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Reviews
The Sweetest Thing (2002)
Good light comedy from the women's side
If you like easy comedy and very bawdy humor, I recommend The Sweetest Thing. It's actually not that far off from The Wedding Crashers except, like I mentioned, it's definitely the ladies' point of view! It's nice to see more of the women's side of things; not unlike SATC, with similar spirit to "Sex..." as well.
I like that every San Fran stereotype (and real-type) is represented in the film, and the city herself is pretty nicely shown off (which I love - my fave city). Like "Sex...", the city is an oblique character in The Sweetest Thing. It definitely speaks to everyone's ease with being sexual and bawdy and campy at the drop of a hat (helpful words towards deciding if it'll be your cup-of-tea). Basically, if that stick's still up you're u-no-what from u-no-when, this one's not for you!
BTW, I highly recommend the "Unrated" version over the theatrical; nothing worse than having a character say or do something where the two-second money shot or the actual swear-word, etc. they're working up to is cut out at the last moment - HATE that. This way, if they're talking about penis, they're going to SAY penis (and a few other descriptives).
Definitely, if you've been to San Francisco and loved your time there, you'll get a kick out of The Sweetest Thing. Just be up for a flick that doesn't waste more than 30 seconds taking itself seriously, and you'll especially enjoy the extra musical number thrown in, known lovingly as "The Penis Song"! (this too is a helpful determinate in deciding to see it). Nuf said. Peace.
Brother to Brother (2004)
Best of the Fest! An amazing, powerful, and engaging film
"Brother to Brother" just won the two most coveted awards at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival - otherwise known as Outfest. The Audience Award for Best Feature and the Jury Prize for Best Feature! And I was one of over a thousand queerfolk who voted them into the first award. This film is amazing!
The Harlem Renaissance was a seminal period in African American history; one that can be seen to have repercussions through to Stonewall and beyond. Sadly, it was one of the only times in our history where African American queers and other "outcasts" created and published their own voices for the world to see, read, and hear. And hear it they did.
Some of the most powerful and important queer poetry and prose were written during this time by the likes of the incredible Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, and of course, Bruce Nugent; one of the main characters in this story.
Over the course of befriending Perry, a present-day artist/student trying to find his own voice in the world, Bruce recounts some of his own history with his radical, groundbreaking friends.
The film is exquisitely composed. The music created for "Brother to Brother" is eloquent and evocative and perfectly reflects and tints the images and perspectives within the story. Organic timing creates an engaging flow of story and character which passes back and forth from past to present and back; revealing at once how much and how little has changed over the last 80 years of Black (and queer) history.
All in all, this film ends as handsome Perry begins to find a clearer path for himself in the world. It ultimately gives us much of value that is even more than the sum of its respective parts. Most importantly, it shows us ourselves - beautiful, flawed, real human beings who seek nothing more than to have a voice, to give and receive love, and to make life as good as it can be.
This is one film which fully deserves its place in movie theaters and in DVD collections.
Carrie (2002)
TELLING A GREAT STORY WELL... FINALLY
In 1976, a classic psycho-horror film was released that began or enhanced a number of Hollywood stars' careers. But the film hasn't aged all that well over the years.
Now, don't get me wrong. All the actors do a great job; all the film work and production design is firstrate. But this is a story about the daughter of a religious zealot who has almost occult powers of telekinesis, and that from the day she's born. In 1976, without the help of computers, the filmmakers had to do the best they could to give the illusion of fidelity to Stephen King's book without really being able to be truthful to the supernatural (for lack of a better term) happenings within that story.
Now, finally, technology has caught up to this great story exploring kids' inhumanity to kids. We can become fully immersed in this girl's world, and in her special abilities. We get to see all of them instead of just the most basic ones at the climax. And they're done incredibly well; you really believe this girl is doing all this with her mind.
That's one other problem with the original - as great as it is, none of the actors portraying these high school kids were anywhere near high school age when the film was made. This longer version is more true to the original intent of the story for many reasons; one of the most important is by having the kids portrayed by teenage actors.
And you get a much more complex perspective of the mother and the relationship between Carrie and Margaret. And the updating of the story works beautifully; it's all much more believable and true-to-life. Just watch the scene at the pig farm. That Billy Nolan is damned scary. You would not want to be caught up in a fight with this guy.
All this to say that there's nothing more refreshing than telling a great story well; telling it with as much respect for the source materials as possible while still making the story work for the particular medium and the particular time. Personally, I always thought it was an old-fashioned, cliched cop-out to have Carrie have to die at the end. It's much more realistic and interesting if she has to find some way to go on living with all that she's done - that's a much worse punishment than simply being executed by the storytellers. All in all, a great new version of this terrific, scary story.
Gohatto (1999)
An Exquisite travelogue to another place, time, and culture
Nagisa Oshima's work is always visually exquisite. He has that finely honed, generations-old Japanese eye for detail which has served his artistry well over the last 50 years. It reveals itself to be the difference in the world of film that a Monet, Michelangelo, or Van Gogh is to sidewalk chalk drawings.
Decades ago, Oshima set out explore new territories, to leave formula and standard, approved plot progressions behind and delve into the deeper recesses of the human experience. What comes out of that are works of storytelling which require more attention and involvement on the part of the viewer than your typical Michael Bay or Renny Harlin flick. Not that pure escapist entertainment is a bad thing; far from it. But you don't generally come away from one of those features wanting to go sit at a table with your friends, staying up to the wee hours discussing what you've just seen and all the ramifications of each scene. In simpler terms, they don't enrich your intellect! (I think even Bay?s and Harlin?s most ardent fans can agree with me on that part :-) ).
"Gohatto" is the Japanese word meaning "Taboo" in its simplest form, so you know going in your about to see something out of the ordinary. Oshima has long had a fascination with the dichotomies in Japanese culture (and frankly most cultures) between how behavior is proscribed and how the more primal, instinctual urges (mostly sex) always find their way to the surface in spite of those mores. Oshima has also found a fascination in seeing how both Western and Eastern cultures have, at one time or another (or more than one), put strict moral taboos on homosexuality, adultery, and even on prostitution, but these strictures have never eliminated or even slowed down their existence.
"Gohatto" takes us into a world 150 years ago where such things don't exist on the surface but are fully integrated into what is real life just beneath. Whether such subject matter, or exploring Eastern cultures, particularly interests you or not, if you're interested in being challenged by the art that you see, "Gohatto" (like Peter Greenaway's recent "The Pillow Book") is a must-see film.
Dune (2000)
LIKE TRYING TO SHOW A COOL, AFTERNOON SEABREEZE
Most everyone commenting on this miniseries is either comparing it to the 1984 version or to the monumental written achievement on which it's originally based. Of course, how can we not! I found myself comparing scenes with the '84 film often. But then I had to remember that you can't tell the same story the same way twice - it's impossible (check out the second film version of "Psycho"!!) and it would be meaningless to do so. Even were one able to be more faithful to the book than this (which I don't believe is possible), why would you want to see it. It's like trying to show a cool afternoon seabreeze to someone who's never known wind. You have to experience it yourself.
For those of us who started off with the book, nothing can compare to the imagery created by Frank Herbert. We have visions in our minds of every single thread of cloth, every chair, every ship, etc. that is encompassed in that masterwork (yeah, I like it!). For those who's introduction was in a 1984 movie theatre, sorry about that and more power to you. While some scenes (NOT the Planet Harkonnen scenes) were incredibly faithful to the book, both in structure and in dialogue, as you moved further and further into the story, Lynch just went off the deep end and the event film of 1984 became something more akin to a showoff session for an "Eraserhead" with financial backing.
But either way, most of us are coming to the story with preconceptions, and strong ones. If you've ever made a film, you know about the intensity, the incredible passion, and downright hard work that goes into making even a moderate, decent film; let alone a masterpiece. Part of that passion is in trying to give reverance to the source material while creating something more visually oriented out of it. You HAVE to do this, otherwise you'll lose at least half your audience.
My opinion is that Harrison succeeded admirably. While loosening up dialogue and location a bit, John instead focused much more on the point of it all; where the story is taking you. The very thing that Lynch left out back in 1984. Herbert was trying to hold up a mirror to our culture at an incredibly tumultuous time (1965), where new things called computers were becoming commonplace in business and college campuses for the first time in history, where secret agencies and agendas were reshaping the world around itself without permission, where human beings were, almost for the first time, experimenting with there own existence beyond what was considered acceptable norms of the day; and where wars without consent were threatening our idealized self-perception as a nation and as a culture.
At the same time, he just wanted to tell a good story, using his very healthy imagination to take the reader somewhere they'd never been before! How many of us can say we've done that, even if we do write or make movies. And within that storytelling, Herbert delved into a wonderful exploration of the possibilities of humanity - what our descendants might be capable of should they survive another 8,000 years.
Might we someday be capable of telepathy, of mind-control, of self-transmutation (deciding the sex and genetic makeup of our offspring, changing poison into nonpoison), of mutating with another species to become something more on the other side? Some of this might sound familiar - Gene Roddenberry was trying for many of the same ideas with his stories, only WITH technology's help rather than without it.
DUNE offered Herbert, and all of us as readers, the opportunity to explore the benefits, consequences, and psychological ramifications of such evolutionary advances, all while at the same time reaching into that most personal and primal of collective consciousnesses: religion.
In the form of a boy/man who may be the messiah, Herbert weaves an intensely intriguing path of self-reflection on every religious issue and ideology humans have ever come up with, all while leaving whatever answers there are to the individual reader.
John Harrison knew enough of the marketing needs of a film to marry those needs with his respect for the source material. While veering off here or there in the letter of the work, he deftly, and I think wisely, gets to the heart of what Herbert was after - our spiritual nature, our need to believe in something greater than ourselves, and our desperate desire to connect with those around us at these deeper levels of being. While not pure to the novel, this film of Dune is a wonderful mental ride which will take you to some interesting places if you let it. And after all is said and done, isn't that what we're all really looking for, no matter the source?
Billy Elliot (2000)
Someone's been watching us...
As I watched the lights come back up in the theatre after the last roll of end credits, I couldn't help but imagine that the person who had written "Billy Elliot" had been spying on my life. But not my life, really. More like my emotions, my feelings about the experiences of my life.
Of course it's clear that I'm not the only one who's had feelings like that coming away from this great film. "Billy Elliot" is a film which inhabits truth, breathes it; and life exudes from it. Black or white, man or woman, straight, gay, or in between, we all carry our own personal moments of pain, joy, peace, and terror; we all know the truth of living in this world.
While there are terms for movies which connect with those memories, those truths, "Billy Elliot" transcends all attempts to define it or pigeonhole it, or denigrate it. You can laugh at it, at those many women and men who made it, at those who love it, but you cannot lessen the truth of it by calling it a "chick flick" or "heartwarming" or "fantasy" or any other label people might wish to inflict on it. The film does have elements of all those things, but it's value as fictional truth gives it weight beyond such simple labels.
If you go see "Billy Elliot" with even the slightest desire to be more than entertained, holding the possibility that you might see a small reflection of yourself, you will leave feeling empowered in the truth and worth of your own existence; that all too occasional feeling that you are special.
Because, of course, the truth is, as ordinary as we all are, there is only one of each of us. Just as important though, "Billy Elliot" might for one short moment in your life remind you that the world isn't always 6 billion individuals but, for precious moments, is a place where we are all one and the same.
Punks (2000)
ONE OF THE MOST HONEST PORTRAYALS OF QUEER MEN OF COLOR
"PUNKS" is a great little flick done on a fairly shoestring budget. It's not perfectly polished; it's not full of visual effects or innovative camera tricks; but what it does have plenty of is Character! Character and Charisma; enough to go around a few times!
These guys may not be to everyone's taste, but if you give them a chance, you'll see yourself at some point in someone in this film, and that's what movies are about, after all, right?! Seeing the truth of your own life...
Being gay in this society is tough; being gay and a person of color just compounds every aspect of living freely and truly. "Punks" has truth from start to finish, truth that affirms all of our lives and revels in our uniqueness amongst one another. Even if you don't find it easy to relate to queer folks (or even L.A. folks; and that can be a challenge in itself!), the time you invest in watching this film won't be spent in vain. You'll come away with a better understanding of a wider circle of your fellow human beings. For that alone, "Punks" is well worth the time!