Athens Film Festival: Two Reviews Saturday, May 5 2007 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 7:09 pm

The Athens International Film Festival took place from April 27th to May 3rd. It’s one of the annual events that just about everyone in Athens looks forward to. Because of my teaching schedule, I only had time to see two films this year: The Host and The Lives of Others. Both were good.

Here’s the trailer for The Host:

The Host is ostensibly about an amphibious monster, presumably a mutated fish, that terrorizes sunbathers on the shores of the Han River. Gang-du, who works at a food stand near the shore, and his daughter, Hyun-seo, are among the crowd of people running for their lives when the monster strikes. When Gang-du accidentally lets go of his daughter’s hand, she is snapped up by the monster, who soon disappears into the river. After authorities, worried about the monster and an apparently related break-out of a new virus, evacuate the area, Gang-du receives a call from his daughter, who says she’s still alive. The rest of the film follows his efforts to convince his family and the authorities that he must return to the sewer system surrounding the river to rescue her.

While that’s the ostensible plot, the movie is really an allegory about the destructive impact America has on countries like South Korea. We watch in the opening scene as an American military official orders his Korean assistant to dispose of toxic chemicals by pouring them down a sink drain. This pollution is what presumably leads to the monster’s mutation. As the film progresses, we see additional ways in which American foreign policy and military intervention harms the Korean people.

On the whole, this is a really good film. PJ and I were told by friends that the movie is comic more than suspenseful, which is the only reason I agreed to see it. Parts of it are hilarious. The trailer shows a brief glimpse of a scene in which Gang-du and his relatives are mourning Hyun-seo’s presumed death. Their mourning keeps getting more and more outrageous. By the time they are all rolling around on the floor, I couldn’t stop laughing. The movie’s a little long — a good 20 minutes (at least) could have been cut out of the middle — and I really didn’t like the ending (I just didn’t get it). But I certainly enjoyed it for the most part.

The Lives of Others won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year. Here’s the trailer for it:

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Broken Sky: A Review Saturday, Apr 21 2007 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 9:31 pm

Last weekend, PJ and I watched Broken Sky, writer-director Julián Hernández‘s sophomore effort. Here’s the trailer:

Broken Sky is about two college students, Gerardo and Jonás, played by Miguel Ángel Hoppe and Fernando Arroyo, respectively, who meet on campus and begin a relationship. Trouble arises, however, while the two are in a dance club and Jonás becomes attracted to another guy. As he pulls away from Gerardo, Gerardo tries to restore their erotic connection but ultimately gives up and looks for love with Sergio, played by the very sexy Alejandro Rojo, who has clearly been interested in Gerardo for some time. Seeing his former boyfriend in the arms of another, Jonás realizes his mistake (or is simply jealous) and tries to win Gerardo back. Will the two reconcile or will Gerardo stay with Sergio?

Broken Sky begins as a kind of erotic exploration of the two main characters’ love making. We see several scenes of the two men making love, both physically and emotionally. When they’re not in bed, they’re making out or playing hide and seek in the university library. Stuff like that.

It sounds good, and I can definitely respect this film as an experiment, but in reality this is one of the longest, most boring gay movies I’ve ever seen. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, it’s about an hour too long. Its length is made even more tedious by the fact that there is almost no dialogue. Clearly, Hernández is experimenting with dialogue (or the lack thereof), camera angles, lighting, and pacing. Like I said, I can respect the experiment, but someone really should have reigned him in a bit.

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Grindhouse: A Quick Review Monday, Apr 9 2007 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 9:42 am

On Saturday, PJ and I saw Grindhouse, the new double feature directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Here’s the trailer:

The two films that make up Grindhouse, Planet Terror and Death Proof, are fun, roller-coaster-of-a-ride movies. Part camp, part slasher pic, part just about every other B genre you can think of, these movies are a great way to spend 3 hours during an unseasonably cold April afternoon in the Midwest! I don’t have time to write a full review this week, so I’ll just hit the highlights.

Planet Terror stars Rose McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez. This feature is kind of like a zombie movie, but instead of zombies we have people suffering from a toxic chemical disaster. McGowan is amazing — she’s totally hot and does a great job in her role as Cherry, the go-go dancer with a heart of steel. And Rodriguez is as sexy as ever — I always thought his character in Six Feet Under was hot. Considering his height, he does a wonderful job as the mysterious action hero of the film. His character Wray definitely deserves an action figure!

Death Proof takes its name from Stuntman Mike’s stunt car, which is specially geared so that it’s driver is safe during movie stunts. Unfortunately, Stuntman Mike uses his death proof car as a homicidal weapon in his quest to prey upon beautiful young women. This is Tarantino’s contribution to the double feature and I like it the best. Zoe Bell‘s stunts in this movie are great, and I think Rosario Dawson is enjoyable in just about everything she’s in. Kurt Russell is also good as the grizzly and grizzled Stuntman Mike.

These movies aren’t the best ones I’ve seen, but they are fun in a extremely violent, gory, and ultimately feminist kind of way. How often can you say that?

 

Half Nelson: A Review Tuesday, Apr 3 2007 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 6:05 pm

This past weekend PJ and I finally saw Half Nelson, starring Ryan Gosling as an inner-city junior high school teacher with a bit of a drug habit. If I had the time and inclination, I would go back and revise my list of my favorite films of 2006, because this movie is now one of them. Gosling is mesmerizing, and the film is generally excellent.

The film is about Gosling’s character, Dan, and his struggle to make a difference in his students’ lives. As he says at one point, if he can just change one of their lives for the better, his job will be worth it. He soon singles out one particular student, Drey, played by Shareeka Epps. She’s clearly special, and she’s very much at risk: her single mom works long hours as an EMT to make ends meet, her brother is serving time for a drug conviction, and her brother’s former “employer” is trying to get her to start selling in her brother’s place.

One of the major obstacles standing in his way, of course, is his addiction. I like that the film depicts Dan as someone who is out of control, suffers consequences for his actions, and yet still manages to show up most days to teach his classes and coach the junior high girls basketball team. He’s a functioning addict who hangs perilously close to total destruction. In a lesser film, Dan would totter over the edge, but this film has other interests. It’s not a study in how drugs are bad. They are, and the film lets us see this, but the point lies elsewhere.

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Gay Sex in the 70s: A Review Monday, Apr 2 2007 

movies and queer culture and teaching thisgaudygildedstage 5:08 pm

Today in class I showed the documentary Gay Sex in the 70s. It’s a great, if pretty graphic, documentary about gay male sex in New York City in the 1970s. It combines images from the 1970s — private photos, clips from films (porn and non-porn), etc — and interviews with men (and one woman) who lived through the gay 70s NYC scene. Here’s a clip/trailer:

I really like this documentary. What I love most about it is its putting a face to the 70s. While I lived through them, I was a just a babe then, and none of my students were even born in that decade, so we need a human face, a mediator, to explain what it was like to be there. A short film that I sometimes show my class is about a gay guy in the 90s who is magically transported back to the 70s every time he puts on a pair of shoes handed down to him from a friend (his uncle?) who died of AIDS. These shoes allow him to come out of his shell and “get to know” the guy he has a crush on. For me, this short gets to my generation’s complex feelings about the 70s. Some of us are jealous of the “free love” and liberation of that time period, but we’re also conflicted about it since we know what comes afterwards. “We” yearn for the sense of community that this period aspired to, but we also know that this community was ultimately forged through great suffering and death.

Gay Sex in the 70s captures the joy and brotherhood of the gay community in the 70s as well as the coming pain and death of the 80s. It shows us the idealism, the naiveté, and the downsides of this culture. And I like that it sets my class up for reading Larry Kramer’s Faggots, one of my favorite books to teach.

Gay Sex in the 70sEvery time I see this documentary, I’m also reminded just how sexy the 70s were! To the left is a picture from the documentary’s press packet. The 70s look is just hot.The short shorts. The tight bodies that aren’t overly worked out at the gym, but rather have a more natural muscularity. The jeans. The mustaches. Crew socks. Shaggy hair. Maybe I just have some sort of irrational affection for the 70s look left over from my budding gay childhood or something, but I definitely think it’s THE hottest look. This documentary is, of course, full of images of 70s men — what’s not to love?!

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The Cockettes: A Review Wednesday, Mar 28 2007 

movies and queer culture and teaching thisgaudygildedstage 6:07 pm

Since enough copies of Stone Butch Blues haven’t come in yet at the local bookstores, I had to rearrange our reading in the Lesbian & Gay Lit class for the first few weeks. Since I didn’t think I could spring a reading on them at the last minute (more or less), today we watched the documentary on The Cockettes rather than read a text.

The documentary recounts the rise and demise of the Cockettes, a hippie/acid freak/queer theatrical troupe from the late 1960s and early 1970s in San Francisco. I didn’t show it in class last year, but I did show it a couple of times before that. What I like about it in relation to my class is its illustration that the Stonewall Riots, while incredibly important in queer history, were not in fact the only show in town in the late ’60s.

Hibiscus The Cockettes were led, at least for a time, by Hibiscus, shown here. They were known for their outrageous form of drag — outrageous in part because of their combination of male facial hair (in some cases), feminine clothing, and (arguably) excessive glitter. As one member of the group explains, whatever someone was doing the others would call for more. If you had one shirt on, why not five more? If you had some glitter, why not a lot of glitter. In many ways, this summarizes the whole Cockette lifestyle.

It’s a great documentary. It follows a relatively predictable narrative: formation of the group, the group’s zenith, its demise, and the aftermath. It intersplices interviews with the surviving members with images and footage from the group’s performances. It also focuses on a lot more than just sex or drugs. We see parts of some of the performances. The movie also explains who people in the late 1960s were able to survive in communes (welfare, in most cases). And it shows the effects of Ronald Reagan’s cutting of state programs that many artists used to subsist.

Whenever I watch it, I start to regret that this sort of queer community and action doesn’t seem possible today. While some aspects of the era’s culture are probably not quite as attractive today (promiscuous, unsafe sex and hard drug use, for example), one (I) can’t help but be a little jealous of the love, the excitement, and the energy created by this family/community. I suppose I see Shortbus as the fictional heir to this kind of queer community, one that includes everybody — gays, straights, transpeople, bisexuals, and anybody else that wants to come along.

And maybe someday I’ll be brave enough to dress as a Cockette for Halloween or something! It will be a pale imitation, but perhaps a liberating one nevertheless. In the meantime, I highly recommend The Cockettes. It’s a very entertaining documentary.

 

The Libertine: A Review Friday, Mar 2 2007 

earl of Rochester and movies thisgaudygildedstage 10:49 pm

The film version of Stephen Jeffreys’s The Libertine was, for me, perhaps the most anticipated movie ever. (The last Star Wars movie might also be in competition for that title.) I saw it as soon as it came to Athens. I watched it again on DVD tonight — I’ve actually been postponing watching it again for as long as I could. My memory of the film wasn’t very good, and I wanted to wait until I could come at it fresh again.

Here’s the trailer:

First let me say that I love Stephen Jeffreys’s original play. It captures a lot of the spirit of the Restoration even if it plays around with the historical facts a bit. Even though Jeffreys adapts his own play for the screen, the script really goes awry in the translation. On the whole, I think the movie’s direction, cinematography, set design, makeup, acting, etc. all work, but the script just simply sucks. It sucks bad. Really, really bad.

Johnny Depp plays John Wilmot, earl of Rochester. In many ways, this is inspired casting. Or at least it would have been a decade ago. By 2004, Depp is a little long in the tooth to play Rochester, who died at the age of 33. But Depp nevertheless does an excellent job in the part.

My main criticism of the movie’s depiction of Rochester is that its Rochester just isn’t sexy. We never get a sense of why people like him. When Sir George Etherege (played by Tom Hollander), who has written a play (The Man of Mode) whose central character is based on Rochester, tells the earl early in the film, “You’re an endearing sort of chap,” we should see that this is true. Unfortunately, we never do.

The movie begins with a monologue spoken by Rochester:

Allow me to be frank at the commencement: you will not like me. No, I say you will not. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on. Oh yes, I shall do things you will like. You will say “That was a noble impulse in him” or “He played a brave part there,” but DO NOT WARM TO ME, it will not serve. When I become a BIT OF A CHARMER that is your danger sign for it prefaces the change into THE FULL REPTILE a few seconds later. What I require is not your affection but your attention. I must not be ignored or you will find me as troublesome a package of humanity as ever pissed into the Thames. Now. Ladies. An announcement. (He looks around.) I am up for it. All the time. That’s not a boast. Or an opinion. It is bone hard medical fact. I put it around, d’y know? And you will watch me putting it around and sigh for it. Don’t. It is a deal of trouble for you and you are better off watching and drawing your own conclusions from a distance than you would be if I got my tarse pointing up your petticoats. Gentlemen. (He looks around.) Do not despair, I am up for that as well. When the mood is on me. And the same warning applies. Now, gents: if there be vizards in the house, jades, harlots (as how could there not be) leave them be for a moment. Still your cheesy erections till I have had my say. But later when you shag–and later you will shag, I shall expect it of you and I will know if you have let me down–I wish you to shag with my homuncular image rattling in your gonads. Feel how it was for me, how it is for me and ponder. “Was that shudder the same shudder he sensed? Did he know something more profound? Or is there some wall of wretchedness that we all batter with our heads at that shining, livelong moment.” That is it. That is my prologue, nothing in rhyme, certainly no protestations of modesty, you were not expecting that I trust. … I am John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester and I do not want you to like me.

The film presents this prologue as a serious speech, which I think is a real mistake. It should be light and fluffy, like the prologues of Restoration comedies. We should be in danger of liking Rochester from this first moment we see him. We should laugh when he tells us about “putting it around.” We shouldn’t be creeped out. There has to be some possibility that we will have his homuncular image rattling in our gonads, but this film never gives us that possibility.

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Favorite Movies of 2006 Sunday, Feb 25 2007 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 11:42 am

This is the last of my “favorite of” posts. In honor of the Oscars, I’ve saved my favorite movies of 2006 for today.

I want to start by noting that it’s relatively difficult to see the best movies of the year in Athens. We often get movies well after they’ve shown everywhere else. Many “art films” only play here for a week. And sometimes we don’t get them at all. We still haven’t gotten Letters from Iwo Jima, for example. That’s one of two movies I have yet to see — the other being The Departed — that might make it onto my favorites list once I see them. So, my current list is subject to change. I have a top film of the year and then 4 other favorites in no particular order.

My favorite movie of the year was John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus. My original post about the movie is here. I really loved this film. It’s innovative, socially relevant, and totally engrossing. Mitchell definitely lives up to the promise of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

I also loved Infamous, the second movie in as many years about Truman Capote and the writing of In Cold Blood. I posted about it here. I really liked Capote and thought that it should have won best picture in 2005, but Infamous is an even better film. Toby Jones is wonderful!

The next film in my top 5 was The History Boys. I posted about it here. It’s an excellent look at the English school system in the 1980s, and all of the actors are great. I wish I had seen them in the original London production.

Quinceanera is also on my list. I wrote about it here. I really like its exploration of class and its stylistic realism. It’s probably the simplest of the films on my list — simple in terms of plot — but it makes an important statement about class, ethnicity, and sexuality in L.A.

And finally, I loved The Last King of Scotland. I originally reviewed it here. I wish James McAvoy had gotten more credit for his performance in this film. He and Forrest Whitaker are both excellent.

So, what do I think these movies say about my tastes? I like political films — political in the sense of being about relationships of power in social relationships. Most of the films I like are also gay-themed. And almost all of them feature attractive men! Maybe I’ll get a chance to see Letters from Iwo Jima while I’m in Chicago.

 

I’m so far behind Sunday, Feb 18 2007 

academia and movies thisgaudygildedstage 8:05 pm

I haven’t been able to blog all week, despite the fact that I’ve had several posts I’d like to have written. I spent the first part of the week participating in another seven-year review, this time for the School of Telecommunications. Like the Math review, it’s really interesting to meet people from other departments and see how they do some parts of our jobs differently than my department does. All of the people in T-Comm seem really cool.

Richard CumberlandAfter that, I had to start writing my paper for a conference I’m attending this coming week. I’ll be going to the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies in Chicago. It really sucks that my panel isn’t until Sunday. I’m leaving on Wednesday, though, so I can do a little research at the Newberry Library and see some of the sights while I’m in Chicago. I’m now almost finished writing my paper, which is on Richard Cumberland’s The Jew, a 1794 sentimental comedy. (This is Cumberland’s portrait on the left.) I’ve really enjoyed working on it. This is one of two texts that got me interested in my current book project in the first place, so it’s fun to return to the play and write about it finally.

On Friday, I attended a friend’s colloquium, and several of us went out afterwards. Unfortunately, I was also getting sick, so I didn’t really feel like taking part in too much of the conversation at either event. But the colloquium went well and having drinks and dinner afterwards was a lot of fun. The best part was when, in response to my bringing up John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus, two of our friends started talking about the words “fellatio” and “cunnilingus.” This past weekend was parents’ weekend here at OU, and two parents were having dinner with their son at a table nearby. Let’s just say that they didn’t appreciate hearing about fellatio over dinner, but no one at our table besides PJ and I seemed to notice. As one friend kept saying “fellatio” over and over again, the mother behind us kept trying to get our attention by loudly saying, “We’re eating … we’re eating dinner here … Some of us are trying to eat dinner …..” It was hilarious! We rteally thought that our tallest friend was about to get accosted by an angry mother.

But all that “fun” has kept me from blogging. Last weekend, PJ and I saw Pan’s Labyrinth, which was really good — not great, in my opinion, but really good. It’s about a little girl who “escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world” in 1944 fascist Spain. It’s not one of my favorite films of the year, but it’s definitely worth seeing. Here’s the trailer:

Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to catch up on a couple of other posts before I leave on Wednesday.

 

Quinceañera: A Review Friday, Feb 9 2007 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 5:10 pm

Tonight PJ and I watched Quinceanera on DVD. It’s a great film written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmorland. It’s definitely one of the best independent gay films we’ve seen recently.

The movie is about two cousins, Magdalena and Carlos. Magdalena, played by Emily Rios, is nearly her 15th birthday, on which she is supposed to have a sweet-fifteen party. A few months before the big celebration, Magdalena finds out that she is pregnant, despite her protestations that she and her boyfriend have never gone all the way. Her preacher father kicks her out of the house, and she moves in with her uncle. Already living with the uncle is Carlos, who was also thrown out of his family’s home when they discovered his homosexuality (they found one of the websites he frequented on the family’s computer).

The uncle, played by Chalo González, lives in a small house,  on a property that has recently been purchased by a gay couple. His new landlords immediately take an interest in Carlos, played by Jesse Garcia, and Carlos immediately takes an interest in them. Unfortunately, Carlos’s initiation into the world of middle-class gaydom is far from smooth. Indeed, both Carlos and Magdalena are in for several disappointments over the course of the movie, but the realities of their lives ends up being honest and beautiful rather than simply or merely sad.

One of the things I like about the movie is its hard look at social conditions for these poor hispanic families. Set in Echo Park in Los Angeles, the film looks at the downside to gentrification: in order for the gays to move into the neighborhood, the previous residents have to be displaced. Many of these residents, like the uncle, quickly find that they can no longer afford to rent in the area, and others, seeing the rising worth of their homes, find that they cannot pass up the opportunity to sell to the relatively wealthy (and usually white) gays. While the movie explores these tensions, I also like that it doesn’t become a gay-bashing movie, which I could easily imagine it being.

I also like the movie’s complex depiction of gay people. Carlos is initially shown as a thief and troublemaker, but we quickly see that this is in part due to his situation as a poorly educated and nearly homeless young adult with few prospects. His style is very much that of his neighborhood rather than of the middle-class gays who move in next door. And he navigates a gay masculinity that is part street tough machismo and part sensitive lover. Furthermore, the middle class gays are somewhat predatory and even villainous. The two men initiate Carlos into their lives via a threesome, but their interest in him is almost solely sex.

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