Reverend’s Preview: Laffs at LAFF

The 2013 LA Film Fest (LAFF), once again presented by venerable Film Independent, kicks off tonight with the Los Angeles premiere of I’m SoExcited, Pedro Almodóvar’s slight but delightful return to early, campy form (it will open in US theaters beginning June 28.)  The Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker is obviously using the Airport disaster movie series of the 1970’s as his template, but instead of singing nuns, little old lady stowaways and George Kennedy he employs flamingly-gay flight attendants, bisexual pilots, horny newlyweds, a virgin psychic, and Almodovar regular Cecilia Roth as a middle-aged dominatrix with political ties.

Following a pre-flight mishap perpetrated by an inept runway attendee (a funny cameo by Antonio Banderas, distracted by his pregnant girlfriend played by Penelope Cruz), the crew of Peninsula Airlines flight 2549 discovers that their landing gear has been crippled.  In anticipation of an emergency landing, the plane is forced to repeatedly circle a remote airport and burn off fuel until a vacant landing strip becomes available.

Ever stalwart in the face of danger, flight attendants Joserra (Javier Camara), Fajas (Carlos Areces) and Ulloa (Raul Arevalo) take to drugging the passengers in coach as well as their female co-workers, mixing excessive amounts of cocktails for themselves and those guests in first class, and performing a show-stopping rendition — complete with full, hilarious choreography by Blanca Li — of the title Pointer Sisters hit.  As one of the stewards tellingly declares to their leader at one point: “When you act the heroine, you scare me.”  Meanwhile, passenger and soap opera actor Ricardo Galan (Guillermo Toledo, giving one of the few understated performances in the film) has to deal with his suicidal ex-girlfriend via non-private phone calls from 35,000 feet, and Blanca Suarez’s psychic sniffs out an on-board assassin.  Will anyone survive???

Some critics, perhaps younger ones unfamiliar with the director’s early 1980’s fare, are grousing about how low the openly gay Almodovar has “sunk” in the wake of his more recent, masterful dramatic films such as All About My Mother, Talk to Her and The Skin I Live In.  I thoroughly enjoyed I’m So Excited!, though, both on its own merits and as an over-the-top take on those silly old Airport movies.  It may well turn out to be the most deliriously funny movie for adults, and definitely the gayest, to come out this summer.

There aren’t many other specifically GLBT-interest films screening during LAFF’s ten days and nights from June 13-23.  This weekend’s world premiere of Yoruba Richen’s gay politics documentary The New Black is one notable exception, as are the lesbian drama Concussion (screening June 19 and 21), out director Sebastián Silva’s Crystal Fairy (June 14 and 18) and the short films Alaska is a Drag, F to 7th - Interchangeable and She Said, She Said.  For the full festival schedule and to purchase passes or tickets, visit the LA Film Fest website.

Call Me Kuchu, an eye-opening documentary that had its US premiere at LAFF last year, is opening theatrically in New York this Friday and in Los Angeles on June 21.  It is a must-see for GLBT Americans and all those concerned about international human rights.  Co-directed by Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall, the powerful film focuses on the late David Kato and other openly gay citizens of Uganda who have been enduring incredible persecution by the African nation’s government (Kato was brutally murdered in 2011 for his activism).  Anti-gay American religious leaders are revealed to be among the primary instigators of Uganda’s homophobic political policies.  Don’t even think of not seeing it.

Reverend’s Ratings:

I’m So Excited: B

Call Me Kuchu: A-

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

Reverend’s Reviews: Fests of the West

June is busting out all over and film festival season has begun in Los Angeles.  Dances With Films (DWF), celebrating its “Sweet 16” edition, is running now through June 9 and will dovetail this weekend with the annual Los Angeles Greek Film Festival.  Next week brings the LA FilmFestival, which will run June 13-23 and will be followed in early July by Outfest, the LA Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

While DWF is a bit deficient with GLBT-themed movies this year, it does feature the LA premiere tonight of a romantic-comedy starring one of gaydom’s favorite actors.  Cheyenne Jackson, Broadway’s hunky leading man as well as a regular on 30 Rock and other TV series, is the biggest name among the ensemble cast in Matthew Watts’ Mutual Friends.  Gay fans may be disappointed to see the openly-gay Jackson play straight here but he impresses as usual with his turn as Christophe, an engaged man celebrating his 30th birthday.  After making his entrance shirtless and in bed (thumbs up for that), the sweet but clueless Christophe is dispatched with for a while as his fiancée plans a surprise birthday party for him.

The party preparations end up serving as a catalyst for various tensions, explorations and revelations by the angst-ridden New Yorkers who are Christophe’s friends.  His fiancée even realizes, quite predictably, by the party’s start that she is in love with another man.  No less than seven screenwriters are credited for the film’s multiple storylines dealing with people “afraid of making a real connection.”  While it is perfectly acceptable for Jackson to play a heterosexual man, I did find it odd that there are neither GLBT characters nor people of color among Mutual Friends’ fairly large cast of characters.  They do live in NYC after all.

There are a number of very good, naturalistic performances rendered by the movie’s largely theatre-trained players, as well as some funny lines of dialogue in the script (example: Upon discovering Christophe’s initial, accidentally penis-shaped birthday cake, one party planner remarks “I hope it doesn’t taste like cock”).  Mutual Friends is pleasurable enough in the watching but left me wanting more, especially more of Jackson.

A few other intriguing films screening during DWF are the world premiere of Automotive, a piece of modern noir told through “the eyes” of a 1964 Mercury car; Forever’s End, also a world premiere, in which the presumed last woman on earth following an apocalyptic event suddenly meets a strange man; the 1980’s-set, John Hughes-inspired Murt Ramirez Wants to Kick My Ass; and John V. Knowles’ Chastity Bites, a horror-comedy based on the real-life vampiress, Countess Elizabeth Bathory.

Meanwhile, over at the Writers’ Guild of America this Friday night will be the US premiere of Panagiotis Evangelidis’ provocative They Glow in the Dark.  Though part of the LA Greek Film Festival due to the director’s national heritage, the documentary is a New Orleans-based examination of two gay longtime friends who have forged a threadbare life together in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation.  It recently won the prestigious FIPRESCI Award at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

Jim Baysinger and Michael Glaab moved to the Big Easy together from Illinois in late 2005 expecting to take part in an anticipated post-hurricane “renaissance” that, according to them, has yet to happen.  They live in a formerly waterlogged house along with a number of stray cats and a dog they have taken in.  Both men are HIV+ and “basically are partners,” according to Jim, although they no longer sleep together or have sex.  They eke out a living selling luminescent figurines made by Jim of New Orleans’ legendary underworld guide Baron Samedi as well as bags of “ghost poop” to tourists.

They Glow in the Dark, well shot in verite style by Evangelidis himself, turns an unblinking eye on both the harsh reality of the men’s existence and the palpable devotion they share.  “I wish I could take his pain away,” Jim says at one point regarding Michael’s AIDS-related neuropathy.  Both Jim and Michael share their grief over past loves who have either died or weren’t meant to be had in the first place, but they often do so with a sense of humor.  Attractive in their youth (Jim was even a frequent centerfold in gay men’s magazines), age, HIV and poverty have taken their toll.  “I’ve got Nureyev’s butt and Golda Meir’s face,” bemoans Michael.  “It’s just not fair.”

As Jim insightfully observes, “a lot of people come (to New Orleans) to either initiate or complete their self-destruction.”  It seems clear by the film’s end, though, that he and Michael have gained a new lease on life as well as an enduring — and endearing — bond since they moved there.  They Glow in the Dark serves as a memorable testament to love, regret and hope in the city of broken levees and dreams.

Not film fest-related but new on home videois this year’s hit comedy Identity Thief, starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy.  I avoided the movie when it played in theaters due to the involvement of director Seth Gordon, whose last film was 2011’s inexplicably successful, truly horrible Horrible Bosses.  Sent an advance copy of the Blu-ray, however, I did my critical duty and watched it… and was pleasantly surprised.  Identity Thief is no classic but McCarthy’s vivid performance may well become one.  Playing the title character, a gleefully morality-free Florida woman who nearly bankrupts Bateman’s family man, McCarthy is hilarious but brings a welcome, surprising poignancy to her role.  Although it threatens to do so at one point, Craig Mazin’s script wisely avoids explaining how McCarthy’s Diana became the destructive force she is.  Bateman serves as a great foil, even if his financial-minded character comes across as way too naïve initially.  Identity Thief and, especially, McCarthy may well steal your heart.

Reverend’s Ratings:

Mutual Friends: B-

They Glow in the Dark: B+

Identity Thief: B

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

Reverend’s Review: Let’s Hear It for the Boys

 

Three years after its brief but acclaimed Broadway run, The Scottsboro Boys is finally having its Los Angeles premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre now through June 30.  The last musical jointly penned by gay duo John Kander and Fred Ebb of Cabaret and Chicago fame (Ebb passed away in 2004), it takes on a true, 20th  century saga of racism and injustice via a decidedly controversial approach: a vaudevillian minstrel show.  The predominantly African-American cast members play white as well as black characters, with the Caucasians more often than not presented as broad caricatures.  Hal Linden — yes, old Barney Miller himself — is the one exception as The Interlocutor, an Old South narrator figure who also plays an array of white supporting characters.

In 1931, nine young black men riding a freight train through Alabama were detained in the town of Scottsboro after being falsely accused of rape by two white, female passengers.  They were found guilty at the end of the first of several trials held over as many years and were initially sentenced to death in the electric chair.  A New York attorney, Samuel Leibowitz, intervened and demanded a second trial for the men.  They were again found guilty, even though one of their accusers told the court that she and her friend had lied about the rape.  Other appeals followed, with the men repeatedly found guilty.  Finally, charges were dropped against four of them in 1937 due to their youth at the time of the alleged rape.  Four others were paroled between 1946 and 1950 but Haywood Patterson, who steadfastly maintained his innocence, died in prison in 1952.  Shockingly, the so-called Scottsboro Boys were only officially pardoned by the state of Alabama last month, more than 80 years later.

Given this tortured history, the bold approach taken for the musical by Kander, Ebb, book author David Thompson and director-choreographer Susan Stroman that essentially points a raised middle finger toward the racist South certainly seems justified.  Some viewers, however, may well find it challenging or possibly in bad taste; a middle-aged white couple sitting next to me fled the theater after about 30 minutes.  For black actors to portray whites as buffoons in the show’s inverted-minstrel style is unquestionably confrontational.  It’s also pretty damn brilliant.  Linden’s character certainly doesn’t provide any comfort for white theatregoers, intent as The Interlocutor is on keeping the ol’ Southern cake walk alive and having “the boys” perform for the crowd’s perceived amusement.

I found the book disjointed in spots, with the finale in particular announced without much immediate momentum.  The show’s finale does play two great wild cards, one involving the men’s attire and the other a reveal of the sole female performer’s character.  As always, though, Kander & Ebb’s songs ring with their trademarked brand of political commentary, incisive humor and emotional truth.  Standouts include the catchy opener “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey!”; the longing “Go Back Home”; “Financial Advice,” in which Alabama’s Attorney General excoriates the Jewish Leibowitz; and the church-appropriate “Shout!”  Haywood, played by the dramatically- and physically-stunning Joshua Henry (reprising his Tony-nominated turn from the original Broadway production), has two affecting solos: “Nothin” and the climactic “You Can’t Do Me.”  While the entire cast is uniformly excellent, Trent Armand Kendall and JC Montgomery are also particular standouts as respectively Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo, the show’s chief minstrel players.

The Scottsboro Boys is polarizing, to be sure, but it is nonetheless a tuneful and educational must-see in LA and wherever it plays in the future.

Reverend’s Rating: B+

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

Monthly Wallpaper - June 2013: The Celluloid Closet

In celebration of Gay Pride month, Movie Dearest once again offers up a special calendar wallpaper for June paying tribute to some of the best in queer cinema... with a twist this year.

We're taking a peek inside The Celluloid Closet, the seminal book (by Vito Russo) and documentary (by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman) that shone a light on all the not-so-hidden gay subtext and homoeroticism in classic films from the early silent era through the Hollywood Production Code years to the modern day. From Cary Grant in a nightie to Marlene Dietrich in a tuxedo to Jack Lemmon in a dress to Jane Russell in a roomful of half-naked men, we have collected some of our favorite images from these classics, now out of the closet for us to enjoy even more.

Just click on the picture above to enlarge it to its 1024 x 768 size, then right click your mouse and select "Set as Background", and you're all set.