Monthly Wallpaper: May 2014 - Thank Heaven for Little Girls

Feel the "girl power" this May when Movie Dearest says "Thank Heaven for Little Girls".

From Hermione to Hushpuppy, Wednesday to Wee Willie Winkie, and Gertie to Tootie, our favorite young actresses and the heroines they played are celebrated in this month's Calendar Wallpaper.

All you have to do is click on the picture above to enlarge it, then simply right click your mouse and select "Set as Background". (You can also save it to your computer and set it up from there if you prefer.) The size is 1024 x 768, but you can modify it if needed in your own photo-editing program.

Reverend's Interview: From Rocky Horror to Dragula

Actor Barry Bostwick’s 45-year career has spanned theatre, film and television. He was the first to play T-Bird Danny Zuko in Broadway’s Grease and earned a Tony Award nomination in the process. He next starred on the big screen in the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show as Brad Majors, a naïve young man who with his fiancée Janet (an early performance by Susan Sarandon) crosses paths with a transsexual Transylvanian played by Tim Curry. Hundreds of movies and roles later, Bostwick is still going strong with recurring roles on TV’s Scandal, Cougar Town and Research.

He also steals the show in the delightful short film Dragula, which will premiere at this month’s Newport Beach Film Festival. As the title character, Bostwick appears in full drag, sings, dances and serves as mentor to an insecure teenager, Charlie (cute newcomer August Roads), struggling to find himself. Other big-name cast members are Cheyenne Jackson, Missi Pyle and Carmen Electra. The 69-year old Bostwick, a native of northern California, recently spoke with me from an appearance he was making on the east coast.

CC: Thanks so much for your time. Where are you now?
BB: I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Mad Monster Convention with other cast members from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s coming up on its 40th anniversary so they flew me here along with Little Nell (Columbia in the film) from Australia and Patricia Quinn (Magenta) from England. It’s been great.

CC: How did you get involved with Dragula?
BB: (Producer and choreographer) Adam Shankman called me. I had done the Rocky Horror episode of Glee with him. I had fun with that and he thought of me for this. Adam is so talented, lively and fun to be around. (Dragula) is probably the last time anyone will want to see me in drag (laughter). It’s also the last time I will wear high heels. We couldn’t find a pair that fit me right, not even in the hooker shops on Hollywood Boulevard. Did my song (in the film) come out good?

CC: It’s great! You still have a great voice and you’ve still got legs.
BB: (Laughs) Well, thank you.

CC: Who is Dragula, exactly?
BB: He’s a guy who has been (performing in drag) his whole life and is still enthusiastic about his work but has kind of settled. He’s a very positive role model that I wanted to play. That’s really why I got involved. And I like that there’s no sexual tension between the kid and I. It’s much more universal, a bigger picture.

CC: How long did it take to make you up and shoot your part?
BB: I think I was only there two days and the makeup took the first 2 ½ hours. The makeup guy worked on the RuPaul show so he really knew his stuff. The wig I wore was huge! The costume was thrown together the night before, but by people who know how to throw things together.

CC: You have had a long and storied career. What do you consider some of the highlights so far?
BB: The original Danny Zuko in Grease was the first big hit I was in. It was really the first reflection of the time period (the 1950’s) and became the longest-running show on Broadway at the time. Probably Rocky Horror. It was groundbreaking in its gender-bending. The George Washington miniseries (1984), which confused people who only knew me as Brad Majors. And playing the mayor of Spin City for six years (1996-2002) and working with Michael (J. Fox) and Charlie (Sheen).

CC: Movie-going gay men of my age may have first noticed you in 1982’s Megaforce. Any thoughts you’d like to share about that?
BB: Because of that costume? (Laughter) It was gold lame’ or something. It’s funny, people at this convention come up to me either because of Rocky Horror or Megaforce. There’s even a big poster of Megaforce behind me. It was a long, big, jokey movie and I loved doing it. I wore a headband because (director) Hal Needham’s wife saw me in The Pirates of Penzance at the Ahmanson and I wore a headband that I tossed into the audience each night. She recommended me for the part of Ace Hunter.

CC: How do you feel about the Rocky Horror phenomenon nearly 40 years after the film premiered?
BB: I have such love for that movie, the people involved with it and the fans. I love the multi-generational aspect of it. Ten-year old kids come up to me and say “I just watched (Rocky Horror)” and I think, “My god, it’s on its third generation now!” I’m very proud of that movie and what it’s done in the gay community. It’s been life-saving in many aspects. (Bostwick contributed an interview to a new documentary, Rocky Horror Saved My Life, which will be released later this year.) Fans of the movie are so appreciative, so generous and so brave.

CC: That’s wonderful. Anything else you would like to share with our readers?
BB: Let’s see. I have a film coming out this summer, The Scorpion King: The Lost Throne. I hope to keep working because it gets me out of the house for a few hours each day. I love my life and my avocation in life is as a potter. I have a studio at home and make these little Buddhas you can buy in Malibu and Topanga Canyon. It’s my little escape from Hollywood.

The 2014 Newport Beach Film Festival, celebrating “15 Years Under the Influence,” will run April 24th-May 1st. Full details and ticket sales can be found online here. In addition to Dragula, a number of LGBT-themed short films will be screened:

• Gaysian. An attractive, young, single gay man in Toronto encounters discrimination as a result of his Asian heritage.
• Next Door Letters. Inspired by a true story, in which a prank two girls play on a friend proves a critical turning point in one of their lives.
• Out. In less than 20 minutes, a down-on-his-luck everyman faces the prospect of losing his mother, his home and his closest personal secret.
• Spooners. While shopping for a new mattress for himself and his husband, a man is forced to come out in a spectacular way at their local mattress showroom.
• Alfredo’s Fire. A writer ignites troubling questions about the clash between faith and sexuality when he sets himself on fire in St. Peter’s Square.
• A Last Farewell. In the wake of his husband’s death, an aging author must renew ties with his estranged daughter in order to find peace and move on.
• Performing Girl. An autobiographical exploration of the life of queer, transgender, Sri Lankan-American actor-writer-director-comic D’lo Sri. That’s a lot of hyphens!

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

Reverend’s Reviews: Privates on Parade

Easter weekend is a time to celebrate new life and the fecundity of spring, and what better way to do that than with penises (other than going to church, of course). The Final Member, an odd but interesting documentary opening today in New York and other cities and next Friday in New York, provides a perfectly-timed opportunity.

Its subject is the Icelandic Phallological Museum. Opened in 1999, it currently serves as the world’s only collection of actual penises collected from throughout the animal kingdom and phallus-inspired art. My personal favorite among the art works is a hand-carved wooden, travel-size mini bar shaped like a penis! The museum’s founder and curator is Sigurdur “Siggi” Hjartarson, who discovered his first animal penis 40 years ago when he was 17. “My dad has been collecting penises for as long as I can remember,” notes Siggi’s daughter in the film. Today, his largest specimen is a 3-foot long portion of a sperm whale’s genitalia, while the smallest is from a hamster.

The main focus of The Final Member, and rationale for its title, is Siggi’s effort to secure one last, elusive piece: a human penis. He finds two potential donors. One is a 93-year old local man nearing the end of his life, Pall Arason, whose member meets the 5” minimal “legal length.” The other is a 60-year old American named Tom Mitchell. Mitchell is so eager to see his 7” penis (nicknamed “Elmo” and the subject of a comic book) on display that he is willing to have it surgically removed prior to his death. However, finding a doctor who is willing to do such a procedure for non-medically necessary purposes proves difficult. Even renowned gender-reassignment surgeon Marci Bowers, who is trans herself, is reluctant to remove Mitchell’s genitalia.

Producer-directors Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math take a somewhat tongue-in-cheek yet objective and sensitive approach to their film’s unusual subject matter. More than anything to do with biology or sexuality, The Final Member is most revealing of our human desire for immortality. For some men, it is apparently deeply satisfying to know that at least one small (or, in some cases, large) part of them will be preserved for posterity.

While we’re on the topic of male sexual organs, I couldn’t help but notice actor Pierre Perrier’s while recently watching the creepy-cool French miniseries The Returned (Les Revenants). The beautifully brooding, 30-year old Perrier plays one of several deceased townspeople who have been inexplicably resurrected and end up wreaking existential havoc for their still-breathing neighbors. It is much more complex and interesting (not to mention sexier) than ABC’s current, virtually identical Resurrection.

I remembered I had seen Perrier’s face (at least) somewhere before and ended up digging 2011’s American Translation out from my DVD pile. Available for a year or so now from TLA Releasing, Perrier stars in it as a homicidal, bisexual man who enlists his new American girlfriend (the similarly pretty Lizzie Brochere) as an accomplice. Like a more sexually-twisted Bonnie and Clyde, they roam the French countryside looking for male hustlers to serve as fresh victims.

Perrier is on full-frontal display at several points and engages in vigorous sex scenes with both Brochere and some of the men they meet. Written by Pascal Arnold (One to Another) and directed by Arnold with Jean-Marc Barr (perhaps best remembered as the star of Luc Besson’s 1988 underwater drama The Big Blue), the movie doesn’t really offer anything new or original in terms of plot. Watching Perrier, though, is well worth the price of a rental or purchase.

Reverend’s Ratings:
The Final Member: B
The Returned (Les Revenants): A-
American Translation: C+

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

Reverend’s Report: Godzilla, Gatsby & Greatness at TCM Fest 2014

The 5th annual TCM Classic Film Festival, which just concluded April 13th in Hollywood, also marked the 20th anniversary of cineastes’ cable channel of choice. True to form, the four-day event celebrated blockbusters and little-seen treasures as well as actors and filmmakers from the silent era through the 1960’s. Increasingly, though, a number of post-1970 movies are being showcased during each year’s fest, with 1995’s downright contemporary Mr. Holland’s Opus shown this year as part of a tribute to actor Richard Dreyfuss.

This year’s festival opened the night of April 10th with a stunningly restored digital transfer of 1955’s Oklahoma! All the more impressive on the Chinese Theater’s new IMAX screen, the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical stars a still-dreamy Gordon MacRae and served as a then-20 year old Shirley Jones’ film debut. Jones, who just turned 80 and looks great, was on hand to discuss the production as well as its follow up, Carousel. She revealed to the scandalized delight of the crowd that Frank Sinatra was initially cast as Billy Bigelow in Carousel but bowed out at the last minute and flew to Africa, where his wife at the time, Ava Gardner, was allegedly having an affair with Clark Gable on a movie set. Jones subsequently called MacRae and asked him to fill in for Sinatra. MacRae reportedly responded with “Give me three days; I’ve got to lose ten pounds!”

I devoted myself to screenings of a handful of films rarely shown on the big screen. One of them, the Alan Ladd-starring 1949 adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, hasn’t been shown in any format anywhere since 1974. Paramount pulled all exhibition rights to the movie that year in light of their pricey, soon-to-be-released remake starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. Ladd’s version is an interesting, film noir-ish take on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz age novel. Of particular note, It was produced and the screenplay co-written by Richard Maibaum, who would go on to write many of the James Bond movies. Maibaum and company take some liberties with the source material but Ladd, best remembered today in the title role of 1953’s Shane, gives an exceptionally sensitive performance as the lovelorn millionaire. Ladd was also in his physical prime at the time of Gatsby’s filming and sports a form-fitting period swimsuit in two scenes. The excellent supporting cast includes Shelley Winters in one of her first screen roles, the great Howard Da Silva and a delightfully sardonic Ruth Hussey. Now that Paramount is allowing this version to be shown again after 40 years in the vault, watch for it to be broadcast on TCM in the not too distant future. While I didn’t enjoy it as much as last year’s over-the-top Baz Luhrmann production, it is certainly better than the dreadfully dull 1974 adaptation.

Having only ever seen the heavily edited, Americanized version of Japan’s 1954 monster classic Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira) and its numerous campy sequels/remakes, I couldn’t miss the world premiere on April 12th of a beautifully restored Godzilla: The Japanese Original. This deadly serious depiction of a rampaging behemoth awakened by post-World War II nuclear testing in the Pacific obviously served at the time of its release as a metaphor for the unexpected damage endured by Hiroshima and Nagasaki nine years prior. Despite the film’s obvious and dated special effects, Godzilla remains potent in this regard as well as in light of more recent, tsunami-caused destruction in Japan and other parts of the world. In an inspired nod to the 60-year reign of the “King of the Monsters”, young director Gareth Edwards was invited to speak before the premiere about the character’s history and the big-screen “rebirth” he helmed that will be released next month. Wittily taking note that he was seated before an audience not exactly friendly to remakes, he assured attendees his version is a similarly serious take and that Godzilla “will not be doing any highland kicks” before adding jokingly “he does more of a can-can.”

Another rarely-shown movie I had never seen was 1947’s A Matter of Life and Death, conceived by fantasists Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger of The Red Shoes fame. Released and better known in the US as Stairway to Heaven, it stars David Niven as a World War II fighter pilot who bails out of his crashing plane without a parachute and miraculously washes up on a beach alive. But should he be? That is the question debated in Heaven by a celestial tribunal and a number of the pilot’s fallen comrades when Heaven’s projected number of new arrivals comes up one short. Niven, his new girlfriend (Kim Hunter) and a kindly doctor initially doubt the pilot’s sanity when he begins to report visits from a mysterious Frenchman who claims to be Heaven-sent (the campily marvelous Marius Goring, so memorable as the creepy shoemaker in The Red Shoes). Eventually, Niven’s physical health and potentially-premature salvation are put on trial. Powell’s widow, the Oscar-winning film editor and regular Martin Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker, introduced the fest screening and noted this was her husband’s favorite out of all his acclaimed films. Beautifully directed, designed (especially the massive, working escalator that links Heaven and Earth), photographed and acted, A Matter of Life and Death is a must-see for both classic and contemporary film buffs.

As is the case every year at the TCM Classic Film Festival, more great movies are shown (and often simultaneously) over four days than any one person can take in. Thankfully, we have the TCM channel and a growing number of restored classic films on home video to help make up for what fest-goers and those unable to attend missed. Here’s to another twenty years — at least — of TCM!

Reverend’s Ratings:
The Great Gatsby (1949): B
Godzilla: The Japanese Original: B
A Matter of Life and Death: A-

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