| QUEER DVD/VHS SUGGESTIONS | |
| Eulogy (2004) |
|
|
I've missed Debra Winger on screen! This film is one of only a handful that she's done in the last 7-10 years. An aside: if you haven't seen it, rent Rosanna Arquette's documentary, Searching for Debra Winger. Arquette interviews a panoply of film actress, including Winger herself, about the unique challenges women face in the industry. Eulogy, though, is one of those sardonic and dark family dysfunction films that can go way awry if the proper tragi-comedic tone isn't set right away. This film hits its mark often enough for me to recommend it. The family patriarch (Rip Torn, being his usual hilarious self) dies, and his scattered and zany children descend on the family home to lay him to rest. Kelly Preston (playing lesbian with partner Famke Janssen), Hank Azaria (playing a narcissistic pothead former child actor now making porn for a living), Ray Romano (playing the befuddled single dad doing a very bad job of raising his demon spawn twin sons after his wife's death) and the usually fabulous Ms. Winger (unfortunately here playing the tired cliché of the emotionally distant and carping drill sergeant-like wife/mother ) are the grieving children. Glenne Headley has a supporting role in a story arc that salvages Debra Winger's appearance in this movie. Their big scene is seriously sweet-sexy, if totally lacking in credulity. Winger also has the funniest scene in the movie at the father's funeral involving, what Kelly Preston's character calls, "fuck-singing." It was hysterical! There were quite a few laugh out loud moments in this film; moments where you're ashamed of yourself for laughing at something horrific that has just befallen one of the characters. It's just that kind of uncomfortable, non-PC comedy at points. Kelly and Famke aren't given enough screen time, in my opinion. In spite of that fact, the two still manage to come across realistically as long-time life partners on the verge of marrying. I also wanted to see more of the underlayers of Kelly Preston's relationship with her intolerant older sister, Winger. We learn why she's been such a bigot, but I needed to see more interplay between them both pre and post-big revelation. In any event, if you like your comedy dark and your lesbians über-femme and hot, then this little movie is for you.
|
|
|
Amour de Femme
(2005)
In
French |
|
|
This is simply one of the best lesbian romances I've seen on film in a few years. Jean (Helene Fillieres) is a stifled, long married woman with a young son. Marie (Raffaela Anderson) is a resolutely queer and free-thinking, free-spirited dancer. They meet at a birthday party where Marie performs a sexy pole dance. The sexual attraction between the women is immediate. Jean, in particular, is deliriously smitten with the petite, acid-tongued Marie, and seems not to care that her husband is right across the room. The central question of the film becomes whether what the heretofore straight Jean is feeling for Marie is worth losing her adequate, if boring domestic life. These women are gorgeously photographed by writer/director Sylvie Verhyde and her DP. The film spends a lot of time letting you watch them watch each other. It's pretty great. This project was produced for French TV, and, as a result, has a few soapish moments, but the off -the-charts chemistry between the two leads more than makes up for the pabulum. It must be true what they say about how generally blasé the French are about putative risqué themes and images, because the love scenes here are not what I would call tepidly TV safe.
|
|
| Prey for Rock and Roll (2003) |
|
|
Gina Gershon just rocks, man! Nobody plays a tough chick quite like Gina. In her latest foray with this filmic archetype, Gina plays the queer guitarist and lead singer for an all girl hardrock (sometimes grunge-ish sometimes punk-ish) band who are thisclose to being past their prime. Lori Petty, The Soprano's Drea de Matteo and Shelly Cole round out the musical quartet. This is really Gershon's story here: one about if , when and how a woman approaching 40 stops chasing that elusive dream of becoming a rock star when music is all she's ever cared about. Gershon plays this character with just the right mix of sensuality, steely resolve and endearing insecurity. The other characters are not as well drawn. De Matteo is a trust fund baby gone druggie and way too grungey in her appearance. Petty is the wise-cracking, but always loving and dependable friend and partner. Cole (Petty's love interest) is the newbie with a tragic past that only gets revealed when her brother completes his jail term for murder and comes to live with her. Not all of the sub-plots work in this film. I could have done without the rape aspect altogether, but the performances are uniformly good, the songs are palatable (the actors perform them in earnest), and Gina Gershon looks mighty fine in a make-out scene with her sorta groupie/girlfriend of the moment ( the lovely Shakara Ledard). Also, we get two lesbian relationships in the same film. Can't complain about that
|
|
|
Open My Heart (2004)
|
|
|
This film, written and directed by and staring Giada Cologrande, is perplexing to say the least. It also has the look and feel of a first film, but it gets mad points for being...well...MAD with respect to its narrative's trajectory. Multi-hyphenate and overachieving Cologrande plays 17 year old Caterina, who seems completely dependent on her older sister, Maria (Natalie Cristiani). The much older Maria works as a prostitute right out of the flat that the two women share. Caterina only leaves the flat when she is escorted to and from dance class by Maria. Caterina, apparently some kind of science and literature savant, is also home schooling herself under Maria's ever watchful eye. The teen joyfully imbibes Dante, Donne and fairly advanced physics and astronomy texts like some kids do People magazine and comic books. Maria and their apartment is the sum total of Caterina's world, and she seems happy with this arrangement. The women have a claustrophobically close relationship that the viewer later learns extends to sleeping in the same bed and having sex with each other. Yep, these blood sisters are in love or something. While watching this, I immediately thought of the British film Sister My Sister with Joely Richardson and Julie Walters. Open My Heart ends similarly to that film in terms of extreme violence. The balance in the ecosystem in the woman's flat is disturbed when Caterina experiences young love (and hetero sex) for the first time with one of Maria's male clients. This act of individuation and independence by Caterina is more than Maria can bear. See the film...it's nuts!
|
|
|
His
Secret Life
(2002) |
|
|
I was a bit troubled, at first, about this film's premise: a recently widowed woman finds out that her late husband had an extramarital affair, and through some sleuthing, discovers the "other woman" was actually a man. Not only does this scream of Lifetime Movie of the Week, but it could have been exploitative. Thankfully, the Italians (operatic tendencies be damned) know how to reduce grand gestures to small, affecting real life moments. I fell in love with the people in this film! In short, a woman sets out to find out the truth about the man she thought she married, only to discover some meaningful things about herself. The two leads in this film, the wife and the lover, are a well-matched pair of ridiculously good actors. I like good actors.
|
|
| The Badge (2002) |
|
|
Billy Bob Thornton is a nut! We all know it. He's also a brilliant actor. So brilliant, that even his straight to video stuff makes for compelling viewing. The Badge is one such gem! BB plays a down home slacker sheriff in a town where not much above petty crimes occur, and where the real criminals hold elected office. BB's life is turned upside down when the dead body of a male -to- female transsexual is found in his jurisdiction. Not only has BB never actually handled a murder investigation, but he, like the other rednecks in the town, is rabidly homophobic. Everybody, especially the governor, who may know the dead woman, wants this case to just go away. Enter Patricia Arquette ( I'm always so pleased to see her in a movie) as the dead woman's lover. Is she anatomically a man or a woman? Does Billy Bob, who is instantly smitten, even care? Will Patricia's character go the "Full Monty" road in a strip club scene thereby revealing the film's biggest secret: is she or isn't she? Okay... this film takes the salacious road a number of times, but still I could not turn it off. There's also some nonsense about BB having a gay brother that he ran out of town some years ago, too. The gay brother thread is never woven convincingly into the story. See this film because BB is as crazy as ever and because Patricia Arquette may in fact be playing a transsexual.
|
|
| 101 Reykavick (2002) In Icelandic with English Subtitles |
|
|
Basically, I'll watch Victoria Abril in anything. That's the only thing that will explain why I've seen French Twist like 3 times. In this film, Abril shacks up with a divorcee and her slacker son, if slackerdom even has any resonance in Iceland. I mean, what else do you do in sub-zero temperatures but eat, drink and have sex, nah'mean? That ain't slacking, that's just life. One night Abril, lonely and cold (it's Iceland, remember), has sex with her new girlfriend's son and becomes pregnant. So, the mother, who already coddles and infantilizes her very grown son decides that she, her girlfriend/son's baby mama, her son and her newly born grandson will co-habit and make a rather unconventional family. This film is really much more about the son's journey from inertia to a kind of active responsibility than it is about the women, but Abril does wonders with her small role, and I like the two women together.
|
|
| Princesa (2001) In Italian and Portuguese w/ English subtitles |
|
|
Fernanda is a pre-op male-to-female transsexual who moves from Brazil to Italy to work in the very profitable sex trade there. She does so in order to save money for her sex change operation. While working the streets, she meets and falls in love with her very straight acting Prince Charming who leaves his wife for her. Fernanda's beau, however, wants to re-enact with her the same hetero-looking domesticity and relationship that he left behind. Fernanda tries to be the perfect little woman, but realizes that her boyfriend's friends will never accept her, and that there is a strong chance that he'll simply return to his other life once he sees how difficult it is to " just blend in" when your girlfriend is biologically a man. This film could have been rather saccharine and exploitative, but it's actually rather affecting and genuine.
|
|
| By Hook or By Crook (2002) |
|
|
This is one of the 3 best dyke films I've seen in the last 5 years or so! Shy and Valentine would seem to be social misfits. Shy is a vagabond in search of her biological mother and Valentine clearly has some kind of psycho-emotional problem (requiring medication) along with some bodily ticks. But the film never really casts them as misfits. They both crossdress as men, or at the very least, as very, very butch (drag kings, maybe). Valentine even has facial hair, but none of that is ever commented upon either directly or indirectly. No one ever does a double take when interacting with these two characters. The film forces the viewer to take the two women as they are, to view the world through their respective lenses. It's rather fascinating, and admittedly very unnerving at first. The film chronicles Shy and Valentine's developing bond as friends, and the extreme things they have to do in order to be able to live on their own terms. There is also a really beautiful love story involving Valentine at the film's center. This is one to buy.
|
|
| A Family Affair (2001) |
|
|
Rachel is a serial monogamist and her parents (PFLAG devotees) want the madness to stop. After her latest romantic bust-up, Rachel leaves NYC for southern Cal and falls in love with a typical blond, laid back California girl. But can this new love make Rachel forget the woman in NY who broke her heart? Michele Greene (Abby from TV's LA Law) steals this movie as Rachel's vampy and sexy ex-girlfriend, Reggie. She's the best thing about this very indie-looking film. Helen Lesnick, the writer/director/star, should have cast someone else in the lead. She's the weakest link here with respect to performances. Also, there are some huge continuity problems with props and hair/wardrobe. It's so obvious which scenes are re-shoots. The script also falters here and there. Still, the film works as an indie-indie with Michele Greene saving the day overall.
|
|
| La Repetition (2002) In French with English subtitles |
|
|
Think Single White Female meets All About Eve, but with the lesbianism obfuscated in those two cinematic classics moved very much to the surface. Natalie (Emmanuelle Béart) and Louise (Pascale Bussièrres from lesbian fav When Night is Falling) were best friends and aspiring actresses at university. Natalie goes on to become a famous stage actress while Louise takes the safer road to marriage and a typical 9 to 5. The women grow apart, but Louise is smitten, obsessed and a lot jealous of Natalie. This film is a kind psychological thriller that poses more questions than it answers. Questions like: was the romantic relationship between the women ever really two-sided; does Louise really want Natalie or does she simply want to be Natalie; and does that distinction really matter in the whole scheme of things? The performances from the 2 leads are stellar, to boot. This is one to buy.
|
|
| Normal (2003) |
|
|
This film is based on writer Jane Anderson's play by the same name. Tom Wilkerson (In the Bedroom) plays a middle-aged guy in the Midwest who begins to follow through on his life-long wish to become a woman. This change brings with it a few problems, though. He has a wife (Jessica Lange) of 20 plus years, a grown son, a teenage daughter still living at home; he lives in a small town and works as a plant foreman of some kind with a bunch of über-macho guys; and he and his wife are very active in their local church. None of this seems conducive to making a quiet and uneventful transition into his female self. The film tackles all of the life challenges of the main character as he comes out as a woman, but it spends the bulk of its time on Wilkerson's relationship with Lange. Wilkerson wants to continue to live with his wife as a woman. They seem to have an amazing friendship first, and then life partnership. Does Lange give all of that up, or does she adjust in whatever small or large ways she can? I love this movie!
|
|
|
|
|
| PART 6 SEE PARTS: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 | |
| Urbania
(2000) |
|
|
I
can’t quite figure out why it took me so long to sit down to watch
this film because I’d heard so many good things about it.
Dan Futterman is astonishing as a gay man coming to
terms with a lost relationship.
Who Futterman’s character (Charlie) is exactly and what
happened to his lover are slowly revealed through the course of the
film. Most of my presumptions about plot points prove untrue, and
that’s always a good thing. I was pleasantly surprised by how moving
this meditation on the many shades of loss and isolation in a post
post-modern/post-AIDS pandemic/cybernetic world is.
This film avoids all of the “gay film” clichés and gets on
with the business of saying something substantive about human (dis)connections,
disruptions, and personal mythmaking. I can’t say much more than
that because the film is supposed to be a bit of a thriller.
See it, though. |
|
| Bobbie's Girl (2002) |
|
I’ve
seen this movie too many times for me to be comfortable with myself.
It’s a Showtime original picture, and thus has aired ad
nauseum on that cable channel.
Every time I see that it is on, I am compelled to sit and watch
it.
The reason for my obsession, I think, are the performances
turned in by Bernadette Peters and the child actor at the
center of the story.
Peters (Bailey) gives a natural performance that reaches such a
high level of verisimilitude.
Peters plays another theatrically inclined, lovable kook and
the titutlar Bobbie’s (Rachel Ward--The
Thornbirds) life partner.
The difference in this role than is previous ones where Peters
has seemed over the top is that her innate intelligence and
soulfulness shine through all of the fast-talking and grand gestures.
Here Bailey never devolves to mere caricature, but in fact,
becomes more thoughtfully nuanced as the film unfolds.
Bobbie and Bailey are co-owners of a pub in Ireland.
It’s not at all clear about why Peter’s character, who was
apparently a steadily working stage actor in New York, left the States
with her brother (Jonathan Silverman doing a good job of
playing gay) in tow.
The main plot involves Bobbie and Bailey becoming unlikely
parents to Bobbie’s young nephew after her brother and his wife are
killed.
Bobbie also learns early in the film that she has breast
cancer.
Simply put, this is a good-hearted “families come in many
configurations” film with solid performances from actors I had
unfairly placed in limiting performative boxes.
Everyone surprised me here in the best way.
|
|
| Lip Service (2002) |
|
|
I
love Jami Gertz!!!
Let me just be forthright about that.
Square Pegs was my show as a pre-teen!
I forgive her for egregiously broadstroking her way through the
Gilda Radner tv biopic.
She got the main changes of the song right, but totally blew it
on some really essential passing tones and ghost notes that gave Gilda
her comedic profundity.
How’s that for an extended metaphor that went absolutely
nowhere?
In any event, in this very dark comedy Gertz plays Kat and Sybil
Temchen plays Allison, best friends and kindred creative spirits
as college art students.
The film suggests in flashbacks that Kat was the more innately
gifted of the two of them, but Kat’s volatile and self-destructive personality would
limit how far she was able to go creatively.
The pattern in college was that Kat would do and say whatever
she wanted knowing that Allison, living vicariously through Kat, would
caretake and repair whatever damage had been done.
The women eventually lose touch and then reconnect at a mutual
friend’s funeral.
Kat shows up high on drugs and disruptive at the funeral.
It seems Kat has not become the successful artist that her
talent presages, but has been living on the streets.
Allison takes her in both because she feels guilty about having
appropriated and profited from one of Kat’s designs, and also
because Kat still seems to be the corporeal manifestation of the very
stiff and reserved Allison’s id.
There are buckets full of obvious homoeroticism undergirding
both their past and present relationship.
In fact, all of their friends from college assumed they were a
couple. After reconnecting,
Kat turns Allison’s life inside out.
There are some truly funny-disturbing sex scenes and fights in
this movie.
It’s an all out war at one point, though, between Kat and
Allison.
The end result is that each woman comes to understand more
about the person she really is and not the person she used to be for
the other’s benefit. Misused Melanin Alert: This film missteps in a huge way by reifying the Mandingo stereotype. Kat brings home an African (by way of the UK) drug dealer as a part of her plan to turn Allison's life upside down. All the guy does is eat, sleep and have sex (and a lot of it). I thought I'd warn you. |
|
| Southern Comfort (2001) |
|
|
"The last part of me that is female is killing me…” (Robert Eads) If
you have IFC or Sundance on cable, you’ve probably
seen this poignant, beautifully chronicled documentary about the last
months of transsexual activist, Robert Eads life.
Eads, a post-op female to male transsexual, succumbed to cancer
of what was left of her female reproductive system (cervix and
ovaries).
The film allows Robert to tell his story about how ultimately
liberating it was to come to the conclusion that his former life
living as woman and as a lesbian, no less, was a lie; that he was in
fact transgendered.
We meet Robert quietly living on his farm in Georgia until his
health degenerates to the point where he needs hospice care.
We also get to know his many trans friends, one of his
two sons, his parents, his grandchild and his live-in love and male to
female transsexual, Lola.
One of the more difficult aspects of the film to digest are
Robert’s stories about the insensitivity and cruelty that the
medical community displayed time and again when dealing with a
terminal cancer patient who was also transsexual.
I wanted to scream sometimes.
This film is all the more remarkable because of Robert’s
fairly optimistic outlook throughout.
He never courts pity.
He’s rather philosophical about his predicament and fights
valiantly until the very end.
You must see this film!
|
|
| Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (2002) |
|
|
This
is a trippy and freakishly fascinating retelling of the Hansel and
Gretel fairytale.
This time, Hansel and Gretel are two teenaged female
delinquents who bust out of juvi.
Natasha Lyonne (Slums of Beverly Hills, If These
Walls Could Talk 2 and But I’m a Cheerleader) plays
Chrystal, a convicted drug dealer, and Maria Celedonia plays
Cyclona, Chrystal’s lesbian, Chicana cellmate in for murder. The
women’s road trip lands them in Mexico where they reconnect with a
nun (played way campy by Vincent Gallo), who a young Cyclona
considered a mother figure. It turns out that the nun was running a
child porn operation that Cyclona was unwittingly a participant in.
The flashbacks and repressed memories from her time at the
convent are the root of Cyclona’s homicidal psychosis.
Ya think?
This film is just insane and over the top.
Natasha turns in another weird, but engaging performance.
David Allen Grier plays Natascha’s lawyer, who also
appears to be her “ride or die dude” and love interest.
You won’t believe your eyes half of the time as you’re
watching this film.
I just want to know why the Latina gotta be the one who’s
abused in almost every context here?
You’ll see what I mean.
|
|
| Childhood's End (2001) |
|
|
This film is only available on VHS right now. It's a real indie-indie with respect to budget, but the story and the performances are very good. This is a coming of age drama set in a Minneapolis suburb. There is the high school over-achieving, smart kid having an affair with his much older female neighbor; the shy and awkward school outcast who is drawn out by her friendship turned romantic relationship with an out lesbian teen. This isn’t standard teen fare, in that the relationships are polyvalent and fully developed. Too, this film is as much about reticulated family (dis)connections as it is a romantic love story. I highly recommend it.
|
|
| Treading Water (2001) |
|
|
Another
pithy and insightful family drama with lesbian characters.
Alex and Casey live on a houseboat in a coastal New England town
just across the water from Casey’s WASPY, uptight family.
It’s Casey’s mother, in particular, who’s the most
ill-at-ease with her daughter’s lifestyle. It seems mom is
simultaneously in semi-denial about and in a rage about Casey’s
lesbianism and her apparent willingness to flaunt it for everyone to
see.
Casey’s orientation is the least of the family’s worries,
though, because the youngest brother is seeing a counselor for acting
out at school and the other brother is an alcoholic.
All of the family’s problems come to a head one Christmas.
I especially like the relationship between the lesbian couple
here.
The story picks up long after the initial meet and greet and goes
far in explicating how difficult it is to balance romantic and familial
attachments.
Too, neither of the lesbians in the film has come to the
realization that she’s really straight, and neither is pregnant.
Nothing wrong with either scenario in real life, really.
It’s just that, of late, it seems that you can only find two
types of lesbians in films: one who wants to be with men or one who is
desperately trying to get pregnant. Get
this film on DVD and listen to the director’s commentary.
It’s pretty interesting.
|
|
| Desi's Looking for a New Girl (2002) |
|
|
This film is so much fun! The titular Desi is Desi del Valle from Costa Brava and a host of other lesbian indies. Desi’s reluctantly back in the dating pool after her long-time girlfriend cheats on her. It seems everybody, from friends to family, has an opinion about whom Desi should date next. The film is set in San Francisco and nearly the entire cast is Latina (and damned good looking, I might add! ¡Viva la raza!), with dialogue in Spanish (without translation) and in English. It’s a sweet story with great location shots of SF dyke hangouts. The film is also interspersed with animation, the director’s first love, creatively speaking. Again, get this on DVD and hear Mary Gúzman (the director’s) commentary, as well as see an edifying “the making of” segment. This film took 7 years to make and was a labor of love, as most of the people involved in front of and behind the camera were not paid. Many of the key players are long time friends of the director or are family members.
|
|
| Mercy (1999) |
|
|
This film is a guilty pleasure of mine. It stars Ellen Barkin, Peta Wilson (from TV’s La Femme Nikita) and Julian Sands being his usual weird self. Essentially, there’s a serial killer on the loose who is targeting a group of wealthy, beautiful women who happen to be into S&M. Many of the women are also lesbians. Barkin is the detective committed to cracking the case and Wilson is a suspect. There are so many negative stereotypes promulgated about lesbians here, but Peta Wilson gives such an honest and affecting performance, and she and Ellen Barkin have so much sexual chemistry. Check out the kitchen seduction scene and you’ll see what I mean! This film’s cinematography and score remind me so much of Michael Mann (Heat, Manhunter). He didn’t direct this, but if you’re a closet fan of his oeuvre, as I am, you’ll dig this movie. Plus, in case I didn't mention it, Peta and Ellen make out! Yeaaaahhh...uh huh!
|
|
| L.I.E. (2001) |
|
|
This is a tough film, subject-wise. It’s a coming of age drama about Howie, a smart and contemplative Long Island high schooler, who has lost his mother. Howie’s father is distant and neglectful, so he does the male bonding thing with a group of delinquent boys who let him tag along because he’s a rich kid. Howie makes a strong connection (bordering on romantic) with Gary, one of the boys in the group who moonlights as a hustler and a thief. Gary, in turn, introduces Howie to an older ex-Navy guy who is a pedophile, Big John. The film resists the child predator as boogey-man motif, and, instead, makes Big John an affable, intelligent, well traveled and multi-dimensional person. It becomes easy to see how he gains the trust of young boys, and how his pathology goes undetected and unpunished (for a while). The film follows Howie’s developing, non-sexual relationship with Big John. Clearly, Howie desperately needs a father figure, and he’s also trying to decompact his feelings for Gary. Again, a tough film, psychologically, (there are no really explicit sex acts shown) to watch, but provocative. All of the actors here are extraordinary, especially Paul Franklin Dano as young Howie.
|
|
|
|
|
| Kissing Jessica Stein (2002) |
|
|
Jessica is a neurotic, assiduous and persnickety copy editor who seems to find fault with every man she meets. Helen is a cool downtown art gallery assistant director who remains unfulfilled by her polyamorous straight life. The women connect through the Voice personals and find in each other what they've both been looking for in men. This is a really smart, quick-paced and witty script written by the two leads, Heather Juergensen and Jessica Westfeld. They also produced the flick. I think this movie has some thoughtful things to say about the fluidity of attraction and about how our own fears often limit our choices. Great performances (especially Tovah Feldshuh as the meddlesome Jewish mother) and obscenely smart dialogue. See this!! It's the kind of movie Woody is no longer able to make. I just saw Hollywood Ending...WTF was that???!!!
|
|
| All Over The Guy (2000) |
|
|
A straight couple set their best friends up on a blind date. Perennially single, but commitment centered Eli meets relationship-phobic, hard-drinking and chain smoking Tom. Of course, there's friction in the beginning, but opposites do attract. The first thing that this script has going for it is that it's not a "coming out story." The leads are already gay and out to family and friends and well-adjusted about it. That frees up the plot quite a bit. This is simply a funny and poignant story about human relationships (romantic and familial). It's the kind of story that director Julie A. Davis (I Love You, Don't Touch Me) tells best. Andrea Martin steals every scene she's in as Eli's way too progressive psychotherapist mother.
|
|
| A Gaudi Afternoon (2001) |
|
|
This film simply left me speechless. It is apparently based upon a dyke mystery book series. The plot, though, is nuts. Julie Davis is an American writer living in Barcelona working as a literary translator. Given that Davis is an American and her Spanish is excellent, she's hired by Marcia Gay Harden (another American) to find her "husband", who has mysteriously left the States. But Harden is a sketchy character and there's more to the story than meets the eye. Alot more!!! Lili Taylor and Juliette Lewis co-star as lesbian lovers. This film seems to be a cheeky homage to Pedro Almodóvar. It's all quite perplexing, but there were some fun turns in the plot. I personally relish any opportunity to see Lili Taylor in a film.
|
|
| Johnny Greyeyes (2000) |
|
|
This is a lyrically told drama about a Canadian Native American (Ojibway, I think) family torn apart by violence. At the heart of story is the titular, Johnny, played by Gail Maurice, a lesbian serving time for murder. Johnny is up for parole and has to deal with leaving her jail family, including her girlfriend Lana, and reuniting with her younger brother and mother on the outside. This is a somber piece, but the performances are good, and again, how often do we see queer Native Americans on screen? The entire cast, except for the prison guards, is Native folk. The film also acts as a strong critique of the Canadian penal system, which looks to be the only other space, besides the reservations, that that country places its Native population as a matter of course.
|
|
| The Business of Strangers (2001) |
|
|
This is one to buy, for sure. Stockard Channing owns this fucking movie from the first frame!!! And Julia Stiles holds her own against the veteran. Who knew the current queen of the teen adaptations had real chops. This is a taunt character study about two women, a generation or so apart in age, who try to negotiate the world of big business and the corporate arm of patriarchy. I can’t say much about the plot without ruining the film’s magic and psychological labyrinths, but trust me; you so wanna see this movie. Stiles plays queer and cunning here and Channing plays steely and controlled. I love them both!!!
|
|
| Love Come Down (2000) |
|
|
This is not a queer film, but I really like it and want people to see it. It stars and was executive produced by Lorenz Tate, who plays fictional drug addicted aspiring stand up comic, Neville Emerson Carter. Like the family in Johnny Greyeyes, Neville hails from a family mired in domestic violence as well. He and his white half brother (they have the same white mother, different fathers) are trying to deal with their mother’s incarceration and the family events and pathologies that led up to her being jailed. The script combusts in the third act, but Lorenz Tate is very good throughout. Deborah Cox plays his love interest looking for her birth parents in a parallel story. Deborah, surprisingly, is a natural actor. She is also one of the main reasons I like this film.
|
|
| The Velocity of Gary (1998) |
|
|
This film, starring Salma Hayak and Vincent D’Onofrio, is an odd one but pretty fascinating. D’Onofrio plays a second rate porn star (is there any other kind of porn star?) enmeshed in a love triangle with a woman (Hayak) and a male prostitute. Of course, the boyfriend and the girlfriend can’t stand one another, but are forced to deal with each other as they live together in order to care for an ailing D’Onofrio. It sucks that D’Onofrio contracts AIDS in this story; that’s so reductive, but his performance is so strange it makes the film a must see. This weirdo performance is totally in keeping with his work in MIB I and in The Cell, that wonderful piece of cinematic detritus co-starring my wife, Jenny Lo. I liked this film in spite of myself.
|
|
| Slaves To The Underground (1996) |
|
|
I love everything having to do with grunge music, particularly the RIOT GRRL part of the grunge phenomenon. This little indie is set in Seattle and its focus is an all girl band and two of its members who are lovers. One of the women was previously involved with a guy who comes back into the picture. This film says some problematic things, I think, about the nature of bisexuality, but I dig the music in the film and Marisa Ryan’s performance as a slightly unstable dyke-rocker-activist is choice! Put your queer politics aside for a moment and rock out, dude!
|
|
| The Big Eden (2000) |
|
|
Arye Gross (from the early seasons of TV’s Ellen) stars in this sweet little picture about putting childhood demons to rest. Gross goes home to a small town in Montana to take care of his ailing grandfather where he encounters his best friend from high school again. The two guys had an intense and intimate friendship that was just this shy of being a full throttle romance. Only problem is Mr. High school Football Star was and is straight, but there’s a Native American guy, who runs the town general store, who is secretly in love with Gross’s character. A gay Native American guy in a movie? You gotta see it, if only for that reason.
|
|
| Show Me Love (1998) In Swedish with English subtitles |
|
|
This is a little picture from Sweden. Its Swedish title translates into English as “Fucking Amal!”, Amal being the city in Sweden where the film takes place. Love it! This is a girl-girl high school romance. Brainy, tomboyish Agnes is in love with the most popular girl in school, Elin. Agnes, new to the town the two live in, is a social outcast at school. Elin, as a result of a practical joke that kinda misses its mark, spends time with Agnes and likes what she learns about her. Does Elin reciprocate Agnes’ feelings? If so, will Elin risk her cool girl status to be with Agnes? This has to be the sweetest movie I’ve ever seen. I watch it all of the time when I need a pick-me-up. Pair it with Alex and Sylvia Sichel's much more somber All Over Me for that yin/yang thang.
|
|
| Metrosexuality (2001) |
|
|
A tripped out pansexual British comedy. A straight Black teen tries to reunite his two fathers, among other parallel themes.
|
|
| Monkey's Mask (2000) |
|
|
Australian indie, lesbian private investigator working a missing person's case. Ends up in an affair with an older, married, presumably straight poetry professor. This is so worth it just to watch Kelly Top Gun/The Accused/Witness McGillis getting hot and heavy with a woman! The other lead is Susie Porter [look for her in a little movie called Better Than Sex (2000) when it becomes available for home rental]. Better Than Sex surprised me with some of the fresh and compelling things it had to say about intimacy. I'm really starting to like Porter's work.
|
|
| Butterfly Kiss (1995) |
|
|
This little film has finally made it to video and DVD. This is Michael Winterbottom's (Jude the Obscure-a masterpiece, if I've ever seen one!) very dark tale of a lesbian serial killer and her female lover and accomplice. Amanda Plummer is so affecting and creepy in this film. Yeah, it reifies the lesbian as a pathologically aberrant predator, but you cannot reasonably argue that the film isn't pithy.
|
|