Outfest Film Review: I Do

Glenn Gaylord's (writer and producer of Leave It on the Floor) new film I Do is quite topical.  The U.S., led by the state of Arizona, backed by the Supreme Court, has drawn some kind of new demarcation line against those who are willing to risk everything to achieve a better life for themselves and their family.  Say what you will about illegal immigration, it still occurs and will continue, as with anything, the have not's will always bear the brunt of the law more so than the have's.  Green-card marriages are a matter of fact and more common than you'd expect.  In the six short years I've lived in Los Angeles, I've been propositioned three times, and, not by the nationalities one might assume.  And, were I to I have proceeded with any of these "proposals," as an American, it would have been my choice, whatever the law or others may have prejudged about "the marriage."  Yet, the one common denominator in all three instances was that the people who asked for my hand in marriage were all female.  Naturally, of course, why would they be male, thanks to the federal statute DOMA--the provision, written by a Republican who now campaigns against the very law he composed, and then President Clinton signed into law in 1996--which arbitrarily decided that marriage (never legally defined by gender, only two consenting adults) was between a man and a woman.  The statute was a relic before it even hit the books, yet, we, as a society, must wait for time and reason to play themselves out.

The film I Do boasts a star-studded cast including Jamie-Lynn Sigler (The Sopranos' Willow) and Alicia Witt (Twin Peaks, Cybil, Friday Night Lights), as well as a host of new talent including screenwriter David W. Ross, who produced as well as played the central character Jack Edwards.  He's a photographer who helps raise his niece Tara (Jessica Tyler Brown) with her mother Mya (Witt), wife of his deceased brother Peter (Grant Bowler).  He has been living in the U.S. for decades since his teenage years and, through a glitch no fault of his own, finds himself being expulsed from the country.  Thanks to a lesbian friend and associate Ali (Sigler), he finds a green-card opportunity to retain everything which he has built up, but then, in an ironic twist, finds himself genuinely falling in love with a man, Mano (Maurice Compte).  The editing is swift, the performances solid, and the message clear.

On the surface, Ross' story asks, "Should not gays have the opportunity to get away with a common "fraud" committed by straights?"  At its core, however, is the more refined, "Why is it that a gay couple facing the random deportation of one of its partners not have the same recourse as two straights in the same situation?"  And, more subtly, the movie posits the question, "Just where does one draw the line between a genuine and feigned love?" Can government really decipher the nuances? Can a federal employee(s) extract what exists in the heart of one or both partners?  Is not love more fluid and malleable?  Cannot something true spring from a foundation built originally on artifice?


Before the screening, producer Stephen Israel, director Gaylord, hyphenate Ross, editor James Cude, and stars Sigler, Witt, Brown, Compte, Mickey Cottrell, and Mike C. Manning took to the red carpet at the Ford Amphitheater.  On the way up the stairs, Ross warned young Brown that there would be plenty of flash photography.  She replied, "I know, this is my third time," (she starred in Paranormal Activity 3, as well as a guest spot on TV show Happy Endings) only to be munching on popcorn just a few minutes afterwards.  Sigler commented on how the unusual overcast weather for Los Angeles this Summer night felt very "East Coast," as she was interviewed by Ms. Sassy.  The whole cast and crew was very gracious and accommodating for the photographers.  Afterwards, they also took the stage before the audience in the Amphitheatre's outdoor seating area.

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Outfest Film Review: The Queen of Versailles

The Queen of Versailles is the recent compelling documentary from filmmaker Lauren Greenfield about billionaire couple David and Jackie Siegel, who amassed a fortune as he was the proverbial king of the timeshare business. Greenfield had the fortuitous front-row seat from the family making headlines for building the biggest house on American soil to a financial tailspin on the heals of the market collapse. The film swiftly delves into the history of the ambitious Jackie, who, on the surface, initially comes across as a self-absorbed and superficial gold-digging mother of eight. An obliviousness may complement her opulent lifestyle, but there is surprising depth to her often cartoonish ways and frustrating choices. A taxidermied former pet and a closet the size of a one-bedroom house are enough to make one want to tear her hair out, yet she isn’t one so easy to write off. This reality show nightmare quickly turns into an upscale Grey Gardens. An exaggerated version of the American can-do spirit paused, as the filmmaker ruminates over the residual obscenely lavish effects. Luckily, there's a voice of consciousness in the form of an adopted member of the family who went from rags to riches over night.

The documentary has no agenda; the businessman does a fine job digging his own grave with his short-sighted and unfortunate view of humanity (his belief is that what everybody wants most is to be rich or, at the very least, feel rich for a week out of every year; if they don’t, then they’re probably dead inside). While David contributes to the economy and supplies employment, his virtue is filtered through a minimizing and saddening purely capitalist view. He honestly believes he is saving the lives of people he has no way or interest of having any meaningful connection to. He also suffers from a victim-complex that only seems to strike people during tough times. His saving grace, unbeknownst to him, is his wife, who makes it impossible to judge the couple’s wealth without considering: is excess often a symptom of job production?

After the screening, director Greenfield explained meeting Jackie Siegel randomly through a Donatella Versace connection. She had no problem accumulating the fascinating footage, as she was just another stranger of many passing through the Siegel home. Even though there is a pending lawsuit filed by David Siegel against the film, Greenfield said she had no intent to “make an ideological statement,” rather, “a profound one.”

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Outfest Film Review: Satan's Angel: Queen of the Fire Tassels

Before the screening at the REDCAT Sunday night for Satan's Angel: Queen of the Fire Tassels, a sassy, vivacious woman who has been around the block a couple of times, stood up and loudly inquired, "Has anyone else not seen this movie?" The throaty blonde was none other than Satan's Angel herself, exotic performer Angela Walker. And the answer to her declarative question was mostly a 'no,' as it was the world premiere of Joshua Dragotta's documentary. The rowdy crowd was peppered with women dressed in revealing sequined bustiers and dresses and many of those scantily clad beauties were interview subjects who have worked closely with the lively 67-year old over the years.


The documentary is a biography of the burlesque pioneer illustrated with interviews and old photographs of the San Francisco-bred gal from her early childhood as a simultaneously rebellious, yet sweet-natured Catholic girl to jet-setter rubbing elbows (and other body parts) with the celebrities of her time. While her fearlessness is what paved her way to erotic entertainer, her innocence informed her appeal. The tough-talking broad (she would ideally be played by Kathleen Turner from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s in the movie version of her life) details her performing antics, as well as details about her private life. "I probably had more class onstage than I did off," she shares, as the list of beaus include Clint Eastwood, Janis Joplin (whom she met at a Redd Foxx show!), as well as a long-running affair with Bobby Darin. Missing from the documentary is a larger context that places Walker's style of burlesque within the dance form's evolution. Dragotta, who produced, directed, lensed, and edited Angel, clocks his film in at a very lean 72-minutes, which still feels like a stretch. By the very nature of Walker's profession, as well as her entrepreneurial spirit and the fact that she is a bisexual who came of age before such a thing was socially acceptable, the subject matter is compelling. The lady must be filled with stories, yet the well here feels largely untapped and results sometimes superficial. Afterwards, at the Q&A, when asked about her "nineteen year old legs" from an audience member, she responded that she sure as Hell wished her tits and ass were that age. There was also discussion about Walker's upcoming biography, so perhaps this filmed document was intended as a simple appetizer for what she has in store with the written word.

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Outfest Film Review: Le Reflet

The coming of age film Le Reflet, framed within the Greek legend of Narcissus, concerns entitled teenager Louis (Oscar Comtet) who spends his Summer studying for his exams while his parents vacation. When the dark complected Alexis catches his eye, he becomes quite smitten with the uneducated farmhand down the road.  Living away from the trappings of the city on the very rural and innocent French countryside, the boys negotiate their feelings of sexuality and fraternity rather clumsily. Once the obstacle of a girl Irène is removed from the equation, the two carry on like a married couple without the sex. One criticizes the other for not measuring up, while trying to impose his romantic ideals upon him and teach him poetry. Director Morgane Rousseau expertly captures the randomness of youthful emotions through long, carefully crafted, pensive takes. Foreboding music often rises to a simmer, as Louis experiences longing he doesn't quite understand how to act upon. Few words are spoken between the characters and the ones that are chosen reveal just how much they're able to process the mechanics of their relationship.  While not the impatient, Rousseau sprinkles her coming-of-age story with a sense of humor on its path to a subtle, yet painfully tragic ending.

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Outfest Film Review: Vito

Tonight was the opening of Outfest 2012, the world’s largest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. A little L.A. drizzle for the first time in months peppered the orange carpet proceedings outside the Orpheum Theatre. Introductions inside included Ricki Lake presenting director John Waters with the Outfest 2012 Achievement Award. Lake has a new show starting this Fall and dates back to 1988 with Waters who directed her in her feature film debut in the original Hairspray. Arguably his most mainstream film went on to spawn the even more socially popular musical and film remake from the 2000s. Lake alludes to the irony of filmdom’s king of trash creating the blueprint for the recent family-friendly Broadway phenomenon. Her knowledge of his oeuvre rolled out with much ease and it was obvious how honored she was to share this occasion with him. Waters took to the stage with a eggplant purple tie against a monochromatic blue-striped suit, and much graciousness to uproarious applause. After the well-produced promo showing footage of his movies and interview clips, as wit comes second nature to the icon, the impressed Waters quipped, “Please play this at my funeral.” Part of his success is due to his ability to judge people on an equal playing field, “I look up to my subject matter, I never look down.”

[Thank You to The Los Angeles Beat for John Waters image]

Outfest honoree John Waters

Also speaking were Outfest board members and co-presidents Laura Ivey, Jon Larson, Executive Director Kirsten Schaffer, Director of Programming Kim Yutani, and Jeffrey Schwarz, director of the opening selection for the film festival, Vito, only the third documentary in all of Outfest’s thirty years to kick off the eleven day gig. One of his first comments regarded the serendipity behind his subject matter, Vito Russo, being a huge fan of Frances Gumm who once sang on the Orpheum’s stage as a little girl with her sisters, before she became known to the rest of the world as Judy Garland. “Vito was a fan of hers and would be so happy to share the stage with her.”

The documentary details the life of gay activist Vito Russo, best known for not only writing the seminal tome on gays in film, The Celluloid Closet, but was one of the founding members of pioneering gay rights groups GAA, GLAAD, and Act Up. The documentary offers a straight-forward narrative describing his home life (his family was ultimately quite accepting and loving), his adventurous preternatural spirit, and active presence in New York night life. His love of movies led him to work as a film archivist for MOMA which planted the seed for his opus Closet, a book that took a decade to research and write as the amateur celluloid detective assembled what is regarded as the preeminent catalogue of the development of gay characters from the beginning of motion pictures through the 1970s. The film understandably spends a healthy chunk of time retreading what’s covered in the film version of Closet, if only because it involved a huge part of Russo’s life.

Through interviews with family and friends (including well known cultural icons like Larry Kramer and Lily Tomlin), as well as stock footage (there is an astounding video record of Russo’s life as an activist, as well as incredible never-seen-before footage of Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin—and, no, I’m not talking about deleted scenes from Big Business either), Vito pieces together a compelling story of man born in the right place and time, fired up with the right amount of passion, to encapsulate the American gay male during the early days of the fight for civil rights. With his heart firmly planted in New York City, Russo stood by on the sidelines during the Stonewall Riots, only to jump into the fray a few months later during subsequent bar raids. “The wiry, fuzzy guy with the huge grin” saw himself as a uniter in the 1970s, only to raise the stakes during the fight for more AIDS funding when the disease first annihilated a huge swath of the gay community in the early 1980s. Russo not only fought conservative demagoguery in politics (there were audible hisses from a faction of the audience whenever Ronald Reagan or Jesse Helms appeared onscreen), but the media itself (including the New York Post’s openly hostile and homophobic tone). The successes of his group's earlier work were vital and helped shape gay progress to what it is today as well as provide templates for other minority activism. Yet, rather than turn Russo into some kind of martyr like some other movies (whose names will not be mentioned here), Schwarz’ restrained approach allows the audiences to marvel at how truly incredible his contributions were, and how lucky we are for the stars to have aligned so perfectly for this man to have graced this earth. Vito debuts on HBO July 23rd at 6 pm EST/9pm PST.

An after party and silent auction followed the film in one of the parking lots behind the Orpheum and included several food vendors and open bar hosted by Absolut, which reminds me of one of my new favorite Sandra Bernhard quotes, “A vodka company supporting a gay cause? Sort of like Gerber giving a shout-out to babies.”

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Outfest Film Review: Gayby

At the recent premiere of Gayby, (because I'm all about the name-dropping) I saw famed Chloë Sevigny's impressionist and Groundling Drew Droege who starred last year on stage in The A-List and did a stellar job directing Jersey SHOREsical.  He probably thinks I stalk him, as I also saw him at the Scream 4 opening night at the Cinerama Dome last year (which had to have been the largest congregation of white Gen-X gay men I've ever been a part of).  Much to my delight, the LA Film Festival wisely ditched the poorly produced pre-film promo from last year that only elicited one big WTF (various faces morphed into each other ala Michael Jackson’s “Black of White” music video conveying a series of emotions that one can feel "at the movies" and had the worst eye-gauging cinematography imaginable) and was absolute torture the fifteen or so odd times I sat through it (the DP owes my eyes, as well as everyone else who was blinded by it, new contact lenses).  The Festival still struggles with the organization of the ballooning size of the event, but puts on quite a deal.  Drea Clark provided her bubbling personality as host of the screening, where she introduced the SXSW entry, which, only one year previously from its premiere, had no script to speak of.  The screening finally got underway after a twenty minute delay and three subsequent sound gaffes.  Gayby is Jonathan Lisecki’s feature length version of his recent short about two best friends—one gay, the other a fag hag—from college who decide to have a baby together.  Before you go running from this film screaming, “Not another poorly produced independent gay film rife with annoying clichés,” (not like anyone screams that, but I digress) be prepared to be at least mildly surprised and, gulp, entertained.  Yes, this is a gay movie.  But, like most gay films these days, it isn’t one of those gay movies.  It’s actually well-executed and entertaining.  Yay for the gays!  

The aforementioned premise doesn’t break new ground as even the trailblazing sit-com Will & Gracewent down that road after it jumped the shark around season five or six (or whatever).  And movies about untraditional procreation involving white people living in Brooklyn seem to be the rage or the recent Friends with Kids from Jennifer Westfeldt was just a coincidence (er, wait, wasn't Grace living in Brooklyn at one point with Leo, I forget; so sue me, I never lived in New York; I get all those boroughs mixed up).  With Friends, it got the Kid-making part out of the way fairly quickly: those predictable feelings that surfaced after the characters took on the responsibility of parenting fueled the movie.  With Gayby, the focus doesn’t quite get to the birth part so swiftly, and smartly so as the leads endeavor even less introspection than their Friends counterpart, while they go through the sexual motions (and otherwise) to create their child.  Jenn (Jenn Harris) works as a yoga instructor and Matt (Matthew Wilkas) runs a comic book store and is an aspiring artist.  Getting on in years and feeling her life is missing something, Jenn is the one who is struck by her biologically ticking clock.  Matt is excited and open to the idea of becoming a father.  She only has one caveat, “I want to do it the old fashioned way … surprise.”

Director Jonathan Lisecki also plays Nelson:
"It seems so early for a mid-life crisis
and yet here we are."

With no Photoshop skills necessary, old pictures of the leads, who are best friends in real life, incidentally, are used in the film’s opening credits. Their chemistry is obvious and lends a great deal of heart to the feel of the film.  The deadpan Harris is in full-effect here and receives ample support from Wilkas, who has one of the less showier rolls but can still get appropriate mileage out of lines like, “I just kissed him so he’d shut up.”  And, the writing is often just as sharp and a great deal of fun.  Nelson, a friend of Matt’s (played by director Lisecki) who later plays an ad hoc gynecologist to the proceedings, remarks to Matt on his decision to help Jenn have a baby, “It’s nice to see you’re opening up a closed locations in these troubled times.”  He’s full of comic-relief as an effeminate newly-bearded man exploring his masculine side, “I’m here, I’m bear, get used to it, woof, paw.”  (Accented with appropriate gesticulation.)  He’s full of acerbic and/or thoughtful observations.  Concerning the main plot-point, perhaps in a nod to Westfeldt’s comparable film or, well, modern reality: “That is so Brooklyn.”  Each protagonist has his/her own chorus of friends/romantic interests/enemies.  Playing the shrew of a sister Kelly is the lusty-voiced Anna Margaret Hollyman (who was there for a Q & A along with producer Zeke Farrow after the screening). 

Producer Zeke Farrow and actress Anna Margaret Hollyman
at the LA Film Fest screening 6/16

The quirky direction never goes too far and there’s a zany randomness that Lisecki injects seamlessly into the proceedings like the sound of Matt squirting lube and mounting Jenn during their first baby-making session, heaving a couple of hooah's.  In a kind of a Laugh-In moment, Jenn receives doctor recommendations and diet advise from coworkers Jamie (Jack Ferver) and nemesis Valerie (Joanne Tucker), the latter of which has nothing vested in her best interests whatsoever, but it works.  There’s even a short pole-dancing sequence which plays like a DVD outtake, but manages to make itself at home in the narrative.  Judicious, but never over indulgent, Lisecki is in complete control of his material and aware of his audience, taking gay stereotypes and milking just the right amount of screen-time and humor out of them.  The film just debuted at the Provincetown International Film Festival and will screen at BAMcinemafest, as well as Outfest 2012.  Angelenos can find Oufest tickets here:

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