THE INVISIBLE MEN

Louie is a 32 year old Palestinian who tries to live his life unobtrusively hidden away from society's prying eyes.  He has no legal right to live in Israel, and thus without 'papers' he must continually avoid any confrontation with the Police or officialdom, as if he returns back across the Border he risks the very real death threats from his own family.  And all simply because he is gay. 

This remarkable new award-winning documentary from Israeli filmmaker Yariv Mozer tracks Louie as he goes about his daily life in Tel Aviv.  A somewhat shy, introverted and extremely likable young man, Louie survives by doing odd jobs of work and constantly moving apartments as he tries to keep one step ahead of the Authorities all the time. On the several times he is caught, the Police deport him back to Ramallah, but yet somehow this quiet resourceful man soon manages to very soon sneak back into Israel once again. Its a harrowing existence and when he relates the lurid details to Mozer of how his family tied him up and tried to slaughter him like an animal, you know that he has no other choice if he wants to live.

After what seems like just one to many 'deportations' Louie contacts a Refugee Law Centre at The University and discovers that there is a possible way out from this predicament.  Under International Law he can apply for asylum in another country (that will be chosen for him) and resettle there.  There are no guarantees he will be awarded this and he is warned that his chances of succeeding are slim. A sceptical Louie is put in touch with Abdu another gay Palestinian who has already been accepted and is about to leave for his yet unknown new country/home.  Abdu, an outgoing extrovert is totally opposite to Louie and he shows his new timid friend a whole underground gay movement that Louis finds hard to believe.

Months later when Louie gets word that he has won a much coveted asylum place, he starts having very serious second thoughts.  Israel has been his 'home' for the past 10 years, and although it has been a scary and dangerous existence, he feels a great draw as this is where he believes he truly belongs.  Despite all the pain and heartache that he has been through, he really wants to stay.

Mozer tells Louie's emotional charged story without disguising his only attachment, but he does sensibly refrain form any making any comment at all on the tense political situation that engulfs this whole region.  Its a humanitarian tale that will shock most of us living in the West to realize (or be reminded) that being gay in any Arab country puts your very life at risk, and being Palestinan in a country where you are illegal ..... which in Louie's case was his birthplace .... seems so very unjust.

A extremely moving heartbreaking story that is  sensitively documented, and that will rightly jerk you out of your comfort zone.... its very definitely unmissable.

P.S. Louie is safely living somewhere in Europe coping with the snow, and as Mr Mozer told us in his Q + A, he's 'the only gay in the village'   But he's alive and well and even get some assistance to help him heal his emotional scars.  He is one of the lucky ones.

★★★★★★★★★

MY PIECE OF THE PIE

There is a detestable savagery to the rather odious behaviour of money man Steve who can manipulate the share price of a Factory to force its closure and a handsome profit for himself without a hint of emotion, but who gets really pissed when a pretty girl proves that she is no easy takeover and won’t put out on their first dale. He’s a powerful wheel in one of those City Financial Institutions and one day he is asked by his CEO to go back to Paris, his native city, to set up a brand new Hedge Fund that is destined to make him even richer.

Back home he employs France, a 42 year old mother, to be his housekeeper in his luxury penthouse apartment.  She is also thrown into the role of Nanny one day when a woman drops off a young boy who is Steve’s son, a fact he neglected to tell France, but then again most of the time he barely remembers the boy’s existence.  France is happy to be overpaid to take on these extra duties as she has recently been laid off from the job she held for 20 years back in Dunkirk her home town where her children are still be looked after by her sister.  The Factory she had worked for had been forced out of business by none other than Steve.

Whilst this information is not known by either of them, they maintain a  strictly defined relationship of overbearing selfish employer and humble subservient employee until one day after another pretty girl stands Steve up, he asks France to step at last minute into be his date at an important dinner, and which leads to her later getting into the bed that she makes for him every day.

And that’s when the plot goes haywire and gets a tad too far-fetched to be believable.  If the truth be known I was already a wee uncomfortable with the whole concept of the filmmaker thinking that the exploitation of so many (factory workers etc) by a couple of greedy opportunists was in anyway entertaining, especially as we climb out of such a vicious recession.  But then again, I personally disliked the George Clooney smash hit  alleged comedy ‘Up In The Air’ as that was about a man who had mastered the craft of manipulating all the people he was firing.

Then is no moral end to the mish mash of story and the only thing approaching a happy ending is when Steve persuades an ex girlfriend to come back to him after he explained that he had cheated on with just  a call girl, so that really didn't count.  He didnt just want his piece of the pie, he wanted the whole damn cake.

Particularly disappointing because this movie was the work of writer/director Cedric Kaplish whose earlier films like 'Russian Dolls' , L'Auberge Espagnole' etc. I really loved, especially for the fact they were  where I first came across Romain Duris, one of my very favorite French actors.

★★★★★

THE FIRST BEAUTIFUL THING

Bruno is a unhappy and somewhat troubled middle-aged college Professor living in Milan with a girlfriend he cannot commit too and the only way that he makes his days bearable is by taking prescription drugs illegally obtained at a local park.  One day Valeria his sister turns up on his doorstep to tell him that their mother is terminally ill and that he must come home to Livorno.  It seems that Bruno has avoided his family, especially his mother, since he left many years ago and it takes some hefty persuasion to make him make the journey despite the urgency of it.

Clearly Bruno has issues, and as the story unwinds through a whole series of flashbacks, we learn that with this complex family history with its many layers, he certainly wasn't the only one. Anna his mother was always a real beauty which was a source of conflict with her abusive husband whom she left when the children were very young. She was at best naive and always managed to hook up with a succession handsome men who either abused or neglected her before throwing her out.  The children where snatched back and forth between her and their father and somehow what ever befell them, the ever optimistic Anna always believed and promised them that things would be better tomorrow.

As a kid, Bruno was intelligent and artistic but he seemed to have inherited the grumpiness of his father, and certainly his present life yields him no joy.  But as soon as he spends time with his dying mother whom he was stayed away from all this years in a huff, he gradually realizes through her about some of the pleasures of life that he has been missing.  He eventually finds it hard to resist Anna's irrepresible gift for happiness that he has for so long begrudged.

In this rich Italian family comedy/drama that spans some four decades there are plenty of twists and turns that are not always predictable especially towards the end.  It has all the makings of a glorious melodrama .... have your kleenexs at the ready ... but as multi-faceted the plot scenarios were, they were extremely realistic and anything but exaggerated as the term implies.

It's the type of movie that I always think that Italian filmmakers are the masters of.  In fact it was their official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Movie last year. Beautifully written and directed Paolo Vizri, it is superbly acted by a brilliant cast that includes legendary Italian Actress Stefania Sandrelli whose lengthy resume includes Bertolucci's 'The Conformist' in 1970. 

Coming in at 2 hours and 2 minutes long, have a large glass of wine ..... besides the kleenex that is ..... but you wont regret it.

★★★★★★★★

FRANKENWEENIE

Tim’s Burton’s latest attempt to scare us is a quite delightful homage to film noir that turns out to rather a tame spoof of a horror movie that makes one laugh rather than cower in fear. It’s a stop-motion animation (that I saw in 3D) about an ingenious young elementary school boy named Victor Frankenstein who lives with his nice middle class parents in New Holland, an all-American suburb.  Victor is a real geek and so his worried father only agrees that he can enter the School’s Science Fair, if Victor agrees to starts acting like other kids his age and plays baseball.

However during the game Victor’s best friend … his dog Sparky … is in a fatal accident. Very soon after that the school’s science class has a new rather exotic foreign teacher and he inadvertently plants an idea in Victor’s mind. In his attic cum laboratory Victor conducts an experiment to use the energy of lightening to bring his precious dog back to life.  When he succeeds he tries to keep Sparky hidden away especially with the two big bolts either side of his neck there is more than a passing resemblance to Boris Karloff’s monster!

In such a small town that seems to have more than its share of oddball characters it doesn't remain a  secret  for long, and soon some of his school chums who are desperate to win the Science Fair usurp Victor’s idea and bring their own dead animals back to life with hilarious consequences which end up almost wrecking their small town.

Burton’s highly stylized imagery is enchanting as always, and the characters in shape of puppets (British ones  at that) and as voiced by a wonderful cast that includes  Catherine OHara, Martin Sheen, Martin Landau & Wynona Rider are totally captivating. Where it excelled best was the very Burtonesque collection of quirky eccentric neighbors and their pets too that gave a much needed edge to the movie.   But the story however was a little weak and tame even, which probably was fitting for a Disney Production (which this is) but not what one expects from the filmmaker who's previous animation includes the brilliant ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Corpse Bride’.

It’s a fun movie and really worth seeing especially if you are a classic horror movie buff and as long as you set aside expectations that it’s one of Tim Burton’s best, because it simply isnt.

★★★★★★★

INDIE GAMES

I readily confess that I am possibly not young enough to fully appreciate INDIE GAMES. It's a new documentary about computer geeks who independently create video games which are very much a staple of daily life for young(er) people these days. (And judging by the film, some not so young too!) A pair of newbie filmmakers followed 4 developers for some months as they tortuously created three new games at the expense of having anything approaching a normal life for years. 

They were on the whole a bunch or irritating whining nerds who's obsessions were beyond annoying, but however the whole process from germinating an idea and pursuing it through all the slow painful process was totally fascinating. The fact that they all elected to do this on their  own outside of the major games maker was admirable and the potential financial rewards, if they succeed, are enormous. If only they were not such a miserable and unattractive bunch!  

P.S. Reprinted from my SUNDANCE 2012 BLOG as the movie is now available on DVD and VOD.

★★★★★★★

FOR ELLEN

This is one of those annoying movies with a very small story that was dragged out far too long.  A rock musician was returning to his snow covered god-forsaken small home town to agree the final Divorce terms with his wife.  They included giving him half the value of the house, money he much needed to fund his next album, but that also entailed him giving up his custody rights to Ellen their small child. He could take the money and run, or fight the case in court and lose it all.  He so lost all my sympathy when he put the onus on the kid herself in a scene no doubt intended to have us reaching for our kleenex, but I would have made better use of a sick bowl.

Even the presence of a chain smoking Paul Dano couldnt redeem this awkward and clumsy wee film that seemed to have lost its focus almost from the start. 

Totally Missable.

SHALL WE KISS

Two strangers meet in Nantes (a town in France), he is a local furniture restorer, and she a visiting fabric designer. There is an immediate attraction to each other and they end up having a romantic candlelit supper together. After dinner he drives her back to her Hotel and they are both reluctant to part as they must indeed, as she is returning to Paris in the morning, and besides both of them have significant others at home.  He leans forward and asks for one kiss to say adieu, but although she is tempted she refuses the request and at his prompting she tells him a story why she will not kiss.

It’s about a man and a woman she knows in Paris who are the closest of friends and share everything together.  She is happily married to a man she loves, and he has a long term girlfriend. When the girlfriend moves away, he desperately craves for some physical intimacy.  He fails miserably with a rather hilarious encounter with a prostitute, so instead asks his best friend if she would help him out.  She eventually agrees and they very awkwardly start to make out.  Although she is up for intercourse, she is however reluctant to kiss him as she claims if she doesn't like it, she will be totally turned off, and she does like it, she is worried what it will lead too.

She was right to have these reservation as and when she finds he is not only a great kisser but the sexual chemistry with her best friend is far better than with her husband, one thing leads to another and they end up falling madly in love.

It is a ridiculous story …. and I’m not even going to hint at how it ends ….. but it is nonetheless totally enchanting.  The deadpan way they overly cautious approach their first attempts at having sex in her sterile minimalist bedroom is completely hilarious.  Polite to the point of being almost cold, they ask each other’s permission to make every single move as they undress until the passion finally kicks in.

Everyone is extremely well-mannered, and being the typically movie version of average Parisians (!) they are obviously well-dressed, cultured & sophisticated in this light hearted boulevard comedy that almost seems like a modern day farce.  It is a tad preposterous, but nevertheless totally charming and a must see for any die hard hopeless romantic.

Written, directed and starring Emmanuel Mouret who has on occasion being compared to Woody Allen, although thankfully Mr Allen keeps his clothes on when he is on the screen.

P.S. Made in 2007, it was released on DVD in 2009.

★★★★★★★★

PINK RIBBONS INC

It’s questionable if filmmaker Lea Pool’s investigation into the breast cancer movement suffers from the lack of an indignant Michael Moore type expose but it does raise some very pertinent issues about this unwieldy juggernaut of a crusade that some think may now be out of control. Pool does however overload us somewhat with a torrent of images of a multitude of money raising walks mixed with interviews of survivors plus with the heads of the two major fundraising foundations interspersed, and a few researchers/experts and the points she is trying to make do occasionally get muddled along the way.

Like it or not, this is a big business. The major player ‘Susan G Korman For The Cure’ is reported to have dispensed some $1.9 billion since 1982. A lot of its income derives from ‘cause marketing’ where The Foundation co-operates with big business on  joint ventures (as opposed to philanthropy where they just hand over donations).Pool questions whether such  partnerships are ethically and morally acceptable when they are with Companies who make products which use chemicals that are linked to cancer themselves. They include giant Cosmetic Corporations such as Avon and Estee Lauder who are eager to give their support to help the Movement even though they are reluctant to give any details about their research into how safe their products are and if in fact they contain ingredients that are contributing factor in the cause of cancer.  Pool may have pointed out these facts, but she never bullied her interviewees into any admission, and in fact she allowed the Marketing Manager of Ford to waffle on with some piffling double-talk that insinuated that cars never do any environmental damage at all.

Nancy Brinker, the CEO of Korman, and an ex US Ambassador (who was also the late Susan Korman’s sister) is a rather brittle over-manicured woman who never wavered of her justification for how/where the organisation raised their money even when it was from fast food giants KFC resulting in a deluge of angry emails from many survivors who were so offended by this inappropriate partnership

It’s not just the vast amounts of money now involved that were being questioned here, but more directly as to how they are being allocated and distributed. The film threw up two crucial points. Firstly a mere 5% is spent on prevention which was unanimously agreed by most of the interviewees as a crime.  At the other end of the scale there are over 30 different research bodies spending millions of dollars every year, but without any co-ordination at all.  Hence as one Doctor put it very succinctly, they are all overlapping and do exactly the same investigations & trials. and without a single exception are all focusing on urban white middle-aged women as if they are the only casualties of this cancer.

There were two other sections that raised my awareness.  Firstly I had no idea that milk products contain a nasty chemical called RBGH that farmers pump into cows to make them produce more, and which then gets pumped into us, making us get sick more. Inappropriately General Mills 'Yoplait' a major partner with Susan Korman was a big user of the chemically enhanced milk until there was highly successful write in campaign about this practice.  

But secondly, and more importantly, was listening to the many articulate woman who had dealt with their cancer, and others that are learning each day how to deal with their new Stage 4. Their attitude to the well-intentioned goodwill of a movement that is meant to benefit them was both revealing and exceptionally moving.

Towards the end of the movie, someone aptly articulated we all throw money at a 'cause' like this simply because it makes us feel good.  It seems like we are actually doing something to help.  But are we really if the big Charities Board's are peppered with the Heads of Industries that still make products that are probable factors in causing?  Shouldn't we be doing more to stop this, and working towards preventing the next generation not suffering the same?  

It's a sobering thought in the USA every 23 seconds someone is diagnosed with breast cancer and every 69 seconds , someone dies from it.

See this movie, and see where your money is going, it will may you think/rethink.

★★★★★★★★

ARGO

In 1979 at the height of the Iranian unrest angry mobs in Tehran stormed the US Embassy taking the 52 members of staff hostage. Unbeknown to the militants 6 members of the Visa Department, which had it’s own street entrance, managed to escape and were given refuge by the Canadian Ambassador and his wife in their official residence.  Both the US and Canadian State Departments knew that their  disappearance would soon be discovered by the Iranian militia so they asked the CIA to come up with a  rescue plan.

The CIA’s Director turned to Tony Mendoza a exfiltration specialist who had the extraordinary idea of creating a fake movie project that would serve as a cover story to get the trapped staff safely out of the country.  When forced to defend his plan to the Secretary of State himself to get final clearance for the ‘Hollywood Project’, Mendoza agreed that it all seemed like a really ludicrous idea, but it was, he assured the Secretary, the best of all the bad ideas that the Intelligence experts could come up with.  And with that, the CIA entered the movie business.

To make the operation seem legit, Mendoza contacted an old friend who was a real Make Up/Prosthetics Artist, who in turn linked him to an award-winning Producer who came on board to give credibility to the movie that they would pretend to be scouting for locations in Tehran for.  They found a Sci-fi Script that could work as it was set in a middle-eastern terrain, and then they created film resumes and jobs for each of the six staff.  Then complete with brand new Canadian passports, Mendoza flew off to Iran to perform the seemingly impossible task of whisking them away right under the militants nose.

The trapped officials who had been keeping up with the news of the escalating violence and the brutal street executions of anyone who the Regime suspected of being against, were so nervous of Mendoza’s plans, that several of then turned him down flat.  It however soon seem clear to them that they had no choice but to chance their arm and take the risk of being caught and tortured to death, because they also knew that their hiding place would soon be discovered.

In this wonderfully totally tense nail-biting thriller nothing is ever going to really go to plan.  Even when Mendoza finally persuades all six that they should trust him, his Director tells him that The White House has pulled the plug and that he must cease the covert operation.  But does he, and if so, will he pull it off?  Trust me you will not want to know until it happens and you are on the edge on your seat in the movie theater with white knuckles grasping the arm rests!  Its an exhilarating ride and the telling of this story is as well executed as the actual operation itself.

This is Ben Affleck’s movie through and through and he is proving to be an outstanding Director … first 'Gone Baby Gone', then 'The Town', and now this rather stunning political thriller.  Affleck also stars as Mendoza but its a very cool understated performance that I suppose one would expect from a professional CIA Operative in the field.  He surrounds himself with a great cast, but the two that shine out are the irrepressible John Goodman as the jovial Make Up Artist, and the hilarious deadpan Alan Arkin as the Producer who provide the unexpected, but very necessary, humor to the story.

In filming this story based on a true life incident Affleck captures not just the authentic look of Iran (its actual filmed in Turkey) but the real feel of the period itself.  Mendoza's covert action was kept secret way past the 'big story' of the day ...... the release of all the Embassy staff after a whopping 444 days in captivity which had (almost) the whole world celebrating ....and all the unknown factors about what actual happen a complete surprise until the final credits role.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Argo doesn't get a Best Picture Nomination at the Academy Awards.  It is that good!

P.S. Months after I wrote this, it won 3 Oscars.

★★★★★★★★★★

FROM BEGINNING TO END

There is good taste, and then there is incest.  It’s surprising that I can sit and watch a lot of suspect and even deviant behaviour amongst (consenting) adults on the silver screen, but this is one topic that I feel is just a tad too icky even for me. Especially when it comes in the form of a melodramatic Brazilian telenova which is short on both substance as well as clothing, and is to all intents and purpose nothing more than a pretty piece of soft porn.

It starts with two young half brothers, one 6 years old and the other 12, who are a little too close to each other for my comfort zone, and for their mother too who suspects there may be more here than what meets the eye.  Flash forward to the boys as grown men, one of the fathers dies, then the mother passes away too, and the boys seek solace in each other.  Well that’s their excuse as they have barely stopped lusting after each other since they were kids.

We are convinced that it’s not just lust, but real love, which is put to the test when the younger brother who is a potential Olympic Swimming Champion is told by his Coach that he must move abroad to train.  To Russia no less.  Oh come on Coach, you mean to tell us there are no decent swimming pools closer to Brazil?

Love conquers all though and even a very pretty girl cannot steal the old brother away from his one true love, and this all plays out to a rather deafeninng over-laden heavy strings soundtrack  And I guess they will happily ever after! Who knows, and more importantly, who cares?

Why see it at all? Well the boys/men are rather stunning beefcakes that even with this limited script prove that they can actually act, and also writhe around naked together looking very sexual but without doing the act (its soft porn after all).  It was a big Box Office Hit in Brazil when it was released in 2009, and its just surfaced on Amazon On Demand where I wasted $3.99 and more importantly 90 minutes of my time.

★★★

THE SESSIONS

This is yet again another story so bizarre that it just had to be true, and this dramatized movie tells of a very witty and courageous young man who just wanted to have sex once before he died.  Mark O’Brien had polio as a kid and although he wasn’t paralyzed his muscles were so extensively damaged that he was unable too move anything but his head.  He spent his nights in an iron lung and his days strapped to a gurney, and with the help of his aides managed to very successfully pursue his goals of being a poet and journalist.

Mark had been wanting to have sex for some time, and when he was commissioned to write an article about sex among the disabled he uses this as an excuse to finally lose his virginity.  He finds himself a sex surrogate who helps him with his tendency to panic and over-think, and as he was a devout Catholic he took to taking advice with his new very droll Parish Priest (William H Macy) on his feelings of guilty pleasure.

The relationship that Mark develops with his Surrogate is tender and touching and despite her extreme detached professional attitude she is in real danger of allowing her feelings to interfere with her work.

It is a glorious warm and compassionate story that was enriched by Mark’s incredible quick-witted dry humor and his passion for his poetry, and in the movie he is played by John Hawkes who manages an astounding portrayal without moving a muscle.

There is a significant amount of nudity ….most of it by the Surrogate beautifully played by a very much in shape Helen Hunt … and despite the subject it is not the least bit pornographic.

P.S. I saw this first at Sundance 2012 ( and this is reprinted from that Blog) and when I read the program notes beforehand, it didnt seem the most obvious of choices of subject matter into a comic drama, but full credit to writer/director Ben Lewin for bringing it to the screen with such joy that it made for one of my favorite movies of the Festival.  Out now in Theaters .

★★★★★★★★★

OFF-WHITE LIES

This rather odd little tale starts with a rather forlorn 13 year old girl arriving at Jerusalem airport from California and feeling abandoned and looking for someone to meet her.  That  someone is her father Shaul who she has not seen for some time, and has yet to discover that he is a homeless drifter who lifts off his wits, his bizarre inventions, and the kindness of friends.

In the car he has borrowed from Orly his lady friend, father and daughter head North, but their journey is cut short when a bombing raid diverts them a shelter for safety.  Shaul discovers Libi is asthmatic so when the coast is clear they head back down south and with the little bit of cash he has borrowed, they get a cheap hotel room in the city.  And then when he sees a TV report on the War which features refugees from the North being hosted by families in the suburbs, he plots for he and Libi to pass themselves off as war evacuees in order to get free housing.

Wealthy Gidi and his rather cold fish of a wife Halit slightly reluctantly open their home to Shaul and Libi, but when Gidi leaves for Military Duty, Halit and Shaul get a lot more friendly.  And naked too. This doesn’t sit too well with Libi who has her eyes on the 18 yr old son of the house. And then this rather simple story gets unnecessary complicated and starts to aimless meander a little like Shaul himself.

It’s not just the final twists in the plot that confuse, but the whole unspoken reason why Libi’s mother has allowed her daughter to be  suddenly in Israel in the first place with the  father she hardly knows, and for what everyone seems assume is an indefinite visit.  The relationship between the easy-going drifter of a father and his rather uptight and angry child seems to based on them being more like friends, that is until Libi apes Shaul’s behaviour and doesn’t sleep in her own bed one night, and then he plays the angry dad card.

The thing that (almost) forgives the confusing elements is two quite wonderful performances by the lead actors . Elya Inbar as Libi is particularly moving and for one so young, she is exceptionally gifted.

Part drama, part comedy and part good.  

 ★★★★★★

MANSOME

The Oscar-nominated documentary film-maker Morgan Spurlock has had a good run with some excellent entertaining movies ('Super Size Me', 'Where In The World is Osama Bin Laden', 'The Greatest Movie Ever Sold' etc) and now that he seems to be churning them out at an almost indecent speed, it was inevitable that eventually one would be a dud.  This is it.

It is meant to be his take on the topic of the men's grooming and how it’s now considered masculine, and adopted so enthusiastically by men.  Straight ones that is, as gay men would have never ever made such a fuss like this.

The movie starts off well enough with an amusing piece on how moustaches can make a man look like a 70’s porn star, or simply hide an unattractive face.  Spurlock shaved on his own hallmark one which resulted in making his scared young son just burst into tears.    It progressed to beards, and the really big ones that are worn by some very odd guys who are totally obsessed with dominating the Best Beards in the World competitions.  (Who knew?) They were such an irritating bunch of what can only be politely described as weirdos, that I so wanted to get my clippers out and cut off the pride of their masculinity there and then.

From then on Mr Spurlock got sloppy and repetitive and the movie featured Will Arnett and Jason Batemen undergoing various treatments in a Spa whilst bantering away about little in particular but still remembering to remind us that they were not just straight, but also happily married!  Really gents??    

There was a hairy Arab wrestler that spent most of his time out of the Ring shaving EVERY bit of his body, and an old Italian Hairdresser who made some rather impressive custom hair rugs.  The final sector of the film featured a narcissistic young 30 year old Sikh gentlemen who is a clothing buyer in NY, but I’ve no idea when he ever got a chance to do any work at all as he had several beauty treatments every day, many of which, I had never heard off. 

The film was neither funny or informative: just fluffy and meandering and with all their insecurities about their masculinity, somewhat annoying to say the least.

Skip this one and spend the 90 minutes instead being pampered in a Spa ..... with 'real men' of course. 

★★★★

A LITTLE HELP

Laura knocks back a couple of Budweisers every day.  Not that she is a drunk per se, but she needs a buzz just to get her through her day.  She has a husband who is cheating on her with his secretary, a lying little brat of a son, a highly-critical nit-picking mother, a father who never stops talking about his brush with fame as an ex-sportscaster, and an over-bearing older sister who bears a grudge because she is not at pretty as Laura.

They all seem to collude to pick on Laura even after her philandering husband suddenly drops down dead  in their driveway. Everybody is unfairly ashamed on this hard-working New Jersey dental hygienist who is simply trying to make the best of the poor pack of cards she has been dealt with.  Her son only too aware that his father’s death had been aggravated by the fact that he had just been confronted about his affair, tells a whopper of a lie when confronted with questions from his schoolmates.  He claims that his real real estate broker father was actually a fireman who died in the 9/11 tragedy the previous year and the news instantly makes him the most popular boy in his class.

Laura’s relationship with her son is fraught at best, so she goes along with the lie, and even attends a special 9/11 Memorial Service at his school.  When he is inevitably found out, it is she that has the strength to get him out of the tangled web of deceit that he has created, which bonds them together at last.

Until then, there are only two men in her family she can stand: her nephew who uses his garage band as an excuse to avoid his controlling mother, and her rather handsome brother in law.  One of the most tender moments of this wee movie is when Warren confesses that to Laura that he had always been in love with her, and only married her sister so that he could be near her.

This rather touching little movie seems to have been made as a starring vehicle for a talented Jenna Fisher, who is usually seen in Steve Carrol’s shadows on 'The Office'.  And she puts in an excellent performance as a woman who just didn’t want to deal with the reality of a life that seems to have been chosen for her by everyone else.  

Don’t expect any dramatic revelations at the end, as there aren’t any.  And neither is there a great  moral message other than beyond just simply be open and enjoy what you’ve got, and avoid your relatives at all costs.   And maybe, ease up on the Budweisers too, it’s not really ‘the little help’ any of us need.  Or is it?

★★★★★★★

FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL .....

How much fun can sex be without actually doing the act? A helluva lot as Katie and Lauren find out in this deliciously potty-mouthed comedy when there is rent to pay and no decent jobs available for two nice well-educated girls.   They were bitter enemies at College but years later and a drastic change in both their circumstances force them to let the past go and become roommates.

Lauren’s long-standing boyfriend calmly announced one morning that their sex life was boring and so he was taking a job in Italy and she would have to move out of his apartment.  Katie meanwhile had inherited a fabulous spacious Gramercy Park apartment in NY but she is about to face eviction after the rent is hiked.  Their gay mutual best friend Jesse reluctantly brings the two together, and it is he who brokers the initial peace.

Lauren is laid off from her job almost the moment she moves in, and coming back from an interview one day she catches Katie having phone sex with a ‘gentlemen caller’. Lauren is not so much shocked at the discovery of how her roommate tries to pay her share of the rent, but she is horrified that the phone service that Katie works for, keeps almost all the money, and pays her such a tiny percentage. Lauren’s business acumen kicks in and she soon persuades Katie that they should go into business and set up their own Phone line.  At first the irrepressible outgoing Katie takes all the calls, and shy Lauren remains behind the scenes, until one day she cannot resist the temptation to start talking dirty herself.

It’s a gloriously hilarious movie that shows that raunchy girls can be really funny.  I never warmed to last year’s mega hit ‘Bridesmaids' but it does seemed to have paved the way for this new genre of refreshingly in-your-face girls talking about sex, and loving it films. It makes such a welcome change from all those smutty male comedies where women just serve as the butt of their jokes.

Despite the subject matter there is almost an old-fashioned sitcom feel to these bright single girls sharing everything as flatmates who fast become best friends (the hint about possible lesbian attraction was one of the few missteps of this wee story). Without too many spoilers let me just say that the girls are less experienced about life sans a phone than they pretend, and even good girls playing bad can find their own good man too.

The chemistry between the two actors Lauren Anne Miller and Ari Gaynor was exceptional good.   Miss Miller (also Mrs Seth Rogan) co-wrote the script, and I’m not sure if it was  way she generously wrote the part of Katie for Ms Gaynor as it gave her a wonderful role to be so effervescent and bubbly.  The camera really loved her, as I do now too.

I missed this one at Sundance when it premiered early this year, and I am so glad that I caught it now.  It’s an indie movie shot and promoted on a tiny budget BUT hopefully it will get to an Art House near you.

My final words here are not mine (for a change) but those of critic Elizabeth Weitzman of NY Daily News who aptly summed it up as ‘The most  adorable filthy movie you may ever see’. 

★★★★★★★★