Pedro Almodóvar's PAIN AND GLORY is, yes, painful and glorious (and funny and moving, and subtle and smart)

Anyone who has followed the more-than-40-year career of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar can hardly help but have noticed the tonal change in his films from the crazy, highly sexual and often darkly comedic to the more serious -- if still sometimes dark and sexual -- explorations into family and Freud (granted, his very own version of the good doctor).

Almodóvar's later films may have been successful to varying degrees, just as were his earlier movies -- though to listen to some critics/fans, those early comedies were all fabulous and wonderful; instead, they too were a mixed bag -- yet one of the distinct pleasures of contemplating this man's fecund career (he is shown at right) comes in seeing, little by little, the enormous depth and growth involved.

TrustMovies is certainly not alone in finding his latest film, PAIN AND GLORY, the pinnacle and culmina-tion (but not the finale, I hope) of his career.

In it, Antonio Banderas (above and below) -- who has appeared in numerous Almodóvar films over the years and whose career took off via this filmmaker -- plays an aging filmmaker very much like Almodóvar, whose life story we see unfurl here via flashback and present-day excursions into his current life of enormous physical pain (everything from excruciating back pain to migraines),

drug addiction, the rekindling of both a friendship and a hugely important love relationship, and a possible career rehabilitation via the rediscovery of one of his successful older films.

If this sounds like a lot to cover in a mere two hours, let it be known that the filmmaker does it all with breathtaking skill, surprising subtlety and intelligence, the expected (but still gorgeous) visuals exquisitely combining composition and color, and drawing spot-on performances from a well-chosen cast that includes Penélope Cruz (above, playing his mother in her younger days) and Julieta Serrano (below, right, as older mom).

The two performance highlights, however, come from that fine Argentine actor Leonardo Sbaraglia (below, right), playing the ex-lover with such passion, wit and alertness that this pretty much constitutes a career-best role -- in a career that already has some really spectacular ones (Wild Horses, Intacto, Contestant and King of the Mountain),

and from Asier Etxeandia (below), as the ex-friend and actor who starred in the filmmaker's most famous work, now estranged but gleefully ready to reconnect via drugs and maybe a new acting role. Etxeandia is exciting to watch in action, and his role is one of the film's best written and realized, as well as its most complicated creation.

Almodóvar does not attempt to make his "hero'" all that heroic. He's a user -- not just of drugs but of people. Watch sadly at how he treats his devoted personal secretary (Nora Navas, below, right). But, oh, god, he is so human. And his creativity, from what we can gather, is worth saving and encouraging.

As the filmmaker's delightfully intelligent younger self, Asier Flores (shown at bottom) proves a real find. This youngster gets one of the film's perfect scenes, in which incipient sexuality overtakes our hero in one marvelous, sudden rush. No explanation necessary, and Almodóvar doesn't belabor the point. (Shown below is the amazingly sensuous César Vicente, who plays the key element in that pivotal scene.)

Another bit of perfection occurs at film's end, when the writer/director simply moves his camera just a tad, in the process quietly letting us know that, "Hey, it's only a movie, right?" Sure. But what a movie!

From Sony Pictures Classics (and I would guess a front-runner for Best Foreign Language Film nomination), in Spanish with English subtitles, and lasting 113 minutes, Pain and Glory, after opening in key cities, hits South Florida this Friday, October 18, all over the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach areas. To find the theater(s) nearest you, simply click here, then click on GET TICKETS, scroll down to the October 18 dates and find your local theater(s). Or just fill in your zip code in the blank space and make things even easier.

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.

Blu-ray debut for Desiree Akhavan's THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST

A movie that was well-received at its debut at last year's Sundance Film Fest and later in the year when its had its limited theatrical run, THE MIS-EDUCATION OF CAMERON POST, directed and co-written by Desiree Akhavan
(shown below), didn't set the box-office on fire nearly as much as those who championed the film would have liked.

Now that a special edition of the movie has appeared on Blu-ray, home viewers will have further opportunity to judge for themselves. Although The M of CP, as we'll call it, is all about the increasingly outlawed practice of GLBT "conversion therapy" (it takes place in 1993) and we've already seen two other films on this subject within past year (the excellent based-on-fact narrative movie, Boy Erased and the unusual documentary The Sunday Sessions), this one easily finds it own special niche.

For one thing the protagonist here is female rather than male, as in the other two films, and Ms Akhavan's style is lower-key, generally resisting melodrama very well -- even in the one toward-the-end scene in which this is very nearly unavoidable. The filmmaker draws fine performances from her entire cast, many of whom will seem brand new to the viewer's eye.

Though lead actress Chloë Grace Moretz (above) and three supporting players -- Jennifer Ehle,(below, right), John Gallagher Jr. (below, left) and Sasha Lane -- are well-known, most of the other faces are fresh and new enough to make the film seem as close to documentary in feel as to narrative.

Ms Moretz, in particular, is such a fine actress (even in claptrap like the recent Suspiria remake) that she makes every tiny gesture and small thoughtful moment something you never question. She is so adept here at keeping her thoughts and feelings close to the vest, even as you realize how difficult is the position in which she has been placed, that you will find it hard to take your eyes off her.

When at last Cameron is able to truly bond with a couple of her co-prisoners -- Ms Lane (center, above) and the excellent American Indian actor Forrest Goodluck (above, left) -- this quiet, increasingly deeply-felt relationship binds the movie. As usual with these "conversion therapy" stories, religion plays a huge and pretty terrifying role. And though The M of CP doesn't make any of its characters out-and-out villains, if you're anything like me, you'll want to shove a pocket version of the Holy Bible down the throat of most of these faith-based idiots.

From FilmRise and running 91 minutes, The Miseducation of Cameron Post hit the street last week on Blu-ray, complete with Bonus Features -- for purchase and/or rental. According to the distributor, it will soon be available on VOD, as well.

François Ozon is back with DOUBLE LOVER, a box of yummy poison candy for Valentine's Day

When, at the end of his career, the work of French filmmaker François Ozon, gets a going-over by movie buffs, I suspect there will be some gnashing of teeth regarding exactly what kind of films for which he was most noted. Were these the campy comedies (Sitcom, 8 Women) or the oddball/otherworldly (Ricky)? The dark and ugly (See the Sea, Criminal Lovers) or the period pieces (Angel, Potiche and Frantz), each as hugely different from the other two as possible? One thing nearly all his films have in common to one degree or other is Ozon's peculiar sense of camp, which infuses even his most serious pieces.

Ozon's kind of camp (the filmmaker is pictured at left), TrustMovies feels, transcends the merely gay and over-the-top stuff we're so used to seeing.

There is a sense of playfulness and fun to even his darkest work that keeps reminding us that, yes, this is just a movie, but still, movies can tell us special things and in a manner than almost nothing else can.

This makes for an odd combination, to say the least, keeping us often off-balance. But when Ozon makes it work, as in his best films -- In the House, Time to Leave and Under the Sand  -- it opens our eyes, mind and heart in a way that can only be described as Ozonian.

In his latest endeavor, DOUBLE LOVER, the filmmaker has adapted a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, Lives of the Twins, and made yet another movie about the effects of the convergence of psychology, trauma and sexuality on a human being. Similar in some ways to another of his recent films, The New Girlfriend, the movie is not among his best, but, as usual with Ozon, it is so much fun to view visually as it bumps along, you will not, I think, be at all bored. It helps, too, that he is using three very attractive and charismatic actors as his leads: Jérémie Renier and Marine Vacth (above, left and right), along with a still-gorgeous Jacqueline Bisset (below, left).

To talk at all about the plot here will mean that I am "lying" to you because viewers cannot always be sure that what they're seeing and hearing is even true. So let's just leave it that we're dealing with a quite beautiful young woman (Ms Vacth), who has some stomach problems that appear to be psychosomatic and so her physician recommends she consult a psychiatrist (M. Renier) to help solve them.

It is such a pleasure to view these two very attractive performers, whom we see here looking their absolute best, whether clothed or naked (imagine a therapy session like the one below!), that the increasingly convoluted plot -- with enough holes to remind you of a very large chunk of swiss cheese -- keeps threatening to spin completely out of control.

Yes, twins are involved here, which means we get a double dose of the glorious Ms. Renier, and if you're a cat lover, you'll get a couple of beautiful examples of this species, too. There's a nosy neighbor (Miriam Boyer), a gynecologist (Dominique Reymond) who seems oddly familiar later on in this movie, and finally Ms Bisset, who helps bring all the various puzzle pieces together.

Yeah, you'll probably find it a bunch of hooey, overall, but so cleverly put together is it, and so very beautiful is the lovely Ms Vacth from first scene to last (yes, Chekhov's gun makes its appearance, with the usual rule played out) that I suspect you'll have had a good enough time to make a viewing of Double Lover worthwhile.

The movie seems especially appropriate for Valentine's Day, given Ozon's sense of humor and his delight in offering us what one might see as a poisoned bon-bon wrapped up initially like a lovely dream that unfortunately proceeds into nightmare.

From Cohen Media Group, in French with English subtitles and running 107 minutes, Double Lover opens tomorrow, Wednesday, February 14, in New York City (at the Quad Cinema and AMC Empire 25), Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 and Royal), San Francisco (at the Landmark Opera Plaza Cinema) and Philadelphia (at the Landmark Ritz East). Elsewhere? I would hope that the film will play in other venues around the country over the weeks/months to come, but I could find no link to any list of playdates.

Iran confidential! Ali Soozandeh's animated TEHRAN TABOO serves up his birth country's hypocrisy on a rotoscope platter

Whew -- better prepare yourself for things you will not have seen in any Asghar Farhadi film.

The new TEHRAN TABOO, combining gorgeously colored rotoscope animation with the sleaziest of subject matter, begins with a woman giving a cab driver a blow-job while her young son chews gum in the back seat. When the cab driver, mid-b/j, suddenly sees his daughter holding hands with her boyfriend as the young couple walks down the street, he throws a fit. And mom stops sucking just long enough to tell him what a hypocritical asshole he is. Yes, this certainly leaves Disney in the dust -- along with even Ralph Bakshi.

From oral-sex-while-driving, we proceed to the likes of a black-market operation to restore a woman's virginity, a judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Court who sets up that prostitute and her son in a very nice apartment, a loan officer in a bank who makes shady deals, a kind of Dubai sex trade offering Iranian virgins, abortions, whoring and lots more (or less, depending on your viewpoint).

The director and writer here, making his U.S. theatrical debut with this film, is Ali Soozandeh, shown at right, and -- if he lives through the death threats sure to arise in Arab countries because of the content of his film -- I would think that we'll be hearing from him again very soon.

It will come as little surprise that Mr. Soozandeh has been living in exile in Germany since he was 25 (he turns 48 this year), and though it has taken him awhile to give us this unusual film, TrustMovies would say it has been worth the wait. Although it may seen initially that the filmmaker is "piling it on a bit thick," it soon becomes clear that it is the stupid, nasty and beyond-the-pale hypocrisy of the Islamic state and its irredeemable patriarchy, especially where matters sexual are concerned, that Soozandeh has pilloried so very well.

All these events going on are connected through the handful of characters we meet and grow to understand if not love -- from the mute son of that prostitute (above, center) and the rather sweet young man (below, left) who (on ectasy) has taken the virginity of a girl he's only just met...

...to that bank officer and his wife, mother and diabetic dad, all of whom begin acting as baby-sitters to the young boy (his mom has told them she works night at a local hospital) and even the sleazy judge himself (below, left), who handle divorces in his own inimitable manner.

As complicated, awful and perverse as life gets for these people, instead of blaming the individual, you will probably come to feel the strongest revulsion for the social/cultural/political set-up that has spawned the lives they lead.

As connections are made and the plot keeps unfurling into greater and more terrible circumstances,  most of what we've come to think we know and believe about these people is called into question. And if the black cat and its litter of kitten may initially strike you are a little too sentimental, wait a bit. Everything comes homes to roost here.

Watching this film and then thinking back to the more veiled and subtle work of that fine filmmaker Farhadi, you can better understand why so much of what he gives us must be tamped down to pass the censors. For something more "unvarnished," take a look at Tehran Taboo and be grateful that, for now at least (until the election cycle, perhaps), we here in the USA must only put up with those idiotic and venal Republicans and their unstable moron of a leader, Donald Trump.

From Kino Lorber, in Persian with English subtitles, and running 96 minutes, this unusual piece of animation has its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, February 14 (yes, it's a Valentine's Day delight), at New York City 's Film Forum before hitting another dozen or more cities around the country. To see all currently scheduled playdates and venues, click here and then scroll down.

PLANTS: Roberto Doveris explores voyeurism, sex, coming-of-age and the vegetative state -- in an oddball Latin American series at AFA

Despite New York City's being a place in which -- even though Los Angeles/Hollywood claims to be the film capital of the world -- one could always see more international cinema, new or classic, than anywhere else in the USA, because this world-cinema capital regularly misses out on certain perhaps important movies that have garnered acclaim at international festivals or in their home country, Cinema Tropical and NYC's Anthology Film Archives (AFA) are joining forces to help remedy this -- so far as Latin American film are concerned, at least -- with monthly screenings, the last of which (for now) takes place tomorrow, Thursday, December 14, at 7:15 pm at the AFA, in a series, entitled charmingly and lengthily, If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema NYC. 

This final offering in the series is a Chilean movie from first-time filmmaker (who also edited his film and perhaps had a hand in the writing of it, too, but I can find no accreditation for its screenplay), Roberto Doveris, shown at left, entitled PLANTS (Las plantas). In it, a young girl, Florencia (newcomer Violeta Castillo), who appears to be in transition from adolescence to womanhood, undergoes some very bizarre experiences, feelings, ideas and reading material. The latter, a book (or maybe a comic) entitled Las Plantas, is the story of sentient plants who take over their human nurturers at night (or maybe only during the full moon: things are not always too clear here), to which our heroine becomes rather addicted, to the point at which we wonder if she herself is not imagining this story to actually be happening to her. Or not.

Meanwhile, she has the care of her comatose brother Sebastian, a very hot-looking sleeping beauty (Mauricio Vaca, below, right), whom she bathes and cares for and whose diaper she changes, all in a manner than seemed to me pretty unbelievable. (Are comatose patients so easily managed at home, while being left along for hours upon end?). Florencia's other interests range from choreography and dancing with two male friends to combing the internet for possible sexual partners.

The one she finds -- we watch, as do Florencia and her pals, as he jacks off  online and later in person through her glass doorway, above -- proves to be another very hot young man, older and more experienced than our girl, but ready for some nice hard-core action. The actor, Ernesto Meléndez, has a handsome face, a good body and proves very well-endowed in the dick department (hard and soft), so for these couple of scenes alone, the movie may be worth some viewers' time. In any case, Señor Doveris once again suggests that hard-core moments can easily be shown in an otherwise dramatic/comedic film without the world of culture coming to a sudden end.

Florencia also has a mother, above, who is ill (or doing a good job of feigning, as another relative suggests), and our poor girl has clearly been saddled with too much responsibility, though in almost all matters save those sexual, she is quite willing to slough things off much of the time.

Doveris is concerned here, among other things, with coming-of-age, sexuality, the vegetative state (of both plants and humans), and storytelling, together with its ability to entrap us. He even flirts with a touch of animation, as above, along the way. His skills include some visually stunning scenes in which color (bright lavender and pale green), composition and camerawork (by Patricio Alfaro) come together in stunning manner; and his ability to slowly reveal the who, what, why and how of his characters and their connection is a plus, as well.

The big problem is that, beyond all this, he is unable to actually join his themes and ideas into anything more than vaguely coherent. Nothing comes home to roost. We understand what he wants his movie to be about, but that's not the same thing as actually achieving it. Beyond this, the decent acting, and the hot and fun sex scenes, Plants amounts to mostly a big shrug. The movie certainly shows promise, however, so we'll look forward to Doveris' next endeavor.

Meanwhile, this one plays just one time in New York City at AFA tomorrow, December 14, at 7:15pm. Click here for tickets and/or further information.