FILM COMMENTS SELECTS - 2011 opens; get ready for the raw--and the unreleased

Film Comment, the magazine of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is selecting again. It editors and writers do this yearly, and their choices -- often movies seen at festivals that have so far received no theatrical release here in the USA and/or, due to their content, style, experimental or sometimes even blood-letting factors, may never see the dark of the inside of a movie theater -- hit the FSLC's Walter Reade Theater each February in a series titled Film Comment Selects.


This singular series -- anticipated greatly by us film buffs who can't easily travel the festival circuit but who would dearly love to play catch-up -- opens today, and, as usual, looks fabulous on paper (or computer) and if history acts as guide, should offer at least fifty percent or better of movies worth viewing. According to the press materials, this year's program features French actor-filmmaker Isild Le Besco, who was to have appeared in person, but at the last minute had to cancel her plans and so will not be in attendance to present her work, including her latest, Bas-fonds (one of the opening-night selections); Viva Radio events with Warhol's Velvet Underground films and Alex Cox's Straight to Hell remix; three works by Shoah director Claude Lanzmann, and the extraordinary Wundkanal and Our Nazi dyptych from the late Thomas Harlan and Robert Kramer; sneak previews of John Landis's Burke and Hare; Lu Chuan's City of Life and Death; Kim Ji-woon's I Saw the Devil; Jia Zhangke's I Wish I Knew; Sion Sono's Cold Fish; and much more. Plus: Klaus Kinski as Jesus; Domaine - John Waters's favorite movie of 2010; rare Fassbinder; and a real-life Mexican hit man (courtesy of El Sicario Room 164).


While the press materials also promise "16 films you will not see in U.S. theaters," surely this is jumping the gun a bit, as, more and more of late, films made a year, two or three previous can end up getting a theatrical, albeit highly limited, release. TrustMovies caught only two of the four films screened for the press, and both proved, with caveats, worth seeing.

The aforemen-tioned BAS-FONDS (which might translate as low-lifes or gutter-snipes) is the third film from the exoti-cally beautiful French actress Isild Le Besco, who, I think we can now safely say, has a keen interest in society's "outsiders," and has now outdone even herself.  The actress has often played the role of outsider, sometimes turning what might look initially like an insider to the status of "other."  As filmmaker, she is clearly drawn to these people. In her latest she tosses us into the ugly, ragged lives of three anti-social young women (see photo at top) -- two sisters and the elder's lover -- who share a beyond-seedy flat in an apartment building in the provinces. The single piece of home decor I detected was a very large black dildo, and most of  the rancid dialog is screamed and shouted. How the three could have become this joint catastrophe is barely hinted at, and when -- midway -- they do something beyond repair and yet no attempt at retribution from the authorities is shown, we know we are in the hands of a somewhat naive filmmaker. (This is not the first of their outside-the-law moments, though it is their worst.) When that retribution finally comes, the film quiets down and we're allowed to muse on these young women, society, and impediments to self-actualization and growth such as religion, prison and poor parenting. Performances are relatively real and ugly, and Le Besco seems to be learning her way around and with a camera, so it will be interesting to see what she comes up with next.


Le Besco's second film, Charly, is also being screened in the FCS series.  I first saw it, with very mixed feelings, during the Tribeca Film Festival two years ago -- click the link for my review of the film and interview with the actress/filmmaker (done for GreenCine).

According to the press materials for this year's FCS, the favorite film from 2010 of our own John Waters is part of the series: DOMAINE from Patric Chiha and starring the still-gorgeous star of Betty Blue, the ever-exotic Béatrice Dalle (on poster and above, right). This quiet and much less transgressive movie that you'd imagine (given Waters' history, though perhaps not his taste in film) tracks the evolving and devolving relationship between an older woman (a mathematician with an alcohol problem) and her young nephew (played by an interesting newcomer Isaïe Sultan, below), who is probably gay and definitely attracted to the "otherness," as well as the sophistication, of his aunt's circle of friends. The film is particularly smart about the manner in which youth and age perceive the world and how callous the former can sometimes be about the latter, perhaps simply for purposes of its own survival.


At times, the film may remind you of a very French Auntie Mame, were Auntie losing it and Patrick old enough (and with taste enough) to choose her clothes for an evening out. As often happens in French film, there is so much going on -- philosophically, emotionally, even family-wise (the boy's mother and her sister are not close) -- that little can come to fruition in the mere course of time frame the movie offers us. Nonetheless, the writer/director shows us the seasons as beautifully and subtly as he captures character, and if the film is somewhat slow-paced and typically French in its insistence on little exposition, it still offers mature audiences much to mull over, post-viewing.

You can peruse the entire Film Comment Selects series, which plays today through March 4, here.

Mexico bites: Jorge Michel Grau's WE ARE WHAT WE ARE opens in theaters and VOD

To some of us, the title WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (Somos lo que hay) will sound like a group version, a les Cagelles, of a certain song from a too-oft revived Broadway musical. Well, it ain't, Blanche. What it is is a new movie from Mexico, land of seismic societal divisions, in which kidnapping is simply a way to bring us together -- money-wise, at least. Kidnapping has its place in this film from gruelingly gifted writer-director Jorge Michel Grau (his first full-length), but it is merely the beginning of the suffering of which the victims here partake. (And I am including as victims, even the family of aggressors.)

Though the film is first and foremost a genre piece -- whipping together horror, thriller, slasher and suspense motifs into a successful mix --  what gives it true weight and importance is the fact that it also succeeds on two other, deeper levels. Most of all, oddly enough, this film is a family saga redux: the family dynamics that play out against this backdrop of horror are genuinely fascinating. Secondly, We Are What We Are functions as a critique of Mexican society, top to bottom, left to right, cops to criminals, morality to religion. It's all here, and it's all pretty awful.

From his visual knockout of an opening (quiet, but no less a knockout), Señor Grau (shown at left) -- whose full name would seem to have a little Spanish, French and German in it -- keeps us guessing as to what is going on, what this means to the family at hand -- and most importantly, why. Our helpful reviewers will have given away all of this by now (certainly by tomorrow, when the film opens) so try not to read much about the movie, if you plan to see it, for the element of surprise, and how the filmmaker dishes this out in small doses, is keenly felt. I recommend that you do see the film -- if you don't mind some truly grueling moments and as dark a look at Latin America as cinema has yet unfurled. Regarding the blood and gore, it's there, all right -- but considering what might have been (and certainly would be in any American remake), we're getting off easy.

The film works just fine as a fright fest of horror, but what gives it its weight and class is how, at the same time as it's scaring us silly, it's providing a look at one of the screen's most bizarre families: a father (Humberto Yáñez) whose whoring has left poor mom (Carmen Beato) bereft and taking her anger out on her kids; two sons always in competition, the younger (the late Alan Chávez, above, right) hot and horny, the older (Francisco Barreiro, above, left) weak and unprepared to take the reins when called upon; and a beautiful adolescent daughter (Paulina Gaitan, above, center, from Sin Nombre), whose character is still forming.

Señor Grau draws excellent performances from his entire cast, including two detectives in whom corruption, ambition and incompetence vie for pride of place. Further, he uses tropes such the mother and the whore, and the virgin on the cusp in ways that are truly different from what we've seen.  In particular the relationship between mom and a group of local whores is both shocking and compelling. The filmmaker is aces in the visual department, too. Note the scene, above, in which our two brothers go hunting.

The filmmaker, it seems, has a day job: He's a professor at the Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica (CCC), as well as an advisor of thesis projects. He also teaches Film Production at the Extracurricular Program at the Political and Social Sciences Faculty of the National Autonomous University (UNAM), as well as Film Direction at KMZ Workshops. This pretty much puts to rest the old saw that "those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

In a note of particularly dark irony, given that this movie eviscerates Mexico so thoroughly, one of the film's leading men, young actor Alan Chávez, was killed soon after the film was finished. According to the IMDB, at only 18 years of age, with ten film credits behind him and a whole career in front of him, Chávez and some friends exchanged gunfire during an argument (oh, those hot-headed Latin actors!). While fleeing from police responding to the incident, more gunfire ensued, and the actor was mortally wounded. We seem to be approaching ever closer to the apocalyptic state of affairs described in one of The Onion's most hilarious articles from last year. Ah, Mexico -- buena suerte!

From IFC Films, We Are What We Are opens tomorrow, Friday, February 18, in New York City at the IFC Center, then comes to VOD the following Wednesday, February 23.

DIY: Mumblecore-meets-documentary in Porterfield's overpraised PUTTY HILL

Another attempt, and not a particularly successful one, at joining documentary with narrative (why is this marriage neces-sary or worthwhile?), PUTTY HILL by writer/director Matt Porterfield, who earlier gave us Hamilton, has received a surprising amount of main-stream press for a film destined to reach few mainstream audiences, with those seeing it likely to emerge from the experience scratching their heads. As some of my compatriots stood around, post press-screening, scratching ours, one of us -- Michael Lee of Film-Forward.com -- noted that the movie is made up of a number of interesting scenes, any of which works pretty well on its own. Yet together, they don't add up to much.

The main invention here, so far as mumblecore is concerned (the genre of which I would categorize Putty Hill as part of) is the addition of a narrator/
interviewer who, by default, becomes a kind of character in the film.  We never see him, though we hear him asking questions of various characters we meet along the way. Like so much of the movie, however, this charac-ter disappears at some point, never to return, as though he were not all that important in the first place. Mr. Porterfield, pictured at left, makes him an interesting touch that, like the movie itself, doesn't finally go anywhere or provide much edification.

The content of the movie, set on the outskirts of Baltimore, has to do with a funeral being organized for a dead drug addict, an evidently well-liked (by some) young man with lots of friends and relatives, some of whom we meet here. Unfortunately there is little connecting tissue to hold the scenes together. A character from one might appear in another, and the dead boy, of course, provides a kind of ballast; even so, the film begins to seem ever more arbitrary. The interviewer, too -- who initially appears to be something/someone new to the genre, eventually grows annoying because he, along with whom he chooses to interview and why the filmmaker even bothered with him to begin with -- seems arbitrary.

In the press material for the film, Porterfield notes that his is an "approach to realism in opposition to the anthropological, lyrical and romantic currents present in most of the genre." Hence, I suppose, the "documentary" feel of the work. Yet I would suggest that the filmmaker incorporates all three currents, but in his own more paltry manner -- anthropology (the interviewer), lyricism (the "nature" scenes) and romance (all that's told us is of "failed" romance, but that, I submit, still counts). He certainly cannot be accused of sentimentality. Nor of much else, either. He claims to be no fan of exposition, yet we get plenty of it via the interviewer and the talking heads he meets and greets. In fact, on one level the whole movie is exposition, which may accounts for some of the boredom that eventually sets in.

Performances by the mostly non-pro cast seem exactly that. This works well enough in delivering that kind of "documentary"-type acting that often passes for truthfulness on film. The "lead" role (though to my mind there is no real lead in this film) is given to Sky Ferreira, above, who acquits herself well but does not approach what I'd call memorable. Still, the PR materials refer to her as "the 18-year-old sultry electro-pop newcomer who will release her debut album in the U.S. in 2011," so at least we have synchronicity here.

TrustMovies is reacting more negatively to Putty Hill than the film deserves, and I admit that this is in part due to the rather amazing press it has garnered in advance of release. As my compatriot Mr. Lee (mentioned in the opening paragraph) states, a number of the scenes in this movie do work and quite well. The paint-ball match that marks the beginning of the film is very well done; likewise the dialog between grandmother and (I think) granddaughter (shown above). The at-home tattoo-parlor (below) should garner a lot of interest, too. As annoyed as the movie made me, I acknowledge Mr. Porterfield's skills and would like to see them increase. (I'll also try to view his earlier Hamilton, which I've just discovered one can stream via Netflix.)

I do take exception to the filmmaker's penultimate scene, however -- and in a big way.  Filmed in an old, dark house in which the electricity has been turned off -- at night, 'natch -- two girls engage in snooping and chatting while we viewers can't see a god-damned thing.  This, I suggest, is deliberately obfuscatory, sloppy film-making that goes on, it seems, for-fucking-ever. And it's totally unnecessary. If Porterfield wanted to access the "truth" of a no-lights-in-the-house scene, why not have an unlighted candle-in-candelholder on hand, which the characters can find in the attic, and to which the proper response becomes, "Gotta match?"

Putty Hill opens Friday, February 18 in New York City at the Cinema Village and will also play in Baltimore (that's only fair), Columbus, Los Angeles, and Omaha. Click the city to learn the venue, and/or click here then scroll down to see any further upcoming playdates....

Social Notes of interest:
Filmmaker Matt Porterfield will be in attendance for all Q&A's at Cinema Village (22 East 12 Street, NYC).
Friday 2/18
6:30pm, Yance Strickler (Kickstarter) for a fundraiser discussion
8:30pm, Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation) with Putty Hill crew and Sky Ferrira
10:30pm, Yance Ford (POV) and Esther Robinson (ArtHome, Danny Williams: A Walk Into the Sea), the Heterodox team
Afterparty: Café Select for industry and friends with large Putty photos and behind the scenes footage, great DJ line-up!
Music by Justine D, Chris Keating (Yeasayer), Matt Papich (Ecstatics, Meters Delight) and Kari Altmann (blackmoth.org)
RSVP only: puttyhillmovie@gmail.com

Saturday 2/19
*Surprise daytime Q&A with Gordon Porterfield (writer-father of the filmmaker)
6:30pm, Jeronimo Rodriguez (NY1 News)
8:30pm, Richard Brody (The New Yorker)
10:30pm, Amos Poe (filmmaker)
Afterparty: The Beauty Bar (231 E 14th St off 3rd Ave)

Sunday 2/20
6:30pm, Amy Dotson (IFP)
8:30pm, Chris Keating (Yeasayer)
10:30pm, Jem Cohen (filmmaker) with Putty Hill crew
Afterparty: Lit Lounge (93 2nd Ave off 6th St) with Dope Body, Dustin Wong (Ponytail) & Co La (Matt Papich).

Chills, scares & kindness: Brad Anderson's VANISHING ON 7th STREET hits theaters

What a shame that Night Catches Us has already (and so recently!) been used as the title of a movie, one for which its meaning proved abstruse, at best. It would have made the perfect fit for Brad Anderson's new film VANISHING ON 7th STREET, a title that, while place-specific, is little more than prosaic. The actual film, however, is anything but. A truly creepy, frightening, bizarre and oddly moving film about perhaps the ultimate "fear of the dark," this exceedingly swift and smart genre movie delivers the goods on every front,  from concept to execution -- including screenplay (by Anthony Jaswinski), dialog, direction and performances -- with style to spare. And on the kind of low budget that I suspect would send certain other directors into apoplectic fits.

From the time of his breakout indie Next Stop Wonderland through Happy Accidents, Session 9, The Machinist, Transsiberian and now this new one (with the occasional cable TV gig between times), Anderson has been a talented and terrifically diverse filmmaker whom you can count on to provide smart entertainments that often offer something more. Long after seeing one of his films, an idea, a moment, performance, line of dialog or visual memory will come back to haunt you, but pleasantly. The filmmaker has now tackled the rom-com, fantasy, thriller, horror, drama, and sci-fi genres with equal aplomb. If he hasn't come out with the best film in any of these, he always manages a good one. And with Vanishing, he might actually have a "best" on his hands.
 
This unusually chilling movie starts with an almost immediate bang: a disappearance. From there we move extraordinarily quickly into a situation fraught with immediacy and terror. What has happened to others may happen to the folk we're suddenly stuck with and whom we become rather fond of fast. These include Hayden Christensen (above), Thandie Newton (below, right) and Jacob Latimore (below, left) and John Leguizamo (one photo down).

There is also a little girl (Taylor Groothuis, at bottom) who appears to be camping out in a nearby church. How these five connect, interact, help and hinder each other makes the short film (well under 90 minutes, as I recall) work to tremendous effect. If you buy the initial premise, which I will not give away, it is more than easy to go along with just about everything else, and soon you'll be biting your nails to the quick.

So primal is the fear generated by the movie's premise, so skillfully have Anderson and Jaswinski mined it for shock, surprise and detail, and so immediate and full of feeling are the performances of the five principals that I can't imagine being more strongly caught up in a fantasy/sci-fi/horror situation than I was with this one.

Why is this "thing" happening? Is humanity to blame in some -- or many -- ways? Are our survivors guilty because of "survivor guilt," or is something deeper and more individual going on? Much is hinted at but concrete answers never appear, which is just as well. The victims don't have time to ask such questions, and at the speed and pacing on which Anderson insists, we barely do, either. The ending, by the way, is simple, stun-ning and so right. I can't wait for the sequel.


Vanishing on 7th Street opens this Friday, February 18, in New York City at the Village East Cinema. Click here to learn other playdates, cities and theaters around the country.

IMMIGRATION TANGO opens. And... why? Oh, well, why not?

The whiff of "vanity production" hangs rather heavily over the new film IMMIGRATION TANGO. But of whose vanity are we speaking? My guess would be one of its stars, Elika Portnoy, who also produced/executive produced the movie and had a hand in its screenplay. (She also starred in, executive-produced and co-wrote an earlier film, Tricks of Love, aka Tricks of a Woman.) Ms Portnoy is attractive and can act agreeably enough, but I don't know that, on the basis of what we see in Immigration Tango, she would be the ideal actress for this role. Actually, none of the cast appears particularly ideal. But since the screenplay generally sucks, it probably would not matter who was cast in these roles. However, the actors on view all do the job required from this alternately pleasant and very heavy-handed "romp" (those quotes appear because the cast often seems to be romping in cement sneakers).

The hoary plot hinges on a couple of about-to-be illegal immigrants who very much want to stay here in America and who, thanks to their best friends, resort to the old "marriage" ploy. Complications -- directed and co-written by one, David Burton Morris -- ensue. Mr Morris, pictured at left (and I ask my reader to remember that a cigar is just a cigar), does a serviceable enough job of handing us a standard plot guided home in standard fashion.

The quartet of leads includes (in addition to Ms Portnoy, above, left) the hunky Carlos Leon (below, right), a former celebrity personal trainer whose IMDB listing calls him a native New Yorker born in Cuba (neat trick, Mr. Leon!); the white bread guy (his name is even Mike White) who is writing his dissertation on the sonnets (played by McCaleb Burnett, above, right); and his girlfriend and lawyer-in-training Betty Bristol (Ashley Wolfe, below, left). They are all, with the exception of Mr. Burnett, Tricks of Love alumni, and they do their damndest to keep up with the ridiculous plotting.

The film's weakest element by far is its screenplay, which tends to go for the obvious whenever possible, then turns on a dime when necessary to further the plot machinations. Consequently, "Are these the stupidest, most crass set of characters I've ever seen!" you're thinking one moment -- and the next, "Awww, they're kinda sweet..."  For instance, Mike proves remarkably altruistic going into things, and then he's suddenly ready to abandon ship. Likewise, the characters give lip-service to the strictly enforced immigration laws and the penalties for trying to get around them. And then they behave as though such laws don't even exist: leaving their apartment door open so that the immigration official can enter unannounced and discover -- oh, but why spoil things? Members of at least one of the two couples love their significant other -- until, suddenly, they don't. As for Mike's utterly caricatured parents, the less said the better.

The worst offense, however, involves the immigration officer, played by Avery Sommers, who's on the trail of the foursome. The hoops through which this poor actress is asked to jump ought to have assured her some heavy overtime pay. That she retains her dignity as a performer -- and she does -- is just about miraculous. But then the style of the films begs for hamming it up, and some of the cast, as you can see in the still above, is more than happy to oblige. According to the movie's poster, the film won best picture at some international film festival or other, and Mr. Leon won best actor at yet another. I've tried enlarging and then printing out the poster image in order to read the fine print to learn exactly which festivals these were. No luck. But if this was the best film, I would be deeply interested to learn what passed for competition.

From Roadside Attractions, Immigration Tango opens Friday, February 18, in various cities. On the film's web site, we are admonished to click here to learn the specific theaters. I did, but nothing showed up. Maybe by the time you click, the necessary information will have been provided.

Challenges: Tariq Tapa's ZERO BRIDGE makes New York debut at Film Forum

One of the great gifts to Americans watching foreign language films is the immersion into other cultures these movies provide. And they don't have to be documentaries to do it.  They become learning experi-ences that enrich us, even as they challenge us to empathize with unusual characters and understand what is going on. The first jolt to be felt in ZERO BRIDGE, the not quite new film (made in 2007, it is finally getting a theatrical release) by Tariq Tapa, comes from the young magistrate in charge of what passes for a police station (rats occupy the holding cell) in Srinagar, Kashmir, where the film is both set and shot: "No one is released from jail until proven innocent."

Yet even that statement, as ass-backward as it initially seems, is up for interpretation. The reason we're in the police station is that our (not quite) hero, a boy in his later teens named Dilawar -- whom we meet on the bridge of the title, and who is composing a letter to his mom telling her how very well he's doing -- is awaiting his "cousin," whom he will join in a day devoted to thievery and pickpocketing. Mr. Tapa, pictured at right, whose first full-length fill this is, has certainly given us a complex and not terribly likable charac-ter. Not initially, at least. Yet, as we learn more about him, his life, and the people who surround him -- including his fellow students, whose home-work he does (for a price); his loving but tradition-bound and con-flicted uncle (Ali Mohammad Dar, below, right); and most impor-tantly a young woman (Taniya Khan, who is able to radiate beauty and immense intelligence simultaneously) whom he has earlier victimized but who does not recognize him as her aggressor.

Dilawar -- played very well by Mr Tapa's cousin Mohammad Imran Tapa (above, left) in his first film role -- is a user. But then so, in their way, are all the other characters, who are used in turn by each other and society. For this viewer Tapa's film is finally about the enormous difficulty of effecting change and progress for both the individual and society. In the press materials for Zero Bridge, the director notes that in all his work, he's been obsessed with a certain theme: the weight of the past on present behavior. These two themes work in tandem, I think, and to Tapa's credit, he has told his story so that plot, character and theme reflect each other so well that they are woven seamlessly.

In the character of Bani (Ms. Khan, above) the filmmaker has created a lovely "new" woman standing at the current intersection of Muslim life. Having studied successfully in American and been given more than a look at a freer society, will she be able to move forward in her homeland, or disappear into the arranged marriage her family expects of her?

"What makes us such selfish animals?" Dilawar asks at one point toward the finale -- a question that could resonate through all societies. A gritty film and one that is indeed challenging, thanks to the talent of this fledgling filmmaker, his movie is in no way inaccessible. You may work a bit, but the rewards are bountiful.
 
Zero Bridge opens at New York City's Film Forum this Wednesday for a two-week run. You can also click here to see the awards and nominations the film has racked up, as well as its earlier, current and future screenings.

On DVD: Michael Swan/Kevin Richardson's WHITE LION, a fable of South Africa

A dulcet-toned black man speaks to a group of children, black and white, telling them the tale of a supposedly famous and unusual white lion whose "reign" augurs peace and prosperity for the land. This lion ruled over his domain way back when, but then he disappeared. Years -- maybe decades -- later, a new white cub is born and the tale takes us through his birth to young adulthood, with the teller and his kids breaking into the narrative now and again to ask questions or express concern. Other than some pleasant and occasionally beautiful wildlife photography, that's pretty much it for this unexceptional but mildly rewarding "family" movie from South Africa. If you and your kids can't get to the new documentary that opens this week -- The Last Lions -- then White Lion might be a presentable alternative, as it makes its DVD debut this week, after a very limited theatrical release last fall.

Although there are various threats to the little cub and his older version that pop up along the way -- hyenas, a snake, crocodiles (below), other lions, fire and, of course, man -- filmmakers Michael Swan (above, left) and Kevin Richardson (above, right, with camera) make certain that scares and violence are kept to the minimum, along with any blood and gore.

Though there are actors in the film, primarily the young native boy Gisani (Thabo Malema, shown center, two photos above), who becomes the lion cub's primary protector, the movie relies mostly on photography and that narrator, essayed by South African theater-and-film luminary John Kani, to guide the film to fruition. Along the way, according to the credits, some 25 white lions were used to portray the lead, awhile something like double or triple that amount were used to brings us the more heavily populated "tawny" variety.

In the midst of all this,there is quite an interesting moment when the narrator tells the kids that there is a new threat to our lovely lion: the "most dangerous creature in all the land: man."  Well, excuse me, but what species would he call our friend Gisani, who's been protecting and following the lion for most of the movie?  Of course, our narrator really means to say "white man," and if he had added that extra word, it would have been perfectly appropriate -- and OK by me.

In any case, by the film's end only one lion has bitten the dust (off-screen, of course) and there has been one nice little surprise, too. And, despite your being able to resist the film for most of the way, its ending is likely to leave you feeling more emotional than you'd intended and maybe even with a catch in your throat.

From Screen Media Films, White Lion makes its DVD debut Tuesday, February 15, for sale or rental.