Kiyoshi Kurosawa's CREEPY: The Japanese master of quiet fright returns -- with a jolt

If you've seen a film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa -- say, Pulse, Cure, Tokyo Sonata or the beautifully oddball Bright Future -- you'll know how remarkably quiet, riveting, beautifully-if-unshowily composed and surprisingly diverse this filmmaker's work can be. Kurosawa (shown below) is noted mostly for his films that fit somewhere into the thriller/ mystery/other-worldly realm. His latest, the perfectly titled CREEPY, is a terrific addition to that realm.

TrustMovies would call this very creepy movie one of Kurosawa's best, except that I say this about each of the man's films. I've never seen a bad one. He's too subtle and too interested in character and motivation to ever hand us anything so typically "frightening" as those Ringu/TheRing movies. Kurosawa frightens us in an entirely different manner. There is always something beyond our understanding in his films, but he gives this to us in such as way that we buy into it and finally accept that it indeed goes beyond what we can fully comprehend. Somehow he even makes us grateful.

His movies may thrill, frighten, shock and startle us. But they also approach art. Creepy begins with a detective questioning a serial killer and trying to get at the man's motivation and morality. This does not end well.

Soon after, our "hero" (a particularly fine, strong and taciturn performance from one of the best-looking men to grace current cinema, Hidetoshi Nishijima, above, and below, center) is living with his wife and big, shaggy dog in another part of town and attempting to get on with his new life as a teacher, and, along with his wife, to get to know his new neighbors. This does not go well, either, and it leads us, the family, and some of our hero's former co-workers into very dark waters.

To go much further into plot points would spoil things. Suffice it to say that the cast includes the great Teruyuki Kagawa (above, left, and below, from Devils on the Doorstep and Key of Life) as the family's most unusual neighbor, and Yûko Takeuchi , who brings beauty, pathos and finally something very strange and frightening to her role of the detective/teacher's long-suffering (and then simply suffering) wife.

The beyond-our-understanding element here is some kind of strange liquid injected into the various characters that appears to allow them to be controlled utterly. Or maybe only somewhat. The degree is important, and it is central to the theme and mystery here, which deals with responsibility, morality and motivation. By the end of Creepy, you will not only have been creeped-out but left, as are certain family members, to wrestle, perhaps forever, with the results of what they did -- or didn't -- do.
And why.

The movie -- from KimStim Films and running a long but never-for-a-moment dull 130 minutes -- opens this Friday, October 21, in New York City (at the Metrograph), Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Ahrya Fine Arts) and San Francisco (Roxie Theater), with a further rollout across the country coming in November. To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and scroll down.

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CREEPY, creepy movies, dark thrillers, Japanese film, Kiyoshi, Kurosawa, mysteries, serial killer movies, the other-worldly,

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Gaming -- of all sorts -- distinguishes the new sort-of-thriller, Adam Randall's LEVEL UP

One of those ever-more-plentiful what's-going-on-here-and-why? movies, the new would-be thriller/suspense film, LEVEL UP, takes a typically irresponsible male, who would rather spend his time drinking, drugging and gaming than working for a living, and puts him through one hell of a day or so in the service of... what, exactly? Our entertainment, one would guess. But that means you would need to be pretty heavily into gaming yourself before finding worthwhile this over-reaching combo of an early David Fincher film, The Game, and its more recent online cousin, Nerve.

As directed and co-written (with Gary Young) by Adam Randall, shown at left, the movie and its WTF plot seems initially pretty silly before turning serious and then even life-threatening. Our non-hero, Matt (played by Josh Bowman, below, left) gets off on his usual morning of doing damned little but slouching around and maybe playing video games. Then, just after his girlfriend leaves for work, he has his day interrupted by three hooded fellows who do some very naughty things.

And yet, no matter how horrible life becomes for poor Matt, this viewer could not shake the sense that everything going on here was one big, complicated and maybe pointless game. Along the way various scenarios present themselves, coming either via the film itself or perhaps from the several other movies we've seen that have played similar games:

Because his girlfriend has suddenly been kidnapped, Matt must then go all over the place and do all kind of weird things to save her life. Is all this merely the adventures of a poor shnook or schmuck being used for nefarious purposes? Maybe. But, really now, if you want someone killed, would you have to go to this much complicated trouble to do the job?

Or maybe this is some kind of treatise on the evils/perils of too much gaming (as Nerve tried so hard to be)? Or a cautionary tale about how the Internet is taking over our lives? Or could it really be about... surveillance? Or this: After a time of being around a bunch of numbskull males, one begins to wonder if the whole idea and plot has been concocted by a group of women who have grown thoroughly fed up with their dim-bulb men.

Matt's adventures takes him from one oddball place and person to another, and Mr. Bowman, who is in just about every scene in the film, certainly proves to be game. Some of the other males and females have their moments, too. Little by little, that plot begins to offer a few revelations, though nothing that quite pinpoints exactly what is going on. At least not for a very long time.

This is probably for the better, since mysteries are almost always more fun than their resolutions. The movie looks snappy, too; it's well filmed and edited, and the performances are as good as the concept and characters call for. Over all, I could have done without it -- though perhaps I've already seen too many films a little too much like this one. You younger folk may have more patience -- due to having less of a catalog/backlog of movie memories to weigh the film down.

In any case, Level Up -- from filmbuff and running 84 minutes -- will open tomorrow, Friday, August 26, for a week-long run in a dozen theaters in a dozen cities across the country, including  New York (at the Cinema Village), Los Angeles (at the Downtown Independent), and Austin (Alamo Drafthouse, Slaughter Lane). Look for it in Denver, Dallas/Fort Worth, Milwaukee, San Francisco/San Jose, Seattle/Tacoma, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Detroit, too. On September 26, the film will make its nationwide VOD debut.

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Adam Randall, British cinema, chase movies, gaming, LEVEL UP, mysteries, online gaming, would-be thrillers,

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Strangeness reigns, as Bingham Bryant and Kyle Molzan's FOR THE PLASMA opens at AFA

If you're a sucker for movies that tease and provoke but barely fulfill, FOR THE PLASMA, a new head-scratcher from Bingham Bryant (writer, producer,co-director/co-editor) and Kyle Molzan (co-director, co-editor, sound recording) might just be your cup of sugar-free kool-aid. The situation: A young woman shows up, evidently invited, at the New England home of a friend she's not seen for some time, for a visit and to give that friend a little help with her work. What that work actually is becomes the mystery, MacGuffin and driving force of this bizarre-but-frustrating moviegoing experience.

The filmmakers (shown at left, with Mr. Bryant on the right) have set up a wonderfully peculiar situation in which the "work" done by one of the women we meet is so strange (and so very poorly defined by both the character, who explains it to her friend, and by the dialog itself) that any normal response would go something like, "Wait: Say that all again, and this time make some sense, please." Instead, the friend accepts it all with what amounts to a shrug, and we're off the races. And no, I don't mean the horse races; this is more like the turtle races.

Still, the situation is so bizarre that we stick around, if only to find out what the hell is actually going on. Before we do (which turns out to be mostly a "don't"), we're sucked into a scenario that encompasses everything from solitude and paranoia to friendship, employment, conspiracy, surveillance and New England nuttiness in extremis.

The movie, which was shot on 16mm film, looks very good, and the performances of the two leading ladies -- newcomer Anabelle LeMieux (above) and Rosalie Lowe (below, left) -- are kept as close to the vest as can be imagined. We learn very little about either character, and what we do learn seems more at the service of a screenplay that asks for far too much suspension of disbelief than one that wants to create full and actual characters.

That "work" that is being done in the woods near the house in which our two ladies live is certainly interesting, even if, after a lot of mumbo-jumbo that ranges from talk of spotting incipient fires to visual "mapping" (three photos above) to oddball Asians or maybe possible aliens on the loose (the title phrase is mentioned in passing but never elaborated upon), we are no closer to understanding it than we were at the film's beginning.

Meanwhile we meet a few townspeople, primarily a lighthouse keeper with what appears a very slight hold on reality (or anything else). The most interesting part of the movie are the visuals of that work project in the woods, in which nature is "framed" quite nicely, as below.

And the ending does have a kind of come-full-circle quality that may please. Otherwise, the film is for those who demand originality and mystery at the expense of a few other qualities -- sense and believabilty among them -- that make movie-watching pleasurable for some of us.

From Factory 25 and running too long even at 94 minutes, For the Plasma opens in New York City this Thursday, July 21, at Anthology Film Archives; on Friday, July 29, in Chicago at Facets Cinematheque; and will play Tuesday and Wednesday,  August 2 and 3, in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

Photo, second from top, of the 

co-directors is by Robin Holland.

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Bingham Bryant, conspiracy movies, employment thrillers, FOR THE PLASMA, friendship, head-scratchers, Kyle Molzan, mysteries,

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DE PALMA lovers, rejoice! Get your fill of the guy in Baumbach and Paltrow's new doc

TrustMovies loves the work of Brian De Palma. And he's never found the man's films to be misogynist, either. They're too clever and artful for that. I have found Hitchcock to be misogynist, however, and De Palma thinks of himself as Hitch's true disciple. So go figure. Anyone who enjoys this particular movie-maker's oeuvre is a sitting duck for DE PALMA, the new documentary about the filmmaker (from Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow) that combines a kind of history of the man and his movies with enough footage from the various films to make you want (if you're a fan, of course) to go back and view them all over again. (If you're too young to know this director's work, the documentary ought to least whet your appetite for a further look.)

Baumbach (at right) and Paltrow (left) flank the famous filmmaker (shown above and on poster, top), and their movie evidently came out of one very long lunch (or maybe several), during which the director spills the beans about one after another of his films, starting from his very first short (a still from his early Greetings is shown below) and continuing right through his latest, visually stunning (but only middling otherwise) French movie remake, Passion. Along the way we get bits and pieces of De Palma's life, loves and desires -- which may not definitively explain the psychology behind his movies but which do provide some zesty food-for-thought -- and enough well-chosen moments from his many movies (40 of 'em, all told) to absolutely delight us fans.

There's plenty of gossip, too -- tales that can now, evidently, be told. Did you know, for instance, that actor Cliff Robertson was pretty much forced upon the director for his movie Obsession, and what De Palma tells about the work habits of Mister Cliff quite nicely explains the movie's half-assedness and why it so thoroughly belonged to its lovely newcomer co-star, Geneviève Bujold.

Scarface (above), though one of the filmmaker's more successful box-office draws, has never been among the movies I love. (It seem less like "a De Palma film" than do most of his others.) Hearing the director talk about the film makes me better understand why I feel this way. Ditto, his most successful box-office outing, the initial Mission Impossible movie, below.  (How he feels about movie "car chases" is one of the things you'll learn from the doc.)

De Palma, more than anyone, I think, was responsible for the resurgence of the career of movie composer Bernard Herrmann, and we learn some fascinating tidbits about this fellow, along with that of another composer used often by the master: Pino Donaggio.

Keepers like Dressed to Kill (above), Blow Out and Body Double (god, this guy loves watching!) are all on the agenda, too, as are some movies you may have forgotten. Was Snake Eyes the last good film that Nicolas Cage starred in?  And it is certainly time for a re-think of Femme Fatale. (below). What fun that one was, and its cunning use of the Cannes Film Fest was about as savvy as movies get.

How much better Fatal Attraction might have been had De Palma directed it, as was initially expected. But then we might not have gotten his best (along with Carlito'sWay) mainstream movie, The Untouchables (below). This doc will have you believing in karma, maybe.

The director has something vital and interesting to say about every last one of his films (his comments on Mission to Mars are smart and poignant). My biggest problem with De Palma -- the doc, not the director -- is that, even at almost two hours, it ought to have been a lot longer. Surely what we see here is but a fraction of the footage Jake and Noah shot. Maybe, even now, the film's distributor A24 (or some special movie "angel") is bankrolling the eight-hour version, which we will someday be able to view in segments on IFC or Turner Classic Movies. We live in hope.

Meanwhile, De Palma, after opening in New York and Los Angeles, hits cities around the country. Here in South Florida, you can see it at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and  theaters, click here.  (The still above is from Redacted, in which the director did for our Iraq War what his Casualties of War had done for Vietnam.)

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American documentaries, Brian De Palma, classy cinema, DE PALMA, films about filmmakers, mysteries, slasher films, thrillers,

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Lorenzo Vigas' mysterious FROM AFAR explores the dangers of becoming close

How very similar seems the new Venezuelan movie, FROM AFAR (Desde allá), to Robin Campillo's fine French film Eastern Boys, in which an older man trolls an urban hub to find young men to engage in sex, which leads to a relationship developing between him and one of the boys he meets. Yet by the finale of this relatively quiet, thoughtful and very disturbing film, the two movies could hardly seem more different in outcome and moral. Both are excellent examples of cinematic works that rise above their genre -- if, that is, you must place them in the GLBT category at all (they are both more inclusive that merely that) -- because both are built around and depend upon the personality, behavior and needs of their main characters.

In the case of From Afar, which was written and directed stunningly well by Lorenzo Vigas (shown at left), our protagonist is a fellow whose greatest sexual pleasure comes from having his boy face the wall then pull down his pants (uncovering only maybe two-thirds of his ass), while across the room he masturbates to this view. No eye contact at all. When one new encounter goes wrong and then begins to oddly right itself by developing into a relationship, that path taken by Eastern Boys again comes into view. But wait: The lead role in From Afar is played by Alfredo Castro.

This fine Chilean actor and muse of Pablo Larraín (from Tony Manero through last year's The Club), shown above, seems to have nearly cornered the market on dark, quietly demented characters, and here, as a man called Armando, he has been given one of his most interesting and dynamic roles to portray. How Castro handles this -- the twists and turns of the plot, the behavior of the young man (beautifully played by newcomer Luis Silva, below) -- is compelling at every step of the way.

So much in this movie seems both bizarre and appropriate, from Armando's job making dentures to the boy, Elder, and his conflicting responses to Armando. It seems to me that filmmaker Vigas uses as little dialog as possible, and yet via his choice of details and the excellent performances he draws from the actors, he gives us everything we need to understand not just what is going on -- but why. Not least of all this is the role that a long-missing and probably abusive parent plays in the formation of character.

From Afar is Vigas' full-length film debut, and it is one of the most striking I have seen in some time. Consistently riveting, it draws us into the needs and desires of its two protagonists so firmly that we feel enormously for each of them. As French as was Eastern Boys in its philosophical and nurturing approach, this film is South American in its hard-scrapple view of a Venezuela that has only grown more difficult since the movie was shot.

Among other questions the film asks is the seemingly eternal one, Can love be bought? Vigas' answer is Certainly -- but the price for the seller can be even more costly than for the buyer. The changes these two men go through, if viewed via the hands of other filmmakers, might seem phony. Not here. Young Silva imbues each permutation, small or large, with truth, while Castro, an amazingly subtle actor, continues to amass a resume of roles that makes him the go-to son-of-a-bitch of South America cinema. From Afar is first-class movie-making all the way. Don't miss it.

From Strand Releasing, the movie has its U.S. theatrical premiere this Wednesday, June 8, in New York City at Film Forum and will open the following Friday, June 17 in Los Angeles at the Sundance Sunset Cinemas in West Hollywood. To see all currently scheduled playdates around the country, click here and then scroll down and click the Task Bar on the word Screenings. 

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Alfredo Castro, character studies, FROM AFAR, GLBT movies, Lorenzo Vigas, movies that rise above their genre, mysteries, South American cinema, Venezuelan films,

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Streaming tip: catch up with Gabe Ibáñez's profound sci-fi/robot mystery, AUTOMATA

So far as I know Gabe Ibáñez has given us only two full-length films, the strange and brooding missing-child movie Hierro, and the much-better-than-you've-heard, dystopian sci-fi/mystery/thriller AUTOMATA, one of those films that garnered mixed-to-negative reviews and disappeared before it had time to find its audience. Fortunately, Netflix is streaming the movie now, so there's little excuse to let it get by you. One of the strengths of the film is that it relies on its smart mystery plot -- what's happening and why? -- rather than on special effects to keep you watching. It also offers a decent script, wonderful visuals, and a very good cast of actors (with one notable exception) doing up-to-snuff work.

Señor Ibáñez, shown at right, has managed to treat an oft-done subject -- robots and humans -- in ways that are actually different from the pack, in the process giving us one of those "origin" stories that gets to the core of ideas such as what it is that actually makes us human. The filmmaker understands that to be human is to be both good and bad, and when the latter wins out, one must finally ask if we are all that special, or even necessary. Ibáñez directed and co-wrote the screenplay (along with Igor Legarreta and Javier Sánchez Donate), and handles these ideas in a manner that is quiet and thoughtful but never boring. He alludes to things without banging you over the head, constantly making you observe and consider. His movie is graceful and beautiful, occasionally violent but finally humane. Best of all, I think, is that his robots don't try to look all that human. Yet, by the end of the film we've come to care about them, too.

The movie opens with a rather long set of explanatory verbiage regarding how the world got to the point we're about to see. Ordinarily, I'd object to this kind of exposition. Here, however, it sets us up nicely for what follows. This is mainly mystery, soon combined with chase thriller, all the while keeping on point with its robots-and-humans theme.

I mentioned earlier the good cast, led by Antonio Banderas (above), Robert Forster (below) and Norwegian actress Birgitte Hjort Sørensen (whom some of us will remember as the gorgeous young newscaster on the great Danish TV series, Borgen).

The one ringer in this most effective group is Melanie Griffith, below, who plays a  top-notch scientist about as effectively as she once played a supposedly tough NYC detective in A Stranger Among Us. Ms Griffith looks good, but she possesses a breathy, Betty-Boop voice that she has never seemed interested in developing or expanding. That voice can work wonders in a movie like Working Girl, but when she is called upon to portray a character of high intelligence or noticeable professionalism, Griffith comes up short.

But that's a small cavil in a film that delivers so much so well. The robots are beautifully designed and executed (Javier Bardem voices one of them), and a scene in which Banderas dances with the very interesting "female," Cleo, is handled with particular delicacy and restraint.

There is action aplenty, too (a sunglasses-bedecked Dylan McDermott has a supporting role), and the stark, deadened look to much of the world we see proves quite effective, even on a relatively small budget. But it is the troubling themes the movie tackles that will stay with you longest.

From Millennium Entertainment (now known as Alchemy) and running 109 minutes, Automata is available now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital domains such as Netflix.

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AUTOMATA, dark thrillers, dystopian societies, Gabe Ibáñez, mysteries, robots, sci-fi and fantasy,

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Italy's submission for the BFLF Oscar: Paolo Virzi's slick and engaging HUMAN CAPITAL

A terrific comic melodrama about the way we live now, Italian style, HUMAN CAPITAL continues the reign of Paolo Virzi as one of, if not the Italian master at capturing his country's life in all its complexities, humor and sadness. This multi award-winning filmmaker has here co-adapted the screenplay (based on the novel by Stephen Amidon) and directed this sleek and highly entertaining tale of Italy's very rich and those who aspire to that class. In the process Virzi looks at the wealthy, the bourgeoisie, and the underclass and the ways in which they connect and bounce off each other -- sometimes comically, at other times violently, and always somehow thoughtlessly, as each strives to "succeed."

Signore Virzi (shown at left) -- whose films, from My Name Is Tanino and Caterina in the Big City to The First Beautiful Thing and Every Blessed Day, have given me immense pleasure over the past decade or so -- comes through again with another good one. If I call Human Capital a melodrama, I mean no disrespect, for a very good melodrama is a rare thing these days, and this proves a fine and comic one, as it dissects class and wealth, attitudes and actions that lead to (and from) the hit-and-run accident that begins this stylish and engaging film. Once we see that initial accident, Virzi circles back to show us -- from several viewpoints -- what has happened and why. Each perspective from which we view things gives us greater scope and understanding, until all the pieces of the mystery at last connect.

The characters here include a wealthy family -- husband (Fabrizio Gifuni, above, right), wife (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, above, left) and spoiled son -- and the very middle-class family, the daughter of which happens to be the girlfriend of the rich son.

That bourgeois dad, played with magnificent cluelessness by Fabrizio Bentivoglio (above, left) -- his wife (Valeria Golino, above, right) proves much more stable and intelligent  -- pushes himself into being allowed to invest in one of the wealthy husband's latest schemes (a talent for tennis provides his entryway), and we're off to the races.

The movie's pivotal event is an awards dinner to honor one of the students (the rich man's son is in the running), at which the victim of the accident -- an immigrant waiter (shown in background, above) -- happens to be working. One of the movie's great pleasures comes from the fact that the more we learn, the more things change from what we'd first imagined.

The movie takes some clever and interesting side trips, too, the best being the rich wife's involvement with a soon-to-be-torn-down theater that she decides to "champion," using her husband's money (of course), gathering together a fancy Board of Directors (above, in one of the film's most caustic scenes), and then getting sexually involved with one of the board members (Luigi Lo Cascio, below, right).

The theater surfaces later in a crackpot blackmail scheme, as the finale races toward us and the involvement of the bourgeois daughter (Matilde Gioli, below, right, with Giovanni Anzaldo, who, along with that hit-and-run waiter, represents the lower classes) becomes more central. I do wish the filmmaker had not resorted to the by-now old-hat routine of someone reading someone else's email (this is the modern version of Downton Abbey's surreptitiously overheard conversations). But then, that's one of the things that separates drama from melodrama.

Overall, however, Human Capital proves a feisty, lusty look at Italy under the economic gun, struggling to "achieve," no matter what the cost. (We learn, during the end credits, exactly to what the movie's title refers.)

From Film Movement, in Italian with English subtitles, and running 110 minutes, the movie opens this coming Wednesday, January 14, in New York City at Film Forum and in Los Angeles on Friday, January 16, at the Sundance Sunset Cinema. You can view all currently playdates, with cities and theaters listed, by clicking here and scrolling down.

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Class, good melodramas, HUMAN CAPITAL, Italian cinema, mysteries, Paolo Virzi, wealth,

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