Amazon Prime must-watch: Victor Levin's smart and hilarious DESTINATION WEDDING

What a treat it is to see two notable, long-time actors like Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder rip into dialog that's smart, sophisticated and most of all bracingly negative -- about everything -- and keep you smiling, chuckling and outright guffawing for an entire 90 minutes. How the succulent-if-nasty delights of DESTINATION WEDDING managed to elude so many of our supposed cultural guardians (only 42% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes,  though 63% of audiences liked it) surprises me, all right, but don't allow these goodies to bypass you. Grab this unusual movie while it streams via Amazon Prime, and let the luscious, hilarious mega-negativity wash over you. Really: You will not have heard dialog like this for, ummmm, quite some time. If ever.

The product of writer/director Victor Levin who, back in 2015, gave us the wonderfully smart, sophisticated, funny and moving love story, 5 to 7 (which remains among my favorites of all time), the movie and Mr. Levin (shown at left) have gone out on a limb and taken some really surprising chances.

First of all, the film is a two-hander. Oh, we see a bunch of other characters, but we never hear a word they say. Instead, all of the lip-smacking bile that constitutes the dialog here emanates only from the mouths of Frank (Mr. Reeves, below, left) and Lindsay (Ms Ryder, below, right), as they meet and almost immediately take a total dislike to each other.

How this comes about (in a tiny airport waiting area below) and continues through the rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself and even the after-party serve up a nonstop disgorging of some of the funniest and angriest logorrhea imaginable. But it is not simply unpleasant. These two people are smart, educated and very well-spoken, hence their ravings are usually as witty and on-point as they are angry and rude.

And, yes, it is clear before very long that the two are also hurt and frightened children who are of course destined for each other.  But the getting to that destination -- oh, my: the double meaning of the movie's title has only just occurred to me now -- is what provides all the fun.

That dialog also gives us some history and reams of exposition (as the two get to know each other, nastily) as well as a slow, bit-by-bit puncturing of some very well-armed defense systems. What a joy it is to see Ryder and especially Reeves tackling dialog this good and making the very most of it. Each actor also sees to it that his and her character's humanity never goes missing, no matter how bilious and accusatory are their rants.

Writer/director Levin is also wise enough not to allow sentimentality to mar things, even as our couple begins to grow bizarrely closer. Whether via surprise encounter with a wild animal or a hilarious fuck scene in which the dialog never stops, right through to the only somewhat hopeful finale, our protagonists keeping sparring and warring.

The arid, vast Paso Robles/San Luis Obispo California scenery (above) is enjoyable to see, and so are the nods/digs at all those things -- typical and atypical -- that make weddings such crazy, ridiculous fun. By the end of this oddball journey, if Reeves and Ryder and their unusual characters have not proven pretty close to indelible, I shall be very surprised.

Released in theaters last month via Regatta, the movie is now streaming on Amazon (and maybe elsewhere). Don't let this one get by you.

Role-playing, autonomy and owning-up in Nick Corporon's smart gay love story, RETAKE

As TrustMovies has pointed out on this blog (more than once, as he recalls), there are only two rules necessary for forging a workable love relationship: both parties involved must be autonomous and they must want that relationship. This theory is offered up once again via a very good new gay quasi-love story called RETAKE, in which an older-but-still-plenty-hunky man engages a male prostitute to play the role of the now-deceased love-of-his-life. Yes, this situation is fraught, all right, with one question immediately rearing its little head: How autonomous can these two characters really be?

The slowly unfurling answer, provided by director and co-writer, Nick Corporon (shown at left), moves back and forth with increasing equality and agility between the two men, the older (played by Tuc Watkins, shown above and below left), a wealthy and successful entrepreneur whose obsession makes him oddly vulnerable, and the younger (Devon Graye, shown above and below, right), who slowly and with surprisingly believability makes us realize that, yes, a whore can take charge of his life in certain important ways.

Retake also plays some very interesting variations on the idea of role-playing, specifically how easily and enjoyably we might take on the role we're given, run with it, and prove all too adept at the playing of it. What's the difference, after all, between doing a really good job of acting -- feeling, thinking, experiencing your character -- and simply being that person? We, and at least one of our two protagonists, will soon find out.

The movie is basically what Hollywood calls a two-hander, as just about everything revolves around our duo, with very few other characters tossed briefly into the mix. This proves just fine, as both Watkins and Graye handle their roles with enough skill and charisma to keep us hooked. There are various sex scenes throughout, though no full-frontal, but the film is more interested in need and intention than in merely turning us on. (Though it manages the latter by virtue of its two lead actors.)

As with the role-playing, the movie makes us think and feel and put ourselves into each of these men's situations surprisingly well. And the film's ending is nice surprise, too: thoughtful and caring without being sticky or sentimental. In short, Retake proves a very involving and enjoyable way to begin the new year.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running 98 minutes, the movie hits VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, January 3, opens theatrically in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal) on Friday, January 6, and arrives on DVD and Internet VOD on Tuesday, January 10.

10.000 KM: Carlos Marques-Marcet's long-distance love story is hot, cool -- and real

Anyone who's ever been in, is now, or plans to undertake a long-distance love relationship will prove a shoo-in for viewing 10.000 KM, the new film from Spanish writer/director Carlos Marques-Marcet, his first full-length work. By turns sweet, funny, angry, sad (and a lot more in between), the movie should grab you from its opening shot -- of a couple cumming -- in which, while the sex is plenty hot and intimate, the talk that accompanies it proves even more so. These two lovebirds are fascinating to watch at work and at play.

Has Senor Marques-Marcet himself (the director is shown at right) been in this kind of relationship? Whether yes or no, the guy has captured the essence of it all, in particular the manner in which modern  technology allows us to appear to be "keeping in touch" while actually drifting farther apart and feeling additionally frustrated because we would seem to be so "close."  The director gives equal play to both his young man and young woman, doling out the good and not-so-good character-istics pretty equally and always deftly.

As the relationship grows (and maybe unravels), we peer into the themes of work and career vs relationship intimacy, as well as into male vs female needs and behavior. Humor and sadness bubble up in unlikely places -- trying to prepare a cooking recipe via Skype, dancing together while holding their laptops aloft -- and so do anger and hurt. As for sex, well, 10.000 KM proves rather definitively that in-person beats the hell out of digital every time.

The movie is a two-hander, something very difficult to maintain, and in recent seasons only the one-hander, Locke, has done this sort of thing any better. This is thanks to Marques-Marcet's skill and to the two actors he has used so well and who deliver performances that are about as real as you could wish. Who is the stronger character is a question that is raised as we move along, and the answer may surprise and unsettle you a bit. The actors chosen by the filmmaker also prove spectacularly well cast -- as sexy and real as each is talented and versatile.

David Verdaguer (above, right) -- those deep, dark eyes and lean, lithe body! -- proves as gorgeous and pliable as you could wish. Clothed or nude, he is always at his best, and the journey his character makes, in terms of both physical distance and emotions, is one that this actor brings to thrilling life.

Natalia Tena (above) is equally good -- visually and emotionally -- as a woman who works hard to understand her various roles and make them coalesce. Her explanation of how and why her man loves her is one of the highlights of the film. While her character's great strength is clear, so is her abiding need for both his kindness and his cock.

My only complaint is that the filmmaker has chosen to divide his movie in sections based on the days apart the couple has spent -- beginning with Day 2 and ending, if I am not mistaken, with Day 201. In between, we get days 16, 33, 40, 51, 71, 91, 93, 101, 106, 128, 132, 135, 141, 142, 155, 160, 162 and 171. I'm all for specificity, but this is overkill. Also, should we begin parsing the actual time between days -- hey, that early period was two weeks, but this last one spans more than three! -- we'll miss important moments having to do with the behavior on view.

Otherwise, 10.000 KM proves a model independent movie: genuine, thoughtful, amusing, moving and disturbing. If you're a fan of love stories, this may be the best you'll get this year (after the enchanting, adult fairy tale 5 to 7, of course).

From Broadgreen Pictures and running 99 minutes, the movie opens today, Friday, July 10, in New York City at the IFC Center, in Los Angeles at the Sundance Sunset Cinemas -- and will expand to other theaters around the country beginning next week.  For those of you not near NYC and L.A.,  the film hits VOD simultaneous to its theatrical debut today. 

Chris Messina shines (again); Marin Ireland, too, in Matt Ross' smart stunt film, 28 HOTEL ROOMS

As good as this movie is (and it is often very), you also must admit to yourself that its concept remains something of a stunt. Seeing two people -- even actors as hot-damn good as Chris Messina and Marin Ireland -- playing characters whom we see only during their many trysts in hotel rooms all over this country (and who knows where else) is a clever idea that allows for a lot of fun and games but not the chance to see this man and woman in other ways that might complete them. (But then, that's perhaps the whole point: Their own sense of each other as rounded human beings must be quite incomplete.) In its way, 28 HOTEL ROOMS reminds you of Same Time Next Year with people who've decided, Hell, why wait for next year?  It also may bring to mind the French film An Affair of Love (Une liaison pornographique), with its needy but skewed liaison.

The writer/director (who's much better known as an actor), Matt Ross, does a commendable job of pulling us in via short, sharp scenes that feature all kinds of lovemaking and dialog that is never more expository that the real thing might be. This helps keep us glued to the characters and what they'll let slip. There's little sense, going in, that they will want this odd affair to continue, and yet, as it does, we know that it will -- and must. Before too long, and as they grow more comfortable and even a little... maybe... bored, whoa: They're beginning to act like an old married couple!

Well, why not? They are married (eventually): Just not to each other. We learn a little about their significant others but a lot more about their careers. He's a successful writer (he met her on the book tour for his first hit novel); she's some kind of corporate "accountant" who takes her job a lot more seriously than he takes it. (The scene during which their biggest fight occurs has to do with their "work" and its respective importance.)

In film like this one, so very much depends on the quality of the performers, and I don't think you could ask for a better pair. TrustMovies has previously called Mr. Messina (above) a kind of versatile "everyman." He's capable of so much, though he often ends up in good ensemble movies, in which he fits like one of the fingers in the proverbial glove. Not since Ira & Abby has he had a role this good, this demanding, or this well-written, and he is terrific in it. His is a brave performance, at full throttle inwardly and outwardly, too. (For a change, there's as much full-frontal male nudity here as female, and yes, Messina looks as good unclothed as clothed.)

Ms Ireland (above, in tight close-up) matches in bravery her co-star word for word, action for action. She's always an interesting actress, making choices that are sometimes unexpected but that most often work. Delicate but steely when required, she creates a memorably caring, confused, anguished and angry character.

The movie tackles the thorny question of how we can love more than one person fully and successfully -- and what happens when we try. If I called the film a kind of stunt in my opening paragraph, it is one that is done so well that I don't think you'll mind. In the filmmaker's choice of what and what not to show us (as above), these odd and circumscribed lives open up slowly and sadly, with but an occasional flash of humor. And just about the time we're beginning to grow restive and thus realize that -- pace Mr Beckett -- This can't go on. This will go on, suddenly, quietly, the movie ends.

28 Hotel Rooms -- from Oscilloscope and running just 82 minutes -- is available to stream via Netflix and can also be seen via Amazon Instant Video and on DVD.