VOD/digital premiere for Milena Lurie's debut film, ENTANGLED

Early on in ENTANGLED, a film written and directed by newcomer Milena Lurie, our heroine/ narrator informs us that she used to be full but wanted to be empty, but now she is empty and wants to be full. Or maybe it was vice versa. Later she tells of a similar kind of situation in which she may be dreaming while awake, or awake while dreaming. By the point at which she informs us that, sometimes, she just wants to scream, you may be inclined to answer, "Honey, I know just how you feel."

Although it is being distributed via Samuel Goldwyn Films, Entangled has all the hallmarks of a vanity production -- Ms Lurie is writer, director and producer -- and I suspect from everything about this film that Lurie must be awfully young and untutored because she is telling us stuff we've seen and heard so many times before (told and shown much better) that she finally bores us silly.

For whatever reason, she has made her heroine a French ex-pat living in New York City (played by Ana Girardot, shown above, bathing) with an accent thick enough for us to need subtitles when she is speaking English). Ms Girardot is a good actress but she is lost here in the thicket of dreadful dialog she must intone.

The men in her life are played by Peter Mark Kendall (her current beau), Jonathan Cake (above, right: a pick-up at a local bar) and Grégory Fitoussi (below, right: her ex, who flies over from Paris for a one-night-stand). They all mutter dialog seemingly out of the discards of a class in Screenwriting 101. Oh, sure, miscarriage and abortions figure into things, but even they manage to seem about as shallow as all else. When miscarriage and abortion prove equal in importance to fashion, food and gossip, that, I suppose, is a very weird accomplishment.

I do hate dumping upon new filmmakers, but Ms Lurie should wait until she has something remotely worth saying that has not been said countless time previously before making another movie. It has been a long while since I felt that my time spent had been this wasted. Running 93 minutes, Entangled hit VOD and home video earlier this month. Your move....

VOD/DVDebut for traumatized adolescent numbskulls in Amanda Kramer's LADYWORLD

Whew! Characters, situation, scenario, dialog, behavior and movies in general do not come much dumber than LADYWORLD, a film co-written (with Benjamin Shearn) and directed by Amanda Kramer that hit theaters earlier this month and is now available on VOD/DVD.

The pre-visual opening -- in which we hear the sounds of what might be the apocalypse or perhaps just a large, out-of-control land-mover -- is by far the best thing about the movie, after which we see the apparent results of this "event," which strands a group of girls who seem not to know each other yet one of whose birthday they are soon celebrating (as below). Ah, kids!

If you are at all familiar with the blog of TrustMovies, you'll know that he does not generally direct his ire at fledgling filmmakers, and he is trying his best not to do so here. But this is a losing battle, having just sat through what seems like the worst film he has seen in his adult life so far. It does not work on any level -- realistic, symbolic, as fable, prediction, warning, nor even, god help us, as camp.

As conceived by Ms Kramer, shown at right, these girls make almost no intelligent effort to get out of the house in which they're suddenly trapped. Even if we decide that the film is not meant to be taken realistically, then why do they seem to care so much but do so little? Except, of course, scream and yell and act in an utterly insufferable manner -- even for teens (who, as is often the case, look a decade older that they ought).

I cannot recall a movie with worse dialog. It's almost as though Kramer and Shearn are deliberately trying to set our teeth on edge, while giving their characters ever more reason to be "dramatic." There is enough screaming, yelling and stupidity here to fill a dozen Dumb and Dumbers but only a single trace of humor. (Even of the unintentional sort: Yes, it's that bad.)

Normally I'd point out a movie's cast members, but I don't want to inflict any more damage. Maybe I'm just a typical man who can't or won't appreciate what women must go through in this world, though I do wonder how many women would get behind something this wrong-headed? Comparison has been made with this film and a certain classic entitled Lord of the Flies. Well, OK. But then please refer to this one as Lord of the Gnats.

To its credit, the film does have one moment of humor, as either the filmmaker or her cinematographer (Patrick Meade Jones) captures a parody of da Vinci's The Last Supper. From MVD Entertainment Group and running 94 minutes, Ladyworld hit the street on DVD and digital yesterday, August 27 -- for purchase and (maybe) rental.