Netflix's latest: a James C. Strouse trifle titled THE INCREDIBLE JESSICA JAMES

Not terribly bad, but unfortunately not very good either, THE INCREDIBLE JESSICA JAMES, starring an either miscast or mis-directed Jessica Williams, makes its streaming debut via Netflix this Friday, July 28. As written and directed by James C. Strouse (shown below and who, as Jim Strouse, did a hell of a lot better with his earlier People Places Things), this thankfully short movie introduces us to a character who, in current rom-com fashion, is incredibly inappropriate.

Except when, conveniently, she isn't. This little matter of conveniences sticks out throughout the film like a sore thumb. You may notice it first as Jessica has a date with a new guy (Chris O'Dowd, as delightful and real as always) and suddenly decides to have a few "honest" moments. Great. But then we're back to the nonsense again. Our girl Jessica (below) is a control freak, and this is understandable when so many things in her life are going wrong -- from significant others to the workplace to her lifelong love of theater.

Nonetheless, the girl is, as they say, a handful, carrying her inappropriateness into every area of her life. At best she's mildly amusing; at worst, she's just annoying. -- never more so than at the family baby shower for her younger sister (below), at which her gift is both dumb and, yes, inappropriate.

The themes here include how to fit into things, what divorce does to children, hook-ups vs relationships, and commitment -- to everything from a man to the theater. Plenty of little life lessons are learned along the way, all worked out sweetly and conveniently, and, as with most rom-coms these days, much too quickly and easily.

I don't think I've seen Ms Williams in anything other than Mr. Strouse's earlier People Places Things, in which she was quite good. I suspect that she is not being shown to her best here, but as Mr. O'Dowd (above) notes at one point, she does have a beautiful smile.

If you're interested, the only place to see The Incredible Jessica James right now (starting this Friday, anyway) is via Netflix streaming. So: your move. (That's Lakeith Stanfield, above, left, who plays Jessica's ex very well, even though his character, too, seems only quasi-real.)

Anthony Edwards' MY DEAD BOYFRIEND brings a character, if not a corpse, back to oddball life

How well do we know that person whom we live with and presume to love? Of course, you'll immediately realize that the answer here is going to be
"not very."

But wait. That doesn't begin to cover the manner in which the non-heroine of the new movie, MY DEAD BOYFRIEND, doesn't know her own live-in guy, whom she comes home one day, after being fired at her latest job, to find dead in his recliner, his corpse having been, from all we can tell here, simply watching TV.

As written by actor Billy Morrissette (from the novel by Arthur Nersesian) and directed by actor Anthony Edwards, shown at right, the movie fairly bubbles with the fun to be found (for the audience, if not for the girlfriend in question) in discovering just who this dead guy really was.

Further, as played by John Corbett (shown below, in that recliner, and at bottom, right), this fellow, who goes by the name of Primo Schulz, proves quite the guy who got around -- to various women and occupations -- all of which grow wilder and funnier as the movie moves along. And Corbett gets the chance to behave in a number of ways that we're not used to seeing from this actor.

The actual star of the film is Heather Graham, who plays Mary, Primo's last (or so she imagines) girlfriend, and the one who discovers his lifeless body. Ms Graham, still beautiful and sexy, plays everything here just a tad too annoyed to make us care much about what happen to her. Her character is not particularly likable, and while this is fine so far as some movies go, this one needs a gal to root for. And Ms Graham, who goes from annoyed to further annoyed, until she begins beating people with a cremation urn and wantonly slapping faces, is not that character.

The movie, however, is still rather fun as it romps along, introducing us to a number of smart actors, including Katherine Moennig (above, right), as Mary's best friend; Griffin Dunne (below, right), who plays an admirer of Ms Graham's character, and Gina Gershon who has perhaps the plumiest role as an art dealer, of which Ms Gershon typically makes the most.

In the role of what turns out to be the romantic lead, a young actor named Scott Michael Foster does a creditable job warming up to the movie's anti-heroine.

There's a pretty good soundtrack here, too, and a couple of nice musical numbers -- one of which makes use of that fun little song from the old Mary Tyler Moore show, which was also used recently to better purpose in the much more accomplished movie, Christine.

From Momentum Pictures and Orion Releasing (how nice it is to see that old Orion logo on-screen again!) and running 90 minutes, the movie releases this Friday, November 4, simultaneously in "select theaters" and via VOD/Digital HD. In New York City it will play the Cinema Village. Elsewhere? Not sure, but as it's available both VOD and digitally, if you want to take a look, I am sure you can find it.

Quincy Rose's anti-rom-com, FRIENDS EFFING FRIENDS EFFING FRIENDS, arrives on VOD

Directed with a certain in-your-face style but written with dialog that sounds like something midway between a so-so self-help manual and the babblings of some not-very-bright, early-middle-aged characters who should know better, FRIENDS EFFING FRIENDS EFFING FRIENDS (a terrible title -- too long and unnecessarily euphemistic -- I will herewith refer to it as FeFeF) is the latest film from one, Quincy Rose, shown below.

Mr. Rose, the press release tells us, is the godson of Woody Allen and the son of comic writer, Mickey Rose. On the basis of this, the only film of his that TrustMovies has seen, I would have to say that the apple has not only fallen far from the tree, it had landed on another continent.

After listening to the really tiresome banter the movie's five characters indulge in scene after scene, I found myself wondering, Is this supposed to be satire? If so, of what and by whom?

Yes, yes, I know: We are all of us fallible hypocrites. But these people are so clueless in so many ways that their tiresome talk does not produce laughs or warmth or sadness or much of anything except a kind of burgeoning impatience.

The characters -- given to playing musical beds: a twosome here, a threesome there -- talk and talk and talk about it all, but without much wit and certainly no perspicacity. The most annoying character, Jacob (because he revels in giving advice and appearing sage), is portrayed by Tyler Dawson (of Bellflower), shown below, who does a good job playing a bad guy.

His BFF, however, is played by Graham Skipper -- yes, the same actor (shown below, left) who has graced a couple of recent horror items: Almost Human and The Mind's Eye. Mr. Skipper can put his hyper/bug-eyed acting style to pretty fair use in those scary movies, but it does not translate all that well to comedy or romance -- both of which I suspect Mr. Rose is trying to achieve here.

The three female cast members, all much more physically and facially attractive that the two males on view, include Christina Gooding (below and bottom, left), Vanessa Dubasso (below, second from right), and Jillian Leigh (below, right). All are very pretty and do as well as these highly circumscribed roles allow. Truth be told, we don't much like any of these people. But is this really the filmmaker's intention?

On one hand Rose would seem to be making a plea for more honesty and open relationships. On the other, his movie reads like a treatise against all this. In any case these are among the most annoying characters you will have met in a movie in this new millennium. Is there really nothing new -- or intelligent or entertaining -- to say or show about sex and love and relationships and three-ways? On the basis of FeFeF, it would seem not.

From Gravitas Ventures and running a thankfully brief 77 minutes, the movie hits VOD this coming Tuesday, October 11.

In NO STRANGER THAN LOVE, Nick Wernham & Steve Adams explore a rare subject (if only)

Yes, it's love: a theme that, gosh almighty, movies almost never tackle. Forgive my making light of this I'm-sure-well-intentioned bit of metaphorical fluff, but arriving in theaters only three weeks after Oliver Thompson's better example of metaphorical fluff, Welcome to Happiness, the new movie, NO STRANGER THAN LOVE, written by Steve Adams and directed by Nick Wernham (shown below), seems, among other things, like too-much-too-soon. While the Happiness film posited a magical door that opened up into a world where you can correct your past mistakes, Stranger/Love offers up some kind of black hole that appears in our heroine's living room and swallows up her about-to-be-adulterous boyfriend. Yikes. But so what?

The movie is also about important things like the meaning of art and unpaid bills to one's bookie. But it so rarely stops pushing its loony-tune story, and in a style so relentlessly bouncy that it soon sets your teeth on edge, that my spouse bailed after a half an hour of viewing. TrustMovies stuck with it -- because that's his job, and also because spousie and he sometimes disagree -- but to little avail. This tale -- of a pretty young high-school art teacher (Alison Brie, above) whom every man in town and even one of her sexier students seems to love -- goes just about nowhere, once that black hole appears. Instead we get silly vamping for at least a full hour, during which all the characters, from school officials to law enforcement, behave so foolishly that any kind of possible identification or caring becomes impossible.

The idea of this black hole (above) is fun, and its execution is both clever and economical, but beyond that we must wait an hour before the movie calms down enough that our patience stops being perilously tried. (That calming is due in large part to an actress named Robin Brûlé, who plays the wife of the would-be adulterer and is good enough to briefly ground the movie.)

Otherwise, the rest of the cast do their part to bring the would-be philosophical rom-com to silly life. This would include its not very believable hero, played by Justin Chatwin (above with Ms Brie), and Colin Hanks, below, as the naughty boyfriend (mostly wasted since, once he's in that hole, we only hear his voice).

"Why'd you come here?" "I don't know." That exchange sums up much of the ridiculous dialog on display, as the actors flail around trying to be adorable but instead come up annoying. It's quite endearing that the moviemakers want to show us the real meaning of love. But to do this, they ought to have situations and characters we can embrace. The problem here is not that the black hole defies belief. But just about everything and everyone else does.

Also, unless I was sent a defective screener, this is one of those films in which the background soundtrack deafens the ears while much of the dialog gets lost in space. (I managed to hear most of the latter by going back and upping the volume.) In the end we learn that "it takes a village," as a certain Presidential candidate once wrote, to demonstrate love and make it work. But then the filmmakers resort to the same-old tired, true-love formula for their finish -- as though these two characters would have the least notion of what love might mean. Well, better luck next time.

No Stranger Than Love, from Momentum Pictures/EntertainmentOne and running 90 minutes, opens this Friday, June 17 -- in Atlanta at the AMC Stonecrest 16, in Boston at the AMC Liberty Tree Mall 20, in Chicago at the AMC Streets of Woodfield 20, in Dallas at the AMC Stonebriar 24, in the Denver area at the AMC Westminster Promenade 24 and the AMC Cinema Saver 6, in Kansas City at the AMC Town Center 20, in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema Hollywood, in Miami at the AMC Sunset Place 24, and in Washington D.C. at the AMC Lexington Park 6. Simultaneously, the movie will also be available via VOD.

A digital debut for Joan Carr-Wiggin's HAPPILY EVER AFTER: Lightning does not strike twice

When the terrific (and still woefully underseen and under-appreciated) rom-com If I Were You burst upon us in March of 2013, TrustMovies thought that he, as well as the world at large, had found a fabulous new filmmaker: Joan Carr-Wiggin. Granted, he had also seen and not much liked her earlier film, A Previous Engagement, but because If I Were You remains among the best rom-coms he has ever seen, he was more than a little excited to view her new one: HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Unfortunately it skews to that former film's weaknesses rather than to the strengths of the latter.

Those would include the just-about-perfect performances of If I Were You's stars, Marcia Gay Harden and Leonore Watling, as well as a plot that grew ever more interesting, off-kilter and appealing as the film moved along. Carr-Wiggin (the filmmaker is pictured at left) has, in her latest work, appeared to revert to her earlier problem of putting preaching prior to plot and entertainment value. And this only grows more so as Happily Ever After runs its course. Yes, the filmmaker wants to point up western society's penchant for hypocrisy and denial, but having the characters almost constantly wag their finger at each other (and us) is perhaps not the best way to do this. (The film's title itself is problematic, as there have been by now dozens of movies and TV films to use this same moniker. By calling your film Happily Ever After, you're immediately in used-tire territory.)

In addition, there are so very many oddball couplings, "surprise" connections and reversals/revelations in the course of the film that, after awhile, we stop counting -- and caring, (My spouse stopped watching around 80-minute point; I lasted out until the end.)

This is too bad because Carr-Wiggin has assembled a pretty good cast to people her romp and occasionally given them some smart dialog to perform. Shown at left in the two photos above is the movie's OK co-star Janet Montgomery and her even-better co-star Sarah Paxton (shown at right in both photos).

The two play high school best friends, whose friendship disappeared suddenly when the former headed out of town without notifying anyone some years previous. Also involved are the Paxton character's mother (Alex Kingston, above left) and current best friend (Claire Brosseau, above, right).

The guys -- usually a lesser breed in the Carr-Wiggin oeuvre -- are represented by our two heroines' dads (Peter Firth, left, and Al Sapienza, right) and Alex McCooeye (center) as a somewhat baffled groom-to-be. As I say, the performers are good, but the hoops they are asked to jump through would prove tricky to the most seasoned and talented performers. (Harden and Watling in If I Were You, for all the bizarre situations in which Carr-Wiggin placed them, had much stronger characters to play. And the actresses are damned strong, too.)

So, on balance, Happily Ever After proves more trying than entertaining. But the filmmaker is said to have yet another film coming out later this year featuring a very good British cast. We live in hope. Meanwhile, this one -- running a too-long 112 minutes and distributed by Alchemy -- makes its digital debut this coming Tuesday, March 15, on major platforms from Amazon to Xbox and most everything in between. 

Streaming: HARD TIMES proves passable Viagra comedy from Tom Reeve and Michael O'Mahony

The idea for this movie is a lot better than its final execution. That's faint praise, I suppose, and there are some funny moments and a deal of charm, as well, in this Irish-village-idiots-pull-a-heist comedy, HARD TIMES (formerly known as Holy Water), from director Tom Reeve and screenwriter Michael O'Mahony -- which is now available to stream via Netflix. If bearded men in nun drag turns you on (and I admit, this usually does draw a laugh or two) then this may indeed be your cup of Irish breakfast tea. And the idea of hiding your heist -- a truckload of Viagra -- in the local well from which the little village's famous holy water is drawn, also would appear to have some comic potential.

Director Reeve, shown at right, and screenwriter O'Mahony, however, are only so-so in the mining-of-laughs department. Their tale, which takes place in a lovely and bucolic seaside village from which the lovelorn like to leap to their death, involves a crew of those "delightful village rogues" that have graced Irish imports for, what? -- at least half a century now. One of the more deservedly successful was 1998s Waking Ned Devine, and the most recent of which is probably Grabbers, the rather amazing monster-movie-in-an-Irish-seaside-village, complete with a raft of funny characters. Hard Times is nowhere near the level of either film, but it manages to touch the hem of their garments, so to speak.

Though it boasts a good cast -- led by John Lynch (on poster, top, and above, left, as one of those "nuns"), who provides by far the most fun -- what that cast must deal with is a so-so script and direction that dawdles, at best, and really holds things up, at worst. Audiences who watch a lot of movies will find themselves way ahead of the plot twists most of the time. (The Pfizer truck supposedly loaded with Viagra plays quite a large role in the proceedings, though the credits tell us that Pfizer absolutely had no part in this film. Really? The product placement alone must have sold a ton of those little blue pills.)

Also along for the ride are Linda Hamilton (above, left) and Tommy "Tiny" Lister (above, center), as American security personnel come to "fix" things. They don't, of course, and everything they do do is telegraphed a week ahead of time.

There's romance blooming here and there, and once the Viagra begins releasing into the water source, there's the expected rutting. It's all fairly funny, but you can write the script yourself as you move along. Religion (above) takes its licks, gently, and we even get some mild, would-be gay humor, plus a little nudity, sort of....

Hard Times -- running 93 minutes and with English subtitles, in case the dialect's too thick -- is available now via Netflix streaming and perhaps elsewhere, too.

Rocky Powell & Juddy Talt's teeth-on-edge rom-com, LANGUAGE OF A BROKEN HEART

Ah, another love story. And if you follow TrustMovies, you'll know he has a soft spot (yes, perhaps in his head) for the rom-com genre. Don't a lot of us? And then comes along something like LANGUAGE OF A BROKEN HEART, the new and infinitely grating romantic comedy which, according to its press release, tells us that it's not how you love but who you love. Oh, really? I know a few people who would dismiss that conclusion out of hand. And what we are talking about here, anyway? Lust? Limerance? Caring? Sharing? Or the whole shebang? And shouldn't one strive for autonomy first? It doesn't much matter because this silly little film is dumb from the get-go, and only grows more so as it goes along.

I don't think the blame rests much on the shoulders of the director/co-producer, Rocky Powell, (shown at left) for he stages this little charade with decent profes-sionalism, draw-ing bearable performances from (most of) his cast and moving things along as spee-dily as possible. Rather, it's the writer/star/co-producer of the film, Juddy Talt -- I initially imagined that first name was a typo, but perhaps it is simply the diminutive form of Judd? -- shown on poster, top, and below, left, to whom most of the credit/blame must be assigned.

First off, Mr. Talt has himself playing Nick, a hugely successful mainstream writer on the subject of love -- who hasn't, it turns out, a clue to what love is or how to manage it. Huh? It is almost impos-sible to believe in Nick's character for a moment. Not that Talt isn't good-looking and sexy (he's a tall and rangy, and we haven't had a Gary Cooper-type leading man in quite awhile). But the actor-cum-writer turns Nick into such a charmless, male twat, regarding just about everything and everyone with whom he comes into contact, that garnering audience sympathy hasn't a ghost of a chance.

Nick has a girlfriend, of course, who treats him like dirt, but then, near the halfway point, on an airplane, our hero falls into the purview of our heroine, a seemingly ditzy young woman in glasses and heavy-duty hair (Kate French, above) who goes head-over-heels for the guy. Most of the dialog -- beginning with Nick's introducing himself to us, followed by a truly dreadful scene between him and a therapist -- is crummy, bordering on the inane; it's not funny, charming, smart or worth hearing. Around this time we 're thinking, What alternate universe have they dredged up to provide the people and conversation here?

Then Nick goes "home" to mother (played by Julie White, above: contrast her performance in this film with her work in the so-much-better, rom-com-character-study Hello I Must Be Going), who seems to exist solely so she can accidentally appear topless in front of her son. Later we're given the movie's maybe two good lines that come from Nick's best buddy Cubby (a pleasant but sad Ethan Cohn, below) regarding what men and women expect from each other when they marry.  I won't ruin the nice surprise by repeating them here. You deserve something good if you tackle this movie.

The music is sweet, ditsy and predictable, rather like the movie itself (right down to the pool hall scene, shown at bottom). Talt chops up his work into sections divided by line drawings that are simple and rather pointless, given that Nick is supposed to be a wordsmith, not an artist. Oh, well, it's something more with which to fill the screen, I guess, but it only helps push the running time to an overlong 98 minutes.

As the women in Nick's life, Ms French (above, left) proves likable as the sweet-and-ditsy good girl and Lara Pulver (below) dislikable as the bitchy bad one. Neither are given anything remotely resembling a character. Consequently, when the bomb drops toward the finale (which, of course, it must in these rom-coms), it seems so out of left field and unbelievable that I suspect even hard-core romantics will hiss at the screen.

Along the way, amongst all the other nonsense, our Nick is given this little gem:  "You know how to love, but you don't know how to hate. And hate is healthy." OK, Language of a Broken Heart, you win. I hate this movie. But, hey, I'm healthy!

The film opens in New York City this Friday, March 8, at the Regal Union Square Stadium 14. The following Friday, it makes its Los Angeles debut at Laemmle's Playhouse 7, and then hits Texas (where some of it was filmed, I believe), the week after that. You can check all currently scheduled dates, cities and theaters by clicking here.