Reverend’s Reviews: Foreign Visions

 

Before the summer movie season gets underway with this weekend’s release of Pain & Gain (which features the hunky dream pairing of Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and the arrival of Iron Man 3 next week, check out these current foreign releases.

Lore
Australian director Cate Shortland’s previous, debut film Somersault (2004) was a critically-acclaimed exploration of a young girl’s sexual awakening.  In her new film, Shortland explores a teenager’s moral awakening.  Newcomer Saskia Rosendahl gives a riveting performance as Lore (short for Hannelore), the eldest of several siblings left to fend for themselves at the end of World War II when their Nazi parents are arrested by allied forces.  As the children make their way through the ravaged countryside and villages toward their grandmother’s house with the help of a young Jewish man (The White Ribbon’s Kai Malina), Lore develops her conscience as well as her libido.  Unflinching but thoroughly engrossing, the film provides a rarely depicted look at the Holocaust’s other innocent victims.  Adapted from the lauded novel The Dark Room, it also boasts beautiful cinematography by Adam Arkapaw (Animal Kingdom).
Reverend’s Rating: B+

The Silence
A generally well-made yet disturbing psycho-sexual thriller from Germany.  In the summer of 1986, a young man named Timo (Wotan Wilke Moehring, giving a very good, haunted performance) watches his best friend, Peer (a creepy turn by Ulrich Thomsen) rape and murder a teenaged girl.  They hide the body and Timo soon goes his separate way, much to Peer’s disappointment.  23 years later, another girl is murdered in the same location on the same date as the first.  Is it a coincidence, the work of a copycat killer, or is Peer trying to lure Timo back?  While Timo searches for his own answers, the detectives on the case include a widowed officer who occasionally wears his dead wife’s dresses.  Though The Silence struck me as truthful regarding how parents deal with the loss of a child, other script elements — such as a pregnant policewoman being sent alone to question a suspect in his home — strain credibility. Nonetheless, neophyte writer-director Baran bo Odar is a talent to watch.
Reverend’s Rating: B

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

Reverend's Preview: GLAAD Tidings

After the Oscars, Golden Globes and Grammys, one would think all the awards for 2012’s best achievements in movies, music and television have been given out.  Think again.  GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, will host their annual Los Angeles Media Awards event tonight.

Founded in 1985, GLAAD continues to advocate for and hold the media accountable in their presentation of LGBT characters, people and issues.  The organization has annually honored the best of these representations for the last 24 years, and its awards events are now spread out among three different cities: LA, New York and San Francisco.  Proceeds from each fund GLAAD’s important, ongoing work on behalf of our community.

“Images and stories from the LGBT community continue to push support for equality to historic levels,” according to Herndon Graddick, GLAAD’s new president.  “This year’s nominees enlighten and entertain, but also reflect a new American landscape where a growing majority accept and value their LGBT family, colleagues and friends.”

The films, TV programs and other media being recognized this year include The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, ParaNorman, How to Survive a Plague, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The New Normal, Modern Family, DC Comics, Huffington Post and bisexual R&B singer Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange album.  All in all, GLAAD named 120 nominees in 25 English-language categories as well as 33 Spanish-language nominees in eight categories.  A complete list of nominees can be found online at here.

In addition, special honorees are feted in each of the three cities for their work in furthering LGBT visibility.  Anderson Cooper was presented with the organization’s prestigious Vito Russo Award (by Madonna, no less) at last month’s New York gathering, and former president Bill Clinton will be honored in LA, to be hosted by Drew Barrymore. Awards presenters at the LA event will include newly-minted Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence, previous Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Mary Steenburgen, Tobey Maguire, Matt Bomer, Alex Pettyfer, Elle Fanning, Betty White, Chris Evans, Ted Danson, Diane Kruger, Joshua Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio. Also, Grammy Award-winning recording artist Kelly Rowland will perform at the ceremony.

MSNBC news anchor Thomas Roberts has been confirmed as a Special Guest at tonight's celebration in LA, which will take place at the JW Marriott Hotel.  Roberts famously came out as a gay man in 2006 while speaking at a convention of gay and lesbian journalists.  Last year, he legally wed his longtime partner in New York City. Additional special guests include Glee's Naya Rivera and Alex Newell;  The New Normal's Andrew Rannells, Justin Bartha, Ellen Barkin, NeNe Leakes, Georgia King and Jayson Blair; Raising Hope's Cloris Leachman, Lucas Neff, and Shannon Woodward; Scandal's Dan Bucatinsky and Guillermo Díaz; and Sara Ramirez (Grey's Anatomy), Brad Goreski (It's a Brad, Brad World); Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower); Trevor Donovan (90210); Maria Menounos (Extra); Scott Evans (One Life to Live); Brad Bell (Husbands), GLAAD's former Entertainment Media Director Chaz Bono and GLAAD National Spokesperson Wilson Cruz.

As GLAAD president Graddick stated, “Now more than ever, viewers not only accept gay and transgender characters and plot lines, they expect them — just as they both accept and expect LGBT people to be a valuable part of their everyday lives.”  The LA Media Awards provides a great opportunity for local members of our community to celebrate this new reality.  For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the GLAAD Media Awards website.

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

Reverend’s Reviews: Troubled Waters

Two of the cinema’s finest young auteurs, François Ozon and Jeff Nichols, have new films out between this week and next that demand attention even if they fall a bit short of the directors’ best work to date. 

The 45-year old, openly gay Ozon has been cranking out international hits such as 8 Women, Swimming Pool and Potiche since 1998, and his new work Young & Pretty was just chosen to be in competition at next month’s Cannes Film Festival.  Ozon’s 2012 film In theHouse is making its US debut today in Los Angeles and New York before expanding.  While essentially a comedy adapted from a Spanish play, it is often disturbing in its depiction of a high school student with a troubled background, Claude (striking discovery Ernst Umhauer) who ingratiates himself into a classmate’s seemingly happy, middle-class family.  Claude documents his observations of the family in writing assignments for his literature teacher, Germain (veteran French actor Fabrice Luchini).  Increasingly drawn into Claude’s voyeuristic prose, Germain begins to share them with his wife (the ever lovely Kristin Scott Thomas) but gradually loses perspective and begins to make unethical decisions in defense of Claude and his writing.

Claude’s entrée into the Rapha household brings its own growing set of moral compromises, which primarily involve his attraction to his friend’s mother (played by Emmanuelle Seigner, aka Mrs. Roman Polanski) and toying with his friend’s budding homosexuality.  Ozon’s screenplay uses the scenario to raise valuable questions about literary license, the differences between equality and uniformity, respect for others and “the dictatorship of sex.”  I also thoroughly enjoyed his technique of having Germain pop up in unexpected ways within the action of Claude’s storytelling.

In the end, though, I found In the House less focused than most of Ozon’s previous films.  It is difficult to decide with which character we as viewers and pseudo-participants are supposed to empathize.  This could well be intentional, but when one’s options are a junior sociopath, a failed writer-turned-scheming schoolteacher and a bored housewife obsessed with home improvements, among others, none of them is appealing.  Despite excellent performances as well as a nice original music score by Philippe Rombi, In the House is more off-putting than fully satisfying in the end.

Jeff Nichols’ Mud, meanwhile, is the 34-year old writer-director’s third feature and follow up to 2011’s sensational Take Shelter.  Lionsgate will release Mud nationwide on April 26.  In this Mark Twain-inspired saga, a modern-day Tom and Huck by the names of Ellis and Neckbone (talented newcomers Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland, respectively) cross paths with the mystical vagabond of the movie’s title.  Matthew McConaughey, hot off his acclaimed gay or gay-ish turns in last year’s MagicMike and The Paperboy, stars as Mud.  Clad in a worn yet protective shirt (Don’t worry, boys and girls: he takes if off frequently enough) as well as boots with crosses fashioned out of nails in their heels “to ward off evil spirits,” Mud is discovered living in a boat displaced by Mississippi river flooding to the treetops of a remote island.

Mud assures Ellis and Neckbone that “there are fierce powers at work in the world,” and soon enough the positive forces of romantic and parental love are pitted against an evil force of retribution.  Several years earlier, Mud killed the eldest son of a Texas gangster who was abusing Juniper, the love of Mud’s life played by Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon.  Juniper has come to town presumably so she and Mud can run away together to a safe place but so have the gangster’s minions, who are intent on killing Mud.  Ellis and Neckbone, idealistic and curious to their detriment, naively offer to serve as go-betweens for Mud and Juniper and inadvertently place themselves in grave danger.

Adolescent boys and their fathers will find much to appreciate and bond over in Mud but the movie’s slow-as-molasses, 130-minute running time and occasional bursts of Scorsese-esque violence prevent it from being a true family film.  Also, while the dialogue Nichols has crafted is excellent, his character development is weak when it comes to Juniper.  We learn next to nothing about what makes Mud’s lady love tick or why she makes some of the baffling decisions she does during the film’s course.  Witherspoon does fine with what she has to work with, chiefly a bird tattoo, a short skirt and a pair of sky-high sandal heels but it gets harder to care about Juniper; Becky Thatcher she ain’t.  The remainder of the cast — which also includes out actress Sarah Paulson, Sam Shepard, Joe Don Baker and Nichols regular Michael Shannon, who will next be seen as General Zod in Man of Steel — are all superb in their decidedly better-written roles.

Flawed though they are, Mud and In the House are still stronger cinematic offerings than most of what is currently playing, largely due to the immense talents of their chief craftsmen.

Reverend’s Ratings:

In the House: B-

Mud: B

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

Reverend’s Interview: Cruz’n with GLAAD

Actor Wilson Cruz is immediately recognizable to many in the LGBT community thanks to his appearances in such TV series and films as My So-Called Life, Party of Five, Noah’s Arc, Party Monster, Coffee Date and The People I’ve Slept With.  He also starred on Broadway and won acclaim as the HIV+ drag queen Angel in Rent.

Last year, the openly gay 39-year old took on an important new role as National Spokesperson and Strategic Giving Officer for GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.  As such, Cruz has a hand in planning the anti-defamation watchdog’s Media Awards events now taking place from coast to coast.  He recently spoke with Reverend about his current undertaking.

Rev: Congratulations on your new gig!  How long have you been working with GLAAD now?
Cruz: Thanks!  It’s been seven months.  It’s been a roller coaster ride.  I’ve worked with GLAAD on and off for the last 20 years, since they gave me a Media Award for My So-Called Life.  God, has it really been that long? (Laughs)  I’ve served on the GLAAD Board of Directors and appeared at various events.

Rev: What are your responsibilities in your new position?
Cruz: I represent the organization in all types of media, television and print.  I do a lot of blogging and fill in for GLAAD president Herndon Graddick whenever he isn’t available.  I’m also the chief fundraiser for GLAAD.  I’ve fundraised a lot in different organizations but never on staff.  Successful fundraising is really about personal relationships and being passionate about the cause.

Rev: Have you taken a break from acting?  If not, what are you working on now?
Cruz: I have a film in festivals now called Meth Head, with Lukas Haas.  I have the freedom to act when I feel compelled by a role or project rather than I have to act to pay the bills.  It’s art again instead of a job, which is nice.  It’s in my GLAAD contract that I can take time off for acting.

Rev: You were in New York City for last month’s Media Awards event there.  How was it?
Cruz: I was.  It was pretty amazing!  I followed Madonna, who presented our Vito Russo Award to Anderson Cooper.  She wore a Boy Scout uniform and I was also wearing kind of a Boy Scout uniform.  I was surprised to learn how short she is, but she commanded the room.  It was an electric evening with a number of notable moments in the show especially, for me, the winner of the Outstanding Documentary Award, How to Survive a Plague.

Rev: Out of all of this year’s nominated films and TV series, what are some of your favorites?
Cruz: How to Survive a Plague and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  I’m a Broadway baby after all, so I’m very excited about the Smash win in New York for Outstanding Drama Series.  There’s a young man named Harvey Guillen nominated for an episode of The Mentalist, and nominee (and TV journalist) Melissa Harris-Perry is a personal hero of mine.

Rev: Were you involved in the nominations process?
Cruz: Yes, I am involved since I’m a former winner, so as a past honoree I get to weigh in and vote.  (Cruz won GLAAD’s Visibilidad Award in 2008 in addition to his earlier citation for My So-Called Life.)

Rev: Why should our readers and our community support GLAAD?
Cruz: GLAAD celebrates how powerful and transformative LGBT people’s stories can be, and how they help change how people see our community.  We make the cultural change that makes the political change happen.  You can pass a law but whether or not people support that law determines whether the law is successful or not.  Legal same-sex marriage is one example of this.  The work we did on television and in film really has helped to shape that preparedness for when marriage equality is legal.

For more information about GLAAD or to make a donation, visit their website.

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