Peter Vack's ASSHOLES (his movie, not his anatomy-plus-one) pushes the envelope another mile or two

A film for which the term gross-out must surely have been created, ASSHOLES exists to shock via schlock. It succeeds. Unlike last year's The Greasy Strangler, which also pushed the envelope but provided a good deal more fun in the process, this new example of barrier-busting proves a little too reliant on shock-value only and humor that hits us mostly via heavy hand and flat foot. As written and directed by Peter Vack (who also co-stars in the film as its "heroine's" brother), the movie combines bedroom and bathroom activities in a manner that will turn many stomachs but, inevitably, also a few heads. Its success will depend in good part on how willing you are to revel in the very, very naughty -- i.e: images of shit and herpes-encrusted mouths, noses and one flaccid penis.

Mr. Vack, shown at right, has a good deal more acting bona fides than those in the writing/directing category. This is his first-length film, and I do hope he's gotten certain bugs out of his system by giving it to us. If so, it will have served a below-the-surface purpose. If not, well, I wonder just how much further he can push that envelope without destroying it completely -- along with us viewers. The tale he has to tell is of two friends who, they eventually discover, go to the same therapist, so one day, post-therapy, they head to his apartment for some sex, during which they also discover they share a fixation with assholes.

They also happen to be addicts, who soon fall into a new addiction to poppers, which leads them into all sorts of naughtiness, the nadir of which is somehow rousing a demon out of one (maybe both) of their titular nether regions. The cast is certainly game, with the two leads (Betsey Brown and Jack Dunphy, shown above and below, left and right respectively) jumping into the spirit of the piece with both barrels and a number of orifices. The most professional performances -- I suspect because the actors are not required to gross us out so very often -- come from the performers who play our heroine's parents: Jane Brown and Ron Brown. (Is this perhaps a family affair?)

Among the bizarre non-delights of the film are the close-ups of the herpes virus in full swing, and an image that, I swear, looks like it came right out of the execrable Mother!'s opening shot, which appears here, inserted into a scene of 69 anal sex. The movie's funniest moments occur during a group therapy session amongst some analysts into which the pretend-Census Bureau barges.

Along the way Vack makes fun of everything from analysis to vomit, disease, sex and death. Unfortunately none of this turns out to be much fun for the viewer. Almost all the filmmaker's scenes go on too long, and the musical score blares loudly and often. But, hey, give the guy credit: He does bust a bunch of taboos. Unnecessarily.

From Factory 25 and Breaking Glass Pictures, Assholes opens theatrically this Friday, October 6, in New York City (at the ever-daring Cinema Village) and at the Parkway in Baltimore for a one-week run; and for one showing only at the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers, NY, on Saturday, October 7 at 10pm. It will come to VOD on Tuesday, October 24. Your move.

Carlos Vermut's MAGICAL GIRL: a failed humdinger that still proves oddly memorable

No less a filmmaker than Pedro Almodóvar has this to say about the movie being covered today: "For me, the film is the great Spanish cinema revelation of the century." Now, who's gonna pass that up? Not me, baby! Having now watched MAGICAL GIRL (La niña de fuego--a literal translation of which might be "The fire girl," or maybe "The hot girl"), I can honestly say that I will probably never quite forget this film, even though there's a hole in it a mile wide -- a piece missing that is not unlike the puzzle piece needed to complete a jigsaw that one of its characters finds himself suddenly without. And yes, this is as frustrating to us viewers as it is to that very strange character named Damián, a schoolteacher whose interaction with his pretty student foreshadows much that is to come, particularly the film's finale.

In between all this, the meat and potatoes of Magical Girl, written and directed by Carlos Vermut (shown at right), is devoted to that schoolgirl's later story as an adult, as well as the tale of a father (also a schoolteacher who is now unemployed) and his very ill daughter, whose last days he wants to make as pleasurable as possible, and, of course, that of Damián, who proves to be the film's wild card. The interlocking stories, strange as they are, seem perfectly easy to follow, including how and why they connect. Yet certain events have been left out that would explain some rather important information about these "connections." Without this, we can still play along, as it were -- and because the film is so fascinating and creepy and unsettling, we do -- but at the end, there remains a void where more content and/or explanation ought to be.

But that may be the director's main point: his own way of struggling with the eternal problem nature of the Spaniard, as one of the film's subsidiary characters -- a rich wheelchair-bound fellow who likes to inflict torture for payment -- explains to us and our heroine along the way. Don't worry: All of that torture is left offscreen. But sight of the the naked body of the film's title girl, played with exactly the right amount of inner strength and outer madness by Bárbara Lennie (above, left, and below, right), makes what has and what will happen perfectly clear.

Still, this wheel-chair fellow's insistence on the "bullfight" as a symbol of Spain should go some distance in letting us know what's important here. How people treat each other is always front and center. Why they do this is something else again.

Vermut's style is one of quiet and foreboding, mystery without conclusion, and he has chosen a cast that near-perfectly complements his aim. You simply cannot help asking yourself, post-viewing, what all of it means, but your answer(s) -- a search for justice, connection, closure; payment for past sins; balancing out the country's national character with some death and destruction -- will not really fill the bill.

There's that piece that's gone missing, I guess, and we're never going to be able to find it. Yet the elegance of the filmmaking, along with the excellence and correctness of the performances will go along way in making the movie slide down your throat smoothly. I can understand why our boy Pedro was so impressed.

As the father and daughter, who in the course of the film go from would-be heroes to mere pawns (and not-very-nice ones, at that), Luis Bermejo (below, right) and Lucía Pollán (above) could hardly be better. And Ms Lennie is, as usual, something else.

But it's José Sacristán (above, left, and below), as that wild card, who eventually steals the movie. And also, through no fault of his own, leaves it twisting in the wind. But that, I suspect, is exactly as the filmmaker wants it to be.

Magical Girl, running a lengthy but never boring 122 minutes, is one of the rare narrative movies released via First Run Features (they're rare, yes, but they're almost always worth seeing). The film hits DVD today, Tuesday, April 19, for rental or purchase.

Streaming: A don't-miss for genre fans--the multi-part, multi-directed THE ABCs OF DEATH

THE ABCs OF DEATH didn't make much of a wave theatrically (it may have done better via VOD), most likely due to the fact that this 129-minute movie is made up of 26 short films about death (often very bloody, gory, sexual and gross deaths) by 26 different directors, is, as they say, a mixed bag. A very mixed bag. Each short lasts around four to five minutes in length, so if you're suddenly stuck with a loser, it won't be long before you hit a winner. Or at least something passable. A few of the segments are simply no good.  (Ti West is at it again. When will this guy's reputation reflect the kind of low-end, empty cinema -- except for The House of the Devil, his single good film -- that he insists on churning out?)

A few are weak but passable, some are actually quite good, and several are simply marvelous -- the kind of transgressive, ground-breaking cinema that leaves your jaw on the floor -- and that makes this movie a don't-miss for genre fans and anyone who appreciates seeing landmark creativity at work. Of course, you have to put up with the not-so-hot to excavate these gems.

At the film's beginning we are told that each director was given a letter of the alphabet and then asked to choose a word beginning with that letter. Each then created a short tale of death relating to his/her chosen word, and each had complete artistic freedom regarding the content of their segment. Fair enough. But what a huge diversity we find in the style and content here!

From animation and claymation to live action, real to surreal, from straight-ahead storytelling to anything goes -- you simply have no idea what you're in for until it comes whooshing, zooming, clawing, or creeping at you. Beginning with the work of one of our favorite Spanish directors, Nacho Vigalondo (who got the letter A), and his murder, which is set to something rather special, and ending with Yoshihiro Nishimura (the fellow who drew the Z) and his wham-bam compilation of, well, just about everything under the Japanese Sun, this is a trip like few others.

Along the way, you'll delight to Ander Morganthaler's animated use of the letter K (as funny and inventive as simple, colorful line drawings can get) and swoon fearfully to Marcel Sarmiento's slo-mo, animal-loving letter D (above); France's Xavier Gens , using X, offers one of the best of the lot -- a cautionary tale about taking too seriously the message of the media, advertising and a stupid populace, while Mexico's Jorge Michel Grau, with the letter I, gives us a simple tale of death from the POV and voice of the victim (this one is quietly amazing and very moving).

There's plenty more good stuff. You'll have your own favorites. The point is, there are riches within this odd little movie, so explore. The ABCs of Death can be streamed now via Netflix and elsewhere, and is also available on DVD. 

Celebrating STRANGER BY THE LAKE's opening, the FSLC offers an Alain Guiraudie retrospective

Now that TrustMovies has seen four of the very unusual films of Alain Guiraudie (two of them twice, and one of them, a short, mostly without its English subtitles), I'm on board with the notion that this non-mainstream French movie-maker is a force with which to reckon. (The director, with the sun clearly in his eyes, is shown at left during the most recent Cannes film fest.) Though I don't know quite what to make of a couple of his earlier films, it seems to me pretty clear that with each new one, he grows more comprehen-sible and enjoyable -- unless you're the type of film-goer who demands inscrutability.

This is not to say that M. Guiraudie is anywhere near "obvious." Hardly. Instead, his movies draw you in while making you puzzle things out. But of late, he is giving his audience a bit more terra firma on which to stand while doing that puzzling. His latest film, STRANGER BY THE LAKE, (L'inconnu du lac), which I covered briefly when it played the New York Film Festival last fall (that post is here), finally opens this coming Friday, January 24, in New York (at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and the IFC Center) and in Los Angeles on January 31 (Laemmle's Playhouse 7).

In telling its tale of a young man who goes to a gay cruising area to get his rocks off, as well to a to visit friends, Guiraudie broadens his canvas and deepens his themes. Our "hero" Franck (Pierre Delladonchamps, above, left, and below, right) meets a couple of unusual fellows -- one an overweight but interesting and presumably straight man (Patrick D'Assumçao, above, right) who may be looking for something more; 

another a hot-looking hunk (Christophe Paou, above, left) who definitely wants something more -- and so comes face to face with a creepy and hugely unsettling death wish. The result is a movie that quietly takes hold of your throat and begins ever-so-slightly to squeeze.

Interestingly, Stranger by the Lake picks up on themes and places seen earlier in M. Guiraudie's very unusual movie The King of Escape (Le roi de l'évasion): all kinds of sexuality (particularly homo- and bi-), the working class' need to offset their work with relaxation, and locations set in the glorious and sparsely populated French countryside. But as relatively lighthearted as is King of Escape, Stranger/Lake is every bit as dark, exploring our entwined needs for the fulfillment of life, love, sex and death.

Both films are quite enjoyable to watch and very well-made, with Stranger an improvement even over King -- which proved an even bigger improvement over two of Guiraudie's earlier works that I also watched in preparation for the upcoming series, titled Alain Guiraudie: King of Escape, from the Film Society of Lincoln Center which opens Friday at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, concurrent with the debut of the filmmaker's latest work.

I covered King of Escape (stills from the film are shown above and below) when it played NYC as part of the 2010 Rendez-vous with French Cinema and found it an unusually enticing and surprising work, with a wonderfully inclusive sense of the amazements that sex of all kinds can bring. In one of its best scenes, an 80-year-old man, hung like a horse and still randy as hell (played by Jean Toscan, shown below, center), explains to his new half-his-age love, how he spent the first several decades of his marriage dutifully fucking his wife each day (along with several other ladies), never realizing till now that there was a whole regiment of men out there, just waiting to be explored and pleased.

In all, this series unleashes nine of Guiraudie's films (missing is only the movie he made for French television in 2008, On m'a volé mon adolescence). Each that I've seen seems to explore the human need for connection via the physical body. Guiraudie's 1998 short La force des chose finds that connection via physical abuse and kidnapping (not to worry: this is all on a lighter comic/philosophical plane). Although --since this was the one film, 15 minutes in length, 11 of which were shown without English subtitles, that I couldn't fully understand -- you'll have to take my ideas with a grain of salt. (What's that? Ah, I see: You do this as a matter of course.)

More interesting -- as well as, at 107 minutes, the lengthiest of Guiraudie's films I've seen -- is his 2003 NO REST FOR THE BRAVE (Pas de repos pour les braves). In some ways this is the most challenging of the four films, if also the least accessible. In it, the filmmaker tackles our fear of death (maybe also our even deeper fear of life), as his hero, Basile (played by Thomas Suire, in his film debut), plays a kid who refuses to sleep because he's afraid he'll never again awaken.

The movie itself is often like a dream: People -- the working class, as in all of his films -- come and go bizarrely; our hero moves from the City of the Living to Deadville; and there is one simply gorgeous, mystical, chilling special effect in which an old man disappears under a wave.

There is also, being French, a whole lot of philosophical... well, drivel is maybe too strong a word, but the film does veer toward pretension now and again. But it is also, from time to time, quite a lot of fun, as we engage in everything from car chases (with the villains on foot) to loveplay and hair-breath escapes. In a way this movie is a genre-jumper -- except that Guiraudie, here testing the waters with his first full-length endeavor, doesn't always seem sure which genre he's actually in.

The film is also a coming-of-age/coming-of-intelligence movie, as well as sci-fi/fantasy. So gear up for a trip and a half. If you miss it during the FSLC's retrospective, never fear. It is actually available in the USA via TLA Video where you can stream it at a reasonable price. There are five more films, full-length and short, to be seen in the series. Click here to see the entire Guiraudie schedule.

The photo of M. Guiraudie, at top, is by

Gareth Cattermole, courtesy of Getty Images.