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Reviews
Brother to Brother (2004)
This is one of the best films I've ever seen to deal with gay cultural history and African American cultural history.
BROTHER TO BROTHER will be added to the list of films I show my university class. THere has yet to be a film that so perfectly captures both the longing and the anger that informs gay American cultural history and specifically African American gay cultural history. Director Rodney Evans has managed to communicate the excitement and risk of the Harlem Renaissance and use it as a back drop for the challenges of talented gay African American artists now. This is imaginative, deeply felt, and lonely film making. For such a collaborative art form, this film has a wistful solitariness that hurts and heals.
The cast is uniformly excellent, and the story is haunting. What a contribution Mr. Evans has made, what humane art he's given us. Eliot told us to "risk enchantment" in our lives, our art. This is just that successful risk.
Don't miss it!
The Singing Forest (2003)
This film was so bad, the director ought to change his name!
I have rarely seen a film this bad. The cover of the DVD quoted a critic as saying the film was "A gay GHOST." The producers of GHOST ought to sue him for libel. Jorge Ameer ought to change his name since I would NEVER see anything that had his name attached to it again.
And then the acting! Could one even call what these folks were doing acting? One can only hope that the actors were improvising their scenes, otherwise that means someone actually wrote the film script.
How can that be? Who paid for and who actually distributed this film? Oh, and, by the way, the "Short" films included with the feature were no better.
Avoid this movie!
Gypsy 83 (2001)
Not since Sherwood Anderson made Winesburg, Ohio THE place to be FROM, has Ohio seemed such an exotic backdrop!
Who knew that Sandusky was another Oz? Not since Sherwood Anderson made Winesburg, Ohio THE place to be FROM, has Ohio seemed such an exotic backdrop! Todd Stephens once again shows us that being different in Sandusky may be the crucible out of which our most solid character values are forged. Sara Rue and Kett Turton--with a little help from Karen Black, John Doe, and Anson Scoville ( as the sexiest Amish man since Harrison Ford)--make being different ( Goth, fat, gay, whatever)seem like redemption.
A little road picture becomes, with good writing, direction, and superb performances, a modern-day Canterbury Tales, where the "Night of a 1000 Stevies" is as important a destination as St Thomas Becket's grave.
The journey is itself the important part of the story, and each character that Gypsy ( Rue) and Clive (Turton) meet helps to change them as they, in turn, alter the lives of those they meet.
Do not expect true love and happy endings because like all journeys of self discovery, nothing is perfect and believing, opposite from the adage, is finally seeing.
Rent this DVD; see this movie. Todd Stephens gets better and better. EDGE OF SEVENTEEN was far from being just another teen movie, just another GAY teen movie; so GYPSY 83, too, is far from being another coming of age film. I think it says that we are all essential: frat boys, rednecks, broken-down karaoke singers, Stevie Nicks impersonators, fat girls, hunky Amish farmers, Mary Kay sales queens, and Foto Hut booth girls.
Sandusky, Ohio IS Oz. Todd Stephens knows it.
Oh, and don't miss Karen Black's incredible sultry jazz singing. Why the hell isn't she on Broadway?
Heir to an Execution (2004)
Ivy Meeropol's film isn't about history at all, it's a rather guileless investigation of who her family are.
The Rosenbergs are poster children for the black and white horror of what became known as the McCarthy Era, the Communist Witch Hunts, of the early '50s. Their faces, especially Ethel's, is as recognizable to us as McCarthy's himself. Ivy Meeropol, their granddaughter, grew up with an activist father who believed that his parents were, as they said repeatedly and even at their deaths in the electric chair, innocent. Her home was filled with their images, from newspaper accounts, books, and newsreel footage stills, to pieces of art created by the likes of Picasso. But this film only makes passing reference, I feel, to the fact of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. What it does do is present us with a granddaughter's rather guileless investigation of who her family are. Her own name was changed by her father's adoption by another family since his own grandparents, aunts, and uncles--on both sides--Greenglass and Rosenberg-- would not take the two orphaned boys in. Her cousins (one of whom she meets for the first time and who weeps with shame at how his own father--Julius's brother--changed their name to Roberts and refused to even see his two nephews) are complete strangers to her. What does she find out? Does she know her grandparents better? I doubt it. She can't know why the Rosenbergs chose to die rather than betray political beliefs, friends, and their nearly religious conviction that Socialism was humankind's only hope. What she can see is what shame, fear, cowardice, infamy, and love does to a family. I think Lillian Hellman's title for her memoir of the same period names it best: Scoundrel Time. After all, the Rosenbergs' convictions and executions made Roy Cohn into a celebrity. God help us.
Clay Farmers (1988)
This film manages a real depth of feeling with great economy.
Yes, there are obvious flaws: sometimes the acting is a bit stilted (especially the boy who is so enamored of the two "clay farmers."); and, yes, the townsfolk and the "villain" came directly from central casting, but this film manages a real depth of feeling with great economy. The leads, especially Todd Fraser ( Dan), are excellent. The feeling that grows between the two men is obviously homo erotic; in fact, I think they are very clearly in love. But it's the accusation of just that fact upon which the whole movie turns. A lesser film and lesser writer would have drowned in the cliché. This film doesn't do that because the characters remain who they are, and self knowledge comes at a price. Their frightened silence (well, Dan's silence) becomes devastating.
There are some real surprises here, too, that lift the plot above the ordinary. This is definitely worth seeing.
Leaving Metropolis (2002)
I think LOVE AND HUMAN REMAINS is the better of the two screenplays.
I would like to have seen Fraser's play, POOR SUPER MAN, largely because there are plaintive allusions to Superman in the film that make me know they were, in some context not necessarily evident, important. I think the film became confused: fading pre-op transsexual, nasty self-loathing, fag hag friend with a drinking problem, a closeted straight man too innocent for life-- with an accompanying jealous wife-- and a Virgil-like artist guide who seems compelled to lead them all through the Circles of Hell.
I was not surprised that the artist and his straight man foil have sex; steamy and straightforward sex. I was shocked, however, that so much of the movie then seemed to pivot on the obvious. The only vital thing I saw were the paintings of straight man Matt which artist David had conjured out of desire and the experience of desire ( who said TS Eliot was a dessicated old bag? He knew this story backwards and forwards!). These were both titillating and of heroic dimension.
Maybe we should have skipped the film and gone, instead, to the exhibition.
I suggest one see LOVE AND HUMAN REMAINS and LEAVING METROPOLIS together; LOVE AND HUMAN REMAINS is the better of the two, but, together, one gets a real glimpse of Fraser's enormous talent.
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
The most adult love story I know.
When I saw this film in 1971, I was too young to understand the basic human compassion that Schlesinger and Gilliat were examining when they collaborated on the film.
Having just watched the DVD again, I am truly stunned at how relevant the film has remained. I have never seen anything like it: Glenda Jackson struggles with her own fears of selfishly needing Murray Head; Peter Finch struggles with trying NOT to need/have expectations of him, all the while forgiving Murray Head for never being able to be needed or to meet his expectations.
It is the most adult love story I know.
The First Paintings (1974)
Independent film
Taken from a short story, there is an almost Chekovian fatalism that runs through the film. It is understated and seductive. Conrad McClaren, who plays the lead, is excellent. The rest of the cast, mostly young unknowns, are quite good.