Michael Barnett's new documentary SUPERHEROES world-premieres on HBO

"Having superpowers does not necessarily make you a superhero," notes one of the self-titled breed featured in this bizarre (in so many ways) new documentary that premieres Monday night, August 8, on HBO. "Having super-motivation and doing super deeds: I think that's what makes you a superhero." To TrustMovies' mind, that word "necessarily" in  the above sentence rather immediately places this speaker into the mode of comic-book reality. So, then, some people do possess superpowers?  Say, Superman, Santa Claus, God and Rupert Murdoch? (Well, until the latter's staff began its "breaking-and-entering" phase.)

In SUPERHEROES, the new, yes, documentary(!) directed by first-time filmmaker Michael Barnett (shown below) and produced by Theodore James, we meet a bunch of would-be superheroes who dress in costume (that often disguises the face) and set about making our world a better place. But do they? That's up for grabs. The initial demonstration of this is exhibited via the speaker's words accompanied by animated frames that tell the story of how he protected a woman undergoing a terrible beating. I'll buy that. Or maybe not. The movie-makers do damn little investigation of whether or not anything their assembled "cast" says is verifiable.

Accompanying these people on their rounds produces no real confrontations, so we're left to listen to them ramble on, interrupted by a few other talking heads.  One is that of a policewoman, Lt. Brown, who expounds on how vigilante justice is problematic (good-ness knows, we've had movies telling us the same thing for years now). Then some kind of psychologist takes the other route, explaining and perhaps trying to justify these would-be mother's (and daddy's) helpers. The two viewpoints cancel each other out.

Which seems appropriate, as much of this movie appears to cancel itself out. So many of the folk whom we meet in this odd film -- Xtreme Justice League (and Mr. Xtreme, shown below); Zimmer, Lucid, Z and T.S.A.F. (the "T" is silent), from what they call The New York Initiative; Master Legend (who in one nutty moment, tells a paraplegic that he (Master Legend) has a pipeline to god: "He always listen to me!"); Zetaman; Dark Guardian; Thanatos (shown at bottom, from Canada!) and, as a corrective, I guess, Life (who services Manhattan's homeless) -- seem to have but a nodding acquaintance with what many of us would call reality.

Zimmer, quite waif-like for a superhero, wants to corral the bad guys who prey upon gays, but his modus operandi smacks, as the Lieutenant points out, of entrapment. "Never drink to drunkenness," Master Legend tells us as he downs a beer, though it looks he's halfway there already. Mr Xtreme -- overweight, with parents who make fun of him, no social life and few of the skills one would imagine a superhero needs (we see him in a fighting match, which he loses) -- seems simply sad.

Throughout this documentary, there's a queasy sense of mixing up life and fantasy, reality and dreams. And this is apparent not just in the cast of "superheroes" but within the film-making team itself. Its organization is all over the place, to the extent that we're not sure just what the aim is: to explain, help, hinder or make fun. It may be true, as a couple of the heroes point out, that "society just isn't working anymore," but will a costume and good intentions make it all better?

Well, among these heroes is one who manages a Toys-for-Kids project, while another provides the homeless with deodorant and toiletries. That's a plus. Finally, they all meet at -- yes -- Comic-Con in San Diego, which perhaps is where they really belong. As unsure as I am about the usefulness of these superheroes, I am equally flummoxed by the point of this documentary. However, if a bunch of rabid, tea-party Republicans can bring our nation to the point of breakdown over a phony debt crisis that no one really believes in (or why was the debt ceiling raised without quibble a dozen times under George W. Bush -- who spent three times what our current and rotten-to-the-core President has spent?), then I suppose it is perfectly OK to look to superheroes (or people who somehow think they are superheroes) to solve our problems. Holy shit -- it just hit me: This may be the perfect documentary for our end-of-times!

You can see Superheroes on HBO, starting Monday evening August 8 at 9 (Eastern and Pacific time). Check your local HBO schedule for further showings (click on the link, go to the bottom of the screen, at right, and click on Schedule). Eventually, I expect, there's be streaming and/or DVDs.

In THE WHISTLEBLOWER first-timer Larysa Kondracki goes for grim -- and gets it

A dark, ugly, vicious story about the exploitation of women in a section of the world not known these days for a whole lot more, THE WHISTLEBLOWER -- a new film from Canadian first-full-length filmmaker Larysa Kondracki -- goes for grim and gets it in spades. Based, I would imagine a bit loosely, on the story of an American police officer (played by Rachel Weisz) going through a divorce and in financial need who takes a job as a U.N. "peacekeeper" in post-war Bosnia, the movie is one of the most feminist I have seen in a long while. Yet it never mentions the word or pushes any verbal agenda. It shows rather than tells, and what it shows is harrowing.

The Whistleblower is not about "peacekeeping"; it is about the sex trade -- specifically, the kidnapping of young girls from Russia, The Ukraine or eastern Europe for use as sex objects. It's Taken, taken to the extreme of reality, rather than the extreme of entertainment. What happens to these girls, two of whom constitute the little story at the start of the movie, is horrible and grueling, and Ms Kondracki, shown at right, does not shy away from the worst of it. Nor does she rub our faces in things any more than the girls themselves experience them. You come away from this film (at least from the major portion of it) up to your ears, eyes and nose in shit.

Because the movie has to do with the sex trade, you might think it's going to be some kind of a turn-on. It is nothing of the sort -- unless you're a sadist. Instead, it's mostly a turn-off, all the more so because when Ms Weisz, who plays Kathryn Bolkovac (the real-life woman whose story this is), begins exploring what's going on in the "bars" that dot the Bosnian countryside, she discovers that this sex trade involves everyone from the local police to UN staff and even some of the supposed "peacekeepers." What's worse: They all have immunity from prosecution.

How all this plays out makes up the bulk of this near-two-hour movie, and much of it is handled quite well, including the unsurprising love interest provided by Nicolaj Lie Kas, who appeared in the original Brothers. (He's shown above, right, with Ms Weisz). This "affair"  is given just about the correct and relatively small amount of time necessary to make it real but not all that important. Also on hand are Vanessa Redgrave (below, who plays Kathryn's mentor) and David Strathairn as a fellow from Internal Affairs.

The movie's problems occur when Weisz starts her investigation -- and goes it totally alone (There? In Bosnia? Where practically every man on view seems like a woman's sworn enemy -- unless she's about to give him head.) OK: Let that one pass.  But toward the finale, when, in order to ratchet up suspense, Kondracki and her co-writer Eilis Kirwan offer the most tried-and-true-and-not-very-believable turn of events, you may suddenly feel betrayed by a film that had seemed deadly serious and now seems simply deadly.

For her part, Ms Weisz is very good (though her role in last year's Agora, was ten times better, as was that film), and the supporting cast, including the likes of Monica Bellucci (above) and Liam Cunningham delivers, as well, though there are finally so many characters that dot the landscape that a good actor like Benedict Cumberbatch nearly gets lost in the shuffle. The camerawork is good and gritty, however, and in all the technical departments, the film remains on track.

That the finale is so woeful seems a shame because there is so much that's so good about The Whistleblower, beginning with its subject, and the fact that this sexual slavery scenario appears to be growing rather than diminishing around the world. At the very least, the film should put the kibosh on western-world teenagers' international travel plans.

From Samuel Goldwyn Films, the movie opens today, August 5, in multiple theaters in both the New York and the Los Angeles areas. For a complete listing of venues by state, city, date and theater, simply click here.

Evan Glodell's BELLFLOWER opens -- with a bang and a whimper -- in New York & L.A.

The kind of movie that, from its slam-bang beginning, has you asking the questions -- Who are these people and what is going on here? -- BELLFLOWER is also the kind of movie that will have you asking the same questions at the finale. Yes, you know more about the people and place (maybe even the time period) by then, but not nearly enough to answer those questions at all thoroughly. What is clear, however, is that writer/director Evan Glodell (shown below) has talent to spare, even if he is at this point lacking some focus. Or maybe missing the forest for the trees.

Mr. Glodell's visual sense is in your face and stunning, filmed it often seems with a yellow tinge to almost everything. If you remember those movie trailers from the 50s, in which one of the tag lines was inevitably, "Passion explodes off the screen!", well, that certainly is the case here. Bellflower is, in fact, a sterling example of what happens when passion comes crashin'. In it, boy (who makes flame throwers) meets girl (who eats live crickets). And while there is more to these characters than those short descriptions might suggest, there is not, finally, enough.

Mr. Glodell has not only written and directed Bellflower, he co-produced it, did some of the editing, and -- oh, yes -- stars in it, too. If this sounds a bit like a vanity production, well, at least the guy has something to be vain about. He's good-looking, exhibits screen charisma, and knows his way around directing, if not quite so well around screenwriting. Yet.

This is a love story, of sorts. Woodrow (Glodell) meets Millie (a very good Jessie Wiseman, above left) and falls hard. How hard, we don't realize. Nor, it seems, does he, until it's too late. His best friend Aidan (Tyler Dawson, below) helps him with various "projects" (that flame thrower, target practice, etc.), while getting involved with Courtney (Rebekah Brandes, two photos down). Millie's roomie, Mike (Vincent Grashaw), doubles as on-and-off fuck-buddy, who gets "on" at precisely the wrong moment.

That's pretty much it, except that what's most disastrously missing here is context. Which is why the Who are these people? question never really gets answered. Not only are there no parents, relatives or other friends around, there's no work/employment shown either. Do these kids have jobs? How do they live? At one point along the way, $3 is mentioned as something vitally important. "Do you know what I could buy with that?!" one of them asks another. Well, actually, no: What could you buy? Are these kids some sort of American version of stunted Eurotrash? Are they perhaps trust-fund babies?  Or maybe living in an alternate universe where $3 has real purchasing power?

Instead, they inhabit some highly emotional vacuum, in which nothing but their finally too-enormous needs are important. Even Romeo and Juliet had context. So, maybe consider this movie a tragedy for the upcoming apocalyptic set. Or a semi-bromance gone wrong. Or Zabriskie Point for twats (although that original was pretty much made with twats in mind, too, though they were courting peace and love while these are more interested in death and destruction). Whatever. Glodell, for all that's missing here, has a lot going for him and will certainly be heard from again. And I hope I'll be there to see what comes next.

Bellflower, 105 minutes, from Oscilloscope Laboratories, opens tomorrow, Friday, August 5, in Los Angeles (Landmark's Nuart) and New York (Angelika Film Center) and elsewhere in the weeks to come.  Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters.

MOUTH OF THE WOLF: Two years later, a great documentary finally gets its day in the (American) sun

TrustMovies covered the film below as part of the FSLC's annual Open Roads festival in 2010. As this wonderful documentary opens today at MoMA, here's that short review again, and updated....

THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF (La bocca del lupo), walked off with Italy's Best Documentary award at the Donatellos two years ago. I don't know what the competition offered, but it is hard to imagine that anything could have legitimately bettered this film. As strange, poetic and beautiful -- as well as crass and prosaic -- as any documentary I've seen in some time, the movie, from Pietro Marcello (shown below), is a wonderful, moving surprise. It sneaks up on you; for awhile you will not even know what it is really about.

A man moves through landscapes, a city and time, and the film also moves back and forth, too, as it combines words, images, voices, music, sound (the lack of ambient sound, in particular, is very strange) and finally character -- two fascinating examples of this -- to create a rough kind of poetry.  The experience of simply sitting quietly and letting this film flow over you is such a unique one that I hesitate to say much more about it.  Except that it does involve prison, and a man (Enzo, shown below and on poster, above) whose dark eyes, thick mustache, high cheekbones and sunken cheeks may remind you a bit of Pierre Clementi. His inamorata, Mary, is something else, as well.

A kind of mosaic of a city, its people, the past and present, and "unknown desires, forbidden remembrances of a lost world."  And finally, everyone's dream: "a country house in which to live quietly, hugging each other and waiting for old age." The Mouth of the Wolf is strange art indeed, and we are lucky to have the chance to see it in a theatrical release. It will play for one week, beginning today August 4, at MoMA in New York City. Click here for screenings and tickets. Doc lovers: don't let this one get past you.

Raúl Ruiz's award-winning MYSTERIES OF LISBON opens: 257 knock-you-silly minutes

Forgive TM for not jumping up and down in praise of the latest offering from Raúl Ruiz, the Chilean filmmaker who almost always gives us visually stunning films that also play around with form and ideas. MYSTERIES OF LISBON -- directed by Mr. Ruiz and adapted for the screen (the small one: more of this later) by Carlos Saboga from the novel by the 19th Century Portuguese novelist Camilo Castello Branco -- is, as expected, visually stunning and, while it indeed plays around with form, its ideas are those you might find in any soap opera, even one as gussied-up with gorgeous sets, costumes and characters as is this one.

My headline above mentions 257 knock-your-socks off minutes, which translates into a little more than  four and one-half hours of viewing time (including intermission). What I left out of that headline (because headlines, after all, should be short) is that those minutes, after knocking off your socks with their sheer beauty, will also massage and perhaps fan your feet with wafts of such lengthy, near-comically immense exposition that you may have trouble remaining alert -- unless you begin snickering a bit, as did I now and again (as a less obvious measure than slapping my own face) in order to stay awake. Mr. Ruiz, shown at right (checking his watch, as well he might) embraces all that exposition because, I suspect, it is so very 19th Century and thus formally appropriate.

But is it also appropriate to view all this in a single sitting, with an intermission of 20 minutes and an inflated ticket price of $17?  (At least you do not have to wear 3D glasses.) I ask because, after my own experience, I found myself wondering if I would have done better watching 45 minute segments -- which is the way, I expect, that  Portuguese, German, French and Greek audiences did it, as they watched the six-part series -- which was the way in which these Mysteries originally appeared -- on their televisions. As of now, the movie theater is the way to see Mysteries of Lisbon, and if that remains the only way Americans can do it (until the DVD appears, or a cable showing, as was the case with last year's Carlos), if you're a film buff, you'd best line up and take a chance.

Within the story's main through-line (the true parentage of a young boy being raised by priests) appear numerous generations, characters, love affairs, and countries (and within these some very grand estates). Don't worry: you'll have little trouble sorting it all out, for the reams of exposition take care of that, as one character takes another aside to "explain" things. As befits the time (and the attitudes), the woman on display are weak but beautiful and the men rather shitty and stupid but only occasionally strong and wise.

The exception to the above description of the males also prove the most interesting characters -- and not coincidentally, the best performances come from the actors playing them -- are the priest, Father Dinis (portrayed by Adriano Luz, above, left), and the handsome brute known both as Alberto de Magalhães and as Come-Facas (Ricardo Pereira, shown at left). Both actors do themselves proud, creating full, rich characters that help the storyline, of course, but also add to the profundity of the piece by offering the biggest mystery on view, that of the human character itself.

The boy, Pedro da Silva, who hopes to learn his parentage, though quite a beautiful child (played by the stunning João Luis Arrais, above), proves a nitwit adult (essayed by José Afonso Pimentel, below) -- if indeed he even makes it that far (the story owes something, I suspect, to Pedro Calderon De la Barca's most famous work).

In the realm of ideas and  themes, the filmmaker plays with identity,  free will and the "theatricality" of life. That miniature stage set the older Pedro, above, plays with is seen many times throughout the film, with its cardboard figures knocked down over and over, so that we understand how fragile and out of our control are our these lives (and, hey, our own!).

The women on view, dressed to the nines, include everyone from "mom," a subservient Countess (above, center) played by Maria João Bastos, to Léa Seydoux (at bottom, left) and Clotidle Hesme (below, right) as beautiful, distraught vixens from the same family, different generations.

One of the problems with the movie, in its strung-together version perhaps more than in its fragmented, television format, is its constant and enormous "formality." This is seen (and heard) not only in its sets and costumes but in its dialog, action, storytelling and camerawork. (I wouldn't, however, have missed any of Ruiz's wonderful semi-circular camera movements which, over and over again, prove exceedingly beautiful: The cinematographer here is André Szankowski). This formality probably adds a full hour onto the running time, which may prove heavenly for those buffs in thrall but an annoyance to the rest of us, as mystery piles upon upon mystery -- and then, sort of, unfolds. (Shades of that cat in Miranda July's The Future!)

Mysteries of Lisbon, via Music Box Films, opens this Friday, August 5, here in New York City at the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and the IFC Center -- and elsewhere soon.  Click here to see all the currently scheduled playdates (more are promised, so Ruiz may come to your city, too).

Scott Rosenbaum's THE PERFECT AGE OF ROCK 'N' ROLL opens, as yet another musical icon bites the dust....

The ironically titled motion picture opening this week -- THE PERFECT AGE OF ROCK 'N' ROLL -- refers to that particular age, 27, at which so many of our icons in the music world, from Henricks and Joplin to Morrison and Cobain, drop dead. Last week we lost yet another one -- Amy Winehouse -- who departed at, yep, 27 years of age. In writer/director/
producer Scott Rosenbaum's new film, however, the icon -- a certain over-the-hill legend named Spyder -- has made it way past that witching year. As the movie begins, in fact, the old fart is being paid a visit by a crack young journalist (the always good Lukas Haas, below) in hopes or retrieving one of those "what-the-hell-happened?" stories, full of snoop and scoop. As our legendary performer proves something of a musical Sammy Glick, you might call this film, "What Makes Spyder Crawl?"

The answer to that question is among the several things that the movie gives us, as it backtracks to a time two decades previous, as Spyder (a sexy, Goth-i-fied Kevin Zegers, shown in photo at bottom) returns to his hometown to entice his best friend and former songwriter Eric (a sweetly soured Jason Ritter, shown two photos below) to take a road trip with him and his crew that will result in the finishing of a long-awaited third album by his group The Lost Souls. (Their first was a smash, the second one bombed.)

Luckily, Mr. Rosenbaum, shown at right, has not tried to include too much in his rock'n'roll movie. His ambitions are rather small, really: Just tell a story and give us some good music and a handful of relatively interesting, if a bit shop-worn, characters. But because he and his cast get so many details right, his film, for the most part, works surprisingly well. And while music is the engine that runs the thing, the movie comes complete with its own understated anti-drugs-and-alcohol message.

The time of the interview is now, and though 1971 is the year of Spyder's and The Lost Souls' great success, we hear about that only in bits and pieces. 1991 is when most of the story takes place, and we see how Spyder entices Eric into taking that road trip, along with his manager, Rose (Taryn Manning) and August (Peter Fonda), the old friend of Eric's late father, who was also a musician. New songs are composed, old ones sung, one romance begins as another rekindles. Things move along pleasantly, with the occasional argument and/or fight over what-you-did-to-me-back-then, until.... something happens.

Rosenbaum manages to capture a nice sense of melancholy, which hangs over much of the movie -- a legitimate feeling for films dealing with past and present time frames (or in this case: past, further past and present), as characters, as well as us viewers, grieve for opportunities missed and loves lost.

The performances are quite good, which shouldn't surprise anyone who has followed the careers of old-timers like Fonda (above, right), middle-timers like Kelly Lynch (below, left -- who plays his old flame) and Lauren Holly (above, left, as Eric's mom), and relative newcomers like the terrific Zegers (whose work includes Transamerica, Gardens of the Night, Fifty Dead Men Walking, The Stone Angel and Frozen, to name a few of his 65 credits) and Ritter (so varied and fine in Peter and Vandy, Good Dick and The Education of Charlie Banks). Ms Manning, below, left (from White Oleander, Hustle & Flow), an actress whose work I know less, acquits herself well, limning an interesting portrait of a woman at the cusp of middle age with one life behind her and a possible new one awaiting. Fonda is, as usual of late, aces, as is Ms Lynch. The two of them, with but a quick scene or two, make lovely emotional music together.

There's a wonderful scene somewhere in the middle of all this, shown below, in which Spyder and Eric pay a visit to a blues club and jam with a starry group of oldsters. This scene, as well as others that involve music, are done with enough love and appreciation to please aficionados, as well as those for whom music means simple enjoyment. Toward the finale we're treated to one of those standard "in flagrante delectable" scenes involving drugs and sex and oh-my-goodness that make us fear that the film will end in an all-too-typical and untoward melodramatic flourish of wayward, musical youth. But even here Mr. Rosenbaum surprises us, exhibiting a little class, along with a subtle, melancholic ending. And using Jeff Buckley's version of Dylan's I Shall Be Released over the end credits is, well, inspired.

Opening this Friday, August 5, The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll, from Red Hawk Films, can be seen in New York at the Village East Cinema. Click here to find other cities, dates and theaters-- which the web site promises will be coming soon (though it has been saying just that for days now. Get with it, webmaster!)

Czech "Oscar" submission -- Marek Najbrt's PROTEKTOR -- opens Friday in New York

Every so often, for TrustMovies, a film comes along that is perfectly all right, more or less -- in terms of subject matter and style, concept and execution -- but that resolutely refuses to engage him. (Or he it.) Such a movie is PROTEKTOR, the 2009 Czech submission for "Oscar" bait as Best Foreign Language Film for 2010. Attempts at engagement were repeatedly made on TM's part, as the film is coming to us via Film Movement, a distribution company, the catalog of which, is full of fine movies, with rarely a clinker in the bunch. But while Protektor won a slew of awards in its home country, it's not a patch on the Czech Republic's Oscar submission from this past year, the fine Kawasaki's Rose.

Directed and co-written (with Robert Geisler and Benjamin Tucek) by Marek Najbrt, shown at left, the movie is a not uninteresting mash-up of film noir, World War II, Jews-in-danger and films-about-filmmaking/filmgoing/
film-projection (several key scenes take place on a shoot or in a cinema). Beginning in the middle, moving backward and then forward again until we've caught up, Protektor does have a few surprises in store, mostly involving the use of bicycles (see the film's poster above).

The story itself involves a marriage suddenly threatened by increasingly anti-Jewish Nazi edicts. The husband (Marek Daniel, above), who works for Czech radio, sees his career advancing, even as his Jewish wife, a beautiful actress on the cusp of stardom (Jana Plodková, below), sees hers destroyed. Bent on protecting his wife at (almost) all costs, the fellow instead nearly drives her (and us) to distraction.
 
God knows, there's plenty of dramatic possibility here, but from the outset the pacing seems off -- slow, with too much time wasted. Simple storytelling is given a backseat to "style" (that drained color palette, shown below, is growing tiresome from over-use).

Of the several things the movie gets right is its look at the price of collaboration. No matter who you are and how far you go, that price is too high, and yet the choice for a conquered people inevitably lies somewhere between small and large collaborations. Another interesting idea is that of the peculiar freedom obtained by being a provocateur -- until, at least, they catch you. Hubby chooses the former, while his wife -- with the help of the cinema projectionist (Tomás Mechácek below, left) who's carrying a torch for her -- plants herself firmly in the latter's frightening venue.

The idea of cinema as a kind of drug (we can all appreciate that, right?) raises its naughty head as the movie progresses. The finale, when it at last arrives, ought to be especially moving. But it, like all else in the film, goes on too long. With a running time of only 98 minutes, Protektor feels like two hours or more. Still, I admit that I somehow feel I ought to have enjoyed this movie a bit better. Maybe you will.
 
Protektor arrives in New York on Friday, August 5, at both the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Brooklyn Heights Cinema, and elsewhere perhaps in the coming weeks and months.  Otherwise, as with all Film Movement titles, this one will eventually be available via DVD.