Adam Pally plays a loser-times-ten in Dan Gregor and Doug Mand's comedy/mystery, MOST LIKELY TO MURDER

How bracing is it to see a American independent movie in which the hero is a loser par excellence, a guy who possesses -- from what we can tell early on and for most of this alternately funny, bizarre and occasionally a little too been-there/done-that film -- almost nothing at all to recommend him.

The fact that lead actor Adam Pally mostly pulls this off is commendation enough to try this movie, which also feature good performances from Vincent Kartheiser and Rachel Bloom (a bit wasted here, but certainly out of her Crazy Ex-Girlfriend mode and into relative normalcy).

MOST LIKELY TO MURDER is a family film -- at least, in the sense that it's all about family life, at its oddest, if not worst. It's our "hero," Billy, and his visit to his own family, even as he connects to the families  of his best friend and his not-so-good-friend across the street, that sets off the movie's ridiculous but amusing and very oddball plot, in which a murder appears to have been committed, which, of course, must be investigated and solved.

The director and co-writer (with Doug Mand, shown above, foreground), Dan Gregor (shown above in the background) does a fine job of plopping us immediately into the awful Las Vegas life of Billy, who is clearly an asshole on the job and off. When he gets home, in the very next scene, he becomes even more of one. Billy is one of those high school smart-asses who was popular in the day but never managed to grow up. Mr. Pally (below, left) makes him so obnoxious that he nearly hypnotizes us: How much worse can he get? we wonder in amazement. You have no idea.

Ms Bloom (above, center), as Billy's very ex girlfriend, provides some necessary ballast to Pally's antics, and Mr. Kartheiser (above, right), as the closest thing to a villain that the movie provides, offers up his usual obnoxious manner, here tempered with both creepiness and just a little sadness regarding how badly used by Billy this poor kid was in high school.

TrustMovies doesn't want to oversell this piece of low-end Americana. It's fun but not great. Yet considering how few comedy/mysteries arrive on screen these days, together with how many actual laughs the movie does provoke, you could do a lot worse. And when, at last, a kind of redemption arrives for our hero, it is, for a change, both justified and oddly original.

From Lionsgate's STUDIO L and running 97 minutes, the movies arrives today, May 1, on DVD, digital and VOD -- for purchase and/or rental.

Nicolas Pesce's THE EYES OF MY MOTHER: horror often viewed at a discreet distance

Beginning with a scene on a country road in which the driver of a truck sees something untoward just ahead of him, and then taking us into the lives of one of the strangest families to be found on film, this new pristine, black-and-white movie makes Norman Bates look like a piker and shows up the Austrian oddity, Goodnight Mommy, as the artsy piece of schlock it is. THE EYES OF MY MOTHER will not be to everyone's taste (not even to all horror aficionados) but it ought to quickly take its place in the annals of quietly creepy, one-of-a-kind movies.

Its writer/director, Nicolas Pesce (shown at left), spares us much of the gore quotient possible here but none of the ghastly realizations of exactly what has been, is now, or soon will be going on. Believe me, these are lulus. And because they are often seen at a discreet distance, with music that quietly foments rather than knocks our eardrums silly, the result is often as breathtaking as it is horrifying. This is a film, no matter how "good" it may be, that you will not want to recommend to those who have trouble with the transgressive.

Eyes, surgery, cattle, obsession and a whole lot more make themselves felt in ways major and minor throughout the film, along with the bizarre behavior of not just the three principals in the family -- dad, mom and little girl -- but in the smiling interloper who sets into play the awful plot and then pays for it, bigtime, in a manner that may put you in mind of The Secret in Their Eyes.

You do not need plot details for a movie like this. Best, I think, if you're a horror fan, to simply approach it as tabula rasa as possible. The little girl (above) grows up into a young woman (below) who proves both one of the great horror villains and a characters who, given her fraught history, remains somehow vulnerable and (almost) sympathetic.

The cinematography (Zach Kuperstein) is stunning throughout, and the performances of every cast member on the nose. The logic of the film may leave something to be desired, but because The Eyes of My Mother has the strong, dark feel of a waking nightmare, you will probably forgive this (or not even notice) -- so simple yet propulsive is this relatively short (only 76 minutes) tale.

The behavior of our "leading lady -- the unusual but very fine Kika Magalhaes --  is so keyed to need, parenting (that's dad, being bathed, above), and socialization (the latter achieved, it would seem, via old movies, mostly noir, seen on TV) that whatever happens here seems somehow less over-the-top than the manner in which our "heroine" has most likely been raised.

From Magnolia's Magnet division, in mostly English and a little Portuguese with English subtitles, the movie opened this past weekend, December 2, in five cities and will hit another 14 this coming Friday, December 9, and even more over the weeks to come. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. Simultaneously, The Eyes of My Mother is available via VOD, Amazon Video and iTunes.

With MOEBIUS and its family that practices penectomy, Kim Ki-duk goes uber-transgressive

Penectomy? That's the official term for penis removal. (And, yes, I had to search Google to find out if there was even a word for this.) Now: What filmmaker can you quickly think of who might deal in a subject like this? That's right: South Korea's bad-boy movie-maker, Kim Ki-duk. If you guessed Japan's Sion Sono, who has a new film opening next week, you get at least partial credit. Both filmmakers are transgressive, but it seems to me that in Sono's work, the transgression always fills a deeper perspective, while Kim more often uses the transgressive for its own sake, which can sometimes makes his movies seem to exist only as a means to further push that envelope.

So it is with MOEBIUS, the latest Kim endeavor (the filmmaker is shown at right), in which a straying husband makes his wife so frustrated, jealous and angry that she tries to cut off her hubby's dick  He, of course, is having none of this and so knocks her flat. She then wanders into the room of their teen-age son (who of course just happens to be masturbating, having recently seen his father copulating with his mistress in the family car). Mom's anger rises all over again, and -- whack! -- sonny boy is missing something vital, while bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig.

Yes. I know. This WTF moment is just one of many more to come in a WTF film in which Mr. Kim goes over the top and simply stays there until we're laughing ourselves silly (or gagging on some of the grotesqueries). Still, one has to admire Kim's style. He grabs you and doesn't let go, and in this particular movie, he adds something new. (For him at least. I remember a similar stunt being pulled off in The Thief, a 1952 film I saw and was impressed with as an eleven-year-old kid.)

I am not going to tell you what this special addition -- or actually, a subtraction -- is, because after around 20 minutes, it suddenly hit me what was going on here, and I mentioned it aloud to my spouse, who had not yet noticed its absence. This is due absolutely to Kim's abilities as a filmmaker. So assured is this guy that he can hold you for the entire 89 minutes and not have you object to the missing thing at all.

His cast is also very game, and he gets indelible performances from each of them. As the randy dad, Jo Jae-hyeon (above) proves the picture of infidelity morphing into guilt, while Seo Young-ju as the son (two photos below, and at bottom left), offers plenteous evidence that nuttiness is probably genetic as much as learned. And, as the crazed wife, Lee Eun-woo (below) is, well, memorably bonkers and such a grand rendition of the mother-from-hell that even Joan Crawford might be impressed.

After the initial snipping and bleeding, there comes more. Much more. And then dad's girlfriend gets involved with the family son, and we -- and the male family members -- learn all about new ways to achieve orgasm sans penis but with pain. When mom at last returns to the fold, we're ready for just about anything. And that's what we get.

However, all this does not make Moebius a very good movie. It may be impressive in what it accomplishes transgression-wise, but it is finally a rather empty exercise in hugely deviant behavior that does not edify in any way. (Sion's films somehow manage to do this, but it would take a better critic than I to explain exactly why. With Sion, the transgression is part of a bigger picture; for Kim it's the be-all-and-end-all.)

Kim exults in the deviancy and splatter, the horror and pain, and while he manages to take us places we've never been (with people we're not very likely to meet or know), in the end he just goes a bit more over the top. If that's all you want, look no further. (His most recent narrative film prior to this one, Pieta, while transgressive and shocking, had a lot more to offer.)

Moebius, from RAM Releasing, enjoyed a very brief theatrical run in three cities back in August. It becomes available on DVD this Tuesday, October 28, and if history be any guide, it will probably be streaming via Netflix, soon or eventually.

WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD: What's this? That rare, straight film from Gregg Araki...?

OK: Gregg Araki has made some more-or-less straight movies (remember Smiley Face?) prior to his latest work, the jokingly/descriptively titled WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD. But his sensibility has always seemed to me to be both gay and transgressive -- but funny and loony enough to keep most of his movies enjoyable and light, even when their subject was ostensibly dark. Except for Mysterious Skin, perhaps his best, which was strange, dark and haunting. Bird/Blizzard, however, seems at first glance and onwards to be especially concerned with straight family life.

This family, however, turns out to be  -- surprise! -- pretty transgressive in its own odd ways, and Mr. Araki (shown at left), as director and adapter (of the novel by Laura Kasischke), is here once again to capture it all for our delectation. Basically a bizarre coming-of-age tale, in which our heroine, Kat (played by Shailene Woodley, below, right, in her first let's-be-adult-and-get-nude! role, which she handles with the expected aplomb, charm and rather plenteous sex appeal), tells us all about her very strange mother (an even more transgressive Eva Green, three photos below), a beautiful-if-bizarre woman who has recently disappeared.

How and why mom has vanished is left open to all kinds of interpretations, most of which seem to fit, as Kat investigates one possibility after another, with the help (or not) of her boyfriend (that sexy young actor, Shiloh Fernandez, below, right, and bottom, left), her dad (that sexy older actor Christopher Meloni, at right, three photos below); the police detective on the case (uber-sexy Thomas Jane, at left, above) and her school chums (the not particularly sexy but plenty bouncy Gabourey Sidibe and Mark Indelicato).

Araki's movie is neither very suspenseful nor exciting, as you might expect a film about a woman's disappearance to be, nor is it exactly believable, in the realistic manner that movies about teenagers are expected to be. And yet it is almost always engaging and interesting, thanks to Araki' ability to keep us off base, while offering up a nice range of bizarre and transgressive behavior from every character on view.

Mr. Jane's detective is particularly off-kilter; Meloni's character -- initially appearing a sweetheart of a dad -- grows darker and odder; the gorgeous Ms Green's mom, a nutcase from first scene, simply continues along that path; while Fernandez, after initially seeming such hot and prime boyfriend material, full of energy, then grows weirder and quieter with each subsequent appearance.

It's up to Ms Woodley, then to hold the film together. Which she does -- whether she's exploring new sexual avenues or having that "white" dream that gives the film its title (below). Bird/Blizzard is both a coming-of-age movie and one in which the lead character discovers that life is actually chock-a-block with unexpected weirdness. Ms Woodley handles the first like the pro she already is, but adds her own oddly distant and somewhat withholding personality for the second -- to excellent effect.

The whole movie eventually begins to seem something of a dream (if not a nightmare), and at the finale -- in which revelations pile up in large number and at quite a speed -- Mr. Araki saves his very best for the last. This is one darkly witty "family" movie indeed.

White Bird in a Blizzard, from Magnolia Pictures and running 91 minutes, opens this Friday, October 24, in seven cities throughout the USA and Canada. In New York City, it plays the Landmark Sunshine, and in L.A. at the Landmark NuArt. The following week, on October 31, it will open in another fifteen cities. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters.