Wicked Fun

Junky Princess : The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

jlgdrd — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:37:03 GMT

It is rare that I feel so utterly and completely mortified, frustrated and disgusted by a film, despite its brilliance. After watching Asia Argento’s The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things and discovering the source material came from a literary figure who was fabricated, my initial response was, “What next?” The film itself is problematic and flawed enough without this additional layer of confusion trying to fob itself off as intrigue.

After doing a bit of research I discovered that JT LeRoy’s novel : The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things , was actually written by Laura Albert, who cultivated the alias down to dressing her boyfriend’s half-sister, Savannah Knoop, as the teenage boy. Knoop then proceeded to make guest appearances at book releases and other promotional events. Albert claimed that the persona of JT was a “veil” that permitted her to write things she couldn’t as herself. Of course, novelists employ different narrators all the time without feeling the need to create non-existent human beings. We needn’t trouble ourselves by asking how many additional books she might have sold by writing from the viewpoint of the victim or suggesting the content was actual or true.

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things is a devastating, harrowing descent into the story of a young boy, Jeremiah, who is legally appropriated from his foster parents by his 23-year-old, biological mother, Sarah. It is painfully clear that Sarah (Asia Argento) has fought tooth and nail for her second shot at motherhood, and also clear that it’s the worst thing she possibly could have done. There is so much about THIDAAT that’s inexplicable that it’s difficult to know where to begin. That said, it is beyond poignant, heart-breaking, grueling, unforgettable. The fact that it lives up to the expectations set by its title is reason enough to be impressed. The film is not just deeply affecting, it’s wounding. You can’t watch and you can’t turn away. The misery is almost without relief, which may the secret of its attraction . You keep thinking that somehow Jeremiah’s (Jimmy Bennett) rescue is imminent. You stick with the movie thinking that eventually some form of karmic justice will prevail.

The character of Sarah, played by the director, looks like a cross between Uma Thurman and Courtney Love. In the best and worst possible sense. I am not saying this to be snide or deprecating. I believe part of the key to THIDAAT is Sarah’s appearance and emotional turmoil. When you look at the cover art from the disc, or the poster, she is drawn with wings and horns. This isn’t the typical struggle we all cope with when making ethical choices in our lives. This is injecting Agnes of God with a live dose of rabies. At first we consider the possibility she gained custody out of devotion and maternal instinct. We take it in stride when she feeds him cold spaghetti-os from a paper plate or sleeps with her thumb in her mouth. Then the parade of atrocities begins.

As it becomes more and more apparent how deeply unhappy Jeremiah is with his new living arrangements, Sarah, just like an older, bigger, aggressive child starts finding ways to get even. She won’t let Jeremiah speak to his foster parents, she tells him they didn’t want him anymore, she tells him he’s the result of incestuous rape by his grandfather. But it doesn’t stop there. She feeds him speed, she leaves him in the car while she has loud, shrieking sex with a cowboy she just met named Luther, she helps Luther beat the shit out of Jeremiah for pissing himself without drawing attention from the neighbors. “I’m going to give you a beating you can be proud of,” he tells the terrified boy as Sarah stuffs a sock in his mouth. Her pleasure in witnessing this spectacle is unmistakable. And it’s just one more sickening display after another. You’ll have to take my word for it when I say I’m not a reactionary (at least, no more so than any other critic) but I can’t remember when I hated a character more.

During this road trip shared by mother and son, we see Sarah selling sex for money, abusing drugs, leaving Jeremiah for days by himself, cross-dressing him for her own amusement and repeatedly putting him in danger. It’s not necessarily that she resorts to prostitution or self-medication, it’s her complete lack of desire to protect him from situations no child should ever have to endure. Towards the end of the film she has the mind-numbing chutzpah to tell the son she’s repeatedly taken against his will that he has ruined her life. That she always landed on her feet when he wasn’t around to mess things up. If there were a God, the kid would have landed a haymaker to her jaw. But there the beautiful boy sits, believing every word that drips from the diseased mind of his solipsistic mother, suffering from what may very well be a form of Stockholm Syndrome.

There is a great deal of poisonous wisdom in the film. Argento uses an hallucinogenic, surreal approach that seems appropriate to the trauma that taints Jeremiah’s life on a daily basis. The fuzzy, documentary style is spot on and we come to recognize how sinister and complicated the world can be. How the boy grows to respond more to abuse than neglect like so many of us could and might. How the joy is beaten out of him and he’s forced to depend on his mother, a spiv from the word go. He doesn’t run away because his mother forges dependency based on isolation and terror. Jeremiah has learned to make himself invisible while his mother goes from one psychotic episode to the next, or her latest conquest waits to explode. When Jeremiah is temporarily adopted by his grandparents the harsh, deranged behavior towards him continues, but (and this is an example of where the film slips) in comparison to “Life with Mommy” it seems like paradise. When Sarah finds him preaching on the street and whisks him away, you just want to weep.

At the core of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things is the dynamic between Jeremiah and Sarah. You can understand why Jeremiah comes to love his mother, she’s intensely unhappy, angry, damaged and pathetic. You don’t have to be a genius, a therapist or even remotely sensitive to surmise that Sarah is probably inflicting her son with same abominations that she herself was subjected to. There are particular moments that suggest we’re supposed to see her as some kind of desperate, junky princess version of Auntie Mame, which under the circumstances, is laughable and repugnant. Because this sweet kid hasn’t been reduced to a catatonic in-patient, I guess we’re supposed to dismiss much of her toxic behavior as antics. This is where The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things falls apart. It gambles on our capacity to appreciate or at least comprehend Sarah.

We can’t shake our heads and say that tragedy befalls everyone’s life. That’s true, but this isn’t fate, this is Sarah, refusing to relinquish a son she claims to love and wants nothing to do with. The only explanation that makes any sense is her need to rob Jeremiah of a the life she’s been denied, despite what she tells her heart. And while this is all too human, and understandable, it’s like asking us to forgive a flea, for vomiting the plague into our veins.

Educating the Breeders: Regular Guys

jlgdrd — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:39:19 GMT

When my editor (the invincible Steve Geer) informed me that our Pride Issue was going to press I scrapped my original plan to review the recent live-action version of Peter Pan certain that I could find a more appropriate choice. Then it got a bit more complicated. It didn’t seem quite right to choose one that I knew was good ahead of time, but, on the other hand, anything else was going to be a crap shoot. Even with good word-of-mouth, you can’t know for certain till the end credits roll. So I picked one that had looked fairly promising on more than one occasion, and hoped for the best. It seems I lucked out. Regular Guys (aka Echte Kerle) is Rolf Silber’s German Art-house comedy with a message. The message doesn’t keep it from being warm or genuinely funny. And it’s heartfelt, without being snuggly cute or sappy. It’s a comedy of manners, spoofing numerous human frailties: gay-panic, swagger, dealing in appearances, the trivial conventions of courtship. It’s plausible enough to be gratifying, even if, once again, the straight man’s orientation is salvaged (whew!) at the cost of the gay man’s search for true romance. And I have to wonder, what with this being Pride Month and all, if it’s necessary to be grateful for Regular Guys? It’s another film where the heteros struggle to reach the enlightenment “The Queer Lead” was basking in from the start. Hallelujah. The crops are saved. I know I shouldn’t be so cantankerous and make nice, but I confess, I was very dubious about the premise. The hero, a cop, Christoph Schwenk (Christoph Ort) gets drunk after his girlfriend kicks him out and wakes up naked next to another man, every breeder-boy’s nightmare! Yikes. Will Christoph ever recover his privilege of straight entree’ or will his poor pecker just shrivel and fall off?

Despite its’ less than encouraging onset, Regular Guys picks up pretty quickly. Needless to say, Edgar (Tim Bergmann) his bed partner is ruthlessly coy about the details leading up to their current state of consortium, and is tickled to exploit Christoph’s discomfort. After trying for several days to find other accommodations, Christoph returns to Edgar’s apartment, willing to put up with his flirtations and maddening evasiveness. At work he must deal with a woman detective (Oh no!) joining he and his partner on a stake out and the rumor mill, once he and Edgar are spotted having a drink at a gay bar. Just before the movie’s finished, he and the lady detective, Helen (Carin C. Tietze) fall in love. If some of this material sounds, what? Really familiar? Derivative? Trite? I’d be hard-pressed to argue the point.

But as I said earlier, it’s not easy to turn consciousness-raising into a living, breathing film that actually works and I was relieved by how many times Regular Guys surprised me. The writing wasn’t profound or poignant, but clever and true. Edgar isn’t condemned for being sexually assertive, and while a lot of straight men would have been grateful for the mystery, Christoph longs to know just what happened between he and Edgar. They banter, they fight, they start to understand each other and damn, if he doesn’t climb right back into the tub with Edgar. Coming home late one night, seeing Edgar making love with another man, he feels a twinge! Edgar’s mother, Iris (Daniela Ziegler in a bravura turn) sees them asleep in bed and comments, “Even if one of them isn’t gay, they still make a beautiful couple.”

It isn’t clear at first, but Christoph is open to the possibility that he might be gay. And he doesn’t shoot himself or become a psycho-killer or beat the shit out of Edgar. He cares for him, he kisses him on the mouth. He figures out, all by himself, that it’s not about the sex, it’s about connecting with other men. Okay, so I’m still being a little sarcastic, but yeah, I did, I cried. Rolf Silber has brokered an uneasy marriage between the lighthearted and noble. Regular Guys is great fun and more than a little moving.

Imitation of Angst : Gypsy 83

jlgdrd — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:09:00 GMT

Often there comes a time when a bad (or inept, or failed) movie will unwittingly tip its hand. It could be a piece of dialogue that encapsulates a central flaw, or it might be a device that functions as damage control. In Gypsy 83, it’s a chapter when Gypsy and Clive, en route to a singing competition in New York, spend an evening with a more or less retired singer, Bambi LeBleau (Karen Black). She is congenial, down-to-earth, unperturbed and dishonest only in the sense that she is trying to put a brave face on adversity. Black has been acting for at least thirty years now (Five Easy Pieces, Nashville, Easy Rider) and her screen presence and skill are so effortless that they too often go unnoticed. Her performance appears to infect Sara Rue (Gypsy) and Kett Turton (Clive) who seem completely different in this sequence, and outshines them in the rest of the film. She’s invested in the role, but experienced enough to trust her intuitions. When they decide to leave Bambi behind as if she were some kind of albatross, the irony could bring down a skyscraper. And you have to wonder if even the director, Todd Stephens, was in on the joke.

Twenty minutes into Gypsy 83, watching Clive and Gypsy tape each other in a graveyard, chilling in Clive’s basement and shocking the bourgeoisie bumpkins in Sandusky, Ohio, I wanted to pull out my hair. It’s not that I couldn’t understand why they loved each other, spent all their time together, or sought refuge in Goth regalia. Living in a middle-class, Midwestern wasteland, I’m sure jet-black hair dye and purple eye shadow would provide a great sense of relief. But it all felt so contrived. So lame. When I compare it to other films where we’re asked to sympathize with outcasts and fringe dwellers or at least enjoy their anarchy, it rings hollow.

In movies like Rumble Fish , Prey For Rock and Roll , Better Luck Tomorrow, even Rebel Without a Cause, we care about the protagonists, we understand their struggles, but we never feel sorry for them. When the Greasers kicked ass at the end of The Outsiders, you’d better believe I was cheering for them. I was yelling at the screen. Gypsy and Clive don’t even play out as antiheroes, they’re just a little too waiflike. To an excessive degree, Stephens doesn’t trust us to recognize their frailties without having them spelled out in dialogue. To let the camera convey meaning.

Sara Rue’s best moments are when she’s singing, though I think making her a Stevie Nicks clone was a mistake. She’s confident and instinctive, and it’s truly pleasurable to listen to her gravelly, magnificent voice. The rest of the time her performance and Kett Turton’s feel just horribly forced. They look really good, but lack conviction. And frankly, I never thought a film of this sort could be so hokey. During their road trip to The Big Apple the two pick up an Amish hitchhiker (Anson Scoville) and he’s so stiff (not because he’s Amish but amateurish) that you get the impression Stephens chose him solely on pretty-boy appeal.

In an early scene where Gypsy tells off a dowager, clearly intended to represent Decent Society, the movie just comes to a halt. The old woman’s speech sounds so flat and didactic. This may be in a sense accurate, but it’s bad writing, bad acting. The two women aren’t connecting with each other or the audience. It’s pretty sad when a film can’t incite animosity for a character we’re predisposed to hate.

Gypsy 83 has all the earmarks of a project that looked good on paper. And it has the plot elements for good narrative: search for identity, the missing mother, coming clean, owning up, painful truths, escape to the shining Metropolis, the homoeroticism behind fraternities. Though, of course, the problem is less about content than execution. Stephens wastes numerous opportunities to dramatize what he pisses away on text. The film is 92 minutes long, but goes it on and on. There are plausible, impressive episodes like when Gypsy succumbs to fear at a karaoke contest, or Zechariah (Amish boy on the lam) spontaneously kisses Clive on the mouth, but unfortunately, these are rare.

It’s unusual, I think, to find a low-budget, Independent film that seems so facile, so self-congratulatory. There’s no tension, no enhancement between the interpretive attitude of the filmmaker and the attitude of the actors. Such as it is. There isn’t a lot of steam behind Rue and Turton’s work. They don’t seem to be tapping into genuine passion or seething with it underneath. In a way it’s inexplicable, we see Clive and Gypsy at times of emotional upheaval; traumatic, humiliating, life-changing moments when we want to empathize, but there’s nothing to engage us. To pull us in. When we care less about the characters than we would for a Smurf.

Plausible Astonishment : Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban

jlgdrd — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:51:00 GMT

Just what is it about J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series that makes it so irresistible? That drives thousands to wait in costume for midnight releases of the next book, the newest film incarnation? To hold marathon gatherings where the entire text of the increasingly longer novels are read from start to finish in one sitting? Perhaps because so many of us can relate to Harry’s plight: an orphan raised by ignorant and abusive muggles who is whisked away to a community where he is welcomed and revered for the very attributes that branded him a freak. Don’t we all secretly long to be cherished for what makes us different?

Perhaps it is Rowling’s gift for making sorcery and everything that implies, the fantastic and enchanting and astonishing world of extraordinary humans (and other marvelous, terrible beings) plausible. She intertwines just enough of the commonplace with the wizarding world to make it feel feasible, genuine. Wizards and witches have their schools, too, their trains, postal system and shops down Diagon Alley. They have their hierarchy, their government, their regulations, and sadly, their own biases, politics and petty grievances. Most impressive is Rowling’s skill at balancing plot and character. development. Her ability to keep us involved in the emotional lives of the principals, with their eccentricities and torments and foibles, while the action propels us like a perpetual motion device.

It is this interdependent relationship between the psyches of Rowling’s extensive cast of “players” and what happens to them that his been most challenging in bringing Harry Potter to the screen. Christopher Columbus (who directed the first two films) recruited Alfonso Cuaron to direct Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, too exhausted to move on to the next installment and highly impressed with Cuaron’s previous work. I won’t pretend familiarity with Cuaron’s work to date, but can tell you that Y Tu Mama Tambien (a very different, albeit impressive, film) in no way prepared me for the grace and finesse of Azkaban. Y Tu Mama is practically all character and very little plot while Azkaban is nearly the opposite. All the information vital to advancing the narrative is supplied and little else. And for this reason, the film doesn’t seem to get quite as bogged down as the first two. The movie hums and pops and soars and crackles and has some of the most bracing chills you’re likely to experience in a theater.

There is kind of a failsafe built into filming the Rowling novels. So many folks are so deeply and passionately invested in the text (including Columbus and Cuaron) that there is keen motivation to get it right. To do justice to the phenomenal reading experience. Cuaron has been extremely vigilant in preserving the key aspects of Harry’s third year at Hogwarts. As Harry approaches adolescence his desire to find his identity and direction his life will take becomes stronger and more urgent. So naturally he tries to bond with the wizards who were closest to his deceased parents. As with all the novels so far, his first catastrophic (and triumphant ) confrontation with Lord Valdemort, too early for him to remember, will continue to steer his destiny. Cuaron covers all this, sometimes with dialogue, sometimes in less obvious ways, by implication or situation. Where Columbus was grappling with Rowling’s complexity and depth, Cuaron goes for movement and impact.

There is a vibrant, credible feel to the milieu in Azkaban. The forest, Professor Lupin’s study, the dining hall, the village where the students spend their outings, engulf us in shadow and torchlight, they submerge us in the moment. Cuaron hovers at the edges of hallucination, teasing the normal into the subtly surreal. The shape-shifters and specters he constructs are chilling and unsettling. In the crucial episodes, the special effects are spot on, not calling attention to themselves, but making our hearts bounce. Our nape hair tingle. It is a rule of thumb that most films are imagistically savvier than their scripts. The story may be one thing, the dialogue another. But is the manipulation of the images fluttering before our eyes that separates the brilliant directors from the ones who are just trying to make sure the camera winds up in the right place. Cuaron has a visual sophistication that is dazzling and spectacular and serves the material well. It may sound like I’m casting aspersions on Columbus but please understand, I’m not. Both he and Cuaron have their strengths, neither one has gotten it just right, and as I suggested earlier, Columbus had the acumen to pass the torch to someone who could handle this daunting task with eclat’.

Further credit should be given Columbus in his casting of the three key characters, Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley. Grint has great comic instincts and often serves as the reality check for Radcliffe and Watson, whose characters are loftier or more introspective. It’s as if Hermione were the Super-Ego, Harry the Ego and Ron the Id. Ron never hesitates to say what his friends are too tentative or guarded to reveal. When everything’s going to hell, he’s not afraid to be terrified. He just is. Watson makes Hermione formidable, her anger, her pride, her outrage at injustice. Her impatience with stupidity. But she also makes her sympathetic, helping us understand what drives Hermione. The injuries she can’t brush aside. Radcliffe has the most demanding role. Harry Potter is a boy who lives inside his head. Years of degradation and antagonism have forced him to use detachment as a means of survival. He is repeatedly subjected to ordeals and derision but is never the object of pity. So then it falls to Radcliffe to let just enough of Potter’s spirit and anguish come through to make those subtle changes in his face. The camera makes this kind of understatement possible; often our clues to Harry’s state of mind are in reaction shots and Radcliffe is meticulous in these.

There are a few quibbles I have with Azkaban. One of the reasons that J. K. Rowling’s novels work so well is that she resists the temptation to continuously confront us with the supernatural. The Harry Potter series has reached the crossover audience of readers who would never otherwise have picked up a novel that dealt in sorcery and enchantment. The magic happens, and it’s never dull, but she weaves it organically into the character’s lives. We don’t need constant reminders that Hogwarts is a school for sorcery. It didn’t spoil the movie for me by any means, but I think Cuaron might have pulled back a bit from this compulsive need to distract us. A great deal of Azkaban is agreeably funny, it breaks up the looming sense of menace, but in the end, I think for Cuaron it’s all about momentum. Movement and trajectory. Sometimes expediency is highly effective, other times it comes off as shorthand or shtick. I cringe when I see broad strokes like a cloud in the shape of a dog or Snape calling Hermione an insufferable “Know-it-all” or Dumbledore speaking in homilies. Or a choir singing the Weird Sisters’ incantation from Macbeth ! (How many times we heard that?) But by and large Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban is a glorious, sumptuous plunge.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Starring: Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore) Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) David Thewlis (Professor Remus Lupin) Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid) Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

Tears of a clown : The Embalmer

jlgdrd — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:03:00 GMT

The Embalmer is Matteo Garrone’s fable on love, desire, loneliness and despair. An achingly sad film about a love-triangle that culminates in tragedy. Peppino is a taxi-dermist who falls for Valerio ( Valerio Foglia Manzillo) from the moment their paths cross at the zoo. Peppino offers him a job as his assistant, with a considerable pay increase, and soon Valerio becomes his protege‘. Car trouble introduces the third principal, Deborah (Elisabetta Rocchetti) a receptionist for an auto mechanic. As she begins to take Valerio away from Peppino, the friction escalates. An awful feeling starts in the pit of your stomach that something terrible is going to happen, something ghastly and unavoidable. And, of course it does.

Peppino (Ernesto Mahieux) is skilled, cunning, intelligent and charismatic. He is also diminutive. He is not an actual dwarf, but in comparison to the tall, attractive Valerio, he seems small and clownish. Just like the dwarfs in Carson McCuller’s The Ballad of Sad Cafe and Edgar Allen Poe’s Hop-Frog, he has learned to ingratiate himself to people. This is what “freaks” must do to get by in society. And The Embalmer begs the issue: does Garrone consider Peppino a freak because he is a dwarf or because he is gay? Or is he the victim of a world that deals in such cruel, dumb, broad strokes? In this sense it becomes difficult to say whether Garrone likes Peppino or believes he gets what he deserves.

It is not enough that Peppino is too short and older and forced to play the buffoon just to avoid derision. He is also manipulative, calculating, underhanded and dishonest. He has learned to exploit a culture that trades in appearances. It is never suggested that he could get what he needs by leveling with Valerio, that he could succeed on the strength of his considerable personal charm. It’s never suggested he could get his sexual needs met by escorts, or that maybe he doesn’t need to get the object of his affection drunk, or trick him when sharing the same bed. This is pathetic behavior, and The Embalmer suggests that Peppino’s only realistic choices are dodgy.

And yet we can identify with Peppino’s predicament. When you are attracted someone who is godlike then anyone can feel inadequate or downright ugly. And how many men engaged in loving attachments (platonic and otherwise) have been sent packing because of an insecure girlfriend? Deborah is every bit as conniving as Peppino, and perfectly happy to steal whatever she feels is her due. In a confrontation with Valerio she asks him if he doesn’t make himself sick. His relationship is “depraved” because Peppino’s attractions make him criminal by cultural definition.

The appearance of Deborah sets calamity in motion because she forces Valerio to examine the nature of his connection to Peppino. Valerio drifts, Peppino gets more and more possessive, more enraged, and the camera looms closer to his face. Gradually, he looks more sinister. We see his warped, misshapen teeth, his desperate mugging and forced joviality. Does being gay mean we must get what little we can by chicanery? In a film that pivots on arguably false dichotomies The Embalmer creates a world where Valerio must choose between wife, child, “family” and a life of dissolution and ambition with mentor, Peppino. The bimbo or the dwarf. In some cultures this may be the practical reality, but the structure, the presumptions have to make us wonder about Garrone’s intentions.

Even when Valerio chooses Peppinio, it is not enough. It is unclear whether they have ever consummated, but there is no doubt the virile, gorgeous, Valerio is devoted to his mentor. In the end he is so overcome with self-loathing that Valerio’s love cannot penetrate. Despite the fact that everything he’s done for Valerio had a price tag, that he vacillates between genuine care and exploitation, Peppino ultimately comes off as sympathetic. Perhaps because Valerio can read between the lines and see Peppino’s strong points, his intelligence and wit and joie de vivre.

Perhaps because gay men are often punished in life for taking the high road. How many gay men, overcome by the magnificence of male beauty, have put themselves in harm’s way, by acting on their true feelings? Maybe this makes Peppino’s subterfuge understandable if not excusable. He suffers an chilling, ignominious burial (if you can call it that) that is all the more wrenching for its’ secrecy.

Director of Photography Marco Onorato suffuses The Embalmer with images of destitution, emptiness, barrenness, bleak, dismal washed-out colors, blurriness and fog, blackened venues with jagged eruptions of minimal lighting. He manages a curiously successful combination that would seem inspired by El Greco and Monet.

Balanced Indelicacy: Girls will be girls

jlgdrd — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:04:00 GMT

While drag humor is definitely not new to movies, queer drag may only be relatively new to mainstream film. Whether or not you care to differentiate between straight and gay men playing women, and straight and gay men playing gay men playing women, it’s all about interpretation. It’s all about spin. Breeder or queer, they’re making a statement about the excesses of feminine behavior, and what sort of comportment society expects of its’ women. Of course now, while Patrick Swayze may be copying gay men in a movie like, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar or doing his best to tap into his own homoerotic energy, that can be very different from Charles Busch doing a (relatively subtle) caricature of the whiskey-voiced matriarch in Die Mommie Die! Queer drag always carries the implication that gay men can trump self-identified, biologically designated females when wielding bitchy attitude.

It is, without a doubt, a step forward that major studios are willing to pick up films like: Boys Don’t Cry, Die Mommie Die! and Girls Will Be Girls where alternate gender expression is a thematic component, especially in comedies where we understand the illusion of gender is used to mock society’s expectations and assumptions. It’s obsessive need to identify and limit gender as if it could be reduced to list of gestures and clothes. It may be the need for major studios to refine and advance Queer Drag Humor that’s throwing off the chemistry.

As anyone who has visited the Rose Room (or any other Queer Drag Venue) will tell you, often the best drag is evolved from traditional burlesque with its’ over-the-top affectations and raunchy, iconoclastic gags. I would not (in this case) presume to suggest a formula, but for some reason the humor in movies like Girls Will Be Girls isn’t connecting. The three main characters: Evie, the salty, aging, degenerate movie diva, Varla, the sweet-natured ingenue, and Coco, Evie’s long-suffering housekeeper and companion are anything but demure. Hence the irony that informs 90% of the jokes.

Gay men playing women without restrictions. Who in a sense are as “free” as men. Free to ***, free to fart, free to puke on camera. In the best tradition of camp comedy we see them at their worst moments or casually revealing the most unsavory details of their personal lives. Coco seduces every guy she meets, desperate for another visit to her dreamy abortion doctor. Varla devours a can of spray cheese without bothering to use crackers. Evie reveals she’s had more “babies pulled out of me than a burning orphanage.”

Early in his career, John Waters showed us movies didn’t have to be tasteful, big budget or subtle to be funny. Or to work. Movies like Desperate Living, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, starring the legendary Divine, were trashy, grotesque, worse than amateurish and funny as hell. Waters reveled in his lack of polish. And perhaps that’s what is missing from Girls Will Be Girls. You don’t have to be familiar with early silent films to know that “talkies” required a different kind of acting technique. Delivery with finesse and understatement. But queer drag may conceivably turn that on its head. The content of Girls Will Be Girls feels right. It’s nasty and perverse and unapologetic but the performances, which may have been subdued for the screen, don’t facilitate it. Writer/director Richard Day is walking a tightrope and the retorts (sometimes badly timed) haven’t got any bounce. Mostly they plummet.

I love the retro-look, the goofs on television’s desire to empower female characters while still knuckling under to glitz, fashion and allure. They can dress Milton Berle or Flip Wilson or Boys in the Hall in “female attire” but give Sheila Kuehl and Meg Foster the boot because they’re too dykey. I love the sets with that tacky trendy bourgeois charm that was so prevalent a few decades ago. I love the three leads: Jack Plotnick, Clinton Leupp and Jeffery Roberson. Plotnick gets particular credit for the first naked drag I’ve ever seen. While they may not have gotten the tone right (Day’s responsibility) there’s no question of their considerable talent.

Though seriously flawed, Girls Will Be Girls is noteworthy for testing uncharted waters. Queer Drag is a unique genre and it could take awhile to find how it best translates to film. Ironically, movies that treat gender-shift as drama, so far seem to be more successful. To borrow wisdom from David Henry Hwang, the successful illusion of gender comes less from emulating women than creating what men want them to be. By using queer grasp of the feminine, Richard Day spoofs this illusion, rather than the men who cross-dress to cultivate female energy. He may be pioneering new cinematic territory.

Devil in the Details: Yves St. Laurent: His Life and Times

jlgdrd — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:49:00 GMT

David Teboul’s two-part documentary on the legendary fashion designer, Yves St. Laurent, is a not entirely unsuccessful foray into the realm of cinematic biography. But to be entirely fair and accurate, the two films: Yves St. Laurent : His Life and Times and Yves St. Laurent: 5 Avenue Marceau are miles apart in competency and allure. I assumed they were intended to be viewed in tandem but will be shown individually, each sold on a different ticket.. Life and Times is an absorbing, frank account of Laurent’s adventurous, tempestuous life and career, and his seminal impact on fashion, culture and society. 5 Avenue Marceau, is a turgid chamber piece that could arguably stand as the prime example of imitative fallacy. It runs 85 minutes but seems to stretch endlessly. It is more than coincidence that the former is comprised chiefly of discovered footage and the latter, exclusively Teboul’s.5 Avenue Marceau opens with Catherine Deneuve trying on dresses and deciding what she wants. For a famous actress and world-class beauty she looks decidedly plain, a tactical approach reflected in both films. Considering the subject, the glamour quotient of the YSL films is pretty low, but it works well and keeps the result from being insipid. This sequence goes on for awhile, Deneuve discusses skirt length, color choices, fabric options, the need for pleats. She chats with the staff, sharing an anecdote about her pet hens, and when she finishes making her choices, cheerily departs. Eventually we get the idea (the point is made repeatedly throughout) that perfection requires time, perseverance and dedication. Deneuve’s outing serves as a prologue to the film: a prolonged, stultifying look behind the scenes in the townhouse where Laurent prepares his upcoming collection.

The camera remains at a considerable distance for most of 5 Avenue Marceau, composing shots that often have the look of classical paintings in their arrangement, capturing clusters of assistants hovering around models, often using mirrors to split the screen or deepen the depth of field. The problem though, is often as not, Teboul is not using the camera to tell the story. He knows how to make interesting and attractive pictures, but we don’t sense their connection to the content.

The other problem is the interminable, static shots. Some of them go on for so long, they appear to be tableaux, even though no one is standing still. Clearly Teboul is in love with his subject and I admire his intent to show the nuts and bolts of Laurent’s day to day travails. When one of his inner circle remarks on their “embarrassment of riches” it hits us that this is the fatal flaw. There are lots of fascinating, surprising details, too many, in fact, and Teboul just can’t bear to cut away from any of it.

He wants us to appreciate the long hours, the punchy, bleary-eyed consultations that go on into the night, the parade of models that anyone would lose track of, and that’s fine, but the way to do it is not by numbing us into submission. I love the way we see lots of different assistants, each making their own contribution to a finished gown, the chattering between three seamstresses as they bend over their irons, the quiet energy suffusing the moment when a model stands before Laurent and his cabinet as they debate organza over satin. But Teboul doesn’t seem to understand that you just can’t get it all in. That picking and omitting particular details is intrinsic to the creative process.

Life and Times, however, is a completely different matter. Laurent begins by talking about his childhood in Oran, Algeria, and we are immediately struck by family photographs and commentary by his mother, who confides that at the age of three, Laurent convinced his great aunt to change before attending a party. Teboul mixes stills, news clips, puff pieces, paintings by Andy Warhol, footage from fashion shows, period music and reminiscences with finesse and panache. The pacing is confident and steady. Key events from Laurent’s prodigious and tumultuous life are explained by friends, consorts, associates and his long-time lover (we gather) Pierre Berge’. The interviewees are surprisingly forthcoming, though none more so than Laurent himself, whose remarks begin and end the film. When asked about his notorious “dark side” Laurent and several others cop to it, but remain vague and philosophical.

Laurent’s homosexuality is openly discussed and possible “explanations” (for those who still need that red herring) considered. It’s suggested his orientation shaped his ground-breaking innovations in women’s fashion, cultivating stylish androgyny and dressing them in pants and suits that only served to intensify their femininity and bolster their confidence. Life and Times reveals a compelling composite of Yves St. Laurent, from shy schoolboy prodigy to pioneering fashion iconoclast.

My secret shame: You'll get over it

jlgdrd — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:32:00 GMT

You’ll Get Over It is melodrama redeemed by subtlety and adept acting. The script, written by Vincent Molina, is intelligent and truthful, and if it never exactly transports us to the higher realms, it has a grace and precision that carries the story without resorting to the usual, overwrought tactics you might expect from a film dealing with teenagers and homophobia. The pace is fairly quick, there are silences, but for the most part the information comes fast and steady, and the dry delivery is just right, I’m thinking, for what must certainly qualify as “loaded material.“

It’s always a pleasure (and far too rare) when a movie assumes we’re smart enough to get certain details without having them spelled out for us; there aren’t a lot of tears, but the pain comes through. We see it in Vincent’s red, swollen eyes, the way he huddles alone in bed in contrast to his mom and dad, his two best friends (Stephane and Noemie) making love. The restraint in You’ll Get Over It is similar to Bergman’s but doesn’t seem quite as clinical. As if director Fabrice Cazaneuve is taking great pains to preserve our hero’s dignity. And to avoid pity.

Vincent (Julien Baumgartner) is a high school swimming champion who is outed when some students spot him consorting with a queer outsider who has just transferred from another school. They confront him as he leaves Vincent’s apartment, and when they get aggressive, he punches them back, taking no shit whatsoever. This alone is worth the price of admission. The next day they paint, “Vincent is a fag!” on one of the walls inside the school and word travels quickly throughout the community. Suddenly Vincent, who is one of the schools most popular jocks, is ostracized, driven from the men’s locker room and derided by his classmates.

Cazaneuve makes a number of very wise decisions here. While eminently likable Vincent is no saint, he’s clearly favored by his parents over his older brother, and just as likely to mock “pansies” while clowning in the showers as the rest of the guys. We even begin to wonder if he’s using Noemie (perhaps unconsciously) as a beard. If he were in denial, even to himself, if he weren’t in one sense passing, it would make him seem pathetic, more like a martyr. By making Vincent more fallible, his isolation and loneliness become more accessible, more sympathetic. And the resulting treatment after he’s exposed almost justifies his secrecy. He loses the status he previously took for granted as a perceived heterosexual male.

A very powerful aspect of You’ll Get Over It was the ripple effect Vincent’s orientation has on the people in his life. His girlfriend, his best buddy, his brother, his parents, his English teacher, even his paramour on “the wrong side of town.” Noemie (Julia Maraval) is beginning to wonder just what’s going on between them, Stephane (Francois Comar) is able to connect with Vincent, finally, in a way he can appreciate, his parents agonize over the best course of action, and his English teacher vacillates between self-preservation and advocacy.

In the hands of a different director, or less nuanced actors, this material might have been corny or lurid or super sudsy-soapy. Instead we get a genuine feel for the chain of events when trauma comes about in one boy’s life. The intense rage, sorrow, betrayal, estrangement, helplessness that’s felt without banging on it like a gong.

The character of Benjamin (Jeremie Elkaim) the scraggly, outsider rebel is key to the plot. He’s almost an anti-hero (and enfant terrible’) exposing the pettiness and cowardice of the other students. He senses chemistry between he and Vincent from the first moment their eyes lock, and subsequently, unwittingly leads to Vincent’s exposure. The former golden boy will be asked to exhibit truly heroic behavior, walking a lonely, excruciating path, in essence, exchanging places with Benjamin. Ironically, it’s Benjamin who entices Vincent and then, turns him down. At first we despise Benjamin because he seems almost criminally stupid, cavalier. Perhaps sinister. But then we start to understand his worst supposed flaw is to be unashamed of his queer nature. Well, that and assuming the rest of the world has caught up to him.

You’ll Get Over It will not placate you with easy answers. Nor will it leave you with all the frayed ends tied neatly in a bow. It will however, offer smart, intriguing, provocative ideas to consider in a world where (despite reaching the 21st Century) hate-crimes are blatantly promoted from the pulpit, teen suicides are still highest in the queer community and gay marriage is arguably the most divisive issue in the impending presidential election.

Dream of LIfe: Yossi & Jagger

jlgdrd — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:22:00 GMT

Roughly three quarters into Eytan Fox’s Yossi & Jagger, Jagger finally puts his foot down. When the impending ambush is over, he tells him, they will travel East, they will rent a hotel room, they will ask for a single bed. “I’m tired of pretending,” he tells Yossi, and from that moment on you don’t have to be a psychic (or an avid movie queen) to know Jagger won’t be returning from the ambush. Yossi responds with the traditional “You knew what you were getting into...” speech that he will undoubtedly recant as Jagger is brought to the brink of death. This is not to say Avner Bernheimer’s script is weak, in a sense he turns conventional melodrama on its head. And considering he telegraphs the climax it is surprisingly effective and yes, wrenching.

Based on a true story, Yossi and Jagger is a cinematic coupe de grace achieved by tactical strategy. Using documentary film technique (hand-held cameras, natural lighting, flat colors) Eytan Fox gives his narrative a much needed jolt. I was struck by the difference between Yehuda Levi’s publicity stills and his appearance in the film as Jagger. Though he is handsome by any standards, the efforts to de-glamorize him were almost startling. It is just one of numerous instances in which Fox begs comparison between the best of all worlds and the world as it is. He creates tension between characters who are cynical and idealistic. When Jagger makes his plea for openness, Yossi (Ohad Knoller) dismisses him, “This isn’t a fucking American movie.” Ironies and nudges abound in Yossi & Jagger. Fox gives us a dry, low-key depiction of life on a remote army base on the Israeli-Lebanese border. And yet the tension, the humanity, the texture comes through. Particular credit must be given to the cast for their extremely subtle yet faithful work in this film. The energy level is controlled, subdued, but the chemistry, the sparks, are there.Yossi & Jagger asks us to reconsider the nature of romance, the dichotomy we often presume between a dream of utopian life and the sum and substance of our behavior. The need for romance, or disappointment in it shapes each character’s point of view. They seem disaffected but in the end we see romance is not so much luxury or wish as a grace that makes the world bearable. Yaeli (Aya Koren) is in love with Jagger, wants him so badly she has trouble distinguishing between her heart’s desire and all evidence to the contrary. One of the great sadnesses of the film is that with Jagger, Yossi has stumbled upon the dream all others yearn for, and yet he takes it for granted. Keeps it hidden. The heterosexual ideal of romantic love prevails over the reality, even though it has failed him. Ultimately Yossi is the one who clings to fantasy and both of them suffer for it.

Yossi and Jagger is in some ways a dialectic on the need for romance despite the demands of daily life. The obsession with maintaining appearance as opposed to personal integrity. The two commanders sneak away on a false pretext and drive off a rabbit because of Yossi’s paranoia. He can’t even make love if a rabbit is “watching.“ Jagger does a goofy riff on the bunny’s facial expression and henceforth the rabbit becomes his totem. Jagger is gentle and sweet natured, spontaneous, happy to be silly and make others laugh. For all his insouciance he is wiser than Yossi, who lives in constant fear of persecution.

Yossi is comfortable in the closet because it has yet to cost him anything. He plays it so close to the vest, that in the 11th hour, he cannot bring himself to hold Jagger, or kiss him, until it’s too late. In the classic fashion of fairy tales and fables, he doesn’t realize how precious his comrade and lover is until he’s gone. If they’d been “only” buddies, Yossi would have probably expressed his feelings willingly and extravagantly. Yossi & Jagger is cinema verite’, in this case, melodrama masquerading as documentary. The commonplace style heightens the value of romance, just as we understand why characters broke into song during Pennies from Heaven. The corny music, the quirky script, the queer ingenue frolicking in the snow and waggling his butt. Taken as a whole, it suggests queer love is not restricted to the fanciful or forbidden or ideal world, sometimes it’s how the world is. In Yossi and Jagger Eytan Fox explores how the two can overlap. And how real love can trump the heterosexual paradigm, despite the religious right’s empty promises.

Everyqueers : Luster

jlgdrd — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 03:28:00 GMT

Jackson (laughing): Tattoos are cool. But it takes a little more than that to turn me on.

Derek: Really? “Turn me on?” See I’m talking about love.

Jackson: Hey. I’m just a guy.

Derek: Hey, I’m just a guy too.

They kiss.

The above exchange summarizes the key strength of Luster, Everett Lewis’ dry, not altogether unsuccessful comedy on queer attraction. The title is a double-entendre’ for one caught up in the pitch of desire and the gleam of their beloved. It is a wry parable on the dangers of “love at first sight.” All the key characters are love victims, including our hero, Jackson, whose jolts of romantic epiphany are not reciprocated. Not for nothing is the music store milieu (ground zero for Luster) called “No Life.” Practically everyone is tortured by infatuation or poised for their one great, dangerous, ecstatic love to appear on the horizon.

Luster doesn’t always work, but the moments when it does are splendid. Like L.I.E. and Spun, Luster adopts the affectless, dispassionate sort of non-acting that tries to compensate for inertia by reaching new depths of authenticity. That kind of vacuum creates tension when the content is truly sinister, but I think the characters in Luster are less nihilistic than simply disappointed. Sometimes the low-key acting has the right feel to it, the tempo seems appropriate. Other times it feels uneven or unbelievable. Maybe it’s easier to play detached than nearly detached.

And flawed though it may be, Luster is an impressive film. Jackson, Sam, Alyssa, Jed and Derek are all on the level, what happens to them is moving because we can identify, or at least respect them. The one villain, Sonny Spike, is almost always shot in dark blue silhouette. He concedes he is gay but refuses to come out because it will effect his profits as a musician. Even Billy with his open pleasure in being battered, is achingly ingenuous. He is completely comfortable with who he is, and makes no apologies.

This, I think, is what makes Luster a formidable film. A force to be reckoned with. It is enjoyable (though not as funny as I might have hoped) but more than that, it does not make concessions to a heterosexual audience. It doesn’t play to them. It makes no apologies for its’ queer hero, Jackson, or any of its queer characters. Even Sam, who is straight-identified, wants Jackson, and Luster never makes this seem implausible. Maybe because Lewis has written characters whose salient aspect is not their orientation. He doesn’t try to pass them off as straight, they’re not macho jokes and they’re not nelly clowns. More than Will and Grace, more than Queer Eye, Luster says, we’re just guys who like dick. There’s plenty of visual information to reinforce the practice of avid, raucous, same-gender sex. Lewis doesn’t cut away from scrumptious nude men or their genitals because he’s afraid straight men in the audience will be uncomfortable or Luster might get dismissed as porn.

The scene I led with could arguably qualify as a great moment in Queer Cinematic History. A couple of guys, a sexy blue-haired punk and a handsome yuppie discuss the nature of attraction. Then they kiss. Just a couple of blokes who want to kiss and do so. No ugly, self-loathing anxiety or homophobic terror. No buried undisclosed sexual tension. Just two guys kissing. And it’s because Luster doesn’t blink, doesn’t smack its’ chops, or try to be diplomatic, because it doesn’t treat this as outre’ that it’s such a revelation. There are numerous moments like this, where sharpness and accuracy in the acting and writing trump content. Where treatment redeems plot.

Justin Herwick, who plays Jackson, the protagonist of Luster, is well suited to the role. Jackson falls in love 20 times a day. He’s self-absorbed, alienated, raw, dissolute, and a talented poet. He’s disillusioned with the empty values of the bourgeois and their vapid tastes and finds his only satisfaction in rebellion and passion. Booze, boys and brawling. Filmmakers have been trying to depict the lives of poets with varying degrees of success for awhile now. We hear Jackson composing poetry in his head and though they use Dennis Cooper’s words and are smart enough to make a distinction between lyrics and poetry, it’s a mistake.

Jackson is a latter day Rimbaud and Herwick has the vibe down, the comportment and the ‘tude, without the skateboarding segues and an awful scene that comes early on. We understand why Jackson despises the shallow customer and everything he stands for, but the scene feels fabricated and utterly bogus. In addition to Herwick, standout performances in an impressive ensemble include, Shane Powers, B. Wyatt, Sean Thibodeau and Pamela Gidley.