Dreams, desires, naughty taboos: Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson's THE FORBIDDEN ROOM

Who else but Guy Maddin would hand us a Jesus quote to begin his film then follow this with enough degradation, deprivation and bizarre behavior to send a fundamentalist crazy. And crazy is the operative word for Mr. Maddin's latest lulu, THE FORBIDDEN ROOM, which, beginning with the opening credits -- that use the title backgrounds of several different, old-fashioned movie genres to introduce each new set of names -- proves as funny, fun, probing and as Maddining (to add a much-needed word to your movie lexicon) as his work always is.

Except that this time (the filmmaker is pictured at left), he's aglow with two-strip Technicolor, rather than his ususal black-and-white, and he seems to have abdicated altogether any hint of central theme or story and instead, Scheherazade-like, spun out tale after tale after tale until they seem to wrap around and turn in and on each other like wily, sometime deadly serpents.

This may be the movie-meister's funniest and most appealing work to date. It certainly boasts his starriest cast -- from

Canada's Roy Dupuis (below) to England's Charlotte Rampling to France's Mathieu Amalric and many more. Maddin has also, this time 'round, taken on a co-director, Evan Johnson (shown at right: the pair co-wrote, as well, along with a few others), who appears to have been responsible for the special effects, which are pretty much non-stop, though nothing like what Hollywood consistently gives us. There is not one car chase nor explosion to be seen, though a valcano -- the movie, in its use of silent-film titles and old-fashioned writen narration, uses intentional misspelling now and again -- does errupt a couple of times.

Subjects along the way include everything from bathing and bottoms to lobotomies and flapjacks, and we meet everyone from mad doctors (of course, just about everyone else is nutty, too) to doppelgangers and Janus-like Jekyll & Hydes.

There's the quest, 'natch, this time to save a beautiful young woman from... well, a number of differing fates worse than death, a mustache (worn first by Udo Kier, below) that manages to span three generations, and perhaps the most unusual kind of vampire you will have ever encountered.

There is a lot of fun to be had (my favorites include the aviatrix/lawyer and what particular objects are sacrificed to that valcano) and, as always with Maddin, there is the sensation that we are in the middle of this guy's own special and really bizarre dreams -- sexually, psychologically, emo-tionally and especially family-wise. The filmmaker, like Hitchcock but in such a different manner, is a voyeur who makes willing voyeurs of us all.

How inventive and imaginative can Maddin be? Very. However, can the guy keep all this up for a full two hours and eleven minutes? (The movie is now said to be be two hours flat, but the screener I viewed proved a tad longer.) I think this will depend on just how Maddin-crazy you are. I didn't flag, although I thought the movie occasionally did -- before quickly bouncing back with some new/old oddity and delight.

The Forbidden Room (every one of Maddin's movies is full of the forbidden) is one long fever dream of nostalgia, silliness, buried (as well as overt) sexuality and film references. If you've never seen a Maddin movie, this one should be a fine starting point -- and perhaps ending point if you're not impressed. That's Jacques Nolot, below, who has a ratther meaty role in the festivities.)

From Kino Lorber (and, I expect, unrated), the film opens this Wednesday, October 7, at New York City's Film Forum, and then in the weeks to come in a number of other cities. Click here then scroll way down to see all currently scheduled playdates.

New treat from South Korea: Kim Seong-hun's clever, action-packed thriller, A HARD DAY

The continuing parade of Korean movies worth seeing hits a high-point of delight with the new actionful, alternately noirish and highly amusing thriller, A HARD DAY from writer/director Kim Seong-hun. All about the very difficult night, day and continuing span of time that our quite beleaguered hero, a police detective, is having -- the movie offers one thing after another going wildly wrong for this guy. When at last our hero cries, "Gimme a beak!" the phrase will seldom have sounded so plaintive -- nor funny.

This is because filmmaker Kim (shown at right) has found just about the perfect combination of tone and pace for this whirlwind of action, event, chase, and bizarrely unfurling plot that makes up the movie. Full of the kind of coincidence and convolution that keeps things cooking, the story gets better and bolder as it moves along. Coming in just under two hours (relatively short for a Korean film), Mr. Kim leaves his best stuff for the last, while ensuring that what precedes this is plenty good enough to keep us hooked.

His hero, played, with an increasing proclivity to appear unhinged. by a smart and unusually unassuming actor, Lee Sun-kyun (above), is most ably abetted by his co-star and nemesis, played by Cho Jin-woong (below). You could not ask for a better set of leading men than these two, whose crack performances compliment each other beautifully.

These two make up most of the movie all by themselves, with a good supporting cast of characters that includes wife, daughter and various police co-workers and bosses. But it's that delicious plot that hooks you and keeps you hanging on -- from the funeral scene, in which our hero's dead mom gets a bed-mate in her casket via a GI Joe toy, to foot and car chases filled with a rare combination of tension and delight.

Visually, the filmmaker does what he needs to but occasionally also tosses in a technically wondrous long shot to take our breath away. He also has fun with some Korean stereotypes: "Cops aren't gangsters!" notes our hero, with some anger. Really? Let's find out.

Mister Kim's movie is also full of little surprises and a lot of humor -- from a fortune teller's on-the-mark vision to the location of a missing key. And there's one scene in which you just know that a certain car is about to blow up, and the suspense keep building nicely. Then, hmmm... not quite.

The climax is a fine one -- except, there's more. And the rest is even better -- one of the most tactile, visceral, mano a mano combats yet seen, which is, at the same time, wonderfully clever and funny. If you don't yet know about the South Korean movie renaissance of the past decade or two, here's a good place to begin your education. If you're already a fan of this country's cinema, you'll be lining up for more.

A Hard Day -- from Kino Lorber, in Korean with English subtitles and running 112  minutes -- opens this Friday, July 17, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, with a limited national release to follow soon.

The Fran & Marty Show: Lebowitz and Scorsese score with the funny, literate documentary PUBLIC SPEAKING

If we can't read her, at least we can listen to her talk. "Her" being the notorious Fran Lebowitz, whom Martin Scorsese's camera captures doing (now that she doesn't write) what remains for her to do best: speaking, publicly. Hence the title of this funny, frisky, nasty new documentary.  Let the zingers fly.  Not that this is anything like an evening with Don Rickles. As is made clear from the film's first few minutes, as the lady sits chatting with (and being videotaped, as she is interviewed by) over-rated writer Toni Morrison, Lebowitz challenges us to see the difference between wit and mere humor (as she would have it, at least). The name of Oscar Wilde is also tossed about, not without apt comparison, in both authors' writing and visual appearance, TrustMovies thinks.

In PUBLIC SPEAKING, Scorsese (that's the happy he at left) gives us an 85-minute compilation of thought-provoking moments with this "writers'-blocked" speaker ("It's more like a blockade," says Lebowitz), who notes along the way that qualities such as niceness, kindness and their ilk have little place in real wit, or, in any case, the brand of it that she serves up.

So as not to ruin things for you (much, anyway), I'll refrain from quoting Lebowitz and let you have the fun of discovery. One of the things you may discover is how much like Wilde she is with epigrams that are indeed witty and clever but almost demand further discussion so as not to be taken as lightly and often foolishly as they sometimes come across. One example is her short "take" on the deaths from AIDS in the artistic/creative community during the early days of the plague (the 1980s), resulting, she says, in our current cadre of second- and third-rate art and criticism. What she says is almost breathtakingly shocking and, while probably not entirely correct, remains close enough for jazz. Her words bring up that old saw about so many in the creative community being homosexual -- and not just the artists but we who critique them. I suspect, should the movie be viewed in groups, by friends or in the workplace community, that much discussion, if not full-out arguments will ensue.

Fran no doubt will be happy about this, though just as pleased not to have been there to listen. She has little patience for fools, and ordinary intellects bore her. Her words -- about the very audiences who come to hear her and then engage in the Q&A that follows her talk -- are funny and not very nice. She's made a career out of being funny, not very nice but very bright and on-target, and Public Speaking should only enhance her reputation. Scorsese helps matters by keeping thing bouncing along, changing venues now and again, from her public appearances (below), to the one-on-one conversation for this film (at bottom), to the Grand Central Station clock (above), for which Ms Fran doubles as the VI).

Neither the director nor his "star" seems very interested in letting us get up-close and personal, though we do learn a little about her school days and later about her psychosomatic allergy to "gasoline," resulting in one of the funnier anecdotes that mixes supporting our troops with what Jesus would have done at the gas pump. Her true bête noire, however, is what has become of smoking in New York City, where smokers, she insists, are now stigmatized, just as the gay population used to be: a comparison that is, again, clever and a bit shocking but upon a little reflection simply does not compute.

Still, there is so much witty fun to be had here that fans won't want to miss it. Newbies to Lebowitz should get enough of a quick fix to perhaps seek out her earlier two books (Metropolitan Life and Social Studies) or attend her next public appearance.

Public Speaking, an HBO presentation, makes its debut tomorrow, November 22, on the famous cable channel and will continue showing off and on through the end of December. The film is also available via HBO On-Demand, starting Tuesday, 11/23, through Sunday, 12/19.  (And if you can wait long enough, it'll probably pop up on DVD.)