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Celluloid
bent: nine days, 120 films, and a ‘Fluffer’ at ImageOut
ImageOut,
Rochester's Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, celebrates
ten years of grassroots success this week with nine days of
action-packed cinema unspooling at three theatres in the downtown
area. What follows is our take on some of this year's features and
shorts programs. Be sure to consult the full ImageOut schedule,
and check out our interview with award-winning writer Sherman
Alexie, whose new film, The
Business of Fancydancing, will screen as part of the festival
on Sunday night.
.
By
Hook or By Crook
Harry Hodges
and Silas Howard, USA, 98 minutes
7 p.m.
Friday, October 4, Little Theatre
Winner of
audience awards at LA Outfest and the SXSW Film Festival, By Hook or By Crook is one of the best independently financed
bank-robbery flicks since Bottle
Rocket, despite the complete absence of any actual bank
robberies. The film drops in on three wacky weeks in the life of
Shy (Silas Howard), who, as the film opens, is living in Hoxie,
Kansas --- the epicenter of rural banality, especially when you're
a butch lesbian.
Days away
from losing her house to foreclosure, Shy becomes entranced by a
bank robbery depicted on the evening news. With dollar signs in
her eyes, Shy heads for the big city (San Francisco, natch), but
can't afford a gun to pull off any heists. Eventually, Shy meets
Valentine (Harriet Dodge), a fellow butch who has a pretty bad
case of OCD, as well as some mommy abandonment issues and a girly
sidekick (Stanya Kahn) who is only slightly less crazy than she
is. Gritty adventures follow, making Crook
kind of like cross between a gay Thelma
and Louise and a gayer Midnight
Cowboy (Val is a dead ringer for Ratso Rizzo [or maybe Harmony
Korine], while Shy shares the wide-eyed innocence of Joe Buck [or
perhaps Conan O'Brien]).
Shot using
handheld digital video, Crook
does limp a bit toward its finale, but the lively soundtrack
(featuring the likes of the Make Up, the Mono Men, Buffalo
Daughter and Blonde Redhead) and the cameo by Joan Jett keep
things from grinding to a halt. It's extremely well-written, with
a couple of very thoughtful, perfectly executed montages, though
some might gripe about the portrayal of gender-benders as a
mentally unstable lot. But hey --- anything is better than the
watered-down drivel on Will
& Grace every week, right?
.
Notorious
C.H.O.
Lorene
Machado, USA, 95 minutes
9:30 p.m.
Friday, October 4, Little Theatre
Reviewing
concert films is a tough prospect --- either you like the
performance or you don't. A director can do very little to liven
things up, other than showing the backstage antics that have
practically become a concert film cliché. I'm not the biggest fan
of Margaret Cho's standup routines (it might be the extended
funny-face freeze after every joke), but I was pleased to discover
the content in Notorious
C.H.O. was much less dark than her previous theatrical effort,
the gloomy I'm the One That I Want,
which dealt with alcohol/drug addiction and the weight issues
revolving around her short-lived network sitcom.
Filmed
during a sold-out Seattle performance, Cho instead concentrates on
various reproductive organs and their secretions. And, of course,
there's plenty of gay-oriented humor, including a very funny bit
about the only gay bar in Scotland, which is named after Bette
Midler's character in Beaches.
.
Unforgettable:
Our History-Makers
Total
running time: 114 minutes
11 a.m.
Saturday, October 5, Little Theatre
Props all
around to important groundbreakers Harry Hay and Joan Nestle. The
former, who celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this year,
started the country's first gay rights organization (the
Mattachine Society) back when McCarthy was rounding up Reds, while
the latter formed both the Gay Academic Union and the Lesbian
Herstory Archives in the early '70s.
The Unforgettable program includes an hour-long documentary on each of
the aforementioned dignitaries (Hand
On the Pulse and Hope
Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay), as well as a neat
five-minute jobber called Cherries
in the Snow, which shows women from different eras hanging
period undergarments on the same clothesline.
.
How
To Become a Lesbian In 6 Easy Steps
Total
running time: 74 minutes
1:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 5, Dryden Theatre
Comedy is on
the menu in this shorts program, which features titles like C.L.I.T.
and The 10 Rules (A Lesbian Survival Guide). The multi-award-winning Interviews
With My Next Girlfriend is also on the slate, along with Size
'Em Up, a very funny short about a top-heavy tomboy whose
mother (Julie Brown[!]) drags her to the store to buy her first
bra. The overly helpful employees (including Pearl from Diff'rent
Strokes) seem...well, a little overly helpful.
.
Novela,
Novela
Liz Miller,
USA, 70 minutes
3:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 5, Little Theatre
The next
time you're in Nicaragua and notice something called Sexto Sentido (translation: The
Sixth Sense) in the TV listings, you're going to be
disappointed if you tune in expecting to find little Haley Joel
and his ghostly friends. Sentido is the only homegrown soap opera
in Nicaragua, a nation completely enraptured by this particular
television format (the other soaps come courtesy of the same wacky
Spanish-language channels we get through Time Warner).
Festival
viewers will be treated to one of the show's episodes, along with
a few pieces from later shows (so you're not left completely
hanging, because that's just cruel), and then a kind of behind the
scenes documentary that hammers home the importance of the
stories, which focus on a group of young adults from various
economic backgrounds.
.
Sing-along
Grease
Randal
Kleiser, USA, 110 minutes
7 p.m.
Saturday, October 5, Dryden Theatre
This ain't
your folks' Grease.
Sure, it's the same actors and same story, but this souped-up
special print not only makes John Travolta look thin and Jeff
Conaway look like he has a career, it also includes the lyrics for
the film's numerous and hella-popular songs. The aim is to have
the audience sing along with the characters. I'm not sure how
strictly enforced the singing is, but if you have a tin ear, you
can probably get away with just mouthing the words.
As an added
bonus, a prize will be awarded to the audience member with the
best costume. As a super-special added bonus, director Randal
Kleiser will be on hand to introduce the film and field your
questions afterward. Just don't make fun of his Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, because, you know, he'll frigging
shrink you.
.
Kali’s
Vibe
Shari
Carpenter, USA, 92 minutes
7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 5, Little Theatre
Kali
(Lizzy Cooper Davis) is a state social worker who has been living
with popular slam poet Crystal (Phalana Tiller) for three years.
We sense the growing distance between the two (an overhead shot of
their bed shows enough room to build an actual wall between their
two bodies), but the relationship doesn't come to a head until the
night Crystal doesn't come home.
Kali
kicks her out and then suffers through a lot of bad blind dates
before finding love in the most unexpected place --- a hetero
single dad and full-time playa named Reese (Charles Malik
Whitfield), who recently started working with Kali. Oh, save your
booing and hissing --- Crystal eventually returns, leaving Kali in
quite the quandary. Director Carpenter used to be Spike Lee's
script supervisor.
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Oliver
Button Is a Star
John
Scagliotti, USA, 84 minutes
11 a.m.
Sunday, October 6, Little Theatre
Revolving
entirely around Tomie dePaola's children's book Oliver Button Is a Sissy, this interesting documentary shows a
first-grade teacher reading the book to her class while,
simultaneously, the inspirational story about a boy who prefers
singing and dancing to sports is acted out on stage by the Twin
Cities Gay Men's Choir. Dispersed throughout are interviews with
four people (including dePaola) who describe what the book meant
to them when they were little (one is an Arctic explorer named Ann
Bancroft!). Producer Dan Hunt will be here to introduce the show.
.
Swimming
Upstream: A Year In the Life of Karen and Jenny
Jennifer
Freedman, USA, 74 minutes
1:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 6, Little Theatre
If you're
put off by Swimming Upstream's
opening scene, which includes a graphic description of conception
via turkey baster (and the messy queef attendant thereto), you
might want to hightail it outta there before the nightmarish
childbirth scene at the end. What happens in between is, as the
title suggests, a year in the life of parents-to-be Karen and
Jenny, a couple comprised of a football-watching butch who, as a
youngster, was to Little League what Jackie Robinson was to Major
League Baseball, and a formerly straight blonde hairdresser with
enormous lips.
Trouble is,
aside from the birth, nothing really happens. I thought the most
effective parts were those that had nothing to do with pregnancy
or lesbianism (like the scene where Karen and Jenny kid around as
they fill out forms at the doctor's office). It's great that their
friends and family are so supportive, but the lack of conflict
makes for an uninteresting documentary.
.
This
Is NOT Only a Test
Total
running time: 87 minutes
3:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 6, Little Theatre
AIDS is the
topic of this program, which includes Testing,
One...Two, a neat black-and-white short about a couple and a
couple of tests (one is taking a big college exam, and the other
waits for his HIV test results); and Our
Brothers, Our Sons, a 25-minute documentary that pits Baby
Boomers against Gen-Xers in the age-old barebacking debate.
.
Ruthie
& Connie: Every Room In the House
Deborah
Dickson, USA, 56 minutes
5:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 6, Dryden Theatre
Unlike Karen
and Jenny, Ruthie and Connie are a charismatic pair that would
liven up the dullest documentary. Funnier than the content of most
television sitcoms, the pair discuss their history (abandoning
their husbands to be with each other back in a late '50s
conservative Jewish enclave of Brooklyn) as they sit around and
kibitz with each other and their old friends from back when they
played it straight. Is there shuffleboard? You bet. Is "I
Will Survive" played? You know it.
Whether
their stories are heartbreaking (like when they had to destroy
their love letters for fear of being caught) or romantic (like
their first kiss), Ruthie and Connie are always entertaining.
They're also groundbreakers, as evidenced by the 1988 Donohue
clips that pitted them against an extremely homophobic audience
during their lawsuit that helped New York City employees to obtain
same-sex partner benefits. You'll be able to shout stuff at them,
too, because both Ruthie and Connie will attend this screening.
.
The
Business of Fancydancing
Sherman
Alexie, USA, 86 minutes
8 p.m.
Sunday, October 6, Dryden Theatre
Evan Adams (Smoke
Signals) plays Seymour Polatkin, a very popular Seattle-based
poet who is kind of the Native American David Sedaris, in that
he's gay and he often writes humorous stories about his past.
Unlike Sedaris, however, Seymour's stories are all set in the
Spokane reservation he called home before ditching it for the big
time nearly a decade ago. Now commanding $10,000 a pop on the
lecture circuit, Seymour is called back home for the funeral of
his boyhood friend, Mouse (Swil Kanim).
Despite his
celebrity status, Seymour is not welcomed back with open arms.
Everyone back on the rez couldn't care less that their prodigal
son is gay --- they're pissed because he's so condescending about
reservation life in his poetry. They're also not thrilled about
his appropriation of a number of first-person stories that
actually belong to Aristotle Joseph (Gene Tagaban), Seymour's
co-valedictorian and former best friend who tried to leave the rez
for college but eventually slunk back for a life of huffing and
drinking.
Even though
he makes it clear he despised his life on the rez, it's the only
subject that comes up in Seymour's work, and that central theme is
interesting enough to drive Fancydancing
as a film. It's also aided by a blazing performance by Adams (he
and co-star Michelle St. John will be in attendance at this
screening) and some nifty direction by writer Sherman Alexie, who
makes his debut behind the camera here. The film, which has won
festival audience awards from San Francisco to Philadelphia, also
features a bunch of Alexie's powerful poetry (please read our
interview with Alexie here).
.
Food
Of Love
Ventura Pons,
USA, 112 minutes
8 p.m.
Monday, October 7, Little Theatre
When
we first meet young Paul (Kevin Bishop), the Juilliard-bound
pianist is about to make his big stage debut...as a page-turner
for his idol, superstar Richard Kennington (Paul Rhys). The two
share a moment backstage after the show, but it's abbreviated by
Paul's suffocating mother, Pamela (the wonderful Juliet
Stevenson).
The two get
a chance to hook up again several months later in Barcelona, where
Paul is studying and Richard has just ended a grueling world tour.
Not knowing her son or his squeeze are gay, Pamela decides to put
the moves on Richard after he saves her from some street
criminals. You would expect madcap hilarity to ensue, but Love actually takes a pretty serious swing toward the melodramatic
in its second half, which depicts Pamela coming to terms with her
son's sexuality.
.
Luster
Everett
Lewis, USA, 90 minutes
10:30 p.m.
Monday, October 7, Dryden Theatre
One should
ordinarily be very leery of a film with credits that offer only
first names, but anyone associated with Luster
ought to be proud enough to have both names attached to such a
cool indie flick. The protagonist is Jackson (Justin Herwick), a 'zine-publishing
record-store employee who has a big crush on a boy named Billy
(Jonah Blechman). But Billy is involved with a rock star (Willie
Garson), who summons Jackson to write the lyrics for his new
record. Also thrown into the mix are Jackson's handsome cousin (b.
Wyatt) from Iowa, his straight boss (Shane Powers) who seems to
like Jackson a little too much, a stalker (Sean Thibodeau) who is
too vanilla for Jackson's tastes, and a pair of scuffling
lesbians.
The subject
matter and record-store setting make Luster
seem like a toned-down Gregg Araki trying to remake an LA-based High Fidelity. It's being shown with a short called The
Moment After, an appropriately dark look at committing suicide
on one's birthday.
.
Tom
Mike
Hoolboom, Canada, 75 minutes
6 p.m.
Tuesday, October 8, Cinema Theater
If, God
forbid, P. Diddy ever made a movie about one of his heroes, the
concept would probably sound a lot like Hoolboom's Tom,
a dazzling experimental picture that pays tribute to underground
artist and filmmaker Tom Chamont. Like his Puffiness, Hoolboom
doesn't actually pick up his camera and shoot any new film --- he
instead appropriates chunks from Chamont's extraordinarily large
catalogue and, unlike Puffy, turns it into something new, exciting
and spellbinding. It's the kind of film that grabs you, sucks you
in and practically hypnotizes you as your jaw gets closer and
closer to your lap. I'm not sure what any of it is supposed to
mean (especially the jarring finale that features famous Manhattan
landmarks blowing up), but I don't care.
.
No
More Drama
Total
running time: 96 minutes
6 p.m.
Tuesday, October 8, Little Theatre
This comedic
program features two of my favorite festival shorts. Lez
Be Friends is a very funny look at a straight filmmaker named
Lily (Patricia Welbourne) who decides to make a feature called Dike
about her best friend's (Tanya Pillay) recent trip out of the
closet. But when everyone who sees the film assumes she's gay,
Lily finds herself typecast as a lesbian. And there's music by
cub! Shut Up, White Boy
shows an asshole white boy with Asian tastes getting some
comeuppance when he takes his latest Filipino girlfriend to a
Vietnamese restaurant where the kitchen help is apparently mad as
hell and not going to take it anymore. It's shot on 16mm
black-and-white, and it looks lovely.
.
Prom
Fight: The Marc Hall Story
Larry
Pelesco, Canada, 62 minutes
4 p.m.
Wednesday, October 9, Little Theatre
Prom
Fight is making its US debut right here in little ol'
Rochester, mostly because it's too new to have been shown anywhere
else. Depicting events that occurred less than five months ago,
the documentary shows the plight of Oshawa, Ontario student Marc
Hall and his attempt to attend his senior prom with his boyfriend,
Jean-Paul. His Catholic school immediately put the kibosh on the
idea, with appeals quickly made to the district school board and,
eventually, to court. Of course, if Marc was devious about the
whole thing and said his date was going to be "Jean,"
nobody would have been the wiser until the night of the prom (see
how honesty gets you exactly nowhere these days?)
While the
story is somewhat interesting, the real drawing card here is the
tall, gangly, blue-haired Marc, who reluctantly found himself the
center of a media whirlwind at an awkward age in which most kids
would just as soon hide from microphones and lights. He doesn't
want to be Rosa Parks --- he just wants to go to his damn prom.
.
Days
Laura
Muscardin, Italy, 80 minutes
10:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 9, Little Theatre
35-year-old
Claudio (Thomas Trabacchi) enjoys strong bonds with his mother,
his sister and his boyfriend Dario, but his most important
relationship is with routine. From his boring, repetitive job at
the bank to his exercise schedule to the regimented program of
pill-taking and doctor visits the HIV-positive Claudio must
subject himself to, his days are carefully planned out weeks in
advance.
On the eve
of Claudio's move to Milan with HIV-negative Dario, Claudio meets
and has a fling with a waiter named Andrea (Davide Bechini). Like
a Lays potato chip, Claudio can't stop at just one and reunites
with Andrea for another tryst. Their second meeting --- the film's
centerpiece --- occurs sans condom, and Claudio's life is turned
upside-down. Loose ends are tied up way too neatly at the end, but
Muscardin's direction, especially where she chooses to shoot some
things out of focus (like Claudio, the audience is looking for
clarity in his decision-making process), shows great promise.
.
Gypsy
83
Todd
Stephens, USA, 94 minutes
4 p.m.
Thursday, October 10, Little Theatre
Nine days
after her new sitcom (Less
Than Perfect) debuts on ABC, Sara Rue will display the acting
chops that landed her a big network gig. She plays the titular
Gypsy, a voluptuous 25-year-old who works at a Sandusky Foto-Hut.
Don't worry --- she doesn't get obsessed with any of her
customers, because Gypsy is already infatuated with Stevie Nicks.
Her best friend is a gay goth named Clive (Kett Turton) who looks
more like Robert Smith than Robert Smith has in years (and John
Doe plays Gypsy's dad!).
When they
learn there's a "Night of a Thousand Stevies" event
scheduled in New York City, the dynamic duo hit the road and share
experiences with a has-been lounge singer (Karen Black), an Amish
boy (Anson Scoville) and a sexually confused frat brother (Paulo
Costanzo), while, of course, learning a thing or two about
themselves, as well. Gypsy
starts off strongly but becomes a bit overly morose. Still,
director Stephens, an LA Outfest winner for Edge
of Seventeen (Turton won this year for his performance here),
is a filmmaker to watch in the future.
.
Fish
and Elephant
Li Yu,
China, 106 minutes
6 p.m.
Thursday, October 10, Cinema Theatre
Reportedly
mainland China's first motion picture about lesbians, Fish and Elephant, which has already won awards from two of the
world's biggest film festivals (Berlin and Venice), is about two
single women in Beijing who find what they're looking for in each
other. Xiao Qun is the elephant keeper at the zoo, and Xiao Ling
makes clothing which she then sells in an indoor market.
Two things
happen to jeopardize their burgeoning relationship --- the arrival
of Qun's overbearing mother, who insists on setting her daughter
up on a bunch of blind dates with unsavory men; and the return of
Qun's ex-lover, Jun Jun, who is being chased by the cops because
she killed her sadistic father. The highlight here are the blind
dates --- not because they're particularly exciting, but because
the guys we see were recruited by phony personal ads director Yu
placed in an attempt to elicit authentic, believable dialogue.
.
Animate
My Shorts!
Total
running time: 89 minutes
6 p.m.
Thursday, October 10, Little Theatre
Although
there aren't any gay LEGO guys this year, ImageOut's animated
shorts program still has plenty to offer, including films called Boobie Girl, An Officer and a
Yentlman and Jan-Michael
Vincent Is My Muse. Other highlights include Dresscode,
which features a women's bathroom symbol come to life, and two
shorts (Hi Honey, I'm Homo!
and Keep Up With Medicine)
that mold various images from life in the '50s into something fun.
.
A
Family Affair
Helen
Lesnick, USA, 107 minutes
8:15 p.m.
Thursday, October 10, Cinema Theatre
For the
first 45 minutes or so, A
Family Affair seemed like it was going to be My
Big Fat Jewish Lesbian Wedding. Rachel Rosen (Lesnick) gets
tired of her on-again/off-again relationship with the vampy Reggie
(Michelle Green) and moves to Southern California to be closer to
her extremely supportive PFLAG-member Jewish parents. Mom fixes
Rachel up on a series of awful blind dates (dubbed "Looking
for Miss Rightowitz"), which is how she meets and falls for
the pretty Christine (Erica Shaffer). Cue montage of their first
happy year together, which is around the same time Rachel gets
freaked out when Christine starts calling her mom "Mom"
and talks about converting to Judaism.
Then things
take a very odd dramatic turn that just didn't work well at all.
On top of that, Affair is chock-full of moments where Lesnick breaks the fourth wall
and pretty much does a standup routine right into the camera. It's
funny once in a while, but gets extremely grating.
.
Karmen
Geï
Joseph Gaï
Ramaka, Senegal, 86 minutes
5:30 p.m.
Friday, October 11, Cinema Theatre
Loosely
based on Prosper Mérimée's Carmen,
this interesting and thoroughly unfaithful version stars Djeïnaba
Diop Gaï in the title role as a Carmen who hits from both sides
of the plate. Reportedly the first musical made in sub-Saharan
Africa, Karmen Geï is as frustratingly erratic as it is pretty.
This time, our protagonist seduces a corrections officer to escape
from prison (she's a smuggler), but not before grabbing a hostage
with whom she begins an interesting relationship. She wears
fantastic outfits and bursts into song with virtually no warning
whatsoever, but this Carmen is strong enough to entertain through
the rest of this mess.
.
The
Cockettes
Bill Weber
and David Weissman, USA, 100 minutes
7:30 p.m.
Friday, October 11, Cinema Theatre
In true VH-1
Behind the Music
fashion, The Cockettes
traces the rise and fall of the legendary San Francisco
gender-bending performance group. Well, they should have been
legendary, anyway. The documentary opens just as the Cockettes
(named after the Rockettes) arrive in 1971 New York amidst a
whirlwind of critical acclaim and enough cult buzz to choke a
horse (attendees included the likes of Andy Warhol and Angela
Lansbury).
But that's
almost the end of the story. We quickly flash back to the late
'60s genesis of the group, which began performing in between campy
midnight movies at the Palace Theatre to enthused patrons. As the
months passed, their productions evolved from wacky clothing,
nudity, off-key singing and bad dancing to scripted, extravagant
numbers that featured wacky clothing, nudity, off-key singing and
bad dancing. Or, as early supporter John Waters put it,
"Hippie acid-freak drag queens --- complete sexual
anarchy." Call them the godfathers of Hedwig, or the Mothers
of Invention without the musical ability --- just as long as you
acknowledge this as one fantastic (and educational) documentary.
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