11 Minutes (2008) +

A grueling and thorough "backstage" documentary examining the difficulty of assembling the pieces to make the "11 Minute" show that is a fashion show "in the tents at Bryant Park" during New York's Fashion Week. Jay Carroll, the first winner of the hit Bravo series Project Runway, is the figure at the center of this absurd and intense maelstrom, as he works his ass off (along with the collective asses of his infrequently compensated crew/staff). The film is unrelenting and unsparing in its documentation of the million pieces that must come successfully together for each show, as well as the astonishing array of giant personalities that must be maneuvered to get the job done. Luckily, Jay McCarroll is a charismatic, camera-ready figure, whose capacity for on-camera self-disclosure is rare for its generous sincerity and biting wit. McCarroll is a perfect sort of "reality" entertainer in the mold of Rosie O'Donnell. Charismatic, genuinely talented, incisively funny, Jay and Rosie are both possessed of loose cannon intelligence that predisposes them to showstopping outrages that somehow manages to always remain rooted in a kind of humility/sincerity. This film would have likely been nearly unbearable without Jay's lucid capacity for self-appraisal (as well as his fundamental sweetness and genuine talent). The film is really, though, about the brutalities of commercial collaboration, in which every step in crafting oneself as a commodity is subject to the whims of hundreds, even thousands, of other largely self-interested entities. It's heartbreaking to watch Jay and his collaborators work their collective asses off only to have one little thing go wrong, causing a cascade of other things to go awry -- and having that happen over and over and over again. All in service of what Jay winningly affirms is the stupidest, least important thing in the world: a fashion show. I think I expected the film to be more of a personality profile, depicting Jay in all his viciously witty persona, but the film works best as a brilliant backstage documentary of the fashion business. Also, the filmmakers do a really nice job of developing a visual and aural vocabulary that permits a cinematic pacing for what is basically a devastating sprint to a creative finish line. The film is tough going at times, not because it's not fascinating but because the adrenaline intensity is just overwhelming. To accommodate this, two techniques in particular stood out as examples of how clever the filmmakers were in creating an internal structure for the film. One the one hand, there are vivid and colorful interludes of Jay cavorting in a field of hot air balloons. It's sensible, as one of the key conceptual and visual motifs of his collection is the hot air balloon, but these sequences also work to slow things down for the audience, allowing the viewer to "tune in" to the colors and shapes that were Jay's inspiration. These interludes, remarkably enough, never feel intrusive, but instead work as visual palate cleansers amidst the gritty, sweaty and exhausting scenes that are core of the documentary. Likewise, at several points in the film, filmmakers Mark Selditch and Robert Tate utilize an interesting technique to convey lots of information very quickly: they overlap the dialog from brainstorming and/or bickering sesssions in ways that are both artful and effective. Artful in the way that this technique distills a lengthy conversation into an intense several minutes and effective in the way that the technique delivers an incredible amount of data in a relatively short piece of time. All the information in the quickly montaged bitchfests is relevant but the filmmakers do a really nice job of distilling everything so that this scene does not eat up too too much time. An interesting, intense backstage documentary that is deeper, richer and more challenging than I really ever expected.

"The Window" (2008) +

A comic, erotic short in which three normal gay men each do their own little sexy dance in front of adjacent windows. Part music video, part j/o video, part strip tease, part performance art -- the film toys with our gaze. The parallel window panels invite and taunt us to look, while also forcing us to choose which window to focus on, while also manipulating the shades to take things into and out of view. Each of the three men are very attractive, though in an entirely normal way, with none of them being especially buff or magazine cover ready. This, it seems, amplifies the appeal of the film in that it opens additional questions about the reasons for these astonishing displays. And as if to amplify the question of "for whose pleasure is this performance being staged", through the magic of editing, all three men ejaculate on their windows within moments of each other, the spooge dripping down the glass and the blinds are finally, shyly drawn for the last time. A couple things come to mind in reflecting on the film. First, it seems to me to be an experiment with the conventions of depicting the spectacle of erotic pleasure. Second, it seems very much to be a post-Shortbus piece in which the cinematic pleasures of sexuality are affirmed through the act of explicit filmmaking. Remarkably, the sense of basic joyful exuberance captured in this short film mitigates the stark estrangements implicit in the visual conceit. In this way, I would submit that "The Window" is mostly interesting as a kind of document -- of an especially gay way of inhabiting visual discourses of pleasure. An intellectually interesting little piece of filmmaking that also works as an entertainment -- comic, sweet, charismatic, suspenseful (though the spoogy conclusion does result in a curiously discombobulating letdown). Interesting effort.

"Tranny McGuyver" (2008) -

What I said already...but, back in July, I remember vacillating between sorta liking and really disliking this film. This time through, the balance tipped decidedly toward the dislike. I found the laughlines reliably funny, but the general vibe is sorta nasty and the comic pacing is lugubrious. There is no comic timing, except when a powerhouse performer like Cathy Shim blows through and paces the whole fandango for the rest of the crew. As a back-alley plastic surgeon/massage therapist/baby broker, Shim works the racist humor of the character with incisive wit. She's appalling, she's disgusting, she's f'n hilarous. But she's the only one. (That said, Willam Belli's performance of the title character is basically funny -- a great persona, often great line delivery -- just not especially good at maintaining chemistry or timing with other performers.) My impression is that this is sorta improv filmmaking, where some laugh lines and scenarios are established but I'm not sure the entire production ensemble is entirely up to the challenge. Again, the laughs that are here are good but, as a self-contained comic short, it's a bit ho-hum. (As such the self-consciously outrageous racism/sexism/homophobia/generalized cruelty isn't always fun.)

"For a Relationship" (2007) +

A startling, haunting experimental short presenting a portrait of one young gay man's relationships with several former boyfriends as well as his possibly closeted father. The oblique narrative unfolds through a chronologically configured series of still photographs, interspersed and overlapping at various ratios of speed while a pensive voiceover ruminates and something that sounds like a drumstick maintains an irregular and surprising rhythm. Lots of pictures of pretty nude boys interlock with family photographs and nature shots to compose an aggregate portrait of the shifts in consciousness that arrive in early maturity. A pensive, poignant, and precise film.

"The Screening Party" (2007) +

A delightfully smart and funny short about a group of friends and acquaintances who gather to watch the 1990 film, Pretty Woman. The film feels like a pilot of a tv series I would love to watch. An amusing array of characters -- the gay freelance writer whose magazine assignment instigates the screening party, his fabulous showboy roomie, their foul mouthed female comedian friend, a cluelessly attractive latino lawyer, the doofusy straight guy from the video store, and the feminist therapist who lives upstairs -- are all winningly portrayed, and collaborate as a witty ensemble of reenactors of various scenes from the film while also giving glimpses into their actual lives/characters. Somehow each character also offers their own analysis of the film (as babe magnet, as misogynist mythology, as personal touchstone of romantic fantasy) while discussing how the film or its characters have informed their own lives. It's sweet, human, very funny, and totally silly, with the high camp style combining with real characters to make for a genuinely entertaining 28 minutes. One of the best gay shorts I've ever seen; would that it would become a series.

"Cocktales" (2007) +/-

Not much more to add than what I said previously, except to say that this diverting little short did not "blow up" well to the giant screen at a cineplex. Yet, is that a failing of a film that is mostly likely destined for film festivals and possible inclusion on a "Boys Shorts" compilation dvd? Hard to say, but the transfer of scale was not kind to the look of the film or to the (lack of) depth of the characters/storyline. Again, a strikingly nonjudgmental depiction of male bisexuality.

"The Pull" (2008) +

As previously discussed here, I quite liked this short neo-documentary. In the context of this second screening, however, two things emerged. One: is it a documentary? I think my assumption that this was a neo-documentary were informed by some of its previous festival showings, but I realized this time that the film actually doesn't present itself clearly as a documentary. I found that I watched it this time as more simply a narrative piece, and found the intensity lacking somewhat. I still love the premise and the conceit. Two, what impressed me so in the first screening was how well suited the overlapping panels were to telling this kind of story. This time, however, screening this a mere ten minutes after seeing "Untitled Film Stills" caused me to wonder if this narrative technique was already passing into convention and/or cliche as a visual strategy for depicting intimate estrangement. An interesting, irreverent and challenging little film, whether documentary or no.

"Hirsute" (2007) -

A tricksy scifi short that uses the conceit of time-travel to pose questions about the ways we do and don't like ourselves over time. Filmmaker A.J. Bond delivers a charismatic performance as two Kyles, the nerdy scientist experimenting in his home searching for the secret to time travel and a glamorous version of Kyle from the future. The film is visually stylish (a well-appointed apartment made over as a home lab -- excellent use of post-it-notes as a design element) and Bond is really cute/appealing. The story is bottom-tier "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and the final twist doesn't really play through to resolve the story. Also the conceit suggested by the title (the present Kyle is hairy; the future Kyle is hairless) doesn't deliver and reads more like a clever idea rather than a meaningful detail. Moreover, the scene in which the hairless future Kyle tries to have sex with the hairier Kyle of the past just doesn't make sense and veers perilously close to banal homophobia. (Indeed, it's not at all clear that the hairy past Kyle is gay, where the hairless future Kyle is clearly so; as such, the feature of future Kyle's queerness can be easily read as one of the features of future Kyle's monstrosity.) But the tipping point for me came in a beautifully filmed, suspenseful sequence in which two eggs boil and the sequence is resolved with a dumb, punny joke. One of the more disappointing films of this festival cycle, as so many of the elements for a great piece of work were there only to be squandered by tricksy/banal choices that did not square with the sophistication of the rest of the project. An appealing but ultimately disappointing short scifi erotic fantasy.

"Untitled Film Stills" (2007) +

A fleeting gay romance -- part music video, part experimental short. Three separate panels depict the overlapping but distinct perspectives of two young men finding their way to each other. An engaging, impressionistic, and largely effective formal experiment.

"Babysitting Andy" (2007) -

A sweetish, comedic short which, with conspicuously good intentions, stages a scenario ripe with potential for madcap hilarity. Andy is a mischievous pre-teen tomboy with an aggressive curiosity about all things filthy (sex, bodily functions, bad language). After her mother's water breaks at the precise moment Andy had convinced her parents to relent and tell her the meaning of "fellatio," Andy's loaded for mischief when her gay uncle Paul (and his boyfriend) are pressed into babysitting service. Soon, it's a battle, with Andy and Paul squaring off in battle of gross-out pranks until the boyfriend intervenes, making peace among them all. This short film is absolutely cute, but a little confused about where the narrative focus is. Is it about the gay disabled couple pressed into babysitting service in a house full of stairs? Is it about a queer kid in the beginning stages of her struggle to be taken seriously as exactly who she is? Is it about the pleasures of a nasty food fight? It's unclear. And overcomplicated. The premise is good, but the layers become a little too specific, especially because it's not clear what the core narrative is. Lots of potential, and a sweet premise, but the many many little pieces don't come together in to effective, gratifying resolution (despite a conspicuously "clever" twist to conclude the whole thing). Cute, promising, ok.

XXY (2007) +

An emotionally complex depiction of the experience -- not the issue -- of living as an intersex person. Alex is fifteen and has spent a good chunk of those years living on the Uruguayan coast. Alex's father, Kraken, is a government scientist and Alex's mother seems to be home, keeping close tabs on Alex in all kinds of ways. When the film begins, Alex's family is welcoming visitors, an Argentine surgeon, his wife and their teenage son, Alvaro. Their arrival is not an entirely welcome one, with both Alex and Kraken suspecting that something's up. Of course, it is. At Alex's mother's request, the surgeon and his family have arrived to lobby Alex and Kraken to consent to gender corrective surgery for Alex. Alex, you see, is intersex and, though having lived mostly as a female, is not at all certain about making a surgical choice. Kraken, a biologist, is similarly perplexed, torn between his instinct to protect his beloved child and an intellectual/ethical inclination toward honoring the complexity of nature. (The surgeon, however, has made a career out of corrective surgery and is ready to "fix" Alex right away.) The wrinkle, of course, is Alex -- a rebellious teen who's as rowdy and assertive as any 15 year old boy and also as moody and emotionally intense as any 15 year old girl. It's a fascinating story, really, loaded with emotional textures that I, quite frankly, have not explored cinematically. The character of Alex is fascinating, largely because s/he's sort of an asshole -- a confused, self-obsessed teen with a well-earned resentment against pretty much everybody. I love that this is not a problem film or a journey film, but an experience film -- an "imagine what it would be like" film, with emotional depth and incredible humanity. I love Kraken's dilemma and the character is scripted -- in a still waters sorta way -- to be a decent man facing a seemingly impossible situation with intelligence, generosity and seriousness. But my favorite character is Alvaro, the macho surgeon's goofy teen son, who falls in with Alex and is forever changed as a result. Alex basically sets out to seduce Alvaro, and does, in a way -- a way that surprised me and which surprised Alvaro. (SPOILER WARNINGS FROM HERE ON.) The two start making out and Alex ends up taking charge and fucking Alvaro, who doesn't even know Alex is packing. Alvaro discovers he really likes it and, if it weren't for the two being discovered en flagrante by Kraken, who knows what would have happened next... The experience, however, rocks Alvaro's world and it's clear that Alex has opened a new door for him.) The film does something pretty interesting in its depiction of adolescent sexual bullying. Alex effectively rapes Alvaro though the sex becomes quickly consensual. Alex's best female friend describes a sexual bullying situation that became consensual after a time. And Alex is brutally assaulted by a group of boys who only want to see what she's got "down there" and, once they do, proceed to make her the object of cruel sexual sport. (I am struck by how reminiscent the sexual assault on Alex is to that upon Brandon in Boys Don't Cry; what's interesting here is that XXY doesn't need Alex to be a flawed hero -- it's enough that Alex is human and thus flawed.) It's fascinating -- the layers of consent here -- all of which feel absolutely real. Likewise, there's a conversation between Alvaro and his father which is just brutal in depicting how terrorizing a parent's naive expectations can be. Finally, what I think I loved most about the film is that both Alex and Alvaro end up confounding simple gender and sexual binaries. Alvaro doesn't come out as gay; Alex doesn't decide to be male or female; both end the film starting their own path toward whatever. (And at least Alex has loving, accepting, brave parents.) Beautifully shot, with a confident aural quiet, XXY is the kind of small international film that truly deserves its incredible festival buzz. An excellently executed film, featuring not one but three characters who are traveling emotional arcs I've rarely/never seen on screen before.

Were The World Mine (2008) +

An enthralling musical fantasy about high school, Shakespeare, and the magical potencies of desire. Tanner Cohen (a lovely lanky lad) is Timothy -- the school sissy who's the preferred object of routine torment by the school's worshiped rugby team. On a daily basis, Timothy struggles to maintain himself as (a) he falls deeper and deeper in swoon with the star of the rugby team; (b) he does his best to help his best friends get together; (c) he hopes his devastated/divorced mom can keep her balance; and (d) he tries to learn the role of Puck for his all-boys high school's production of Midsummer Night's Dream. Within this very real scenario, the filmmakers insert a wild aesthetic sensibility cued first by Timothy's inclination to private reveries (usually glittery musical numbers featuring the rugby team and, of course, Jonathon -- the hunky captain). Then, in a literally fantastic twist, Timothy discovers the formula for a "cupid's arrow" love potion embedded within his lines for the play. He concocts the potion, douses it liberally upon his classmates and the whole town, and revels in the homo-affirming panic that ensues. The concoction basically causes the entire rugby team to fall in love with each other, though Jonathon only has loveydovey eyes for Timothy. In short, the potion changes Timothy's life, his entire realm of possibility, while also forever altering the perspective of everyone in this small conservative town (which soon becomes the center of all kinds of controversy when the mayor wakes up to discover he's in love with a man and decides to start enacting gay marriages). Madcap antics ensue and the world is righted before the curtain on the production falls, with plenty of Shakespearean referents to maintain appropriate levels of entranced confusion. The film -- though its pacing flags and the performances are a little inconsistent -- has a truly delightful energy within its conceit. The musical numbers are sweet, silly and sexy. And the cast is very cute. I especially like how the film captures the surly/sulky selfishness of gay teendom, allowing Timothy to be something of a dick as he exerts his newly found magical powers. There are some cheap characterizations (a bullying macho coach; a judgemental make-up maven) but the genuine charisma of the cast helps to balance the often inexpert filmmaking. All told, an adorable and delightful queer fantasy.

Rich and Famous (1981) -

A fraught melodramatic epic ostensibly depicting the enduring power of female friendship. The final film of legendary director George Cukor, the film becomes interesting only insofar as it documents so many shifts in style, perspective and tone of so-called "women's pictures." Two college friends -- an ethereal Jacqueline Bisset as the serious Liz and a bizarrely cast Candice Bergen as the blowsy Southern gal with the improbable name of Merry Noel -- embark on different paths. Merry elopes before graduating college and Liz goes on to be a successful writer of literary fiction. Their friendship endures and grows, even as Merry decides to pursue her own (markedly more notorious) writing career and as Merry's husband pursues a relationship with Liz and as Merry becomes a household name but ever threatened by Liz. Blah blah blah. It's The Turning Point and Beaches and Mildred Pierce rolled into one, and neither the cast nor Cukor seem entirely sure about what movie they're in. Bissett is alternately wan and glib, her charisma a stated point of narrative fact that's never really manifested on screen. Bergen is simply implausible in a role that should have gone to Diane Ladd, or Dixie Carter, or someone who has a remote sense of how to play Southern verbal dexterity without lapsing into a Hee Haw horror show. (Unfortunately, for contemporary viewers Bergin's comedic abilities are -- perhaps unconsciously -- clearly on display in this role, a burden the piece did not bear in 1981, as Bergen was not yet then the comedic go-to that she is today.) Revisiting this film for the first time in a quarter century, I was struck by how much this "sophisticated" piece feels like a tv movie, or contemporary-retro pilot for some Dynasty style knockoff. The bids toward contemporaneity and mature themes are awkward and sketchy, with the narrative structure being utterly conspicuous. I'm also struck by how much Cukor seems to love the Bissett character, and wonder if the film might be more interesting to someone who knows the Cukor biography more. It's easy to read the film as a conflict between two halves of a single artistic self, with Liz being the frustrated artist and Merry being the insecure success. I'm also fascinated by the joke that Liz only writes for two audience -- Jews and homosexuals -- and the way it seems to cue a kind of coded legibility of Cukor within the film. I'm also utterly fascinated by the Matt Lattanzi scene, when Liz gets picked up on the street by a beautiful boy hustler accustomed to the patronage of wealthy old(er) (wo)men. Normally, I'm loathe to read any depiction of female characters as "stealth" gay men but the assignation scene, especially Lattanzi's age, character and actions within it, only really make sense in a gay male context. There's such a palpable tension, only partially erotic, in the scene that I find it really difficult NOT to read it as a kind of "coming out" for Cukor in terms of actually articulating desire. (Seeing this film makes me want to take-up that long-threatened essay about male sex work in 1960s and 1970s cinema based on writings by gay men, to start it with Roman Spring and end it with Rich and Famous.) It's a fascinating piece, for mostly the wrong reasons, one which stops short of being a camp treasure for the utter cluelessness of the central performances and the stunted sincerity of the filmmaking.

RENT - Filmed Live On Broadway (2008) +

A fascinating document of one of the defining musicals of the genre. Rent - Filmed Live On Broadway endeavors to capture the Broadway production in its final iteration, as the last cast prepares to make its final NY bows. For a spectator like myself -- who knows the story, characters, score and legend of the show quite well despite having never seen RENT onstage -- the film provides an excellent document of the original narrative and visual structure of the piece (complete with intermission). Also, the final cast was very solid, loaded with pros (like perennial Idina Menzel shadow Eden Espinosa in the role Menzel created, as well as Traci Thoms performing the role on stage better than she did in the film) and really vivid sound-mixing (the cast voices, with only one or two exceptions, are clearer in pitch and diction than the original cast recording, permitting Larson's densely pattered lyrics to really be heard). Unfortunately, the camera work is not as clean. The digital video permits a jagged, frenzied approach which, while clearly inspired by the music, doesn't always serve the intricately calibrated balance among characters. Also, for whatever reason, the filmmakers seem inclined to emphasize banal -- typically lewd -- character gestures as visual beats, which cheapens what were (I'm sure) wittier and slighter gestures on stage. The camerawork also struggles to find the balance between close-ups, which almost always seem a little squished or off tempo, and necessary, establishing long shots. I was sorry not to get a more frequent glimpse of the entire stage picture. The cast is generally very good, with Renee Elise Goldsberry (who's almost my age) doing a knockout job as Mimi. Newcomer Adam Kantor is absolutely clear, and dear, and totally cute, as Mark; Will Chase is very rooted, if a little pretty, as Roger. In general, the cast isn't as raw as the original cast, but still quite solid. Justin Johnston and Michael McElroy are good as Angel and Tom Collins, and Rodney Hicks is entirely fine as Benny. (Though the standout for me was the white guy in the ensemble -- great look, great voice, really solid acting chops -- whatever his name is.) I made the commitment, to myself really, to see this production of the show so that I could give the show a more thorough chance. I've never particularly connected to it. The production happened right after my NYC moment (though it's ostensibly set in my NY neighborhood, right around the corner from me, right at the time I lived there) and I've found the score to be at times nearly unlistenable (with the necessary exceptions of "Seasons of Love" and "I'll Cover You" -- which are great musical schmaltz, in the best of ways). But seeing the whole thing front to back helped me to appreciate that it's just that I really sorta hate the first act. I like the characters just fine, but find that the set-ups of inter-character conflicts are obvious, dated, and often clumsy. I especially don't love the numbers I should -- Maureen's performance art and Angel's diva strut -- because, again, they just don't ring true. And all the relationships seem utterly contrived. That said, the characters themselves are compelling as stock characters who, when placed in the configuration they are at the beginning of Act 2, become quite effective. I hadn't quite realized that the show wasn't actually about "living at the end of the millenium" -- that's just the alibi that the show really pushes when it's really about the difficulties of showing up for the opportunity of love. The sequence at the beginning of Act 2, in which the three main couples simultaneously struggle to stay close as Mark observes, makes for an emotionally enthralling sequence. Plus, I suspect the multiracial and polymorphous perversity would have been all the more intense 12-14 years ago. (Though it makes me sorry that Larson didn't have the chance to do another piece, after RENT, which wasn't so f'n epic and ambitious; I actually think he's at his best when he's at his simplest -- something that can be said for Greif, too.) A few things about RENT persist in their annoyingness -- Angel's magical faggotry, Mimi's wheezing series of non-deaths, the whole squat conceit, the fact that Mimi and Angel are not art-makers/intellectuals but "inspirations", that whole restaurant in Santa Fe nonsense, the "gospel for dummies" approach to "soulful" vocalization, the dumb use of AIDS as metaphor -- all which conspire to (a) make me crabby and (b) make damn well sure I'll never be a RENT-head. But I suspect, as flawed as the camerawork in this documentation is, that RENT-heads could have done a lot worse -- thanks Chris Columbus! -- than this as a document of this essential, theatrical/cultural phenomenon of the 1990s. (Plus, it's nice to have so many of the original cast gather on stage at the end, along with Michael Greif and others -- the gathering affirms the generational aspects of the phenomenon in ways that are dear.) I'll likely never be a fan of this show, but I am glad to have seen this film.

Food of the Gods (1976) -

An utterly idiotic little ecological revenge story, like so many from the 1970s. Basically, some cream-of-wheat-ish goo (we never learn what it is or why) is bubbling forth in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest and it seems to be causing certain critters to grow to enormous sizes. Chickens become human-sized; wasps become pterodactyl-sized; rats become the size of minivans. And of course all these critters are hungry for human and are prone to chowing down on whatever human bits and pieces happen to be hanging out in their path on this remote island. Alas, the niftiest scenes -- Marjoe Gortner battling a giant chicken; Ida Lupino being chomped by maggots the length of a child's arm -- come toward the beginning, with the filmmakers just tossing all their interest in rampaging giant rats for the last half of the film. It's occasionally cute to track how the giant rat footage is incorporated to the scenes with live actors (I do love the shot of the actors on the farmhouse roof, above the flooded field teeming with drowning rats), but even that only holds one's attention for so long. (And I kept being a little creeped out by how they got the footage of the rats being shot. Did they actually shoot rats in the face with a bb gun or something? I'm no real animal activist, but scenes upon scenes of rats being drowned, shot in the face, or blasted with something or other causing them to lurch backward, flesh apparently torn from their bodies -- all of that started to grate on even me.) But basically, this is your fairly standard "when critters attack" epic, with a handful of clever scenes overburdened by a over-complex and overlong core narrative (with no compelling twist) and unredeemed by generally stiff performances. (I kept hoping that something would happen with the pregnant woman's fetus but no such luck.) Cute, but not especially interesting.

Hamlet 2 (2008) +?

An adorably foul exploration of the delightful disasters, routine humiliations and occasional triumphs to be found in High School drama. High school theatre geekery has, I think, rarely received such a heroic treatment as it does here. With Steve Coogan's gloriously clueless Dana Marschz, a basically unsuccessful actor who finds himself teaching one class of HS drama each semester "for the gas money." A curriculum snafu lands an additional 2 dozen students in his class at virtually the same moment he receives word that the school will be canceling drama altogether the next turn. A brief consultation with his nemesis -- the school newspaper's scrawny theatre critic -- inspires Marschz to take on his most ambitious project yet to bring attention to the drama program and, hopefully, keep it from being canceled. Marschz and his students stage an elaborate and controversial musical which brings them together for life lessons and the show emerges as a triumphant success. The remarkable thing about this basically boilerplate feel-good HS plot is that it's executed in a very contemporary raunch comedy style, with Steve Coogan's Dana Marschz emerging as an incredibly annoying combination of Steve Carrell in 40 Year Old Virgin, Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa and Christopher Guest in Waiting For Guffman. Sweetly clueless, disgustingly self-obsessed, and tragically grandiose -- all at the same time. (Unfortunately, I find Coogan basically charm-free and often unfunny; I laughed repeatedly at his capacity to convey the affect of devastating discomfort but -- unlike the performances that his evoked for me -- I never once believed that Coogan's Dana Marschz could have been a real person. He's got a little too much "Mr. Bean" for me to really buy into his extraordinary conceits.) But Coogan aside, I found much to love about the entire apparatus of this awful high school drama production. Elisabeth Shue plays a version of herself (in which she's quit Hollywood to become a nurse at a fertility clinic in Tucson) in a way that's both utterly believable and pretty effin' funny. Likewise, David Arquette is brilliant as some random jock guy who lives at Dana's house and ends up running away with his wife. (Were this film an Apatow production, Paul Rudd would have totally played the Arquette part and it was really nice to see another actor riff on the role.) Catherine Keener is -- well -- Catherine Keener as Dana's dissatisfied wife. (I am so officially over the Keener - not judging, just saying.) And Amy Poehler is -- well -- Amy Poehler in the role of Cricket Feldstein, a self-aggrandizing ACLU attorney. All of these pros are solid, but in basically different movies. Where this production gathers some real steam is in the ensemble of younger actors who play the high school kids, an appealing and diverse batch, some of whom I know from wildly divergent contexts. My two faves are the two major cuties: Joseph Julian Soria (who I recognized from his less effective portrayal as the homophobic jock in Tru Loved), who is absolutely dear and utterly plausible as Octavio, an academically gifted Latino kid who chooses to play gangsta, even though he's secretly already accepted to an Ivy: and Skylar Astin (who was so dreamy in the stage production of Spring Awakening as the curiously mohawked bespectacled one), who is also absolutely dear and utterly plausible in the problematically scripted role of Rand, the dramafag whose closet is visible only to himself and whose misguided devotion to his drama teacher manifests in surprising, inappropriate and plot-stirring ways. I also really liked Michael Esparza -- he of the gorgeous abdomen in I Know Who Killed Me; he's very sweet and very effective here in a basically unscripted role. The main girls -- Spring Awakening's Phoebe Strole and indie princess Melonie Diaz -- are good, and I liked Natalie Amenula a lot as the tragically abused Yolanda. This young ensemble anchors the piece (in the best tradition of teen triumph pictures) and it's a hoot to watch them have fun, especially in rehearsal and in the final production. The film, though, is missing something for me. The jokes are perfectly inappropriate and plenty funny. Loads of good bits of business keep everyone going. The story's not bad. But there's just something missing, and I suspect that it's Coogan's Borat-esque performance in the central role. I bought nearly everyone in the film, but him. And that proves to be a problem, finally. (Much of what I didn't like about Coogan derived from how every comic scenario seemed as much a stunt for the purposes of his humiliation, rather than something emerging from the character's actions or reactions. Consider, for example, Dana's supposed to be in recovery, 7 years without a drink, a character detail that works mostly to make Dana seem like a crackpot while permitting a requisite "spiked drink leads to madcap mayhem" scene or two. Yet, once the character starts drinking again, the idea of his being an alcoholic back in his cups completely disappears, as soon as the joke's over. This, for me, is an indication that this film, despite appearances, is actually not a character comedy but a fairly cheap stunt-comedy ala old school Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler, in which an overthetop comic persona does overthetop comedic things. And unlike, say, Peter Sellars whose Clouseau never changes, the fact that Coogan's Dana is precisely as arrogantly clueless, gross and self-obsessed at the end of the film as he was at the beginning, if not even more so.) All told, an inconsistently engaging film that's nonetheless consistently funny; excellent set pieces, astonishing laughs, and a genuinely appealing youth ensemble help, by turns, to elevate and ground the film when the central performance gets stuck or lost along the way. [An additional treat worth mentioning: Although the film is ostensibly set in Tucson (lots of jokes about Tucson), nearly everything was filmed in ABQ, with familiar locations and faces amplifying the relatability of the whole project for me.]

Little Shop of Horrors (1986) +

A witty, whimsical screen adaptation of a tiny stage classic. I loved this movie when it first came out; I love it still. The film is basically structured in three acts: exposition; Seymour feeds the plant; Seymour decides not to feed the plant. And those first two acts? Fairly effin' perfect. The film somehow finds a way NOT to mess up the stage's smart use of The Urchins -- Ronette (Michelle Weeks); Crystal (Everybody Hates Chris's Tichina Arnold); and Chiffon (Tisha Campbell of Martin and My Wife and Kids) -- as a kind of Skid Row Greek Chorus, offering comment and context for nearly every major plot point. (I had hoped to develop a Supporting Actress Profile for The Urchins over on the main site but other obligations crowded me out.) (I also have to give another shoutout to Tisha Campbell, who deploys the musical, comedy and dance chops on display here to enduring dramatic effect in one of the greatest Supporting Actress performances of 1988, in Spike Lee's School Daze.) Anyway, Frank Oz's directorial sensibility here is perfect, simultaneously kiddie-silly and adult-sardonic. Supported by excellently dimensional comedic characterizations from the whole cast, but especially Ellen Greene, Steve Martin and Rick Moranis, the film maintains the delightfully inappropriate Muppet camp sensibility that was Oz's queerish contribution to the Muppets. (Oz's freakishness is Miss Piggy and Gonzo, while Jim Henson's hippie sweetness is Fozzie and Kermit.) Oz's Muppet style -- a mix of comic camera angles, broad characterization, and arch art direction -- really works for the ensemble production numbers like "Skid Row" and "Meek Shall Inherit," as well as his now-classic treatment of "Somewhere That's Green." Two things about Little Shop nag my adoration of it. First, the obviously strange racial politics of the piece -- so exacerbated by the casting of Levi Stubbs and the new song written for the film, "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" -- are problematic in ways that are hard to put a finger on. As the plant gets bigger, as the lips get broader, as the leaves inside the plant's mouth become ever more labial, the plant becomes ever more like a manifestation of the vagina dentata, albeit with the voice of an urban black man. Two great castration anxiety tropes squished together in one giant puppet. I guess I always wonder if the filmmakers had any idea that, in Audrey II, they were building a perfectly monstrous manifestation of both the racial and gendered inflection on 20th century white male castration anxiety tropes... The other piece I wonder about is the banal use of profanity in this piece (mostly, again, from Audrey II). This time through, I kept wondering if the use of weirdly tonedeaf scatological humor might have been a lame attempt to contemporize the piece, to make it legible as a film for an adult audience as opposed to a kiddie movie. But I do love this film. It makes me giggle. My favorite bits? Ellen Greene's squeak. The Urchins dancing on the roof in homage to both West Side Story and Sweet Charity. Christopher Guest. The Dentist's Closet Shrine. Ellen Greene's belt. The Urchins walking through the rain without getting wet. The ensemble in Skid Row. And so much more... Screening this movie this week also reminded me of my experience revisiting Roger Rabbit, a film I don't like nearly as much. Both films now seem to me to anticipate all kinds of trends in humor, style, blending of high and low, kid and adult, puppetry/animation for grownups...all kinds of things that would become conventionalized in the 1990s following the smashout success of The Simpsons, etcetera. Yet in 1987, it's striking that no one knew what to do with this formidably accomplished musical film. I remain utterly appalled that Ellen Greene was not nominated for a Golden Globe for her incredibly textured, hilarious, and touching work as Audrey. It's among the greater screen performances of the decade and I'm still shocked that she received no award mentions whatsoever.