Reverend's Reviews: Love Bites

The latest entry in the Twilight vampire saga, Breaking Dawn, Part 1, is currently burning up the box office. But despite the involvement of an openly gay director, Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls), the blockbuster is disappointingly low on gay content. And no, Taylor Lautner's frequent shirtlessness doesn't count.

If it's gay vampires one is after, look no further than Bite Marks. It is newly available on DVDfrom QC Cinema. While I wish I could report Bite Marks was as expertly made and lavishly produced as Breaking Dawn, first-time director Mark Bessenger gets some points for his use of slapstick and adding a new twist or two to a pretty tired genre.

Benjamin Lutz (easy on the eyes if not the best actor) stars as a sexually confused trucker hired to transport a shipment of coffins. Along the way, he picks up a pair of gay hitchhiker-boyfriends played by Windham Beacham and sexy former porn star David Alanson. The three soon discover that the truck's hold is full of bloodsuckers, who break free and go after them.

Gay actor Stephen Geoffreys, who memorably played a newly-turned vampire in the 1985 version of Fright Night, has a fun cameo in Bite Marks but the cast's performances are otherwise pretty weak. Despite a promising, animated opening titles sequence and a very good music score by Rossano Galante, the movie is recommended only for die-hard fans of "creatures of the night."

Love and death often go hand in hand, at least at the movies. The Tree is a beautiful Australian family drama that illustrates this expertly. The film was released on DVDNovember 15 following a theatrical run earlier this year. It could well end up on my top ten list for 2011. Charlotte Gainsbourg (who can currently be seen on the big screen as Kirsten Dunst's sister in Melancholia) stars as a wife grieving the sudden death of her husband. While her performance is excellent, the real focus here is on the young actors playing her four children. Precocious, eight-year old daughter Simone (played by charming newcomer Morgana Davies) becomes convinced her late father is speaking to her via the massive fig tree next to the family's home, and she soon convinces her mother of this as well.

The Tree takes a metaphysical approach to be sure (it is adapted from an amusingly-titled book, Our Father Who Art in the Tree), but it really scores in capturing the various experiences and stages of grief. While observant screenwriter-director Julie Bertuccelli (Since Otar Left) explores how we can ascribe meaning to seemingly random events in the wake of a loved one's death, she doesn't rule out the possibility that our loved ones can indeed communicate with us from the other side. Also to Bertuccelli's credit, there isn't a single sentimental moment in The Tree. This is rarely the case in movies dealing with children and death, likely including the upcoming Hugo and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Meanwhile, if you are looking for the perfect holiday gift for a gay friend or classic-film lover, the new home video release everyone will appreciate finding under their tree this year is the Oscar-winning musical classic West Side Story, on Blu-rayfor the first time. The film was restored earlier this year to commemorate its 50th anniversary, and the results are even more stunning in high definition. Sing along to Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein's memorable score, marvel at Jerome Robbins' choreography, and weep with your main squeeze at the end of this 1950's street-gang adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Nothing says "Happy Holidays" better than that.

Reverend's Ratings:
Bite Marks: C-
The Tree: A
West Side Story: A

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Reverend's Reviews: Cheer Desperation

It will probably surprise no one to learn that Bring It On: The Musical, as a piece of theatre inspired by a pre-existing work, is no My Fair Lady. Heck, it doesn't even rank with Legally Blonde: The Musical in terms of quality. The cavalcade of hit movies being adapted for the stage rolls on with this multi-million dollar cheerleader tuner, now playing at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles through December 10th before embarking on a national tour.

The 2000 movie Bring It On was an unexpectedly well-written sleeper hit about dueling cheer squads from opposite sides of the socio-ethnic tracks. It made a star of Kirsten Dunst and helped launch the careers of actors Gabrielle Union, Eliza Dushku, Jesse Bradford and director Peyton Reed (Down With Love). Amusingly campy, it introduced such terms as "spirit fingers" and "cheer-tatorship" to viewers of the time.

Alas, there are few such references to be found in the generally way-too-serious Bring It On: The Musical. While it features an increasingly-unhinged novice cheerleader (a game Elle McLemore) out to demote squad leader Campbell (Taylor Louderman) in an obvious spin on the cinema classic All About Eve as well as a transgender character (Gregory Haney as the sassy La Cienega), the stage version features little of the knowing wit that made its film source memorable.

Of course, a musical is ultimately made or broken by its songs, and the score is where Bring It On: The Musical falls short most significantly. Tony Award winners Tom Kitt (Next to Normal) and Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights) composed the serviceable, hip-hop heavy music, but the lyrics by Miranda and Amanda Green (High Fidelity) are more often than not just plain awful. The few good numbers -- opener "What I Was Born to Do," Act 1 closer "Bring It On" and the 11th hour "Cross the Line" -- may be more memorable for their gymnastic staging than their words, but at least they didn't make me cringe as so many other songs did. And as much as the musical's core audience will probably be 15-year old girls, the lyrics and dialogue penned by Avenue Q's Jeff Whitty contain enough mentions of "stiffies" and even cruder terms for female genitalia that parents should beware.

There is a palpable air of desperation around Bring It On: The Musical. It's producers are desperate for a hit, director-choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler (also a veteran of In the Heights) seems desperate to prove he can helm a production and not just stage its musical numbers, and Kitt, Miranda and Whitty may all be anxious to show they are still hip after achieving theatrical respectability. The show needs less desperation and, as any cheerleader will surely agree, more spirit.

Reverend's Rating: C-

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Reverend's Reviews: A Harvest of New Releases

Beginners, last summer's hit starring Christopher Plummer as an older gay man who comes out to his unsuspecting son (Ewan McGregor), may be this month's highest-profile GLBT release on home video (November 15) but at least two other new DVDs command attention as well.

Out Late (now availablefrom First Run Features) serves as a fascinating documentary companion piece to Beginners. Declared "brilliant" by Phil Donahue, it profiles five men and women who came out as either gay, lesbian or transgender between the ages of 57-79. Their stories vividly illustrate how much cultural attitudes around GLBT issues have progressed since the 1950's. In the case of one participant, however, Out Late shows how far we still have to go regarding marriage equality. Cathy and her partner live in Kansas next door to a straight couple with whom they have been best friends for over 20 years. Sadly, Cathy's neighbors don't support a right for civil marriage for GLBT couples. That the couples remain friends, though, is inspiring, as are all the journeys recounted here. Out Late, co-directed by Beatrice Alda and Jennifer Brooke, is not to be missed.

At the opposite end of the age spectrum, Harvest (being released on DVDNovember 15 by TLA Releasing) beautifully details the coming of age of two young German men. Benjamin Cantu's gay drama won the Audience Award at this year's Berlin Film Festival. Blonde, insecure Marko (Lukas Steltner) meets the darker, more comfortable-in-his-shoes Jakob (Kai-Michael Muller) at the cattle farm where they are both working summer internships. They gradually realize there is more to learn about than birthing cows and harvesting carrots; namely, their growing attraction to one another.

Cantu and director of photography Alexander Gheorghiu take a naturalistic, almost lyrical approach to their story. While the lead actors are undeniably attractive, I appreciated the fact that there is no nudity or graphic sex shown. Rather, the focus is more often than not on the silences and unnoticed glances between the two. Harvest's nice, subdued but romantic ending works perfectly in light of the film's overall tone.

Meanwhile, another gay-interest November release, Phantom Images (also out on on DVDthe 15th courtesy of Ariztical Entertainment), is a woefully self-important tale about a terminally-ill theatre director coming to terms with his past. High on pain medication, alcohol and regret, Darwin King (played flatly by Rob Moretti) reminisces about his past using the actors of his latest project as stand-ins. Matthew Doyle's screenplay features occasional flashes of insight, such as when King exclaims "the highjacking of the gay movement came when we chose emulation (of straight people) instead of assimilation," but they are rare indeed.

One should probably beware in general of a movie that opens with a quote by Albert Camus and ends with another by Jean-Paul Sartre. Existentialism can too easily become pretentious in the wrong hands. Phantom Images can't help but evoke Lars von Trier's provocative 2003 film Dogville, as both are played out on black box stages with minimal scenery. While Dogville often threatened to cross the line into pretentiousness, it never did thanks to the quality of the writing and acting by such pros as Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall and James Caan. Doyle's cast is not untalented, and the several African-American actors involved make a particularly strong impression, but the material ultimately fails them as well as the audience.

Reverend's Ratings:
Out Late: A
Harvest: B+
Phantom Images: D

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Reverend's Reviews: Best of AFI Fest 2011

Though my time at this year's AFI Fest presented by Audi (which ran November 3-10 in Los Angeles) was cut short by the untimely death of a close friend that required me to travel, I was able to see what are shaping up to be several of this year's major awards contenders. I missed screenings of a few other ballyhooed upcoming releases including Shame, My Week with Marilyn and Luc Besson's The Lady, but the following gems I was able to catch at their LA premieres were more than satisfying.

Carnage: I despised the Broadway/LA production of the award-winning play, God of Carnage, upon which Roman Polanski's star-studded movie is based and approached it with trepidation. Imagine my surprise, then, to find the film a vast improvement over its source material. The movie is tighter (it runs a lean 80 minutes), less literal/pretentious in its staging, and -- most importantly for a comedy -- funnier. Polanski wisely adds an opening depiction of the playground violence that instigates the initially-civilized meeting of two sets of parents played by Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz (a particular standout) and Kate Winslet, as well as a delightful denouement featuring a much-discussed hamster. Carnage is scheduled for release in LA and New York on December 16 and will expand nationally in January.

Melancholia: From controversial writer-director Lars Von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Antichrist) comes what is probably his most hopeful film to date, despite the fact it culminates in the apocalypse. Kirsten Dunst, who was honored as Best Actress at this year's Cannes Film Festival for her performance here, stars as a woman suffering from clinical depression so inconsolably that not even her lavish wedding to True Blood's Alexander Skarsgaard brings relief. She does however find an unusually comforting emotional (and possibly even sexual) connection to a recently discovered planet, Melancholia, that may be on a collision course with Earth. Von Trier employs an all-star cast (including Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt and a chilling Charlotte Rampling), evocative imagery and Wagner's prelude to his opera Tristan und Isolde to spectacular, haunting effect. The movie is now playing in Los Angeles and is available through Video on Demand, although it should be seen on the big screen to be fully appreciated.

We Need to Talk About Kevin: The fearless Tilda Swinton plays grieving, persecuted mother to a teenaged son who slaughtered several schoolmates in Lynne Ramsay's superbly crafted, deeply unsettling adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel. A Bad Seed for the 21st century, it raises provocative questions about nature vs. nurture when it comes to the development of sociopathic children. As Swinton said at a post-screening Q&A session, We Need to Talk About Kevin is "the play Euripides didn't have the balls to write." I consider Swinton a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination as the searching Eva, with her fellow nominees likely to include Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs, Viola Davis in The Help, and either Kiera Knightley in A Dangerous Method or Dunst. Swinton's co-star Ezra Miller is also a potential nominee for his frightening performance as Kevin. The film will open theatrically in December.

The final day of AFI Fest 2011 featured the North American premiere of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's motion-capture epic, The Adventures of Tintin, as well as award presentations. The Audience Award for best film in the festival's Breakthrough section went to the lesbian-themed With Every Heartbeat, which I reviewed here last week. It is encouraging to see many mainstream film festivals this year honoring GLBT films, with Weekend serving as another example. Our congratulations go out to Alexandra-Therese Keining, writer-director of With Every Heartbeat, and all the filmmakers spotlighted at this year's AFI Fest.

Reverend's Ratings:
Carnage: A-
Melancholia: B+
We Need to Talk About Kevin: A-

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.