Reverend's Preview: Outfest Fusion at 10

This weekend's tenth-anniversary celebration in Los Angeles of the Outfest Fusion Film Festival will incorporate some of the best representations of LGBT people of color not only of last year but of the last 30+ years.  As the only multicultural platform of its kind, Outfest Fusion has grown from a mere festival into a full-fledged film development program that nurtures emerging artists and their projects.

One such artist, writer-director-producer Angela Robinson, will be honored with the 2013 Fusion Achievement Award on Saturday.  Robinson's short film D.E.B.S., about a team of schoolgirl super-spies battling lesbian villainesses, was expanded into a hit 2004 feature.  She subsequently became the first out lesbian to direct a Disney family comedy, Herbie: Fully Loaded, and has more recently helmed episodes of The L Word, True Blood and Hung.

A special retrospective of short films made in the last ten years and dealing with multicultural LGBT themes will kick off the festival tonight.  Among these are such gems as 2009's The Queen, about a gay Korean-American teenager fantasizing about his ideal prom date; Julian Breece's unforgettable The Young and Evil, in which a troubled gay black teen tries to seduce an HIV+ prevention advocate; and Marlon Riggs' classic, poetic documentary from 1990, Affirmations.

Also on Friday night, Fusion digs even further into the past to showcase one of the first feature films to deal with the often conjoined issues of race and sexuality, Fame.  This Oscar-winning musical, directed by Alan Parker, is set in New York's High School for the Performing Arts.  It launched the careers of Irene Cara, Debbie Allen, Barry Miller and Boyd Gaines as well as a TV series and Broadway musical (and spawned a less successful 2009 remake).  Paul McCrane is memorable as Montgomery, a gay teen struggling to come out of the closet.

The fest is carrying over several acclaimed standouts from Outfest 2012 including the teen lesbian tale Mosquita y Mari, Quentin Lee's White Frog and the engrossing doc Audre Lord - The Berlin Years.  I've more recently seen and highly recommend My Brother the Devil, which won awards at last year's Sundance Film Festival as well as at Outfest.  This excellent drama by Sally El Hosaini centers on two brothers of Arab-Muslim descent living with their parents in modern-day London.  Mo (short for Mohammed and played by Fady Elsayed) is the younger of the two as well as a good student and the "good boy."  Older brother Rashid (a strong performance by the handsome James Floyd) runs with a local gang and deals drugs.

The good son/bad son table starts to turn, though, as Rashid begins to question his sexuality while Mo also joins the gang and starts dealing.  Although he has a girlfriend, Rashid takes a job as a gay photographer's assistant (in an effort to go straight, professionally speaking) and is soon sleeping with his boss.  El Hosaini, in addition to having a great ear for contemporary street talk, handles the various volatile relationships within My Brother the Devil with intelligence and sensitivity.  David Raedeker's lensing is superb and deservedly snagged Sundance's World Cinema Cinematography Award.

I rate the film an A-.  But don't despair if you are unable to make it to the Fusion screening: My Brother the Devil will be released theatrically in L.A. and the U.S. beginning April 5th.  For more information about the fest, visit the Outfest Fusion website

There are a slew of other intriguing and/or noteworthy indie movies opening in LA this weekend, so many that I couldn't screen them all in time.  Be on the lookout though for The Happy Poet, in which a Texas bohemian works to open what may be the world's first vegan hot dog stand; Come Out and Play, a creepy remake of the 1976 Spanish film El Juego de Ninos about a couple vacationing in Mexico who run up against some killer kids (it is also currently available on VOD); Bob's New Suit, a romantic-comedy featuring a Trans character and a turn by gay actor Jack Larson (aka Jimmy Olsen on the old Adventures of Superman TV series); Dorfman in Love, starring the fabulous Sara Rue (Gypsy 83 and currently the best thing about TV's Malibu Country) as a woman cat-sitting for the guy she's crushing on; and, best of all, Hunky Dory, featuring Minnie Driver as a high-school drama teacher in 1976 who inspires her students to perform a glam-rock musical version of The Tempest!

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest, Rage Monthly Magazine and Echo Magazine.

Reverend's Reviews: Cellblock Tango

I doubt anything I write about K-11 can sum it up as accurately and succinctly as The Hollywood Reporter’s critic, who described the film as being “like a deranged John Waters remake of The Shawshank Redemption.”

The film’s title refers to a real-life section of the Los Angeles County Jail in which gay, bisexual and transgender inmates are held (no “real” girls are allowed).  Goran Visnjic gives an impressive performance as Raymond Saxx, a successful music producer who wakes from a drug-induced stupor to find himself K-11’s newest arrival.  He is doubly-surprised once he learns the sexual orientation of his colorful neighbors, since Raymond is heterosexual.  A young Trans woman who takes pity on him best sums up K-11 as “a sanctuary for broken toys.”  Raymond is most definitely in need of repair since, in addition to his obvious addiction issues, he has also been accused of murdering an associate.

Most aggressive among his cellmates is the transsexual Mousey (a fabulously fierce turn by Mexican superstar Kate Del Castillo).  Ruling the ward with stiletto heels and an iron fist, Mousey quickly asserts her authority over Raymond.  In time, though, the two bond over a plan to simultaneously restore Raymond’s innocence and Mousey’s drug trafficking business.  The latter has been disrupted by K-11’s chief guard, Lt. Johnson (entertainingly played with a Hitler-esque combover by D.B. Sweeney), who also has something sinister to do with Raymond’s incarceration.

Jules Stewart makes a supremely confident directorial debut with K-11, especially given the dark, frequently racy material.  Although the screenplay comes perilously close at times to sensationalizing or stereotyping the characters, Stewart wisely resists.  The uniformly excellent cast of supporting players also helps in this regard.  Finally, the film is nicely-shot by Adam Silver and well-edited by Duwayne Dunham.

I certainly wouldn’t call K-11 as depicted here a nice place to visit, but this movie’s intriguing plot and set of characters is worthy of viewers’ time.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest, Rage Monthly Magazine and Echo Magazine.

Reverend's Interview: Jules Stewart, Kristen’s Mom & More

Twilight and Snow White and the Huntsman star Kristen Stewart wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award this year.  That didn’t stop her though from pretty much owning the red carpet at last month’s event, where she did serve as a presenter.  No one was prouder of Kristen than her mother, Jules Stewart.

“It’s crazy,” Stewart replied the day after the Oscars when I asked her how it felt to be the mother of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.   “I’m so proud of her and all my children (Stewart’s three sons are also involved in the film industry), but Kristen is so real in every part she does.”

Mama Stewart is well-known within the industry as a longtime script supervisor.  Since the late 1980’s, she developed an eclectic resume that includes the cult favorite Meet the Applegates, martial arts epics Showdown in Little Tokyo and Mortal Kombat, David Lynch’s The Straight Story, and the family films Jingle All the Way, Flubber and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.

She is now making her directorial debut with the LGBT-interest K-11, now in limited release.  It centers on a straight record producer who is suspected of murder and subsequently consigned to a special jail ward for gay, bi and transsexual men.  The setting is inspired by an actual unit in the Los Angeles County Jail, although residence in it is voluntary.

“I was working on a television pilot and one of the writers came to me with this idea about K-11,” Stewart recounted.  “I hadn’t heard about it but once I looked into it I thought this was a great opportunity to create some great characters.  It was also an unusual story, in the good sense, that I hadn’t seen before.”

Stewart co-wrote the screenplay with Jared Kurt and decided to direct it since she “felt closer to the material” by that point.  According to her, it took six years to bring K-11 to the big screen and her daughter Kristen was originally going to be in it as a sweet, naïve inmate named Butterfly.  “She attached herself, I think, during filming of the first Twilight when we first had a complete script.”  As the process of funding K-11 went on and Kristen’s career took off, however, the younger Stewart instead committed to the recent Snow White remake, with her mother’s blessing.  Kristen does make a brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in the final film as the producer’s secretary.

I asked Stewart whether the fact that K-11 is based on a real place added any extra responsibility or pressure to directing her first feature.  “It did in that you want to be truthful,” she replied.  “In the dorm they have a routine, and that gave us a structure; then we invented really amazing characters to put in this situation.  I wanted it to be a revenge story but with a happy ending, which I think it has.”

She also spoke enthusiastically about the experience of helming this particular movie:  “It was awesome (laughing), I have to say.  I had a great crew and an amazing cast.  It was fun, and hugely collaborative. When you have 46 people in one room, the energy is just amazing.  I hope people feel that (while watching the film).”

The cast of K-11 is headed by Goran Visnjic, who recently co-starred as Christopher Plummer’s much younger lover in Beginners, and Kate Del Castillo, who is not only one of Mexico’s most popular actresses but also serves as Ambassador for the Mexican Commission on Human Rights.  I asked Stewart how she assembled such a great, “name” cast for her debut film.

“Funny you should mention that,” Stewart answered.  “My casting director came to me with Goran.  That character could have been played by anyone since he’s the fish out of water, but we met and he was so enthusiastic about the part; I was so glad he wanted to do it.”  Of Del Castillo, who plays the cellblock’s vicious Trans queen bee, Stewart said: “Kate was the first actor we cast.  I wanted a female to play a man becoming a woman since (the character) was halfway there.  She’s a dynamic actress, and she’s beautiful.”

I was curious as to whether the writer-director had much exposure to LGBT people prior to filming K-11.  “Not really,” Stewart answered.  “I have a lot of gay friends but they’re not really transgender; still, for me, it was sort of never really an issue.”

She continued: “I did learn a lot about transgender people (while making the movie) because I became friends with them on the set; there are only three girls in the film, so there are actual Trans people in it.  My casting director went to the LA Gay & Lesbian Center for referrals and we cast several of them.  And you know what?  They were at the set on time every single day because they were so excited to be a part of this story.”

While LGBT and other viewers will ultimately draw their own conclusions about her movie, Stewart is optimistic.  “I hope K-11 is well-received,” she said.  “I think it’s a story worth telling and I hope they love the characters as much as I do.  They are different and I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of The Brady Bunch.”

Interview by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest, Rage Monthly Magazine and Echo Magazine.

Reverend’s Reviews: Kooky & Spooky

The violent yet artful stylings of Korean director Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy, Thirst) are applied to a contrived, Southern Gothic plot in Stoker, now playing nationwide.  The result is artistically queasy and may induce physical queasiness in some viewers.  Written by Wentworth Miller, who formerly starred on TV’s Prison Break and is now apparently retired from acting, Stoker’s screenplay was acclaimed in recent years as one of the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood.  It’s hard to see what all the fuss was about via the final film despite the A-list cast it attracted, including Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), Matthew Goode (Watchmen, Colin Firth’s boyfriend in A Single Man) and Nicole Kidman.

Wasikowska plays teenaged India Stoker, who is grieving her father’s recent, tragic death in an apparent car accident.  She receives little comfort from her similarly-grieving but chilly mother (Kidman).  When long-absent Uncle Charlie (Goode) reappears at the funeral reception, he kindles sexual urges in both women and unexpectedly homicidal instincts in his niece.

Stoker boasts provocative shots of spiders crawling up India’s legs, pseudo-philosophical reflections such as “To become an adult is to become free,” erotic piano duets, and a virtual cameo by recent Academy Award nominee Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook).  Kidman’s character becomes increasingly unhinged as the story progresses; between her campy turn in last year’s The Paperboy and this, I fear the Oscar-winning actress risks becoming the new Faye Dunaway.  Die-hard fans of director Park may appreciate Stoker but most everyone else would do best to steer clear.

Meanwhile, another haunted family back on the big screen in select cities and on Video On Demand (VOD) this weekend is all too real.  George and Kathy Lutz and their three children allegedly endured 28 days and nights of terror during the mid-1970’s in Amityville, New York.  Their new home was the site of a massacre one year earlier, when Ronald DeFeo shot and killed his entire family while they slept.  Shortly after moving in, the Lutzes began experiencing supernatural phenomenon that ultimately drove them from the house.  This has been recounted in the bestselling book The Amityville Horror as well as several films inspired by it.

George and Kathy have since passed away, but their son Daniel Lutz has broken the children’s longtime silence about the Lutz family’s ordeal in the intrinsically intriguing new documentary My Amityville Horror.  During the 37 years since, Daniel moved from place to place, was married and divorced, and underwent extensive therapy before settling into his current life as a small town UPS deliveryman.  He shares his remembrances openly, even movingly at times.

Given the opportunity to debunk reports of his family’s experience, as some researchers and more recent residents of the house have done, Daniel affirms the book’s account of events with just a few corrections or clarifications.  This was surprising to me given the vehemence with which he often speaks in the film of his stepfather, George.  He also acknowledges that George, who seemingly had a pre-haunting interest in telekinesis and the occult, may have manipulated Daniel and his siblings or the phenomenon they witnessed.  Still, Daniel resolutely maintains that his family was indeed under siege by unearthly forces that may have been unintentionally stirred up by George’s physical resemblance to prior tenant Ronald DeFeo.  (DeFeo, who was convicted of his family members’ murders and remains in prison, claimed that voices in the house commanded him to kill.)

My Amityville Horror is spooky stuff, effectively directed by Eric Walter, even as it rehashes much of what is well known from the books and movies.  One thing shown in the documentary that I had not previously seen is a creepy photo taken in the empty house by a researcher’s camera following the Lutzes’ sudden departure.  A frighteningly clear image reveals a young boy with glowing eyes, possibly the spirit of DeFeo’s youngest brother, peering out from a doorway.  It made my hair stand up, as the best moments in horror movies should.  Tragically, Daniel’s scarred psyche testifies to a ghost story that is too true for comfort.

Reverend’s Ratings:

Stoker: C-

My Amityville Horror: B

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest, Rage Monthly Magazine and Echo Magazine.