BABY STEPS indeed: Barney Cheng's GLBT embarrassment opens on VOD and digital

It has been a long while since TrustMovies has encountered a film, the heart and mind of which is trying so hard to be in the "right place," even as every step it takes becomes utterly cringe-inducing. Manipulative, manufactured, and messy as all get-out, BABY STEPS is about the "making" of a much-wanted (for apparently all the wrong reasons) baby desired by only one-half of a gay couple. As written, directed and starring a fellow named Barney Cheng, the movie takes the term "vanity production" to new heights (or in this case, lows).

Mr. Cheng, shown above, below and at left (it was very difficult to find a publicity still that did not include him), plays Danny, a Taiwanese man who's gay but sort of halfway closeted (his mom knows but they don't talk about this). Mom is played by an actress, Grace Guei, below, said to be the "Asian Meryl Streep." Not to worry, Meryl; you'll find little competition here, at least as provided by this particularly graceless Cheng/Guei combo. Not only does every scene clunk tiresomely along, each successive one seems less believable.

The comedy is mostly obvious and mirthless (unless you are an absolute newcomer to films), and the drama seems overwrought and often plain silly. Every cliche known to man (and movies) is dragged out here, as we get the fertility clinic scene, the search for a surrogate, the hot gay twosome, the nasty and overbearing mother, the overweight black best friend, and, oh, so much more.

We were ready to cry uncle a half-hour in, but the reviewing obligation overrode all else, so we stuck it out, through one thudding misfire after another. Even when something that initially seems more unusual occurs (such as the sudden ban on surrogates in Taiwan and then India), the manner in which these are handled appears almost nonsensical at times. Character reversals, too, cloud the movie's credibility -- first, by the lover who does not want the baby, and finally that of bad mom herself.

There is actually one single bright spot in the film, coming via the performance of an actress named Love Fang in the role of Mickey, the caretaker of the nasty mom. Ms Fang is so real and dear, so genuine and troubled by what her character is asked to do, that suddenly but all too briefly, she lends the film a much-needed dose of truth. (Of course, I could not find a single photo of her among all the many publicity stills from the movie, almost all of which feature Mr. Cheng.)

Content- and theme-wise, Baby Steps has just about everything it needs to be a crowd-pleasing GLBT hit. And yet the way in which Cheng mashes it all together proves so ham-fisted that just about nothing here works as well as it should or, in other hands, very well could.

On the shelf for two years, the movie is at last getting a release -- via Gravitas Ventures -- on VOD & digital, beginning this Tuesday, August 15.

The lowest-common-denominator genre lives! Ian Edelman's PUERTO RICANS IN PARIS

Looking for a movie in which almost everything you can predict -- so long as it is obvious and over-used -- comes to fruition? Well then, PUERTO RICANS IN PARIS should be your cup of Caribbean coffee. Funny only in the manner of the most been-there-done-that jokes, and using perhaps every Puerto Rican cliche known to man in exactly the way you'd expect, this new film does no favors for anyone involved. It does have a good (if wasted) cast, so it might hold your attention in that way for a time. But it might have difficulty enticing an audience with even a slightly sophisticated bone in its collective body.

As co-written (with Neel Shah) and directed by Ian Edelman (shown left), the film's premise is promising: a team of NYC detectives infiltrate the Canal Street grey market in fashion accessories and make an arrest. Suddenly they're asked to head for Paris to find out who stole the prototype of a hot new handbag. Yet even in that scene in which the folk from Paris meet and ask the NY detectives for help, the film begins to plod and appear awfully amateur. Scene after scene just sits there, waiting for a some kind of goose that clever writing, directorial style and better acting chops might provide. But this never occurs.

All this seems odd because, from the cast that has been assembled here, we know these performers to be solid and professional. TrustMovies has enjoyed Luis Guzmán (above, center) in supporting role after supporting role for decades now.

Here, as one of the film's two leads, he proves consistently obvious and annoying. So our sympathy goes to his co-star Edgar Garcia (above, whose laid-back quality provides the film's major pleasure. While being laid-back does give us a necessary respite, this is not quite enough to make the movie worthwhile.

Grossly underused on the distaff half of the American cast are a tamped-down Rosie Perez (above, as Garcia's wife) and Rosario Dawson (below, as Guzmán's current squeeze).

The French side of the equation hardly fares better, as actors we've seen and enjoyed previously -- Alice Taglioni (below), for instance -- are here asked to behave mostly like idiots at half-mast.

The film is full of would-be suspects -- supposedly venal co-workers and an uber-gay cliche (below, center) -- yet the handling of this is so absurd and silly that we never really care whodunit.

From FocusWorld and running 82 minutes, Puerto Ricans in Paris is said to be opening theatrically (if you can find a theater anywhere in the continental USA, you're doing better than I) and via VOD and Digital HD this Friday, June 10. Your move.

Florian Steinbiss' NEANDER-JIN, a popular "minor festival" winner, gets its NYC debut

Billed as a screwball comedy, this 2011 German movie spoken mostly in English -- NEANDER JIN: THE RETURN OF THE NEAN-DERTHAL MAN, from first-time filmmaker Florian Steinbiss -- will take some getting used to. If you don't leave within minutes (or hit the eject button, should you be viewing it on DVD) due to a screenplay and direction so over-the-top that a "camp" experience seems just a step away, you may actually last the movie out. Despite its amateur quality in nearly every way, it does provide a few good laughs and even some satire, simple-minded though it be.

I am not sure why Herr Steinbiss (shown at left) -- who has directed, co-written and co-produced, as well as performed one of the supporting roles -- decided to make this odd concoction. (Perhaps to explore today's female's supposed need for a "real" man?) Whatever the reason, he has succeeded mostly in turning out a barely watchable movie in which everything goes too far yet never far enough, and in which the humor is, well, grade-school -- with some sexual references tossed in to bring it up to high-school level.

Within these parameters, there is some fun to be had -- from a few of the performers to the occasional visual trick up Steinbiss' sleeve: a sudden change to silent-movie mode, a little posterization, and a few other very minor special effects. The story -- a Neanderthal (gamely played by Jon Chardiet, below right and at bottom) back in the day manages to place together into a certain pattern a few stones, which magically transport him to the future, where he gets involved with a lovesick female (Sarah Muehlhause, below left) a shyster producer, a full-of-himself anthropologist, and a nosy neighbor and her little doggie (Rosalind Ayres, above).

Minor comedy ensures (the classic "screwball" variety, I'm afraid, is mostly in the mind of the filmmaker), along with over-the-top acting and some tired and obvious situations. The most sustained comic performance comes from veteran actor Rick Zieff, below, as a maintenance worker who first sights the Neanderthal when no one else is around and pays for it dearly.

The most over-the-top performer is Milton Welsh, below, playing the scam artist. Mr Welsh gets to do everything from hi-tailing it on the lam to dressing up in drag, and he is clearly having the time of his, if not our, life.

With hardly a bit of memorable dialog to quote or clever scenes to recall, this is still one of those very odd movies that, by their very awfulness, rather compels you to keep watching. It never quite -- more's the pity -- falls over into outright and unintentional camp, so a little "dumb fun" is about the most you can expect.

Neander Jin: The Return of.... opens this Friday, July 26, at Manhattan's Quad Cinema and will eventually, perhaps even sooner, arrive on DVD.

CARNAGE: Roman Polanski's version of Yasmina Reza's theater piece opens

Do you recall Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski's light touch where comedy is concerned? Nor do I.
I do have a soft spot in my heart for the utter misfire that was The Fearless Vampire Killers (something that bad needs to be put out of its misery, fast), and I never saw Que? (or What? or, as Roger Ebert's review calls that film, Diary of Forbidden Dreams) but I have long heard it was a massive stinker. So, no -- don't let this guy near comedy, please.
Mr. Polanski tends toward the dark, and over the years he has done quite well for himself (and us) by cleaving to it. Not surprisingly, he has made a rather dark concoction out of something that TrustMovies had been told (and audiences evidently thought) was a comedy: Yasmina Reza's hit play The God of Carnage. Polanski's shortened version, running just 80 minutes (and still too long), is called simply CARNAGE. And indeed it makes mild carnage out of its progenitor.

Opening out into the cool, crisp air of a park, the filmmaker (shown at left) begins and ends with the kids who create the problem that brings our four top-notch but quite miscast actors together. For the remainder of the film, just as I am told happened in the play, we're stuck in a New York apartment with four characters of whom (in the movie version, at least) we quickly tire. Which bring us to the abject misfire of the casting. With the exception of John C. Reilly, this quartet could hardly have been more poorly conceived. They possess "big names," yes, but didn't someone mention to anyone else connected with this fiasco that three of the four are not given to comedy? There is hardly a genuine laugh to be had in the entire movie. What mild humor there is comes from the heavy-handed irony, present from the outset, in which our little troupe tries to act like civilized people while utterly hating each other (and themselves). We quickly "get" it. Then we are asked to keep "getting it" for the rest of the film.

Worse, the movie is obviously a "set-up" -- a manufactured thing with little of the organic about it. Several times the visiting couple appears to be leaving (as well it should). And yet the two stick around on the faintest, silliest of pretexts. Noel Coward might have made us believe this through some witty dialog, but that certainly doesn't happen here. So we just shrug and say, OK: Feed me this obvious drivel, and let's get on with it.

As to that cast, instead of the theatrical (and comedic) heavy-hitters who appeared on Broadway, we get Jodie Foster in place of Marcia Gay Harden, Christoph Waltz going on for Jeff Daniels, Kate Winslet rather than Hope Davis, and John C. Reilly in place of James Gandolfini.  Having not seen the Broadway version, I can't stake my life on the fact that its actors did a better job with the material, but -- really -- simply compare (yes, I know, that's odious) and you can spot a lot of reasons why the theatrical troupe would be better. First of all, we know how truly funny, each in his/her various way, Harden, Daniels, Davis and Gandolfini can be. But we would hardly say the same about Winslet, Waltz and especially Foster. Put these generally heavyweight, serious actors under someone like Polanski, whose sense of comedy, not to mention irony, is heavy-handed, and that explains much of what we see. (Only Mr. Reilly is a genuine comic actor, with probably a broader range than we yet know, and while Mr. Waltz may have done some comedy in his native Austria, we haven't seen it over here.)

Ms. Foster, above, whose dramatic acting skills are often memorable, is so out of place here that when she tries to smile and loosen up a bit, the rictus grin looks like an homage to Mr. Sardonicus. Real comic actors are supremely comfortable, even as they are convincing us how uncomfortable they are. Foster appears genuinely uncomfortable throughout, and that's no fun for anyone. Even her most dramatic moments register as false, but that may be because they are supposed to register as funny.

Ms Winslet, above, fares better, perhaps because she understands how to relax within her confines.  Ultimately, she, too, can't tap much humor out of this tired and obvious situation, but at least she's not difficult to watch.

Mr Waltz, above, with an accent that comes and goes, from Austrian to mid-Atlantic to sort-of-American, is the character that puts us in closest touch with the god of carnage, as he calls it. His near-constant and inappropriate (given the situation) cell-phone usage grows more and more annoying without  -- once again -- growing any more amusing.

Only Mr. Reilly,above, manages the comfort level necessary to perform his paces. He's very good, as usual, but by having little to play off, given the other three non-comic actors, his is a performance in a kind of vacuum.

The major misfire of the season (if not the entire year) -- an awards contender? Oh, please -- Carnage, from Sony Pictures Classics, opens tomorrow, Friday, December 16, in New York City at the Angelika Film Center, Cinemas 1 2 3, and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. In Los Angeles, see it at the Arclight or The Landmark. In the following days and weeks, it will open across the country; click here to view all currently scheduled playdates.