A TIME FOR DYING: Budd Boetticher/Audie Murphy's final narrative film gets the remastered treatment on DVD

TrustMovies had never heard of  A TIME FOR DYING prior to receiving the announcement of its imminent appearance in remastered form on DVD from Corinth Films, a distribution company the output of which I've been particularly fond of over the years.

Turns out that this very odd little (it lasts only 76 minutes) western from 1969 -- the last narrative film directed by Budd Boetticher and featuring the final performance of Audie Murphy -- is very much one-of-a-kind.

It's no secret to film fans -- particularly those of westerns -- that Mr. Boetticher (pictured left) was one of the better directors in this once-popular genre. Boetticher was drawn to and had a knack for making the most of stories that highlighted moral questions, together with those oft-times gray areas between right and wrong, evil and good.

This interest gets full play in A Time for Dying, as we note early on a scene in which a sweet bunny rabbit is about to be attacked by a rattlesnake. After the movie's hero (Richard Lapp, shown two photos below) prevents this, he is interrupted by a young man who looks rather villainous (actor Bob Random, shown below and currently making news via the popular documentary, The Other Side of the Wind), who suggests to our hero that the rattler had a right to live, too. Hmmm...

A Time for Dying turns out to have been both directed and written by Boetticher -- his first and only try at screenwriting, although he did provide stories for a few films. His script may not have won any awards, but it still stands as a simply-constructed, nicely-written and very surprising piece of work. Its simplicity, in fact, is one of the reasons the film so easily draws us in and keeps us both amused and interested in just where this oddball story might be heading.

The movie possesses genuine charm, thanks to the work of actors Lapp (above, who looks amazingly like a young and fresh-faced Audie Murphy) and its heroine, a spunky and intelligent young woman played by Anne Randall, shown below. These two "youngins" combine sweetness and naivete in such perfect measure that it's difficult not to be charmed by the pair and the situation in which they find themselves.

Though the two have only just met -- they're both "new in town" -- only a day elapses before they've gotten themselves "hitched." At the point of a gun. The gunslinger is none other than a certain famous Judge Roy Bean (played with great relish and fun by Victor Jory, below), who takes a liking to these kids, even as he sentences another sweet-looking youngster to be hung by the neck until dead for possibly stealing a horse. ("Don't worry," my spouse noted, "he won't really be dead.") Hmmm again...

By the time you have reached the finale and denouement of what one of our more famous critics, Roger Ebert, called "the damndest and confoundingest western you can imagine" -- I suspect you'll have arrived at a notion that would have pleased the late Mr. Boetticher immensely: It really does not matter how charming or sweet or "good" you might be, people: 
Life is mostly shit.

Along the way, not only do we meet that hanging judge, but also Jesse James (played by Murphy, shown above, in his final screen role), Jesse's brother Frank, and their relative, also known (by a pompous-but-not-so-hot filmmaker) as "the coward Robert Ford." Boetticher's take on these famous folk, just as on Judge Bean, is every bit as unusual and enjoyable as is all else in this oddly sweet and darkly satisfying film.

From Corinth Films, A Time for Dying makes its DVD debut this coming Tuesday, February 5. Simultaneously -- already, actually -- the movie is available via Amazon Prime Video and free, for members of that popular streaming service.

VOD/DVDebut: Joey Kuhn's gay & heavily Madoff-themed love story, THOSE PEOPLE

A bunch of entitled white kids -- the center of which is the gay son of a Madoff-like do-badder -- flail around for 89 minutes, finding and losing love and other important things, in a movie that hits VOD and DVD this coming week and, despite its occasional fondness for melo-drama, manages to take us in and warm our crooked little hearts. Written and directed by Joey Kuhn, THOSE PEOPLE, thanks to its gifted cast and Mr. Kuhn's generally smart filmmaking, sucks us into Manhattan's sleazy, white-bread upper-crust (mostly gay variety) and allows us to observe and maybe even identify a bit.

Kuhn, pictured at left, tells the story of Sebastian (Jason Ralph, above and below, right), the son of a recently convicted and imprisoned Wall Street finagler, and his long-time best-friend, Charlie (Jonathan Gordon, above and below, left), who is also gay but not nearly as well-off. These two have long had a "thing" for each other but thanks to class difference, the closet, and a few other reasons, have managed to avoid hot sex.

One evening as they and their friends frequent a gay piano bar, Charlie connects haltingly with the piano player, a Middle-Eastern fellow (Haaz Sleiman, shown below and at bottom) who is clearly smitten with the kid.

Drama, sometime melo, ensues, as this threesome goes back and forth, back and forth, trying to come to terms with just who it is that Charlie really, truly loves.

Tagging along are the group's hangers-on, a nice bunch of kids (shown above and below, surrounding our heroes) just trying to keep up with the Joneses. The dialog is often smart and real, and the characterizations are well-drawn, by both the writer and the actors, even if a little too much exposition occasionally rears its head. Kuhn's generous use of Gilbert & Sullivan also adds a good deal of enjoyment to the proceedings.

Mostly, Kuhn avoid out-and-out melodrama, except toward the finale when the movie for one scene in particular, goes out of control. Happily, the filmmaker soon reins it in and the finale graces us with a quieter, gentler tone. "That was sweet," my spouse opined, as the end credits rolled, and I could not agree more.

Those People, after a very limited theatrical release from Wolfe Releasing, makes its VOD and DVD appearance via Wolfe Video this coming Tuesday, June 14 -- for rental or purchase.

THE COBBLER: Tom McCarthy's humane fantasy flick turns out to be worth a look, too

After being quietly blown away by Spotlight, and recalling the article in which New York magazine noted that filmmaker Tom McCarthy had been the recipient of both the best and worst reviews of the year for his two most recent movies, we decided to take a look at that "worst-reviewed" film --THE COBBLER, an Adam Sandler vehicle that, after garnering less than sterling notices at last year's Toronto Film Festival, bypassed theaters for a straight-to-video USA debut. In the afore-mentioned article McCarthy noted, "We knew what we were doing with The Cobbler. It’s just how people responded to it was different than we figured.” Fair enough. So spouse and I settled back on our sofa last night to see just what that movie was all about. (It's available now via Netflix streaming and elsewhere.)

The film is full of surprises, beginning with Sandler's performance, which is low-key and a tad depressive. The story itself has to do with a magical stitching machine passed down via generations of cobblers to the latest one (played by Sandler), allowing that cobbler to step into the shoes he has repaired and then simultaneously "become" the person who owns those shoes. As fantasies go, this one has a myriad of possibilities, many of which are mined by Mr. McCarthy (shown above) -- though not in the manner one might expect.

Those expectations are subverted in ways that are mostly surprising and charming, in keeping with McCarthy's humanist tendencies. First off, rather than having Mr. Sandler use his so-called "comic gifts" to impersonate this myriad of shoe owners, instead it is all the other characters (and the actors who play them) who must impersonate the cobbler that Sandler plays -- as well as playing their own characters. This makes for less wild and crazy humor than it does a kind of steady, low-key charm.

The other character here include everyone from a pretty, feisty, community organizer (Melonie Diaz), shown two photos up) and a tough and scary criminal type (Method Man, above)

to a best-friend barber and neighbor (Steve Buscemi, above, left) and a wealthy real estate mogul (Ellen Barkin, below). No less than Dustin Hoffman even makes a couple of fine appearances here.

Look for Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens (below) playing a smooth 'n semi-sleazy Brit, and the ever-lovable Lynn Cohen (shown at bottom) as Sandler's mom. The whole cast, in fact, is glossier and more on-point than fantasies like this usually deserve or receive.

As co-writer (with Paul Sado), McCarthy gives good vent to his kindlier side, making the movie a more pleasant fit for a family outing than are most Sandler comedies. How our cobbler chooses and uses those many different shoes contributes mightily toward making this movie such sweet, comic fun.

If The Cobbler is certainly nowhere near the don't-miss category, it is still a pleasant surprise. I suspect the bad reviews were as much a reaction to the dislike so many critics feel toward Mr. Sandler than to the movie itself. 

Stream a charmer: Mitchell & Walker's adorable sci-fi/musical, THE HISTORY OF FUTURE FOLK

Irresistible. That pretty much covers this one-of-a-kind sweetheart of a movie, THE HISTORY OF FUTURE FOLK, directed by John Mitchell (no, not Martha's late husband) and Jeremy Kipp Walker, with a screenplay by Mr. Mitchell. From the Netflix description alone, you might just stick this one on your to-see list. That would be a good thing because the movie itself is so enchanting and endearing in its simple, storybook manner that, if you love tall tales and movies done with a tiny budget and major talent, you can't go wrong.

Mitchell (shown at left) and Walker below, right) conceive a story of an alien race come to take over earth via one, General Trius from planet Hondo (yes, let's hear a shout-out to John Wayne!). But then, our general hears something that makes him immediately fall in love with earth and decide to stick around awhile.

Soon, he is joined by a second alien named Kevin, sent as a follow-up plan to make certain the

original plan is followed -- and fast. But Kevin, too, quickly succumbs. Soon this very odd duo are making music and singing their bizarre-but delightful little songs to an ever more crowded Brooklyn bar-and-stage venue. The story here is simplicity itself, and so are the songs our two heroes sing. Yet the music -- bluegrassy and sweet, with lovely harmonies and lyrics that make you listen and grin -- is (in the best sense of the word) precious. And the telling of the tale is done so sweetly and straight, with hardly a moment pushed or a feeling overdone, that tagging along is as easy as pie.

The cast is just right, too -- from the hunky/handsome General Trius (Nils d'Aulaire, at left) and the rotund and comic Kevin (Jay Klaitz, below) to the lovely girls in their lives Julie Anne Emery, April L. Hernandez and Onota Aprile (yes, Maisie from What Maisie Knew!) -- so that the combo of writing, directing and acting joins forces to create something just about perfect. Keeping all the balls in the air -- and everyone concerned on the same page (to mix some metaphors) -- is never easy in a film in which so much depends on precisely the right tone. But everyone here manages to carry it off beautifully. So much so, in fact, that rather soon after the film starts, you simply relax into its oddness, lean back and enjoy.

As much as a sweet sci-fi tale, the movie is also a paean to the joy of music -- something that nearly all of us can understand and believe in, I think. It imagines a world quite similar to Brooklyn in which police are kind and helpful, and your neighbors are, too.

It even imagines a universe in which one world can aid another, even if -- for the sake of a few moments of scary monster stuff (above) -- we meet that proverbial fly in the ointment.

So grab your kids (or grandkids; in fact any other family members and friends), sit 'em down in front of the TV, and give them and yourself a whopping good time. You can catch The History of Future Folk now via Netflix streaming, as well as on Amazon Instant Video -- or on DVD, for rental or purchase.

CODEPENDENT LESBIAN SPACE ALIEN SEEKS SAME: Olnek's film opens in L.A.

Sometimes "amateur" is exactly what is needed. Especially when that non-professional exhibits an intuitive talent and sophistication that can put more "professional" names to shame.

CODEPENDENT LESBIAN SPACE ALIEN SEEKS SAME is the first full-length feature from writer/director/producer Madeleine Olnek, and it's a honey. Combining themes of the "other" (that gal/guy who just never fits in) with space aliens (even more "otherly"), love and the return of said emotion, this 76-minute movie is lots of fun and sweet without being cloying (it's too humorous for that).

Ms Olnek, shown at right, appears to have the gift for taking the hoariest cliches of both the sci-fi genre and the rom-com and infusing them with new life via a combination of charm, honesty (particularly in the performances) and a now-and-then surprise. The writing is crisp and often clever, the direction fleet enough to cover the occasional longueur, and the acting -- which ranges from the necessarily bizarre (those space aliens) to absolutely real and dear (the leading lady, beautifully portrayed by Lisa Haas, below, left) to another smart and well-considered stint by the increasingly versatile Alex Karpovsky.

The filmmaker rings smart changes on the rom-com's usual "looking for love" theme, and Ms Haas bring oodles of natural, non-pushed charm to the proceedings. The space aliens (Susan Ziegler, Jackie Monahan and Cynthia Kaplan) are delightfully screwy and not a little "human," both on their home turf and here on earth.

The final touch is provided by the two undercover "Agency" guys -- Dennis Davis (below, left) making a terrific movie debut, easily matching Ms Haas for credibility, specificity and charm; and the aforementioned Mr Karpovsky (below, right) -- whose task it is to follow and apprehend the aliens but who seem to have much more to talk about and mull over regarding their personal lives.

The special effects are as tacky as you could want: silly, amateur and, by the finale, kind of beautiful, and the aliens' costumes are crackerjack (their speech patterns are wonderfully funny, too). Filmed in glorious black-and-white (with a dollop of color now and again), the movie is too slight to overpraise (but so much fun that it's difficult not to). So I'd best end this review right here.

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same opened in NYC some months back, to mostly sterling notices, and is only now making its Los Angeles debut, August 17th through the 23rd, at the Downtown Independent Theater. You can click here to see all future screenings, with dates and venues, and if you've missed it, not to worry: There will be a DVD coming soon or eventually.

Update: We've just learned that, as of October 16, 2012, the film will be available via iTunes!

The photos above are from the film itself, with the 

exception of the one of Ms Olnek, which is 

by Michael Buckner, courtesy of Getty Images. 

DVDebut: Drake Doremus' SPOONER sports first-class perfs from Lillard and Zehetner

Having been a big fan of actor Matthew Lillard (ever since Serial Mom, Hackers and the original Scream) and director Drake Doremus (since last year's interesting Douchebag), I approached SPOONER, the 2008 collaboration of these two, with both expectation and trepidation.  No theatrical release, though it played a bunch of U.S. festivals during  2009 (picking up some awards and fans en route), the film has now gone straight to video, where, if history be any guide, it may languish unheralded. Don't let this happen: watch, please, and herald.

The movie is a small one, delicate and a little odd -- thanks to its main character, Spooner, who seems, well, socially challenged, if not slightly "slow." As played by Mr. Lillard (above), in what is hands-down the best role of his career so far, Spooner is so sad and likable: a big, vulnerable, hulky (and, yes, hunky) kid, whom the actor imbues with such genuineness and truth that you are in his corner from first moment onwards.

You worry that he may be more than just socially inept, and so may not be the possible mate for the girl he comes quickly but believeably to care for. As played by Lillard's acting equal in every way, Norah Zehetner (above), the pair meet sweet (but not cute) and begin an odd relationship that seems just possible -- thanks to these two actors' ability to connect and get some quirky chemistry going despite some misgivings on both their own and our part. Ms Zehetner is so adorable-without-pushing-it that, were there any justice, she would be this country's Audrey Tatou.

Based on a story by Doremus, Jonathan Schwartz and Lindsay Stidham (with the screenplay by Ms Stidham), the dialog is efficient and sometimes quite good -- between the two leads, between Spooner and his parents (very well played by Christopher McDonald, below, right, and Kate Burton, below, left), and between Spooner and his boss (a nasty used-car maven brought to skeevey life by Shea Whigham, above).

Occasionally, the director gives us a lovely visual composition (as below), but generally Doremus' direction is as un-pushy as the script calls for, leaving things clear for his capable cast to do its job.

 Which they do. And nobody -- not screenwriter, director, or actors -- take anything a step farther than it needs to go.  You worry that someone will, but no: the finale is as lovely and real as all the rest, and you finish this short, sweet film on a cloud of good will.

Spooner, from Maya Entertainment (running time 83 minutes), made its DVD debut this past week and is available for sale or rental via the usual suspects.