Watching the Seductives

The following is my yet-again-under-the-wire contribution for today's Queer Film Blogathon, mounted by Caroline at her Garbo Laughs blog, in celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month. I may be more of an occasional dinner guest of Dorothy than a full-on friend, but to paraphrase the old bumper sticker, I remember when "queer" meant "unusual and arousing curiosity," and as far as I'm concerned, it still does. As such, I'm eager to put my $3 bill's worth into this discussion.

Aside from my personal affinities, I have a particularly interesting history with LGBTQ media. For a period of about 2 years in the mid-'90's, I was the resident film critic, and only straight male writer, for a lesbian-themed 'zine in Columbus called Sovreignty for Women, a position given to me most generously by its publisher, who cared more about my talent as a film lover than my gender or sexual identity. The inherent humor and ironies within such a position notwithstanding, I did not shy away from rankling the potential readership with my opinions on film in general, and gay film in particular. In an introduction for an fall '95 article on my favorite portrayals of gay people in then-recent film, I opened up with this toss of the gauntlet:

After the first two installments of my column, I know some readers somewhere must be asking, “If this magazine is published by and for gay women, why aren’t you writing about gay movies?” And upon first thought, I find this question moot. To believe that gay people are only interested in gay movies is an insulting stereotype, as ludicrous as believing that African-Americans are only interested in rap music or Japanese people are only interested in Kabuki plays. Just because Hollywood seems to be controlled by straight white men does not make the entire enterprise sick.
There’s a bigger reason for me, though. Most “gay” films bore me. They coast on their subject matter alone, with no regard to compelling plot, characters, or arresting visuals. They play like grown-up ABC Afterschool Specials, thinking as long as they keep mentioning homosexuality, the homosexuals will watch. AAANK, wrong answer. Tom Hanks deserved his Oscar for PHILADELPHIA, but the movie itself is a long “Gays are our friends” morality play. For every lesbian I’ve met who enjoyed CLAIRE OF THE MOON, I’ve met two who would rather watch karate films. EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES is best described by Lea DeLaria as “Even Worse than You Think.” And as much as I love Sandra Bernhard, INSIDE MONKEY ZETTERLAND is a pretentious, self-righteous yawn.
To me, I don’t really give a damn about the sexual orientation of the characters in the movies I watch. I care about the characters. Sure, perhaps the monopoly of straight characters over gay ones in films would appear to the average radical as being some sort of “Only straight is good” conspiracy, and I object to the previously caricatured portrayals of gays and lesbians in the past, just as I do stereotyped minority portrayals. But I am also tired of how the pendulum has swung to make every minority angelic and politically correct, such as the black police superintendent that must bench the white loose-cannon cop. If a non-sympathetic movie character happens to be gay, such as Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK, or even suspected of being gay, like serial killer Jame Gumb in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, loud wearying protests arise. Using that logic, shouldn’t straights be protesting their buffoonish portrayals in gay films? Everybody chill!

I still hold to that standard today. Postive gays, negative gays, dysconjugate gaze, just don't preach, pander, or bore me.

Also, I spent a significant chunk of my 20's working in a 24-hour video store, owned by gay men, and which featured an adult section with a healthy selection of male/male porn. And during that time, I learned something about myself, which is that the men that were being featured on the covers of gay porn did not turn me on. That is not to say that men period did not turn me on, just those being sold to me as a gay ideal. Consequently, while I have been open and often eager to watch gay sex on film as an abstract, in practice it has happened very rarely, because...most guys who have been doing it with each other on film are not my type. I'm hard-pressed to tell you what my type is, though I certainly don't have that "Masculine guys only, no femmes or fatties" hangup one sees in the Men Seeking Men section of the personals.

But back to the critical matters at hand. This whole month, in anticiption of the blogathon, Caroline has been taking a film containing signficant gay content from each decade of the 20th century once narrative film became a commercial medium, and analyzing it as both entertainment and historical document. It's interesting stuff to read. And in an oddly appropriate way, I like the fact that while her posts are looking at the history of gay portrayal on film, mine is looking at the future, and a rather promising future in the case of my particular choice. In full disclosure, I came upon this film because of the involvement of a close friend in its postproduction, but I promise that my enjoyment of the finished product was solely due to its artistic merits and not just because of my relationship to one of the creative contributors.

For decades, a common story theme in gay-themed films, from the arthouse to the grindhouse, has been the journey of the Hustler, the Rent Boy, the handsome, anonymous young man who goes from one sexual encounter to another, bearing Voltairean witness to all the partners' tales and desires. In skillful hands, this has served for great drama, as in Pier Paolo Pasolini's TEOREMA with Terence Stamp, where the stranger seduces male and female members of the same household, unlocking their buried ids, but more often, the trope has been employed either in the service of simplistic titilation for the viewer, watching multiple types of guys get it on, or for cheap moralization, with degradation and despair compounding from the hollow sex and abusive johns until the protagonist is left ruined or dead.

As such, anyone quickly browsing the gay DVD section (because, sadly, we aren't open-minded enough to integrate movies with gay protagonists into the ordinary genre categories) would be forgiven if they glanced at the advertising for STRAPPED, with its image of fetching lead Ben Bonenfant teasing the reveal of a bare chest, and initially wrote it off as yet another man-pageant posing as a drama. That was the initial concern of author and blogger Ian Rosales Casocot, who pretty well spoke for myself and most casual movie hunters in the opening paragraphs of his rave review of the film...

When I first began viewing Joseph Graham's STRAPPED, I was ready to dismiss it as one of those mindless gay films that serves more as a flesh buffet without paying much attention to story, to character, to insight about the human condition. We've all seen pictures seemingly like this, and they've all been fruitless exercises in gay excess for the most part. [It] centers, after all, on an unnamed male hustler who follows a trick to his apartment complex, and then after the tryst...meets assorted characters, all gay...The premise sounds like it was made for a porn movie...

Well, you know that old joke about what the difference is between a romance novel and a pornographic manuscript: the lighting. And writer/director Joseph Graham knows a lot about lighting, not just in a literal fashion, since STRAPPED has a beautiful look that transcends its ultra-low-budget, but also in a spiritual fashion, because his approach to the proceedings is, yes, illuminating! Immediately at the film's opening, during the first appointment for our never-christian-named hustler, the staging is tender and unexploitative, playing like the ending of a short story, but it's only the beginning. And as the protagonist leaves, and changes names and refashions himself to the roles suggested to him by the colorful series of men he meets that night, we feel that we are not only learning about the different experiences and lives all these men have led, we also are actually learning something about this proverbial blank slate in his dealings with them, instead of just watching the act of prostitutional pretense. The other characters, who to an extent are representing familiar types of gay men - the self-hating closet case, the hedonist, the wizened pioneer - play like real people and not just attributes. Graham, forgive me for abusing the metaphor one last time, puts the spotlight on a whole group of people that we have heard about but few of us have known, and made us care about them. I would be interested in how any one of their stories played out long after our hustler has left them.

Let's talk about star Ben Bonenfant. He's terrific in this role that always keeps one last card unrevealed. He's playing a faker, but nothing ever feels fake. He could be all of these boys, he could be none of them. It doesn't matter: as actor playing actor, he nails it. And, yes, it helps that he is very attractive, not just to his hook-ups, but to us the audience, because we know what it feels like to want to believe in him and what he represents to each man he meets. It's that feeling of deep and widespread audience empathy that has quite often been missing from other gay films, and what makes STRAPPED such a special treat.

And in the spirit of the personal admissions from above, when he became intimate with his most compatible companion of the evening, I not only felt an emotional elevation from a story turn that depicted two wandering souls were finding mutual happiness, I also felt a primal excitement that these two good-looking guys were going to make out! And I think this is one of Graham's most significant successes in this movie, and why I think he has the potential to create more great movies. Which is clearly what he was after, as he told to Gaydar Nation in an interview this past winter:

"I do wish straight men did not have such a difficult time looking at gay sex in the movies. Gay men look at straight sex in the movies all the time. I think human sexuality is fascinating. All of it."

Graham is not only correct, but he's done something about it. It's not something as trivial as casting two hot boys and stripping them naked, though I suppose that's what I'm making it sound like. It's that he's taken what is a fait accompli - after all, if he blue-balled the primary audience, and didn't have a really good lovemaking scene, this would end up being his only feature film - and created real suspense and emotion around the moment everyone has been waiting for. Which is what every great director does in the genres they excel in. Like Radley Metzger with SCORE, or John Cameron Mitchell with SHORTBUS, he presents gay sex in a way that it transcends any sort of straight viewer's trepidations, and makes it as joyous as any heterosexual climax in a standard movie romance. In short, as I demanded before, Joseph Graham did not preach, pander, or bore me. He entertained me.

I don't think I would recommend this to every single straight person I know, not because of the subject matter or the sex, but because its low budget and mostly-conversational story would probably not satisfy a palate that is used to more polish and action. But for anyone who likes to step outside of their comfort zone, is interested in affairs of the heart, and wants to see the debuts of a charismatic actor and a gifted filmmaker, you should definitely take a chance on STRAPPED. It has not gotten much coverage beyond the gay media, though it did receive very good mainstream reviews fromThe New York Times and DVDTalk. I'm going out on a limb and predicting great things for Graham and Bonenfant, so anyone who is in a position to give them work, help prove me right!

And to bring things full circle, what brought me to STRAPPED in the first place was Graham's extremely wise choice (winking) to enlist one of my favorite friend-fronted bands, Windows to Sky, to provide a few songs for the film. I was already grateful to him for giving my colleague's band a gig. Now I'm even more grateful that it was in the service of such a very good movie. Here is one of their songs, specifically written for the film:

"Take that damned pipe out of your mouth, you rat!"

Many moons ago, my friend Joseph, the musical pioneer behind the band Windows to Sky, saw a stage production of URINETOWN and wrote an incredibly intelligent deconstruction about why it did not work for him. Now, unfortunately for most of us, it's not available for public reading, but in brief, he spoke about the play's overreliance on satire and irony, a cause that I will always take up and run with further. I was put in an awkward position, though, because I then used his argument to rip apart a movie musical that he truly likes. But I found it appropriate, and we agreed to disagree. Since we're getting into Oscar season, and the inevitable talk about the most unworthy films to have won the big prizes, this particular movie is again a timely matter. As such, I'm reviving the argument, and have excerpted pieces of his critique in small print to bolster mine.

musicals I Like or Love: INTO THE WOODS. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN...these are pieces of art that generally speaking work on every level: from each character's story, to the story between the characters, to the story of the society and world in which the action takes place. plus, the songs and the movements pulse with life - the life of these characters, about whom we care, even if we care cynically. we are engaged in wanting to know what happens, and every step taken is one step further along that path.

Many more moons ago when I first bought my ticket to see Rob Marshall's film adaptation of CHICAGO, I was very excited about it. I had never seen the show done on a stage, really only knew the hit songs. But I had positive expectations. However, after the first 20 minutes, I felt a strange icky feeling. I did NOT care about these characters. Not even cynically. And while I was going to stay and see what happened next, it had quickly turned to an act of obligation and not of true interest.

CHICAGO is a technically, artistically, aesthetically, musically brilliant film, and if the movie had been nothing but those great musical performances, I probably would have liked it. Unfortunately, those musical numbers are in the service of a story that wears it's contempt for you and me right on it's chest, and is centered around four of the most vile, unpleasant, unamusing characters ever created, and I had to listen to these people talk, and talk, and whine, and hiss, and lie, until it reached a point where I didn't even want to hear them sing and dance anymore. The women are harridans, Richard Gere is a slime, and John C. Reilly is a passive-agressive, self-pitying mope. There is not a single person in this story one can or should give a rat's ass about.

There is no story between the characters, there is no "there" there. This is among the many eternal arguments I have with CHICAGO fans -- Of course they're empty and shallow, they're supposed to be. Indeed, I had that figured out before I even walked in the theatre. After all, some of my favorite movies have no sympathetic characters in them -- SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, SOAPDISH, THE KING OF COMEDY, these films have protagonists that are devoid of any likeability. And in those settings, yes, those qualities can be made interesting. So why did I feel such a violent reaction to CHICAGO's rogues?

And it hit me: not only are they horrible people, they're boring!

For example, TO DIE FOR covers the ground of people who are driven to be famous because they have no skills for anything else, and honestly believe adoration of strangers will make them better people. What is the difference? Flat out: what Nicole Kidman does to become famous is interesting, funny, and ultimately shocking, while what Jones and Zellweger do is predictable, tedious, and unpleasant. Also, Kidman's character honestly believes in the ridiculous platitudes she espouses, so we laugh at her naievete, but the CHICAGO girls seem to know what they are professing is bullshit, and so how can we invest any interest in it if they can't even believe in their own philosophy?

the characters are two-dimensional, but that's okay, it's a satire! we don't know enough about the two leads to feel their situation has any real human gravity - but that's okay, it's what makes it cartoonish! cartoons are fun!

As for the cartoonishly nasty tone, mean for mean's sake is never enough in a story. Something has to back it up. In SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, when J.J. Hunsecker makes an insult, he has the force of his career to back it up: be glad it's just words, because in fact he could have you killed. Sidney Falco is a self-loathing weasel, and his insults carry that awareness: yeah, I'm a louse, but I know what I am, and you're a hypocrite for not recognizing your own sleaziness. Whereas the manner in which the protagonists of CHICAGO are written and performed gives them nothing else to offer but their vices. They have one note -- vanity -- and it wears out very quickly, there's no other dimension to them. The would-be funny banter between the girls in prison is just a pot and a kettle arguing over blackness: it may as well be Pee-wee and Francis yelling "I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?" ad nauseam. If you had to share a cell with any of these fucks, either you would have hung yourself or you would have stuck a shiv in them before they could start that first song.

Another big problem with CHICAGO: No straight man, audience surrogate, voice of reason. Not a choirboy, mind you, just someone grounded in the real world who can speak for us. The closest it has is John C. Reilly, and frankly, he's nobody's hero. He is a whiny drama queen who if he had any spine would have split a long time ago, but instead stays and puts up with Zellwegger's abuse and expects us to feel sorry for poor "Mr. Cellophane." But he loves her! What is to love? We have never seen a single moment where they appear to have had any joy, or even where he alone has had any joy of being with her. What is the first thing you tell a suffering alcoholic? "STOP DRINKING!" If they can't do that, then any other investment in their welfare is worthless. Same for giving two shits or ten bricks about his character or condition.

I kept wanting to care, so I could find the heartlessness actually painful. I wanted my heart to go with them, so the satire could have bite. when we watch Homer Simpson fuck up, we laugh, but on some level, we still like or relate to him. he represents things we care about. these people really didn't, most of the time.

So if there is no individual stand-in for us, then we must identify with the citizens of the city of Chicago. And in that environment, we are depicted as sheep, easily manipulated by people not even that much smarter than us. And while we toil in daily drudgery, we are shown eagerly paying for the big reunion show of the two murderesses. "We win, you lose, and you're too stupid to care." Maybe that assessment is true, and worth stating to our modern-day bread-and-circus-freaks mentality. But is that an original idea? No. Is this idea presented in such a manner as to inspire the audience to rethink their gullibility? NO. So what was the purpose of making me sit through your litany of narcissism and contempt?

Okay, so you don't like the characters. You're not supposed to. You gotta admit the dance numbers are great.

CHICAGO is technically flawless, well-staged and executed. But if I hate somebody, why do I want to watch them sing and dance, especially when the topic of their song is how they can stomp all over me and what I believe in? By a certain point, I have written off every character in this movie as a pig. (And not a sweet cuddly pig like Babe or Wilbur, I mean an ugly, smelly, shit-stanky wild boar with tusks, like Mason Verger was breeding to get revenge on Hannibal Lecter, something from Russell Mulcahy's nightmares.) And no matter how much lighting and lingerie and choreography you throw in, you cannot make me forget that I AM WATCHING UGLY FUCKING PIGS IN COSTUME SING AND DANCE. And I don't want to watch ugly fucking pigs in costume sing and dance! I want to slit their throats and eat them so that they never bother anybody again and that I can get finally get some worthwhile item of pleasure from their person.

CHICAGO has no heart. And it has no original thought. It glorifies insincerity. It is a soulless, derivative machine.

I've said enough, I think you all get that I hate this movie. And I'm not dumb enough to believe that I'm going to make anybody rethink their position on it. But I gotta say, with absolutely no irony, I rather wish they made musicals like THE APPLE again.

Cheap Plugs by a Big Brother who is Having Company

"I wanna date a musician."
"I wanna live with a musician. She'd write songs at home and ask me what I thought of them, and maybe even include one of our little private jokes in the liner notes."
"Maybe a little picture of me in the liner notes."
"Just in the background somewhere."

Yes, this entry is a puff piece, nothing more than me putting some fanboy folderol into the blogosphere for some very talented friends of mine. While I rarely buy albums, and listen more to talk radio (especially because Los Angeles radio stations suck worse than the '57 Electrolux at your grandmother's house), next to movies, a good song takes my soul to places my body will never go, and these four diverse individuals have each been a sort of personal tour guide for those trips. And as such, I'm trying to sell you on the voyage as well, especially because three of these four performers have performances coming up very very soon, so if I can help put a few more culos in the chairs, I've done my good deed for the week. Japonica glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens, and to-day we have naming of artists.

PRICE

Many moons ago, on an ordinary Thursday night back in 2007, my best female friend lassoed me into coming to the Cat Club on Sunset Blvd. to see a short set by a band called Price that was getting the rub from leading power pop outfit Rooney. I still owe her a steak dinner for this gesture. Fronted by versatile brothers Michael, Corey, and Chris, and anchored by nimble drummer Charles Streeter, Price is the best-kept secret among music lovers in L.A. - a tight combo that delivers strong soulful rock, the kind that maintains a shelf life that outlasts other passing fancies in the Top 40. Commercially confined to one single from the NANCY DREW soundtrack and a still-unreleased album at Geffen (which, seeing how it's the label that supplanted MCA, a/k/a "Music Cemetary of America", means some things haven't changed), they're not the easiest band to find and hear, but once found and heard, cannot be lost or forgotten. Ah luv dese guys!
Price the band is currently on hiatus, but frontman Chris Price has kept extremely busy. He has done frequent local shows with Alicia Witt, Chloe Lear, and Mike Viola (writer of "That Thing You Do") and Bleu of The Major Labels, and this year joined a virtual supergroup fronted by Rooney's Taylor Locke called The Roughs, which also features Charlotte Froom (formerly of The Like) and Mikey McCormack (Everybody Else) on drums. They have just released an album called GRAIN & GRAPE which is available for download at most online sites (Amazon, iTunes, and Amie Street among them), with actual CDs to follow in a month or so. If you're in L.A., you can see them LIVE Wednesday, March 10th at 9:00pm at 3 of Clubs, 1123 Vine St. at Santa Monica Blvd.

www.twitter.com/pricetheband
www.twitter.com/theroughs
http://www.myspace.com/taylorandtheroughs

TODDY

Toddy Walters is a veteran who really doesn't need me talking her up, because her resume is already enviable: Multiple voice appearances on "SOUTH PARK" and its theatrical film version...featured roles in CANNIBAL: THE MUSICAL and ORGAZMO...duetting with Better than Ezra on their single "Rolling" and backup vocals with electronica artist BT...her song "La La Love" was heard by millions on MTV's soap opera "UNDRESSED" and in the SORORITY BOYS trailer ("The Christmas Touchstone made" as she laughingly told me). Of course, the fact that I had to remind y'all of that work means that she hasn't quite reached critical mass, or at least not the level I think she deserves. Thankfully, she never rests on her laurels, so there's plenty more on the way.
Currently, she's contributed voice work to "The Mavis and Billy Bob Movie", an animated short by Dan Francis, and contributed vocals to the new album by Paul and Price (no relation to Chris Price). Her songs are available at iTunes. She too will be appearing LIVE Monday, March 8, 2010 sometime between 8:30pm - 11:30pm at Palihouse, 8465 Holloway Dr. in West Hollywood.

http://toddyivy.com

JESSICA MELLOTT

In the glory days of MySpace, I received at least one friend request a week from some artist I never heard of, usually working in a style completely at odds with what I listened to. It was usually sent blind with no attempt to talk to me one on one and sell me on the work. Factored with the barrage of "hot girl" spambots and wannabe redneck Romeros, it made me put up a most adversarial greeting at my page, which is still there today catching unsuspecting astroturfers off guard. Jessica Mellott is the only MySpace musician I've encountered who went to the trouble of reading my profile, writing a personal note about herself and her music, and asking me to take a chance on her. Impressed with her professionalism and politesse, I took that chance, and found her music was as good as her manners. Did I mention that she was still in high school when all this took place?
While Jessica Mellott's clean youth-pop demeanor is completely at odds with that of Diane Lane's proto-riotgrrl Corrine Burns in LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE FABULOUS STAINS (which, to her credit, she watched on my recommendation but did not care for), she is the embodiment of one of the choice lines of dialogue in that film: This girl created herself! With no media conglomerate or Svengali producer pulling the strings, she studied her favorite performers, wrote her songs, mounted shows, got herself on the web, and built herself a fanbase at a fraction of the cost and manpower that Radio Disney spends on their teen idols. She's got a voice that's pure and sincere and just wraps around you like a close friend's hug. Her initial body of work consists of the usual simple songs of love and adventure you'd hear from a young girl, but it has the edge of someone coming from a position of experience and not dictation, the same kind of confidence that inspired 17-year old Alex Chilton to growl through "The Letter" like a veteran - and walk away from The Box Tops as a teen idol and enter Big Star as a master. She has the work ethic and the talent to carry her into a national career, so consider this the "I was into her when" bragging period right now. Dipping again into THE FABULOUS STAINS, Jessica fulfills the hope that screenwriter Nancy Dowd wrote into my favorite quote: "Every girl should be given an electric guitar on her 16th birthday."
Jessica's song downloads can be found at ReverbNation and BroadJam and other outlets. For the moment, she's taking a break from live performing to finish college, ahead of schedule and before her 21st birthday no less! But come May, there will be a large number of East Coast shows you'll be able to check out.

http://www.youtube.com/jessicamellott
http://www.twitter.com/jessicamellott

WINDOWS TO SKY

And finally, there is the playful enigma of Joseph, lead singer and creative visionary behind Windows to Sky. I've experienced the different manifestations of his ambitions - aerialist, filmmaker, dancer, lighting director, essayist, computer mastermind, public mischief-maker - and I've determined there is nothing he cannot do. But one of the things he does best is make lush, textured music with a singular vision somewhere between Brian Wilson and Glenn Gould. I know of few people who would dare to recreate the entire "Grim Grinning Ghosts" suite from The Haunted Mansion, especially since it was designed as short loops of free-standing score not quite meant to link into a full composition...but he did it, and has done it live for suitably stunned audiences. The recordings are few, but the performances are many, with a warmth and intimacy that inspires repeat attendance.
Windows to Sky music can be purchased at CD Baby. They will be the opening act for the long-running "1920's Pulp Adventure Radio Serial" "Tales of the Extraordinary" LIVE March 21st at 7pm at The Spot,4455 Overland Ave. in Culver City. You'll not only see Joseph do his music, he'll be providing some comical voice support in the main show as well.

http://windowstosky.com/

So, them's my musician-type friends. I hope any one of them can bring you as much enjoyment as I would like to believe you find in my blogging. Of course, they have an advantage over me: after all, nobody ever counsels you to "Read like nobody is watching..."