OPEN ROADS 2013: Current Italian cinema arrives–bracing & beautiful. And horrifying

We're posting a little early this year, as the Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual Open Roads series of new Italian cinema, co-organized by Istituto Luce Cinecittà, does not officially begin until Thursday, June 6. To bring you proper coverage of all twelve of the films in this year's series, however, TrustMovies thinks he'd better start now -- in order to give each its due.

The 2013 program, which is said to offer more of what the FSLC calls the "regionalist trend" -- this has been apparent in the Open Roads selections for literally years now -- features films set in Sardegna and Sicily, as well as elsewhere around "the boot." The program also brings back Bellocchio's brilliant and enormously empathetic Dormant Beauty (above), one of this legendary filmmaker's best, which had its New York premier earlier this year during the FSLC's Film Comment Selects. The series opens with Every Blessed Day (shown at top), the new film from the always worthwhile Paolo Virzi. 

So far, I've seen nine of the dozen films on display, and the best -- the most original and provocative by far -- is the new work from famed cinematographer/editor/writer/director Daniele Cipri (this is the first film he's done without his longtime partner, Franco Maresco), It Was the Son, shown above and below.

Of the nine movies I've seen, if the overall quality seems just slightly lower than that of other years, there has also not been a clunker in the bunch. Each is worth seeing for a number of reasons, not least of which is its entertainment value. (And I haven't even mentioned, Nina -- below -- the most gloriously beautiful of the films, with cinematography that puts color, light, architecture and space to use in some incredible new ways.)

So click here and take a good, long look at the entire series, then make your choices. If you see three films or more, you can save big money, so once you've decided, click here and then click on the FSLC's Discount Package. You're unlikely to get this much -- or this good -- a view of Italian cinema, art, culture and mores anywhere else. (Until Open Roads 2014, that is...)

DVD/Blu-ray debut: Kim Jee-Woon's THE LAST STAND--more fun than you've heard

I've sometimes said that thrillers with three sets of pro/antagonists are usually more fun that those that offer only two (see The Nest or Hostage for a couple of good examples). Well, here comes a movie that features -- count 'em -- four. It's the latest Schwarzenegger vehicle THE LAST STAND, written by newcomer Andrew Knaeur and directed by South Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon (shown below). This quartet of good/bad guys/gals ups the ante and makes the movie a lot more interesting (fun, too) than it might have been. Add to this a good cast of supporting players, and you've got a film that ought to have done better at the box-office but will likely find its real legs in the ancillary markets.

The "good" teams are made up of Arnold (and his crew), as the sheriff of a tiny southwestern town, over a weekend in which almost all of that town is off at an "away game" sports event in which its high school team is taking part, and the high-level government team led by Forest Whitaker, which is in the process of moving the fierce head of a drug cartel from one prison to another.

The bad guys are, of course, that head cartel guy and his "helper" and a team of "experts" sent ahead to the sleepy little community to set up the escape. These four groups are generally in four different places throughout the film, with one set desperately trying to halt the work of one of the others.

As the poster atop indicates, this would appear to be a movie with lots of action and shoot-em ups. If this is what you want, you won't be disappointed. There's an especially speedy car (above) in the mix, a nice escape via magnetic hold, and some shoot-outs that are actually exciting and fun because Mr. Kim knows how to film action scenes so that we can follow along -- and on tenterhooks.

Yet within all this, there is also a nice sense of community and people banding together to do what they must. When one of them is killed, in fact, the loss and pain registers much more strongly than in most films of this genre. There are the usual funny lines (our villain -- played by Eduardo Noriega, above -- calling Schwarzenegger "abuelito" is one of the best) and some nice character work from Johnny Knoxville as the town's weirdo.

I don't want to overpraise this movie. At 107 minutes, there are some slight longueurs. Nonetheless, laboring outside his native land, Kim does a more than creditable job with both the action and the quieter scenes. For the most part, The Last Stand works just fine as a throwaway good time -- with some very nice set pieces that will keep you glued to the screen.

The Last Stand, from Lionsgate, hit the street yesterday on DVD and Blu-ray, for sale and rental by the usual suspects.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT: 3rd time (still) lucky for the Linklater/Delpy/Hawke franchise

As great movie trilogies go, forget Lord of the Rings and the recent Batman crap. Leave it to Linklater (Richard, that is) to come up with the real keeper. Who'd have thought, back in 1995, when he had two strangers meet on a train and mostly just talk (but what talk!) in Before Sunrise, that he would follow it up with more of the talky twosome nine years later with Before Sunset, then do it again with this latest and best of the three: BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

I say "best," but maybe not. Without the first two films, there would no third. Would there? The idea is interesting: Could this movie stand on its own? (I suspect so.) How would it play for people who have not seen the other two? Not badly, I warrant. Most of the folk who flock to Linklater's latest (the filmmaker is shown at right) will already be fans, and I don't think they'll be disappointed. For this film is -- by virtue of its continuing a great love story and enriching it over time as its characters grow and change -- the standard-bearer of relationship movies: remarkably real, moving and funny, while giving both parties their power and say, without ever for a moment descending to anything as paltry and tiresome as "fair and balanced."

The two characters, Jesse (Ethan Hawke, above and below, right) and Celine (Julie Delpy, above and below, left), after meeting and growing close in the first film, meet again nearly a decade later in the second, once they've gone their separate ways and hooked up with others.

Now after almost twenty years, they're together with a family of their own, though Hawke's son from his earlier marriage (in the great "airport" scene that begins the movie), after a vacation with his dad, is headed back to Chicago.

The two and their two adorable little girls are vacationing on one of the Greece isles, so the scenery is jaw-dropping gorgeous. But it's the conversation that will really get you. Over an al fresco dinner, they and their friends and hosts talk about so many things, and the dialog -- involcing creativity, love, sex and marriage -- simply sparkles, without every becoming precious or unreal. God, this is wonderful stuff!

All the performances are all spot-on, with a special shout-out to a fabulous cinematographer, Walter Lassally (at left, back to camera), who here proves also to be a good actor.

Finally, though, it's the relationship between Jesse and Celine -- still fraught, tender, loving, angry and so much more -- that commands the movie, leading us and these two into a greater state of maturity that encompasses more, while allowing us to understand it, than we've seen before.

Delpy and Hawke collaborated with Linklater on the screenplay, as in the past films, and it's clear that all three continue to grow and mature. In the process of this day and night, scabs are ripped from a few not-quite-healed wounds, some continuing problems resurface, but so do the memories, good humor and self-deflating irony that help healthy relationships survive.

The filmmaker keeps his camera close when necessary, distanced when appropriate and always watchful so that we see what we need to -- via the spot-on performances -- and so can fill in certain blanks better even that the expert dialog.

You might think of this as the narrative companion to something like Michael Apted's 7-Up series, though it doesn't really compare to much else that cinema has given us. It's a rich, blessed experience and the kind of honest love story (as much for its uncertainty as for anything else) that comes along once in a lifetime for both the participants and us viewers. I won't be alive for the next nine-year installment. I'm missing it already.

Before Midnight, from Sony Pictures Classics and running 108 minutes, opens this Friday in New York City (at the Angelika Film Center and the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13), Los Angeles (at The Landmark and the Arclight Hollywood) and Austin (in Linklater's hometown at the Violet Crown Cinema). In the weeks immediately following, the movie will open all over the USA.
Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

THE ENGLISH TEACHER: Ms Moore shines (again!) in Craig Zisk's high-school hosing

How comfortable it is to settle into an old-fashioned (except maybe for some of the sex), funny, charming and well-written/directed/
acted movie that hits all the bases and arrives safe at home plate -- on a bunt. This is the situation in which we find ourselves in Craig Zisk's very enjoyable but rather predictable new film, THE ENGLISH TEACHER. And I do not mean that as anything but a compliment, although it's a mild one about a mild little movie. And yet. This is a film that seems to know exactly what it wants to accomplish and does just that, entertaining us quite well in the process. If it breaks no new ground, so be it. As one of my several mothers used to tell me, when I was given to complaint, "For goodness sake, Jimmy, just sit back and appreciate what's in front of you!"

And that, dear readers, is exactly what I'd suggest of you. What you'll find in front of you, first and foremost, is another fine performance from Julianne Moore, above, fresh off her triumph in What Maisie Knew. Here she plays an uptight teacher of high-school English, who has mostly found her pleasure in life from the great books she is so good at teaching to her classes. When a talented ex-pupil of hers returns to town, with an unproduced play he's written in hand, event piles upon event until comedy and melodrama collide and a lot of (expected) change occurs.

Mr Zisk, shown at right, hails from television, where he has directed everything from Felicity to Scrubs, Weeds to Smash. He clearly knows how to juggle and burnish the themes provided by his screenwriters (Dan Chariton and Stacy Chariton) -- repression, creativity, trust and betrayal -- into something appealing. The plot is not, shall we say, shockingly original, but it does have a few surprises up its sleeve. Let's just leave it at that so that any spoilers remain at bay. What the movie also has -- in spades -- is an excellent cast, with each member used by the director for all s/he is worth.

Greg Kinnear (above, right), again playing a doctor (and looking every bit as fine and fit as he did thirteen years ago in Nurse Betty) provides the older heart-throb, while Michael Angarano (below, left) plays the younger version, as that playwright who is both more and less than he may seem. Mr. Angarano should be seen here and in last month's The Brass Teapot, if only to get a whiff of this young man's versatility.

Nathan Lane (below) is everything you'd expect as the school's drama teacher, proving once again that he can spin the most clichéd material into -- if not gold -- at least gold leaf.

Also in the cast and quite good are Broadway stars Jessica Hecht and Norbert Leo Butz as, respectively, the school's Principal and Vice Principal, and Lily Collins (below) as the student who lands the lead in the play that creates the rumpus.

Technical credits look for the most part like standard, acceptable network television, but a special mention must be made of the delicious narration offered by Fiona Shaw, whom we never see but only hear. This is perhaps the screenwriter's finest creation, and Ms Shaw delivers each succulent line with verve and snap. In the final scene, in fact, she suddenly becomes such a character that you may well leave this movie remembering her most of all.

The English Teacher, via Cinedigm and Tribeca Film and running a just-about-perfect 93-minute length, is currently playing in the L.A. area (at Sundance Sunset Cinemas and the Laemmle Playhouse 7) and will open here in Manhattan this Friday, May 31 (at the Village East Cinema). Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

Jay Gammill/Jim Beggarly's FREE SAMPLES: a nifty little indie with smarts, charm & sass

Could it really be seven years since TrustMovies first noticed actress Jess Weixler in that model indie film, The Big Bad Swim? Hardly seems possible. At the time, and after seeing her again in movies such as Teeth, Peter and Vandy and Alexander the Last, I expected this lovely and quite talented actress to soon have a role to match her skill that would put her on the movie map for good. Finally, in FREE SAMPLES, she gets that role. The movie's good, too. And it has a fine and fairly well-known supporting cast. But will anybody bother to see this smart little indie in these days of two-dozen-a-week theatrical openings in Manhattan and/or L.A., while sneaking onto VOD a week prior? Doubtful. But we can hope.

Written by Jim Beggarly and directed by Jay Gammill, shown at right (this is the first full-lengther for both men), Free Samples proves unusually specific in every way -- from its location to its situation to its many characters. You know where you are in this film, whom you're with, and why you (and they) are there in the first place. With all this set up so firmly, the movie then frees us and its actors to concentrate on behavior above all else. And the behavior here is such fun! Ms Weixler plays a young woman who has recently dropped out of law school at Stanford and moved to L.A., where she's tending bar part-time, as well as taking a (mutual) leave of absence from her boyfriend/fiance.

Weixler's Jillian, shown above, is a character in a generally foul mood throughout most of the movie. This is tricky territory, but fortunately the actress understands how to manage it so that her annoyance is never contagious. Weixler uses her innate intelligence and just-somewhat-buried charm to keep us rooting for Jillian and enjoying her foul mood and the various ways she takes this out on her customers (who are sometimes not so nice themselves) at the ice cream truck from which she must disperse free samples on this particular day.

How Jillian is roped into this "job" by her best friend (nicely played by Halley Feiffer, above right) shows her to be, at heart, a good friend, and how she deals with some of the other folk in her current life indicates this, as well.

Jason Ritter, below, plays her musician pal who exhibits an early need for Flomax, as well as an unusual desire to serve ice cream out of the truck, below, while missing some important attire.

Again, the behavior all along the way and from the entire cast is first-rate: quirky, funny, never pushed and consistently real. It is always a treat to watch this kind of on-the-mark acting, and the screenplay offers the actors, particularly Weixler, genuine charac-ters to play and a number of choice lines: dry, ironic and funny.

Among the supporting cast, the biggest name (and giving the movie's second best performance) is Jesse Eisenberg, above, playing last night's "date" who turns out to be today's something else. Eisenberg, charismatic as ever but in his own special way, gets the chance to sneak up on the leading man role for a change, and he's quite good (well, when isn't he?).

And then there's Tippi Heddren -- still beautiful and still looking more like an older version of her younger self than do many aging actresses -- who gets the most sustained character of all of Jillian's
customers, and gives back a sustained performance to match.

Free Samples is actually an near-ideal indie film that begins as a genuine and well-wrought character study, includes an entertaining parade of minor characters all brought to fine life, and then ends up as a surprisingly smart and efficient rom-com that first beguiles and finally hog-ties you into utter submission. Neat trick, this.

The 80-minute movie hits VOD and iTunes this Tuesday, May 21, and is said to be opening in theaters, via Starz, the following Friday, May 31. Which theaters?  In the L.A. area, it is getting a single showing premiere, one day only, at Laemmle's Noho 7 this coming Tuesday May 21, simultaneous with the VOD debut. It will then open for a week's run at the Noho on May 31. In New York City, it will open at the Cinema Village on Friday, June 7.

For love of the game: Bobbito Garcia & Kevin Couliau's DOIN' IT IN THE PARK proves one of our best basketball movies

From its first action-filled frames and the filmmakers' gracious nod to the inventor of basketball (James Naismith) and what he hoped to achieve, DOIN' IT IN THE PARK: Pick-up basketball, New York City, makes a great case for this played-everywhere-and-anywhere neighborhood game as THE be-all and end-all of sport love stories.

Further, as this tremen-dously entertaining documentary moves on, and we meet some of the great pick-up players, as well as some notable ex-NBA stars who talk about their own experience with pick-up basketball, it becomes increasingly clear that the filmmakers have stuck documentary gold.

Those filmmakers --Bobbito Garcia (shown at left, from New York), who also wrote and narrates, and Kevin Couliau (below, right, from France), who doubles as cinematog-

rapher -- have together come up with a movie that is boundlessly informative and almost as full of energy and surprise and any of those pick-up games they show us in the course of their film. TrustMovies says this as someone who has rarely cared a fig about the sport. For those who already love it and/or play it, the film will be a must-see. In addition to the men (mostly black) who play these pick-up games, the movie includes a couple of talented white ones, along with one section on women who play and another on deaf players (who knew?) and what basketball has come to mean for our ever-growing prison population.

Over 90 days, which pretty much lines up with the three summer months, on 180 courts across the five boroughs of New York City, the filmmakers ply their trade, while discovering some relevant, funny and surprising things. "If we didn't have a ball or hoop, we'd use rolled-up socks and a wire hanger," notes one old-time player.

If another happened to arrive so early that  no one else was there to play, "I'd play by myself, right hand against left hand, until somebody showed up!"

We learn all about the different pick-up games that are played -- from HORSE to 21 to something called Boots Up (above: "You won't find this in the NBA!" we're told). Full of anecdotes, reminiscences, even some rap poetry and a lesson on the use of trash talk (below), visually the film is edited so fast with near-constant narration that you may find yourself a little out of breath. But you won't be bored.

The movie's also full of terrific archival film and photos (notice those afros, below) and is sometimes very funny, too. "It was a home away from home," notes one player of his playground: "They used to change my diapers in this park!" The filmmakers also show us the game as it sometimes is, with players leaving the court beaten -- and even bloody.

The best of all pick-up basketball locations, it turns out, is Manhattan's little vest-pocket playground on 6th Avenue at West 3rd Street, right across from the IFC Center. We spend a lot of time there, where we meet one of the most surprising of our men, Jack Ryan, the white, 6-feet tall dunker (below) who is now 49 years old but hardly looks it and plays like a black man. "The best eight-letter name I've ever heard in my life!" notes one of his co-players.

We learn about Earl Manigault, aka the Goat, who is the only player to have had an actual park named after him, and was "the father of the neighborhood" until he got hooked on heroin and turned to crime to pay for his habit. (Filmmaker Garcia, who played pro ball for a time, was mentored by Manigault.)

Once the end credits have rolled, don't go away, for there's a five-minute segment in which we watch our two filmmakers play against each other in many of the parks around the boroughs. Really: This is one fucking gem of a documentary.

Doin' It in The Park -- from Goldcrest Films and running 82 minutes -- after a rousing success at festivals in foreign cities around the globe, opens this coming Wednesday in its home territory, New York City, at the Maysles Cinema, as well as simultaneously being released in the UK. Its worldwide digital release took place at the beginning of the month, and it will have its World Tour, presented by Nike, from now through this coming August. (The movie soundtrack will be released on June 1st.)