Reverend's Reviews: Firth Time on DVD

One of the best gay-themed films in recent years (at least since Brokeback Mountain) is making its debut on home video today. Tom Ford's A Single Man, adapted from the novel by Christopher Isherwood, is a suitably dramatic but also enormously stylish and disarmingly funny account of a gay man preparing to commit suicide in the wake of his partner's tragic death.

Taking place over the course of one day in early-1960's Los Angeles, A Single Man's strongest attribute is a magnificent, Oscar-nominated lead performance by Colin Firth as Professor George Falconer. I believe Firth would have won the Academy Award for Best Actor if a certain Jeff Bridges hadn't snuck in under the wire with Crazy Heart. Firth will have to content himself with his Venice Film Festival and BAFTA awards. His performance is subtle and frequently amusing as well as heartbreaking.

Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult provide excellent support. In addition to a director's commentary by Ford, the DVD has a great, 12-minute making-of documentary that includes insightful interviews with Ford and all the principle cast members. Worth noting among Firth's and Hoult's recollections is how "well put-together" fashion designer Ford was while shooting his first movie. Firth remarks that Ford "consistently looked better behind the camera than any of us in front of it."

As Ford himself notes, "Fashion is fleeting; film lasts forever." A Single Man deserves a prominent place in GLBT and general cinema history. If you haven't seen it — or even if you have — buy or rent the Blu-Ray or DVD today!

Congratulations to Terry A. of Chicago, IL, the winner of our "I Want A Single Man" contest, sponsored by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment!  Thanks to all who entered!

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

Reverend’s Previews: Outfest 2010 Celebrates LGBT Diversity

This year’s Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, will boast 60 LGBT-themed feature films and 87 shorts from 23 different countries. The 28th edition of the oldest film festival in LA and the leading LGBT festival in the US will run July 8th-18.

Having had the opportunity to preview a number of the movies to be shown, I can attest that this year’s Outfest selections are generally more thoughtful and of higher quality than those I saw the past two years. As Outfest’s Executive Director, Kirsten Schaffer, rightly proclaimed, “This year’s incredible line-up celebrates all of the forward-thinking artists that push the boundaries for LGBT rights and equality.”

One such artist was the poet Allen Ginsberg, who is the subject of the Outfest Opening Night Gala film, Howl (the movie also opened the prestigious Sundance Film Festival earlier this year). James Franco of the Spider-Man series plays Ginsberg. Howl is the first dramatic feature from veteran documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, who made The Times of Harvey Milk and The Celluloid Closet among several acclaimed prior films.

The opening night festivities will kick-off at 8:00 PM on July 8 with a special presentation of the annual Outfest Achievement Award to lesbian actress Jane Lynch. Currently enjoying huge success as the domineering cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, on the Fox TV series Glee, Lynch has also given memorable performances in such diverse films as The 40 Year Old Virgin, Best in Show and last year’s Julie & Julia.

Each year, Outfest features a foreign film as its International Dramatic Centerpiece. Contracorriente (or Undertow) will be this year’s selection on July 13. It is set in an exotic Peruvian fishing village where love between two men is forbidden. The film was a rare gay-themed winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Audience Award in January.

There are too many movies that I’d recommend to list here, but a few highlights are:

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, an insightful and thoroughly enjoyable documentary about New Zealand’s legendary yodeling lesbian twins. Jools and Lynda Topp have been performing together since the 1970’s, and were pivotal figures in the 1986 passage of their country’s pioneering gay rights bill. If you want to learn the hysterical punchline to the twins’ joke, “Why can’t lesbians wear make-up when they go to Weight Watchers?,” see the movie!

Grown Up Movie Star, written and directed by the talented Adriana Maggs, is a smart, observant study of a teenage girl in rural Canada’s coming of age. Living with her closeted gay father doesn’t make things any easier for her. The movie also benefits from an excellent cast (newcomer Tatiana Maslany is a revelation as the teen, Ruby) and great, naturalistic — if dysfunctional — family rapport.

Children of God utilizes overlapping storylines and characters in its expose of closeted homosexuality and religious hypocrisy in the Bahamas. An attractive, interracial gay couple run afoul of the local fundamentalist pastor, who at one point privately sums up the motivation behind his anti-gay campaign thusly: “You have to give people something to hate; it brings them together.” The film is also worth seeing for its beautiful photography of sun-bathed, seaside locales.

Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, with its title taken from Bonnie Tyler’s hit song of the 80’s, “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” is an admirably unsentimental documentary that turns its lens on 75-year old, transgendered drag performer Vicki Marlane. Still performing today after 59 years as a drag artist at Aunt Charlie’s in San Francisco, Marlane speaks candidly of her upbringing, legal run-ins, ill-fated love affairs and addictions. Marlane and the film’s producer-director, Michelle Lawler, are scheduled to appear at the Outfest screening.

Role/Play, the latest from Rob Williams, director of past gay hits Back Soon and Make the Yuletide Gay. It is a smart and sexy account of what might happen if a closeted gay soap opera star (hunky Steve Callahan) and an outspoken gay activist with marriage troubles (Matthew Montgomery, Callahan’s real-life partner) were to meet at a Palm Springs resort.

A Marine Story is timely to say the least, what with the current debate over revoking the US military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Based on actual events, the film focuses on a recently-discharged lesbian (a dramatically and physically strong performance by Dreya Weber) who discovers her troubles are just beginning once she returns to her hometown. Written, directed and even edited — all very well — by Ned Farr.

Standouts among the numerous recommended short films to be shown during Outfest are the cute and funny Go Go Reject, which features the adorable Heath Daniels as a stripper hopeful who is labeled as too skinny but who isn’t going to take “No” for an answer; Last Address, an unusual, quietly devastating travelogue of the final residences inhabited by New York City-based artists who died of AIDS; and Public Relations, an upbeat romantic-comedy in which two female personal assistants meet and fall in love.

For me, Outfest wouldn’t be complete each year without its Sing-Along Musical night at the Ford Amphitheater. The 2010 winner of the annual online vote by Outfest fans is Grease 2, the campy 1982 sequel to Grease. Hardly as well-received as its predecessor, Grease 2 is still entertaining and somewhat underrated. It stars Michelle Pfeiffer in her first big-screen lead role, as well as then-pretty Maxwell Caulfield, a then-hot Adrian Zmed and Judy Garland’s daughter, Lorna Luft. What’s not to enjoy? It will screen at 8:30 PM on July 15. Feel free to dress as a T-Bird or Pink Lady!

The hilarious-sounding new comedy Spork will wrap up Outfest during the Closing Night Gala on July 18. For a complete listing of films or to purchase tickets for screenings and related events, please visit the Outfest website or call (213) 480-7065.

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

Reverend's Reviews: Vampires & Vigilantes

I feel way too old to have spent six hours in the past year or so viewing The Twilight Saga. While it is easy to understand the super-successful supernatural book and movie series' appeal for romance-hungry teenage girls, their shared plot is pretty insipid stuff for anyone over the age of 17.

Obviously, I'm no "Twi-hard." However, my allegiance in the heated teenybopper debate between "Team Edward" (those devoted to the sullen vampire played by Robert Pattinson) and "Team Jacob" (fans of hunky, frequently shirtless werewolf Taylor Lautner) is to the latter. Lautner has charisma that Pattinson sorely lacks, although The Twilight Saga: Eclipse gives Pattinson the opportunity to play a wider range of emotions than in the first two movies. He even gets to smile and laugh! I hope he charged the producers extra.

Kristen Stewart continues to be hamstrung in the central role of Bella. Her expression is most often one of eyes-downcast blankness, but when she becomes concerned or afraid she appears constipated. I'm also increasingly frustrated by Bella's powerlessness at doing anything to help her situation. This isn't Stewart's fault, of course. The character is written as a pawn in the jealous-romantic (and sort of homoerotic, especially during a scene set in a frigid camping tent) rivalry between Edward and Jacob and, by extension, vampires and werewolves.

Edward and Bella get engaged by the end of Eclipse, but not much else happens in the movie. There's a lot of talk about how "a war is coming" to the characters' town of Forks, Oregon thanks to a bloodthirsty band of powerful "newborn" vampires created by Edward's arch nemesis, Victoria (a good but too-brief turn by Bryce Dallas Howard). Every time the film develops momentum toward this showdown, though, it is interrupted by a father-daughter chat, a marriage proposal, or one of Jacob's temper tantrums. And when Victoria's "army" finally arrives, it's maybe a dozen-strong and hardly an imposing force. The "war" is over in five minutes. With all the money the Twilight movies are raking in, couldn't they have afforded to hire some more actors or at least add a hundred or so vampires digitally?

Eclipse isn't awful but, like its two predecessors, it is a largely listless, apathetic affair. The last film, New Moon, perked up in its final half hour thanks to the intervention of some accomplished actors — notably Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning — as evil but humorous members of the vampire ruling class, the Volturi. Fanning reappears in Eclipse but all too sparingly.

There is reason to hope, though, that the upcoming adaptation of the series' final book, Breaking Dawn, will be an improvement over what has come before. Oscar-winning gay screenwriter-director Bill Condon (Gods & Monsters, Chicago, Dreamgirls) has been hired to helm the two-part finale. Maybe he'll give Bella a song or two and finally allow Jacob and Edward to acknowledge their latent attraction to each other!

I'm also happy to announce that another film adaptation from what is currently a truly literate literary phenomenon (no, not Harry Potter) is now hitting movie screens. The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second work — following The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — in the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson's bestselling Millennium trilogy. The film version is opening next Friday, July 9, in a number of US cities.

It depicts the continuing adventures of crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (once again played by the very good Michael Nykvist) and the brilliant, abused and vengeful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (the still-excellent Noomi Rapace). Separated for two years, they set out together via cyberspace to take down a ruthless sex trafficker and his cronies. Salander remains fiercely bisexual, and the new film features a steamy tryst between her and her best friend, Miriam Wu (Yasmine Garbi).

Director Daniel Alfredson took the reins from Dragon Tattoo's Niels Arden Oplev for the sequel. Oplev had a better handle on the technological dimensions of the story and making them exciting for viewers. The first film also had a slightly more engrossing plot, with a decades-old unsolved mystery as its driving force. The Girl Who Played With Fire is essentially two hours of waiting for a "will they or won't they" physical reunion between Salander and Blomkvist. The movie ends in something of a cliffhanger that will presumably be resolved in the third and final film, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which is scheduled for US release this October.

Still, The Girl Who Played With Fire is an effective cinematic take on a book series that has challenging things to say about women and men, sexuality, abuse and power. The Twilight Saga, which purports to cover some of the same territory, are simplistic children's storybooks in comparison.

Reverend's Ratings:
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: C
The Girl Who Played With Fire: B

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

Reverend's Reviews: Los Angeles Film Festival 2010

After a rocky opening night, during which jubilant post-screening lesbians and rioting Lakers fans threatened to collide on the downtown streets, the 2010 edition of the Los Angeles Film Festival rebounded (no basketball pun intended) and made ten days in a controversial new location an exciting celebration of independent movies.

The fest began on June 17 (which was also the night the LA Lakers won their second straight championship at the neighboring Staples Center) with the Los Angeles premiere of Lisa Cholodenko's lesbian dramedy The Kids Are All Right. Stars Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo attended, as well as Jane Lynch (Glee) and other celebs. Conspicuously absent was co-star Annette Bening, who also cancelled a press conference I was scheduled to attend the following day without explanation. Several online sources reported on June 18 that Bening's and Warren Beatty's oldest daughter had announced she was planning to have gender reassignment surgery, and that Bening and Beatty were "devastated." May they get over it soon.

Apart from The Kids Are All Right, only a few movies screened during the fest were specified as being of LGBT interest: Eyes Wide Open, the extraordinary Israeli story of two orthodox Jewish men who fall in love with each other (previously reviewed here); Dog Sweat, an illegally-shot Iranian film detailing the romantic/sexual travails of six young people, including a gay man; and Family Tree, which explores a dysfunctional French clan gathered at a sprawling country estate for a funeral.

However, other LGBT-friendly screenings included the LA premiere of All About Evil, a campy horror spoof starring Joshua Grannell (a.k.a. drag diva Peaches Christ), Mink Stole and Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson, and Pee-Wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens, presenting a 25th anniversary edition of his now-classic Pee-Wee's Big Adventure as well as a film he defined as most inspirational to him, 1938's You Can't Take It With You.

The standout film of the festival for me, though, was the eye-opening, heart-wrenching documentary, Lost Angels. Director Thomas Napper follows a number of inhabitants of downtown LA's Skid Row, composed of approximately fifty city blocks (ironically, the festival took place just a stone's throw away). As narrator Catherine Keener informs viewers, "About 11,000 people live on Skid Row, and two-thirds of them have mental illness." Another speaker pointedly states, "We don't institutionalize the mentally ill (in the United States); we criminalize them." Late ex-President Ronald Reagan receives special condemnation for cutting funding to hospitals and other mental illness treatment facilities.

One of the subjects of Lost Angels is Albert "Bam Bam" Olson, an honest and outspoken inhabitant of Skid Row who also happens to be transgender, bipolar and living with HIV. Bam Bam was in attendance at the film's June 25 world premiere (as was Keener, who is gracious and lovely in person) and told the sold-out crowd, "Making the movie gave me a purpose." Napper treats all those he caught on film with respect and dignity, and the result is most affecting.

As I'm a sucker for movies about animals, I also found the festival doc One Lucky Elephant fascinating. Ten years in the making, it recounts the saga of circus producer and ringmaster David Balding to find a suitable home for his aging pachyderm star, Flora. Balding adopted the orphaned baby elephant and cared for her for 16 years. But as she matured, Flora lost interest in performing and Balding was compelled to search for a place where she could live more freely with other elephants.

This proved to be no easy task. After numerous safari programs and zoos fell through, Balding found what seemed to be the perfect sanctuary for Flora in Tennessee. No sooner did Balding leave Flora then she became increasingly anti-social and violent. A self-professed elephant psychologist declared Flora suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder related to the violent separation from her mother and her subsequent circus training. The baffled Balding was barred from ever visiting Flora again, and the film raises interesting questions and concerns not only about the ethical treatment of animals but of the people who devote themselves to their care.

Another standout movie about animals at the fest was Cane Toads: The Conquest. Presented in 3-D, no less, it is director-producer Mark Lewis' follow up to his acclaimed 1988 short film about Australia's non-native amphibians. Introduced from South America in the 1930's in an effort to control sugar cane-destroying beetles, the poisonous toads have multiplied from an initial 100 to nearly 2 billion today. They continue to march their way west across Australia, and no attempt to halt their progress has been successful.

The film takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to what is apparently a serious problem, and one can't help but fall in love with the doggedly persistent creatures of the title. The 3-D effects are unnecessary but fun. Lewis proudly announced during the Q & A after the screening that his film had been dubbed "Avatoad" after its US premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

One other movie at this year's LA Film Fest made a significant impression on me: Hello Lonesome. A semi-autobiographical story by writer-director Adam Reid, it conveys six unique individuals' struggles to make a connection with someone else. The relationships forged are surprising, amusing and ultimately moving. One of the characters is based on Reid's sister, who died of breast cancer in 2003.

The cast of Hello Lonesome (which includes James Urbaniak, who voices Dr. Venture on the campy cartoon The Venture Brothers) is excellent, and they were deservedly honored with the festival's Jury Award for Best Ensemble Performance. Other award-winning films were Denmark's A Family (Best Narrative Film), Make Believe (Best Documentary) and Wonder Hospital (Best Animated Short).

This was the first year that the LA Film Festival was moved from its traditional, trendy Westwood location to the new LA Live complex downtown. Despite a few logistical bumps and a bit of initial culture shock (especially for opening night attendees), I thought the new venue worked very well. Also, the film selection, largely overseen by former Newsweek film critic David Ansen, was diverse and of almost-uniformly high quality. I'm already looking forward to what next year will bring!

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

Reverend's Reviews: Lofty Heights

The Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights (which is making its California debut this week at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles) provides such a genial, romanticized picture of inner-city life in a Manhattan barrio that it makes grittier NYC-based shows like West Side Story and Rent look like the gloomy Long Day's Journey Into Night by comparison.

I actually spent a long weekend a decade ago in the Washington Heights neighborhood celebrated here. While the atmosphere and people were pleasant enough, it was hardly the effervescent, drug- and violence-free setting In the Heights would have viewers believe. I also encountered a number of gay and lesbian Latino residents who, somewhat curiously, aren't represented among the musical's characters.

The most authentic aspect of the production is Anna Louizos' set design. From the moment I entered the Pantages and saw the storefronts and towering apartments above them (which aren't obscured before the show by the curtain), I felt like I was in New York City. Louizos is one of the best designers in theatre today; she also did the impressive sets for Curtains, Avenue Q and Minsky's.

In the Heights has numerous other things to recommend it. The characters are vivid, the songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda (who is recreating his original Broadway performance for the LA production as well as the upcoming movie version) are excellent, and Andy Blankenbuehler's energetic, hip hop-derived choreographic style works much better here than in the recent 9 to 5. Howell Binkley's lighting design also deserves special mention, especially for its impressive evocation of a fireworks display at the end of Act I.

The touring production's cast is attractive as well as talented. In addition to Miranda's engaging presence as rapping convenience store owner Usnavi, standouts include Sabrina Sloan as the object of his affections, Vanessa (Lexi Lawson will play Vanessa starting July 6), Shaun Taylor-Corbett as Sonny, Usnavi's cocky cousin, and Elise Santora as the loving Abuela (Aunt) Claudia. Fine support is given by Jose-Luis Lopez as the neighborhood tagger, David Baida as a seller of frozen confections, and the entire ensemble.

Unfortunately, complex conflicts are largely absent from Quiara Alegria Hudes' book. The most significant are between Nina (played by Arielle Jacobs), who returns home to the barrio after secretly dropping out of Stanford University, and her parents, Kevin and Camila (Danny Bolero and Natalie Toro). To further exacerbate things, Nina falls in love with Benny, an African-American employee of her newly-prejudiced father (a fine turn by Rogelio Douglas, Jr., who was recently seen on Broadway as a flamboyant Sebastian the Crab in The Little Mermaid).

The racial issue, however, is dealt with briefly and is fairly easily overcome, and a winning lottery ticket provides a too-convenient solution to Nina's tuition woes. Otherwise, barrio life is hunky-dory in In the Heights. Sure, everyone needs more money but that's true in every neighborhood nowadays. Usnavi's store window gets broken during a blackout but little of value is stolen.

A more telling indicator of the musical's sunny avoidance of darker, audience-challenging characters and situations may be reflected in the popularity of its LA opening. The virtually full house on preview night consisted mostly of white, affluent theatergoers over the age of 60. There were few young adults and, surprisingly, even fewer Latino/Hispanic people. I suspect In the Heights is too glossy and unrealistic — not to mention unaffordable — for the majority of those it claims to represent.

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