A Skinderella Story

The endearing British comedy The Full Monty proved that a guy doesn’t have to have six-pack abs to be sexy. In the 1997 film a group of unemployed men resort to stripping to ward off financial ruin, triumphantly dropping their drawers in front of an enthusiastic audience.
Acclaimed gay playwright Terrence McNally (Love! Valor! Compassion!) teamed with musician David Yazbek in 2000 to create a Broadway version set in Buffalo, New York. Two years ago local director Greg Tamblyn staged the show in Portland, and from March 7 to April 13 he’s bringing his rendition to the Lakewood Theatre in Lake Oswego.
Gay Portland actor and musician Rick Lewis serves as musical director, and he plays the role of Harold, the oldest member of the strip tease brigade. He described The Full Monty as, “A Cinderella story, in an odd way.”
“I’m incredibly modest,” he said. Still he finds the final scene invigorating. “There’s something empowering about knowing that what we’re about to do makes the audience cheer.”
Just how revealing is the scene? Lewis was not entirely forthcoming when asked this question, but his coy response should pique the interest of anyone with a prurient streak: “After the show there are people who swear they have seen everything.”
Like the film the musical depicts the way the men learn to accept themselves and each other. A gay relationship develops between two of the strippers and – though there are no bedroom antics – the men hold hands onstage.
For Lewis, “Pride is one of the driving forces of the story. Harold’s biggest fear is that he’s lost the tools to keep his marriage together, and he questions what makes him attractive to his wife.”
Lewis confided that his duties as musical director are relatively easy on this gig. “The score is so fabulous. I’m not really tweaking it.” He believes his primary responsibility is to help the actors develop their interpretive skills when singing the lyrics. “There’s no reason why the music can’t have the same storytelling qualities as the dialogue,” he said.
Originally from Ohio, Lewis made his way to New York City in the 1980s. He worked with such stage luminaries as Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine and - among other musicals - he wrote The Taffetas (CQ), a hit off-Broadway tribute to The McGuire Sisters and other female singing acts.
He moved to Portland in the early 1990s. He frequently works as a musical director for Portland Center Stage, most recently on last fall’s crowd-pleasing production of Cabaret. Lewis rounds out his working hours as the entertainment and marketing director for the Portland Spirit.

Stop-Loss
Grade: A-

Nine years after her very impressive debut feature film Boys Don’t Cry, writer/director Kimberly Peirce returns with this searing yet humane indictment of the war in Iraq. Ryan Phillippe is astonishingly good as a soldier who goes AWOL when he returns to his home in Texas and the military extends his tour of duty on the day he’s set to retire. Abbie Cornish, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and male model Channing Tatum deliver raw and memorable performances. Apart from a few ill-advised forays into cinema verité Peirce proves that her long hiatus from filmmaking hasn’t diminished her uncanny eye for detail or her compassion for misfits and struggling working class Americans.

In wide release starting March 28th. I'll be interviewing Ms. Peirce when she comes to Portland next week, and I'll probably post that interview on the blog sometime in mid-March.

My Bologna Has a First Name, It's ....

Tonight's Oscar ceremony went pretty much according to plan, and I don't have much to say about it other than:

Yippee for the amazing Coen brothers, and I'm glad that There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton and other deserving films did not go home empty handed.

Too bad voters didn't look beyond the Pixar wizardry and recognize that the hand-drawn Persepolis is an even better animated film than Ratatouille.

I had been rooting for Julie Christie for Best Actress since I first saw Away From Her a year ago, but Marion Cotillard's surprise win didn't bother me too much since she was quite brilliant in La Vie En Rose.

Tilda Swinton's victory came as a total shock-a-roo to me. I thought the Supporting Actress category had boiled down to a three-way race between Amy Ryan, Ruby Dee and Cate Blanchett, so my hopes weren't high for Tilda even though she's one of my favorite actresses. Her irreverent acceptance speech was my favorite moment of the night.

Per usual the production pretty much sucked, with even more interminable film archive montages than usual. And I doubt I'm the only kid on the block who was hardly Enchanted by the trio of moldy Disney songs.

Snow Angels
Grade: A-

David Gordon Green (George Washington, Undertow) wrote and directed this exceptional – albeit depressing – adaptation of a Stewart O’Nan novel that juxtaposes a teenage boy’s coming-of-age with a domestic violence storyline punctuated with a series of harrowing tragedies. Kate Beckinsale delivers one of her best performances as the ex-wife of a highly unstable man (Sam Rockwell, also memorable) who’s not ready to let go of his marriage. The entire cast is terrific, and Green brilliantly captures both the beautiful and the hopeless aspects of the winter landscapes. Featuring my muse Amy Sedaris in a rare dramatic turn.

Penelope
Grade: C

After transforming from a precocious child actor into an irrepressible bad girl in indie movies, Christina Ricci lost her way with straight-to-video bombs like Prozac Nation and, now, this flat fairy tale about a girl cursed with a pig snout. Ricci gives it her all, and she’s backed by a very likable cast that includes Catherine O’Hara, James McAvoy and Reese Witherspoon. Unfortunately the spirited performances can’t disguise the fact that director Mark Palansky has no idea how to squeeze 90 minutes of whimsy out of a plot that ought to be confined to a brief bedtime story.

Backwoods Barbie

Available February 26

A few days ago Dolly Parton had to postpone tour dates due to a back injury. She issued the following statement to the press: "I know I have been breaking my neck and bending over backwards to get my new Backwoods Barbie CD and world tour together, but I didn't mean to hurt myself doing it." Underneath the irrresistable hamminess lies Dolly's trademark folksy wisdom, a reminder to everyone not to push themselves too hard and not to take themselves too seriously. No wonder people are starting to call her the Dolly Lama.

Backwoods Barbie doesn't hit stores and downloading sites till next week, but I got a chance to hear a complete audio stream of the album at famed gay blogger Perez Hilton's website (U can too if you visit http://perezhilton.com/2008-02-08-perez-hilton-presents-6). It's more mainstream and considerably less rootsy than her recent bluegrass albums The Grass is Blue and Little Sparrow. Compared to those landmark recordings this is Dolly lite. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you.

Backwoods Barbie boasts several fun upbeat tracks, from the opening number "Better Git to Livin" to the hilarious "Shinola" (where she tells a deadbeat lover that he doesn't know "love from Shinola"). My other favorite is the undeniably hokey but catchy "Cologne" - a meditation on the hazards of wearing scents when you're having an affair.

As much as I love her, Dolly rarely releases a CD that doesn't contain one or two stinkers. There aren't any total dogs here, but the covers of "The Tracks of My Tears" and the Fine Young Cannibals' "Drives Me Crazy" feel uninspired. Also, the bland closing track ("Somebody's Everything") ends this mostly worthwhile outing with a whimper.

Girls Rock!
Grade: B

Meet Laura, Amelie, Misty and Palace. Go see the new documentary Girls Rock! and you’ll join these feisty young ladies for five days of music lessons, songwriting, self-defense classes and a little bit of catfighting at Portland’s very own Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp For Girls.
Filmmakers Shane King and Arne Johnson capture a week in the life of the camp in this amiable and occasionally poignant documentary. Under the tutelage of queer Sleater-Kinney veteran Carrie Brownstein, Gossip vocalist Beth Ditto and other camp counselors the girls form bands with names like the Screaming Monkeys, P.L.A.I.D. (People Lying Around in Dirt) and the Juicy Tanglers. Over the course of the week each band writes a song and stares down stage fright in order to perform in front of 750 people.
In addition to comprehensive interviews with the four showcased campers, King and Lewis include observations from the girls’ family members and running commentary on the significance of the camp from the counselors and the camp founders. Though Girls Rock! raises extremely relevant and provocative sociological issues, its biggest flaw is often failing to probe beyond a glossy presentation of these topics.
When filming the camp scenes King and Lewis wisely stick to simple editing and camera techniques and allow the girls to provide all the fireworks. When they present statistics about teen girls, however, they kick into ballistic mode, accompanying the factoids with screaming music and 2000 mph montages of old educational films and computer animation.
We learn statistics such as, “Four out of five girls in 8-11th grade have been sexually harassed by a schoolmate.” And, “In 1970 the average age for girls to start dieting was 14. By 1990 it was 8.”
To their credit the filmmakers proceed to discuss some of these societal ills with the campers, but ultimately their coverage of serious issues feels inadequate. They devote too much time to relatively inconsequential band squabbles, time that could have been spent giving the documentary the intellectual edge it would need to be a standout film.
None of the campers or counselors discusses their sexuality in the movie, though there is a strong hint that 15 year-old Laura – a Korean who lives with her adoptive parents in Oklahoma – may be a budding lesbian. After forming a death metal group with a few other girls she demurely asks one of her new bandmates, “Will you be my life partner?”

Cloverfield

Grade: B

I've been avoiding Cloverfield since it came out last month because the media kept harping on the fact that the hand-held camerawork induced motion sickness in many viewers. Then I remembered that I never get motion sickness, and several friends recommended the movie to me so I ducked into the mall multiplex today to catch a matinee. For the first twenty minutes a bunch of dipshit twentysomething Manhattanites hang out at a party, and the dialogue is so vapid that this would-be frightfest seems destined to invent a new genre: the bore-or movie.

Fortunately director Matt Reeves and screenwriter Drew Goddard get their tits in gear and Cloverfield starts generating some good scares and some truly chaotic apocalyptic vibes. The plot is equal parts Godzilla, Blair Witch and Alien, showing young New Yorkers desperately clinging to their cell phones and video cameras as they make futile attempts to escape from a gigantic monster who wrecks buildings and the smaller alien vermin that attack humans.

After the initial beast-inspired adrenaline rush Cloverfield fizzles out for awhile, but finished strong with a final showdown in Central Park.

Paranoid Park
Grade: B-

Few American directors have blazed a more unpredictable career path than Gus Van Sant. After the indie sensation Drugstore Cowboy and the queer classic My Own Private Idaho, the gay Portland resident made a series of hit-or-miss Hollywood vehicles that ranged from the brilliant To Die For to the excruciatingly formulaic Finding Forrester.
Since 2002 he has stuck with low-budget experimental projects, yielding both stunning (Elephant) and numbing (Last Days) results. His latest, Paranoid Park, is a cross between Crime and Punishment and Lords of Dogtown, with a Portland teenage skate punk named Alex standing in for good ol’ Raskolnikov.
Van Sant based his screenplay on a novel by Blake Nelson. The nonlinear story follows Alex in the aftermath of a train yard skirmish in which he accidentally causes a security guard’s gruesome death by striking him with a skateboard.
Filmed at easily identifiable Portland locales like The House of Louis restaurant and the skate park underneath the east end of the Burnside Bridge, Paranoid Park employs a cast of unknowns. Van Sant tracked down some of the young actors with My Space ads, and the resulting performances often spell out the risks inherent in this casting maneuver. Most of the acting is serviceable. It’s just not memorable, and in some cases it’s downright painful to watch the kids try so hard and fail to look cool and natural at the same time.
From a technical standpoint Paranoid Park is frequently impressive. In the skateboarding sequences, for instance, Van Sant achieves a hypnotic mood with slow-motion photography and dreamy electronica music. But eventually the film’s formidable visual panache sticks out like a sore thumb because it’s all in the service of a mediocre story about a bunch of uncharismatic brats. It’s virtually impossible to muster concern for them.
There is no obvious queer content in the film, though Van Sant tosses in one ambiguous scene where one of Alex’s male friends shoots Alex a couple of longing glances during a car ride.
Next up for Van Sant is the long-delayed biopic about assassinated gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, starring Sean Penn in the title role.

Roy Scheider

1932-2008

XXY
Grade: B+

Even by queer cinema standards, transgendered themes still represent a new frontier for filmmakers. Fortunately the inevitability of controversy hasn’t stopped directors from making a handful of intelligent and memorable films like Ma Vie En Rose, Boys Don’t Cry and Transamerica.
Argentinean writer and director Lucía Puenzo is the latest to try her hand at gender-bending material. Her film XXY – winner of the Critics Week Grand Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival – shows three times at the 31st Portland International Film Festival.
Though it’s not a flat-out triumph, XXY is extremely gutsy, well-acted and frequently touching. Puenzo unflinchingly addresses gay and transgendered themes, and it’s hard to imagine that any member of the queer community will leave the theater unmoved.
That said, the film has a few pronounced drawbacks. Apart from a few charming and lighthearted moments, the tone feels excessively dour and, at times, a bit suffocating. In addition, some of the symbolism is heavy-handed to the point of being unintentionally hilarious. In a film that raises the topic of castration, it’s just too much to watch someone chop up a carrot.
The plot centers on a teenage hermaphrodite named Alex, brilliantly played by young actress Inés Efron. Alex grew up as a boy, but as a teenager he becomes a social outcast when he develops female sexual characteristics. Alex’s perplexed but sympathetic parents move to an isolated island off the coast of Uruguay. The film opens as family friends from Buenos Aires arrive to visit.
After a slow, the story kicks into high gear as Alex develops a relationship with Alvaro, the introverted teenage son of the visiting family. Sparks fly, leading to a truly eyebrow-raising roll in the hay in which Alvaro – who is clearly questioning his sexuality – ends up on the receiving end of an anal interchange that makes the tent scene from Brokeback Mountain look like child’s play.
Filmed in a palette of grays and steely blues, XXY exudes so much melancholy that we know there’s not happy ending in store. The developments in the second half of the film are realistic but they’re downers nonetheless, as Alex faces ostracism and violence from her peers and Alvaro discovers that his father has little room in his heart for a gay son.
But don’t pop a Prozac just yet. Despite all the bleakness XXY emerges as a hopeful and life-affirming portrait of a family that loves Alex regardless of which gender he decides to embrace.

Screens on February 13 and 15 at 6:15 p.m. & Feb. 17 at 7:45 p.m. All screenings at Regal Broadway Cinemas.

The Edge of Heaven
Grade: A-

Looking for lesbian content at the 31st Portland International Film Festival? You’ll find it in this highly engrossing German drama by writer and director Fatih Akin, who took home the Best Screenplay award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. The film – which is set in Germany and Turkey - invites comparisons to Babel and Crash by juggling several interconnected and emotionally charged stories. Fortunately Akin’s effort is not nearly as overwrought as its predecessors, giving the viewer room to breath and reflect even when tragedy strikes. The sensitively portrayed lesbian relationship takes place between a German student and an illegal immigrant who leaves Turkey to escape prosecution for her dissident political activity.

Screens February 8 at 9:15 p.m. & February 9 at 3 p.m. at the Portland Art Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium.

A Twist of Lemon

If you’ve never seen Jane Campion’s 1989 film Sweetie you’re missing out on one of the most memorable performances in modern cinema. Australian actress Genevieve Lemon tears up the screen as the title character, an emotionally imbalanced woman who chews her sister’s prized toy horses to pieces, earnestly asks a guy if he’s ever been licked all over, and defends a tree house by farting in the general direction of anyone who attempts to climb the ladder.

Ms. Lemon also appeared in two other Campion films, The Piano and Holy Smoke. Onstage she made a splash in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – The Musical, and last month she won Best Actress honors at the Sydney Theatre Awards for her current role in Billy Elliott: The Musical.

Can’t make it Down Under to hear this lady’s incredible pipes? No worries. Just mosey on over to http://www.brokenskymusic.com/ and order Angels in the City, a live CD of Genevieve and her band recorded at the Studio at the Sydney Opera House in 1999 (the CD was released in 2006 by Broken Sky Music out of New South Wales).

Lemon covers ten songs that showcase her warm, powerful voice and her intelligent interpretations of lyrics. The set kicks off with a sultry take on the Petula Clark classic “Downtown” and moves onto a sassy version of Lou Reed’s "Walk on the Wild Side.”

Other highlights include the haunting piano ballad “Blue Sky Mine," plus rollicking renditions of Lyle Lovett’s “Cowboy Man” and Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In.”

Chicago 10
Grade: A-

Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture) furthers his reputation as a bold stylist with this flawed but electrifying documentary about Abbie Hoffman, Black Panther leader Bobby Seale and others who faced trial on charges of inciting riots at the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention. Using archival footage Morgen skillfully interweaves scenes of peace rallies with devastating images of police brutality. To depict the trial itself he goes out on a limb with mixed results, employing motion-capture animation that’s alternately hallucinogenic and hokey. Nick Nolte, Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo and Roy Scheider provide their vocal talents.

Screens at the Portland International Film Festival on Feb. 10 at 1:45 p.m. at the Regal Broadway Cinemas & Feb. 11 at 8:45 p.m. at the Portland Art Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium.

Three identical pictures of Andy Blubaugh

The Pull
Grade: B

What happens when two men start a romance on the strict condition that they break up four months later? Gay Portland filmmaker Andy Blubaugh (Scaredycat) and his ex discuss the pros and cons of this proposition in an 8-minute short that features tender shots of the couple spooning in bed, a heated dinner conversation about relationships and scenic footage of a bike ride in the country. Blubaugh certainly digs at some intriguing questions about the durability of love and physical attraction, but the rules of engagement seem so arbitrary that it’s hard to muster an emotional or intellectual response to the material.

Screens at the Portland International Film Festival on February 16 at 2 p.m. at the Portland Art Museum's Whitsell Auditorium. The Pull is part of the program Short Cuts IV: Made in Oregon.