probably have made her President of France.

Baye's Marie-France is a force to be reckoned with, all right, and if the filmmakers use a good deal of shorthand in piecing together their fraught tale, they give us enough info to follow along without keeping too far ahead of the game. There are a couple of moments when we might not quite buy what is happening (how come the young boy is so suddenly disenchanted with his teacher/grandma/mother surrogate?), yet so fast is the pacing and propulsive the motion (the film lasts but 87 minutes), that we can't easily get off this roller coaster. Nor would we want to.

Also prominent in the fine cast are Malike Zidi (three photos above) and Sabrina Seyvecou as the hapless couple who starts the ball rolling, Johan Leysen as Zidi's all-too-trusting dad, and Jean-Stan Du Pac (above, left, and center right, two photos above) as the innocent object of revenge.

From Distrib Films US, The Assistant is heading straight for VOD, where it will make its debut on iTunes this coming Tuesday, August 23 -- for some end-of-summer fun and games -- and then hit theaters for a very limited release in late September.

Kornél Mundruczó's amazing, troubling WHITE GOD: like no canine movie you'll have ever seen

Old Yeller was never like this. Kornél Mundruczó's Hungarian masterpiece, WHITE GOD, (Fehér isten) will leave you in some kind of state -- grace, shock, awe, or maybe just amazed at the proficiency of this filmmaker, the only other work of whose I've seen is the odd, and oddly memorable, Delta from 2008. I believe it is safe to say that there has never been a "dog movie" anything like this one -- which within (or, hell, without, too) its genre, also becomes a revenge thriller, an allegory about "the other," ode to "dumb" animals, sci-fi/fantasy epic and more. It jumps so many genres so thoroughly that it simply becomes sui generis.
And then some.

Directed and co-written (with Viktória Petrányi and Kata Wéber) by Mr. Mundruczó (shown at right), the film begins with a scene of marvel -- and one that does not look particularly CGI-ed. I can't claim to be any expert on special effects, but when they look as real, as genuine and "special" as they do here, attention must be paid.

The film then flashes backward to a previous time, in which its story carefully unfolds, before eventually catching up with itself. We've seen this done many times before. What we have not seen is all this taking place in what can best be called a "dog movie."

That dog -- a character called Hagen (he is actually played by two dogs - one of whom is shown at left, sporting a bowtie at Cannes, where he was evidently the toast of the festival) -- is a keeper. You'll fall in love with him instantly, but be warned: What happens to Hagen is not easy to bear. Dog lovers won't want to miss this movie, but they may have a damned difficult time getting through it.

Hagen is the beloved pet of a high school girl named Lili (talented and beautiful newcomer Zsófia Psotta), about to spend three months with her estranged father due to her mom's having to go abroad for work. Dad is not much of a caretaker, and he most definitely does not like dogs. Trouble ahead.

The movie will make you wonder if Hungary, the country from which it comes, is particularly anti-canine. Or if perhaps this goes with the territory of most of Eastern Europe. From what we see here, much of the populace couldn't care less about the creatures -- who are, evidently, not considered the Eastern European man's best friend -- unless he can make a killing off them, in the process perhaps killing the animal itself.

A large section of this film deals with what happens when Hagen comes into contact with a man who trains dog for fighting. This is by far the most difficult portion to watch, and yet it is also one of the film's strongest, calling into question the old nature/nurture theory once again.

Parenting is another major theme, as is coming-of-age, and to its credit, Mundruczó's movie doesn't shy away from the difficulties here, either. What make it work so well is how all these themes -- including that of the unwanted, the "other" -- are so thoroughly fused that you finally cannot (nor would want to) separate them.

Music and its uses are paramount, as well, bringing to mind again those "charms to soothe the savage breast." The finale -- fierce, rich, suspenseful, emotional -- is both monumental and mysterious. I suspect this is a scene you will never forget.

White God (even that title is loaded and mysterious), one of the finest films Magnolia Pictures has yet released, recently screened as part of the New Directors/New Films series, opens theatrically this Friday, March 27, across Canada and in New York City at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. The Friday following it hits six more cities, including Los Angeles (at the Landmark NuArt) and then makes its way across the country in the weeks and months to follow. You can see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters, by clicking here.

Revenge? Ridiculous. Philippe Martinez's VIKTOR stars Gérard Depardieu and Elizabeth Hurley

Elizabeth Hurley looks simply great (middle-aged, yes, but gorgeous) in Philippe Martinez's revenge-sated would-be noir, VIKTOR, which doubles as the name of the movie's main character, played by Gérard Depardieu -- who looks fat. Very fat. When the two stars make love, mid-movie, you fear for Ms Hurley's life. Since Viktor, the movie, is very much in the revenge/action genre, you may wonder, too, how M. Depardieu will handle those "action" scenes. Hint: He doesn't.

There's a car chase early on in which Depardieu is being pursued by the bad guys when, suddenly, the filmmaker (M. Martinez is shown at left) simply cuts to the next scene. Huh? He then has a character explain how he outdrove the bad guys, and then, what? Viktor got out of the car and ran so fast and quickly from the location that he was able to escape? Yeah, right.

The revenge here has to do with the death of Viktor's son, and how our "hero" gets even, taking down bad guy after bad guy until only the top baddie remains. From the outset, this movie is so entirely paint-by-numbers and the revenge so darned easy to get that the film often falls into unintentional camp. However, it is filled with swank locations -- hotel, clubs, restaurants (wealthy bad guys always frequent the best, right? -- and when Viktor goes to visit his son's grave, we even get some gorgeous countryside locations, as well.

That dead son also had a girlfriend who has a secret of her own, and soon Viktor must protect her life (while taking a bunch of others). Along the way, we get an assassination (by the hot number, below), who gets her comeuppance via the very guy who hired her to do the job.

There is also a piece of very valuable missing art that Viktor evidently stole way back when -- he's been in prison for a time, you see -- and a pretty, no-nonsense policewoman (below) on the trail of that art. (Note the nod to that puny little dictator, Putin, that portrait of whom also appears prominently in the current arthouse hit Leviathan.)

We even get some nasty torture, too, by Depardieu, below, who clearly appreciates the bullying of the leader of his chosen new country. (When French taxes proved too high for this major monied man, the actor moved to Russia, where he was given citizenship: One expert bully can always spot another, right?)

And so it goes for 97 too-long minutes. The initial movie, according to the IMDB, ran 134 minutes, so U.S. viewers should consider themselves lucky.

In any case, Viktor -- via Inception Media Group -- has now been released on DVD, VOD and even streaming from Netflix (and perhaps elsewhere, too). If this is the kind of swank and silly swill Depardieu (formerly a very fine actor) plans to churn out in Russia, he and his newly adopted country deserve each other.

Shawn Piller & Scott Lew's SEXY EVIL GENIUS -- a well-written/-directed/-acted hoot-and-a-half

One of those little movies that go straight-to-DVD (in April 2013) and that consequently rush right by you, SEXY EVIL GENIUS (and who can resist finding out a little more about a title this upfront?) may just be the oddball streaming evening you've been craving. It's alternately funny, creepy, silly and surprising, written and directed with skill and just the right amount of reticence to keep you watching, and then cast and acted with equal aplomb.And now it's yours to peruse via Netflix streaming.

As directed by Shawn Piller (shown at right and new to me) and written by Scott Lew (who earlier gave us a hugely under-rated delight called Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas (find it and watch!), the movie, because it is mostly set in a single location (a little dive bar in L.A.) looks like it might have been based on a stage play. But, no -- evidently not. In any case, it is not stage bound. It works just fine as a sharp, funny comedy about.... what? The poster notes that "Revenge is a bitch," but that's not nearly the whole of it. Within the first few minutes, the plot begins to come clear: A young woman named Nikki (no, not Finke) has invited several of her former lovers -- men and a woman -- to this little get-together, though she herself has yet to put in an appearance.

The build-up is very nice. We first meet the slightly nebbishy  Zachary (Seth Green) and then very hot Miranda (Michelle Trachtendberg). They are soon joined by jazz band man Marvin (Harold Perrineau), and finally by Nikki and her latest boyfriend, a somewhat sleazy lawyer named Bert (William Baldwin).

Nikki herself, a very long-time coming, is played by Katee Sackhoff (above, right, and below), whom I have seen a few times, I guess, but never really noticed before. Ms Sackhoff co-produced the movie -- a smart move, considering that it gives her quite the plum role, which she handle well enough. However, because Nikki takes such a long time to appear here, and as described by the other characters sounds like an incredible and beautiful femme fatale, we're maybe expecting someone like a 1940s "noir" anti-heroine possessed of the beauty of a young Elizabeth Taylor.

That's a lot to live up to, and Ms Sackhoff doesn't quite make it (who could?), though she is, as they say, close enough for jazz. She make Nikki strong, smart, pretty and just a little crazy, too. No wonder her exes (and we, as well) are ever on guard. Try as you might to guess what's going on, you probably won't figure out all of it. Which should just add to your fun.

The movie is available now via Netflix streaming, Amazon Instant Video and on DVD.-- for purchase or rental.