Jennifer Lynch's SURVEILLANCE: Just how ugly does it get? You have no idea....

It's not so much that SUR- VEILLANCE is one of the sickest films I've ever seen. I'm an adult, I can handle sick. Nor is the problem that the movie is death-affirming -- more specifically, it affirms the joy of murder -- rather than life-affirming. We just lived through the Bush adminis- tration. Positive affirmation? Come on now.

The real deal-breaker is this: The movie's writer/director Jennifer Lynch (shown right, of Boxing Helena infamy) and her co-writer Kent Harper (who does double-duty, acting in one of the key roles, as a cop, below) are such unknowing filmmakers that they tip their hand from nearly the very beginning, with the first scene after the opening credits! Consequently, the audience has to be either very young or very dumb not to be able to figure out almost immediately what is going on here.

The set-up -- not to mention the performance of one particular actor -- is so obvious that we hold our breath in hopes that what we're suspecting will somehow change or develop. Not a chance. Instead we spend very nearly the entire film waiting for the big "unmasking." And because what we are sitting through is especially ugly -- sadistic, violent, bloody -- in addition to growing antsy as we await our "surprise," we're also extremely ticked-off.

This is a movie in which at least half the characters are uncaring and inhumane, ranging from moderately sleazy to beyond-the-pale. There are many ways, film-wise, to handle a super-sick scenario such as this, but I am sorry to report that Ms Lynch simply bathes in it. She wallows, she revels, she flounders. This helps prevent our seeing that she can, on occasion, produce a riveting scene or two. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that the filmmakers have determined to consistently outdo themselves in ugliness and negativity. The culmination? To each his own. Mine arrived when a murder (done in close-up, 'natch) is used to achieve orgasm.

The film's cast is uniformly good at being bad. Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond (shown above) are the leads, but because this is an ensemble film, all of the actors prove important, and I must say that Ms Lynch coaxes arresting performances from all. Even the one over-the-top performance that gives the game away does not reflect bad acting but rather a misjudgment on the part of the actor, the director, or both. (To say more would give away the store.) Among the fine cast are Pell James (shown above), Mac Miller, Cheri Oteri, the indispensable Caroline Aaron, and a terrific child actor Ryan Simpkins (shown below, who played the kidnapped girl in Gardens of the Night: now, there's an ugly film that manages to earn its darkness via theme, content and execution).

In the press kit for her movie, Ms Lynch talks a lot about lies and the like -- and how they figure into her characters and her film. Oddly enough, the press kit seems just as full of prevarication, whether willful or simply reflecting the confusion in Ms Lynch's mind, I'm not certain. But we get comments about "listening to the child inside," how each character "is a liar and each holds the truth," and -- most pompously -- comparisons to Kurosawa's Rashômon. My favorite is this: "Little Stephanie (shown above) has the eyes and soul of a child." Hello: She is a child, so she probably has the kidney and liver of one, too. Most tellingly, Ms Lynch mentions that her father (film director David Lynch) called her one night to tell her that she simply could not use her proposed ending for the film - which she did. She called it dark, he told her it was evil. The filmmaker evidently does not understand the difference between the two. I don't think you'll have the same problem.

Surveillance, distributed by Magnet Releasing opens this Friday, June 26, in both New York City (at the Cinema Village) and Los Angeles (at the Nuart). July will see an expansion into other cities. Here in NYC, the film has also been available On-Demand for some time now. Consult your local TV-reception source to determine how to "demand" it in your area.

The other "What" movie: Jonathan Glatzer's challenging WHAT GOES UP

Though Woody Allen's Whatever Works opens today (unseen as yet by TrustMovies), the "what" film I heartily recommend to any real buff opened three three weeks ago in a limited-run theatrical release and is already out on DVD: WHAT GOES UP by Jonathan Glatzer (shown below, right, with his star Steve Coogan).

It was poet Robert Browning who first suggested that "...a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" Mr. Glatzer's reach certainly does exceed his grasp, but that's no reason to ignore his very interesting and challenging film -- which oddly enough deals, among other subjects, with the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle and the sky above (both real and symbolic) -- thus bringing us back to the "heaven" reference in Browning's famous quote.

What Goes Up (a nice title which immediately has you considering its result) follows the path of journalist Campbell Babbitt (a subdued, very real and alternately angry/lovely performance from Mr. Coogan, above left). This "ace" reporter, after a career-making series of articles that, to put it mildly, leave out one important fact that renders almost everything false, is sent by his paper to New Hampshire to do a story on Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger crew, during the week that the shuttle is to launch.

Once there, Babbitt looks up an old school chum who's now a teacher and he -- and we -- soon becomes involved with a group of "special" students, along with other teachers and administrators. There's a lot going on in Glatzer's movie, so much so that some critics found it difficult to follow. It isn't, but it does move along rather quickly, offering only as much info as we need to keep abreast. In the process, its story covers many themes: success and failure, the uses of truth, and the need for heroes. It also gives us these unusual students (two of which are shown above), very well portrayed and nicely differentiated, flailing on the cusp of adulthood as they try to gets their minds and hearts around love -- and death.

In addition to Coogan, the cast includes Hillary Duff, Olivia Thirlby (shown above, and wonderful, as usual), Josh Peck (star of The Wackness, shown at bottom and still adorable while even more whacked out) , Molly Shannon, Max Hoffman and Sarah Lind (the latter two, I believe, are the kids shown two photos up). Due to its fine cast keeping things on track, I don't think there's a dishonest emotional moment in the entire film. Even in the scene that combines masturbation with an endangered infant, the movie manages to stay on course. It's this kind of storytelling skill that keep us with it, even when so many balls are in the air, plot-wise, that we worry they'll fall to the ground. Co-writer (with newcomer Robert Lawson) and director Glatzer, though not yet a great juggler, is at least a good one. He keeps us caring about all his characters, while managing to honor the Challenger and its crew, despite (or even because of) a very funny and sweetly silly high school musical (below) devoted to celebrating the about-to-rise space shuttle.

What Glatzer can't do, however, is to bring home the bacon in terms of providing strong enough focus and resonance to each of his themes. The movie is nearly two hours long, so length is not the problem. Maybe Glatzer was happy to leave things less pronounced than other moviemakers might have made them. His dots are connected, but lightly and fleetingly, and we're left to mull over the movie at our leisure. I have, and in retrospect, when I think about films that deal with the concerns of kids today, I suspect that What Goes Up will prove one of the few that continues to haunt me.

Didactics: Dudow/Brecht's KUHLE WAMPE, Brokaw/Gilman's SPINNING INTO BUTTER

Happening to view within the same 24 hours both KUHLE WAMPE: Or Who Owns the World? (the 1931 film directed by Slatan Dudow and co-written by Bertolt Brecht and Ernst Ottwald) and SPINNING INTO BUTTER (theatre director Mark Brokow's film of Rebecca Gilman's popular turn-of-this-past-century play ), TrustMovies was struck with how few really didactic films we get to see of late. "Teaching" has gone out of style, I guess, but watching both these movies made me wish we saw a little more of it. Neither is great, though Dudow/Brecht beats Brokow/Gilman by a mile. Yet both films fascinate in how they tackle social problems while demonstrating the didactic -- then and now.

Kuhle Wampe, which is getting a much-deserved (but too short) two-day run that ends today at Anthology Film Archives, hands us 1931, Depression-era Berlin on an empty platter, as we see a near-destitute family (shown above) -- mom, dad, son, daughter -- trying to make ends meets. Son, depressed, finds a quick way out early on but daughter pins her hopes on her boyfriend (both are shown below), into whose tent at a lakeside campground (the Kuhle Wampe of the title and the home for many of the unemployed), she and her family move. The details of the film -- how people live, communicate, have fun and even stage a wedding -- are rich and interesting, and the characters, particularly that of the daughter and her on-and-off boyfriend have surprising depth, considering the movie's short (69-minute) running time. The acting is fine and of its time, the music (by Hanns Eisler) and cinematography (Günther Krampf) are assets, too, as is the good-looking and newly restored print that Anthology is presenting.

The film ends with a conversation in a subway train that encapsulates a good amount of philosophy, economics and politics -- as the riders (of various social classes) argue over how best to divvy up the spoils, as it were. This final scene is so strong, intelligent and even moving, that is brings together the somewhat fragmented, impressionistic and occasionally surreal sections that have come before. Kuhle Wampe screens at Anthology Film Archives for the last time tonight, Thursday, June 18, at 7 and 9pm.

Spinning into Butter offers a terrific beginning, as we (and someone dressed in a dark red jacket) view an ancient cartoon of an "Americanized" Little Black Sambo on TV. From this we venture into a prestigious and expensive college campus somewhere in the northeast US and from there to the middle of a racist incident that blossoms into a full-fledged news story that threatens students, black and white, teachers and the continued existence of the school itself.

I did not see the original play on which the film is based but suspect that its movie version comes pretty close to the source. Its theme, finally, is America's true feelings about the "other," and how, because it continues to delude itself about these feelings, we cannot progress. A worthy subject indeed, but as involved as I got in things, I must admit to feeling too manipulated too often, as Gilman and her co-writer Doug Atchison leads us through a series of events and confrontations that begins to leech the life (and truth) out of things. The climax in particular proves both questionable and telegraphed, turning everything back in upon itself in such an easy fashion that it somehow robs the movie of its very subject.

And yet this subject (as well as many of the performances here) are worthy and, as much as you may find yourself disliking the movie, it will be hard to pull away from it entirely. One scene in particular -- an auditorium full of faculty, students and administration that breaks into a free-for-all of spite and hatred -- is quite well done, bringing the film's theme to its most heated state and making an interesting comparison with the subway scene in Kuhle Wampe. In both, we are in a public place, watching people think, feel, speak and respond quickly and emotionally. While the didactic is still present, spontaneity takes precedence and both scenes work surprisingly well.

Lead Sarah Jessica Parker is not up to her usual snuff (perhaps her character exists as too much the obvious teacher, which she is, though she doesn't have to "teach" us quite so blatantly), but Miranda Richardson (shown above), Mykelti Williamson and Paul James (shown right) are just fine, even if their roles are all a little too "generic" for comfort. Spinning Into Butter, though made in 2007, finally appeared on DVD last week, after a very limited theatrical release this past March.

Pro-Choice/Pro-Life Update -- and a fresh look at UNBORN IN THE U.S.A.

Thanks to a media advisory sent out by First Run Features at the beginning of this month, regarding the murder of Dr. George Tiller, a 2007 documentary that had somehow escaped TrustMovies' attention has suddenly come back into very sharp focus. Dr. Tiller, having performed abortions for decades, has been a verbal -- and now, unfortunately, otherwise -- target for many disciples of the pro-life movement. In Stephen Fell's and Will Thompson's exceptional film UNBORN IN THE USA, Dr. Tiller is seen briefly and talked about -- the film was made several years ago and released theatrically in 2007 -- but anyone who watches (and listens) to the movie will be made aware of how unsurprising this murder really is.

What these two documentarians do -- and it's a risky move -- is to allow the pro-life movement to speak for itself. Fell & Thompson don't editorialize and, in fact, seldom disagree or ask particularly hard-hitting questions. (They do, smartly, allow a couple of the "uneasy" pro-lifers to question their own group's attitudes and maneuvers.) This means that those of us on the pro-choice side must sit in front of our DVD screens as we are preached to, sometimes quite honestly and movingly, about the importance of stopping abortion. This forces us to think and rethink our own beliefs, and to sometimes argue aloud at the screen, as these Christian fundamentalists air their views. The single time that the movie-makers halt the proceedings to call attention to the untruth of what someone is saying happens when an angry woman (shown below) bares her missing breasts to a crowd of pro-life protesters and blames her cancer on the fact that she had an abortion. It's then that Fell & Thompson tell us firmly that no real evidence has been found to link breast cancer with abortion.

We're made privy to how a pro-life group organizes and teaches its members to proselytize and counter any and all attitudes except their own -- winning over, in the process, some former "pro-choicers." We also see an array of attitudes on the pro-life side, from those who are against stopping abortion by any means necessary and those who support it, no matter the means. What unites them all is their belief that they know and are acting on the word of god, unlike those of us who disagree with them ("tool of Satan," I believe is the epithet of choice). Fundamentalist Christian religion is at the core of everything here, and if there was ever a movie that finally screams for the separation of church and state, it's this one.

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is referred to often throughout, with clips shown now and again (some of which are cleverly set against visuals from the documentary itself). "We're a visual society," note the filmmakers, and this fact is also made clear by the pro-lifers, whose campaign of huge photographs showing dead fetuses is key to the story. These displays set off a good degree of anger on the college campuses and in the communities where they are shown, and the movie finally rises to one of the most riveting climaxes I can recall in any documentary, in which two people, both avowed Christians -- one pro-choice, the other pro-life -- argue with growing force until an explosion occurs. Talk about a filmmaker being in the right place at the right time. This final confrontation has the force of any fifty narrative examples you might recall, and you'll come away from Unborn in the USA properly shaken but, I suspect, even more redoubtable in your "faith," whatever it might be.

For my part, I think it's way past time to create a new "Christian" T-shirt. Instead of JESUS SAVES, however, mine is going to read JESUS enSlAVES.

Unborn in the USA is available for sale from First Run Features and for rent via your usual channels. All photos -- and poster -- above are from the film.

Tommy Wirkola's DEAD SNOW: more gore, a few laughs, and introducing...

...Nazi zombies! (No, we're not talking about Tom Cruise in Valkyrie.) What is it about these two words used in tandem that promises such fun? Their quality of onomatopoeia? Holocaust meets Hellzapoppin'? The possibility of high camp? Or maybe, at last, an admission of how fitting this coupling is -- as the Nazis, early on, gave up their last vestige of humanity. All I've had to do is mention

aloud DEAD SNOW as "that movie about Nazi zombies" to induce ears to prick up and eyes to twinkle. If only the movie itself delivered on the delight of its premise and promise.

It begins well enough: The first credit we see on screen (the names of the film's three production companies) actually drew a laugh at the screening. Then we get a fairly scary, if by-the-numbers, opening scene, and away we go into.... some very tired cliches gussied up with state-of-the-art gore effects. What co-writer (with Stig Frode Henriksen)/director Tommy Wirkola (shown above) has done is cobble together a kind of Friday-the-13th-meets-zombies-in-a-cold-climate. From almost the outset, the movie is self-referential to a fault, with the characters mentioning other similar films (naturally, a movie geek is included among them) and telling us how this group is different. If only. The cast differs from the norm by looking older and fatter than Hollywood would ever dare foist on genre film-goers. Worse, its cute banter quickly begins to bore.

You may wonder, as did I, from whence these Nazi zombies came, since the film is from -- and takes place in -- Norway. Not to worry: we soon get the scene with "the grizzled old man" who proceeds to explain all the necessary exposition in excruciatingly long and boring detail, complete with a don't-disturb-the-evil-spirits warning, which he himself then proceeds to totally ignore. When the killings start, the only question -- a recurring one, unfortunately -- is who gets his/hers, when/how? There are a few laughs along the way but none are really very funny. They're just a little obvious and cheesy, as is the gore and, in fact, the entire movie.

There is rumor afoot that this film reinvents the zombie genre. Don't believe it. Dead Snow simply rejiggers what we've seen (and seen again), adding extra dollops of blood, guts, jokes and sex -- the latter via a scene (below) that takes outhouse humor to new depths. At least there's no video-cam recording these events: Wirkola spares us "The Dead Snow Diary." (For the real reinvention of the genre, see the much-superior Pontypool, which is also currently playing round-about in theaters and On-Demand.)

The movie's one somewhat original touch -- which has to do with zombie (or is it German?) avarice and proves an important (if we can even use such a heavy-duty word here) plot point -- actually serves to call attention to the weakness of said non-plot. What turned these Nazis into zombies? We never know. (Even the movie's title, though short and marketable, makes no sense: dead snow? Just how, pray tell, does that differ from live snow? By the finale, it looks as if an entire platoon (or three) of Germans has risen from its collective grave. Well, if the Nazis can do it, why not the Allies? And so, for the sequel, which I am sure is already in the works, I request a WWII rematch -- using zombies!

Dead Snow opens theatrically on Friday, June 19, at NYC's Cinema Village (this is a correction from my earlier -- and wrong -- post that had the film playing at the IFC Center), and has already been available for the past week On-Demand via IFC at these venues:
BrightHouse: Movies On Demand - IFC In Theaters
Cablevision: Movies On Demand - IFC In Theaters
Charter: Movies On Demand - Channel 1 - movies - IFC in Theaters
Comcast: Channel 1 - Movies & Events - IFC Festival Direct
Cox: Channel 1 - Movies On Demand - IFC In Theaters
Insight: Channel 1 - Movies On Demand - IFC in Theaters
Time Warner: Movies On Demand - IFC In Theaters

THREE BLIND MICE: Catch this Aussie film before it disappears from On-Demand

We haven't seen many Australian films hit the U.S. market of late (unless you count that bloated Baz Luhrmann schlock-fest starring the two "men," Kid and Jack), so discovering Matthew Newton's little gem THREE BLIND MICE was quite a surprise. Just hearing those zingy Aussie accents was a pleasure (though I admit it took my ears some getting used to before they began to understand all the

clever dialog: Thank god for the go-back button). The whole movie, in fact, is a non-stop pleasure.

The 32-year-old Newton -- shown at left, who wrote, directed and co-stars in the film -- comes from a Aussie show-biz family and has a heavy-duty resume in legit theatre, so for all we know he's been prepping for this current outing most of his life. His background has paid off handsomely, for his film is consistently alive, enormously intelligent and gripping without ever being pushy.

I apologize for not watching the "screener" earlier so that I could give you more time to catch the film before it ends its On-Demand run this Thursday (June 18). But Three Blind Mice is so good -- modest, smart and beautifully conceived and executed -- that I urge you to see it. It tells a more-or-less 24-hour tale of three young Australian naval officers (shown below) on a one-day leave before they ship back to the Middle East. They kid, argue and cajole; visit a diner where they flirt, play cards and then meet for dinner with one's fiancee and family. We learn bits and pieces of the back-story only gradually, with the exposition neatly buried into everyday dialog that gives us clues to characters and events.

The writing is exceptionally savvy. Note this comparison of being in the military to being in high school: "When you haven't done your French homework, everything falls apart because that's all you know. Well, it's the same out there, 'cause that's all you know. When they smile at you: It's roses!" (There's even a brilliant precis on the life of an aging hooker -- handled in just 60 seconds.) Newton has made certain that his performers reflect a complete understanding of character and motivation; not only the leads but every cast member, small role to large, does a bang-up job.

The cast is pretty much a Who's Who of Australian cinema, and each member does him/herself proud. All three leads -- Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz and Mr. Newton -- are new to me, but many cast members ring memory bells, from "Bud" Tingwell to Jackie Weaver (both splendid), and even some of the younger actors seem familiar: Gracie Otto, (below) lively and charming, doubles as film editor and is the younger sister of Miranda and daughter of Barry (who also appears in the film and is shown above, second from right).

The film is wise and not particularly nice about the military and military service, yet, by the finale, our heroes have grown a bit and nothing seems as black-and-white as we (or they) might have imagined. More than anything else, it's the absolute and utterly truthful sense of life unfurling before your eyes and ears that the movie captures so expertly. Although this is basically a comedy -- maybe a dramedy -- there are still moments that rivet so intensely that you find yourself holding your breath for fear of what might happen. It's that real. And if I hear a funnier line this year than "The waitress was a virgin, was she?" (coupled to an ace visual, of course), I'll be very surprised.

As I say, Three Blind Mice will last only through Thursday, June 18, On-Demand from the following cable systems:
BrightHouse: Movies On Demand - IFC In Theaters
Cablevision: Movies On Demand - IFC In Theaters - Festival Direct
Comcast: Channel 1 - Movies & Events - IFC Festival Direct
Cox: Channel 1 - Movies On Demand - IFC In Theaters
Time Warner: Movies On Demand - IFC In Theaters
Rent it - or spend your life in regret!

Three worthwhile documentaries from the HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH Int'l Film Fest

As you can tell if you follow this blog to any extent, when he covers a film festival, TrustMovies prefers to see 'em all, rather than select a few films and then presume to have covered -- let alone understood -- the festival. While the former route is possible, if difficult, with the FSLC's annual French, Italian and Spanish fests, it's simply not in the cards where the current Human Right Watch (HRW) International Film Festival (and its 30 films) is concerned. So, I managed to attend several of the press screenings and viewed three thoughtful, interesting and important documentaries.

The HRW opening night event -- THE RECKONING: The Battle for the Interna-tional Criminal Court by Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy and Paco de Onis -- details the long, hard and ongoing battle to apply "the rule of law" on a global scale, in the process protecting the most basic human rights. If you imagined, as I did before viewing this film, that the International Criminal Court (ICC) was a fait accompli, doing its job of bringing justice to the world -- well, go back to your Justice League comic book. From the look and tone of this eye-opening and rather upsetting doc, the ICC is still "in the process" of just about everything, including bringing to firm and settled justice anyone at all.

The film tracks the good work of ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo (shown above), deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and senior trial attorney Christine Chung (the latter a former prosecutor in NYC who has since left the ICC to return to the U.S. and Yale University) as they probe and cajole. The most disturbing part of the film deals with the tensions caused by the ICC investigations at the local level -- where conflict and peace nogtiations were being attempted, sometimes seemingly at odds with the ICC's work. We get a pretty good idea of how the ICC works -- and the difficulties inherent in what it is trying to do and how it must do this. By the end of the film, you'll probably feel, as did I, that the Court's work is absolutely necessary but that the road ahead will be no easier than the one behind. Although The Reckoning has already completed its two HRW screenings, you can see it on PBS, Tuesday, July 14, '09, as part of the P.O.V. documentary series.

The winner of this years' Nestor Alemendros Award, MY NEIGHBOR MY KILLER by Anne Aghion offers a current look at Rwanda, as that country tries to come to terms with the massacres/genocide of fifteen years ago. In this regard the movie makes an interesting complement to the narrative feature, Munyurangabo, which recently completed a week's run at Anthology Film Archives and will eventually be available on DVD via its distributor Film Movement. Aghion's documentary is the stronger film by far because it puts us directly into the faces, words and feelings of the survivors, as they confront the very men who struck down their families, friends, and in some cases themselves.

Two survivors -- Félicité Nyirasangwa and Euphrasie Mukarwemera, both Hutu widows of Tutsi husbands (whose children were perceived as Tutsi) -- make compelling witnesses whose words you will not easily forget. They speak beautifully, deeply, even poetically (the spoken word is apparently considered a kind of art in Rwanda) of their situation now and then; the suspected killers try to make their own case but do it very poorly by comparison. The Rwandan community's attempts at justice and reconciliation -- one such community meeting is shown above -- are halting, fragmented and lengthy (the film itself has taken nearly ten years to cobble together). While the documentary seems deliberately to refrain from showing us images of the genocide, seeing and hearing its citizens come to terms with this via memory and words is as difficult as it is chastening, and to Ms Aghion's credit, she has managed to delve further inside the heart of the situation than you would imagine possible for an outsider. My Neighbor My Killer screens at the HRW Walter Reade Theater on Saturday, June 29,m at 6:30; Monday, June 22, at 8:45; and Wednesday, June 24, at 4.

From the content of the above two films, you might think the HRW fest confined to "downer" docs that rub your nose in some of the most negative situations the world has to offer. (And why not, of course?) Yet some of the films shown here are deliberately light on their feet as they tackle, with humor and charm, some very dark subjects. One such is Israeli documentarian Naftaly Gliksberg's clever and amusing LOOK INTO MY EYES. In it, this nearing-fifty filmmaker travels the globe to learn what anti-Semitism looks like now and how people feel about Jews in general and Israel in particular. It ain't pretty, but it's pretty funny. And creepy. And sad.

Much of the charm of this film comes via Mr. Gliksberg's attitude: off hand and self-effacing but sly and witty, too. He is generally gracious to his interviewees (perhaps more than some of them deserve) but will quietly and cleverly upend their views when necessary. Along the way, he covers everything from a Passion Play in Poland, with its rather typical (but still somehow shocking) stereotypes, to Paris and a popular stand-up comic, NYC's Harlem neighborhood, Chicago and -- the most disturbing of all -- a family down south in which the kids are being bred into some of the most blatant anti-Semitism of any that we see. The final segment brings us a Holocaust denier (shown above, front, with Gliksberg behind him) in Germany, an older fellow who looks so much like the filmmaker that the two could be father and son. This entertaining and often funny "road trip" documentary proves that ugly prejudice can be handled with humor and flair -- while still remaining thought-provoking and very disturbing. Look into My Eyes can be seen at the Walter Reade Theater on Sunday June 21, at 2; Monday, June 22, at 6:30; and Tuesday, June 23, at 4.

Beineix's BETTY BLUE is back -- in Director's Cut three-hour-plus version

If you remember fondly the gorgeous, sexy nut-job BETTY BLUE, brought to scary/sweet and hugely voluptuous life by actress Béatrice Dalle (below, right) in her first film role, you'll line up to see even more of her and her lover Zorg (played by the equally sexy Jean-Hugues Anglade, below, left) and their friends and adventures in the land of l'amour fou.
The original film, which made its debut back in 1986, lasted only two hours. The newly restored-for-theatrical-release Director's Cut lasts three. Yikes! Does that extra hour help? Is the total time spent worthwhile? Could this one of the great love stories of cinema, as some have claimed? Yes, yes, and probably not. But it's certainly up there with the great crazy love stories of all time.

As did many other foreign film buffs, my ex-wife and I rushed off to see Betty when she first hit the screen -- and two hours later wondered why. Yes, there was a lot of great sex and cinematography, nudity and drama. Oh, the drama! So much of it there was, in huge plops and chunks, that it took "camp" a step farther into cramp, but because it was chockablock with nothing but high points (or low points lows, depending on your view of what was happening), the movie seemed a non-stop climax, racing from one damn thing to the next. "Why would anyone stay with that woman," asked my ex, post-viewing. "She was a nut case." This three-hour version answers the question.

The Director's Cut gives us the bigger picture: the quiet moments, more of the couple's friends Lisa and Eddie (wonderfully played by Consuelo De Haviland and Gérard Darmon), and especially -- at last -- a sense of what holds this pair together. It can't all have been the sex and craziness, and sure enough it wasn't. Now, there's a real sense of the neediness on the part of both characters (for Prozac, among other things, which I believe had not yet come to market), as well as more of the joy and good times usually inherent in an even partially positive relationship. Consequently, what we're left with is a fuller story -- a crazy love story still, but one that has much more resonance.

Resonance, however, is not the same thing as reality, and it's here that Betty Blue falls apart. Not fatally -- because it never fails to deliver a good time and lots of pretty pictures. What's missing is any -- and I mean one single moment -- of believability so far as concerns the larger world that these two weirdos inhabit. Zorg knocks his boss about, even dumping him off the balcony: No problem. A heist occurs (in drag, yet!) but, hey, no one pays the price. Assault, robbery, even murder: forget it. I realize that lovers often imagine that the world revolves around them, but the film director should not make this same mistake. The result approaches the ridiculous, but it's also consistently gorgeous, as are the two leads.

Betty Blue was Ms Dalle's first film (she can be seen more recently in the French horror/shocker Inside), and she is simply stunning: a gap-toothed girl who's ample body puts to shame the anorexic look of too many of today's would-be beauty queens. She exudes womanliness, sex and life to a degree that is nearly criminal, and she's matched body part for body part by her co-star. Wiry but muscular with a near-perfect form that's more than happy to go full-frontal at a moment's notice, Anglade is one of those performers dedicated to being "real" above all else. The result is that the pair of lovers ride roughshod over everyone and everything around them, including the cop below (played by a very young Vincent Lindon), the movie and its silly plot.

Adapter (from the novel by Philippe Djian) and director Jean-Jacques Beineix made his initial international splash with Diva but then bombed badly with The Moon in the Gutter. Betty Blue put him back, if not on top, at least out of embarrassment range. This three-hour cut should keep him there -- so long as the combination of movies and l'amour fou continues to matter. Which would mean, approximately, forever.

Betty Blue opened Friday, June 12, for at least a week-long run at NYC's indispensible-for-art-films Cinema Village. The NYC date will be followed by theatrical runs in other major markets including Los Angeles (July 3 at the Nuart), Minneapolis (July 24 at Landmark), Seattle (August 7 at Landmark’s Varsity), Denver (August 21 at the Starz FilmCenter) and Boston (September 11 at Landmark’s Kendall Square).

Open Roads Wrap-Up -- and a "thank you" to animation artist Ursula Ferrara

I miss Italy already. Eight days and a dozen films are not nearly enough. The worst thing is that few, if any, of these eminently deserving movies are likely to be seen again on these shores. I'll keep you posted, should I hear that one or more of them is turning up elsewhere -- theatrically, on DVD, or even "streamed."

I was finally able to view Alessandro Baricco's LECTURE 21 again, at last seeing and hearing those few minutes that I'd missed the first time, when I saw the film on a defectively transferred "screener." This second viewing did not disappoint. If anything, the film now seems richer, more understandable and disciplined than I had thought. Not a moment of its 92 minutes is excessive or wasted; Baricco succeeds near perfectly in providing everything I want in a movie: intelligence, investigation, charm, wit, feeling, music, visuals, and even -- odd though it is -- a wonderful story. That it's a tale of a professor and his lecture, students and teachers, creativity and its creation, love and death, history and rumor makes it all the more enticing. Further, the writer/director's use of "talking head" interviews (complete with nude body!) is perhaps his most delightful, unusual and provocative touch.

Well, for me, at least. There were a number of walk-outs during the film's final Lincoln Center screening, and I attribute these to the above subjects not being of much interest to the walkers. Lecture 21 is a movie for people who know some history (and some Beethoven) and can appreciate ideas (about education and the deity, among other things) -- even though these often conflict with each other. Signore Baricco (shown above, directing a young cast member) was supposed to have attended the festival but did not. What a loss. The opportunity to have spoken even briefly with this writer/director would have been a treat and, most probably, a further education. I hope that some enterprising distributor will take a chance on his unique film and get it out to the U.S. public in some form. To revel in it again, TrustMovies might even -- finally -- learn how to "stream."

For the rest of Open Roads, the films ranged from rather wonderful to just fine to simply OK. I am happy to have seen them all. My pushing the "darkness" angle inherent in so many of these movies may be attributable as much to what is going on in Italy today as to the movies themselves. From year to year the films of Open Roads are often dark, but the ever-present, ever-growing combination of politicians, corporations and Mafia/Camorra as the seat of power is likely to turn this country an even darker shade.

In addition to my posted interviews with screenwriter Sandro Petraglia, actor Silvio Orlando and writer/director Maria Sole Tognazzi, I also spoke at length with writer directors Marco Amenta (The Sicilian Girl) and Dino Gentili (I Am Alive), as well as to actors Donatella Finochiarro (shown above, in last year's The Sweet & The Bitter) and Filippo Timi (shown at left in his newest film Vincere), two fine actors who had lots of interesting things to tell me. I don't know just when I will transcribe and post these interviews -- perhaps in connection with whichever film from each of these talented folk next graces our shores.

Finally, good things must be said of the the one-time screening last Saturday afternoon of some of the amazing works of animation artist Ursula Ferrara. It's fortunate that each of her works is so short (generally somewhere between two and five minutes) because each one is also beyond dense. There is so much to see, hear and consider that I should think a dozen screenings of each piece would still leave us wanting another.

Metamorphosis is an important theme in her oeuvre, and while this is true of many animation artists, she handles it in her own distinct manner. As she has grown, so has her style, with her work progressing from black-and-white to color (a snippet of which is shown at left), from never-simple line drawing to even more complicated collage. This deliciously inventive woman appeared in-person to introduce her films and offer a post- screening Q&A, in which she answered any and all questions from her small (far too small for work this special) but rapt audience.

Ferrara told us that she moved easily from black-and-white to color, which seemed to her a very natural progression. Regarding her "writing"of these dialog-free pieces, she told us she often felt herself a kind of voyeur, looking into the brain, trying to grasp it all. "I don't know why or how," she explained. "It is like going two steps forward and three steps back. Or rather, more like moving on the bias. We have not really understood how the brain works. Or maybe that is what inspiration is about." To my question about her interest in metamorphosis, the artist said that she felt this was normal for many animators. "It begins with a single line that evolves." She also told us that she began her career self-taught and then went to art school.

Interestingly enough, the program started with the sound missing. The audience watched a minute or two without being much troubled, I think. But then the film stopped -- we waited -- and when it returned, the sound and music were present. What a difference! Consequently one audience member asked about her use of sound and music: Did it come before or after the animation process? "I started out rather random and casual about it," Ms Ferrara explained, "but now I make certain that the music fits."

Another audience member asked about the state of animation in Italy today. "There was a very fine tradition of animation quite long ago," she explained, but then this faded, and then turned into a kind of vacuum. That was when I began. Now, I think, there is a growing interest in this art." As there should be, with someone like Ms Ferrara in the field. The entire program -- introduction, eight shorts and the Q&A -- lasted only one hour. But what an hour! So far as I know, there is no way to see Ms Ferrara's work in this country today. Could not some enterprising firm -- Facets, perhaps -- put these eight shorts

Lucidi Folli (1986)
Past Future (Congiuntivo futuro, 1988)
Asymmetrical Feel (Amore asimetrico, 1990)
As People (Come persone, 1995)
Almost Nothing (Quasi niente, 1997)
Five Rooms (Cinque stanze, 1999)
The Match (La partita, 2002)
News (2006)

onto a DVD and give animation lovers something to revel in over and over again?

For another interesting "take" on Ms Ferrara, read Acquarello's notes at her always enjoyable and educational Strictly Film School site.