DVD Review: The Face of Love (2013)

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Easily the most romantically Sirkian picture in independent cinema’s recent string of Hitchcockian doppelganger releases, much like Enemy, Arie Posin’s Face of Love acknowledges its inspiration with a subtly affectionate yet purposeful prop placement of a blink-and-you’ve-missed-it Vertigo poster early into the film.

Yet while it’s one of several puzzle pieces you’re supposed to put together and eventually decipher in Enemy, Posin and his co-screenwriter Matthew McDuffie are much more open in their soap operatic homage to Hitch’s greatest work in this straightforward tale.

In Love, the duo pay tribute not only to Vertigo's character archetypes and sets (an art museum plays a pivotal role, for example) but also work in some obvious cinematographic references and callbacks to the 1958 masterpiece that are sure to amuse film buffs on that level alone.

It’s just a shame that – aside from some tremendous turns by its ensemble trio – unfortunatelyy there’s not enough holding Love together beyond the film’s chemistry, artistry and in particular its organic and impressively humanistic approach to Vertigo’s melancholic treatment of being given a second chance at love.

After losing her husband (Ed Harris) of many years to a riptide drowning accident on their anniversary celebration in Mexico, Nikki (Annette Bening) emotionally shuts down and closes herself off to everything around her, moving through the world as though she were encased in a protective shell.

We catch up with her five years later – just going through the motions of a daily existence back in Los Angeles where she stages houses to “breathe life into the emptiness” of architecture. Things take an intriguing turn when on a typically uneventful day, she accidentally crosses paths with a stranger (Harris again) whose uncanny resemblance to her departed love manages to breathe life into the emptiness of her shell, however fleetingly.

Recounting the run-in to her loyal neighbor (and fellow widower Robin Williams), Nikki tells him the incident “felt like being alive again.”

But before you start to question the metaphysical basis of the film as a sort of romantic hybrid of Hitch, Ghost and the sort of women’s weepies of the 1940s that might’ve starred Gene Tierney, Posin and McDuffie reaffirm their commitment to stay rooted in reality.

However as the film continues and Nikki invariably hunts down the lookalike before a tentative friendship blossoms into a romance of convenient predictability, I couldn’t help but realize that in retrospect, their decision to make everything so cut and dried might have been a mistake. Namely, once we get over our initial surprise, Face is ultimately missing some sort of element that would’ve rationalized the heroine’s at times awful behavior and kept us guessing.

By playing it fully straight as the grieving Nikki hides the truth and begins bringing her new beau to all the old familiar places like a gender reversal Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, we lose sympathy for her way too quickly and doubly so after learning of her new man’s sudsy secret.

Moreover, by constantly having her postpone the inevitable of coming face-to-face with her daughter (Jess Weixler) or neighbor who could out her deception at any time, the movie only has one place left to go and one hand left to play which doesn’t make it very exciting once we reach the second, troubled act.

Stuck in the middle of the sea without anything to push the sailboat towards the shore whether it’s wind or a new obstacle like rain (or even a damn riptide), Love begins to sink despite the valiant efforts of its mesmerizing cast to try and make us believe that they've had a trustworthy compass they’ve been following all along. Instead, it feels like there were a few script changes and rewrites in the final act that didn't make this transition to film any smoother.

Nonetheless buoyed by some genuinely poetic dialogue and marvelously sophisticated subtextual layers early on (as Nikki is offered a museum ticket to an exhibit called “In Pursuit of the Past” just before she first lays eyes on Harris), it’s clear how much skill Posin and McDuffie have to build tension and create drama.

I just wish they would have dedicated as much energy to the second half as they did to the first.

Frustratingly, they introduce some terrific ingredients in addition to Nikki’s “alive” line that go nowhere but could’ve salvaged the film and led us everywhere, including making us realize fairly early that her neighbor had been hopelessly in love with Nikki for years, much like Stewart’s gal pal in Vertigo.

From a wasted subplot and supporting role for her daughter (the talented Good Wife actress Weixler) to some gorgeous cinematography by Spanish cameraman Antonio Riestra, there’s a much stronger film buried somewhere beneath the idea, the intent, the script and the footage that was shot than the one that wound up on the screen.

From the universally relatable premise of wanting more time with someone we’ve loved and lost to the fact that this film, which feature’s Bening’s most radiant turn in years comes from such a raw personal place for Posin (as it was inspired by a chance sighting of a lookalike by his widowed mother), the end result isn’t half as effective as it should’ve been.

Luckily and thanks to the talent of the cast and crew who’ve accumulated twenty Oscar nods between them, even though it loses its way around the middle of this succinct 92 minute feature, The Face of Love looks very different to us all.

And at the very least there’s something lovably genuine about Posin's well-intentioned but flawed endeavor from the lyrical line reads to the heartbreak of Robin Williams (alongside Bening and Harris) that makes Love worthy of taking the face time to see it for yourself.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: The Birdcage (1996)

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Blu-ray Introduction:

"I feel like I’m insane!" Gene Hackman’s conservative senator exclaims mere moments after he had been so fooled by Nathan Lane’s drag masquerade as an old-fashioned housewife (while pretending to be the prospective mother-in-law of Hackman’s daughter played by Calista Flockhart), that the senator had raved, "they don’t make women like that anymore."

And although he’s in a state of shock because he’d been hoodwinked as a straight man, one of the most endearing aspects about The Birdcage is how well the filmmakers and actors worked together to establish characters that we instantly understand even without language.

For example, in an earlier act when Lane enters the frame wearing a suit – initially ready to play the part of "the uncle" of the biological son (Dan Futterman) of his partner (Robin Williams) whom he'd raised his whole life – we can feel the heartbreak, tension and dismay practically waft from the screen directly into our living room.

A film about being true to who you are and the true (and evolving) definition of family, while The Birdcage may have been behind in the times with regard to gay stereotypes, it was ahead of its time in foreshadowing the progress this country has made in the fight for equal rights.

Nearly twenty years ago when the MGM/Fox film was released, a modern family that’s accepted on the same level as the one on Fox’s contemporary ABC sitcom Modern Family was just a hopeful fairytale that gay parents would’ve undoubtedly raised their child on, telling him tales of future acceptance to ensure sweet dreams at bedtime.

Roughly twenty years later, that dream has become a pop culture reality even if the U.S. is still slow to grant gay couples the equal rights they deserve in life.

And while yes, it’s slightly dated, it’s also anachronistic given its forward thinking approach as we watch the gay leads plan for their future together (signing palimony papers and discussing joint burial plots) and marvel at the realization that the 1996 blockbuster is in all actuality a remake of a foreign film that had been released nearly twenty years before that. Thus The Birdcage is part of a much larger conversation that's been going on for over forty years on screens both big and small.

Optically The Birdcage has always been bombastic and bright as noteworthy cinematography and an emphasis on visual storytelling has been a trademark of director Mike Nichols since the beginning of his auspicious career, as evidenced in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate in particular.

But now that the film has been transferred to stiletto-sharp Blu-ray high definition, the vibrant world of not only Miami but also the dream factory of the "fairy dust, fairy dust, fairy dust" and "Fosse, Fosse, Fosse" filled club the men run below their South Beach apartment comes wondrously alive.

Not only can you see each and every sequin, seam, and false eyelash but you can practically feel the texture of the fabric of The Birdcage’s costumes, with which the onscreen actors and offscreen filmmakers (including future helmer Rodrigo Garcia who worked on the film as a camera operator) brought so delightfully to life.

And while it might threaten to drive a straight-laced, right-wing senator crazy, it’s exactly the thing to drive a mainstream audience into crazy fits of laughter with enough empathy and open-mindedness to help ensure that a prejudicial society (rather than its characters) are the recurring punchline.

Original Review:

(Published 6/22/10)

Mike Nichols’s old comedy partner Elaine May adapted this wildly raucous remake of the ’78 foreign film La Cage Aux Folles that managed to remain both true to the plot and even a majority of the dialogue of the original work but ensure that leads Robin Williams and Nathan Lane would have plenty of room to improvise.

Despite its tremendous box office returns, upon its release reaction to the work was somewhat divided. Namely, half of the audience seemed unable to look past the stereotype embodied particularly by Lane as Albert, the partner of Williams’ Armand who also works as the headliner at their Miami South Beach drag club.

Meanwhile the other half of the audience was extremely impressed by the way the actors transcends the stereotype to truly get straight audiences to look past orientation and empathize with the couple when Armand’s son begs them to play straight for his fiance’s extremely conservative parents (Gene Hackman and Dianne Weist).

While I can see both sides of the argument, I tend to lean towards the latter reaction as Nichols’ film marks the first gay-themed film that I ventured to the theatre to see growing up as a straight, suburban teen.

The fact that I wasn’t alone in the audience as a heterosexual fully involved in the plight of the characters to me makes the film a resounding success in subtly getting the message out about tolerance, acceptance and respecting everyone’s rights to live as equals.

Yet by adding in a spoonful of sugar, the filmmakers manage to consistently leave viewers in hysterics – smiling and laughing at something we may not have otherwise experienced while opening our eyes to other points-of-view.

With a far superior third act to the original film that works better on both a comedic level with Lane managing to win over a clueless Hackman as the son’s old-fashioned homemaker "mother" and likewise winning back our respect for their selfish son with some tender declarations, The Birdcage remains one of Williams’ most triumphant comedies in a decade that also scored the actor a hit in another drag related comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013)

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Before it was ever put into words, from his youngest days working under a sadistic boss on a cotton farm to his thirty-plus years spent serving eight U.S. presidents as a White House butler, Cecil Gaines understood precisely what was meant when he was advised to possess two faces – his own and the one he would show to white folks.

 

While that sentiment alone has slavery era literary roots, in director Lee Daniels’ The Butler, which was written by Emmy award-winning historical screenwriter Danny Strong, it serves as something beyond mere advice to become an actual way of life for the eponymous lead portrayed by Forest Whitaker in a role that was inspired by – (read: very loosely based upon) – fact.

Gorgeously crafted and undeniably well-intentioned with all departments from cinematography and production design to hair and makeup firing on all cylinders, one of The Butler’s biggest problems in fact is its picture-perfect, museum-like approach to its subject matter.

From its convenient plot points that hit the desired emotional beats at precisely the right time to some awkward transitions between presidential administrations, everything feels so extremely choreographed that most of what occurs onscreen ends up feeling melodramatically manipulative rather than natural. The end result is a film that holds us at arm’s length rather than one that successfully transports us into the film to fully buy into the story the filmmaker is trying to tell.

And while their names and faces looks great on a poster, the Cameo Carousel approach of offering viewers a Where’s Waldo like game of “Spot the Movie Star” – wherein a new A-lister enters and exists every ten minutes as if part of a Hollywood parade –  pulls us out of the plot with each new walk-on and detracts from the work as a whole.

From a storytelling standpoint, this gimmick makes the episodic nature of Strong’s script that much more apparent. But more troublingly it calls far too much attention to itself as one by one we identify the movie star currently onscreen and just as frequently find ourselves disappointed by the casting choice of selecting someone for the sake of name recognition rather than addressing the question of whether or not they’re actually right for the role or look anything like the people they’re supposed to play.

While the actors try their best with Liev Schreiber’s fiery Lyndon Johnson a film highlight, when most feel so grossly miscast, what it ultimately boils down to is stunt casting and it’s condescending to its audience – making the whole picture less effective all-around.

And at the same time, the commanding lead turns by not only Whitaker but in a surprisingly powerful supporting role by Oprah Winfrey (that reminds us just how effective she was in Spielberg’s The Color Purple), help anchor the film and prove just how beneficial it can be to cast the right actors in the right parts. Winfrey is so good in fact that it makes us wish she’d spend more time acting and less time focusing on conquering the small screen as a media mogul.

While she’s a bit shortchanged in her performance due to peculiar editing choices that force us to guess far more than we’d like about particular indiscretions or behavioral motivations of the character based on a look here or a throwaway line there, her scenes with Whitaker are the strongest in the picture.

In fact, the two are so good together that it makes you wish the film was far more emotionally riveting than it actually turned out to be, not only to be worthier of the audience but to its stars as well.

While nowhere near as naturalistic and impactful as another 2013 film that Whitaker was involved with behind the scenes while serving as the producer on another biographical effort Fruitvale Station, (which incidentally shares today's release date with The Butler), the stunning production values and stellar turns at the heart of the film make it worthy of at least one spin.

And while every fiber of my being wanted to like the picture and indeed, Lee Daniels’ The Butler appears to be as eager to please as Gaines was in his White House role, nearly stamping “For Your Awards Consideration” onto each gorgeously composed frame of this Forrest Gump-like ode to old-fashioned storytelling, it just doesn’t live up to its enormous ambition or potential.

 

Instead of merely presenting both of Gaines’s faces to the audience, this Butler tries to be all things to all people. From the gross manipulation of the facts that were either heightened or completely changed for maximum soap-opera effect to not having enough faith in Gaines’s plotline so that they had to invent a fictional militant son to serve as a political counterpoint for the era, this Butler is a mess of a missed opportunity.

For one of the greatest problems is that we’ve seen the alternate histories of the ‘60s done so many times before that the fictionalized Freedom Rider turned Black Panther son should’ve been left on the cutting room floor altogether.

As instead of Vietnam War unrest and civil disobedience struggles we’ve faced onscreen before, the thing we’d never encountered is the story of Cecil Gaines and unfortunately, it’s his story that Daniels and Strong seemed least interested in telling (aside from a chosen anecdote here or there).

And while I can only yearn for what was missed and indeed can’t critique a film I wasn’t shown, you can’t tell me that serving eight presidents didn’t generate enough valid material for a great movie. Unfortunately the one we’re left with is beautifully executed enough but far too bland for us to remember anything about The Butler we were so looking forward to getting to know.

Using the same manipulative tricks he employed in Precious, Daniels knows how to play his audience like a fiddle, while also inspiring some staggeringly raw, honest performances. But unfortunately this time around he doesn’t achieve the impact we’d been braced for by all the pomp and circumstance established by the film’s first act build-up or the promise of its award season campaign.

While worth a look for history buffs as well as Whitaker fans – with the caveat that it’s also a good idea to seek out the original source material to separate the small amount of fact from a massive amount of fiction – ultimately history will be the best judge of the film’s longevity long after award season passes and those easily influenced by it will be able to watch with more perspective.

Of course, it could become a cult classic in future years but something tells me that producer Whitaker’s masterfully made Fruitvale Station will far surpass Lee Daniels’ The Butler not only with regard to Forest Whitaker but in terms of the cinematic year of 2013 in general, inspiring future generations to come with its celebration of life on a small scale vs. this star-studded, sprawling soap.    

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: The Cinema Pride Collection

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The Children’s Hour (1961)

With the censoring Hays Code no longer in effect, director William Wyler remade his own 1936 film These Three, which was based on Lillian Hellman’s critically acclaimed stage play about two schoolteachers whose life, work and status in the community is ruined when a young bullying student outs the women as lesbians by spreading cruel lies comprised of exaggerating snippets of conversations she and other students overheard.

While the ’36 version changed the plot drastically to a heterosexual affair that divides the women’s friendship, in this adaptation by screenwriter John Michael Hayes, Hellman’s original source material (inspired by a real life story about two Scottish teachers) was translated in an extremely faithful and still devastatingly intense work.

And directing the woman he helped introduce to the world – Audrey Hepburn – in a role unlike any she’d previously tackled makes The Children’s Hour quite the conversation starter. However, Hepburn’s co-star Shirley MacLaine admits that the two women never did discuss the real nature of their characters’ relationship and instead played it straight from the page since the topic was still scandalous onscreen for the time. Nonetheless The Children’s Hour, which also features a top notch supporting turn by James Garner in his first role since suing Warner Brothers to be released from his Maverick contract, remains just as haunting as it always did nearly fifty years after its release.

La Cage Aux Folles (1978)

Whereas it took The Children’s Hour decades to be filmed in a way that closely matched the original play, 1978’s La Cage Aux Folles only took five years since its stage debut to become an international box office film sensation.

The Italian and French production maintained the best of both countries in terms of cinema with the brilliant employment of Italian composer Ennio Morricone to complete a memorable film score for the piece to augment its naturally funny set-up as a pitch-perfect French comedic character driven work, co-written by Francis Veber who has since become synonymous with the country’s film industry comedy scene.

In the film, after long-term gay couple Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) and Albin (Michel Serrault) discover that Renato’s beloved twenty-year straight son (Remi Laurent) is getting married to a girl with ultra conservative parents, the two theatrical entertainers undergo the challenge of a lifetime. Forced to play it straight, the couple winds up hosting a family dinner for their prospective in-laws all within a less than forty-eight hour time span.

Having spawned a successful franchise of two sequels, a superior yet extremely faithful American remake in the mid ‘90s and a Broadway musical production as well, it's a fascinating experiment to watch Edouard Molinaro’s terrifically funny foreign classic before you visit one of the other interpretations.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

Originally made for television, the fifth film from Oscar nominated director Stephen Frears based on a screenplay from respected yet frequently controversial playwright Hanef Kureishi helped launch not only the careers of those behind the camera (as just three years later Frears made a Hollywood splash with Dangerous Liasions) but also solidified the extraordinary burgeoning talent of eventual Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis.

Going for a rather matter-of-fact treatment of homosexuality, the orientation of its main character Omar (Gordon Warnecke) — the Pakistani-British young man torn between loyalties to his relatives and ancestral culture and his dedication to life among his friends in ‘80s Thatcher era Britain — often takes a backseat to the political, sociological and economical issues facing society during that time.

Filled with unexpected comedy, pathos and a richly complex cast of characters including scene-stealer Day-Lewis as an old schoolmate and childhood friend of Omar’s who has become part of a racist band of hoodlums in recent years, My Beautiful Laundrette works well on a number of levels.

Despite a slightly protracted and overly slick ending, its overall authenticity in capturing the time, place, and feeling of economic hardship during the Thatcher years along with the growing prejudice in the streets as immigrants began running local businesses makes My Beautiful Laundrette an emotionally engrossing document of its era.

One of the standouts in this box set, Laundrette is a far cry better than the pretentious Bent or thinly drawn Imagine Me & You. And while you may wind up wishing Kureishi had decided to give the work a far more memorable and serious title, there’s still no denying its importance as an early showcase for audiences to discover just how well Frears manages to pull us into the worlds of his films and – much like his uniformly strong casts – make us feel as though we're part of the onscreen family.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

Although it’s a far cry better than Hollywood’s “three drag queens on the road” vehicle To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, I’m afraid that much like the play and movie inspired by the ABBA song featured in the film – “Mamma Mia” – I just don’t understand why this Australian import has reached camp/cult status.

While admittedly Priscilla has the makings of a camp classic, just based on the fact that Stephan Elliott’s film features British New Wave bad boy Terrence Stamp in a role as a transsexual but the movie is rather manic in its tone – never sure if it wants to just shoot for the moon as a drag queen extravaganza or get serious in the midst some pretty harrowing scenes of violent homophobia.

In addition to Priscilla’s identity crisis, one of the main characters played by Memento star Guy Pearce is so over-the-top and irritating that you find yourself ready to press eject if onscreen queens Stamp and Hugo Weaving don’t eject him from the bus for more than just one night on their journey across the outback. This being said, there’s not a whole lot I can rave about Priscilla aside from its Oscar winning costume design and a multi-layered beautiful turn by Golden Globe nominated Stamp whose supporting role becomes the one we’re touched by the most throughout the film's running time.

The Birdcage (1996)

Mike Nichols’s old comedy partner Elaine May adapted this wildly raucous remake of the ’78 foreign film La Cage Aux Folles that managed to remain both true to the plot and even a majority of the dialogue of the original work but ensure that leads Robin Williams and Nathan Lane would have plenty of room to improvise.

Despite its tremendous box office returns, upon its release reaction to the work was somewhat divided. Namely, half of the audience seemed unable to look past the stereotype embodied particularly by Lane as Albert, the partner of Williams’ Armand who also works as the headliner at their Miami South Beach drag club.

Meanwhile the other half of the audience was extremely impressed by the way the actors transcends the stereotype to truly get straight audiences to look past orientation and empathize with the couple when Armand’s son begs them to play straight for his fiance’s extremely conservative parents (Gene Hackman and Dianne Weist).

While I can see both sides of the argument, I tend to lean towards the latter reaction as Nichols’ film marks the first gay-themed film that I ventured to the theatre to see growing up as a straight, suburban teen.

The fact that I wasn’t alone in the audience as a heterosexual fully involved in the plight of the characters to me makes the film a resounding success in subtly getting the message out about tolerance, acceptance and respecting everyone’s rights to live as equals. Yet by adding in a spoonful of sugar, the filmmakers manage to consistently leave viewers in hysterics – smiling and laughing at something we may not have otherwise experienced while opening our eyes to other points-of-view.

With a far superior third act to the original film that works better on both a comedic level with Lane managing to win over a clueless Hackman as the son’s old-fashioned homemaker "mother" and likewise winning back our respect for their selfish son with some tender declarations, The Birdcage remains one of Williams’ most triumphant comedies in a decade that also scored the actor a hit in another drag related comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire.

Bent (1997)

Although it would take me another year or two to officially “discover” Clive Owen in Mike Hodges’ terrific contemporary film noir Croupier, the actor who’d first received his big break earlier in the ‘90s in Britain’s ITV series Chancer took on a rather daring role in playwright Martin Sherman’s adaptation of his own 1979 stage work Bent.

Relishing in extremely graphic images of the hedonistic lifestyle of sexually adventurous Berlin residents in the WWII era (including a cameo by Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger as a drag performer), director Sean Matthias' Cannes award winning film earned a dreaded NC-17 rating. However, if it were released today (in the post Talk to Her society of films by Pedro Almodovar among others), I doubt that the same rating would still hold up.

While stunning, it’s a shame that so much emphasis was placed on the production design and exhibitionist sequences that kick-start the movie. As the work continues and Clive Owen’s gay character lands in the concentration camp at Dachau – managing to work out a deal and accept the Jewish designated yellow star as opposed to the gay pink triangle – the film could’ve benefited from the same attention to detail utilized in the beginning.

Similar to the far stronger 1985 screen interpretation of Kiss of the Spider Woman, Bent unfortunately remains extremely stagey throughout. Therefore, despite an excellent turn by both Owen and his co-star Lothaire Bluteau who portrays a fellow camp prisoner given the dreaded pink triangle which he describes as the lowest one can get, the film never manages to reach us on an authentic emotional level since it can’t help feeling like something akin to a play that’s simply been captured on celluloid.

The Object of My Affection (1998)

Working from Stephen McCauley’s eponymous novel, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein crafts some truly dazzling speeches for lead actors Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in British director Nicholas Hytner’s underrated effort. Although there’s a lot about the work that doesn’t ring true from a logistical standpoint as characters all click into place for a cookie cutter, politically correct conclusion, the film has nonetheless been a bit too harshly judged.

When viewed today, it’s easy to understand why it’s been dismissed by critics in retrospect as either an Aniston film shot to capitalize on the popularity of the Friends actress whose hairstyle became a ‘90s craze or just another straight woman/gay best friend clichéd flick that became trendy during the era of Will and Grace, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Madonna and Rupert Everett’s similar venture The Next Best Thing. However, when you try to remain objective and remove the tidal waves of Friends and gay best friend trends, you’re left with much to admire thanks largely to Wasserstein’s compassionate script that centers on misplaced love in all arenas from straight to gay and platonic to romantic as the film’s characters fall in love with the wrong people at the right time or vice versa.

Equally dedicated to their work with the next generation of New York youths, Rudd’s gay first grade teacher George Harrison meets and quickly becomes fast friends and roommates with Aniston’s at-risk teenage counselor Nina Borowski shortly after George discovers from Nina that he’s been dumped by his boyfriend Tim Daly. Happier spending time together than with those they’re dating including Nina’s overbearing, fast-talking boyfriend Vince (John Pankow), the two friends seriously consider becoming their own makeshift family when Nina learns that she’s pregnant and realizes that she’d rather raise the baby with George rather than Vince.

And despite the fact that her step-sister (Allison Janney) warns Nina that she’s harboring more romantic than platonic feelings for her gay knight in shining armor given their already confusing and rather physically affectionate personal boundaries, it takes awhile for our leads to stop rationalizing and move from fantasy to reality in realizing what it is they truly want and need from one another.

Object is bolstered by some superb characterizations from its supporting cast, particularly Nigel Hawthorne as Rodney, a friend the two make late into the picture after George begins to move on with his love life. And although the movie does suffer slightly from its protracted, far too neat wrap-ups for its large ensemble cast, it’s well-worth exploring again the second time around to see what you may have missed in the midst of so much hype during your first viewing when it was nearly impossible to see Aniston in something and not think “that’s Rachel Green!”

Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

Now a contemporary classic, co-writer and director Kimberly Peirce’s feature film debut Boys Don’t Cry starring Hilary Swank in her first Oscar winning role as Best Actress is arguably the most critically acclaimed inclusion in The Cinema Pride Collection. And after watching the film today, it's damn near impossible to imagine what the true story of the short life and tragic death of twenty-one year old Teena Brandon would’ve been like if directed by interested party Diane Keaton with actress Drew Barrymore in the lead.

While obviously the professional, impressive women would no doubt have taken the responsibility of the work seriously, I think a large reason why Boys works so extraordinarily well is that aside from starring in The Next Karate Kid, Hilary Swank was relatively unknown to us at the time of its release. Likewise, Peirce’s passion for the project which manifested during a five year research mission and an award-winning Columbia University precursor short film that helped generate her funding and connections to get the feature produced made the resulting ’99 effort far more personal, heartfelt and intimate.

With so many underdogs involved in the production of Boys overcoming obstacles to live out their dreams similar to the person whose story they gathered to tell that stepped to the beat of her own personal drummer, the movie transcends the limits of both cinema and its delicate subject matter. Ultimately the film impacts viewers personally so that everyone can identify with Brandon’s sole wish just to live life while remaining true to herself. In Brandon’s case this mission meant that the female who was born with the name of Teena Brandon would embrace and overcome her “sexual identity crisis” by living her life pre-sex change operation as a male, flipping her name around to become Brandon Teena.

Careful not to gloss over anything regarding Brandon’s life and transform the character into some sort of symbol or icon, Peirce presents us with the pain, passion, and perseverance of the Nebraska individual through choices Brandon made that were both wise and foolish.

Shortly into the film, Brandon gets kicked out of her gay cousin’s place. Skipping out on authorities and a subpoena for her arrest, she befriends Candace (Alicia Goranson) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) after a bar fight.

Once John intervenes in the scuffle, he takes his new pal Brandon down to their place in Falls City, Nebraska where Brandon – still presenting himself as the boy he’s convinced he is rather than a female lesbian – quickly falls in love with John’s old flame Lana (Oscar nominated Chloe Sevigny).

As their relationship heats up so does suspicion regarding Brandon. Unfortunately nobody could’ve predicted how horrifying the turn of events would be when the truth about Brandon is finally revealed to deadly effect.

Pulling no punches, Boys Don’t Cry's extended attack and rape sequence nearly garnered the title an NC-17 rating and it's downright excruciating to watch given its stark authenticity. Yet even though admittedly, Peirce’s extraordinary docudrama isn’t the type of work I can imagine wanting to view more than once, it’s one that I feel would benefit us all to be shown in high schools in order to open up a dialogue and ensure that teens and young adults feel safe in expressing their own identity without fear of hatred, violence and murder.

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)

Although described by Helen (Heather Juergensen) as the “Jewish Sandra Dee,” twenty-eight year old copyeditor and secretly aspiring painter Jessica Stein (Jennifer Westfeldt) initially reminds audience members of a “Jewish Annie Hall.” And this is especially apparent near the start of the film as the woman whom her matchmaking mother reminds her hasn’t dated anyone in a year endures a series of bad dates with a wide variety of men from fellow gym enthusiasts to those overly picky about how to break up the dinner bill.

And even though she explains that she could never tell her therapist because it’s way too private, somehow – beat down way too much by horrible dates and mixed signals – Jessica answers a personal ad placed by another seemingly straight woman in the form of Juergensen’s Helen, which grabs her attention thanks to its beautiful quote by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Walking back and forth from Helen repeatedly when they first meet as a freaked out Jessica tries to hail a cab, soon she surprises herself completely. After letting the possibility of sharing a drink with Helen “marinate” for awhile, soon enough those baby steps lead her to begin tentatively dating the heterosexually promiscuous museum curator, despite the fact that physical intimacy is something she still balks at much like the virginal Doris Day in old Rock Hudson sexless sex comedies.

Further complicating matters when her old college boyfriend and newspaper editor boss Josh (Scott Cohen) starts getting far more interested in her personal life to the point that he actually becomes nicer to her at work, Jessica finds herself in one confusing romantic comedy that sparkles with wit, appealing characters, and fresh conversation based upon Westfeldt and Juergensen’s original play Lipschtick.

One of the first movies to digitally remove background images of the World Trade Center, tragically the quintessentially Woody Allenesque New York movie played on the day before and after 9/11/01 during the Toronto International Film Festival in its second festival premiere. However the talented scribes’ inventive work, helmed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, still remains a remarkably funny, unfailingly likable, and surprisingly unique look at being single in the States.

Imagine Me &You (2006)

Before the minister asked attendees if there were any objections to the marriage of Rachel (Piper Perabo) and Heck (Matthew Goode), perhaps it would’ve been better if he’d checked with the bride. In writer/director Ol Parker’s debut film, pretty and thoughtful Rachel is all set to marry her best friend Heck but finds herself pulled by unexpected stirrings on the way to the altar after she catches sight of Luce (Lena Headey), the beautiful florist her mother had hired to piece together the bouquets and arrangements for Rachel’s big day.

At the reception, the two become fast friends when Luce rescues Rachel’s oversized wedding ring from the party punch bowl. And although Rachel tells husband Heck that she feels a certain near soul-mate like friendship connection with Luce, she and Heck decide to play matchmaker by inviting Luce and Heck’s obnoxious humorous admittedly cad like friend (as is always the case in British comedies) to dinner but before he arrives, Luce admits that she’s just not that into men.

Her confession complicates Rachel’s ability to spend time with her new friend, not out of prejudice but the opposite as she begins to see that her lifestyle may be the one Rachel had belonged in all along, although Luce tries to distance herself from her acquaintance not wanting to mess with a couple’s happiness.

Despite the overly polite and – as several critics pointed out – unbelievably convenient and nearly apologetically chaste proceedings that made Imagine Me and You the second ’06 film including the bright but admittedly far fetched Gray Matters to deal with a marital love triangle and female’s coming out, the charms of not only Headey and Goode but especially the always under-utilized Piper Perabo make it entertaining.

Although as a straight filmgoer, I can see the arguments of my gay friends in their opposition to the trite plot points and feel this may have begun in the film’s initial stages as it was originally written as a heterosexual love story, it’s still another forgettable, escapist British comedy that’s sure to delight.


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FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Text Copyright © 2014, Film Intuition. All Rights Reserved. http://reviews.filmintuition.com/

DVD Review: Rona Barrett's Hollywood: Nothing But the Truth (2008)

Own It On DVD
From Infinity Entertainment
2/10/09

One Dollar from Every DVD Sold Goes to
The Rona Barrett Foundation for
Helping the Elderly Poor

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Working in the entertainment news industry for more than thirty years, veteran daily broadcaster and celebrity interviewer Rona Barrett is indeed as Infinity Entertainment Group notes, "a true pioneer and innovator." Leaving behind the overly formal television studio styled interviews we see on most broadcast and cable network shows that puts celebrity guests in the hot seat, Barrett's approach was simple, genuine, empathetic and direct.

With, as she admits, a true interest in "what makes people tick" and a commitment to "never ask a question I couldn't answer myself," (should she ever be in the interviewees' shoes), she was the first to "conceive the 'coffee klatch' style now embraced by other top journalists," as celebrities opened their doors and lives up to Rona and chatted with her as though "they were with an old friend."

There's an old quote that unfortunately after an hour of digging I cannot locate to reference directly so forgive my paraphrasing and it states that if one is fortunate enough for whatever reason to live an extraordinary life, one has no business keeping that to themselve. And so it is to our great pleasure that Ms. Barrett, who introduces the first in her series of interview DVDs serves up snippets of eleven of her most memorable interviews from stars ranging from John Wayne to Carol Burnett.

Having been acquainted with Cher since she was just a kid-- roughly around the time she was to marry Sonny Bono at age 16-- Rona visits the successful singer at home with the two relaxing on her large bed as though they were sisters as Cher candidly opens up about her recent divorce from Bono and new relationship with Greg Allman (who would become her second husband).

Confessing that she knew from an early age that she didn't want to continue life as a poor young woman who felt ugly as the only non-blonde in a family of blondes, Cher reveals the way she practiced signing autographs at age twelve and the frank discussions she had with both her mother and Bono that although she may not be the prettiest or the most talented, there was something unique about her. Admitting that her whole life revolved around Bono who waited months to even hold her hand, Cher is refreshingly able to speak lovingly about her ex whom she felt had become like family in sharing that she would always love him.

Just one of the singers and famous women Barrett includes on the disc as there's another interview of a similar vein with Priscilla Presley-- whose marriage to Elvis, Barrett had been the first one to break. Catching up with Presley now a little over a year following his death as a poised Presley recalls both the great times and the hard times of living with the King whose happiness was of the utmost importance to her. She shares that Elvis Presley's ease and genuine love for people will be the one thing that their daughter Lisa Marie would inherit, following his shocking passing.

Perhaps the most articulate singer Barrett interviews on the disc is the remarkably intelligent Donna Summer-- always underrated in my opinion-- who discusses the impact that such a frankly sexual hit like "Love to Love You Baby," had on the otherwise shy, comedy prone, and devoutly religious young woman so that she wasn't sure she wanted to leave the house for awhile. Ultimately looking back and noting that, "I'm a coat of many colors, you're just seeing one stripe," as the quintessentially graceful response to those who pigeonhole her as simply a sexy diva-- Summer shares her dedication to her craft and the way that in the end, she feels that to work in show business requires a sense of masochism, especially in the music industry where love and hate flow side by side as it beats you one week and you beat it the next.

Another woman who always fell prey to that double-edged sword-- Ms. Raquel Welch shares the similar way that her looks were used to define her range as a performer and while she freely admits that even at age seven she realized she received attention just walking around in ballet toe shoes due to her beauty and later used that to her advantage, she was relishing with Barrett in the opportunity to show the real side of herself that few people know.

Perhaps the most gripping portion of the disc contains a segment with Carol Burnett that quickly had me in tears in this 1976 interview in which Barrett asks her about her horrific tragedy prone life growing up as the child of two alcoholics. With the utmost of clarity and bravery, she recalls the bold decision she made as a young woman barely scraping by in New York to return home and take over as guardian of her twelve year old sister. Absolutely devastating yet extraordinarily courageous-- Burnett proves to be yet another one of those comedians who turned to laughter out of misery in order to mask a pain so deep that no one would be able to decipher it on the surface.

While Burnett safely reveals her history with Barrett, it's interesting to take a look at two interviews with Robin Williams just a few months apart before and after the start of the astronomical success of Mork and Mindy as he is unable to sit still, taking on voices and jumping topics throughout as Mork in the first one and then becoming a bit more composed in the second, speaking to her as Robin.

Noting another performer who changed in a short period-- Barrett offers a significant interview with John Travolta, just following the burial of his mother which finds him matured incredibly over the year following the success of Saturday Night Fever where he reveals that he felt his greatest ambition and goal was to continue to inspire others such as helping breaking gender stereotypical boundaries to encourage men to dance (via Fever, Grease and many others). Moreover, Travolta states that the ultimate legacy to which he aspires to leave would be to add positive inspiration to a life that is filled with so much negativity, in a way that makes contemporary viewers feel especially heartbroken realizing the tragic loss of his son Jett.

In two other interviews that break free of traditional gender stereotypes, fans who may have shortchanged Burt Reynolds as simply a car driving sex symbol and former stuntman get an intimate look at the man. Within moments, he shares his insecurities about his appearance (including one politically incorrect ethnic description), hints at the wound left by the press over his relationship with his best friend and former lover, the older "America's sweetheart" Dinah Shore, and mentions his desire to remain a bachelor but adopt a child so that he can become a father.

Much like Richard Dreyfuss, who is also interviewed, Reynolds rejects the notion that there's something wrong for men to remain bachelors although in Dreyfuss' case, it seems to have been a decision made at a young age as he shared in 1981 that he'd been openly opposed to marriage his entire life. While he doesn't like loneliness, he also confesses that although he doesn't believe he could be involved with just one person, he refutes any immature playboy labels by candidly revealing that sex is just extremely unimportant to him and that he's almost always embarrassingly been less interested in the act itself rather than foreplay (which he considers himself far more into as a "foreplay junkie").

Although Barrett's summation following each interview which she introduces and segues from into the next piece revealed that Dreyfuss has not only been married three times since that interview but also had three children, she also commends his willingness to open up about his history with drugs and bipolar disorder as promoting honesty and awareness about those extremely important issues.

However, it's the second interview included on the disc-- Barrett's final interview with John Wayne-- which is a bittersweet treat for fans as we see him just out of the hospital in one of his last public appearances before his death from cancer. Understandably sure that he would cancel and want his rest and privacy, Barrett fondly recalls the way that she heard The Duke in the background yell, "Tell Rona to come on down."

Sharing an easy rapport with a man she considers one of her favorite people of all time, courageously Barrett gives Wayne the opportunity to impart any wishes or second thoughts, asking him about regrets or if he'd do anything differently if he had the chance and while he said there were times he admits he lost his temper or said some things he probably shouldn't have, in the end, he would do it the same way all over again.

Clocking in at only a nice ninety minute running time with a bonus feature entitled Rona's Story-- it's fascinating material and while some interviews (including Carol Burnett's) seem much more compelling than others (Raquel Welch's) and we longed for more, despite the loads of tissues I was grabbing for during the Burnett segment, luckily it's been stated that this is the first in a series of DVDs Ms. Barrett is releasing.

An important piece of twentieth century American history containing some great insights into the way our society and gender roles evolved over the years, these are much more than the type of Access Hollywood tabloid style interviews we see today or low-class gossip pieces about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, or Britney Spears.

A reminder that television interviewing is an art form and that one must be empathetic, nonjudgmental and willing to ask the tough questions in the right way-- it's an important documentary for those in what has sadly become our paparazzi styled celebrity news industry and a wonderful addition for pop culture fans wanting to know the humans behind the personas. However, perhaps the best surprise is that one dollar of each DVD Sold goes to help elderly citizens without the economic resources the chance to go into assisted living through The Rona Barrett Foundation.

TV on DVD: Inside the Actors Studio: Robin Williams

Admittedly he's been lampooned by Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live for his overwhelming tendency to gush and feign excitement at even the most regrettable films of an actor's career. However, aside from that and the fact that he bears an uncanny resemblance to my uncle Bob, thespian and author James Lipton's long-running Bravo series, Inside the Actors Studio has become an intellectual, illustrious staple for those with basic cable.

For more than twelve years, the admirably prepared and enviably brainy Lipton has interviewed more than two hundred guests. Smart television for smart people-- Studio is both deliciously fascinating and entertaining as it offers viewers a chance to see performers without a script. Guests are confronted by Lipton's famous and seemingly endless stack of cards and the now instantly recognizable French questionaire that ends the show as viewers get a true sense of just how much work goes into the craft of acting. To put it another way for those who have yet to catch the show, if Actors Studio were a newspaper, it would be The New York Times whereas the Barbara Walters Specials would probably morph into USA Today or People Magazine.

Beginning with biographical background information and asking probing, pointed questions about when the interviewee first caught the acting "bug," it's become a recurring theme of humble beginnings, early tragedies, and lonely childhoods as we listen to the entertainers say how they turned to performing just to be loved. Yet each episode is unique-- whether it involves Sean Penn breaking the "code" and lighting up a cigarette for the duration to Kevin Spacey imitating Al Pacino, or seeing refined actresses recite their favorite "curse word"- hands down the most famous show was when Robin Williams took the stage on January 29 of 2001.

The Robin Williams episode follows the successful release of other classic episodes including a 3-DVD Icons Box Set featuring the tragically late, great Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Barbara Streisand, and Clint Eastwood and another one for Leading Men which includes Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Sean Penn and Russell Crowe as well as individual discs for Johnny Depp, Dave Chapelle and others. And after the endless demand from over eighty-four countries of the series' most requested and popular episode, Inside the Actors Studio: Robin Williams has finally landed on DVD, thanks to Shout! Factory.

The first two hour episode in the history of the series as neither Bravo nor Lipton wished to cut any part of it-- James Lipton introduces the disc by giving us more inside information of the legendary evening when Robin Williams talked to the students and guests in a packed auditorium for more than five hours. Featuring never-before-seen extra footage that didn't make the original broadcast, Lipton also reveals that one audience member laughed so hard that they actually had to leave the theatre afterward by ambulance, having developed a hernia simply from viewing the hysterical comical genius live and in person. Sharing additional information that is also available in his behind-the-scenes book, Lipton explains that from the moment Robin Williams took the stage at 7:07, he took over and Lipton was unable to ask the first question for nine minutes, taking an additional seven to work his way to the second one.

From riffing about the idea that "legalized sanity" is like having "voluntary Tourettes," or hypothesizing what would happen if you gave Prozac to a cat or likening the Royal Family to the banjo playing kid in Deliverance, he leaves no joke untried or new character unexplored including his most famous bit about a drunken pilot that has since become used by an airline corporation.

Additionally, Williams chronicles his lonely childhood as a perpetual new kid always moving around with his "elegant" but busy father and "Christian Dior Scientist" mother he always wanted to make laugh. As he matured, he continues on about becoming a mime outside of the Met which he likened to being "naked at Yankee Stadium," up through Mork and Mindy, receiving an honorary degree from Julliard which he equates to a "Nerf vibrator," to the dark times or feeling like a "vampire with a day pass" during his period battling drug addiction.

However, for fans of the actor's extraordinary cinematic work, it's especially rewarding when he reveals the next phase of his life as he became a family man and over the years starred in memorable films such as Good Morning Vietnam, Aladdin, The Fisher King, Moscow on the Hudson, Awakenings, Dead Poet's Society, The Birdcage, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Good Will Hunting. Eventually a four time Oscar nominee (and winner for Hunting), Williams truly makes the most of his phenomenal ability to lose himself in whatever role he's playing-- effortlessly moving from comedy to drama.

While at times it's hard to keep up with his racing mind as even Lipton questions whether Williams just thinks faster than the rest of us, asking in exasperation, "what the hell is going on?" the DVD provides the best opportunity to savor every line and nuance. This is especially true since the disc encourages us to back up to catch a missed joke and try to somehow piece together his fascinating and awe-inspiringly random improvisational train of thought.

And whether he's taking a prop from the audience to use for an endlessly spontaneous several minutes of laughter to likening psychotherapy to a GPS system, discussing the fifty-two characters he played in Aladdin as the chance to do "a Warner Brothers cartoon in Disney drag," or speculating the way that Elmer Fudd could've played A Streetcar Named Desire, we're helplessly riveted to the screen.

While hopefully, you'll fare better than the attendee who developed a hernia, luckily laughter is the best medicine and for that we turn to Dr. Robin Williams on DVD, sure to turn anyone's frown upside down.