WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW?

The question posed in the title of this Taiwanese light hearted Rom. Com. refers to two couples in their 30's who have reached a crossroads in their relationships.  Wei-chung and Feng have been happily married for nine years.  They have a six year old son, live in a nice apartment, and he has just been made Manager in the Opticians he works at, and Feng is about to promoted to Team Leader in her Office.

Mandy, Wei-chung's younger sister, has finally met a man she wants to marry, San-san, but it's at their engagement party that things start to unravel.  Wei-chung runs into Stephen the wedding photographer, who is a blast from his gay past.  Stephen is also married, but to a lesbian as a marriage of convenience ..... evidently something of a necessity still in Taiwanese society today despite a large gay community.  

Seeing Stephen stirs up memories of the life he gave up to marry Feng, and when she starts making overtures about having another baby, Wei-chung flees into the night in a panic.  Meanwhile when Mandy catches sight of her reflection in a supermarket window when she is out shopping with her fiance, and can just see a whole life of domesticity ahead, she also panics and runs off leaving San-san just standing there.

Both couples have to make choices especially when Wei-chung feels a stirring in his loins when a handsome young Flight Attendant comes into the Store and flirts with him, and very soon after that they are spotted out together by Feng.  Meanwhile Mandy has locked herself in her apartment watching cheesy soap operas all day and rejecting all San-san's pleas to go back to him, until she finds out she is pregnant.  The decisions that the siblings make are based on what they believe is the moral thing to do, but it is their erstwhile partners who insist that they should all follow their hearts instead to move forward.

There is a endearing old-fashioned feel to this gentle charming movie with its wonderful touches of humor.  Totally devoid of any melodrama or any moral/political message, its not so much a coming-out story but more a tale of waking up and accepting who you are so that the people you love can also have the life that they want too. And also appreciating the simple fact that life rarely turns out the way you planned it.

Written and directed American/Taiwanese filmmaker Arvin Chen who used a very talented and famous cast of Asian actors who, without exception, gave wonderfully credible and convincing performances.  

Its a delightful feel-good movie that may not actually prompt you to change your life, but it will tempt you to see if you can sing the title song at karaoke as well as Feng!  Well, it did me.

★★★★★★★★

DAY OF THE FLOWERS

There is nothing more annoying than a comedy that is flatly unfunny.  To be fair this new humorless Brit pic was billed as a drama too, but that didn't pan out too well either resulting in a real mish-mash of a movie who's only real saving grace was some glorious scenery, and an ex Ballet Dancer.

This is the story of two Scottish sisters who set off to spread the ashes of their late father in the land that he fought to help free : Cuba. Not an obvious connection between these two countries and their different cultures, but hey, this is the movies after all. The plan is to scatter his remains alongside those of their sainted mother who had also been a freedom fighter there in the 1970's.  The only snag is that they have no idea exactly where her last resting place is, so armed with just an old photograph, a name, and battered hat as clues, they start the search.

And that's where all the stereotypes and cliches start being laid on thick and fast.  One sister is intelligent, independent, plain dresser, out to save the world single handedly and a bit of a man hater, and the other is a girly-girl who dresses in skimpy clothes and is totally selfish and obsessed with having 'a good time' preferably on the arm of a good-looking date. And of course every hot-blooded Cuban man is after only one  thing. Well two actually, they are poor so they want their money as well.  

I wish I could say that it gets better in the next very long 102 minutes but it doesnt.  Their late mother turns out to have been far from a Saint, the 'serious' girl ends up with the hottest man in the Southern Hemisphere, whilst the 'fluffy' one settles for a local Edinburgh boy who for reasons never explained, had come to Cuba for the ride. 

Every movie, even a tepid badly-written melodrama such as this, has redeeming points.  In this case as I mentioned earlier,  its some stunning cinematography of the splendid locations which really showed Cuba off at its best. And secondly Cuban Ballet Star Carlos Acosta, who proved that he can act as well as he can dance, it is such a pity that he didn't have much of a role to show us his talents more.

This disappointing lightweight movie is scheduled for the Miami Film Festival this coming week, so its a very good thing that the filmakers had the sense to do subtitles for the thick Scottish accents. After that it will surely go straight to DVD.  If it's lucky.  Or on TV where it probably belonged in the first place.

★★★★

AFTER TILLER

Dr George Tiller was gunned down in cold blood in front of his family whilst at a Sunday Service in a church in Wichita, Kansas in 2009.  The killer was a rabid anti-abortionist activist who wanted to stop Dr Tiller performing third-trimester abortions.  After he succeeded there were only four other Doctors left in the US who were qualified to perform this specialist procedure, and this new documentary is the story of how they continued with their work after their colleague was assassinated.

Three of the remaining Doctors ...LeRoy Carhat, Susan Robinson and Shelley Seila were proteges of Dr Tiller's and the 4th was his contemporary Warren Hern, and they are all aware that their late leader was the eighth abortion provider to be murdered since Roe vs Wade, and he may not be the last.

Filmmakers Martha Shane and Lana Wilson follow these four remarkable physicians as they calmly go about their daily work with a quiet fierce dedication.  It is their encounters with patients, many of whom come to them as a last resort that makes the most emotional viewing : they are the ones that put faces on all the figures and statistics that are banded about at random in the vigorous debates.  When you witness them having to deal with both moral and ethical dilemmas and with the realities of what these mothers are dealing with, you cannot possible be persuaded by any vague theorizing or hot headed religious arguments that what they are doing is wrong.  The filmmakers are definitely not, and although they attempt to be as partisan as possible with this documentary, its clear to see where their sympathies lie. 

Each of the Doctors have life partners but they all deliberately lead very solitary lives. When Nebraska changed its abortion laws, Dr Carhat and his wife moved to Maryland where not only did he have to battle protesters determined to stop his new Clinic starting .... other fanatics burned down his stables killing his 18 horses.

In the past election year extreme Republican politicians such as Rep. Todd Akin claimed women that did not pregnant through rape unless they chose too, and ultra conservative Vice-Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan was totally anti abortions even for victims of rape and incest. And as the movie showed, the threats to a woman's right to choose seems to be getting stronger from so many quarters.  Especially from right-wing men in positions of power.

I am in absolute awe of how these four doctors put their own lives on the line to improve those of the women in desperate need of their services, and this documentary serves them well.  The film's one weakness is in its editing, as at times it jumps over the place a little too much, thus slightly diluting the impact of this incredible story.  

It is a powerful story that is so unbelievable that it had to be true, and sadly it is.  What will follow this is in the future is equally scary.

★★★★★★★★

NORTH SEA TEXAS

The wonderful opening sequence of 6 year old Pim dressing up in his mother's old beauty pageant sash and tiara and posing in front of the mirror sets the scene for a delightful coming-of-age story that combines all the angst with a great deal of humor and charm.

Set in a tiny Belgium coastal town in the 1970's, young Pim lives alone with his plump fun-seeking restless mother who thinks nothing of leaving him on his own with just a jam sandwich for his dinner whilst she spends her nights in the local bar with her accordion and her latest beau.  By the time he is 14 he is spending more time at a neighbor's house than at home.  The attraction is not just the mother of the house who feeds and comforts him, but her floppy haired 17 year old son Gino who Pim has developed an almighty crush on.

One night when Pim gets to sleep over he finds the feelings are mutual and the two boys start having secret trysts whenever than can sneak away.  The trouble is once Gino is 18 and he gets a motorbike it means his world opens up, and he ends up forsaking Pim to go to the next big town and getting himself entangled with a girlfriend.

Broken hearted Pim, something of a loner at the best of times, withdraws even more into his usual shell and then he gets totally freaked out when Gino's younger sister Sabrina comes on to him.  And even the arrival of Zoltan a handsome new male lodger back at home doesn't distract him enough, especially when it's his mother that ends up in his bed, and not him.  When his mother ends up running off with Zoltan, a desolate Pim packs up and moves in to live with Sabrina and her mother .....Gino has also left home by now.

But all is not lost, as this captivating story about an adolescent with his innate inability to verbalise any of his emotions, has a surprisingly happy ending. 

Its the first feature length movie from Belgian filmmaker Bavo Defurne which he  adapted from a novel by André Sollie. Stunningly photographed in almost faded light that evokes such a great period feel to the piece.  M. Defurne cast it well, especially the two young unknown actors who played the leads so convincingly ..... and I also really liked Eva van der Gucht as the blowzy mother who loved to lounge on the couch like a beached whale demanding that Pim wait on her.

If only all first-loves were as sweet and sensitive as this and devoid of all the usual melodramas!! 

★★★★★★★★

WEST OF MEMPHIS

Amy Berg's new documentary is the fourth film to be made about an outrageous miscarriage of justice imposed on three teenage boys known as the 'West Memphis Three'. Ms Berg had the added bonus that her predecessors lacked with the fact that her movie was produced by Sir Peter Jackson (the Oscar winning director 'The Lord of The Rings Trilogy') who with his screenwriter wife Fran Walsh had been personally underwriting the crusade to free the young men for some years.

The story starts in 1993 when the naked bodies of three young boys were found bound, mutilated and drowned in a drainage ditch in West Memphis.  With very little evidence to go on and with the public outcry demanding an arrest, the police very quickly charged three local youths Damien Echols, Jessie Miskelly and Jason Baldwin. Miskelly was mentally retarded so the police 'coached' a confession out of him that implicated all of them to the murders.  For a motive, they decided that as Echols dressed like a Goth and listened to heavy metal music, he was part of a Satanist Cult and hence the mutilations.

With no other evidence to go on and the Prosecution carefully avoiding relevant facts including the information that all three had solid alibis, they were convicted.  Echols was given the death penalty and the two others, sentences of life imprisonment.

In 1996 after 'Paradise Lost' the first film of their story was released, Echols received a letter from Lorri Davis a landscape architect from New York.  She was a successful well-educated middle class woman, recently divorced and 12 years older than him, but something gelled between the two.  They eventually fell in love and married and she gave up her comfortable life to move to Arkansas and becoming the driving force behind the movement to get her husband and his two friends freed.

They found experts who blew holes in the testimony of the forensic pathologist that proved that the marks on the boys body were not inflicted by satanic rituals but by the animals in the drainage ditch. They established that the DNA found at the murder scene was not from any of them at all, but actually that of one of the  victim's stepfathers.

With this and other new evidence such as statements from witnesses who had come forward to confess they had lied at the Trial to help the prosecution insure a conviction, they went for an Appeal.  Under Arkansas Law this is conducted by the same Judge who had been in charge of the original Trial, and he simply refused to consider any of the new evidence at all, and brusquely dismissed the Appeal. As Echols commented at the time 'poor white trash' like him could never expect justice, but in this instance it was much more about the authorities saving face from what was obviously now being exposed as a very shabby investigation and prosecution, and a Judge not wanting to taint his pubic reputation when he was up for re-election.

Besides Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, Davis recruited the support of the likes of Johnny Depp, the Dixie Chicks and Henry Rollins etc who not only raised public awareness but funded the very thorough private investigation that Jackson insisted on as the Police had failed to do one properly.  It not only proved the men's total innocence but clearly showed, without a shadow of doubt, that Terry Hobbs the stepfather of one of the victims, was the real murderer.

The last option open to the men and the impressive array of lawyers that were now assisting them, was the State Supreme Court.  And this was the very first battle they won.  After their victory it was obvious that their original convictions were unsustainable but they still had to wait the best part of a year before a solution could be found.  Rather than mount a re-trial the (elected) Prosecutors overly concerned with the political ramifications from the voters if they simply released the men, concocted a deal called a 'Alford Plea' where they had to plead guilty in Court even though they could express their innocence at the same time.  It meant that the men could walk free, that they couldn't sue the State for wrongful imprisonment , and that the Prosecution wouldn't need to investigate and/or charge Terry Hobbs as the guilty pleas would automatically close the Case.

I must tell you that after two hours of watching this riveting story that has been told in such a compelling fashion, your indignation turns to sheer anger.  The fact that the State thought it more important to protect itself than the rights of the defendants is indefensible.

★★★★★★★★★★

CASTING BY

For any cinephile this wonderful new documentary about the workings of casting directors is an absolute must. It is however not a detailed study on how they do their jobs, but more of a paean to Marion Dougherty, one of the first ever casting experts and a legendary icon in the industry.

Prior to Ms Dougherty's emergence the major studios just cast the Actors they had under exclusive Contracts allocating them roles based on their availability rather than their talent. As that era ended New York based Ms Dougherty started persuading Directors to used real theater actors as opposed to movie stars, and when she engineered the breakthrough of a whole series of men that were far removed from looking like classic matinee idols such as Dustin Hoffman into leading men, casting was never the same, and she never looked back.

In this touching and very emotional tribute countless major actors such as Diane Lane, Robert Redford, Jim Voight, John Lithgow, Al Pacino etc etc testify not only did that they got their first big breaks via her auspices, but it was often only after her sheer persistence persuading many initially reluctant Directors.  To their credit these same Directors testified how indebted they were to her sheer dogged determination to get an actor a role, because she was always right.  Martin Scorsese at least admitted that 90% of directing a movie is the casting. 

Her career spanned some 50 years and went from being independent in New York to being VP of Casting at Paramount and then Warner Brothers in Hollywood.  And in a field dominated by women, many of today's leading Casting Directors such as Juliet Taylor and Wallis Nicita etc. started their careers as Marion's assistants.

No matter how instrumental she was in the success of a movie it was years before she, and others, were ever given a screen credit for their role.  And even then, the Directors Guild, led by a very bitter Taylor Hackford, disputed their right to be called Casting Directors. It is the ONLY major function in movie making that does not qualify for an Oscar (the Emmy's acknowledge them), and the saddest part of the story is when there was a very impressive campaign by what is essentially Hollywood royalty pleading with the Academy to award Marion an Honorary Oscar for her lifetime achievement, the Board of Governors refused.

As movie making now is all about money making by huge corporations, it is unlikely that any Casting Director today will be able to launch another unknown Bette Midler or Glenn Close or Danny Glover into stardom, and more's the pity.  Marion Dougherty died in 2011, and her wonderful instinctive way of casting, has died too.

Wonderful tribute to a fascinating woman with a remarkable talent for spotting everyone else's talent.

Directed by Tom Donahue this is an HBO Documentary so will be on your TV screens  very shortly, meanwhile it's playing the Film Festival Circuit, including here in Miami at MIFF next week.

★★★★★★★★

STOKER

On the way home to celebrate India Stoker's 18th Birthday her father is in a fatal car crash, and so the movie opens with a funeral and a wake.  They are somber affairs not because of the death itself but the frigid atmosphere between the eccentric India and her aloof cold-fish of a mother. Stuck in their secluded country mansion, India retreats into her grief, whilst mother gets distracted by the sudden arrival of her late husband's handsome younger brother that India had never previously heard of.

Charlie quickly moves into the house and into his sister-in-law's bed whilst its still warm, much to India's annoyance as she doesn't fall for her Uncle's oozing charms. Nor does the Housekeeper who is the only person who actually had known Charlie before, but she mysteriously disappears without a trace the very next morning.

There is another visitor soon, a rarely seen Aunt, who comes to dinner one night specifically to warn the family about Charlie, although she is obviously petrified of him and she leaves she presses her phone number into India's hand asking her to call later. She too disappears. 

Charlie's attention soon turns to India and when her initial distrust turns full circle into infatuation, she becomes aware of his involvement in the disappearance of these people, and is complicit in the violent acts that this unhinged man continues to inflict. She also invokes the seething rage of her brittle mother for taking away the only pleasure/distraction in her rather empty life.

This wonderful stylish thriller is the first Hollywood movie from South Korean leading filmmaker Park Chan-wook who has built his reputation making movies, such as 'Oldboy', that are both beautiful works of art with very brutal subject matters.  The latter of which in this movie, I have barely touched upon, trust me!  Its very interestingly the first screenplay by successful TV actor Wentworth Miller ('Prison Break'), and is visually stunning and beautifully photographed in Tennessee by Chan-wook's regular DP Chung-hoon Chung.

Mia Wasikowska as creepy India and Nicole Kidman as her mother both excel in understated performances as these two detached woman who totally despise each other and lead separate lives in this opulent souless house. Uncle Charlie is played Brit actor Matthew Goode who is wonderfully slimy and much more suited to the part than Colin Firth who was originally attached to the project. And in another scene stealing cameo, my favorite Aussie actress Jacquie Weaver plays Aunt Gwendolyn. 

It's a very subtle piece with a storyline that constantly twists and gets darker and more shocking as it unfolds. The attention to the most minute detail in every sense and on every level ... makes it such a compelling view .... and re-affirms Chan-wook's well deserved reputation as a true auteur.

Premiered at Sundance, this is about to hit US Theaters next week, and those in Europe in May.

P.S. It's the last film that the late Tony Scott produced.

P.P.S. Spike Lee has just remade Chan-wook's 'Oldboy' in Hollywood.  Why?

★★★★★★★★★

BAMBI

Jean-Pierre Provut was born in 1935 in a tiny village in Algeria, and one of his very earliest memories is of sitting on his mother's lap as she tried in vain to get him to say his own name.  It's not that he couldn't, but just that he wouldn't.  He was happiest wearing his older sister's cast off dresses, but his mother put a stop to that when he started school, but it was a battle that she would never ever win.

When he was a teenager one day he went to see the famous French Cabaret 'Carrousel de Paris' when it performed in Algiers and he was hooked. Seeing all those glamorous 'women' in their beautiful gowns, he knew  that it was possible to be the person he really was. Refusing to conform to the expectations of his family, he determinedly found a way to hot foot it to Paris as soon as possible, where he knocked on the door of Le Carrousel looking for a job and a new life.

'Can you sing?' they asked.  'NO, course not!'  'Then can you dance?' 'Not at all!'  But the Algerian owner took pity and offered a chance to train at Madame Arthur's for a while, and that's where 'Bambi' was born.  Within a year she had a couple of songs to sing each night which gave her barely enough to pay her rent and buy food, but she was part of this wonderful camaraderie of girls backstage who were her new extended family and with whom she blossomed.

 In the 1950's there was no cosmetic surgery to speak off, but you could buy hormones over the pharmacy counter, but it's clear from the wonderful archival footage in this documentary, most of it shot by Bambi herself on a Super 8 camera, that even without much of this, she was a stunning looking woman.  She soon became a star of the Cabaret and attracted many gentlemen admirers. One of whom was taken to watch the Show by his mother for his 18th Birthday, and he never left.

This story is being related to the camera by 77 year old 'Bambi', who is now known as Marie-Pierre, with such disarming honesty and refreshing frankness. The matter-of-fact way that this articulate woman recounts her fascinating past is mesmerizing. She states that she was fine with not shocking society, but she just wanted to lead the life she was meant too. She claims too that her mother never understood her 'but then I didn't understand myself', but when she came to live with Bambi and her boyfriend 'she accepted me'.

After a few years with her Beau, Bambi discovers that her good friend and fellow performer Coccinelle has been to Casablanca for 'the operation', and after dithering about it for the next few months, Bambi follows her too.  Surprisingly enough her Beau doesn't appreciate this anatomical change, which turns out of little consequence as Bambi thinks this is the time for change again.  Even she is shocked in the form it comes : a strikingly tall blonde bombshell of a woman named Ute who becomes the love of her life.

When she was 30 years old Bambi shocked even more people with her next change, and gave up performing so that she could go back to school. Clutching a degree from the Sorbonne and wearing sensible day clothes, Marie Pierre became a teacher of literature, and a writer for the next 25 years.  And she is still with Ute.

She is unquestionably a remarkable woman and the transformation from little Algerian boy to respected Parisian Literature Professor via Music Hall Star is the stuff that Hollywood would love to fictionalise to grab an Oscar.  This is however a very exceptional real story of an immensely brave and resourceful woman that is utterly spellbinding. It quite deservedly won filmmaker Sebastian Lifschitz the 'Teddy Award for Best LGBT Documentary' at the recent Berlin Film Festival.

I loved it unreservedly and am giving it my highest rating. It's not available anywhere YET, but I will update this when I know where and when it can be seen.

★★★★★★★★★★

BLACK REALLY SUITS YOU aka LE NOIR (TE) VOUS VA SI BIEN

The first words we hear in the movie's opening scene are "I should never have left my country!' They are uttered slowly with great sadness by Moncef a 60 year man of Middle-Eastern origin. He and his family have ended up as immigrants in Paris far from home and he is desperate to insure that even in this alien land, they remain faithful to all the traditions and cultures of their past.  It is however his rigid clinging so stubbornly to the old ways that will have fatal consequences and ultimately destroy his family.

The story that resulted in Moncef's bitter declaration is told through a series of flashbacks and although his statement was obviously a foreboding, we are still nevertheless not prepared for how this sad story ends so tragically.

He and his wife have two grown up children.  The son although unmarried has his own apartment and and enjoys the freedom of any European young man, but Cobra the daughter lives at home under the very strict watchful eye of her father. Each morning she leaves to go to work with her black hijabi tied on tightly but en route to her office she pops in to a coffee bar and whilst the Barista is making her a drink she goes into the bathroom and comes out moments later scarf less displaying her wonderful tresses.

Her young boss is madly in love with her, even though she has never ever encouraged him.  After all she has never been allowed to be alone with a man before let alone kiss one.  His attentiveness emboldens her and she pleads with her father to allow her to stay over at her work colleague's house one night just so that she can go on a date and go dancing like French girls her age.

Cobra knows that if she is ever going to have her freedom then she might as make the right choice, and so rejects her wealthy suitor in order to date the man who has always loved her : the Barista.  She is so sure that this is 'the real thing' and is even prepared to introduce her beau to her parents, but before she can she is spotted in a Bar having fun and flirting by one of her father's friends who tells all.

Moncef calls on his son to tell him that he must  restore honor to the family after this 'disgrace' in the only way possible according to their culture.  He soon regrets this decision but by then it is far too late.

The irony of the situation is that in their own way the parents had also bucked tradition when they met as a young couple and fell in love and had given up getting the usual dowry so that their own parents would approve their marriage too. 

This rather wonderfully moving film written & directed by Iranian Jacques Bral takes great care not to pass judgement on either of these conflicting cultures, but he acutely observes the problems they cause in a rapidly changing society.  M. Bral is hardly a prolific filmmaker .... I think this is his 6th in 40 years .... and I am guessing that one the reasons is that he puts a great deal of thought into each one of them.  What I particularly liked was he is a man of few(er than normal) words and instead lets the images tell the story a great deal of the time.  Highly reccomended.

Coming hot on the heals of 'Wajma' that I reviewed a few days ago, I think I need to take a break from the plight of middle-eastern women in contemporary for wee while.

(And yes, I was superficially attracted to this movie initially by the title which is my own personal mantra too)

★★★★★★★★

LIBERAL ARTS

Actor Josh Radnor ('TV's How I Met Your Mother') evidently really misses the good old days in the '90's when he was back in College. So much so he wrote himself a cute movie about going back to his old alma mater and wanting to stay : and he not only starred in it, but he directed it too.

Josh plays Jesse a 35 year old man newly dumped by his girlfriend and still trying to make his mark in academia but has ended up as a lowly College Admissions Officer in Manhattan.    When he gets an invitation to attend the Retirement Dinner of one of his favourite English Professors, he jumps at the chance at getting into his car and driving back to his old campus  at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

The retirement is not a happy affair as the Professor is the throws of admitting to himself that he really doesn't want to retire at all, and he gives a disastrous farewell speech that brings gasps from the audience.  But at a celebration party he introduces Jesse to two friends of his and Zibby their 19 year old daughter who is a student at Kenyon.  

Zibby and Jesse hit it off, and after they run into each other again later they have sit up all night talking about 'Life' , 'Litreature' and heavy idealistic cultural aspirations. Zibby is a 'Improv ' Major and has an infectious energy and vitality that comes with youth, whilst Jesse her senior by 15 years, seems like  staid old man in comparison.  Nevertheless there is an attraction between them of sorts, but it isn't until he returns to NY and they start corresponding and recommending reading material and music to listen too, that there is even a hint of romance.

Zibby invites him back to visit and after their 'date' she asks Jesse to sleep over.  Jesse who has already shown a great ability into 'over-thinking' most things in his life, hesitates at first, but then is up for it until Zibby announces she is still a virgin and he cannot get out of the door quick enough.

He goes from one extreme to another and seeks solace in the arms of another of his ex Professors that he has always had a crush on. She  is  very embittered 50 + year old who hangs out in bars looking for prey, and who makes no secret that she is just using Jesse for sex.  The irony is that she teaches English Romantic Literature.

There are other sub-plots that don't complicate the plot but simply add to the Campus diversity.  One involves a hippie philosopher made more noticeable by the fact that he is played by handsome Zac Efron. 

Both the Professor and Jesse are too late to turn the clocks back, but in the end Jesse decides he doesn't really want to after all.  

It's a very likable romantic comedy that is easy to enjoy and it works so well simply because the characters are all rather engaging. Mr Radnor has written a part he is admirable suited for, but for me the real treat was seeing Elizabeth Olsen as Zibby  sparkle so brightly in a role much lighter than her usual heavy dramatic roles. True it was a bit of stretch trying to convince us that this 25 year really was 19 year, but aside from that she was such great fun.  To complete the casts : the retiring Professor was played by Richard Jenkins, and the man-eater was played by the equally wonderful Alison Janney.

This is Mr Radnor's 2nd go at directing, and I and the Sundance audience loved the first one happythankyoumoreplease although some of the heavyweight critics were less than kind.  This one fared better, but it's now out on DVD so you can decide for yourself.

★★★★★★★★

NAKED OPERA

This somewhat intriguing and totally bizarre documentary tells the very odd tale of Marc, a rotund man in his fifties, critically ill from a debilitating condition he has suffered with since childhood who is indulging himself for what may very well be the last time. He has somehow accumulated considerable wealth which seems at odds with his job as a Human Resources Manager in his native Luxembourg, but the source of his fortune is one of the many loose threads in this story.

His passion is Mozart's opera Don Giovanni.  He not only thinks that the story mirrors his own life, but he scours Europe incessantly seeing every single production there is hoping that this may the definitive one he has always been seeking.  It is incidentally the ONLY opera he likes or watches.  As he flits from one luxury hotel suite to another he is accompanied by one of an inexhaustible stable of very attractive male escorts which he finds via the Internet .... always choosing one from a foreign country.

Marc is annoyingly arrogant and treats his companions as his personal property, and one assumes as long as they are paid well and there is yet another open champagne bottle, they will put up his all self-indulgent demands.  He occasionally attempts to converse with them but the urge to patronize and play up to the camera is too great a temptation for him to make it meaningful at all.  And aside from waiters who he loves ordering around, the only hint of a anything approaching a relationship is with Angela Christlieb the filmmaker which develops on camera as the film progresses.

Towards the end, Marc's latest companion is Jordan Fox a well known Porn Star, and the synopsis claims that he falls in love with this hottie.  Lust maybe, but there is nothing approaching the slightest hint of romance and when the two of them go to the Hustlaball in Berlin and Jordan starts making out with another 'actor' (sic), Marc realizes that it is time for him to take his leave.

The movie is unclear whether the Escorts provide sexual services and given the opulence of the settings and the champagne flowing like water it seemed much more like a bacchanalian arrangement with Marc being a voyeur rather than a participant.

In between the travelling there were the obligatory visits to the Doctors and as more was revealed about his condition, your sympathy softened the annoyance slightly with this essentially boring hedonistic man.

I am desperately curious to know why in the first place the filmmaker ever thought to provide a soapbox for Marc to expound upon his uninteresting personal philosophies whilst witnessing him traipsing around the Opera Houses of Europe.  I will concede that the concept is a fascinating one, but Marc himself is not. In my book, what makes a really good documentary is when the filmmaker gets to witness the unexpected as it unfolds in front of them, or when the story takes a sudden curve.  The problem with Naked Opera was it lacked any such situations, or indeed any finality, and spoilt itself with its repetitiveness.  After all Opera Houses look the same after a while, as do Escorts, no matter how pretty they are on the eye to start with.

P.S. This movie premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013 and who knows what will happen to it next. Watch this space.

★★★★★★★

BROKEN

This wee quintessential Brit social realist drama shows an agonizing slice of life in three households who live uncomfortably next door to each other in a suburban cul de sac.  Archie, a mild-tempered lawyer, is a single dad bringing up his two teenage children Skunk and Jed with the aid of Kasia his Polish Au-Pair who he makes a move on even though she has a boyfriend.  Next to them are a quiet older couple who have a grown up son Rick who is a little simple and is easily unhinged.  The trio is completed with the Oswald family headed up by a psychopathic bullying father who has a full time job on his hands controlling his three daughters, two of whom are very loose with their 'favours' with any local boy who asks.

When one of the Oswald girls is trying to placate their father during one of his rages, she diverts his anger by saying that Rick had raped her.  It results in the innocent boy being beaten and pummelled, police charges bought,  and general mayhem that eventually will unravel and change lives dramatically for all the families from now on.

A lot of the action is seen through very worldly 11 year old Skunk's eyes as she starts her first year in High School, and she appears to be the only one who has any real understanding of what's going on in poor troubled Rick's head.  She not only sets out to sort that situation out, but she also pitches in to get Kasia back with her boyfriend, who happens to be her English teacher at school, so that she will leave her father alone.

It all develops into a rather frenetic melodrama and a somewhat muddled movie that really isn't sure what it wants to be.  It tries to be funny too and succeeds in part, and at the same time by giving Skunk a cute tough boyfriend called Jed, it is attempting to be cloyingly sweet   It is a sadly disappointing mish-mash of a film and so full of far too many working class stereotypes to the point it was almost becoming annoying. The one bright spark of the film  was the startling and fresh performance of a remarkably talented Eloise Laurence as Skunk which was a sheer joy to watch.

This debut film by award-winning theater director Rufus Norris was based on a best selling novel of the same name by Daniel Clay.  It had the unlikely good fortune for a small budget movie of having two major leading actors in the cast viz Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy.  It's just a pity that their rather insignificant roles hardly used their talents at all.

It's one of those movies that will pop up in the  Film Festival Circuit before it ends straight up in Netflix.  So if you have an urge to see it, you probably wont have to wait too long.

★★★★★★