Reel Thoughts: ABBA-cadabra!

If you don’t like ABBA, you have Australia to blame for their resurgent popularity. Would the Swedish pop group have had such a comeback without Toni Collette’s marriage-obsessed Muriel’s Wedding and the ABBA-riffic Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? Why, even the Broadway posters for Mamma Mia! were a direct rip-off of Muriel's.

Of course, once it opened, Mamma Mia! became a worldwide sensation, easily one of the best “jukebox musicals” of all time. The reason it succeeds onstage, even in fickle Las Vegas where it has outlived about a half dozen other Broadway imports, is that the wafer-thin story is just framework enough to hang ABBA’s infectious hits. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel like a tired retread of what it’s celebrating, like All Shook Up did.

The film version is extremely exciting, mostly due to its all-star cast and spectacular Greek locations. Opened up and blown up on the big screen, some of what works on stage feels flat on film. The other problem is that now, you really get the chance to hear the lyrics, and it reminds you that English wasn’t really ABBA’s first language. No amount of song selling on Christine Baranski and Julie Walters’ parts will improve the inherent silliness of “Chiquitita”; and much as I adored Meryl Streep’s heartfelt rendition of “The Winner Takes It All”, after the fourth repetition of the same lyrics, you start to feel a little bad for her -- let the poor woman finish the song, already!

The story of Mamma Mia! takes place on a magically beautiful Greek Island where Donna (Streep) is running an inn and preparing for her daughter Sophie’s wedding. Sophie, played with charming sweetness by Amanda Seyfried, is determined to have her father give her away, despite never having met him or even knowing his name. Reading her Mom’s diary, she narrows it down to three men with whom Donna “dot, dot, dotted,” and Sophie invites them all to her wedding. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård play the prospective papas, while Baranski and Walters play Donna’s best friends and former back-up singers (when they were “Donna and the Dynamos”).

The film is set to every ABBA song you’ve ever heard, and a few you haven’t. Donna and Sophie bond while confronting the past, and everyone finds love in one way or another. My favorite thing about the film and show is the way it focuses on the middle-aged women and their supportive friendship. The music may not always be equal to the quality of the people singing it (especially Streep), but everyone is clearly having a ball, and you will, too.

UPDATE: Mamma Mia! is now available on DVD and Blu-rayfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Men on Film: On the Other Hand, Death - A Donald Strachey Mystery

Today, we have a special double feature review for you today of On the Other Hand, Death, directed by Ron Oliver, premiering tonight on here! TV.

Reverend's Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade:

After being subjected to hunky but straight private investigators on TV for decades (perhaps most notably Magnum, P.I.), we finally have our own, openly gay mystery-solver! His name is Donald Strachey, and he's played by hottie Chad Allen (currently on stage opposite Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead in Pasadena Playhouse's Looped). Strachey's latest adventure, On the Other Hand, Death, debuts tonight on here!, American's premium gay television network.

This is actually the third filmed Donald Strachey mystery, after Third Man Out and Shock to the System. A fourth, Ice Blues, will premiere this fall. I haven't seen the previous movies and so was unfamiliar with the character, who is featured in a series of novels by Richard Lipez, under the pen name Richard Stevenson.

The plot of On the Other Hand, Death is pretty standard stuff for the genre: someone is terrorizing homeowners in an effort to get them to sell their lucrative property as part of a big-money scheme. Even Scooby-Doo has covered this territory. What is unique here isn't only that the investigator is openly, unapologetically gay (and is married to his partner, an amusingly buttoned-up New York State Senate staffer played by Sebastian Spence), but the victims are a lesbian couple.

Margot Kidder of Superman fame plays high school guidance counselor Dorothy, and Gabrielle Rose (a veteran of numerous TV series including The L Word and Eureka) plays her longtime companion, Edith. It's always great to see Kidder, although she makes some disappointingly stereotypical choices -- including wearing all-flannel and foregoing make-up -- in playing a "butch" lesbian woman. Rose gives the best, most nuanced performance in the film as a woman hiding a secret from the past.

Consistent with the genre, there are many suspects with secret pasts and motivations. One is a teenager struggling with his sexuality, although he serves more as an opportunity to plug a real-life GLBT organization, the Trevor Project, than as a significant plot device. The Trevor Project is mentioned repeatedly, as is Dorothy's mantra "We don't pick our fights; our fights pick us." As a result, they can't help but come across as heavy-handed.

Still, On the Other Hand, Death provides a great opportunity to snuggle on the sofa with your honey for 90 minutes and realize P.I.s on TV have come a long way since The Rockford Files.



Reel Thoughts by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine:
Out actor Chad Allen probably never expected to be the here! network’s Jessica Fletcher, but then again, the kind of scrapes he gets into would never have happened on Murder, She Wrote. Allen plays Donald Strachey, a happily partnered private eye who upends stereotypes while solving crimes having to do with outing, ex-gay therapy, and now gay hate crimes and the challenges of GLBT teens, especially in conservative small towns.

Strachey’s husband, New York State Senate staffer Tim Callahan (Sebastian Spence), is contacted by an old flame who has returned to Albany to help his old high school counselor. Dorothy, played wonderfully by the wry Margot Kidder, and her terrified partner Edith (Gabrielle Rose) have been plagued by increasingly violent attacks on their farmhouse ever since Dorothy came out.

In addition, Dorothy finds herself having to defend herself from a vicious band of parents who don’t want her advising their children. The film does a nice job of publicizing the Trevor Project, a valuable resource for gay teens who are contemplating suicide. One of the possible suspects in the latest string of hate crimes may be the father of a boy who Dorothy was helping. As Donald delves deeper, however, he finds that some people may stop at nothing if it means putting money in their pocket, even murder.

Allen plays Strachey with a cool demeanor that makes him a great gay character. He’s completely trusting in his husband’s love and fidelity, even as Andrew, the old flame, seems to be stirring the pot romantically, playing them both against each other. Kidder has grown into such a warm, comfortably gruff older woman; she really makes Dorothy both a force to be reckoned with and a person you would want to protect.

The mystery has enough twists and surprises to keep you totally engaged, while the film feels like a rich, satisfying novel brought to life. If you don’t have here!, then watch for the film to come out on DVD later this year.

UPDATE: On the Other Hand, Death is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Reverend's Reviews: No Regrets for No Regret

A few years back, out filmmaker Todd Haynes paid a well-received tribute to the films of Douglas Sirk with his Far from Heaven. Sirk was known for his soapy stories and glossy style, exemplified by such 1950's productions as Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life. Haynes created a picture- and style-perfect replica but with a contemporary, overtly gay sensibility, with Dennis Quaid playing the closeted gay husband of oblivious housewife Julianne Moore.

South Korean writer-director Leesong Hee-il has gone Sirk and Haynes one better with his No Regret. This excellent drama was actually filmed before Brokeback Mountain and the gay-themed The King and the Clown became enormous hits in South Korea and made GLBT topics more palatable there. Now recognized as the first true gay film in Korean Cinema, it is finally being released stateside this Friday in Los Angeles and New York by here! Films/Regent Releasing.

No Regret is, according to production notes, "plotted in a style similar to what has become known as 'hostess movies'--which deal with ambitious young women who come to the big city of Seoul only to end up working as prostitutes." Here, attractive male orphan Sumin (a great performance by straight actor Lee Young-hoon) moves to Seoul immediately following his 18th birthday and mandatory ejection from the orphanage. After losing menial jobs in a factory and restaurant due to his quick temper, he is hired as an exotic dancer at an underground gay club.

Sumin attracts the attention of many, but no one is more smitten by him than Jaemin (popular Korean television actor Lee Han). The son of a Korean conglomerate's wealthy vice-president, Jaemin is secretly gay and engaged to a woman. His falling for Sumin creates all manner of personal and public drama.

Much of No Regret, in true Sirk style, has the main characters denying and/or dancing around their true motivations and feelings. There is also considerable critique of Korean social and class distinctions, which is in keeping with the Sirk tradition. Indeed, director Hee-il is quoted regarding the inspiration behind his film, "Through the love of two men, I wanted to explore the themes of desire and class."

Fortunately, No Regret doesn't end as tragically as many of Sirk's melodramas did. Full of lovely, intimate moments between its various players and providing a unique travelogue of modern South Korea, I recommend No Regret to any adults, GLBT or otherwise, in the mood for a timeless romance.

Watch the No Regret trailer here.

UPDATE: No Regret is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Awards Night

Drag queen Momma, wannabe drag queen Janice Dickinson, and out actors T.R. Knight, Craig Chester and Rex Lee were on hand in Los Angeles last night to present the "Outie" Awards at the official conclusion of Outfest 2008. Here are the winners:

Audience Awards:

• Outstanding US Dramatic Feature: Hamlet 2 (directed and co-written by Andrew Fleming)
• Outstanding Documentary Feature: A Place to Live (directed by Carolyn Coal)
• Outstanding First US Dramatic Feature: Watercolors (directed and written by David Oliveras)
• Outstanding Soundtrack: Hamlet 2 (Rock Me, Sexy Jesus!)
• Outstanding Narrative Short: I'm Jin-Young (directed by Lee Sung Eun)
• Outstanding Documentary Short: La Corona (directed by Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega)

Grand Jury Awards:

• "Heineken Red Star" Award: Were the World Mine (directed by Thomas Gustafson) -- See review below.
• Outstanding International Documentary Feature: Sex Positive (directed by Daryl Wein)
• Outstanding International Dramatic Feature: XXY (directed and written by Lucia Puenzo)
• Outstanding Narrative Short Film: Countertransference (directed by Madeleine Olnek)
• Outstanding Documentary Short Film: La Corona
• Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film: Tye Olson in Watercolors
• Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film: Nicole Bilderback in The New Twenty
• Outstanding Screenwriting: James Bolton for Dream Boy

Special Programming Awards:

• For Freedom: Football Under Cover (directed by Ayat Najafi and David Assmann)
• For Artistic Achievement: Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (directed by Matt Wolf)
• For Emerging Talent: Dave O'Brien, director of Equality U

The awards presentation was immediately followed by the Los Angeles premiere of Were the World Mine. This gay musical riff on all things Shakespeare, but especially A Midsummer Night's Dream, is imperfect but enjoyable. Director/co-writer (with Cory James Krueckeberg) Gustafson actually expanded his previous short film Fairies into this feature. I think the short is the better movie, as the feature becomes heavy-handed in its literalism. But Gustafson assembled a talented young cast -- including Tanner Cohen and Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams -- for the feature and, with a larger budget to play with, made it visually ravishing. (Watch the trailer here.)

Outfest will conclude tonight with the Los Angeles premiere of Tru Loved, a new film by Stewart Wade (Coffee Date). It's a hot ticket and ... I couldn't get one, so this concludes my day-by-day coverage of Outfest 2008. However, many more movies and filmmakers made an impression during the fest than one can adequately survey in a mere week and a half. I'll continue to post reviews and interviews in the weeks and months to come.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Another Gay Sequel

There are only three movies during the course of my lifetime that I've deemed so wretched I walked out of the theater before they ended. The first was Message from Space, a Japanese Star Wars rip-off from 1978. I was only ten years old, but I knew it was crap. The next was The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking in 1988, which I labeled celluloid child abuse.

I just saw the third movie, as much of it as I could bear anyway, last night at Outfest. It is Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild. I made it through most of the movie but had enough when it reached the climactic "Gays Gone Wild" competition orgy, which is no more than an excuse to show people having sex. My partner had bailed from the screening ten minutes earlier, and a number of other attendees departed prematurely with us.

The film is written and directed by the not-untalented Todd Stephens, who made the very good Edge of Seventeen and Gypsy 83 as well as this disaster's predecessor, Another Gay Movie. While I enjoyed the original, a clever GLBT riff on straight teen comedies like Porky's and American Pie, it hardly demanded a sequel.

It was such a hit, though, that every gay business currently in existence seemingly funded the sequel. An additional orgy of product placement runs throughout the movie, with video companies, lubes, condoms, websites, underwear and travel agencies all prominently displayed.

Stephens was on hand to introduce the Outfest screening. To be fair, he told the packed house up front that the film wasn't yet finished, and the need for additional editing and color-correction was evident while watching it. However, the only way Another Gay Sequel could yet end up a good movie would be to destroy the negative/digital master, re-think and re-write the script, re-cast the movie (Stephens should especially reduce blogger Perez Hilton's supporting role into a one-scene cameo, if he is to participate at all), and create something that doesn't offend the same audience it is pandering to.

It isn't just that the film is outrageously graphic in its depiction of sex, bodily functions and even violence. It's that it isn't really a spoof or good-natured satire like Another Gay Movie was, and instead becomes a derogatory depiction of the GLBT community. The sequel features distorted and either heavy-handed or not-very-funny-to-begin-with takes on reality TV competitions, venereal disease, fetishes, Catholicism, penis size, sexual positions and incest. It also claims to endorse monogamous GLBT relationships while simultaneously indulging in three-ways, bathhouse sex and anonymous encounters.

The funniest moment in the film is actually its smartest: a brief, barbed comment that RuPaul (who looks good and manages to emerge from the wreckage around him unscathed) makes about gay people taking over historically black neighborhoods. Oh, how I wish the script had more such moments tinged with truth rather than dominated by caricature.

I don't offend easily but I was offended, obviously, by Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild. If this represents the current high point of GLBT cinema in terms of artistic response to a predecessor's success, the number of companies endorsing it and the wide theatrical release (relatively speaking, for an GLBT film) it will receive later this summer, then it is a definite setback.

UPDATE: Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Gay Muslims & Porn Stars

In the tradition of Trembling Before G-d and For the Bible Tells Me So, which have screened at Outfests past, comes this year's documentary centerpiece of the festival, A Jihad for Love. Those earlier films explored, respectively, Jewish and Christian attitudes toward homosexuality. A Jihad for Love, produced by Sandi DuBowski (who made Trembling Before G-d) and directed by Parvez Sharma, turns the lens on the experiences of GLBT Muslims.

What the film reveals is by turns disturbing, encouraging, horrifying and hopeful. Some Muslim leaders and predominantly-Muslim countries speak unapologetically of their desire to behead, burn, hang or otherwise execute gay men and lesbian women in their midst. They cite a small number of passages in the Qur'an (or Koran) as authorizing such punishment for homosexual behavior. A Jihad for Love partly focuses on the effort of four gay citizens of one hostile country, Iran, to immigrate to Canada.

However, the documentary reveals that other Muslim leaders and countries are more tolerant. They appreciate the spiritual struggle, or jihad, that virtually all GLBT people undergo in reconciling their personhood with their faith. Just as not all Christian or Jewish communities condemn GLBT people, and some openly welcome them, neither do all adherents of Islam.

Watching the powerful A Jihad for Love as a gay American, I couldn't help but be thankful for the considerable acceptance we've found and advances toward equality that have been made in the US as opposed to many other nations, Muslim or otherwise. Globally, we still have a long way to go.

Turning from the sacred to the profane, Outfest also premiered Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon, about 1970's gay porn icon Jack Wrangler. Born into a successful Hollywood family, Wrangler set out to become a legitimate actor. Both attractive and talented, he found himself in demand as a model, which soon led to modeling for gay publications, which then led to appearing in gay adult films. He subsequently became the most popular gay porn star of his time.

But Wrangler's success didn't end with gay porn. He was one of the few openly gay actors to cross over to straight porn and become equally popular. In time, he retired from adult films and became a sought-after theatre actor/director. Most surprisingly, he fell in love with and married a woman, singer Margaret Whiting. He did so without renouncing his homosexuality, which confused and angered more than a few of his fans.

Since Wrangler's film success was before my time, I wasn't familiar with him and so found Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon fascinating as well as entertaining. Well-directed by Jeffrey Schwarz and featuring interviews with both Wrangler and his wife, the film re-enforces the truth that when it comes to sexuality, career success and, most significantly, love, there is little that is black and white.

Watch the trailers here: A Jihand for Love and Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon.

UPDATE: A Jihad for Loveand Wrangler: Anatomy of an Iconare now available on DVD from Amazon.com.

See NSFW pictures of Jack Wrangler in The Back Room.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Loving Otto

I've long had a fascination with zombies. Neither completely dead nor completely alive, they terrify and intrigue in countless ways, consciously and subconsciously. George A. Romero's series of movies about a contemporary attack of the living dead has been going strong for forty years now but I felt his latest, an attempt at a "reboot" entitled Diary of the Dead, was lifeless (pardon the pun).

It's time for a new approach to the zombie mythos, and gay filmmaker Bruce LaBruce (Hustler White, Super 8½) has answered the call with his outrageous Otto; or, Up with Dead People. An official entry at this year's Sundance Film Festival, it also screens this week at Outfest.

Otto (charmingly portrayed by Jey Crisfar), recently risen from the dead, is discovered by underground filmmaker Medea Yarn (the very funny Katharina Klewinghaus). She has been long at work on her magnum opus, a pornographic attack on the political establishment that has defeated past zombie insurrections entitled Up with Dead People. As one character says, "Medea's underground movies put her on the map ... if the underground has a map."

Medea is taken with Otto, even though she refuses to believe he is an actual zombie, and turns her camera on him in an effort to uncover his past. In the process, she details the emergence of "a new wave of gay zombies" which the horrified populace terms "the Purple Peril."

Otto; or Up with Dead People is a movie within a movie within a movie that takes the zombie genre in welcome new directions. It is a clever satire, a sexy gay romance, and a traditionally gory horror flick all at once. There's also a theological critique of the religious right's response to the AIDS crisis thrown in. LaBruce employs what could be termed "zombie vision" and "zombie audio" in what is, to my knowledge, the first cinematic attempt to gain a zombie's literal point of view.

I loved Otto, even though (or perhaps because) it is one of the stranger films to be shown at Outfest this year. It's likely too graphic to receive a wide theatrical release but it definitely has the ingredients to make it a cult success. Something tells me Otto's rise is just beginning. (Watch the NSFW trailer here.)

UPDATE: Otto; or, Up with Dead People is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Reviews: Blast from the Past

As a longtime lover of musical theatre, I own more than a few original cast recordings (on LP, no less) that I treasure. Among them are Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, which my 8th grade teacher introduced me to; Barnum, co-starring a then-unknown Glenn Close; and Li’l Abner, which I had the pleasure of performing in my junior year of high school.

The Drowsy Chaperone, a Broadway hit and multiple-Tony winner now playing in Los Angeles and touring the US, takes its inspiration from the love of musicals and their cast recordings. The show’s central figure, identified only as “Man in Chair” (played in LA by the very funny Jonathan Crombie), narrates for contemporary audiences the plot of his favorite, fictional musical from the 1920’s, The Drowsy Chaperone.

Man in Chair’s one-room apartment, the show’s sole set, is magically transformed as the “original” cast of The Drowsy Chaperone materializes. In true Roaring 20’s style, the musical is a lightweight pastiche involving pending nuptials, Prohibition, vaudeville routines, pioneering woman pilots, and gangsters. The songs are clever and enjoyable, if not particularly memorable, and the choreography by Casey Nicholaw (who also directed) is vivacious.

In addition to Crombie, performers of note among the overall delightful LA cast include Georgia Engel (yes, Georgette from The Mary Tyler Moore Show) as Mrs. Tottendale, which she originated on Broadway; Robert Dorfman as her vodka-swilling Underling; Andrea Chamberlain as the musical’s female lead, Janet Van De Graaff; and the hilarious Nancy Opel as the title character.

The Drowsy Chaperone is easily the second-funniest stage musical I’ve ever seen, after The Producers. But this is the more original show, since The Producers had its origin as a movie. It is a loving valentine to a by-gone era as well as the unique art form known as musical theatre.

It also illustrates how great musicals never die, even if they don’t get performed often, so long as a cast recording exists. Speaking of, at least a few of us are holding out for one for recent Tony nominee (now sadly closed) Cry-Baby. Get on it, John Waters and company!

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Remembering Derek

The late British writer-director Derek Jarman wasn't known for subtlety. Prior to his death in 1994 from AIDS-related complications, he had taken an unapologetically gay, often erotic approach to such historical subjects as Caravaggio, Edward II, William Shakespeare and various queens of England. We should also be grateful to Jarman for highlighting actress Tilda Swinton in nearly all of his films, leading to her current status as a GLBT favorite and recent Oscar winner.

Jarman sparked international controversy with his first feature, Sebastiane. His all-male, nearly all-nude depiction of the final days of early Christian martyr St. Sebastian manages to both titillate and provoke. Sebastiane, originally released in 1976, will be receiving a special screening at Outfest this Saturday night. It is also available on DVDfrom Kino Video.

Little is known about the historical St. Sebastian other than that he was a Roman soldier ultimately put to death for his Christian faith when Christianity was still illegal. Artistic depictions of Sebastian's athletic young body, clad in a minimal loincloth and pierced with arrows, have similarly excited and repulsed the devout for centuries.

Jarman's imagined biography actually caused a riot upon its premiere at an Italian film festival. Religious conservatives were furious that the filmmaker would situate the beloved saint in a homosexual hothouse atmosphere. They seem to have missed the point, however, that Sebastiane (played by truly beautiful Leonardo Treviglio) remains resolute in his faith despite constant abuse and temptation by the fellow soldiers charged with his execution.

Also, while modern filmgoers may be under the impression that Mel Gibson was the first director to make a movie completely in Latin with his 2004 The Passion of the Christ, it was actually Jarman who first did so with Sebastiane. Of course, the anti-gay Gibson likely hasn't seen Jarman's homoerotic historical epic ... or at least hasn't admitted to it.

If you've never seen Sebastiane, I can't recommend it highly enough as both a pioneering work in gay cinema and a serious study of religious faith under persecution. I also recommend his films The Garden and Edward II for the same reasons.

A new documentary about Jarman, simply titled Derek and written by Swinton, is making its debut at Outfest this week. I hope to see it by festival's end.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Trinidad

Who knew that a small, predominantly Catholic town in Colorado is also one of the world's leading providers of gender-reassignment surgeries? Thanks to the new documentary Trinidad, which made its debut Friday night at Outfest, the community is about to become considerably better known.

Since 1969, men who have long felt they were meant to be women and, to a lesser extent, women who've felt they should have been born male have been flocking to Trinidad, Colorado. It was in 1969 that the first such surgery was performed there in, of all places, a Catholic hospital. The doctor who did the surgery (and thousands since then) had to petition the Vatican for permission. The Vatican said yes, which may shock people in light of the Church's current, less-than-supportive climate. The approval wasn't so unusual, though, in the immediate wake of the Second Vatican Council, which ushered in an all too brief period of liberalism in the Catholic Church.

Many of those who have undergone gender-reassignment surgery in Trinidad (the name is Spanish for "Trinity," also interesting to Catholics like myself) have subsequently opted to stay in the town, which has resulted in one of the highest per capita populations of transgender people in the US. While the documentary reveals that not all of the locals are pleased with this, many more of the locals have been supportive and hospitable.

Trinidad, the movie (directed by P.J. Raval and Jay Hodges), succeeds at shedding significant light on a largely unknown true-life subject in an effort to develop greater understanding, as the best documentaries do. It also illustrates how powerfully a community can change lives for the better when the majority of its diverse constituents -- families, businesses, churches, etc. -- are united in that goal. Trinidad inspires, both as a municipality and as a documentary. (Watch a clip from Trinidad here.)

More than 20 documentary features are screening at Outfest this week. I'll have reviews of several of them later this week, including the anticipated A Jihad for Love and Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon.

UPDATE: Trinidad is now available on DVD from Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: A Gorgeous Weekend

Outfest 2008's first weekend is ending with several films drawing attention not only for their storylines but also for their visual style. Clearly, although a GLBT film may have a minimal budget, that doesn't mean it has to be ugly to look at.

Last month, I criticized applying the term "gay surfer movie" to the DVD release Shelter, implying that it risked being identified as the only gay surfer movie out there. Little did I expect another to emerge so quickly! Newcastle is a gorgeous movie, full of gorgeous guys, gorgeous gals, gorgeous Australian beaches, and gorgeous photography. It focuses on three brothers longing for success as competitive surfers, although one of them is secretly, primarily longing for his first gay romance.

During a weekend-long surf trip, secrets are revealed and tragedy strikes. In the wake of these developments, the characters come to better terms with themselves and with one another. Great performances from its teenaged cast, thoughtful writing and direction by first-timer Dan Castle, and Richard Michalak's exceptional cinematography are all commendable. Newcastle is scheduled for theatrical release this October. (Watch the trailer here.)

The Way I See Things is of a decidedly less linear, more metaphysical bent, but is also very good and stylistically noteworthy. The film's quintuple-threat star, Brian Pera (he also wrote, directed, produced and co-edited it), plays Otto, who is still grieving the unexpected death of his partner one year earlier. His friend, Rob (the talented Jonathan Ashford, who also performs multiple roles) kidnaps him and takes him on a road trip in an effort to help Otto get over the loss.

Suffice to say, Rob's plan doesn't work very well. Otto ends up escaping from him and falls in with a quasi-cult. The commune members, intent on their leader's goal to help them "separate the 'I' from the 'me'," take Otto in but also grow increasingly suspicious as to whether he's fully investing himself in the process. But it is also at the commune that Otto falls in love with a member who looks identical to his former partner. Has he been reincarnated? Did he even really die? Has Otto somehow resurrected his partner in order to properly say good-bye? Has Otto lost his mind completely?

To accentuate Otto's journey to potential recovery through the metaphysical, Pera and the film's director of photography, Ryan Parker, utilize both black and white and color photography. Exactly how it applies to each scene and what happens at the end of The Way I See Things are open to debate, but they certainly got the Outfest crowd talking. Pera, who is also a novelist, is a talent to watch. (Clips for the movie can be seen on the movie's MySpace page.)

Finally, The Lost Coast has gained positive notices for its dark, sometimes spooky visual style. It's appropriate, since the story takes place on a Halloween night in San Francisco. I didn't find the film's script as compelling as some, since it depicts the meanderings of some generally directionless twenty-somethings.

Jasper, Mark and Lily have been friends since their days together in high school. Mark still harbors a crush on Jasper, with whom he used to fool around. However, Jasper has since declared his heterosexuality and is about to get married. Before the night is over, Mark seems intent on making Jasper change his mind.

In the meantime, the trio (with another friend they bump into in the Castro) tries to score drugs, goes to the dullest gay party ever, finds a dead body, and confronts various unresolved issues among them. While the performances are good and writer-director Gabriel Fleming also displays talent, The Lost Coast feels a lot longer than its 74-minute running time. (Watch the trailer here.)

UPDATE: The Lost Coastand Newcastleare now available on DVD from Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Mamma Mia!

The must-attend events of day 2 of Outfest 2008 were the back-to-back screenings Thursday night of the film version of Mamma Mia! (opening in theaters July 18). Both screenings packed the Directors Guild theater, and I was there to testify that there's nothing quite like watching an ABBA-inspired musical with 500+ gay boys. The temptation to turn the screening into a sing-along was high but most restrained themselves until the final credits, when Meryl Streep actually encourages the audience to join her, Christine Baranski and Julie Walters in singing "Dancing Queen."

I should confess that I'm no fan of the stage version of Mamma Mia! I saw the original Broadway production and felt ripped off by the jukebox musical's strained, flimsy plot ... and I hadn't even paid for the $100 tickets! However, the movie's cast, trailer and more affordable ticket prices had me looking forward to it.

In a couple of ways, the film is an improvement over the stage version. The plot, centering on a young woman's plan to identify her unknown father out of three candidates she has invited to her wedding on a Greek island, is still strained and flimsy but the screenplay (adapted by Catherine Johnson, who wrote the theatrical book) wisely pares it down to the barest of essentials. The movie's lean, 108-minute running time is definitely preferable to the stage version's 2½ hours. Additionally, the actual Greek locations in the film are breathtaking.

The film's big-name cast is a mixed bag. La Meryl is, as always, fabulous as Donna. She looks great, sings and dances very well, and obviously had a lot of fun. While the story's serious moments are few and far between, Streep invests them with her trademark emotional authenticity. The lovely Amanda Seyfried, who plays Donna's "bastard" daughter Sophie, gives a breakthrough performance. Their wedding-day duet, "Slipping Through My Fingers", is the movie's highlight.

As Donna's former band mates, Baranski is wonderful (especially singing "Does Your Mother Know" to a beach full of hot, shirtless young men) but Walters mugs shamelessly and can't really sing or dance. Her rendition of "Take a Chance on Me" stops the show all right, but not in a good way.

The men -- Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, Colin Firth and Dominic Cooper -- fare a little better, both in terms of their performances and their singing. Firth, in particular, reveals a lovely singing voice. Brosnan's singing voice is odd, often sounding like he is in pain and threatening to become more of a bellow, but he can't be faulted for the earnestness he brings to his songs.

Mamma Mia!, the movie, is weakest in the technical department. The stage version's original director, Phyllida Lloyd, was employed to direct the film and she does so with a relentlessly heavy hand. She either encouraged or allowed nearly every line of every song to be illustrated as graphically as possible with gestures and facial expressions. The cinematography and editing, especially of the dance numbers, are downright awful (with the exception of "Voulez -Vous"), most likely due to Lloyd's apparent inexperience.

While most in attendance clearly enjoyed the screening and applauded vigorously at the end, I didn't share their enthusiasm. It wasn't painful to sit through (although my partner, an ABBA devotee, strongly disagrees) but ends up being a merely OK entry in the growing number of modern movie musicals.

UPDATE: Mamma Mia! is now available on DVD and Blu-rayfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Love My Life

One of the most exciting developments in GLBT cinema the last few years has been the growing number of Asian films dealing with subjects of interest to our community. Countries where the mere mention of homosexuality has historically been taboo -- Japan, China, Korea and Thailand, among others -- are suddenly turning out GLBT movies by the dozens. This is good news not only for reasons of artistic diversity but political and cultural tolerance.

Outfest 2008 is debuting several of the latest productions from Asian filmmakers, including Drifting Flowers, by Spider Lilies writer-director Zero Chou, and The Love of Siam. First up, though, is Koji Kawano’s Love My Life, which is premiering tonight.

Adapted from a popular Japanese manga by Ebine Yamaji, Love My Life is a very good romantic comedy about a teenage lesbian’s coming of age. Its plot and style recalled for me such 1980’s John Hughes comedies as Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink, and its peppy song score by the pop-rock band Noodles cements the comparison.

Ichiko (funny and cute Rei Yoshii) takes her girlfriend, Eri (played by Asami Imajuku), home to meet her widowed father, thereby announcing her homosexuality to him. But Ichiko’s father has a surprising announcement for her: he and her late mother were both gay! Ichiko first struggles to come to terms with this news, and later with Eri’s withdrawal from her. But don’t worry: true to the spirit of Molly Ringwald, everything ends up sunnily for the best.

If you are interested in seeing Love My Life but can’t make it to Los Angeles for Outfest, don’t fret: the film is being released on DVDby Wolfe Video on July 15. Whether you are lesbian or gay, Asian or Latino, its story is, as the best stories always are, universal.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Interview from Outfest: Ready? OK!

My early fave movie being shown at the 26th Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, a.k.a. Outfest, is the perfectly delightful Ready? OK! This GLBT must-see, written and directed by James Vasquez, premieres at Outfest this Friday.

Its plot centers on young Josh, a fifth-grader who desperately wants to join the all-girl cheer squad at his Catholic school. Carrie Preston (who also co-produced the film) plays Josh’s loving but often flummoxed mother, Andy, and Michael Emerson plays their gay neighbor, Charlie. He is so unconditionally supportive of Josh that, when the students are required to dress as their favorite religious figure for Halloween, Charlie makes the boy’s dream costume: Maria Von Trapp!

It amazes me that Emerson and Preston aren’t yet household names, especially in gay circles. Emerson made his mark off-Broadway in 1997-1998, giving an extraordinary performance as Oscar Wilde in the acclaimed Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (which I was privileged to see). Preston, Emerson’s real-life wife, was (around the same time) stealing the show every night in the play Straight-Jacket, as a naïve secretary tricked into marrying a closeted gay actor in 1950’s Hollywood. Preston and Emerson co-starred in the enjoyable 2004 film adaptation of Straight-Jacket, in which the two give more assured and memorable performances than the lead actors did.

Both have made guest appearances over the years in such popular TV series as Law & Order, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, The X-Files and Arrested Development, and Emerson won a 2001 Emmy for his role on The Practice. Preston has had supporting parts in GLBT favorites Transamerica (playing Bree’s/Felicity Huffman’s sister), My Best Friend’s Wedding and the campy remake of The Stepford Wives. They remain the kind of actors whose faces we readily recognize, yet we don’t recall their names.

I believe that’s about to change. Over the last two seasons, Emerson has caused a stir on the hit TV show Lost as Ben Linus, leader of the mysterious Others and chief keeper of the island’s many secrets. And Preston has several high-profile movies awaiting release: Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Duplicity, by Michael Clayton writer-director Tony Gilroy; and the film version of the Broadway smash Doubt, acting alongside Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Preston and Emerson about their work on Ready? OK! But first, let me get a couple of things out of the way for my fellow Lost fans: yes, it was cool and a little creepy to hear the voice of Ben coming through my telephone and, no, he doesn’t know where Ben moved the island to at the climax of the recent season finale.

CC: What drew you both to Ready? OK!?
Preston: James (Vasquez) and I were at Julliard together. When he first started talking about a germ of an idea he had about a little boy who wants to be a cheerleader, I really wanted to develop a character who showed the mother’s/parent’s coming-out process.
Emerson: I’m friends with James and I like his aesthetic, his artistic mission of showing social outsiders but not in a glamorized or sexualized way.

CC: The “gay neighbor” character in movies and on TV has become something of a cliché. Did you have concerns about playing such a role in this film?
Emerson: I liked Charlie’s drollery and humanity. The gay neighbor is a type that’s out there, but I thought Charlie’s peacefulness and quiet centeredness set him apart.

CC: There’s a lovely scene in the film between the two of you, where Charlie is fitting a dress on Andy. Does being married to each other add something different to acting together?
Preston: Yes. James, Michael and I talked a lot about that scene and how it should be the scene where Andy breaks apart. It was made easier and meant much more to play it looking into the eyes of my partner of thirteen years.
Emerson: It did make the scene easier to play and added to my character’s serenity. We know and trust each other. Interestingly, the role of Charlie was bigger and more detailed in earlier drafts of the script, but much of it was deemed excessive and unnecessary as we developed it. It seemed appropriate for the character to become simpler.

CC: The young actor who plays Josh, 10-year old Lurie Poston, is great in Ready? OK! What was it like for each of you to act with him?
Preston: We got really lucky with him. We saw 30-40 boys in Los Angeles and Lurie was really the only choice. He’s really natural and was so easy to work with.
Emerson: You always approach working with children with a little trepidation. A lot of the time, a great performance by a child can be attributed to a great director. But Lurie was so natural and so easy to work with.

CC: You’ve both done a number of GLBT-oriented projects. Is this an area or audience of particular interest to you? What draws you to such films and plays?
Preston: For me, I feel that these are the stories that are still finding their way to the screen and to a general audience. With our production company, Daisy 3, we are trying to make movies you can show to parents and others who aren’t LGBT themselves.
Emerson: It just happens to have worked out that way with the roles I find interesting and my artistic circle. And it might be that my “skill set” inclines me toward roles where I kind of float along or play characters who skirt gender norms and expectations. I also love to play comedy, and parts where I have a few comedic zingers as in such films as Straight-Jacket and Ready? OK!

CC: Does either or both of you have a particular message you’d like to send to the GLBT community?
Preston: Try not to label anybody, whether in terms of sexual orientation, politics, et cetera. In this film, Josh simply is, and it falls to his mother to accept him for who he is.
Emerson: I’d just like everybody to try to break formulas and formulaic thinking. There’s too much of that out there.

CC: What are your plans for Ready? OK! beyond Outfest?
Preston: We are in talks with distributors regarding a potential theatrical release, but we don’t have delusions of grandeur because it is a small film. At the very least, it will get a DVD release.

So, dear readers, get ready for Ready? OK! (watch the trailer here), in theaters and/or on DVD soon.

UPDATE: Ready? OK! is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Reviews: Getting Looped With Tallulah

One of the more colorful figures inhabiting mid-20th century Hollywood was actress Tallulah Bankhead. Although she had devolved into a camp figure by the time of her death at the age of 66 and is best known to my generation for her maligned final film, Die, Die, My Darling (as well as her wicked Black Widow on the Batman TV series), she had considerable early success as a stage actress in New York City, shooting to stardom in the original Broadway production of The Little Foxes.

A new world premiere play, Looped (now playing at the Pasadena Playhouse), triumphantly raises Ms. Bankhead from the dead. Written by Matthew Lombardo (who also wrote Tea at Five, about the late Katharine Hepburn), it stars Valerie Harper as Tallulah and Chad Allen as Danny, a "boring as Tupperware" studio suit charged with having the late, drunk and high actress re-record one line of dialogue for Die, Die, My Darling. What would ordinarily take about five minutes became, in real life, an eight-hour ordeal that Lombardo re-imagines as a truth-telling encounter between the star and her horrified, closeted handler.

Hilarious lines and Bankhead quotes come fast and furious in the play's first act. The second act is more serious and, at times, heavy on psychobabble in an attempt to explain the monkeys on both Tallulah's and Danny's backs. All in all, though, Looped is a revelatory play and an entertaining night at the theatre.

Harper is wonderful as Bankhead, creating a real woman and not a mere caricature. She is particularly extraordinary at two points in the play when she, as Bankhead, plays Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (Williams wrote the part with Bankhead in mind but she rejected the role when it was initially offered to her, much to her later regret). Harper-as-Bankhead-as-Blanche was riveting, and you could hear a pin drop in the audience.

Allen's Danny starts out timid, appropriately so, but emerges as a strong foil for Harper's Bankhead. That they go from nearly ripping each other's throats out to drinking buddies by the play's end seems utterly plausible. Rob Ruggiero's direction is taut, and Adrian W. Jones sound-recording room that occasionally morphs (with the help of Michael Gilliam's lighting) into a Southern plantation is ingenious.

I foresee Looped having a long life and, in all likelihood, moving to Broadway, but southern California residents only have until August 3rd to catch its world premiere in Pasadena. As Tallulah might well say, "Run, don't walk, daaa-lings!"

UPDATE: Looped is now heading to Broadway.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Reviews: Holding Trevor? Let Go!

The press notes for Holding Trevor, which will be released tomorrow in LA and NYC by Regent Releasing, describe it as "a sort of Reality Bites from the vantage point of a young gay protagonist." The description is accurate insofar as the title character (played by Brent Gorski, who also wrote the screenplay) is young and gay, and the film does, unfortunately, bite.

Set in current day Los Angeles, Trevor is trying to end things with his junkie boyfriend (well-played by Christopher Wyllie, despite having little to work with beside his character's addiction); trying to put up with his cynical and irritating best friends, Jake (Jay Brannan, who was much better as Ceth in Shortbus) and Andie (Melissa Searing); and trying to start a new relationship with Ephram (Eli Kranski, who gives the film's best performance).

That's it, and I don't mean in a nutshell. That's the entire plot of the movie. There are a few funny lines and one serious, if predictable, story development with one of the characters, but it isn't enough material to justify the 90-minute running time. The characters simply aren't interesting enough. Neither is Rosser Goodman's direction nor Kara Stephens' cinematography, which emphasizes close-ups of the actors that often make Gorski appear he has lockjaw and Kranski look cross-eyed.

There are a few good songs on the soundtrack, but better to buy the CD if it's available than sit through the actual film. This is Gorski's first screenplay, and I appreciate his stated desire to make an unpretentious gay-themed film. Try as I might, though, I couldn't hold Trevor and his associates in my heart.

UPDATE: Holding Trevor is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Toon Talk: Love as a Mostly Robotic Thing

Save for a few romantic subplots here and there, love stories have not exactly been at the forefront in the Pixar feature film canon. The “boys’ club” at the Lamp have been more naturally drawn to the “buddy film” concept more often then not, from Buzz and Woody all the way up to Remy and Linguini. Perhaps being absorbed into the Disney family -- known for their fairy tale “happily ever afters” after all -- has rubbed off on them, for if Pixar’s latest computer animated crowd pleaser WALL-E is anything, it’s a love story.

Told with a gentle hand and a big ol’ heart on its sleeve, WALL-E is yet another homerun for the animation powerhouse, proving yet again that no one (not even their parent company) comes close to creating films in their chosen art form quite like they do these days.

Click here to continue reading my Toon Talk review of WALL-E at LaughingPlace.com.

UPDATE: WALL-E is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Reel Thoughts: Stuck You

If you’re looking for a creepy, affecting suspense movie and The Happening’s just not happening for you (with good reason), check out the tabloid-riffic film Stuck. Based on a real event that occurred in Fort Worth, Texas, Stuck tells the terrible tale of what happens when a basically good but weak-willed woman (Mena Suvari, in scary cornrows) hits a downtrodden homeless man (Stephen Rea of The Crying Game).

Over-the-top horror director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) follows the trend of David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises) and Wes Craven (Red Eye) in directing more mature projects, while still maintaining his wicked sense of humor.

Suvari plays Brandi, an ambitious working class nursing home attendant. Her nasty supervisor (played by Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, the director’s wife) dangles a promotion in front of her, but when Brandi drunkenly plows into a homeless man named Tom (Rea), she makes a horrible decision. Tom is stuck in her windshield, but rather than call an ambulance, Brandi leaves him in her garage to die, hoping to dispose of his body. Tom comes to, only to realize that he needs to free himself or be killed off.

Stuck’s lurid premise is elevated by its intelligent examination of the various conditions and events that shape each person. Brandi is not evil, but her self-preservation instinct is definitely out of whack. Tom, on the other hand, is the product of our sinking economy, a scary reminder that anyone can become homeless (but hopefully not wedged in some crazy girl’s windshield). Stuck is a well-paced suspense film with depth, disguised as an exploitation flick.

UPDATE: Stuck is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: It's M. Night Shyamalan's Happening and I'm Not Freaking Out

The best thing I can say about The Happening is that I never saw director M. Night Shyamalan in one of his increasingly obnoxious "performances" in his latest film. It’s a cautionary tale about an attack on the Northeast US of unknown origin. Is it a neurotoxin like Sarin gas launched by terrorists? Is it an isolated event in New York City? Or is it something more primal? Whatever the case, it seems to make people kill themselves. It’s an interesting premise, but like most of Shyamalan’s later work, it’s marred by bursts of pretentiousness, bad acting and irrational plotting.

The opening feels like a direct rip-off of the chilling first chapter of Stephen King’s novel Cell -- a peaceful morning in Central Park turns deadly. Mark Wahlberg is miscast as a sensitive high school science teacher who flees Philadelphia with his wife (Zooey Deschanel), friend (John Leguizamo), and his friend’s young daughter. As the attacks increase, the film plays like a low-wattage War of the Worlds, from which it borrows liberally.

To be fair, Shyamalan crafts some shocking and satisfyingly creepy scenes, including a gruesome discovery in Princeton, NJ (which feels lifted from The Sixth Sense), and the viewing of a cell phone video taken at the Philadelphia Zoo (which echoes a similar scene from Signs). The biggest reason The Happening fails is because, in this paranoid post-9/11, Inconvenient Truth-informed era, the response to this threat from people and the authorities is completely unrealistic. People would react as if a "dirty bomb" had been dropped, barricading themselves in large shelters and fleeing in panic, like in the films Cloverfield, I Am Legend, The Mist and the flawed-but-intense Right at Your Door, which were all much better at showing an unstoppable menace.

You have to wonder if Shyamalan even knows human beings -- his dialogue and the performances he draws from Wahlberg and Deschanel feel like something a vaguely humanoid alien would create with limited interaction with the race. The truly spooky sequences make me sad that the film’s not better. The Happening is better than Lady in the Water, but only in the same way that the Hindenburg disaster was better than the Titanic.

UPDATE: The Happening is now avaiable on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: Missed It By That Much

Like a lot of films "based on TV shows", Get Smart can stand on its own as a spy spoof, but not so well as a remake of the original. While I loved Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, they weren’t Agents 86 and 99, unless they reused the numbers at CONTROL.

Set in the present day, but acknowledging the original show by way of a display at the Smithsonian of Cold War-era artifacts, Get Smart is almost more like a Mission: Impossible parody with passing references to the Don Adams comedy. Carell’s Maxwell Smart is, well, smart, but also a crack analyst for CONTROL. Hathaway’s 99 is a butt-kicking super-agent who has no time for a klutz like Max. Of course, they end up paired together on a desperate mission to save the U.S. from nuclear attack.

James Caan shows up as a Southern doofus of a President not unlike Dubya, while other characters from the original show are re-imagined (Bill Murray, Bernie Koppel, Patrick Warburton, etc.). Duane “The Rock” Johnson is sexy and fun as superstud Agent 23, displaying some good comic timing. Alan Arkin is great as the Chief, but it’s really Carell’s show, and he’s pretty hilarious throughout.

The film drags a bit, but at least Terrance Stamp is on hand as an evil KAOS mastermind. His deadpan delivery is priceless. Get Smart is not the smartest comedy of the summer, but it’s a worthwhile distraction from the burning heat.

UPDATE: Get Smart is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.