lodger13 Reviews

Speedway Junky (1999)

the director is a nice guy but...

[29 August 1999]

For a supposedly bunch of cultured, educated, intelligent, and especially creative folks, gay people seem to make the same movie over and over and over. "Speedway Junky" is old news. Writer/Director Nickolas Perry mixes up "Midnight Cowboy," "Where the Day Takes You," "johns," and an ABC Afterschool Special and comes up with a concoction so bland that you'll find yourself pushing it around on your plate, wondering what to do with it.

The story focuses on a naive county boy runaway (Jesse Bradford) who comes to Las Vegas to strike it rich so that he can become a race car driver. Of course, he is practically robbed, raped and beaten by the time the first reel is over. The film's most nauseating segment concerns a businessman who picks up the young boy for obvious reasons. Of course, Jesse is blind to the whole scenario until it gets real obvious. It's revolting stereotypical crud.

But Jesse is fortunate enough to meet young Jordan Brower, a gay urban hustler who takes him under his wing. Jordan has his sights on Jesse but he's such a sweet young gay hustler that he wouldn't dream of forcing himself on the other boy. They become fast friends when Jesse gets the stuffingkicked out of him and Jordan nurses him back to health, like the good homosexual teenage boy that he is. Of course, Jesse is straight, so Jordan is wasting his time here. Wow - how novel!

Along the way there is much more trash. Jonathan Taylor Thomas plays the king of the strip, a teen hustler who does it all if the price is right. Of course, the biggest draw here is to see the wholesome milk-drinking TV star say "fuck" and talk about taking it up the ass. Whoopie. Thomas does the best he can, but he is relegated to the backdrop of the Jesse/Jordan love story - or rather, the lack thereof of it. Thomas also has to compete against some of the worst acting in the world, brought forth by Daryl Hannah, Tiffany Amber- Thiesen and some unknowns who were unfortunate enough to be cast here. It's a shambles.

If there is any savior of the piece, it is Brower who does his absolute best here to bring his gay teen character to life. He's might be quite good with the right director and costars. The scenes between him and Hannah almost work. A particularly good scene comes when Brower cries in unrequited love while his friend Jesse makes it with Hannah. The scenes are quick cut back and forth but the heterosexual scene doesn't go far enough. We know why Brower is in anguish, he is thinking of Jesse with the older woman. The scene with Jesse and Hannah, however, is so dull, so lackluster, so bland that it doesn't really work. Brower would be thinking of his love interest in bed with the woman, not just him kissing her tenderly. It just doesn't go far enough. It doesn't have enough oomph. It's too darn Hollywood "safe." Too bad Brower works so hard for almost no payoff. That's his problem in the whole movie. He's the only one on screen with any chops.

Perry somehow talked Gus Van Sant into producing this piece of drivel. Hope Gus did it as a tax write-off. Why would he produce a watered-down drab rip-off of his own "My Own Private Idaho?" "Speedway Junky" is pure soap opera. There is no spark here, no joy, no fun and nothing new. Same crud, different film. Perry doesn't even seem to be trying. There is no glimmering in his direction. There is not one interesting shot (does the camera even move?) and definitely no unifying theme or motif or visual sense. Even Las Vegas as a backdrop looks bland. In many ways, it would be more fun to sit in the 4 Queens casino on the strip and drop quarters in the slot machines than to sit through this sorry waste of film. But occassionally you hit a small payoff, and Brower pops up with another good bit of acting in an otherwise barren wasteland of lost, pointless neon.

Personal Notes: Seen on 8/28/99 as part of the Austin Gay and Lesbian Independent Film Festival. The director, an extremely nice man, was in attendance and did a Q&A session. Among other tales was the story of hiring JTT. Another actor had been hired to play the role of Steven but showed up incapacitated . Perry was given 48 hours to find a new teenage "name actor" or the film would be scraped. JTT was on hiatus during the summer from "Home Improvement" and accepted the role after being faxed pages of the script.

Perry did not write the cross cut scene where Bradford and Hannah make love and Brower cries. He had those as separate entities. The editor did this and showed it to Perry who wisely saw it's genius.

Perry said that he thought of Brower's character as a sort of saint but did not consciously act visually on this idea. He said many people see religious imagery in the film. I myself saw a scene where a hubcap in the background was lit so that it became a halo over a scene. Perry said this was not a conscious thing.

Perry said he had written many scripts about L.A. fringe youth but none had sold. He made a short film called "Must Be the Music" (shown at agliff in '96) which Van Sant saw and liked. The director agreed to work with Perry about the time he was coming off the phenomenal "Good Will Hunting" which helped spark interest in his script for "Speedway Junky" and got the ball rolling.

Perry said his next project was that he was hired to write a script about a rock star who fakes his own death after his biggest hit so he can find the girl of his dreams. Uck!

At this time, the film is still seeking a distributor.

Illuminata (1998)

Borowitz shines!

[24 August 1999]

This is the first film I've seen in aeons where I wanted a copy of the script. There are so many insightful, poetic and beautiful lines in this film that you can't remember them all. I can't even remember one now. I'm on cerebral sensory overload.

The film will undoubtedly be compared to "Shakespeare in Love." It too concerns a writer and a troupe of actors in "olden" times. But "Illuminata" is so much more than that more widely seen film. John Turturro, who co-scripts, acts, co-produces and directs here, brings the film more of a stage actor's touch. While it does have a certain, stagy quality to it, the film is actually simply more cinematically bold and daring, more poetic because of it. Where many films become claustrophobic because of their setting at a theater stage, Turturro uses this to somehow open up the film even more. Turturro isn't afraid to highlight the background or shoot the characters through a sheer stage curtain backdrop if it makes the film more beautiful or more meaningful. His film moves effortlessly through the moments that define his characters, delving into the play which shapes their lives which shapes their play which shapes their lives, the Moebius strip of existence that helps them live and learn and love. It is rugged and fine, gossamer and black and bright as day; it never ceases to amaze and delight us.

But the film does have some problems. For one, it is so cerebral and so poetic that it often fails to truly engross us. We get so caught up in the beauty and the cadence of the film that we forget to pay attention to what it is about and to what is being said. Turturro also casts the recognizable faces of Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken in highlighted secondary roles and then allows them to overact into delirium. Sure, it is fun to see Sarandon in such a bawdy role, probably influenced by Sara Bernhard, but watching Christopher Walken as the critic inspired by Oscar Wilde is sheer homophobic tedium. Walken camps up his repulsive dandy to the nauseating extreme and then Turturro foists a plot turn upon us that has the homosexual preying on an actor he has developed a crush on. At least it's not a pretty teenage boy. But Walken's overacting insights repulsion rather than empathy. We don't feel sorry for this monster when his unrequited lover turns and runs from his clutches. We don't feel anything expect for the relief that this segment of the film is over.

Finally Turturro casts the lackluster Rufus Sewell in what is, kind of, supposed to be the lead role. Sewell, who cannot act, plays his role well - since he is playing a puffy, egotistical leading actor who cannot act. His poor acting reflects his inability to separate life from art, overblown acting from real personality. This is delightful to view, until Turturro calls upon him, in the films finale, to truly act. And Sewell falls flat exactly as we expect making the film's final point fail. It's a sad defeat.

All of this, all of it, however, is negated by the wonderful, free-spirited, lilting performance of Katherine Borowitz (the real life Mrs. john Turturro). With the eloquent rhythm of a true artist, Ms. Borowitz elevates every frame of every foot of film she is in to true perfection. Never missing a note, a beat, a moment, Ms. Borowitz draws us into the film, willingly, until we are caught under her delicate, intricate spell. Her acting consist of baring her naked self to us and letting us absorb every molecule of her being. Her voice pours forth the brilliance of the script in the beat of the angel's wings. Light as a hummingbird yet as full as a barrel-chested bodybuilder, Ms. Borowitz is "Illuminata." She owns it. She brings it forth and rears it. The two, her self and her work, become inseparable. It's magic.

Graciously, she is aided by wonderful performance from many other performers, Ben Gazarra, Beverly D'Angelo, Leo Bassi and Aida Turturro (John's sister?) turn in work of utter wonder. Aida's buxom and lusty Martha proves that big girl's can be just as sexy and as desirable as the petite models plastered on magazine covers. She did not get the role due to nepotism because no other actress could portray the role so boldly and unabashed.

Turturro has crafted a fine film to rival "Shakespeare in Love" and all the other period pieces which turn on actor's lives. The film is humorous, delightful, charming, and poetic. Cinematically, it refuses to be pigeon-holed. Turturro uses puppets to frame the film in a device that is charming and new. He also captures the true feeling of celebrity in a segment where, at a party, his character hears all the chatter in the room and choreographs it into a operatic moment where all the characters sing his praises, literally. It's beautiful. "Illuminata" is a great fresco. Too bad Walken and Sewell chip away heartily at it's delicate, finely crafted edges.

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

it was rugged and naive - it was heaven

[14 May 1999]

If you aren't a huge David Bowie fan, you just won't get it. But if you are.... ahhhh.... it's like a little slice of heaven.

After a bit of a flouncy, supposedly mythic introduction, which informs us that pop superstardom was begotten by Oscar Wilde, Director Todd Haynes begins a cinematic montage set to Eno's "Needles in the Camel's Eye" which finds a gaggle of screaming glitter rock kids running down an English street with wild abandon. It's beautiful. To paraphrase the granddaddy of glam himself (Bowie), "It's rugged and naive. It's heaven."

Haynes proceeds to flip-flop around Bowie's story, embellishing where he wishes and changing things as he sees fit, to tell us a story of being true to yourself, in particular - your sexual self, and enjoying life to the utmost. Along the way, in addition to Johnathan Rhys-Meyers representing Bowie as Brian Slade, there are characters meant to represent Angela Bowie, Leslie Conn, Tony DeFries (Eddie Izzard), Iggy Pop (Ewan MacGregor), Marc Bolan, Cherry Vanilla, and more of Bowie's sphere. Then, Haynes brings himself to the story, in the character of a journalist named Arthur Stewart played by Christain Bale

What can be said? Again, if you ain't a fan of the whole scene, forget it. It will be meaningless tripe to you. Those of us in the know, love it. Haynes pops out all kinds of great stuff: Bowie in his folk rock phase, Bowie in his "man dress," Bowie announcing his bisexuality to the press, Iggy dropping his pants while performing on stage, the conception of the term "Mainman," the retreat to Berlin, Bowie's retirement announcement at the Hammersmith-Odeon, Iggy recording the "Raw Power" album, Bowie performing fellatio on Mick Ronson's strat, and on and on. It's like a documentary. But Haynes makes it one better introducing a romance between Bowie and Pop and by throwing homosexuality into the mix whenever possible.

The whole film is beautiful to watch. The 70's look like a candy colored rainbow (as the were). The glam rock boys with their fey posturing pour from the screen like sweet pink lemonade. It's spellbinding. His use of brilliant colors and his perfect use of period props make for wonderful moments. One of the finest moments in the film comes when the journalist, as a teen in the 70's, brings home his first Brian Slade record. Inspired by the gatefold of "Aladdin Sane," this record has Rhys-Meyers posed dramatically wearing almost nothing. His lithe skin pours out of a velvet drape wrapped seductively around his frame. You can practically smell the vinyl and the glossy sleeve. The teenage Arthur has no choice, it seems, but to *** furiously to this image.

Visually, Haynes also pays playful homage to himself with a scene which is acted out with Barbie dolls representing Brian and Kurt. Haynes' first film (now out of print thanks to a "Cease and Desist" from brother Richard) was the story of Karen Carpenter played out by Barbie dolls. Haynes wisely juxtaposes all of this glamour with the drab colorlessness of the 80's as the story fluctuates between the two eras. This film is a visual feast. The 70's perfectly represented by the brightest of hues and the 80's seen as all gray, black and washed out red.

If there is any problem with the film it is in the use of "new music" on the score. Haynes uses several glam rock anthems throughout the film, drudging up everyone from Roxy Music to Gary Glitter, but not a note of Bowie's music can be heard on the film's soundtrack. The one once known as Ziggy refused, he claims, because Haynes wanted to use too many of his songs. So he allowed use of none. Bowie fans know this is bull-oney. Bowie has turned his back on the public sexual outrageousness of his youth, claiming it to be anything from a phase to a publicity stunt. Haynes' film uses this as it's sharpest dagger. The film is about a rock star who kills himself, his persona, out of fear, hurt, sexual rejection and shame. This is Bowie pure and simple. Why would the man allow his music to be used in a film which blatantly says he has sold out his own true identity. Who is the real Bowie? Is the real Bowie someone who would sell out his sexual past?

So Haynes must come up with new music to fill in the empty spaces. And, for the most part, it is pretty unlikely. Most of the songs use phrases and poetics quite unlike Bowie's usual ilk. Surely there is someone around who could come up with a few tunes in the style of Bowie's 70's mode? One of the worst of these songs has Rhys-Meyers having to mouth the term, "the whole shebang" several times. Uggh.

Still, Haynes is such a forthright and poetic filmmaker here this one problem barely deters us. Todd Haynes makes glam rock the apex of style and exalted existence. He makes David Bowie's story mythic. This is a love letter, a page of purple prose from a fan who loves the man and cannot help himself from asking the star why he threw it all away. Why Ziggy? Why?

In 1972, Bowie, as Ziggy Stardust, said it all: "When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band..." By 1975, the party was over

Psycho (1998)

interesting failure

[7 December 1998]

The question that nags about Gus Van Sant's shot-for- shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller is Why? Why remake it? Why remake it shot-for-shot? Van Sant might have us believe it is to make this classic accessible to younger audiences, presumably those who refuse to watch a black and white film. My answer to that is, Screw 'em. When they get older and learn the beauty of black and white cinematography, then they will be even more the happy to discover Hitch's masterpiece. No, the only truly genuine reason Van Sant can have to remake the film is that it is an exercise. A test, if you will. Why? Because no one else has ever done it really. In this, and only this way, is "Psycho" a redeemable film. It sparked conversation and interest and debate among filmgoers. That is its true genius. Like Warhol's films of the 60's, Van Sant fashions a film that is ever moreso interesting to discuss than it is to view. The classic is 100-fold better. So - what's different about the remake. Well, for one, it's in color. Big whoop. The original is much more frightening and terse because it is in gloomy black-and- white. It can go a little further sexually. Why bother? The shower scene in the original "Psycho" works because it shows only glints of naked flesh. Van Sant, wisely, does not get more graphic in his version anyway. He does allow a little more sexuality in the opening segment which finds Marion Crane (Anne Heche) in a seedy hotel with her boyfriend. He also has Norman Bates (Vince Vaughn) masturbate as he spies on Marion Crane. A friend told me this only evoked teenage giggling at the showing he attended. Hitch would probably spin at that. For all the ground Van Sant might have gained with the more "relaxed" sexual sensibilities in the 90's, he loses in the manner in which the script does not work in this context. The supposed sexual represssion Vaughn represents seems out of date. The whole plot involving Marion and her married boyfriend does not work by today's morality. It all seems so dated. Worse yet is some of the dialogue that is so dated but which Van Sant refuses to update. When the client who drops the load of cash at Marion's work (Chad Everett) mentions that the office has no air conditioning, it seems unbelievable to us. What kind of creep is Marion working for who doesn't have A/C in Phoenix in 1998? That's crazy! It only detracts from the film. Which leads to the biggest question of all: Why didn't Van Sant completely rework the film for 90's audiences and give it his own style. Maybe it's because he isn't the man for the job, (and no, neither is DePalma). Someone like Ridley Scott or David Lynch could do wonders with it, however. Still, Van Zant's interpretation of "Psycho," I feel, would be imminently more interesting than this reshoot. One of the things that truly ruins the film is the casting. The most obvious is Heche as Marion Crane. She has none of the smouldering sensuality or melancholia that Leigh brought to the character. She seems nervous and antsy. She's quirky. It simply does not work. Even worse is William H. Macy in the role of Arbogast. Martin Balsm has a sly coolness about him that made his private detective much more dangerous and crafty than Macy's neurotic hiccup could ever be. Van Sant substitutes cool with quirky in the casting and it does not work. And while Vaughn is an inspired choice to play Norman Bates, ultimately he fails - and for the opposite reason. He is not fragile enough, not nerurotic enough. I'll give him this, as usual, Vaughn works his a-s-s off. It's just that, ultimately, he disappoints, weighed down much too much by the material. As for the others, Viggo Mortenson does nothing, Juliana Moore plays Lila Crane as a lesbian, Rita Wilson is no Pat Hitchcock, and the rest don't do much at all. Robert Forster as the psychologist who explains it all at the film's epilogue comes across as silly because he explains things that are in our American Lexicon of knowledge now (multiple personality disorder) which were not in 1960. In fact, it is the original which put those concepts in popular culture's Encyclopedia to begin with. Forster's performance is more subdued than the original but still needs to be updated for modern audiences. (I saw the film with a teenager who had not seen the original and knew it was MPD at the shower scene). The only characters which truly work are the ones who almost precisely recall their predecessors: James Remar as the cop who finds Marion asleep on the side of the road and Anne Haney as the Sheriff's wife are perfect because they perfectly encapsulate even more than just the essense of their originators, they imitate they originators and that's what Van Sant is supposedly attempting here. Phillip Baker Hall as the sheriff would be included in this ideal but he does not ennunciate the name "Ar-Bo-Gast" as was done in the original and this, more than anything else in the film, is the apex of disappointment. The only truly interesting thing about the remake is the title sequence. Again, exactly in the style of the original, Van Sant chooses the color green to permeate the sequence. It looks awesome. Better yet, the director hires Danny Elfman to "re-make" Bernard Herrmann's original score in wonderfully crisp digital quality sound. It's the best part of the film. When watching it, one actually becomes eager with the anticipation of the film which is to come. The score is, surprisingly, beautiful. And its familiarity makes it seem both classic and suspenseful all at the same time. Unlike film, which should obviously not be copied frame for frame, music is often much more interesting and delightful when it is "re-made" note-for-note. I remember when I was a child and an art teacher told me that in the East (she probably said in China) an artist who can precisely duplicate the original masters are considered great. This seemed like a ridiculous notion to me. If being a great artist meant copying the work that came before you, no new art would ever be produced. What a ludicris concept. We in the West pride ourselves on our great versatility and originality. We cannot even begin to fathom why someone would copy a classic film shot-for-shot. Van Sant's "Psycho" does not begin to hint at an answer. Like the proverbial mountain- climber, Van Sant's response to the question "Why?" seems to be, "Because it was there." The best thing one can say about this film is that like his film "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," Van Sant's "Psycho" is an interesting failure. It is an important film because it is a first, in its own perverse way, an original. Let's just pray it does not start a trend. I'm not interested in seeing Tamara Davis' "Citizen Kane" starring James Earl Jones.

Note: Also with Rance Howard, James LeGros. Based on the novel by Robert Bloch.

Heche claimed in interviews that Hitch's daughter, Pat, who had a minor role in the original, visited the set and proclaimed that the project was something her father would have done. She is thanked in the film's end credits.

Major differences: Color photgraphy, Bates masturbates, Van Sant uses a technique during the film's two murders of cutting away briefly to strange shots. When Bates kills Marion, a couple of seconds of rolling clouds are cut into the shower scene (ruining any tension Van Sant might have established) and when he kills the Private Detective, a shot of a woman and a cow are cut into the sequence. This does not work. Also, Bates stabs Arbogast twice instead of once, causing a bloody X to appear on his face. Moore works at a hard core metal record shop and wears headphones throughout the film. When Moore tours Norman's room, in addition to all the toys, she finds a nudie magazine. When Moore gets in the cellar and locates the mother, there are live birds in front of her (the one truly interesting and creepy thing Van Sant does here). One wonders how much of this was in the "original shooting script" by Joseph Stefano which Van Sant claimed to use

American History X (1998)

flawed but still good

[23 November 1998]

Wanting to be poetic, topical and hard-hitting all at the same time, this Tony Kaye film comes up short a little too often. Still, it can be a powerful and affecting film.

Edward Norton stars as a skinhead who is just released from prison. He returns to a fatherless family adrift in his absence which includes a younger brother (Edward Furlong) who has tried to emulate his bigoted sibling. The film is told in both present tense (color) and flashback (black and white) and weaves a disjointed tale of the possible motivations of hatred based on race. It throws into this mix of skinheads, blacks and Hispanics, a powerful black principal (Avery Brooks), a supposed granddaddy of the "hate" movement (Stacey Keech), a struggling, widowed mother (Beverly D'Angelo), a Jewish teacher (Elliot Gould), and a black stand-up comic inmate (Guy Torrey).

Norton is remarkable, playing both the bravado of the intelligent skinhead who can quote endless statistics as well as impress with his physical prowess in flashbacks and the questioning, struggling con trying to come to terms with a past he wishes to leave behind in the color "present tense" scenes. His acting is so perfect, so intricate, that one might easily overlook how awesome he is here. Furlong, however, struggles to keep the material brisk. Forced to be a impressionable follower, his catharsis is a little too perfunctory, a little too hard to swallow.

Kaye is often weighted down by the ham-handed moments in the script from David McKenna. The film wants to be powerful but often comes across as if it were written by a newspaper editor who cut and paste numerous statistics into the text. It also, at times, tries to be dramatic but fails under Kaye's neophyte direction. And when it tries to be poetic, more often that not, it fails and simply becomes tedious or ill defined. For example, the film begins and ends with water, in particular, waves lapping at the shore. One suspects Kaye means this to show not only the persistence of time but also the repetitive cycle of racism and hatred which is handed down from generation to generation. Instead, it comes across as really just another rather drab and typical way to have an opening credits sequence.

But Kaye can also make magic on the screen, particularly in the more brutal scenes he depicts. The murder in the film's midway point is one of the most shocking and disquieting moments I have witnessed in the cinema. Likewise, his prison rape sequence is both cruel and cinematic. Kaye also makes a dramatic point about race early in the film by shooting a conversation between black teacher and white student in extreme close-up, so that the juxtaposition of their skin color becomes paramount to the moment. Kaye seems more at ease with these moments than he does with poetic subtlety or, worse yet, the tenuous dialogue.

Make no mistake about it, "American History X" is a very good movie. But in the hands of a better director, it could have been 100 times more powerful. With a script editor, a better actor than Furlong (sorry Eddie) and an ace cinematographer, it could have been the most important film of the 90's

Orgazmo (1997)

Why does this film have a bad rap?

[8/10 · 3 November 1998]

This film is hilarious. My friend and I saw it with an unruly audience but all of us were laughing our butts off! The film may not be a masterpiece but it is a righteous comedy with many, many humorous moments! Trey Parker plays his part as Joe Young perfectly never once slipping into a caricature but rather remaining true to the spirit of his character. The supporting cast is truly funny including the actors who play Choda Boy, Nuetered Man and Young's girlfriend Lisa. But the real scene stealer here is an unrecognizable Matt Stone as Dave the lighting guy. His running gag will split your seams! "Orgazmo" may be silly and it may have some lame patches here and there but if it doesn't delight you and make you laugh yourself silly, you need to have your sense of humor checked by a certified specialist.