July 20–27, 2000
movies
Cinema Veri-Gay
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A Boy Named Sue |
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Venue Codes:
PMT: Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St.
RE: Ritz East, Second St. between Chestnut and Walnut Sts.
WT: Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St.
A Boy Named Sue (recommended) Not many of us get to witness the process of a sex change firsthand, but this superb documentary by Julie Wynman lets us do just that. The unflinching eye of the camera follows Sue/Theo’s transition from butch dyke to "big old bi-transman with a pussy," capturing the medical as well as emotional steps of the sex/gender change. Interviews with Theo’s friends and his insightful femme lover, Lisi, track how the changes in his body affect his relationships. Artfully shot and intensely gripping, Theo’s story focuses less on the whys of the sex change than the hows and, possibly most frightening and confusing, the "what next?". —Sara Marcus (July 20, 5:15 p.m., WT)
But I’m a Cheerleader (recommended) Jamie Babbit’s candy-colored satire is pure John Waters, right down to its Mink Stole. But if you’re going to copy someone, you might as well rip off the best. Natasha Lyonne, who seems the perfect suburban teen, is bundled off to a sexual reeducation camp when her parents (Stole and Bud Cort) start to wonder about the Melissa Etheridge posters on her wall. No surprise that her summer vacation has the opposite effect: Despite the best efforts of Cathy Moriarty and a dragless RuPaul, she finds herself enjoying the company of other Sapphists, and before you know it she’s struck up a romance with co-Out covergirl Clea DuVall (doing her best to channel James Dean). Babbit’s concoction is sometimes so light and fluffy you think it might evaporate, but it’s saved by the true noxiousness of the institutions it parodies, a real-world evil which lends the film much-needed weight. —Sam Adams (July 24, 7:30 p.m., PMT)
Could Be Worse! (recommended)A weirdly appealing mix of cheezy musical, home movie and reality TV. Boston filmmaker Zack Stratis somehow convinced his Greek-American parents Gus and Ollie and three grown siblings to star in a "Zackumentary" where they not only reveal intimate details of their lives but also sing, dance, act, wear funny costumes and make fools of themselves in front of the neighbors. Stratis doesn’t let himself off the hook, either; at one point he sings an excruciating number about "his frustrations with being gay," and a subtitle runs along the bottom of the screen saying, "Everyone begged me to cut this scene.… Even my mother said, ‘When I hear your voice, I just cringe.’" The self-consciousness of his approach yields dividends if you stick with it; the musical numbers are sometimes as hilarious as they are painful to watch, and the stilted "reenactments" of family tensions surrounding Gus and Ollie’s 50th wedding anniversary are tempered by one-on-one confessionals which amplify the themes of sexual and ethnic identity Stratis wants to stir up. He never does quite get the goods on his older brother Stathi, however. Stathi looks like a deer caught in headlights whenever the subject of gayness is broached, and his vital statistics seem to fit a certain demographic (slim, youthful, 50, apparently single, teaches dance, lives in Greece), but we’re left to draw our own conclusions. —David Warner (July 21, 7:30 p.m. & July 23, 2:45 p.m., RE)
Johnny Greyeyes We weave back and forth in time, watching Johnny and her brother Clay wrestle with their respective problems: a prison love affair for the incarcerated sister and a marginal street-musician life for the brother. The Chilean-Canadian writer-director Jorge Manzano bases his film on interviews with the Native Canadian women who apparently make up the bulk of the population of Western Canadian women’s prisons. The film is visually striking — with some beautiful vistas on the "rez" — but bland dialogue and flat delivery give the viewer little opportunity to be pulled into the sad story. —Stuart Semmel (July 22, 8 p.m., WT)
Journey Into a Hate Free Millennium This documentary about three hate crimes — the murder of Matthew Shepard, the dragging death of James Byrd, and the Columbine massacre — might work well in a high school classroom. But for anyone whose consciousness is already raised, it feels like watered-down Dateline. Interviews with victims’ family, friends and former teachers are affecting; musings by Elton John and Kathy Najimy don’t add anything. The title proves almost too apt: The film is so "hate-free" that little is done to fathom the killers, other than interview one former equal-opportunity hater (now a professional anti-hater). And is the free-floating rage of the suicidal Columbine killers really in the same category as focused racist or homophobic prejudice? —S.S. (July 20, 7:15 p.m., WT)
Just One Time An oafish comedy for fans of Kiss Me Guido (if such folks exist), writer/director/star Lane Janger’s hammy film involves a soon-to-be married couple whose male half is anxious to fulfill his fantasy of a three-way with his wife and another woman before their Catholic wedding vows explicitly forbid it. As their gay neighbors, Guillermo Diaz and Jennifer Esposito bring the picture much-needed sass, but even if they both were on screen in every scene, it wouldn’t help enough. —S.A. (July 21, 7:30 p.m. & July 22, 2:45 p.m., PMT)
Shadow Boxers Though it suffers in comparison to last year’s On The Ropes — simply because it doesn’t have a similarly one-of-a-kind story to tell — Katya Bankowsky’s film does have a compelling central figure in Lucia Rijker, the Dutch fighter usually considered the best woman in the sport. Though Rijker and her fellow fighters sometimes seem to be drawing their interview technique from Bull Durham’s Nuke LaLoosh, they’re at their best when describing what drives them to beat people senseless for a living. —S.A. (July 23, 7:15 p.m., RE)
Water Drops on Burning Rocks François Ozon (See the Sea, Sitcom) continues to direct like he’s trying to impress a date, but working from an unproduced play by 19-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder, he’s forced to slow things down a bit, which is by and large a good thing. The film begins with a 50-year-old salesman seducing a 20-year-old he’s just picked up, then grows more complicated as the latter’s fiancée and the former’s ex-wife come calling. Well filmed and acted, the film still suffers from a script suffused with a 19-year-old’s self-impressed nihilism, a theme that’s common to all of Ozon’s films. —S.A. (July 22, 7:30 p.m., RE)
