bakerjp Reviews

Basement (2010)

A mess

[2/10 · 31 August 2010]

Five anti-war protesters are on the way home from a demonstration. They stop in the woods for a toilet break, discover a strange hatch and get trapped inside. Gradually, they are picked off one by one, by masked figures, until it is revealed to the sole survivor, and us, what has happened.

This could have been a good film, and early on there are some moments which have the potential to be scary. The idea of being trapped underground, with no-one knowing you're there, and no way of contacting the outside world, reminded me of the more successfully done film The Hole, the sense of being lost evoked the Blair Witch Project while the idea of being attacked by unknown assailants in darkness harks back to The Descent. The attempt to work a political issue (protesting against the war) into the plot gives the film an almost topical feel which has the potential to lift it above the usual teens in terror B movie.

Lois Winstone is from good British actor stock - her father being Ray Winstone, and her sister Lois was one of the standout actors in Kidulthood. So I was looking forward to seeing whether the star quality would rub off here. She has a very small role, however, along with a poor script so it's difficult to comment. Danny Dyer is a reasonably established British actor, although he seems to be sleep-walking through this role. Neither he, nor the other male character is likable, and the minimal development of their characters does little to endear them to us. Dyer's character has a father who died in the war, and through flashbacks it is revealed that he knows more than the others about their predicament. The other male character is a dreary city boy. Both are awful boorish stereotypes - lots of "Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you" to the females, along with boring male posturing. Are people still doing that? The three women, on the other hand are even less developed. Their role seems to be to look scared and react.

Once inside the basement, there is a lot of walking around, some running around, some getting lost, some getting attacked by shadowy figures, some arguing, some more walking around, more arguing... It gets repetitive pretty fast. The characters are so dislikable and stupid: "Let's split up!" that you are willing something bad to happen to them. By the end, when the "awful truth" is revealed, it's difficult to care. If you are a Danny Dyer fan, and simply must see this, wait until this has been discounted and get it for £3. Otherwise, watch The Hole.

Blindness (2008)

Watch Scooby Doo instead if you need everything explained

[25 May 2009]

Some of the reviews of Blindness on this site made me laugh. It's a "bad film" because we aren't given explanations for everything. Where did the virus come from? Why didn't it affect the Julianne Moore character? We don't find answers to these things, and this angers some people. They want everything tidily wrapped up. Perhaps they'd like Velma from Scooby Doo to appear in the last 5 minutes and explain everything. Sadly, it's not that sort of film. It's not a cartoon aimed at 10 year olds. It's an adult film.

Others haven't liked the film because they think it's unrealistic. I guess they're basing this on their own experiences of living in a world where everyone has gone blind, and comparing that against what happens in the film. "Well, you know, when it happened to ME, we didn't barter for food. We just killed the evil dictator in Ward 3..." Other reviewers don't like the film because the Julianne Moore character waits for a while before becoming a "hero" and putting a stop to the dictatorship and the rapes. They feel outraged because she is so lame, and it's unrealistic because she lets herself be scared by a blind man with a gun. They don't like that she doesn't seem that bothered when her husband has sex with another woman. They decide that just because a character doesn't act in a way that they "should", based upon their own morality or their previous experience of thousands of "action movies" where the hero always does the right thing, then the film itself is bad. For such viewers, I'd suggest that they watch Scooby Doo again, which always has a happy ending and heroes who act as you'd like them to.

This isn't an easy film to watch. I turned the DVD player off after the rape scene and wasn't sure whether I'd be able to continue. It took me a day before I could watch the rest. But because it isn't easy - because it doesn't give answers, and the characters don't act as we'd like them to, that doesn't make it bad. It just makes it different.

So is it a good film? It's an interesting premise. Comparisons to Day of the Triffids are impossible to avoid, although I think this is a stronger film because it focuses more on the human and social aspect of the tragedy, rather than the sci-fi "monster" aspect. The film shows how a strange situation brings out the worst and best of humanity. There are moments that are gross (the rape scenes), and others that are subtle (Danny Glover's reaction at the end). It is a demanding and challenging film. It's made me think, and has inspired me to write a review - which is rare for me. So I think it's worth a look.

And if you hate it - I have a copy of "What's New Scooby Doo" that you might enjoy instead.

Year of the Dog (I) (2007)

Very subtle humour - beautifully done

[10/10 · 30 September 2008]

I'm from a family of dog-lovers. My mother recently fell out with one of her friends because the friend threw a leaflet (!) at some random cat that came into her garden. So I can relate to this movie a lot - when I watched Molly Shannon's performance I think "There but for the grace of God..." This is one of those rewarding films that you can watch and re-watch and get something new from it each time. I didn't realise it was written by Mike White (who also wrote another of my favourite films The Good Girl) - but I can see the similarities. Both films are about very ordinary, quiet women who have dull jobs and routinised, somewhat muted lives - but reach breaking point and end up doing something extraordinary. The cleverness of Mike White's films is in the observation of the characters - this isn't raucous gross-out comedy, it's the subtle humour that's found in everyday situations and ordinary people.

But there's a lot of pathos in this film too. Peggy (Molly Shannon) is devastated when her pet dog dies - it's the most important relationship in her life - and while the death of a pet is sad, probably most of the audience won't get her extreme reaction. Her friends and family certainly don't - they're all equally obsessed with the banalities of their own lives. Peggy's brother and sister in law are the perfect WASPish couple who are convinced their maid is drugging their new baby with cough medicine and are constantly complaining about the head lice problem at their local school. Peggy's best friend at work, Layla spends most of her time trying to get her no-good boyfriend to propose to her: "I don't want to be a nag right away". Her boss, Robin cares only about getting the right pay rise at work and petty office politics. Her next-door neighbour Al cares only about hunting and getting a girlfriend. After Peggy's dog dies, Peggy goes on a date with Al but realises quickly that they're not compatible. Her next attempt at romance is with Newt - a very gentle, somewhat sexually ambiguous guy who tries to house unwanted pets. Newt introduces Peggy to veganism and animal rights, and although they have similar interests, he isn't capable of responding romantically to her - so Peggy returns to giving all of her love to animals - having noted that human beings have continually disappointed her (perhaps it's telling that Newt bears more than a passing resemblance to Peggy's own brother - and their relationship is certainly more brother and sister than lovers).

However, as the film progresses, Peggy's love/obsession for animals starts to lead her to odd places - she traumatises her niece by telling her the harsh truth about the meat industry, she embezzles money from her boss, writing out cheques in his name to animal charities, she blackmails her friend's finance into adopting a dog, she ends up adopting 15 dogs and then breaks into her neighbours' house in order to "hunt" him, so that that he knows what it feels like. The writing and acting here manage to make these scenes both sad and funny at the same time - you never feel that the film is preaching at you. Animal rights is a complicated issue - and I think the film does try to address both sides of the argument.

Molly Shannon is amazing in this film - she turns in a very sympathetic performance - much more toned down than some of her other comedy roles (such as Val in Will and Grace). There's something so likable about Ms Shannon that it's difficult not to care about the character she plays here, or the outcome of the film.

Black Christmas (2006)

Nothing new here

[3/10 · 2 January 2007]

A very derivative slasher film. It felt like the director and actresses were simply going through the motions and repeating every single other slasher film that's been made, notably the Halloween and Friday 13th films. Some other reviewers have said that they liked the fact that all of the Soriety sisters had different personalities so you cared about them. I'm afraid that I had trouble telling them apart, they all (but one) had very similar hair, makeup and personalities. The one who was different (Eve) was so notably different - with her thick glasses, that it made you wonder how she ever got into the sorority in the first place - surely she'd have been blackballed during Rush Week. There was really nothing original in this film - even the "double killer" was done with the Scream series.

Some of My Best Friends Are... (1971)

A time capsule of gay life - due a DVD release

[9/10 · 1 April 2005]

I saw this at the London Lesbian and Gay film festival a few years back and it was the highlight of the festival for me. Similar to Boys in the Band, it deals with a large colourful cast of characters who are regulars at a local gay bar. These include Gil Gerard (who went on to be Buck Rogers) as the straight-acting hunk who everyone wants, Rue McClanahan (Blanche from the Golden Girls) as a spiteful fag-hag and Candy Darling (of the Warhol factory), playing a sensitive transvestite, who after being beaten up by a sexually-confused lout asks "Has anyone seen a contact lens?" The title theme "Where do you go" is suitably haunting and there are some excellent funny lines in this movie - I can't understand why it hasn't come out on DVD yet. Well worth seeing if you get the chance.

Caged (1950)

Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! (spoilers)

[10/10 · 17 September 2003]

I watched this movie not really expecting it to be particularly good - but I was wrong. It was great. I was a fan of the Australian soap opera Prisoner Cell Block H, but this film tells it all in an hour and 40 minutes, and does it with more class and style.

We see the prison through the eyes of 19 year-old Mary Allen (Eleanor Parker), a frightened pretty pregnant ingenue who is in prison for aiding and abetting her husband who tried to rob a "5 and dime" store. He was killed in the ensuing shoot-out. Although Mary is a criminal, it is clear that she should never have been imprisoned - she's basically a good girl who was unlucky and stupid. The film progresses a series of losses in her life - first her best friend kills herself when she doesn't get her parole. Mary goes into early labour but fortunately the baby is OK. However, Mary's family won't look after it so it is taken away from her and placed with adoptive parents. Mary also misses out on the chance of parole, the upper-class, old white men who run the system are shown as uncaring buffoons. Then she finds a kitten, only to have it killed during a riot. Because of the riot she has her shaved by the evil authoritarian matron and ends up in solitary confinement.

Mary gradually develops from a snivelling pussy into a confident hard nut - the acting her is unbelievable, it's difficult to believe you're watching the same actress from the beginning of the film. Her entire voice, posture and manner have changed. However, throughout the film, no matter what Mary loses, we are aware that she still has the most important thing - her sense of morality. The great tragedy shown in this film is that by the end, even this is worn away and Mary agrees to join a criminal network because they will ensure she gets a quick parole. The final scenes, when she flicks a cigarette across the steps of the prison and gets into a car full of mobsters to the accompaniment of a very sleazy jazz wind orchestra is one of the most memorable climaxes in movie history.

This is an excellent film, gripping, funny in places, sad, campy and intensely involving. During the scene when Top Dog Kitty Stark stabs the evil matron with scissors, I was shouting along with Mary "Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!" I love it.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Time has not withered nor custom staled his infinite variety?

[27 January 2003]

I watched this film after seeing some other Pasolini films, and also from reading the range of comments here. Not a pleasant experience - I kept imagining a Hollywood ending where the teenagers stage a revolt in the night, kill the guards and their captors and escape. However, as this was Paolini and the 1970s, you know it isn't going to happen - and in a way the film is stronger for it. It remains in your head longer because people don't get their just desserts...

There is so much that isn't explained in the film. I couldn't work out why the two guys dance together at the end, while talking about their girlfriends... Does it show that they're relieved they're not dead? Have they become desensitised to the violence? Or are they trying to connect to their old identities before they were captured?

I also found it odd, that while the teenagers were put through such degrading experiences - such as having to eat sh*t, being publicly buggered etc, a number of their captors got involved, having the same things done to them, and clearly enjoying it.

Finally, while a lot of the content of the film was unpleasant - pornographic and scatalogical images can now be obtained on the internet. What would Pasolini do now if he was still alive and wanted to shock a jaded internet audience?

The Good Girl (2002)

Intelligent film, showing Aniston *is* a good actor

[10/10 · 18 January 2003]

Kudos to Jennifer Aniston for taking this role - showing she's more than capable of transcending the Rachel role. I enjoyed this film for its humour, its quietness and its pathos. It reminded me a bit of the British kitchen-sink genre of the 1960s.

The film had a lot to say about ordinary lives - where nothing exciting ever seems to happen, every day is the same, and people worry that they are wasting away their lives. Obviously, some cinema viewers don't like to be reminded of that, preferring movies about escapism. This film is precisely about why we can't always escape. And all of the characters in the film seem to be oriented to this. Whether it's vegetarianism and having a positive outlook, like poor doomed Gwen, or bible classes, like Corny, they're all looking for a way to make things better, to cope with it all. Zooey Deschanel (who gets all the best lines as the acerbic, drawling intercom announcer) has found her own coping strategy - ambiguously insulting the customers - it's a role that Parker Posey could have played about five years ago, and Deschanel makes the most of it.

Not everyone will like this film. It doesn't do all the work for you. Things aren't wrapped up neatly. The characters are flawed - that's the point of it. And there are no explosions - even an exciting gun seige happens *off-screen*. But it's not a typical chick-flick either. It's much too dark to be a romantic comedy. Instead this is an off-beat, smart drama. I look forward to future films by Mike White.

Demons (1985)

Scratching beneath the surface of horror (spoilers)

[8 December 2002]

I first saw Demons when I was 17, and got it and Demons 2 on DVD again recently. There are a lot of unresolved problems and plot holes with both films. Where did the Demons come from? Why is everyone suddenly locked in the cinema? What's with the weird usherette? Why did a helicopter crash into the cinema? But so what? One of the good things about horror films is that things SHOULD be left unexplained. Things shouldn't fit neatly together as they normally do. People should come out of the cinema feeling disoriented, and not understanding everything. That's what a good horror film should do. And Demons and its remake/sequel Demons 2 do just that.

Having the film set in a cinema is a good way of getting the audience to identify with the characters in the film. And there's a real sense of menace that pervades the first third of the movie. This is a film which is about claustrophobia and contamination - about having nowhere to hide and not being able to escape. The characters panic and become hysterical when they realise they are walled in - their fight with the demons is ultimately futile. Even Tony, the (hilarious) rabble-rousing pimp can't save them.

I also like how the film seems to be set nowhere and everywhere. The city scenes are from Germany, probably Berlin. The actors are Italian, yet the dubbed voiceovers are American. This gives the film a strangely global quality - this could be happening anywhere, things and places seem familiar, but disjointed and wrong. That (probably unintentionally) added to the sense of unease that I felt when I first saw this film - trying to work out where it was set.

As with many horror films, there is a heteronormative, moralising aspect to it. The characters get killed in order of how "good" they are - particularly in terms of their sexual morality. So prostitute Rosemary is the first person to become a demon, then her prostitute friend is transformed second. After that, the couple who are having an affair in front of the blind relative are bumped off. Only the nice, attractive couple make it to the end credits (and even then, the girl is bumped off). This theme is continued in Demons 2 when the only survivors are Dario Argento's daughter (locked in a car) and an attractive couple who are expecting a baby. There's a prostitute in that film too, and needless to say, SHE won't be making it to the end credits... Oddly, in both films the hero is called George. Did Bava decide that George was a heroic English name after reading about St George and the Dragon? That's another weird thing about it - the names of the characters - they're all a little off-kilter - Rosemary, George, Ken (!), Nancy, Ruth... It's like the writers hadn't really had much contact with English people, but knew a few names and didn't see anything wrong with calling the two male heroes George and Ken, or in calling a prostitute Rosemary.

The film is at least fast-paced, and the soundtrack works well. This film has a different feel from American horror, and is a welcome respite. It's also very 1980s - the scenes with the four delinquents who are driving around aimlessly, are wonderfully decadent - spilling their cocaine all over the place and then scraping it off the baby-faced Madonna-esque bad girl's breasts with a razor blade. It's like one long MTV video montage with zombies as the singers. And if you scratch a little deeper below the surface, there are some interesting themes to be found, about the nature of horror, fear, morality, society and disease.

Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969)

Groovy, misunderstood trash classic

[31 January 2002]

I recommend that this is watched on a double-bill with Wild in the Streets, also written by Robert Thom. Both films contain similarities - a Messiah-like pop star with pretensions for a new social order, overbearing parents, LSD sequences, pop music, alternative forms of sexuality, camp and "established" actresses freaking out.

This film is like being in a long trance - there's so much imagery and symbolism that you'll need to watch it three or four times before it starts to make sense.

It's a little nihilistic for my liking, but well worth watching - Jennifer Jones gets to call her maid a sadistic lesbian, her husband appears in the first scene naked in the shower with his young male friend, while the daughter's voice-over says "My first memory is that my parents were perfect." There's all sorts of weird stuff like the cast taking a walk along Santa Monica Beach and Jennifer Jones buying candyfloss with her jewellery and then discarding it.

The songs are reasonably good too, especially The Fat Song, Bloody Mama (also another Robert Thom film) and Angel, Angel Down We Go. This is one freaked out movie. I love it!

Sticks and Stones (1970)

Total camp

[7/10 · 10 January 2002]

This ultra-rare gay party film shows us the hedonistic, no-worries, pre-AIDS world of Fire Island and is a fascinating time capsule of a film. This film also appears to be missing from Vito Russo's "Celluloid Closet" book on gay cinema.

The theme song "Let it always be summer" comes across as a kind of commentary on the characters, who desire to be young and attractive and enjoy themselves for as long as they can. The dialogue can be hard to hear at times, but there are some wonderful moments - the ultra-camp guy who tries to change a tire being one of the more memorable scenes - I was laughing along with him, not at him.

The English guy is so annoying and sensitive that I agreed with the back-cover blurb on the video box that you want to end up strangling him by the end of the movie - one of the key moments in the film is where he verbally attacks the camp guy, then feels guilty and apologises, launching into a maudlin story about strangling his own dog - something which he metaphorically is continuing to do... And his boyfriend has a wonderful range of bored expressions.

I also like the puzzled looks of real passengers on the New York train station as the actors invaded the space, swishing it up for the cameras. Not as heavy-going or full of "messages" as Boys in the Band, but worth a look.

Ein Unbekannter rechnet ab (1974)

A kitsch treat (spoiler)

[10 January 2002]

Ten strangers, thrown together with no escape... Sounds like a certain reality tv show. Oh who cares if it doesn't stick to the book and it represents the worst of trashy 1970s movie-making? That's all the more reason to love this film. Could there ever be a more unlikely love pairing than Elke Sommer (remember her classic role a year later in Carry on Behind?) and burly Oliver Reed?

I first saw this film as a child and it freaked me out from the moment Orson Welle's golden voice flooded that glorious Iranian hotel, telling everyone exactly why they had been invited. This film does Agatha Christie proud - the murder-mystery is one of the most kitsch, silly genres there is.

And the faux-twist "happy ending" for demanding movie audiences is just perfect. "Two... Little.... Indians!"

Ghost World (2001)

Kistch coming of age film with complex protaganist

[6 December 2001]

I'm not a teenager, although I did feel a lot of the alienation that Enid felt when growing up, and turned to obscure/retro kitsch as a way of coping. In that sense, I found Ghost World an enjoyable film. I loved the opening sequence with the Bollywood movie - that alone was worth the entrance fee for me.

I also liked the scene where Enid stamps on her graduation cap and rips her certificate up - it reminded me of the start of Vanity Fair where Becky Sharp throws away the Bible she's been given.

Enid is presented as someone who is "different" from mainstream teenagers, intelligent, yet also flawed and immature - her pranks are childish and silly, she is unable to properly express her attraction to Josh, her friend, other than by crass "joking" comments. She knows she is less attractive than Rebecca and has a problem with it. She doesn't know what she wants to do. Therefore I don't think the film sets Enid up as "better" than everyone else, and if you don't get her sense of humour then you're no better than the other dorks in the movie as one reviewer has suggested.

The whole film rests on ambivlance - when Enid impresses her art teacher with the racist 1930s advert she's found, is it because she really seeks the teacher's praise? Or is she just pressing the right buttons because she can? Does she want to be with Josh or Seymour or nobody? Does she like Rebecca or hate her?

This is an intelligent coming-of-age movie. I watched Mermaids the other night which I enjoyed 10 years ago - now Winona Ryder just seemed to whine all the way through it. At least Enid has a bit of go in her. She may not be a completely nice person who the audience can identify totally, but so what? She's more complex and interesting than most teen protaganists - this is a great movie, with an excellent soundtrack, and worth a look

The Love Factor (1969)

Impertinence!

[1/10 · 6 December 2001]

Truly one of the WORST films of all time - and worth watching just to spot the numerous narrative holes, terrible acting and risable dialogue.

A group of women led by Zeta One live in another dimension - their home is called Angvia (guess what that's an anagram of). They kidnap earth women and spirit them off to Angvia in the back of big truck - I suspect that the big truck IS actually Angvia. It's not understood why they kidnap women or what they do with them when they get to Angvia, which looks like the inside of a lava lamp.

Meanwhile, Major Bourden (James Robertson Justice) and his assistant Swyne (Charles Hawtrey) are trying to find out how to get to Angvia, because the women have thwarted their plans several times (it's never adequately explained what their plans are), nor if the Angvians are good or bad - they do kidnap women, but then they appear to be heroines.

Meanwhile again, James Word (a kind of low-grade James Bond figure) tells the story of all this in flashback to a pretty blonde. However, James Word has hardly any contact with any of the other characters in the film - you get the impression that all of his scenes were filmed as an after-thought, in order to add some sort of narrative coherence to the storyline - but in fact the reverse happens.

There's lots of softcore (female) nudity, chasing and silliness. The special effects ain't that special. It's a complete mess. You MUST see it to believe how bad it is. The best thing about it is the soundtrack, which tries to emulate a kind of sub-Barbarella kistchness at times.

The Circle (2000)

Bleak eye-opener (spoilers)

[8/10 · 18 October 2001]

A bleak movie that reminded me of Kafka. As a westerner this was a real culture shock, I had no idea why these three women at the beginning were so scared of the police - I couldn't work out what was going on, or even what the buildings were supposed to be.

Gradually things start to make sense - it's hard not to watch this film without getting angry at the numerous ways that women are kept down in the society, often at the expense of men - for example, the "John" is let go, while the prostitute goes to prison, the women are continually subjected to harrassment from anonymous men in the streets, they are trapped by pregnancy and its consequences.

I liked how cigarettes were used throughout the film - you don't often see Iranian women smoking - and while nearly all of the leads seemed to smoke, it wasn't until right at the end that one of them was actually allowed to smoke - a powerful image.

The final part in the prison cell where everything falls into place is a moment right up there with the film La Kabina (The Telephone Box). Recommended.

Late Night Shopping (2001)

Boring, bad, awful, miss miss miss!

[1/10 · 22 July 2001]

Filmfour are going to have to do a lot better than this little snot of a film if they're going to get the right sort of reputation for themselves.

This film is set in Glasgow (although only a couple of secondary characters have anything approaching a Scottish accent). The premise, about people who's lives are going nowhere, who all meet up in the same cafe in the early hours of the morning as they have night jobs, COULD have made for a really funny, insightful, quirky, cultish film. Instead we have a group of self-obsessed saddos and a plot which has been so done to bits I'm suprised it hasn't been banned. X and Y are friends. X is sleeping with Z. Y sleeps with Z as well. Oh you figure it out.

A total waste of time. Painful dialogue - it sounded like something that a group of 16 year olds would have written for a GCSE drama project. The female character was completely superfluous - just written in as a token female in the hope that women would be cajoled into seeing it.

If you're the sort of thicko lad who laughs at beer adverts and can usually be found wandering round in packs shouting on Saturday nights in nondescript town centres then you will love this film and find it "a right laff". Everyone else, run, don't walk away from this sorry little misfit.

And one question, when the group left the "boring" seaside town (Saltcoats incidentally although they changed the name on the film), to go back to Glasgow, WHY did they do it via the Forton motorway services at LANCASTER which is in England?

Poor Cow (1967)

There's no film in his camera.

[7/10 · 22 July 2001]

Recently released on British DVD, this is a good movie (as long as you have an attention span and IQ of more than a fruit fly). Not as depressing as it could have been, this is kitchen-sink at its most dirty. Terrance Stamp is great in it, the music is sweet, Carol White is very believeable as the single mum tart who can't stop loving criminals.

My favourite scene is where Carol and her friend who works in the pub with her (the one with the enormous beehive hairdo which comes down over one eye) sit outisde and gossip about all the men who walk past.

The only thing that marred this was the shakey acting of Carol's first husband, but if you can get past that, you're OK. And Donovan provides some of the most languid, mellow, bittersweet lyrics to come out of the 60s.

Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965)

Sal dances!

[7/10 · 22 July 2001]

Very much ahead of its time - this cult film vanished almost without trace after it was released, and it's very hard to find copies of it nowadays. So I consider myself fortunate to have been exposed to this sleaze-ball of a movie.

The highlight for me was in one of the final scenes where Sal Mineo and Juliet Prowse shimmy to one of the sassiest, silliest 60s dance tunes ever invented. Sal's wearing a little cut-off shirt and as he freaks out, more and more of his midriff is exposed. Sal's a long way from Rebel Without A Cause here, and looking all the better for it. This scene is worth the entrance fee alone. The title sequence is also hilariously evocative.

Full of weird characters, almost EVERYONE in this movie has a dirty little dark side waiting to be shown.

The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000)

It is all about being gay (couple of spoilers)

[21 May 2001]

I've read some of the other comments here with interest. A lot of people have said that they liked this film because it wasn't just about being gay, and that the characters weren't in the usual homo-angst that other films showed.

Well, maybe I was watching a different film, but it seemed that almost every character in this movie had some sort of gay angst going on. All they seemed to do was bitch about how hard it was to find a good man while ignoring the possibilities right under their noses. The lead who gets a chance at happiness, sleeps with the "newbie" character and then goes off to Europe - and I didn't find his self-indulgent little justification speech to be at all acceptable. The only "happy well-adjusted" couple in the movie don't stay that way for long (one of them dies).

While all of the characters were witty and pretty - they had problems which were to do with low self-esteem (not being pretty enough) or not being able to get relationships working (jaded or disengaged). These characters clearly found themselves a lot more fascinating than I did (witness the montage where they babble on endlessly to their hairdresser about their lives).

If we think that this movie is portraying gay men in a positive light, then it's only because so many gay films in the past have been so utterly depressing that this one doesn't seem all that bad in comparison.

Please - can we have a film with gay men as the central leads where they don't have all of this Dawson's Creek angst and just let them get on with normal or dare I say it, happy? relationships (and not die) or just be happy to be single. Oh, and how about NOT setting it in New York or West Hollywood.

We really do need to start to move away from this genre, or at least start to explore ones which represent gay men as more empowered than this.

Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)

Cringe

[1/10 · 26 April 2001]

I found it hard to care about these characters, who were either annoying or insipid, all living their fabulously hilariously urban lives.

The dialogue was excruiciating at times, and at other times the narrative seemed hard to follow - was it me or were entire scenes deleted?

It felt like a poor sitcom somehow turned into a film. The stereotypes and jokes about "men's groups" would perhaps have been funny in the early 90s. As it is, this is where much of the humour of the film comes from - and boy, does it get old fast.

Apart from the attractive Irish man - this film was a dud. And not even in a "so bad it's good way". The last 20 minutes were particularly painful. Perhaps if you've never met any gay people or never thought about homosexuality before, then this film might have something meaningful to say. Otherwise - darlings, you'd still be better off renting The Boys in The Band or Beautiful Thing.

A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)

Disturbing dark film about childhood

[9 April 2001]

This film reminded me of how powerless you are as a child - just being outside can get you into a fight, while adults, who often have no right to, can have control over your life. It reminded me how children can "break" or "make" friends so easily, with past grievances forgiven and forgotten in a few seconds. Adults tend to find that a lot harder to do.

I watched this film without knowing anything about it, so perhaps I found the scenes where Morell threatens the two boys on different occasions to be extremely shocking (incidentally, the swearing which is almost constantly present in the film is NOT shocking in the slightest).

The main thing that I got from the film was concerned with how masculinity is defined - Morell tries to teach Romeo Brass how to be a "man" via weird survivalist techniques - violence, macho posturing, being able to take care of yourself seem to be the ways that masculinity is mediated. The bragging and posturing that occurs in the fights between Morell and the boy's fathers seem to mirror an earlier fight between the boys and two other boys who are playing football at the beginning of the film - "are you trying to start a fight?" "No, I AM starting a fight". It was interesting that Knock-Knock's father and Morell were both wearing almost identical shell-suits in the violent climax scene.

While this was technically a good film, I found it to be much more disturbing than Zombie Flesheaters or whatever, because of its realism.

Reefer Madness (1936)

Faster! Play faster! Faster! (some spoilers)

[27 March 2001]

Hard to believe anyone could have taken this film seriously. Although it was relatively short, I found it boring at times and wished there could have been less moralising and more scenes of drug-taking and partying. After reading all the hype, I was disappointed that it just wasn't camp enough!

The owner of the reefer-house is blonde Mae (perhaps a scandlous nod to Mae West here, who was seen as the devil by the moral minority at the time). A group of teenagers (in a time before the concept of teenagers was properly invented) hang out there, to play the piano at ultra-high speed, dance with each other badly, make-out (generally off-screen) and smoke Mary-Jane. (One of the other female characters is interestingly called Mary). They hardly ever inhale.

While there are a couple of sensible messages here - i.e. it's probably best not to drive a car while under the influence, the moralising is so heavy-handed, and statements that tell us that marijauna is more dangerous than heroin and cocaine from so-called experts are just counter-productive.

The Last Man on Planet Earth (1999 TV Movie)

Howler

[3/10 · 26 February 2001]

Pure schlock from beginning to end. The average 12 year old might find that it has an interesting take on discrimination. Otherwise, it's a pure camp-fest endurance test. Like one of those so-so episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation that thinks it has Something Important To Say.

You'll see every plot twist a mile off in this by-the-numbers romp. However, it's worth seeing for its portrayal of drag-king prostitutes, a brothel where young women pay old men to have sex with them (how's that for role reversal), and lesbian soap operas. The ghost of Valerie Solanis lives!

Chuck & Buck (2000)

good (spoilers)

[13 February 2001]

I find it weird that many of the earlier reviewers seem to think that because this movie has gay sexual acts in it that it is someone giving a "negative" "message" which generalises to homosexuality. Surely we've moved away from that sort of thinking by now? I was equally stunned by the person who wrote here that because the film shows a stalker being "neutralised" by the object of his affections having sex with him, then that's also a "bad message" and real life ain't like that. Who's to say what's real life and what's not? And who's to say that films have to give out good messages, or portray all gay men as happy, well-adjusted normal people? As far as I can see, Buck isn't conventionally gay anyway, just someone whose sexual (and social) development stopped at age 11.

To any mature adult with a moderate to high IQ, this film has something interesting to say. If you find it boring or shocking, or objectionable, then all I can say is go rent Forrest Gump - you'll find it much more "on your level" and less intellectually challenging.

Vapors (1965)

weird little movie

[10 January 2001]

You can buy this on the Something Weird label as part of one of their collections of Gay Films from the 60s and 70s.

"Vapors" is about a man's first trip to a gay steam-room. It was banned across America when it came out - it's quite tame by our standards, but does feature a male-male kiss and is very weird. Full of camp little gay men running around being horrible to each other, and a very odd climax involving a paper sunflower and the rhyme "this little piggy went to market". The final scene, which shows a penis coming at the screen was censored with an annoying black line.

The two main characters seem to be more interested in spooking each out than having sex - there's a particularly horrible story about a man's son who died in a lake, while the description of dreams involving women's feet, and the analysis of sanitary pads reveal that these men find the ordinary to be disgusting - of course this is all juxtaposed with the fact that their targets would find going to a gay bathhouse to be disgusting... Interesting all the same.