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Are There ANY Strong Gay-Themed Films Besides "Brokeback Mountain"?
Reviews
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Reverent, with strong acting, but long and tedious...
Reverent continuation of the journey made by Danny Torrance, the child character from Stephen King's 1977 novel "The Shining" (as filtered through Stanley Kubrick's 1980 screen-adaptation). In the prologue, little Danny seems to have conquered his demons, but years later is revealed to be an alcoholic wreck moving from one town to another. In another jump forward in time, a young girl with psychic abilities has tapped into the mind of a female vampire (the leader of a nomad cult of vampires) who kidnaps and tortures gifted children and feeds off their "steam" (or manifested fear). Writer-director Mike Flanagan, working from Stephen King's book, can't get a consistent rhythm going. His recreations of the Overlook Hotel (and its unforgettable designs) from Kubrick's film are uncanny, yet they feed off our nostalgia for the original while also pointing up how utterly vapid this particular effort is. For aficionados of Kubrick's work, many sequences (plus a cameo by "The Shining"'s Danny Lloyd at a baseball game) will bring about a smile of affection, but there's nothing in "Doctor Sleep" that will keep horror buffs discussing it 39 years later. Despite two or three very strong performances, it's 151mns of tedium--some of it on the tasteless side. *1/2 from ****
A Secret Love (2020)
Worthwhile love story, well-researched and produced...
Touching documentary for Netflix about an elderly lesbian couple in Illinois--stubborn, guarded Pat and sociable Terry--who have been together over 65 years but have only just recently come out to Terry's relatives in Canada (a close-knit group whom Pat has always felt tolerated her but never loved her like one of the family). Home movies, old letters and photographs galore complete the history of Pat and Terry's long journey together, but now it's time to sell their house and move into an assisted living facility--a step Pat doesn't want to take. Director Chris Bolan gets some tense drama on film without making anyone the villain of the piece (a nimble achievement), while Terry's girlhood occupation of playing catcher on a World War II-era all-female baseball team gives the film a nice undercurrent of nostalgia. **1/2 from ****
Some Kind of a Nut (1969)
Bucking-the-system comedy a complete misfire for Garson Kanin...
The opening 10mns of "Some Kind of a Nut" feature New York City bank teller Dick Van Dyke and a female co-worker trying to avoid getting stung by a bee in Central Park on their lunch hour (they end up tearing each other's clothes off, and getting ticketed for disorderly conduct). Writer-director Garson Kanin is straining so hard to be with-it, he turns even a comic genius like Dick Van Dyke into a person we'd rather be without. After Van Dyke grows a beard to cover the bee sting on his chin, he's ordered by his conservative employer to shave it off; after he refuses, he's fired and branded a rebel for "bucking the system". A prime example of old-fogey Hollywood (i.e., the entertainment Establishment) trying to "keep up with the kids" in 1970. Unfortunately, "Some Kind of a Nut" isn't nutty enough. As a history lesson for cinephiles, it's interesting--but as a comedy, it's an embarrassment. NO STARS from ****
The Comic (1969)
Surprisingly bitter-tinged and not-maudlin...
Reminiscences of a 1920s silent comedy star, old and ill before death in the present day--and, in a possible nod to "Sunset Blvd.", speaking to us from his own coffin. Co-writer/co-producer/director Carl Reiner doesn't use the pie-in-the-face humor for dumb yuks; he's underscoring the era of silent comedy with motifs (such as a mechanical wind-up toy of our star). Dick Van Dyke comes through with an interesting characterization here; his Billy Bright isn't seen falling out of favor with audiences due to the changing times--he is, in fact, offered the chance to move into talkies--but instead, he's debilitated by the womanizing and alcoholism that wrecked his marriage. Reiner throws us some curveballs, a few of which pay off: Billy threatening to kidnap his own son from ex-wife Michele Lee, only to grab the wrong youngster; Billy in a wheelchair on hospital grounds visited by his now-grown fop son (also Dick Van Dyke). In support, Mickey Rooney (as comedy partner Cockeye, who was born cockeyed!) isn't allowed to mug, which is a blessing, and Lee keeps her cool as Billy's put-upon co-star and spouse. There's no overwhelming reason to see the picture, however; it looks terrible in TV-styled Technicolor and it has no center (basically a downer, the movie has no hope of building momentum except for a brief comeback with a TV commercial). The snippets of Billy Bright's silent shorts and one successful feature are well-enough accomplished, and Reiner is able to pull off the pathos inherent in the final scene. That commercial also provides a nice touch of social commentary: Isabell (sic) Sanford pitching Whitee White detergent (it's a race joke cut from the same cloth as "Watermelon Man", but this time tossed at us nonchalantly). **1/2 from ****
Alice in Wonderland (1933)
"If you think we're waxworks, you ought to pay you know?"
Girl in Victorian England dreams she falls down a rabbit hole into a world of wonder and bewilderment. Lewis Carroll's fantastical tale of nonsense, adapted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies, was a box-office blower for Paramount, and one can easily see why. Conceptualized in live-action (with an animated "Walrus and the Carpenter" sequence), the characters take on a grotesque, waxy quality in school-play surroundings--and it doesn't help that new find Charlotte Henry is an uncharismatic Alice. Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen, Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle, and Gary Cooper as the White Knight might be sufficient enough casting to lure film buffs, but it's a rather ungainly experience. *1/2 from ****
The Possessed (1977)
Interesting cast the only compensation...
Mysterious fires keep breaking out at an all-girls school...could they have something to do with a recent car accident that nearly killed a minister who'd lost his faith? He has since become an exorcist (!) and believes Satanic forces have enveloped the school. Ridiculous TV-screamer worth-noting only for its cast: James Farentino, Eugene Roche, Harrison Ford (as a biology teacher having an affair with one of the students), Dinah Manoff, P. J. Soles, Diana Scarwid, and "special guest star" Joan Hackett. Picking the bones clean off a current movie trend, writer John Sacret Young shows no shame. Headmistress Hackett, whose room is decorated with her extensive butterfly collection, gets the worst scene: seducing ex-Father Farentino wearing two coats of lip gloss and maroon-colored tights underneath her raised skirt. * from ****
The Hanged Man (1964)
Fine cast and musical cameos in early TV-movie
Made-for-TV crime-drama--evidently only the second film ever to be produced especially for a television broadcast--was directed by Donald (Don) Siegel and features a good cast of character actors including Robert Culp, Vera Miles, Al Lettieri in an uncredited bit, and Norman Fell (who's terrific). Loose adaptation of Dorothy B. Hughes' novel "Ride the Pink Horse", previously filmed in 1947 starring Robert Montgomery, trades in a Mexican Fiesta for Mardi Gras in New Orleans as a hired gun, seeking to avenge the murder of a friend, is tailed by a government agent working to build a case against a crooked union boss. Originally broadcast on NBC, the film has acquired a certain mystique, mostly due to its relative unavailability. The double-crosses are fun, if familiar, while the milieu is colorful and the music lively. Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto turn up as the nightclub entertainment performing "The Girl From Ipanema" and "Only Trust Your Heart", and Culp is typically solid if swallowed up in his scenes with Edmond O'Brien, chewing the scenery as the heavy. ** from ****
Madame X (1966)
One good performance--and it's not Miss Turner's!
Lana Turner looks a tad matronly to be passed off as a nervous, blushing bride in the early scenes of "Madame X". Playing the new society wife of wealthy diplomat/political troubleshooter/senator-in-the-making John Forsythe, Turner looks heavy and unhappy. After Forsythe brings Lana home to his lavish family estate--and his deceptively welcoming mother--we are treated to newspaper headlines that tell us of his busy rise in politics while Turner has a baby and plays hostess for a charity function...she also attracts the eye of Ricardo Montalban, the local playboy. Ross Hunter-produced adaptation of Alexandre Bisson's play from 1908 (first filmed as a short in 1910 as "Who Is She?", followed by feature-length versions in 1916, 1920, 1929, 1937, 1939 as "A Woman is the Judge", 1948 and 1954) is a masochistic wallow. Turner the Tragedienne is involved in a death and is forced to abandon her husband and child--the latter of whom grows up to be a lawyer and unwittingly defends his own mother in court. "Madame X" might've been enjoyable camp if all involved didn't approach the story in such sodden spirits. Hunter loved glamour and would-be decadent, pseudo-dangerous melodrama, so working at perennial middle-drawer studio Universal must've felt like bitter irony; the sets are cheap, the color tacky, the presentation dreary. Constance Bennett (playing Turner's mother-in-law, but looking younger than the star) gives the only interesting performance. Remade once again in 1981 as a TV-movie. ** from ****
The Savage Is Loose (1974)
Decidedly off-putting...
A shipwreck in 1905 leaves a university scientist, his wife and infant son shipwrecked on an island. Seven years later, the child is now a growing boy learning about nature and island wildlife from his father while his mother plays disciplinarian (she also seems to be cracking up, feeling hopeless and accusing her husband of enjoying their isolated predicament). Early on, Mom screams for the men to light the signal fire even though there's not a trace of ship smoke on the horizon; her husband gets caught up in the excitement, later shaking his head sadly as the fire dies out. Does he question her about it, or do they discuss her emotional and mental stability? No, they exchange silent looks at dinner time (and one gets the feeling this movie is going to last a long time). A colossal flop for producer-director-star George C. Scott, who gives a pushy performance. Working from a screenplay fashioned by Max Ehrlich and Frank De Felitta--two very strong writers--Scott inevitably (though almost unbelievably) goes in for the Oedipus storyline; but why did this particular subject intrigue him...and why did he think it would intrigue us? Although Trish Van Devere (Scott's real-life wife) is an attractive, talented actress, I didn't buy her character for a second; that her son should mature and want her sexually isn't totally preposterous, though it is ludicrous the way Scott stages the action. I assume we're supposed to ask: if there's not another woman around, are incestuous feelings between a boy and his mother natural? It's heady subject matter, to be certain, but no one involved quite knows how to present it in this dramatic context. On the plus side, Gil Mellé has composed a nice score, and Alex Phillips Jr.'s cinematography is skillful. *1/2 from ****
Wicked: Part I (2024)
This is the kind of picture people want now...and likely expect
It's a defeatist move to think all big-budget summer or holiday releases from now on are going to look like "Barbie", but apparently that's the case. Broadway's "Wicked" has become a perky-pink and green extravaganza for audiences raised on the Harry Potter films and primed for bestie-bonding by last year's "Barbie" and its ilk. This $150M CGI nightmare is smirkily self-satisfied and self-amused--and, judging from the early box-office returns, it's the kind of picture people want (and likely expect). Glinda the Good Witch tells the residents of Munchkinland (no little people this time, only hyped-up adults and dimply-cute children) that the Wicked Witch of the West is dead, setting the stage for a 2hr-40mn flashback to Elphaba Thropp's childhood and residency at Shiz University, where she becomes roommates with "Galinda". The film is desperately inclusive, including Elphaba's sister who's a paraplegic; no one is left out of the mix should Hollywood outsiders call foul, but is this a positive or a negative? (The movie, reeking of feel-good, began to look like a cereal commercial to me.) The opener in Munchkinland is hopelessly static and ugly--much of the movie is distinctly unattractive visually--but Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba is a true talent who is able to transcend some of "Wicked"'s false machinery to carve out a genuine character. She's alone in this, as Ariana Grande-Butera is a pink-and-blonde annoyance throughout, Jeff Goldblum is disappointing as the Wizard, and Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible from the University makes dramatic entrances and exits, always walking slowly. Jon M. Chu's direction is hectic and full of false promise (and false endings), though a few of the songs are dramatic and lively. The climax is open-ended for a sequel, which will probably be just as costly and rake back in just as much. That's show biz. ** from ****
Seberg (2019)
Not an easy watch, though the topic is (sadly) still relevant and the overall results thought-provoking...
After befriending Hakim Jamal, a leader in the Black Power movement of the late-1960s, on a flight to Los Angeles, film actress Jean Seberg alternately wants to donate to his cause and seduce him. Jamal is already under surveillance by the FBI, and soon they're bugging Seberg as well, under J. Edgar Hoover's illegal COINTELPRO program which sought to disrupt and discredit everyone on their hit list. Fascinating chapter of US history in which dirty players within the government, ferreting out racial instigators, played a big hand in ruining people's lives. Seberg was driven to the brink of despair, with bursts of aggravated paranoia and a suicide attempt which ended the life of her baby (whom Newsweek had reported would be black--she wasn't). "Seberg", directed by Benedict Andrews and written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, is polished and efficient and appropriately unpleasant to watch--and I couldn't wait for it to be over. The writers aren't interested in Seberg's films or her celebrity lifestyle, and that's as it should be. The duo stick primarily to Jean's philanthropic ambitions to bring unity to this country (which is convincingly played without much soapbox grandstanding). The film looks fairly accurate in its depiction of early-'70s Los Angeles (although I don't believe the real Jean Seberg was still sporting her pixie cut from "Breathless" as late as 1970 or 1971). Kristen Stewart takes a while to warm up, but she's sufficient in the lead; Anthony Mackie is terrific as Hakim Jamal; Yvan Attal perfect as Jean's estranged husband, writer Romain Gary; and Jack O'Connell solid as Jack Solomon, apparently the only decent Fed in a group of bloodhounds intent on destroying the star. Jed Kurzel's moody score is excellent and the film is compact at 102mns. **1/2 from ****
Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
"A bark is born!"
Spoof of '20s Hollywood has German Shepherd escaping extermination at the shelter and befriending a starving actress. Later, after elaborately saving her from a casting couch encounter, the dog attracts the attention of the studio chief who's impressed with the canine's prowess (played by Art Carney, the mogul does everything but shout "Get me that dog!", which probably would have been funnier than anything else Carney gets to say). Director/co-producer Michael Winner had shown flashes of humor in previous endeavors, but slapstick seems out of his reach (Winner is one of these directors who thinks destruction equals hilarity). Despite good production values, the movie is rather sloppily patched together, with potential highlights (such as Madeline Kahn and Teri Garr as roommates) going unrealized. An amazing array of Old Hollywood talent shows up in supporting roles (from Johnny Weissmuller and Aldo Ray to Ethel Merman and Joan Blondell), but most of the picture is given over to Bruce Dern as an amateur screenwriter, and crazy-eyed Dern is about as funny as Winner. As for the dog...he's no Rin Tin Tin, but he doesn't steal any scenes from Kahn, either. *1/2 from ****
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Sweetly unassuming, like our heroine
Young princess, the target of envy and malice from her evil stepmother, runs for her life after the queen orders her death, taking refuge in a cottage owned by seven messy little men. The cornerstone of Walt Disney's empire, the first full-length animated feature in Technicolor (though not the first full-length animated feature--that honor would go to Argentina's "Peludopolis" from director Quirino Cristiani in 1931, following the director's now-lost "El Apóstol" from 1917). Pre-World War II sweetness enchanted audiences of all nationalities, though it creaks a bit today. Mute dwarf Dopey gets most of the big laughs, while the best song numbers are "Whistle While You Work" and "The Silly Song". The original Academy ratio of 1.37:1 has proven problematic in re-releases, as the presentation is box-shaped. One Oscar nomination: for Best Music Score. The following year, Walt Disney received an Honorary Oscar (plus seven statuettes) for his "significant screen innovation." A bit of trivia: Disney did win an Oscar the same year "Snow White" was eligible--but for the animated short subject, "The Old Mill". *** from ****
Showman (1963)
Show business wheeling and dealing...but not particularly revealing
60mn short on film producer Joseph E. Levine by documentary filmmakers David and Albert Maysles. Wheeling and dealing at his offices on the East Coast, Levine--short and round at 200lbs with black-rimmed glasses--was a publicity man who rose from the likes of 'presenting' "Hercules" (the surprise hit of 1958) to being producer or executive producer on such acclaimed pictures as "Contempt", "The Graduate", "The Lion in Winter" and "Carnal Knowledge". Here, we find Levine and his staff discussing movie openings, US and Italian box-office, distribution rights...and Sophia Loren, with whom he celebrated after her performance in "Two Women", distributed in the US by Levine's Embassy Pictures, won her the Best Actress Oscar. Cinéma vérité portrait isn't particularly revealing or enlightening about show biz, but cinephiles will enjoy eavesdropping on these conversations. Levine appears to have been revered by insiders--"The man with the golden touch is the man with the golden heart!"--however, his stomach ulcers probably told a different story. **1/2 from ****
Melanie (1982)
It sounds more interesting than it plays...
Glynnis O'Connor plays an illiterate woman from a small town in Arkansas who dotes on her young son and is nervous about her estranged soldier-husband coming home after two years in the service. After one night, he tells his wife in bed, "I've changed"--and in the morning, he's gone and her son is as well. Modest (to say the least) Canadian-made drama distributed in the US by Embassy Pictures tries tackling a few different topics--illiteracy, bumpkin life vs. The big city, parental alienation--none too successfully. O'Connor, however, still has the charm she showed 10 years prior when she was a budding newcomer, and the solid supporting cast includes a menacing Don Johnson, Paul Sorvino and musician Burton Cummings. *1/2 from ****
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971)
A movie to recoil from...
Seymour Cassel plays a New York City parking attendant, jumpy and chatty with a ponytail and a handlebar mustache, who relocates on a whim to Los Angeles and meets Gena Rowlands, a lonely woman who works in a museum and dates an abusive married man. For viewers uninterested in plot exposition or character exposition or any kind of backstory, writer-director John Cassavetes may be the filmmaker for them: he's all about verbal interaction without giving the audience anything substantial to go on. Dialogue exchanges--combative, combustible, defensive-- ramble on in search of Truth, but everyone on the screen is so crazy that Cassavetes' truth begins to sound like absurd poetry. Opening with an ugly scene in a diner (featuring loud lunatic Timothy Carey spouting off and harassing the waitress), Cassavetes apparently can't get enough, staging a similar scene 45mns later with Val Avery screaming without provocation at blind date Rowlands in a coffee shop. Cassavetes never met a subtlety that he liked. "Minnie and Moskowitz" is no meet-cute; it follows no set formula and it is utterly unconventional--admirable qualities, to be sure--but there's no bright side to anything of this. *1/2 from ****
Disclaimer (2024)
Breathless, brainless melodrama...though stunning to look at!
Grieving middle-aged British housewife, having lost her son tragically while he was alone on vacation in Italy (he drowned while rescuing a child adrift at sea), develops photos from her son's camera which reveal an affair with an older woman. She is given hint that the naked mystery lady is the married mother of the little boy whose life was saved, and she's infuriated that this woman disappeared after the tragedy--and thereby holds her responsible for the death of her son. UK-US co-production, a seven-episode mini-series from Apple TV was written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón from Renee Knight's novel. It has a lot of talent behind it but also an impossible plot (one character doing a recap dryly remarks, "a remarkable one"). Cuarón's small group of main characters (mostly despicable people) attempt to sort out the story's many implausibilities and gaps of logic, but this only serves to make "Disclaimer" about as breathlessly silly as a TV soap. Of course, there are two sides to every story--and a batch of photographs don't tell the whole truth--so there's a conflict of misunderstandings between the characters which stretches this tale out to a full seven episodes (I felt there were two too many). Cate Blanchett (also one of the executive producers), Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Lesley Manville, and a handful of odious 20-somethings make up the cast, but I couldn't find one person here who was worth all the striding up and down (and fainting and racing around London in buses and taxis). The acting is naturally very good, although there's a moment in the final installment wherein Blanchett has had her tea drugged while she's delivering a monologue that leaves the actress virtually rudderless. The cinematography from Bruno Delbonnel and Emmanuel Lubezki is stunning, especially in the rescue sequence with the boy (though Cuarón's inane storytelling nearly spoils it, with a rescue party helping to bring in the child but leaving the first guy out to haplessly swim and shout for help in the choppy waters). The sexuality is very frank but the seduction left me squirming, and I never believed anyone could write a 'factual' book based on several photos, one which is then published 20 years later and is so close to the truth that it ruins everyone's lives. 'Remarkable', indeed! ** from ****
Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969)
Camp is best served accidentally...
When filmmakers go full-throttle with outrageous melodramatics, the actors on-screen run the risk of looking foolish and desperately with-it. That's what happens here to young actress Holly Near cast in the unplayable part of an overweight, virginal, suicidal daughter of a Hollywood actress (with a dubious past) and wealthy homosexual father who falls in with rock 'n roll revolutionaries. Near, who eventually got to do some fine work on '70s television, is exposed by writer-director Robert Thom, whose previous screenplay credits include "Wild in the Streets" and "The Legend of Lylah Clare", both from 1968. Thom possessed quite a flair for the hypnotically ludicrous, the decadently deranged, but he treats Near (who has great sympathetic qualities) like a punchline for the ultimate fat-girl joke. Playing her mother, Jennifer Jones (cruelly photographed despite the occasional soft focus) appears to be in on the gag and hopefully had a good time (she only made one other movie, 1974's "The Towering Inferno"). The rock music predates "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"--and Thom's dialogue is nearly as loopy as Roger Ebert's from that film--but "Angel" doesn't have Ebert's or Russ Meyer's pointed sense of self-mocking. This one is more like a soap opera on a fake high and a false bummer. NO STARS from ****
Anything Else (2003)
Middling Woody Allen comedy
60-year-old gag writer for standup comics in New York City mentors a kid in his twenties who's in analysis after his marriage broke-up and his new girlfriend, an actress, is proving to be quite a handful. Well-made but nearly laughless effort might have been more successful with funnier actors. Jason Biggs (often breaking the fourth wall) tries to be loose and nimble; he talks fast and stammers well (like Allen), but his spirit is sodden. Christina Ricci is a sharp-eyed, no-nonsense actress with a natural edge to her personality--but she's not funny, either. These two are stuck in the Movie Relationship Blues, and it's up to the grown-ups (Allen, Stockard Channing and, to a lesser degree, Danny DeVito) to give the picture a goose. Allen has become overly-fond of name-dropping in his scripts, but for what purpose? In the first 20mns, we hear the names of comedians, authors, jazz singers and movie personalities dropped "casually" in conversation (though each one sticks out as an artifice: "You like Billie Holiday? She's my favorite too!"). "Anything Else" isn't a Woody turkey--it has the filmmaker's customary urban/neurotic fussiness that crackles on occasion--but the laugh lines fall flat coming out of the mouths of these big city babes. *1/2 from ****
Hollywood Ending (2002)
Some good zingers in Allen misfire...
Has-been Hollywood director gets a comeback opportunity thanks to his ex-wife, but learns he's suffering from psychosomatic blindness--something he hopes to hide while directing his movie. One-joke comedy from writer-director-star Woody Allen's junk-drawer, although even his misfires usually have two or three good laughs in them. A very bright cast--including Téa Leoni, George Hamilton, Treat Williams, Debra Messing, Bob Dorian, Mark Rydell and Tiffani Thiessen--adds some much-needed sparkle. Cinematography from Wedigo von Schultzendorff too burnished and 'prestigious' for a fluffball farce. ** from ****
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Misbegotten
Nazi youth in World War II-era Germany, mentored by the spirit of a chummy Adolf Hitler, is a disaster at training camp, and so returns home to live with his mother and discovers she's hiding a Jewish girl under their very roof. Boisterously disrespectful black comedy is generally unfunny despite a solid cast and an audacious vision--all in the service of a premise that simply doesn't play. Writer-director Taika Waititi, adapting Christine Leunens' novel "Caging Skies", also co-stars as buddy Adolf, and it's hard to imagine which of his jobs here is the more misbegotten. Intending his film to be an over-the-top anti-hate satire, one must credit the work as original--but some will laugh or others won't. Six Oscar nominations with one win: Waititi for Best Adapted Screenplay. Two Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture-Musical or Comedy. Six BAFTA nominations, winning for Best Adapted Screenplay. Taika Waititi was also a DGA nominee for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, a WGA nominee for Adapted Screenplay, and a Grammy nominee as producer of the compilation soundtrack. *1/2 from ****
The Quiet Earth (1985)
"I've been condemned to live..."
A government project initiated by the US titled Flashlight--energy transmissions sent through a grid around the Earth--has malfunctioned, creating a rip in space-time that has eliminated all life from the planet except for an executive at the New Zealand headquarters. He wakes up that morning following a suicide attempt only to find empty streets and stores, a plane crash, and the radiated corpse of a co-worker. After a period of complete solitude, he begins to lose his sanity--but two other survivors eventually turn up: a woman and another man. Bruno Lawrence holds the screen alone for a solid 30mns and does it exceptionally well (he was the absolute right actor for this role); however, there must be a movie rule that dictates there cannot be merely a single character in a feature-length film, and so the others are introduced rather disappointingly (the woman, played by Alison Routledge, is clipped and dryly efficient--carrying a purse!--hardly the type of a woman who must have thought for a two-week span she was the only living human on Earth). Very well-made, well-shot by James Bartle, and with terrific sound, but at some point the movie stops being fun and becomes "an exercise". Lawrence also co-wrote the screenplay with Bill Baer and Sam Pillsbury, from Craig Harrison's novel. The film swept the New Zealand Film Awards, winning in all eight categories including Best Film, Best Actor for Lawrence, and Best Supporting Actor for Pete Smith. ** from ****
The Whale (2022)
Pure theatre
Director Darren Aronofsky's "The Whale," adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his play, has been made with great care, lots of fiery and tender emotions, and a plaintive heart--yet it is mostly staffed with the kind of spouting-off characters I can do without. Brendan Fraser is quite wonderful portraying Charlie, an English professor in Idaho--obese and housebound--who instructs his students online, his webcam "broken". Charlie's meals consist of takeout food and candy bars, while his caregiver (the sister of his lover, who has committed suicide) indulges his eating habits while also berating him for not seeking medical help. This woman, played by Hong Chau, is ostensibly here to order the other characters around, to get mad at our sad sack protagonist (but always with love and understanding) and to cry freely because she feels he'll be dead from congestive heart failure in a week. Others on the stage (because this material is very stagey) include Charlie's ex-wife and teenage daughter--whom Charlie left for the love of his life, another man--and a young male missionary who feels he was brought to Charlie's front door by God's will to save him. Hunter's material doesn't allow for a life outside Charlie's apartment, and so we unavoidably have characters making big, dramatic entrances and exits. Charlie is an achingly sensitive character--even the outrageous things he does such as going on a food binge and throwing it all up doesn't detract from his sweet, gentle nature. When Fraser's big eyes and smeary mouth register the abuse heaped upon him by his willful daughter, he's never less than marvelous. However, these impossible family members and that worrisome kid with the Bible are little more than writer's pretentions--even the caregiver is bad news (she preaches and teaches). True, we must be filled in on who everyone is and what their connection is to Charlie, but they keep returning to the scene with the same lofty rhetoric. "The Whale", its title referring to a (secret) writer's simple-but-direct thesis on Melville's "Moby Dick", isn't honest, exactly--it's pure theatre. Hunter introduces elements such as the bedroom of the deceased boyfriend (kept 'just as he left it') and a bird who relies on Charlie to feed it, but he doesn't take them anywhere (they're not even sentimentalized). There are moments of beauty and anguish here, but not enough to bring this twisted family portrait together. ** from ****
My Massive Cock (2022)
Not especially enlightening or titillating--if that's what they were going for...
British lads with large members air their grievances in being exploited/disrespected/fetishized for their endowments. With the average size of a man's penis being around 5", the group of mostly heterosexual men gathered here seem to have a communal chip on their shoulders much larger than that. There's the lonely guy who can't get a woman to love him for the person he is (he inquires about a penis reduction from a urologist); there's a muscular, tattooed ex-plumber who is using his size for hook-ups and to make extra money; one man takes a cast of his member and shows the model off to his lady friends (they giggle), while another man with a full package is tired of his mates joking about him in the changing room. For balance (I guess), a few women are interviewed for their thoughts: some enjoy a large penis and some don't, some are intimated by a massive erection and at least one woman actively seeks them out (using her flexible boyfriend of seven years to complete a threesome). Not-shy UK documentary special with a Polish distributor is narrated by "Love Actually" actress Julia Davis, who has a dry smirk in her voice. It isn't especially enlightening, nor is it titillating--if that's what they were going for. Mostly, these men seem unhappy. Their romantic failures appear to be directly linked to the phallus but, as one woman says, "A big penis is one thing, but you've got to know how to swing it." *1/2 from ****
Lost Souls (2000)
Winona Ryder Meets the Antichrist (and no, it's not Beetlejuice)...
Critically-drubbed, commercially-ignored thriller opened the same day as the re-release of "The Exorcist" and promptly vanished (after being held on the shelf for over a year). I'm hard-pressed to summarize the film's plot, as it made no sense to me while watching the movie and seems even more illogical now. Winona Ryder has a sketchily-defined character, that of a troubled young woman in New York City who lost her parents early and went into a downward spiral. She's now a teacher who assists in exorcisms on her time off, receiving a message in code from a possessed asylum patient that spells out a name--the name of a 32-year-old man who, on his 33rd birthday, will become the Antichrist--Satan's "transformation". Luckily for Ryder, the unsuspecting guy is right there in the city, and he doesn't believe a word of any of this when the girl confronts him (would you?). The man in question is Ben Chaplin, playing a writer of non-fiction crime; he has a beautifully-sculpted face (though one without much modulation) and takes to the camera quite handsomely, so naturally when Ryder infiltrates his office at night, she gets herself dolled-up and does her makeup! This has to be one of the silliest devil thrillers ever, with two exorcisms (mostly from behind closed doors), neither of which turns out well. At the end, when Chaplin realizes the only way to escape his fate as Satan's disciple is to be killed, he hands Ryder a gun and they wait while a digital clock ticks down to his birth-time--and when we get to the big moment, there's a hilarious pause before the clock reads 666! Hopefully, everyone had a good time and was well-paid. Viewers might enjoy laughing through this one, which is admittedly never dull. *1/2 from ****