Out of the Past: The Week in Film

Cess Pool Cinema:
1. Glen or Glenda (1953) Dir. Ed Wood - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. A Jihad For Love (2007) Dir. Parvez Sharma - US
2. Franklyn (2008) Dir. Gerald McMorrow – UK

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. Three Dancing Slaves (2004) Dir. Gael Morel - France

Astounding Cinema:

5. A Fool There Was (1915) Dir. Frank Powell - US
4. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) Dir. Guillermo Del Toro - US
3. Kitty Foyle (1940) Dir. Sam Wood – US
2. Shadowboxer (2005) Dir. Lee Daniels - US
1. The Trial (1962) Dir. Orson Welles – US

Theatrical Releases:
2. Crazy On the Outside (2010) Dir. Tim Allen – US 8/10
1. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Dir. Wes Anderson – US 10/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. The Thing (1982) Dir. John Carpenter - US
2. The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark (1969) Dir. John Hayes - US
3. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Dir. Guillermo Del Toro – Spain

As I sat down to enjoy director Ed Wood’s notoriously awful film, Glen or Glenda? (1953) I braced myself to have an open, patient mind. The subject matter, concerning transvestism and what is referred to in the film as a “pseudohempahrodite” seems to be revolutionary for the 1950’s. And come to find, this is a semi-autobiographical film---it Mr. Wood enjoyed dressing like a lady and cast himself in the film. And after all, the film is only 67 minutes. However, after about twenty minutes, I was struggling to pay attention or really care what was happening. The story of Glen/Glenda is cut up with scenes of Bela Lugosi, talking mysteriously and incoherently about anything going on with the action of the film. It’s akin to being immersed in conversation at the dinner table during a celebration (like, say, Thanksgiving) when you’re telling your aunts and uncles all about your thesis on the diamond mines and your train of thought is thrown during a moment of silence when Grandpa Earl’s grumbling about the girls he bedded in 1942 during the war pierce into your narrative and you forget what you were originally talking about. Needless to say, this was a long hour.

So the first feature film dealing with gay Muslims happens to be a documentary. And a mediocre one at that. It seems it’s rather difficult to be Muslim and gay. While A Jihad For Love (2007) circles around the struggles gay Muslims have attempting to recognize their sexuality and their religion, the irritating, unexplored aspect becomes, why do gay Muslims feel it’s imperative to maintain a Muslim identity? I realize their’s plenty of religious homosexuals belonging to nearly every religion (ahem, more often than not, on the down low) but typically, rejection of one’s upbringing, including religion, is necessary for many an abused homo. The only rationalization I can bring to this dogged pursuit gay Muslims seem to have about maintaining a Muslim identity is that their culture is so immersed in religion that they feel it is core sense of normalcy and structure that they can grasp/maintain to feel normal as openly gay beings. Certainly, there are particular aspects in every gay individual’s background that they cling to for comfort---but these are issues I want to see in a documentary. Is it important that there’s a film about gay Muslims? Yes. Is it enough? No. We need something that tells us more than we can already assume. But then, I’m speaking like an American, in a country where we do have rights and freedom of speech. While I admit my ignorance, as a gay man, I want to see a documentary about gay Muslims that explores some options, shows some hope. While it flies directly in the eye of the Iranian president (though I doubt he’ll ever see it) A Jihad For Love seems counterintuitive. Or perhaps I’m just intolerant of intolerance. Any religion that condemns homosexuality is not a valid religion to me. I don’t believe in reconciliation, but, rather, common sense (call it enlightenment, if you will). Gay Muslims do exist. But any person that needs a documentary to prove that is a lost case anyway.

The directorial debut of Gerald McMorrow, Franklyn, wasn’t honored with a theatrical release in the US, and frankly, I can see why. McMorrow utilizes the “seemingly unrelated characters” storyline trope that’s been choking up cinema since the success of films like Crash (2005), Babel (2006), The Edge of Heaven (2007), Vantage Point (2008) etc. However, the best of these multiple thread-films are those that don’t neatly tie everyone together (see most work by Robert Altman, Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, 1998). Or if you’re really jonesing to connect the dots and see everything form a complete picture, watch the trashy little film 11:14 (2003). But Franklyn? No, you should avoid Franklyn, which concerns four different storylines that congeal into one awful ending. Ryan Philippe stars as a masked vagrant in a glossy, futuristic place called Meanwhile City, talking in a monotonous super-hero rasp that’s about as jarring as Christian Bale’s silly growl in The Dark Knight (2008). Philippe is hunting The Individual, a man responsible for killing his sister. But when we focus on the other three characters, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out just what exactly is going on in the case of the heavily stylized Philippe storyline (and quick note, I never remembered Philippe as being so damned hammy). Eva Green stars as a depressed art student that’s repeatedly trying to kill herself. Boring. Susannah York pops up as her mother, but they’re forced into one of those mom-watched-me-get-molested-and-I’m-depressed handbags. And then there’s an older man (Bernard Hill) looking for his son that’s escaped from a mental institution, and a third character (played by newcomer Sam Riley, who had received considerable acclaim for his role in 2007’s Control playing suicidal singer Ian Curtis). Riley’s storyline is by far, the weakest, a man who’s been left at the altar, so the grown up version of his child hood imaginary sweetheart pops up (a red-headed Eva Green) to, ummm, flirt with him.

Actor-turned-director Gael Morel helms Three Dancing Slaves (2004)—also known as Le Clan—about a family of three messed up French brothers due to the death of their mother and their somewhat lost father. Basically it’s contemporary Euro cinema featuring nubile young men for audiences with a gay-bent in mind. The film is divided into three segments, each named after one of the brothers. The eldest, recently released from prison, is played by Stephane Rideau (the object of Morel’s affections in Andre Techine’s classic, Wild Reeds, 1994). The middle wild child, Mark (played by Nicolas Cazale, the star of The Grocer’s Son, 2007) is involved in some gangland activity as well as plenty of sexual angsty activity, like having sex with a transvestite prostitute with his close pal, who happens to have a crush on his younger brother, Olivier (Thomas Dumerchez). Though written by Christophe Honore (one of my all time favorite directors, responsible for such work as Ma Mere, 2004, Dans Paris, 2006 and Les Chansons D’Amour, 2007) Morel’s Three Dancing Slaves comes across as rather anti-climactic and a tad exploitative, the camera eagerly devouring the young mens’ flesh, flaccid and all. I’m more excited to see Morel’s follow up to this feature, Apres Lui (2007), also written by Honore and starring Catherine Deneuve.

The silent film star Theda Bara is an interesting cinematic figure indeed. The screen’s first “vamp,” Bara’s name is an anagram spelling Arab Death---who couldn’t love that frightful little touch? Though the prints of most of her films have been lost or destroyed, one of the four feature length films available to witness La Bara in is A Fool There Was, the title and plot taken from a poem by Rudyard Kipling about a predatory woman. Bara plays “The Vampire,” a woman who casts a spell over a married diplomat, sucks him dry of his money and prestige, crumbles dead flowers over his body and moves on to the next victim. Chilly bitch.

I have always been an avid champion for the work of Guillermo Del Toro’s work, ever since seeing The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Cronos (1993). But then he did intriguing though somehow sub-par English speaking work with Mimic (1997) and Blade II (2002). And after proving his directorial prowess again with the stunning film that is Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) I had held off on watching his successful film HellBoy (2004) until just this past summer, and subsequently, have finally watched the 2008 sequel this past week. HellBoy II: The Golden Army is indeed a beautiful piece of cinema—the special effects are at times, breathtaking, and always fascinating and grotesque. But what both films seem to suffer from is a lack of plot, and a lack of excitement as well. Ron Perlman is entirely entertaining and perfectly cast as the titular anti-hero and I’m going to chalk my own lack of enthusiasm up to the saturation of comic book superhero films unleashed in mainstream cinema in the past decade. Oh, and Selma Blair’s a tad annoying in these films as well. In truth, I just watched this film a week ago and have a clear image of the visuals but I already forgot what most of the plot was about. And the parenthetical title doesn’t help me recall what I should easily remember. Oh well.

A recent neglected silver screen leading lady I’ve had the treat of discovering is Ginger Rogers. I had the awesome luck to see a screening of Bachelor Mother (1939) a hilarious comedy starring Rogers and David Niven recently. And so I made it a mission to sit down and watch Ginger Rogers in her Oscar winning role as the eponymous Kitty Foyle (1940). Rogers had a magnetic screen presence and I can see why she won the Oscar as a department store worker torn between the love that keeps drifting in and out of her life (Dennis Morgan, who seems to be unable to stop smiling) and a ho-hum doctor (James Craig) that can offer her stability, though maybe not the excitement she craves. Apparently Rogers (a Republican all her life) was against playing Kitty Foyle, based on a sensational novel by Christopher Morley (and the screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, the author of “Johnny Got His Gun,” who would suffer from being blacklisted during McCarthy’s witch-hunts) but due to, (gee thank golly) those nifty Hollywood censors, the unpleasantly realistic aspects of Kitty’s life (sexuality and abortion) were omitted from the screenplay. But it’s a damn good film, nonetheless. Watch Kitty as she makes her choice between men. The complete title is Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman.

In what stands as one of the most original, most bizarre and strangely entertaining features I’ve had the pleasure of watching in quite some time, director Lee Daniels moved me to applause with his directorial debut, the unfairly maligned Shadowboxer (2005). Though I don’t really think the title fits, his film is unlike many American films you’re apt to see. The film stars Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. as mother and step-son assassin/lovers. Wow. Plus, they’re hired by crime lord Stephen Dorff to kill his pregnant girlfriend (Vanessa Furlito, of Death Proof, 2007 fame). But Mirren, riddled with cancer, takes pity on Furlito, in what is supposed to be her last hit. Absconding with the woman after helping her deliver her baby, the assassins hole up in the suburbs with Dorff left to believe that she’s been disposed of. However, supporting characters Joseph Gordon Levitt, a crime-lord physician, and his nurse/crack-head girlfriend Mo’Nique (another chubby black female named Precious from Lee Daniels) have a tussle and Mo’Nique rats out Levitt’s involvement in Mirren escaping with Dorff’s girlfriend. If Douglas Sirk directed films while dropping acid in the 1950’s, that’s what Shadowboxer kind of looks like. Though Furlito’s character is kind of the weakest link, it really hardly matters in a series of bizarre and salacious what-the-fuck moments that should have you jeering. Macy Gray also pops up in one of the most memorable scenes of the film as Furlito’s drunk friend trying to seduce Gooding. Since the most intriguing aspect of the film is the relationship between Mirren and Gooding, once Mirren’s character leaves the picture, it spirals a bit out of control. Gooding is surprisingly subtle throughout, however, which makes up a little bit for the fact that Furlito is forced to don a blonde wig that we’re led to believe she not only wears everyday for several years but also refuses to remove in the privacy of her own home. With Daniel’s success this year with his sophomore effort, Precious, I have my fingers crossed that he will provide us with the much needed ant-thesis to Tyler Perry that cinema so terribly needs.

And the number one film this week goes to Orson Welles’ excellent adaptation of Kafka’s signature novel, The Trial (1962) starring Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider and Elsa Martinelli. And any of you familiar with the novel know that it’s about a man, an office worker arrested and accused of charges he’s never made aware of. While the trial was born out of Kafka’s own extreme paranoia, his work would become the precursor herald to the doom of WWII----as Roger Ebert puts it, where “innocent people wake up one morning to discover they are guilty being themselves.” On a smaller scale, the casting of Anthony Perkins as Kafka’s problematic Josef K., highlights an aspect of homosexuality and the fear of exposure that was not unintentional, especially at a time when actors like Perkins were all in the closet as well. See screen sirens Schneider, Martinelli and Moreau in several bizarre seduction scenes that Perkins is either unaware of, or too agitated to respond effectively. The brilliant cinematography is like a beautiful, dark, film-noir nightmare that perfectly evokes the Kafkaesque. Welles called this his best film, and while he’s got a slew of cinematic treasures to his name, The Trial is indeed a cinematic nightmare, the stuff nightmares are borne from.