Short take: Jaume Collet-Serra's thriller, THE COMMUTER, offers Liam Neeson and foolish fun

If you're anything like me and find Liam Neeson the kind of actor who almost never disappoints, even if the occasional movie he inhabits may, little could keep you away from his latest, titled THE COMMUTER and once again directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (of Unknown, Non-Stop and Run All Night), the trailer for which has been screening in theaters for what seems like at least the past six months. That trailer, as usual, gives away far too much and lays out practically the whole plot.

Even so, there are enough surprises up the sleeves of its three credited screenwriters to keep us interested, while Collet-Serra (below) directs with enough panache that we enjoy even some of the more nonsensical portions.

Our beleaguered hero (Neeson) has so much happen to him in the course of a single day, even before he steps onto the commuter train -- whose route appears to begin as part of the NYC subway system and then change somehow to that of Metro-North (though maybe things have drastically changed since I left the city three years ago) -- that the poor guy will immediately have your complete sympathy. In any case, before you can say Vera Farmiga (who plays the poor guy's antagonist), he is knee-to-neck deep in big-time trouble. One of the things that makes the movie so much fun is the terrific casting of every last one of the roles.

In addition to Neeson and Farmiga (above), we have Sam Neill, (below), Patrick Wilson (further below), and Elizabeth McGovern -- all of whom are rather wasted, as their roles don't amount to much at all. Yet it's always enjoyable to see them on screen, so this remain a plus. Even better are the many more unsung performers who plays the other folk traveling on this bound-for-hell train.

The plot takes a multitude of twists and turns, half of which are smart and half nonsense -- but all turn out to be rather fun. Toward the finale the movie even delivers its own "I am Spartacus" moment, which is so embarrassingly stolen that seniors in the audience will wince. But even this ends with a good laugh.

The Commuter may turn out to be this year's Kidnap, that Halle Berry movie that was by turns utterly ridiculous and slam-bang fun. Any way you look at it, as mindless entertainment goes, you could do a hell of a lot worse than boarding this particular train.

From Lionsgate and running 104 minutes,. the movie opens wide today. To find the theater(s) nearest you, simply click here.

Blu-ray debut for Dario Argento's first fright film, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE

If TrustMovies is not mistaken Dario Argento's debut effort THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE was among, if not the first film to introduce international audiences to the Italian Giallo genre. That, together with the fact this this was Argento's initial crack at directing (after helping write a number of movies) --  the filmmaker is shown below -- should push his film into into near-classic "slasher" status.

If the new Blu-ray disc, via Arrow Video, does not look as good as a number of other of its ilk and time frame, that may be because the movie never did look all that great -- even at the time of its 1970 release. Though the cinematography is by Italian master Vittorio Storaro (who followed this film with the much-better-on-every-level The Conformist), it is not as sharp and precise as you might expect (a relatively small budget might account for this). The composition and use of color is quite interesting, however. I saw the original theatrical release of the movie, and can verify that it looked no better then -- in terms of sharpness and clarity -- than it does now. Neither did its further transitions to tape or DVD.

So Arrow's claim that the movie has never looked nor sounded better is most likely quite true. And since we are getting it here in a 4K restoration from the camera negative in its original 2:35:1 aspect ratio, this, too, is a first -- at least since its theatrical debut. As to that sound, it is excellently produced, all right, but the much-vaunted score by Ennio Morricone is not among the composer's better works. Look to Once Upon a Time in the West, Fraulein Doktor (and a raft of others) for that.

The film itself is a veritable grab-bag-cum-definition of Signore Argento's craft, style, smarts and faults. The plot has do to do with an American writer (Tony Musante, above, left), on a kind of vacation/work project in Italy, along with his model girlfriend (Suzy Kendall, above, right) just as a series of grizzly murders is taking place -- one of which (below) he appears to catch in the very act, as he wanders by the glass window of a posh art gallery late at night.

The plotting, while fun and sometime fascinating (look for the usual Argento "surprise" finale), also completely lacks any believable human dimension. Our hero and heroine refuse to behave like any actually human beings you will have ever encountered (except those who appear in bad movies). Musante's character puts not only his own life in danger time and again, he does the same with that of his girlfriend. And after very bad things happen, such as our heroine being stalked and nearly killed by the murderer, she is able to recover in no time flat and also get a great night's sleep in the process. There is also very little logic in Argento's plotting. The one person (out of two) left alive in the penultimate climax is the very last person that this particular killer would have let off the hook.

Argento's use of color (lots of red, of course) is also fun. There's one lengthy, silly scene of an assassin in a yellow slicker jacket that leads to the film's funniest surprise. Watching this landmark "slasher" film today also points up the enormous advance (well, debasement) in the audience's appetite for violence, blood and gore. This "Bird" seem almost pristine: all lead-up and then suggestion, with merely a small slash and splash here and there. The film's forensic investigation, using the latest technology of its time, provides some fun, but I do wish we'd have been able to see more of that titular bird. This exotic "looker" receives only a single moment of screen time.

There is a rumor (probably apocryphal) that, with the international success of this film, no less than Alfred Hitchcock was said to be worried about this new Italian kid's intrusion into his suspense-thriller territory. Watching Argento's entertaining trifle now merely points out the vast difference between the work of a master and a would-be. The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, via MVD Entertainment Group, arrives on limited edition Blu-ray + DVD this coming Tuesday, June 20, for purchase and/or (I would hope) rental. Click here for further details.

As usual, with the releases of Arrow Video, the disc offers a wealth of Bonus Features, including new interviews with Argento and Gildo Di Marco (who plays Garullo, the garrulous pimp); a new analysis of the film by Kat Ellinger; new audio commentary by Troy Howarth; a new visual essay on the cinema of Argento, The Power of Perception, by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas; English subtitles for both the English- and Italian-language versions; high-def Blu-ray and standard-def DVD presentations; reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by Candice Tripp; and a limited edition 60-page booklet illustrated by Matthew Griffin, featuring an appreciation of the film by Michael Mackenzie and new writing by Howard Hughes (no, not that one) and Jack Seabrook.

In Daniel Barber & Julia Hart's THE KEEPING ROOM, we see The Civil War from a race/class/feminist angle

"War is cruel," goes the quotation from General William Tecumseh Sherman that begins THE KEEPING ROOM, an initially enticing, small-scale mixture of war film, western, suspense thriller and -- given the leading characters, there is no way around this -- feminist tale of what happens when a couple of unhooked and marauding Union soldiers come up against a trio of put-upon Southern women. The remainder of that "War is cruel" quote, written out in full at the film's beginning, is brought to ugly but believable life in much of the film that follows.

Writer, Julia Hart (at left, above), and director, Daniel Barber (at left, below) do a doozy of a job bringing us into their story -- which is told over the film's first seven minutes with not a word of dialog (unless you're willing to count the barking of a dog and the woman who barks right back).

The incidents we see, however, shatter us with their extreme and unnecessary violence. But, hey, we've got that quote to live up to. The filmmakers do not dwell on excessive gore; we see what we need to: the intended and some unintended results of war. We also note the extreme fear experienced by the victims of that war, who have excellent reason to be afraid.

From that opening seven-minute section, we move to some new characters, our protagonists, those three women: older and younger sisters (played respectively by Britt Marling, above, and Hailee Steinfeld, below,

and the black woman slave (by now a nearly ex-slave, as the War seems about to draw to its horrific close), played by the very fine actress Muna Otaru, shown below).

For roughly half of the running time of the film, Ms Hart's dialog together with Mr. Barber's smart direction keeps us quivering and hooked. We note the nastiness and ferocity of the two antagonists, played by Sam Worthington (below) and Kyle Soller, and feel sorrow at the plight of their victims.

But then, as tension mounts and our protags and antags inevitably meet, the movie begins to pack in an excessive amount of cliché -- who gets shot and who's dead or not -- so that we begin rolling our eyes in anticipation of more of the same. The filmmakers still have a mild surprise or two up their sleeves, but considering the amount of time we're suddenly spending watching women with guns and men with guns sneak around and about each other, the film begins to leach much of its former suspense and originality.

The penultimate scene seems intended to fully demonstrate General Sherman's quotation, while the film's final scene may not appear particularly believable, but then, the movie ends before we can actually judge how well this ploy will play out.

Mr. Barber, who earlier gave us the so-so Michael Caine revenge tale, Harry Brown, demonstrates a good sense of pacing and eye for detail, and his film is atmospherically shot (as above, by German cinematographer, Martin Ruhe) and well-scored (by Martin Phipps/Mearl),  I just wish it had held up a little better (and a little longer), before losing us.

The Keeping Room (the title comes from a dark and untimely coming-of-age tale that the slave tells the sisters), from Drafthouse Films and Cinedigm, after playing a very limited run (in Albuquerque and Chicago earlier this month) heads straight-for-video tomorrow, Tuesday, December 29, available on Digital Download HD. Click here for further details on how to order a DVD or Blu-ray.

Two more ten-minute bizarrosities from fecund, short-form filmmaker, Jeremiah Kipp

TrustMovies first covered a few of the short films of director Jeremiah Kipp, shown at right, back in 2012 (that post can be found here). Now, a few years later, Mr. Kipp has placed two more of his short films --THE DAYS GOD SLEPT, made in 2013, and THE MINIONS (which has nothing to do with the recent animated block-buster), made in 2014 -- on Vimeo for interested viewers to peruse. I should have covered these two new short films several months ago, but what with our relocation to Florida and all that this entailed, I begged off until now. I'm glad I finally got around to viewing them, however, because both little movies are fun, beautiful to look at and definitely worth a watch. Once finished with each, I immediately viewed the film again and found more to like -- and to wonder about, as well.

Both films were written by Joseph Fiorillo and have a definitely otherworldly, magical/supernatural sense about them. They rely on narration as much as on dialog (a necessity, I should think, when trying to fit so much "plot" into such a short time frame).

Kipp's direction favors interesting use of black-and-white and color, with the latter used subtly only now and again, especially in The Minions (above), in which there's a wonderful use of a yellowish scarf clearly tinged with scent and memory, while The Days God Slept offers more color, much of it tinged with an icy blue, near-metallic cast.

Kipp employs suspense and shock technique, done rather quietly and subtly, and both these films are full of sexuality seen as both attraction and danger. The Minions offers a big, strapping guy (Lukas Hassel, above) , two women, a kiss and then enormous sexual attraction, complete with a narrative warning about witches and covens.

The Days God Slept gives us pole dancing, a sex club, gang rape, and some memories -- including maybe a Biblical reference or two -- from what just might be a very unreliable narrator.  Both films use two good and very attractive actors, Lauren Fox (above, right) and Mr. Hassel in a choice supporting role here, while Ms Fox is relegated to mostly narration and a bit of the visual in The Minions. There are several other good actors on view, too. Narrative-wise, Fiorillo appear to enjoy keeping us on our toes regarding what's real and what's not, and he is ably abetted by Kipp.

The films, including end credits, come in at between 10-1/2 and 11-1/4 minutes, and as good as they are, their short length begins to raise some questions about Kipp's work. Both stories here beg for elongation of content and specifics. They are interesting enough to make us want to learn more (this is particularly true of The Minions), yet the short form is appearing more and more to be a kind of tease from Mr. Kipp.

Is it lack of a bigger budget that is preventing a longer tale from being told? Probably. Some time back, Kipp signed on, as work-for-hire, to direct a slasher movie called The Sadist, featuring Tom Savini in the leading role. (I never saw that one -- I'm not even sure it found theatrical release -- since slasher movies are growing increasingly tiresome for me to care about or concentrate on.)

Still, I hold out hope that Kipp and Fiorillo will find a way to bankroll one of their short films into a longer version that will show us what they can do in stretching their very interesting ideas to full length.

Meanwhile, you can find out more about Kipp's two newer short films, along with all of his other work, by clicking here and scrolling around a bit.

Christian Petzold's PHOENIX explores post-Holocaust love, identity, guilt and avarice

That old standard, "Speak Low," gets quite the workout in PHOENIX, a new film from German movie-maker Christian Petzold, who seems, with each addition to his oeuvre, to be journey-ing further and further back in time and history. His Yella and Jerichow were relatively modern-day tales; Barbara took us back to East Germany in the 1980s; now his new one reaches all the way to immediately post-Holocaust, as the few Jews left were returning to their former homes throughout Europe -- or heading for Palestine.

As is the case in all of Petzold's work I've seen -- the co-writer (with Harun Farocki) and director is shown at left -- the plot relies on a very interesting, and usually only partially believable twist, played for all it is worth. And with this filmmaker, that means it's worth at least a watch. Phoenix, in my estimation, proves his most fully satisfying work to date because it takes the several themes at hand -- the Holocaust, self-identity (with emphasis on those of both Judaism and feminism), physical appearance, loyalty and love -- and blends them into a surprisingly effective whole.

If Herr Petzold could be said to have a muse, it would be his lead actress in several films: Nina Hoss (above, right, below, left and poster, top), who is as fine here as she always is, maybe even better. Ms Hoss has the ability to convince us that reams of subtext, as well as an enormous and roiling past exists within her slight frame and beautiful, expressive face -- all of which is true in the case of her character, Nelly.

Nelly has just returned from a concentration camp, where she was left for dead from a gunshot wound to the skull. In addition to being resuscitated, she has also undergone a major face lift, hoping to get something like her original face but coming up with a visage that is similar but also different enough to be a tad confusing.

Her friend Lene (Nina Kunzendorf, above) is making arrangements for the two of them to leave for Palestine, but Nelly is not ready for that. She wants to find her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld, below), a pianist who used to accompany her on the piano when she sang professionally.  Clearly still head-over-heels about the man, Nelly can't abide the idea, planted rather firmly by Lene, that her husband ratted her out as a Jew to the Gestapo so he could play the get-out-of-jail-free card.

The set-up is clear and the movie proceeds from that set-up, full speed ahead but with enough ambiguity and mixed signals to keep us -- and its characters -- on our toes. Nelly's identity is locked into her love for Johnny more strongly than anything that happened to her in the camp as a Jew (this fact riles Lene not a little).

And though Johnny appears pretty much as Lene paints him, so obsessive and enormous is Nelly's love for the guy that she has us wondering if, maybe hoping that, she could be right. The movie rises slowly to some excellent suspense, some striking visuals, and to a finale that is absolutely on the mark -- emotionally, psychologically and dramatically sound.

Performances are fine from all involved, and one of the pleasures of the movie is that, while providing suspense and entertainment, it never slights the importance of the Holocaust to history (and German history), and in fact offers up a few choice ideas about human behavior and our ability to all too easily forget and even forgive.

Phoenix, from Sundance Selects -- the title refers to a club in which cabaret and other post-war amenities (above) are offered and at which our Johnny has a job, as well as to that famed Firebird rising from the ashes -- opens this Friday, Just 24, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. In the Los Angeles area, look for it at various Laemmle theaters beginning July 31.

Megan Griffiths' EDEN opens in New York; something a little different for Film Forum

The best sex-trafficking movie I've yet seen (and these would include the likes of Lilya 4-Ever, Trade, Taken, The Whistleblower, Cargo and a bunch more), EDEN might at first seem an odd fit for NYC's prestige art film/documen-tary/repertory house, Film Forum. When TrustMovies first noticed that it was arriving here, he joked with one of the theater's publicists that it was about time Film Forum scheduled an exploitation movie. "But it's really not," the publicist Adam Walker rejoined. He's right. A near-object lesson in what separates exploitation from explanation, leaving maybe not an "art film" in its wake but a damned good, based-on-real-life tale, Eden is exemplary in several ways.

As co-written (with Richard B. Phillips, based on the real story of Chong Kim and her abduction into the sex trade) and directed by Megan Griffiths, the movie opts consistently for smart story-telling over the titillation that invariably accompanies movies on subjects such as this one. (That's why they're so often exploitation films.) Ms Griffiths is especially good at selecting the key events and mo-ments that bring to immediate life the present situation -- whether it's a romantic kiss turned suddenly strange (below, and yes, that's Scott Mechlowicz in an unusual "stalker" role) or the special gift of a kitten to each sex slave to help humanize prison life. Griffiths has the filmmaker's eye, not just for composition and color but for the unusual object or moment that means something special. She, and her movie, are full of surprise.

The film is fortunate to have in its leading role an actress of strength and focus, Jamie Chung (below and on the poster, top, and most recently seen in Knife Fight), who makes her character of Hyun Jae (soon to be re-christened the Eden of the title) someone we follow gladly and hopefully as she makes her way along the nasty and dangerous learning curve of the sex trade.

What Eden has to do -- and what Ms Griffiths is so very good at showing us -- is adjust quickly and smartly to every change, minor and major, in her situation. This includes her having to seem at times to side with her captors against the other girls. Events often arrive suddenly, making the movie surprising and fast-moving. There is just about zero padding here; every scene, every moment seems necessary. And nothing is overdone.

Also prominent in the cast are Beau Bridges (below) as a Federal Marshall, Tantoo Cardinal (at bottom) as the nurse who attends the sex slaves, and Matt O'Leary (above) as the very troubled young man in day-to-day charge of the operation. I have lambasted Mr. O'Leary in an earlier review of the film American Bully, so it pleases me no end to to tell you how very good he is in this role. (He's even better in the recent film Fat Kid Rules the World, which I hope to cover when time permits). He's got a quirky, sometimes scary versatility, which may remind you of a younger Ben Foster.

The film includes its share of blood, torture and death, yet so stringent is Ms Griffiths in keeping to her storytelling that we never feel beaten down by gore or reveling in despair. A body bag accompanied by the name of the young woman inside carries enormous weight here -- as much, I think, as would our seeing the actual body. Maybe even more, because there is a kind of inhuman remove about viewing only that tightly wrapped plastic bag.

Sparing us excessive gore, the filmmaker still manages to treat her subject with the darkness and ugliness that it deserves. You will come out of this movie understanding once again and even more deeply how despicable a thing is sex trafficking. Eden proves crack movie-making about a true-life tale and most important topic. What makes it especially troubling is that the trafficking all took place here, within U.S. borders.

From Phase 4 Films and running 98 minutes, the movie opens this Wednesday at Film Forum in New York City. Elsewhere theatrically? Yes: in Los Angeles on March 29 and Seattle on May 3.  And I have just learned that the VOD release occurs earlier than I had been told. Look for the film on VOD beginning April 20.

Craig Zobel's problematic COMPLIANCE: What do we believe? Why do we believe it?

Phone scams are all around us, and -- who knows? -- probably have been since Mr. Bell gifted us with this form of communication. Have you been receiving, of late, call after call from some foreign-accented fellow who advises you that something is wrong with your computer (well, when isn't there?) and that he has been advised to call you offering help? Yeah, sure. (This happens so often now that I have taken to loudly shrieking obscenities in his ear before hanging up.) The phone scam central to COMPLIANCE -- the new film from Craig Zobel, director and co-writer of the (a little too) much-praised Great World of Sound from 2007 -- is a lot more insidious that this latest computer-fixing fraud.

Mr. Zobel (shown at right) takes the inspiration for his tale -- as do maybe two in five of the screenwriters working these days -- from "true events," changing those events as needed to serve his storytelling and his moral. The latter, which to my mind is timely and smart, wants us to understand how easily we believe what we hear and are willing to accept it and act on it -- when we imagine it is coming from a legitimate authority figure. The former, those storytelling skills, are where I have some problems with the movie.

Are you as alarmed as I by the stupidity of much of our country's population, by its inability to learn anything new or to hold an idea in memory for longer than a few minutes? Think about it: Nearly, perhaps more than, half of our middle and lower classes will vote for the Romney/Ryan ticket this fall, thus going against their own best interests in every way, cutting off their collective nose to spite their face. But the way the characters act throughout Compliance makes voting Republican seem, well, almost minor-league in the dumb department.

The situation is this: the female manager of one of the stores in a fast food chain receives a call from a man claiming to be a local police officer, asking her to help him by immediately questioning one of the manager's younger employees accused of theft. He mentions the manager's boss by name, and this is key, I think, in getting her attention and the fear factor going strongly enough to engage her help. Also, the manner in which he gets the manager (Ann Dowd, above) to identify the possible culprit/suspect (Dreama Walker, below) is psychologically astute on a number of levels.

So much for plot, so as not to give away any more spoilers. The fact that something very much like this scenario has already happened a number of times across the country indicates that this is a subject worth exploring. Further, unlike the situations found in the fine German films The Experiment and The Wave -- both based on real-life events that played out decades ago in Palo Alto, California, in which the subjects knew that they were taking part in some kind of "study" -- the people here in Compliance imagined that all this was absolutely "real-life."

Those people include various co-workers, called-in (or not) to help officiate, and finally even the boyfriend (Bill Camp, above) of our manager, who turns out to be the most "helpful" of all. Zobel allows us to see the actual villain (Pat Healy, below) at work during a good portion the movie, which adds to the suspense at times, but also comes at some expense. By cutting away from the present situation to the new "situation" on the other end of the phone line, the filmmaker risks removing us, along with our belief, from the true dilemma at hand.

In any case, for some of the audience, myself included, that belief was only partially ever there, due to the almost ridiculously sheep-like behavior of, first, the manager toward the "policeman", and then of the staff toward its manager. This is not a criticism of the premise, nor of the acting on display -- the entire ensemble is quite good -- but of the way in which Zobel handles the mounting credulity of the "scamees" and the rather incredible goings-on that follow. These produced occasional guffaws, mine among them, at the press screening I attended, and these were not the occasion of "nervous laughter" that sometimes accompanies suspense thrillers. Instead, they were full-out belly laughs of the "Come on, now! Really?" variety.

Zobel also withholds from us the pivotal scene between Mr. Camp and Ms Walker. And I do not mean the logistics of what went where. But seeing the expression on the faces of these two during that event could have done much toward revealing character and intention, while providing some of the depth and truth that seems to be missing here. Which is too bad, as the film's premise is a lulu, encompassing everything from our current economic times, which have people hanging on to whatever job they have for dear life, to our society, which seems ever more in danger of beco-ming robotic wage slaves who will say yes to just about anything.

For all its faults, Compliance is certainly worth seeing and discussing afterward. I just wish it were a better film. The movie, from Magno-lia Pictures and running 90 minutes, opens this coming Friday, August 17, in New York at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema. In the weeks following, it will open in another 25 cities across the country. Click here to see the complete listing of theaters and playdates.