Tag: Queer

Not a whole lot to say about this movie, really. It was goofy, silly, sexy fun. I’m only surprised nobody’s come up with a Twilight-themed gay porn before!

(Whoops, spoke too soon. And here’s another one.)

I loved everyone’s performance in this, especially (of course) Mark Kenneth Wood’s so-bad-it’s-good acting as the airheaded Pepe. Speaking of whom, I’m catching up on old episodes of Designer Gays on Mark Kenneth Woods’ site. I’d seen the preview on Vancouver Visionaries this Tuesday, I didn’t know there was more!

Casper Andreas’ critique of the Hollywood culture has a higher drama-to-comedy ratio than last year’s Violet Tendencies; it’s far more ambitious, with a more complex plot and message and stabs at character arcs. As a comedy, Going Down is excellent, with the same snappy lines and silly situations I’ve come to expect from Andreas. As a drama, though… not so much.

First, the movie was crammed full of the same old Hollywood clichés: everybody is bitchy and/or fake, drugs are everywhere, it’s a scary and corrupt town that’ll chew up and spit out an innocent boy like Adam unless he toughens up and plays the game. Maybe all those clichés really are true, but that didn’t make the film any more original.

Speaking of original, Adam’s story is also very predictable and by-the-numbers. I honestly don’t think I was surprised by any of plot points, except maybe by how fast Nick and his career crashed after Adam left him. The “How we got here” intro seems to imply that Adam’s affair with John ended in tears, but did anyone doubt they’d ride off into the sunset together?

Actually, I do have one question: who really sold Adam and John out? Was it Matthew (or Michael? or Mark? I forget his name) Adam’s old boss who saw them in the restaurant and put 2 and 2 together? Was it John’s evil washed-up beard? Or was it Candy? Matthew was my vote originally, simply because he’s a spiteful bitch and the beard (whose name I forget) had more to lose. But Candy had been getting increasingly desperate about money… then again, John was feeling depressed and paranoid, so it’s understandable he’d suspect her.

Still, I enjoyed the movie. It was sweet, it had hot bodies, it made me laugh, and sometimes that’s all you want, y’know?

Madame X is hilarious fun, shamelessly hitting or subverting all sorts action-adventure, martial arts, superhero, and Magical Girl clichés in a delightful campy way. Training montages, a hi-tech (though gorgeously decorated) control centre, and an out-of-this-world transformation sequence are just some of the highlights.

Though it does contain a bit of violence it was very much toned down (don’t think I didn’t notice those clubs were foam!), and even the dramatic scenes were mostly played for laughs. Special mention goes to Auntie’s dying speech after OMEG attacked the dance school. In a serious movie the dying mentor would give some last-minute advice or useful information to the plucky new hero. Here, though? Auntie just gives her assistant some tips on letting the Madame X costume out a bit.

Not to say there’s no action; in spite of its silly elements—like ending it by throwing their designer handbag in the water—the fight with Mr. Storm’s three wives was mostly played seriously. Madame X was injured, scared, and retreated to regroup a couple of times. Likewise, I thought the final fight with the Big Bad was nicely done, and the final reveal that he was Adam’s childhood friend turned into a bitter fanatic took me by surprise. I know it shouldn’t have, because those flashbacks were there for a reason, but there you go.

The movie ends with Madame X continuing her vigilante work, saving another queer from getting gay-bashed in the lonely streets of Jakarta. Hey, he’s no Batman, but I’ll take it.

Oh hey, there’s the angst I’ve missed so much!

This is not going to be an easy review to write. First, let me say that Grown Up Movie Star is brilliantly written, acted, and directed. Every detail is impeccably done and feels so authentic (I guess. I mean, what do I know about small-town Newfoundland?)

Which just made the movie that much more painful to sit through. All the main characters are horribly miserable and messed up, doing messed-up things to themselves and each other. Ray the divorced father, ex-NHL player forced to resign in disgrace after getting caught smuggling pot, forced to be a single parent and with no clue how to go about it, seeing a local (male) hockey coach on the sly. Lonely Stuart, Ray’s best friend, stuck in a wheelchair because of Ray, only interacting with other people from behind his camera. Ray’s older daughter Ruby, hating her life, blaming her father for everything, dreaming of Hollywood stardom and fetishizing America.

I cringed, I laughed, I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t look away because dammit I cared about these assholes! That’s talent, right there; kudos to director Adriana Maggs and to all the actors for sketching out the characters’ lives so realistically and making me feel for them.

PS: Okay, about the microwave. I think the director put it in as a bit of symbolism, to track of state of Ray and Ruby’s lives. At first Ray wrestles it away from his ex-wife; he doesn’t really want it, he just doesn’t want her to have it, and indeed it just gets to sit in the driveway for the rest of the film. On one occasion he beats it up, and in a later scene tries to lift it but can’t. Then, after after everything blows up right in everybody’s face, Ray comes back from jail and peace is declared the whole family is ready to throw the piece of junk away. A little obvious, sure, but only in hindsight and it didn’t detract from the rest of the experience.

This retrospective showcase of Vancouver-made shorts had some good moments, but on the whole they kind of left me cold. Now that I think about it, I think all the rough and low-budget films might have suffered in comparison to Jamie Travis’ highly stylized and polished pieces. Not fair, I know, but there you go. Plus, if I’m being honest, it was late and I was dead tired. This whole festival marathon thing worked a lot better last year when I was unemployed.

Besides that, one thing that disappointed me was the lack of very old movies. Out of the 17 shorts most were from the late 90’s / early 00’s, with only two from the 80’s and one from the 70’s. Could a bigger sampling of older movies just not be found, or were they not high enough quality? I would have liked to see what Vancouver queers were up to in the 60’s and 70’s. Oh well. He’s are the highlights:

Bruise (1974) was notable just for its WTF value. Injecting your blood in someone else to make a bruise, then filming it? Even in those pre-AIDS days, why on Earth would you do that? Was it some kind of fetish I’m too sheltered to know about?

Designer Gays (2004) is a lovely spoof of the then-current TV trend of campy gays helping hapless straights (e.g.: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy). Or I guess just gays on TV generally since wasn’t that also the height of Will & Grace’s popularity?

I’m pretty sure I saw lisa g’s My Sweet Prince Charming in a previous festival. I can’t place it, but it definitely rings a bell. And I definitely remember Clark Nikolai’s Galactic Docking Company from two years ago. It’s just as naughty and subversive now as it was then.

Ah, Ivan E. Coyote. I haven’t seen her stuff in a while, but 2001’s Transmission, a heartfelt homage to an older transman father figure, reminded me what a great storyteller she is.

I’m a sucker for these faux-documentary films on queer culture (Lesbian National Parks, I’m looking at you) so it’s no surprise I loved Enter The Mullet, an informative piece on mullets in the lesbian community, the history and practice thereof.

Well, that was different! In this show 5 short films were each paired with one piece of performance art (spoken word, dance, song, music) right there in the theatre. Short films + performance art + artist Q&A = Awesome!

In My Heart The Travel Agent, a very short collage of sounds and scenes from subways/metros around the world is incorporated by Isolde N. Barron into a catchy dance number to ATC’s Around the World.

Trans man Kyle Shaughnessy responds to Dyke Pussy, a weird short of little cat figurines, with a powerful demand for respect and desire for his front-facing man-hole. In the Q&A he admits the title of the film is what prompted the angry rant. Something less cisgendered and more inclusive might have led to something tamer and more explicitly political.

After You Are A Lesbian Vampire hilariously deconstructs the romance of vampirism, Swann Barat and Lise Monique Oakley pick up the vampire theme with an eerie drumming number, complete with rich red sheets, black dresses and a mock vampire bite at the end.

No Safe Words is a disturbing collage mixing sports, bondage, muscleboys on Pride floats and frat hazing. Jesse McMass-Sparvier then performs a wordless interpretive dance to the repeated soundtrack. The theme was oppression and bondage, both physical and cultural. However, I don’t think it added anything really new.

In Invitation, Michael V. Smith invites us to get naked with him, and to love our bodies—or at least get a new perspective on them. This one hit particularly hard because my body’s not too different from Michael’s, and I’ve dealt with similar demons. Joel Klein and Karen Lee-Morgan run with the theme of brutal honesty with a funny song urging you to tell everything—everything—to your partner.

It’s no secret I’m a sucker for a good twisty mind-fuck. Hell, I’m the only one of my friends who really liked Pornography: A Thriller, let alone thought it was the best film of the festival last year. I also have fond memories of Half-Life from the year before, which similarly left a lot of people scratching their heads.

Strapped wasn’t quite up to the level of these two films. The mind-fuck wasn’t that twisty, the writing itself took itself a little too seriously, and the symbolism was too heavy-handed. Not that it stopped me from enjoying the movie.

The film starts with a man taking a hustler up to his apartment. After their encounter (which leaves his client relaxed and happy and feeling “free”), the hustler collects his money, steals a small figurine of a griffon, and tries to leave the apartment building—but can’t. Exit signs point to dead ends, corridors all look alike. After a bit of wandering he finds stairs, but is accosted by a man who calls him “Eddie” (not the name he gave his client; I think that was “Alex”), insists he knows him, and invites him to his place down the hall. The hustler (oh hell, let’s call him Eddie for now) decides to play along, which includes matching his new friend Leon’s campier behaviour.

At the party Eddie strips (for money), blows one of the guys (for more money) and then leaves. Wandering the halls some more he’s accosted by a hunky young father who agrees to show him the way out, but really wants to take him down to the laundry room to suck his dick and lick his ass. And then punch him in the nose. Eddie is saved by the arrival of a nice older gentleman who takes him up to his place in the attic, then fills him (and the audience) in a little on the nature of the building.

Eddie, it seems is stuck in some kind of maze or labyrinth. Not the same concept, as Jeff, the older gentleman, exposits: a maze is a trap, designed to lead you astray and hide the way out. A labyrinth, on the other hand, is a journey with no choices, no confusion. You have to keep going and eventually you’ll reach your destination. Eddie, Jeff says, is “lost” but the young father who attacked him is “trapped”—in lies, in false labels and names.

And then they fuck. Seems to be a recurring theme. On his way down the stairs Eddie meets Gary, one of the people at Leon’s party, who also invites him to his place. Gary admits that he’s intensely attracted to Eddie, has actually dreamed about him, and wants to kiss him. For money. No fucking, no blowing, just five minutes of making out to fill a hole in Gary’s soul. Eddie initially refuses, since kissing is far too intimate for him, but Gary keeps offering him more money, and he finally accepts.

They make out, and it’s apparently transcendant. So good, in fact, that they both have spontaneous orgasms with their pants still on. Gary is satisfied, both physically and spiritually, and Eddie himself is awed by the experience. Before leaving he gives Gary the griffon figurine he stole, and easily finds the way out: a very ritzy-looking spiral staircase, leading down to a rather pretty lobby. But before stepping out into the sunlit street, Eddie makes a choice: he runs back up the stairs, back into Gary’s arms.

The end.

So… that was kind of interesting. It had some good elements, but in hindsight I don’t think they really meshed together. In my original tweet I called this movie “Jacob’s Ladder with hustlers”, and I stand by that. Whereas Jacob was going through a kind of purgatory and needed to ascend to heaven (I think; I mean, that movie was seriously ambiguous), Strapped tacked on elements of spiritual awakening through sex that kinda left me cold. Plus, some symbols really didn’t add up. What about the rain and leaky roof in Jeff’s attic apartment? Did it represent his higher spiritual awareness (because, hey, attic) and openness to the true outside world? What exactly did the griffon represent? Eddie was trapped in the building after he stole it, and found the way out after he gave it up. What should I read into this? Was it attachment, possession, harmful patterns in Eddie’s life that he had to choose to break?

And who were all these other characters? Souls also lost or trapped, or manifestations of the building existing only for Eddie, serving as obstacles or spiritual stations on his journey? Gyorgy, Eddie’s first client, felt “free” after getting fucked and spilling his guts and true name, implying that he was real, and would find his way out soon. If, then, all the other characters are real, is the building just a metaphor for life, and the quest for enlightenment? If so, what does it say about Eddie that he chose to stay? Is love better than enlightenment?

Am I totally overthinking this? Ehh, maybe. That’s okay, though. I had fun watching the movie, and fun writing this review, and that’s what counts, right?