A rare and much appreciated good B-movie: Christy/Brown/Sizemore's BLUE RIDGE

Surprisingly well-written and -acted, and directed with enough verve and intelligence to keep viewers watching, BLUE RIDGE turns out to be one of those rare finds among the countless B movies being released in these days of our current pandemic. It's smart and thoughtful and has a fleet and lovely grasp of everything from character to situation and setting -- the gorgeous Blue Ridge mountains of Appalachia.

As directed by Michigan native Brent Christy and co-wrriten by Caleb G. Brown and Shea Sizemore, the movie is also that rare bird in today's let's-make-it-as-bloody-and-violent-as-possible context that deliberately chooses, as does the film's hero (the new-to-town sheriff played by Johnathon Schaech), to prevent that blood and violence from taking place. 

Director Christy (shown at right) knows how to create suspense without over-milking anything and he draws fine performances from every actor on screen, leads to smallest speaking parts. This is the best role Mr. Schaech (shown above and below) has had in some time, and he does a terrific job with everything from the action scenes to the abashed romantic moments. He is helped enormously by the excellent script that draws character from quick, smart flashes of dialog that are often witty, charming or nasty -- as needed -- and never over-does anything. The exposition, too, is an integral part of the investigation here, as the screenplay allows our newcomer sheriff to learn things at the same time as does the audience.

The movie begins as the sheriff and his young daughter (he has taken this particular job in order to be in closer proximity to that daughter and to his estranged-but-still-loving wife) make a quick stop at a local convenience store only to find that something is going wrong there. The film's biggest coincidence -- fortunately, it's one that comes at the beginning so it's over with quickly -- is that this sleepy little town has two major criminal events happen on the same day. But even this comes together nicely via the smart screenplay by the film's finale.

The clever, off-the-cuff dialog is most apparent between the sheriff's two friendly-feuding deputies (Ben Esler and Lara Silva, above, left and right respectively) and his wife and daughter (Sarah Lancaster and Taegen Burns, right and left, respectively, below). The former's are fun and funny, the latter's more emotional, and both are always brief and believable.

Supporting cast includes some fine actors giving their brief scenes exactly the right oomph and gravitas: Graham Greene (below, seen earlier this week in the crappy horror film, Tar) plays the father of the first victim, 

while an excellent Tom Proctor (below) handles the role of the Greene character's major adversary with a resonant anger that's both surface and buried. This proves a kind of local Hatfield/Mc Coy situation, and it's the major thing that our sheriff must keep from exploding.

Even the husband of the initial victim is written and portrayed (by Kevin L. Johnson, below) with enough trenchant and specific detail to make this guy register more strongly that you'd expect. The solution to the crimes is a surprise but one that, given the situation and information we've learned, makes good, sad sense.

TrustMovies does not want to overstate the case for Blue Ridge. It's nothing great, but as decent B-movies go, it's one of the better examples of late and should provide a good evening's entertainment without making you sorry you watched. The movie's a pleasure. And not at all a guilty one.

From Imagicomm Entertainment and running a just-right 88 minutes, the movie hits DVD and digital HD this Tuesday, October 20 -- for purchase and/or rental.

In Aaron's Wolf's TAR, an L.A. landmark is fodder for some foolish, would-be horror

The idea of using Los Angeles' semi-famous La Brea Tar Pits as the sort-of setting and theme for a modern monster movie sounds promising. If only. The resulting misfire, TAR, proves a way-overlong slough through one genre cliché after another, with a script that offers dialog ranging from adequate to stupid and thus provides a decent cast with a nowhere-near-decent opportunity to even look good, let alone shine. 

I'm afraid there is but one person to blame for most of this, actor/writer/director Aaron Wolf (shown below) who appears to be a  triple threat -- but in the negative, rather than positive, meaning of that word. If TrustMovies had not agreed to review this one, he likely would have stopped watching midway, if not sooner.

Mr. Wolf (shown above) is an attractive enough performer but as co-writer (with Timothy Nuttall) and director, he allows for snail-like pacing until one wants to scream, Get on with it!, while some of the inane dialog -- particularly that involving the usual dumb, overweight and over-sexed best friend (played by poor Sandy Danto, below) -- becomes cringe-inducingly obvious and expected

The movie posits a seen-better-days business located in the area of the Pits that is now forced to close and must move out completely by the following morning or face a huge monetary payment. Simultaneously, a long gestating Tar Pitts monster is somehow unleashed and of course wreaks havoc on our gang of employees, family, lovers and friends. (Below is Timothy Bottoms as the uber-controlling paterfamilias.) 

Far too early on the electricity goes out (not simply at the location but in the writing, direction and performances, too), leaving us viewers in the usual gray, muddy semi-darkness that soon becomes boring to view but does provide the chance to fudge on any sharp, easily-seen visual effects. (The monster himself proves no big deal visually, in any case.)

Above is Tiffany Shepis, playing the employee with "psychic powers" who's not nearly as good at predicting as she imagines, and below is our old and always fun-to-watch friend Graham Greene as the local indigenous storyteller who knows the history of the "monster."

In films like this, there is sometimes fun to be had in guessing the order of who-will-survive?, but Tar doesn't generate enough interest to even manage that. Maybe 20 minutes too long, it's repetitive and tiresome: another pretty good idea for a scary movie wasted in mediocrity. But then, maybe younger folk who have not yet seen a lifetime of this kind of thing might find some fright and/or amusement here. (That's the movie's zaftig and relatively charming sex symbol, played by Nicole Alexandra Shipley, below.)

From 1091 Pictures and running 99 minutes, Tar hits digital streaming, available to purchase this coming Tuesday, October 20, and for rental the following Tuesday, October 27. To maybe find a theater or drive-in near you, click here then click on the various embedded links.

South Korean mystery FORGOTTEN proves a twisty, fascinating and moving "must-see"

Got to hand it to Netflix, which keeps coming up with terrific movies (along with plenty of duds), some of which you will have never heard. A good friend of mine recommended FORGOTTEN, a what-the fuck-is-going-on-here? thriller from 2017 that packs, at last, an almost unbearable sadness regarding family and loss, along with the socio-economic relevance of Parasite. It's from South Korea, of course, slipping into view almost completely under the critical radar.

Written and directed by Hang-jun Jang (aka Hang-jun Zhang), the movie is a veritable model of smart plotting and pacing, featuring a "mystery" that, as it unravels, keeps us absolutely hooked. Best of all, the explanation, rather than disappoint as so many mystery/thrillers do (the problem is always so much more interesting and fun than the solution), simply explodes here into something that hooks the heart as much as the mind, and results in as damning an indictment of dog-eat-dog Capitalism as you'll have seen.

It helps to know something of South Korean history and its financial crisis that left so much of the population in a horrible state. Forgotten never underscores anything too heavily and so glides easily along on its genre credentials alone. All the rest is gravy -- incredibly tasty and nourishing gravy, at that.

A young man (lovely actor Ha-Neul Kang, shown on poster, top, and above) and his family move into a house that, to him, looks oddly familiar. Strange things begin happening and we question for a bit if these are real, hallucinations or supernatural. Quickly, all this changes into something quite other, then changes again and again, as we race along with the thriller conventions to keep up as, all the while, Forgotten grows ever stranger and darker.

Performances are as expert as usual in South Korean cinema, while the technical aspects of the film are also first-rate. Dark as it is -- literally and metaphorically -- Forgotten is always a pleasure to view. And the final scene, which arrives just after the end credit title is shown, is maybe as glowingly beautiful as anything I've seen in a long while. This finale posits the question, What is it that defines our character? The film does not provide the answer, but the manner in which it does the asking is exemplary. 

This one's a keeper.

Streaming now via Netflix, the film runs 108 minutes, relatively short by South Korean standards, every one of which pleases (those minutes and those standards).

Cooper Raiff's new indie, SHITHOUSE, offers college life from the view of the shy outsider

 

As has been duly noted elsewhere, SHITHOUSE -- the movie named for a college fraternity that hosts particularly popular parties -- deals with the sort of student, a young man named Alex, whom we've not seen as the center of attention in most examples of this genre. 

He's male, all right, but he's also very close to unhealthily shy and uncertain. Frightened, really -- about leaving his warm and loving family, as well as encountering and interacting with the rest of the college students. His stupid and somewhat abusive roommate clearly thinks Alex is a needless nerd and, other than because we audiences usually root for the underdog, we come pretty close to agreeing with that assessment.

As written, directed, co-edited by and also starring Cooper Raiff (at left) in the lead role, Shithouse, were it not as good a film as it is, would probably be pegged as a vanity production. It's still smacks somewhat of the vain, but it's worth seeing, and Mr Raiff at least has qualities that might indeed produce some degree of vanity.

He's handsome, intelligent and possesses a view of humanity -- concerning the circumscribed world of family and college shown here -- that proves to be encompassing enough yet less typical and judgmental than first glance might indicate. And in his two leading characters, Alex and Maggie, the odd girl he meets with whom he becomes quickly entangled, he's given us two people worth knowing.

Maggie is played by Dylan Gelula (above, left), an actress who is fine match for Raiff in terms of nicely offsetting his aw-shucks charm and rectitude. She's acerbic, witty, a little nasty and, of course, as it turns out, a lot needy. Yes, Shithouse deals in some of the usual youth cliches, but it is smart enough to disguise them for awhile.

We also get those frat parties, perhaps the single most boring, repetitive and tiring iteration of "youthful fun" movies have yet given us, and that are not, it must be said, any more interesting here than elsewhere. (Animal House has much to atone for.) But as the film slowly centers around this main relationship and how it builds then falters and builds again, its strengths becomes more apparent.

Amy Landecker does a lovely job playing Alex's caring, somewhat hovering mom, while Logan Miller (above, left) has the even more difficult task of turning obnoxious roommate Sam into someone maybe worth caring about -- which he manages quite well. 

Overall, there's nothing here to set the world aflame, and at 102 minutes, the movie does seem overlong for what it has to say. Yet considering what it does accomplish -- and well -- we'll be eager to view the next step for Mr. Raiff.  From IFC Films, Shithouse opens this Friday, October 16, in theaters and via digital and VOD. 

Boy, do we need it now! Hans Pool's BELLINGCAT: TRUTH IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD

In this time when dictators everywhere from Russia, China, Brazil and the Philippines to Eastern Europe (and of course, right here in the USA: that asshole and would-be dictator we'll call Ronald Rump) are doing their best to cow their people into not being able -- and finally not even caring -- to tell the true from the false, what a joy it is to find out about a little group of online investigative journalists collectively know as Bellingcat. Yes: as in "belling the cat," whch is, not coincidentally, how and why this group first got its name. BELLINGCAT: TRUTH IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD, written, directed and shot by Hans Pool, a filmmaker from The Netherlands, is as important a documentary for these fraught times as any I've seen of late.

Mr. Pool, shown at right, has put together such a necessary document here, especially since, at this time, so much of what the world sees and accepts as news is often and deliberately fake. How to tell the difference between what's real and what is not is of ever more vital importance. Consequently, to have a group such as Bellingcat dedicated to ferreting out truth from lies becomes a necessity. And the fact that the group is made up of citizen journalists using mostly what they've been able to find online (and then find evidence of its veracity) makes them ever more valuable.

The filmmaker introduces us to the various people involved in Bellingcat, beginning with its founder, Britisher Eliot Higgins (above, right), then moving on to other major figures Christiaan Triebert (below) and Timmi Allen whose abilities and personal situations have made them vital to the organization. We learn some of the ways in which their forensic skills help determine truth from lies online, and we are shown how and why all this can and is being used as verifiable evidence. We also hear from various social media and journalism experts from academia who offer thoughtful, precise explanations of what's going on in our current times. 

Claire Wardle (shown below), for instance, notes that in our earlier technology times, we seemed to most fear things like robots, when what might bring us down instead is technology that simply reflects back on us our own worst aspects. Later, Ms Wardle adds, regarding the internet, "If you see information that reinforces your world view, you have no interest in checking its veracity." Which is exactly why we need and now have Bellingcat -- which has grown from a one-man operation to these days having a much larger crew.

The subjects of investigation the documentary focuses on most are the downing of MH17 (Malaysia Airlines Flight 17) in 2014, the Syria Market Bombing, and to a much less extent some of ISIS's beheadings. Regarding MH17, everything from a video of the Russian convoy with a missile missing to fuel prices of the day comes into play, and the documentary combines the thrust of a forensic thriller with the too-timely urgency for a constant search for truth. 

You will worry that Bellingcat's lives are in danger, and while they well may be, one member (whose sudden disappearance causes consternation for the others) tells us that the organization is now too big for this to be so easily managed. If you, like TrustMovies, knew almost nothing about Bellingcat going into this film, you will come out of it with a huge appreciation for all this amazing organization has done and continues to do. In terms of investigative reporting, it has shown much more storied and monolithic news media, such as The New York Times and the BBC, how to better do their job. (Christiaan Triebert, in fact, now works for The NYT!)

From First Run Features and lasting 89 minutes, the documentary arrives for U.S. viewing via DVD this Tuesday, October 13 -- for purchase and I hope rental. Expect it to stream eventually, too. When I learn how and when, I'll post that here.

A Russian emigrant diddles around in France: Claude Chamis' THE WANDERINGS OF IVAN

That sometimes fine line between art and pomposity gets a real workout in the latest offering from NQV, the 2018 film from French filmmaker Claude Chamis entitled THE WANDERINGS OF IVAN. 

Tracking a recent young emigrant from Russia as he wanders around a French city and then some woodland area nearby, the movie stars a hunky, auburn-haired actor named Aram Arakelyan (at right and below) who's got a great body and a handsome face that unfortunately he keeps pretty much in a single expression throughout the entire movie. Meanwhile, the so-so script graces us with a voiceover in which Ivan talks (and talks and talks) about the friends he left in Russia. Also tossed in is a little bit about how he left them -- but almost no why.

The movie opens with Ivan asleep in the automobile of the surprised young woman who finds him there and screams for him to get out. He then wanders around begging for money, which almost no one gives him. Are we to think that France is full of an uncaring populace? Rather like the rest of the western (and maybe eastern) world, I suppose.

The woods where he wanders turns out to be a major gay cruising spot, but Ivan's having no part of this. Well, he is willing to take the money from a john (Franck Zerbib, above) and then run instead of suck, but what happens here turns out to be a lot worse than merely that. 

Along the way, he gets to kiss one young woman (Camille Freychet, above) and then fuck an older one (Corine Watrin, below) and barely interact with a few of these woods' male hookers -- to just about no avail (and hardly more interest)  whatsoever. 

One of those hookers (Benjamin Baclet, foreground, below) gifts another (Pablo Alarson, background, below) with a book of philosophic musings (of course, this is a French film!), quite a lot of the content of which is droned at us via the narration. Uh.... yeah. These musings/life lessons are not dumb exactly, but the movie itself eventually becomes so. And pointless -- unless the point is to point out how difficult it is these days to make any connection with our fellow man.

There are no real characters here -- including Ivan himself -- just a bunch of good-looking ciphers. Meanwhile, the cinematography is nice, performances are mostly of the "look away so meaningfully" sort, and the film's finale may leave you with but a single question, "Who gives a shit?" As you can probably tell by now, TrustMovies didn't.

From NQV Media (whose offerings I usually recommend more highly than this one) and running just 75 minutes, The Wanderings of Ivan hit digital streaming last week and is available now. You can view it by clicking here, then scrolling down to the line that begins with WATCH and making the proper choice among several possibilities.

At virtual Film Forum: Art, justice and family coalesce in Catherine Gund's doc, AGGIE

Having kept myself a deliberate outsider to both the appreciation of and the world of contemporary art, TrustMovies has heard the name Agnes Gund mentioned over the years but had not paid much attention to it. That has changed with the release of the new documentary, AGGIE, directed by Gund's daughter Catherine Gund and starring -- if  rather reluctantly -- her mother. More important, the film co-stars her mom's contributions to not merely contemporary art (she's a wealthy collector of the stuff) but to the constant and necessary struggle for justice in this ever-fraught world of ours. Aggie, it turns out, puts her money -- and much else that's important, too -- where her mouth is. 

Filmmaker Gund, shown at right and at bottom with mom, lets us know from the get-go that Aggie is not particularly happy to have this film made. 

Agnes Gund is clearly quite a private person (we don't learn much at all here about her personal life), and so the documentary concentrates on the art she loves and finds important, and how this impacts and interacts with the need for justice. (The film begins with quote on the subject from another filmmaker Aggie has championed, Ava DuVernay, below.) 

Early on in the film, we see one of  those famous comic-book inspired works by Roy Lichtenstein (below) and learn that it was somehow important in ways others than merely being an expensive piece of art. Later we learn exactly how all this happened and why. 

The junior Ms Gund mixes her mom's family history with the various artists and their art that has been important to her down the decades (the elder Gunn is now in her 80s), and with the struggle for justice she fought for on so many different fronts.

These fronts include everything from the fight for LGBT rights and feminism (that's artist Xaviera Simmons, below, left), to prison reform and most interestingly, for the full rights of people of color here in the USA. Aggie had a conversation years back in which she asked how and why the German people could claim not to have known about the Nazi atrocities during World War II. "Were you alive back in the 1950s?" her companion asks. When her answer is Yes, of course, he asks her how she and all the other Americans did not seem to know or care about the lynchings, murders and general abuse of Negros in here in the USA.

Yes, The elder Gund is one of those "white innocents" -- just like me and so many others I know -- who managed to not really see and understand what was going on in our own country at that time. Gund does not excuse herself. But her life seems to have been dedicated to helping right many of the wrongs she did not or could not fully grasp as a younger person brought up in a society and culture that implicitly consented to all of this as, if not "right," still somehow acceptable.

We meet glancingly so many of the artists she has helped and championed over the years -- from the famous to simply some school-kids she's encouraged via the in-school art programs she has funded. Even John Waters is here. (Gund went to bat for MoMA's acquisition of his bad-taste masterpiece, Pink Flamingos.) By the time we see her work during the AIDS crisis right up and through our current times of Black Lives Matter and the need for prison reform, I suspect you will agree with me that this movie is one of the few recent documentaries you can call genuinely inspiring.  (That's Gund's grandson, Rio Hope Gund, above, left.) 

From Strand Releasing and running just 91 minutes, Aggie opens at New York City's Film Forum virtual cinema tomorrow, Wednesday, October 7. Click here for more information on how to view. Will the documentary screen elsewhere? Click here and then scroll down to click on SCREENINGS in the task bar for the latest update.

A tasty documentary is turned inside out in Molly Dworsky/Dave Newberg/Zachary Capp's THE RINGMASTER

Who exactly is THE RINGMASTER of this eponymously titled new documentary? Seems to TrustMovies that there are actually four of them -- the most important being a Minnesota man named Larry Lang who is said (by many, many folk indeed) to have made the best-tasting, batter-laden, deep-fried onion rings in the whole wide world. Or at the very least in these United States of America. Larry is the ostensible subject of the documentary planned to be brought to fruition by a first-time filmmaker named Zachary Capp (shown at center, below, surrounded by what turns out to be this film's actual directors, Capp's friends Molly Dworsky, left, and Dave Newberg, right).

Mr. Lang (below) may be the ringmaster of those onions, and Capp of the documentary about them, but along the very bizarre, alternately funny and pretty damned sad journey that is this film, Ms Dworsky and Mr. Newberg must replace the original filmmaker. How and why make up the "plot" here, and quite a tale it turns out to be.

If onion rings are among your favorite food (as they are mine), I don't see how you will want to miss this movie and see and hear as those rings sizzle to a golden brown. (If only The Ringmaster were in Taste-O-Vision!) 

As filmmaker Capp determines to bring Lang's rings the acclaim they deserve, he and we viewers travel around the country watching various deals made so that the onions might become the "signature" food of important sport franchises, one of which is a certain famous football team who plans to move from Oakland to Las Vegas.

One major problem is that our Larry only wants his privacy and to be able to produce his rings in peace and quiet for whomever and wherever he happens to be working at any particular time. 

And, as we learn almost from the get-go here, our Mr. Capp is a reformed gambling addict, and addiction, as we are so often told, never dies. It simply sleeps, waiting for a new "something" to attract its attention and claws. For instance: filmmaking as a road to fame and fortune.

Yes, movie fans: In the long and varied history of hybrid documentaries, I think this one really does take the cake. Or the rings. Manipulation grows and does even more than its expected damage; even as we keep grinning, smiling and guffawing, the laughter begin to curdle in our throat. Onions are famous for making their chefs cry. So, I suspect, will be the case for viewers of this small-but-packed-with-observation documentary.

As the end credits roll, we learn the outcome for some of the folk we've met here. But what the rings themselves? Are they available anywhere now? Even as produced by Larry's sister Linda? Or are they to be consigned, as is so much else these days (including our country itself), to disappear down the river of full-out dementia? 

From 1091 Pictures and running just 88 minutes. The Ringmaster opens on digital and VOD platforms this Tuesday, October 6 -- for purchase and/or rental. (Even Gene Simmons and the band KISS get involved in all of this. Who knew?)