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Must Sees and Quick Hits from the Out on Film Festival Life of Reilly
(4 out of 4)  Life of Reilly A Tony award winner, Reilly’s public image has been effectively frozen in time and his career reduced to a few lines on a Trivial Pursuit card and the occasional clip on a VH-1 flashback special. And since the focus of most VH-1 specials is less about making poignant observations than giving obscure barely known (and thus cheap) comedians and actors the opportunity to make Oscar Night worthy cracks, we the public rarely get any true insight into why these people and shows have become so iconic. And so Life, an elegantly filmed and edited version of Reilly’s self-penned one man show, is a captivating look into the life of a man who counts Charles Grodin, Jerry Stiller, Jack Lemon, Steve McQueen, Geraldine Page and Hal Holbrook as acting classmates. Filling in the gaps and illuminating the dark corners of his past, Reilly gives a dynamic performance, demonstrating his impeccable timing and droll wit. Expounding on his childhood, Reilly drops depressing quotes from his mother like “I should have gave away the baby and kept the afterbirth” in one breath and in the next responds to the audience’s gasp with the pithy and funny “Well it’s that kind of show.” Anyone expecting to hear stories about “Match Game” or gossip about posthumously outed stars will be deeply disappointed. However, anyone interested in getting to know Charles Nelson Reilly the actor and Charles Nelson Reilly the man will leave satisfied and humbled. Jam
(3.5 out 4) When Tim Patten first appears on screen and starts to recount how roller derby became his passion you’re not sure if the filmmakers aren’t trying to pull on over on you. Patten goes on to claim that roller derby once out drew the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants combined and that at its apex millions watched derby matches on television. According to Patten, they even played to a capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden. When a seventies era picture of a younger, more muscular Patten in a Bay City Bomber uniform appears on screen and you know this just has to be a mockumentary. But, it’s true. Filmed between 1998 and 2004, Jam follows Patten and his cohorts as they attempt to revive the sport and bring it to a new generation of fans. Patten’s quest is a Sisyphean task as he pours thousands of his own money into his life’s passion. Jam is difficult to watch when you realize that Patten’s ideas for reviving the sport aren’t too far off. While Patten is trying to convince a young mother that switching to the dark side will make her wildly popular with young fans. And while, Patten is desperately tying to craft storylines and team rivalries that will attract an audience, Vince McMahon is using those same tactics to turn the then titled World Wrestling Federation into a marketing and media juggernaut. Patten says “television is going to be pimped slapped by the internet,” and he’s right. Only he made his prescient observation six years and few thousand dollars too early. However, the biggest negative that Patten appears to never acknowledge is the folly of relying on aging roller derby players to populate his teams. Much like Patten, they can’t let their dream die. Some of the players had been skating since the early 60’s. It’s hard to know what to root for in Jam. That Patten’s dream becomes a reality. Or for Patten to realize that like Quixote he’s chasing windmills. Puccini For Beginners
(3.5 out of 4)  Puccini for Beginners Back around 1994, when Republicans were taking over the House and Senate, indie film was heating up. Various debates flared up among movie goers and film buffs, all of which easily fell into two categories. One, what is an indie film? Two, how realistic are indie films? On the whole, indie films have never been more realistic than mainstream films. And if you really examine the plots and themes of 90 percent of indie films, as much as they appear to go against the grain, they mostly reaffirm widely held values and beliefs. Soy milk drinking, Prius driving, art house movie patrons desperately want to hook up as much as their Red state brethren. However, Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey aren’t exactly what they crave. Sure, they wouldn’t kick them out of bed, but art house and indie folks have learned that watching obscure subtitled foreign flicks and being able to wax philosophical about Cousin Oliver can be a potent aphrodisiac. Puccini’s internal debates aim much higher than whether The Brady Bunch jumped the shark with the addition of Cousin Oliver, however it’s a smart, lighting quick romantic comedy that reaffirms the notion that deep down nobody wants to be alone. Reaser plays Allegra, a Woody Allen-esque writer and lesbian who doesn’t believe or understand long lasting commitments. After her last girlfriend dumps her, a drunk Reaser hooks up with Justin Kirk’s drunk Philip, a man who’s actually read one of her critically acclaimed but barely read tomes. What’s meant to be a meaningless one night stand—she is a lesbian after all, so what would she need with a man?—develops into a relationship. Allegra further complicates and blurs the lines that define her perfectly crafted niche when she meets Gretchen Mol’s Grace at a movie theater. Soon she’s having more hot sex and deeply meaningful conversations then she can handle. Puccini is all about Reaser as Allegra. While the plot isn’t wildly complicated, Reaser makes Allegra and her world instantly relatable and intensely enjoyable. Any man or woman that isn’t feening for Reeser by the end of the first act should check and see if their testicles and/or ovaries are still in working order. And if not, they should quickly exit the theater. If they are, they should sit back and not fight that tingling feeling they feel in their loins. 20 Centimeters
(3.5 out of 4) What is it about Spain and transsexuals? After three decades of turning out film after film about curvaceous men and their ding-dang doodles, how does this country continue to craft such interesting films? Let’s be honest, a narcoleptic transsexual prostitute coping with her unwanted tool and lives with a cello-playing midget who dreams of getting rich scalping tickets is straight Pedro Almodóvar. However, 20 Centimeters is from director and writer Ramón Salazar. And Salazar has taken what could have been a uber-depressing story—and just like Almodovar—crafted a character study that’s at times exhilarating and heartbreaking and totally worth the price of admission. Mónica Cervera is Marieta aka Adolfo Carpanta Orozco. A pre-op, Marieta is saving her duckets so she can have an “excess” 20 centimeters snipped from her person, transforming her into the woman of her dreams. So vivid are her desires, she has stunning Technicolor dreams in which she sings and dances as men faun over and Audrey Hepburn style outfits hug her lithe frame. The musical numbers could have quickly become annoying. However Salazar not only doesn’t overpopulate his film with them, he’s avoided staging numbers that are overly familiar. When he references Bob Fosse, 60’s pop lyrics and movies like Gene Kelly’s An American in Paris they’re fleeting moments. It’s Marieta’s world were grounded in. The conceit that plagues Marieta and drives the story isn’t that being pre-op is a hurdle. It’s that having those extra 20 centimeters swinging between her legs is actually a boon. Johns find it exciting and are willing to pay extra for it. Marieta is able to make her case worker at a temp agency weak in the knees when she seductively reveals why her birth name is Adolfo. And at one point Marieta finds a man who loves her for who she is and even craves her precisely because she’s pre-op. However, while the world around her can live with the Marieta that’s trapped between two worlds, can Marieta? Definitely a must see. Shock to the System
(3 out of 4) Film noir homage’s are nothing new. Just last year Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. saw theatrical release. What makes Shock different from Kiss—besides being a completely different movie in tone, style and structure— is that instead of Chad Allen’s openly homosexual Donald Strachey taking back seat to another character, Strachey is upfront and driving the story. Shock opens with a fairly by the numbers “in the shadows we meet” between private detective (you thought I was going to say private dick didn’t you…shame, for shame) Strachey and his client Paul Hale. After Strachey and Paul are nearly run down by a mysterious car, Paul is found dead. Ruled a suicide, Strachey finds it odd that a man would hire him for $5,000 only to down a lethal dose of Xanax the very next day. Determined to discover the truth, Strachey goes undercover at The Phoenix Foundation. An organization that promises it can help gays and lesbians live a straight lifestyle. Strachey surmises that Paul, who was literally the foundation’s poster boy, was about to reveal that he was still gay and that The Phoenix Foundation’s claims were bogus. And considering that the Phoenix Foundation’s head, Dr. Trevor Cornell, is about to move to Washington D.C. and take his program national, that makes the good doctor the prime suspect. Although there plenty of nods to 30’s and 40’s thrillers, there are times when Shock slides into Matlock territory—having Morgan Fairchild in the line up doesn’t help. And Strachey’s backstory comes off as schlocky and soapy. However, Allen is engaging as Strachey and makes the backstory and the character work. Director Ron Oliver seems undecided which genre he’s working in. One moment Strachey is feigning disinterest in politics as he and his husband Tim engage in The Thin Man-like repartee. The next, Strachey is engaging in movie of the week confrontations in dark alleys with potential suspects. And then a few beats later Strachey poetically expounds on the all-too human need for normalcy. I couldn’t help think that a show featuring Strachey would be a fun watch. Strachey is a complex and interesting character. And Allen’s chemistry with Sebastian Spence, who plays Tim and is criminally underused, is abundant. Those hoping for a new Nick and Nora can at least get their fix partially satisfied with Shock. Str8 Chaser
(2 out of 4)  Str8 Chaser Excluding a montage of shots early in the story, Ron doesn’t do much chasing and Darren doesn’t do much dodging. The problem lies primarily with a script that has too many side plots and extraneous characters who add little more than confusion to the story. Twenty-eight minutes isn’t much time to tell a story and Str8 leaves several interesting plots dangling and without much setup, quickly resolves others. The main crime is that Topher’s Darren and Thompson’s Ron aren’t fleshed out enough to render them dimensional. And it seems strange that Darren, as an aspiring artist, is so apathetic about his chosen career path. Meth
(2 out of 4) Arrrrrrrgh! That’s what a viewer should be yelling at the screen once they realize how empty and vapid this documentary is. An exploration of the havoc and destruction crystal meth wrought on a dozen or so gay men, Meth starts with a bang; swiftly bouncing from one talking head to another and overlapping silhouettes of men gyrating and sexing to a pulsating beat. Men of various ages—yet who all look like they’re in their mid-thirties—knowledgeably speak about the circuit and meth scene. They toss around drug slang like “slamming” and “hot rails.” Yet, one quickly realizes they’re watching yet another repackaged Scared Straight. This time reworked and aimed at the gay community, specifically gay men. I’m not trying to downplay the dangers of drugs and unprotected sex, however, it’s disingenuous to denounce circuit scene by using the same glam iconography to build your narrative on. And although I have many a man-crush, I’m not a gay man so maybe I’m totally off base with this observation. However, it seems even more despicable and insulting that the directors didn’t find more diverse subjects. Yes, I understand the need to illustrate how alike these men were. On the other hand, the film just feeds the widely held notion that all gay men have six-packs, look like they could model and are doomed to engage in self destructive behavior. Backstage
(2 out of 4) Here’s the story of Lucie and Lauren. Lauren is the French answer to Celine Dion, except her fan base doesn’t consist of middle aged soccer moms. Seventeen year-old Lucie is one of Lauren’s obsessed fans. So star struck is Lucie, her fascination so deep that it borders on mania, she can’t speak when, as a part of a reality show, Lauren appears in her home and sings to her on camera. After the publicity stunt goes awry due to Lucie’s odd behavior, Lucie follows Lauren to Paris so she can finally articulate her feelings. What unfolds is a meandering narrative as Lucie becomes Lauren’s assistant, sleeps with Lauren’s ex (who is Lauren’s own obsession) and gets a rare glimpse into the life of a pop idol. Backstage rides the stories surface in a vain hope that by simple disturbing the surface one will get a glimpse at its hidden depths. It’s a choice that can work. Here, it makes for limp tale that has one of the oddest and an ending that’s profoundly confusing. And one can’t tell if Backstage is about obsession, the dangers of star driven culture or the illusion of connection. This Filthy World
(3 out of 4) John Waters is a filmmaking legend. The kind of legend that Scorsese is, in which most people have heard of the name and may even know of their reputation, but in reality the vast majority have, at the most, only seen one of their films. You know the one that was their biggest and most mainstream hit. Which for Waters would be Hairspray (for Scorcese it was—till The Departed—probably Goodfellas). World is a one man show that—taken straight from the press kit—“celebrates the film career and obsessions and tastes of the man William Burruoghs once called ‘The Pope of Trash.’” Waters doesn’t really have a set path or a definitive agenda in World. Mostly he compacts three hours of witty observations, pithy anecdotes and obscure bits of pop culture trivia into a 90 minute set. To say John Waters has razor sharp wit and possesses comedic timing to spare is an understatement. The beauty of World is that Waters isn’t trying to sell you sh*t. He just wants to reveal the hidden vistas of America’s underground culture, share a few funny Divine stories and to instill in his audience some pride about their pop culture past. Saving Marriage
(3 out of 4) The Massachusetts’ courts ruled gay marriage legal and all types of hell broke loose. Saving Marriage goes beyond the sound bites and delves into the complex political and cultural mêlée that unfolded in the decisions wake. Red Doors Due to my house being burglarized no rating and no review. I had just started to watch this film. Maybe the thieves will see the film and a whole new world will open up to them. Somehow I doubt it. For more information about the Out on Film Festival and to order tickets online, go to http://www.outonfilm.com/ Charles Judson is a local screen & comic book writer and a regular contributor and film critic for CinemATL. |
