Robert Lieberman's THE TORTURED per-fectly describes the audience experience.

The kind of movie they call "torture porn," THE TORTURED isn't actually good enough to rate as "porn." It might serve best as a kind of canary-in-the-coal-mine: If the guy (or gal) you're watching this with gets at all aroused by the movie, head for the hills--for both artistic and safety reasons. Directed by Robert Lieberman (often an artisan for Disney and shown below) and written by the Czechoslovakian-born Marek Posival (though it was filmed in Canada, the movie does have a grungy Eastern European feel), it tells the tale of a husband and wife who, after their little boy is kidnapped and murdered and the murderer not given the kind of justice they deem correct, decide to kidnap that felon and torture him to death. Which they do. Almost.

There is one surprise in the movie, and it is indeed a big one, though in retrospect, it doesn't make much sense; nor does some of the other plotting and behavior shown. The screenplay is rife with characters who need to explain what they're feeling and doing -- and why -- which comes across as far too expository. And because the movie was made two years ago and is only now being foisted upon us, at a time in which the country's most famous missing-child case since the Lindbergh baby has been back in the news for months, only makes the movie more difficult to watch, while simultaneously calling attention to the motives behind the release of a film this unnecessary and crummy.

The biggest credibilty problem for the film is that, once the parents decide on their course of action, everything seems too easy. Up to this point (the kidnapping itself is filmed skillfully), the movie maintains a certain force and thrust, with performances at least as good as the script allows them to be. Mom (Erika Christensen) and Dad (Jesse Metcalfe) are hot, young actors who get to emote and undress enough to please their fans (they're shown above, in the de rigueur morgue scene with dead son, and below, with their own victim; and that's Ms Christensen in the bath, at bottom).

There's little reason to say more about this movie, which has a small but probably ever-committed audience, who knows what it wants and will seek out movies such as this one to satisfy. If you are going for torture films, however, a much better one in every way -- also Canadian -- can be found in Seven Days.

Meanwhile, The Tortured (unrated, from IFC FIlms) opens (barely) at one theater here in NYC (the IFC Center) but for a single midnight screening. Better check the theater schedule, however, because some days it does not appear to play at all, and others -- this coming Tuesday, for instance -- it shows once, and only in the afternoon....

The photos above are from the film itself, 

except for that of Mr. Lieberman, 

which comes courtesy of Getty Images.

Nacho Vigalondo's EXTRATERRESTRIAL -- one of the year's best --opens in theaters

First seen in New York last December at the FSLC's Spanish Cinema Now, this wonderfully clever and sophisticated "aliens arrive" movie is finally making its theatrical debut in a limited run across the country. Below is what TM said about the film when it first appeared. He's seen it again since then and can confirm that it's ever better than he originally imagined.

***************

Think there's not much new in the "space invaders" genre? Think again. Nacho Vigalondo, the young Spanish filmmaker who a few years back brought us the mini-budget but maxi-creative sci-fi thriller TimeCrimes, is back this year with a wonderfully goofy, funny and inventive movie that takes a very real and imposing invasion from space and turns it into a kind of McGuffin, a red herring that allows this clever and ironic writer/director to explore once again, Spanish style, those eternal verities of sex, love, honor and commitment while making us gasp and laugh, wonder and chuckle. One neat feat of moviemaking is EXTRATERRESTRIAL!

Señor Vigalondo, shown at left, is a man who makes the most of his resources. And while the budget here is a lot bigger than it was for TimeCrimes, it's still small potatoes by most movie-making standards. And yet the filmmaker creates a truly marvelous world in which invaders land (or at least hover), the populace is evacuated (except, of course, for the few characters who plays into the scenario) and... action ensures. Yet that action becomes more and more about everyday occurrences -- jealousy, envy, what's-for-dinner -- rather than the usual "escape-the-aliens" routine. It takes, I would suggest, immense balls to even try something like this -- let alone bring it off as well as does Vigalondo.

How the filmmaker interests us in this, rather than in what we expect to be interested in, is what makes the movie such a little treasure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first such topsy-turvy film in the invaders-from-outer-space genre, and as such, as well entertaining the hell out of audiences receptive to something different, is going to be remembered in times to come. For Vigalondo's use of tennis balls alone, the movie is memorable.

Vigalondo has cast his little "game" with a more-than-game cast, and everyone delivers the goods. In the lead role of our just-a-guy hero, Julián Villagrán (two photos up and below) is terrific -- going through change after change, trying to adapt to the invasion of his planet and then of his heart, as he grows closer to the young lady whom he has recently screwed but knows almost nothing about. Played by Michelle Jenner (above) -- quite the little performer who also starred in this year's SCN movie Don't Be Afraid -- this crackerjack actress is practically unrecognizable visually and emotionally from one role to the other.

The film's remaining three characters (small cast!) are handled by Miguel Noguera (as a TV newscaster with a lot of problems), Raúl Cimas (above, with firearm) as Jenner's boyfriend, and especially Carlos Areces (so amazing in last year's SCN hit The Last Circus) as Jenner's next-door-neighbor, the ironically named Ángel. Among his many skills is Vigalondo's ability to subtly foreshadow and then build on it. I won't say anymore -- except that the film's final conversation is delightful: a kind of message about how to live, to perform and maybe even to make movies. And the last shot is simply glorious: a beautiful, low-key, deadpan hoot-and-a-half.

Extraterrestrial, from Focus Features' FocusWorld, opens today, Friday, June 15, at Brooklyn's reRun GastropubTheater, and will screen at a number of other cities and theaters this week and in the weeks to come. Click here to see the entire roster. Simultaneously with its theatrical debut, the film will appear on DVD, on iTunes and via VOD. So there's really no excuse to miss this, one of the smartest, most enjoyable movies of the year.

Pawel Pawlikowski's moody, ambiguous THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH hits theaters

Noirish, glum, gloomy and very weird, THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH, the latest from critical darling Pawel Pawlikowski left me baffled and then some. Granted, I nodded off a couple of times during the screening -- not for more than a second or two -- but the movie finally made no sense to me on any level or in any genre whatsoever. Not as a mystery, broken family saga, ghost story, crime thriller, and certainly not as an immigrant tale (though the immigrant in question, for a change, is a white guy from the USA). Maybe it's a comedy? Without any laughs.

If you read TrustMovies much at all, you'll know he hates to give away plot elements, but he swears that he could spend the rest of this review spelling out the entire plot, and you would still finish up this piece with a "Huh?" In fact, isn't that rather like the look on the face of the filmmaker himself (shown at left)? Mr. Pawlikowski -- who earlier gave us the much-praised Last Resort (When, I wonder, will this one be available on DVD? I am still trying to see it....) and the also well-liked My Summer of Love -- has directed and adapted his screenplay from the novel by Douglas Kennedy, which TM has not read but is tempted to, if only to learn if it makes any more sense than does the movie.

The film's tag line, which you might just be able to make out on the poster at top, notes "What you can not resist you may not survive." OK. But given what we know by the end of the film, this has the ring of a marketing copywriter at wits' end and wondering, "What the fuck else can I say about this movie?!" Our "hero" Tom, played by Ethan Hawke (above, demonstrating that, sometimes, a pair of glasses is just a cigar), is a writer who's come to town (Paris) to see his daughter (shown in the photo at bottom, also wearing glasses).

Tom quickly ends up broke and homeless but manages to land in tiny hotel above a bar, in which the owner, played by the fine Samir Guesmi (above left), allows him to stay in exchange for working in a very odd location doing very odd stuff -- all of which has "criminal element" writ large in flashing neon.

A propos the title, there is indeed a titular and mysterious woman, played by the always exquisite and exciting Kristin Scott Thomas (above), whom our hero meets and greets and does some other interesting things to.

In that bar works a barmaid, played by the lovely Joanna Kulig, above, whom we recently saw putting her best features forward in another terrible movie called Elles. (Don't worry, Joanna: a worthwhile film is sure to appear on the horizon eventually.)

Things happen, and then more things happen, and then the movie is over. Or maybe these things don't happen, because this whole enterprise may be simply a figment of Tom's writerly imagination. Perhaps it's his next novel! Or, he's simply insane. Either way, did I give a shit? No. But maybe you will.

The Woman in the Fifth (arrondissement, I am guessing) -- from ATO Pictures and running 85 minutes -- opens this Friday, June 15, in New York City, DC, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. In the weeks to come it will screen in other major and minor cities across the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled cities, theaters and playdates.

Lynn Shelton's YOUR SISTER'S SISTER: Mumblecore makes a major move forward

Lynn Shelton, last heard from in 2009 with her Humpday-- the charming but poorly premised two-straight-guys-decide-to-have-sex-with-each-other-as-an-"art-project" movie --is back this week with the equally charming, but deeper and more interesting, YOUR SISTER'S SISTER, which moves grace-fully from an opening party/memorial service featuring a large cast to a movie with only three characters, in scenes that often use but two of them.

Featuring a writer/director (Ms Shelton, shown at left) and one male cast member (Mark Duplass), both known best for mumblecore success, and two top actresses (Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt) noted for their professionalism, versatility and grace, the movie that results is often surprising, immensely entertaining and oddly believable, too. Most of all, maybe, the film is a wonderful poster child for the uses of improvisation. When I see the film again (and I will), one thing I want look for is just when that improvisation is most likely occurring (often, I'd say). According to the press materials, "vast swaths of the film are completely improvised," though it is also noted that the actors used a lot of Ms Shelton's original dialog, as well. The combination proves nearly seamless, and the three leading performers play off each other beautifully.

What makes Your Sister's Sister so beguiling and sometimes quite moving is the psychology behind these characters, together with the loss that they have all recently experienced. For two of them death is involved, for the other merely a broken relationship (of course, for the party that didn't break it, the word "merely" hardly cuts it).

There are surprises upon surprises in the course of this 90-minute chat-fest, and though these are indeed surprising, they're never shocking nor unbelievable because they all come from character-based reality. Ms Shelton has created a particular situation (which I can't go into because it's a spoiler) that in other, maybe less capable, hands would have led into territory outrageous and sitcom-y. Here, it's not. Given who these characters are, it comes off as funny, all right, but real, too.

The film is somehow slight, however; I doubt you'll be bowled over and remembering the movie for days/weeks/months after. Though it deals with some heavy-duty dilemmas, it remains perfectly enjoyable light entertainment put together by a group of professionals who hit their marks reliably and often. The biggest of these Marks is the one named Duplass (above, right), who -- after his terrific job in the so-so Darling Companion, holding his own in one of the starriest ensembles of the year -- does it again as the "sex object" (sort of) needed and wanted by the two sisters for quite different reasons. Like the movie itself, Duplass is funny and real and even pretty sexy -- in his slightly schlubby manner.

Ms Blunt, above, who is wonderful again and again (from My Summer of Love, Gideon's Daughter and The Devil Wears Prada to Wind Chill, The Great Buck Howard and Young Victoria), is, uh... wonderful again. There's an honesty about her performances, coupled to her beauty and energy, that make them quite individual and special. Ms DeWitt (below, right, from Mad Men, Rachel Getting Married, and the underseen Shut Up and Sing (aka The Wedding Weekend) brings her own special quality of tentativeness to play on everything and would walk away with the movie were her co-stars not both so solidly "there."

Your Sister's Sister, from IFC Films, opens this Friday, June 15, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center; in the Los Angeles area, look for it at the Arclight Hollywood and the Landmark Theater. (It will also open simultaneously in Chicago, DC, San Francisco and Seattle -- with a national rollout to follow.)

Mathieu Demy's AMERICANO: a Frenchman in Southern California & Mexico. Ay, ay, ay!

What happens to French filmmakers when they come to Southern California (and then, god help them, head for Mexico)? I ask because I have noted some very talented Frenchmen like Jacques Demy (with his Model Shop), Erick Zonca (with Julia) and now Demy's own son, Mathieu Demy, fall prey to -- what is it? -- the come-to-LA-LA-land-and-lose-your-marbles syndrome? Then move on to Mexico, as do Zonca and Demy fils, and go completely bonkers. (Demy père managed to stay in L.A., as I recall.)

Truth to tell, this is the younger Demy's first full-length film as writer and director (and star, too: he's shown above), so I am much more familiar with this fellow via his often excellent acting. Most recently he's been seen here as the dad in the fine movie Tomboy and on VOD in the very interesting, student-as-prostitute tale, Student Services (Mes chères études). What to make of his film-making debut? Whew! Of all the movies TrustMovies saw at this year's Rendez-vous With French Cinema, where AMERICANO made its New York debut last March, this was the stinker of the bunch.

The movie begins with Mr. Demy's character cuming (yes, he's having sex) and it ends with him on the phone to his girlfriend (the highly wasted Chiara Mastroianni, and I mean the role, not the actress) telling her, "I'm coming" (meaning he's returning to France). I don't know that the joke is intentional, but I would dearly like to think so, for it is just about the the only amusement the movie provides. Otherwise, this tale of a repressed man named Martin (played by the consistently sad-eyed Demy), who comes to L.A. to pack up the belongings of his recently deceased but long estranged mother, is a bogus, pretentious fiasco. After spending a few minutes with Martin, I found the man so ridiculous, so willfully stupid that I just wanted to slap him silly. This also seems to be the feeling of many of the other characters in the film. In fact, Martin gets slapped, beaten and knocked about so much (and so deliber-ately on his character's part) that you begin to wonder if Demy isn't going after the torture-me-some-more mantle of Mel Gibson.

Also involved in this mess are good actors like Salma Hayek (above, left: a mystery girl who turns sentimental and has a connection to another character we've seen), Geraldine Chaplin (below, right, and wasted as a one-note cliche who, at least, gets to slap Demy) and Carlos Bardem (two photos up, at left, as the Hayek character's pimp/protector, who really gives Martin a pummeling -- or ten). None of these actors can begin to latch on to anything approaching a real character, thanks to the pre-determined whims of the very poor screenplay (Demy again). Really: I don't know what to think. The wisest, kindest thing might be to proclaim happiness that the filmmaker has now gotten Americano out of his system and can move on to, well, just about anything else.

The movie -- 90 minutes (but they feel like 180), from MPI Pictures -- opens this Friday, June 15, in New York City at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema.

Matthew Akers' MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ THE ARTIST IS PRESENT opens at Film Forum

TrustMovies has never seen performance artist Marina Abramović in person, as did those thousands of art-loving patrons who visited MoMA from March through May, 2010, to get a little one-on-one eye contact with the artist, during which she and that visitor simply sat across a small table and stared into each other's eyes without any other form of communication. TM, however, had seen one other film about Ms Abramović some years back, and it -- and she -- proved interesting enough that he has never forgotten it. (He has, unfortunately, forgotten the title of the film: According to the IMDB it most probably was Seven Easy Pieces, in which the venue was the Guggenheim Museum.)

Abramović, shown on poster, top, and above, is quite a woman: beautiful, strong, assured and willing to disrobe and throw her body every and any which way for her art. She tells us that she's now spent nearly 40 years trying to get people to take her seriously, coming up against the question, asked time and again: "Why is this art?" I must admit to having asked this question myself, finally taking refuge in the fact that hers is performance art. Honestly, though, I have asked that same question (and still do) about most of the work of Andy Warhol and certain other artists of the modern stripe, and the only answer I can come up with is this: If the work makes you look at the world in a different way, maybe that -- rather than the definition a long-ago junior-high-school friend once voiced: "She can draw good" -- is what it takes to make something "art."

In his film MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ THE ARTIST IS PRESENT, director Matthew Akers (shown at left) weaves together the artist's past and present, her earlier works (a moment from which is shown two photos below), her performance partner and (ex-) lover, and mostly the preparation for and performance of the MoMA show. This is quite a challenge but Akers and his crew, together with the artist herself, rise to it and give us a wonderfully inclusive look at how and why Abramović does what she does, what she gets out of this, and finally, what her audience gets from it, too. It's this last part that, for me at least, proved most problematic, even a little annoying, but certainly quite interesting.

In this MoMA show, above, the audience, one by one, has the chance to interact with the artist by gazing for a few minutes into her eyes (or elsewhere, I suppose) and thus connecting. The response to this, from quite a number of people -- or at least those the filmmaker chooses to concentrate on -- comes off as awfully close to something approaching a, well, "religious" experience. It's almost as though the artist is being touted as a deity. (Since early times, artists have considered, in some societies, at least, closer to the divine.)

People come away from the table in tears, transfigured, and clearly shaken up. Is this due to the force of Ms Abramović or to the relatively unusual situation, in our current days, of taking the time to simply look at another person, deeply and quietly, without verbal communication? I am guessing that it's the latter rather than the former, and that if Abramović were substituted with me or you or even the film's director -- really, wouldn't it be lovely to gaze into that beautiful face (two photos above), with its direct and open visage? -- that people might find this activity pretty entrancing, too. Of course, none of the rest of us come freighted with the advance reputation of "artist" that Abramović carries, and since marketing is often "all," this probably would play a major part in those disciples getting quite carried away in the presence of their leader. This is all based on "if," of course, and is not really provable. But it seems to me certainly worth considering.

Not everyone in the audience is there to fawn or cry. Some have rather special agenda. One young woman disrobes before being carted away by the guards, and celebrities also show up -- James Franco, noted for his own performacne art -- for instance. Golly: Even Fox News, that great upholder of art in our time, gets into the act! Finally, the movie says rather a lot about the audience (and the media) in addition to what it tells us about the artist. Which is probably as it should be. I would hope that Ms Abramović is pleased with how interestingly encompassing the movie has turned out. In that sense, the film is about, as another performance artist once put it, Me and You and Everyone We Know.

In any case, these three months proved a grueling time for this performance artist doing this particular performance. You can see, from the photo above, how the days and weeks were highlighted on the wall of the museum (this shot was taken at around the halfway point). I cannot remember whether the shot below, with Abramović under the table, stretching or maybe communing, was taken before or after she began her days's work. Either way, the strain of sitting quietly the whole damn day, as one after another visitor parades in front of you, demands some easing, and the artist, who has long used her body as her best artistic tool, certainly knows how to take care of her equipment.

The movie -- from HBO Documentary Films and running one hour and 46 minutes -- opens for a two-week run this Wednesday, June 13, in New York City at Film Forum, and on Friday, June 15, in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt. Even considering the many art-themed documentaries we've seen of late, I don't think you'll have witnessed anything quite like this one.

TAHRIR: LIBERATION SQUARE--You are there in Stefano Savona's antidote to the typical media coverage of Eqyptian Spring

No more sounds bites extolling Facebook's role in cre-ating Egyptian independence or some such rot. Oh, the big FB is mentioned, all right, in this documentary from last year, in which film-maker Stefano Savona traveled to Egypt to stay on the ground and get up-close and personal with as many of the protesters as possible. And one of them does indeed mention using Facebook to connect with another organizers of one of the groups pushing for freedom. But what Savona's brave and generally interesting film makes clear is how important was the in-person, live-body massing of such a horde of people (several photos below) without which little could have happened.

Keeping his camera at ground level almost all of the film's 93 minutes, Savona, shown at left, uses no narration in TAHRIR: LIBERATION SQUARE but simply stays close enough to overhear conversations, arguments, and of course, the slogans and chants that are epidemic at all protests and that unfortunately -- unless you are among those doing the yelling -- are possibly the most boring way to spend one's time that has ever been invented. I am guessing that, for a filmmaker in the midst of all this, there must be something nearly hypnotic about the repetitive chanting because most filmmakers (from Buñuel during the Spanish Civil War right through to Savona) keep their camera on this occupation for far too long. I would estimate that a good fifteen or twenty minutes could be excised from Tahrir, with no negative ramifications. Sure, let's hear that slogan, once, twice -- OK, three times -- then, please: cut.

By far the most interesting parts of the film are the conversations and arguments among the protesters, one of whom we note wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. During these sections of the film, Americans -- New Yorkers in particular -- will be reminded of the Occupy Movement, except that here In Egypt, there is indeed a unified goal that is clearly stated/demanded: Get rid of Mubarek. But then what? We see the President/Dictator speaking on TV; eventually the protesters drown him out. "I almost started to believe him again," one woman later notes, "but then his thugs attacked and killed eleven people. That's when I understood: They're all rotten."

Around the 17-minute point, there's a wonderful and rather lengthy political discussion that the camera takes in. It is then that the conversations/arguments grow more intense, fraught and fascintating. And what we hear unfortunately seems prescient of what is now happening. Just the other day The New York Times posited that the dictator may eventually get a new trial in which he's simply let off. And then what? Around the halfway mark, some one asks, "Has he resigned yet?" "No." "Then we keep going."

Though Mr. Savona has made almost yearly trips to Egypt for two decades, according to the press information, even he was surprised that the protests actually happened. Hearing these on-the-ground conversations makes clear the large divisions in Egypt between those who want a secular state and those who want it Muslim. Just how far can The Muslim Brotherhood be trusted? "They are our enemies!" says one. "No!" comes the reply. For me, the section involving a 62-year man speaking extemporaneously and personally proves more moving and important than all the sloganeering you could shout.

We get politics and intellect (young women arguing over what line of action fulfills the Constitution), spectacle (oh, those crowds -- above!), suspense (Are they going to clear the square by using tear gas or snipers from that tall building over there?), and a seemingly happy ending accompanied by poetry, as a young man reads a very meaningful and lovely poem.

While we don't see the attacks themselves we do witness the removal of some of the wounded. Finally it happens: Mubarek and Suleiman cede their power to the Army Council. "The future is going to be better,"someone cries. "Egypt: It's your time!" Thanks to Savona, we've seen some of the Egyptian 99 per cent. But the freedom that these people demonstrated and sometimes died for? Shit. You could weep.

Tahrir: Liberation Square begins its first New York theatrical showing with a one-week run this Monday, June 11 through Sunday, June 17 as part of the Documentary in Bloom series at the Maysles Cinema in the Bronx. Click here for tickets and/or directions.