Back in Pink

Reviews from Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival - Week Two

Following are reviews of movies premiering in the second week of the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, July 19-24. Up to the day of the show, tickets may be purchased in person at TLA Video locations (11 a.m.-10 p.m.), by phone at 267-765-9700, ext. 4, and online at www.phillyfests.com (up to 24 hours in advance). Same-day tickets are available only at the screening venue. Tickets are $10. Coverage continues next week.

All times are p.m.

Recommended

Venue Codes: PMT = Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. | AB = Arts Bank, 601 S. Broad St. | WT = Wilma Theater, 256 S. Broad St.

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Anger Me

Outside of an opening toast by Jonas Mekas hailing its subject as a "great poet of cinema," Elio Gelmini's doc lets Kenneth Anger do all the talking. The pioneering avant-garde filmmaker and Hollywood Babylon author narrates his own autobiography against a green screen filled with stock footage and images from his films and life. Naturally, the film takes a wholly one-sided view, and Anger remains tight-lipped about his personal life in favor of a life in cinema � which leaves out a crucial part of the story in largely neglecting his sexuality and the impact it had on the course of independent filmmaking. But when not making film history, Anger always seemed to be in the right place to be an eyewitness to it, working under Henri Langlois at the Cinematheque Francaise or trolling through Italy in time to meet Fellini and Pasolini. The tale the near-80-year-old filmmaker tells is fascinating, even if it needs to be supplemented. �Shaun Brady (July 20, 10:00 AB; July 22, 9:30 WT)

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Born Again

Altoona-born Markie Hancock struggles to reconcile her attraction to women with her evangelical Christian upbringing in this grating personal documentary. Hancock's story is a poignant one, including diary entries that detail her (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to reconcile her faith and her sexuality, as well as her strained relationship with the members of her family who have continued in the church. (She is welcomed in her parents' house; her partner is not.) But the movie's solipsism is galling and eventually fatal. "I don't know what's worse," Hancocks says in voiceover, "the divide in my country or the divide in my family." Hancock grills her family from offscreen but stays safely behind the camera, questioning their beliefs but unchallenged in her own; when it comes to accounting for her problems, she says flatly, "I blame religion." The movie seems less like an attempt to understand her parents than one to get back at them. �Sam Adams (July 22, 2:30 PMT)

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Boy I Am

This moving portrait of transitioning F-to-Ms follows three individuals as they prepare for their mastectomies: Nicco, already deep into testosterone therapy, must raise money for the surgery. Keegan initially rejects full transition but believes surgery will ultimately be less painful than breast-binding. Norie has to find a new job after the procedure while his girlfriend must accept that her partner is becoming a man. Directors Sam Feder and Julie Hollar weave these stories with commentary from academics, activists and advocates, exploring what it means for feminists and the queer community that so many women, faced with the option, "give up the struggle." For all the theorizing, the film's three main subjects are sensitive, articulate individuals who passionately make the case that transition is not a choice. �Elisa Ludwig (July 22, 12:15 AB)

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The Bubble

"If only we could make all the politics disappear," muses one of the pie-eyed Israeli twentysomethings in Eytan Fox's uneven film. A sweet record store clerk in the midst of his military service, Noam (Ohad Knoller) meets Ashraf (Yousef Sweif) at a checkpoint confrontation, and the two begin a clandestine affair. A light-skinned Arab, Ashraf nervously takes a job in Tel Aviv, where Noam and his friends are planning a "rave for peace." Fox (Walk on Water) takes contagious pleasure in his characters hanging out and shooting the breeze, at least until the ugly mechanics of plot-making and lesson-teaching make themselves felt. It's never clear how Fox feels about their naivete, which he seems to criticize and envy in equal measure. �S.A. (July 20, 7:15 PMT; July 22, 2:15 PMT)

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The Daughters of Chiquita

Documentarian Priscilla Brasil's debut feature opens with a helicopter's-eye view of the Cirio de Nazaré in Belém, Brazil. The city is teeming with people, sweaty and sobbing, as the flower-festooned cavalcade of the Virgin Mary rolls through its streets. When the cameras sweep in, the focus shifts to the queer folks partying under the Chiquita banner, an LGBT celebration coincided with the blessed Cirio. "Transvestites and beef bunnies" come from all over the country to drink, dance, make out and pray. The event itself boasts a rich history. But 52 minutes of predictable interviews with glitter-faced drag queens (and the conservatives who loathe them) makes for a tell-nothing venture. �Ashlea Halpern (July 22, 9:15 AB)

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Each Time I Kill

(In)famous for the sci-fi nudie Nude on the Moon and for guiding the cartoonishly endowed Chesty Morgan through her pair (ahem) of features, Doris Wishman resumed filmmaking in 2001 after an 18-year hiatus, finishing principal photography on Each Time I Kill mere weeks prior to her 2002 death at the age of 90. Completed according to Wishman's notes, the posthumous shot-on-video slasher is true to the on-the-cheap auteur down to the dubbed voices and random cutaways to irrelevant objects � ceiling fans, feet, whatever, as long as it has no bearing on the plot. Said plot is a Twilight Zone castoff about an ugly teen using murder and magic to accomplish an extreme makeover that braces, contacts and a hairdresser could achieve with much less bloodshed. Complete with cameos by the B-52s' Fred Schneider and John Waters (shot after-the-fact by fellow grindhouse regular Joe Sarno), Wishman's swan song is, for better or worse, the last in a long line of ugly ducklings. �S.B. (July 21, 10:00 AB)

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533 Statements

Documentarian Tori Foster hits the road across her native Canada to talk to other queer women about their lives, interspersing the interviews with sped-up road footage and a pseudo-Ani DiFranco soundtrack. The sample is largely homogenous � mainly young white women � and as such, the statements are more similar than diverse. While the interviewees offer some insights about the difficulties of dating, the pain of coming out, and the stereotypes they find themselves fighting against, Foster dwells too heavily on the particulars of what it's like to be gay in a small town and neglects to ask the deeper questions about identity, love and sexuality that would have made her film much more fulfilling. �E.L. (July 21, 12:30 PMT)

Rosser Goodman's debut feels like two movies squashed together. One attends honestly and economically to scenes of friendship, love and crisis between twentysomething Trevor and his troubled friends: an addict ex-boyfriend, a slutty singer and a snappish roommate. The other features far too many aphorism-heavy voiceovers and sluggish montages set to sluggish original music. Unfortunately, the dull second movie overpowers the compelling first one. �Peter Baker (July 20, 5:00 WT; July 22, 7:15 WT)

Kiss the Bride has all the makings for a refreshing romantic comedy. When hardened magazine editor Matt (Philipp Karner) learns his high school sweetie, Ryan (James O'Shea), is set to walk down the aisle with a woman, he books the next flight back to his hometown. His plans are disrupted, however, when he meets the adorable, irresistible bride-to-be, Alex (Tori Spelling). While Kiss pulls off this love-triangle-with-a-twist perfectly, it handles larger themes less gracefully. What starts off as a fun flick suddenly turns, halfway through, into a clumsy, implausible lesson on love, marriage and commitment � from an obviously pregnant Tori Spelling in a wedding dress, no less. �Monica Weymouth (July 24, 7:30 PMT)

Nina (Shelly Conn) hits the familial estrangement jackpot when she decides to abandon fiance Sanjay (Raji James) and her Glasgow existence the night before her wedding. But three years later, when her award-winning curry chef father dies unexpectedly, the black sheep finds herself back in haggis country struggling to make sense of it all. Before long, she begins falling for winky Anglo Lisa (Laura Fraser), who gained a half-stake in Nina's father's restaurant thanks to a gambling debt. It's here that Pratibha Parmar's film begins tripping over itself. While Nina struggles with how and when to reveal her sexuality to her "traditional" family, a slew of distractions sidle up in the form of advise-dispensing, can't-stop-dancing Bollywood BFFs (Ronny Jhutti) and warily established issues surrounding Nina's two siblings (her little sister harbors a dark secret � she's an accomplished folk dancer). By the time Nina reaches the finals of a prestigious curry cookoff (where she faces off against none other than her almost-husband), you want to eat her food with a side of logical plot development. �Drew Lazor (July 21, 7:00 WT; July 22, 4:30 PMT)

Porn or not porn? That is the question with Emilie Jouvet's debut feature, a series of back-to-back sex scenes between six lesbian couples. On the one hand, it's got all the elements of a skin flick: the minimal dialogue and even less plot, the characters who appear disconnected and passionless while getting down and dirty. On the other hand, as Jouvet explains in the film's intro, it's also about breaking stereotypes and mixing up gender roles � what with the lack of traditionally attractive "sex players" in favor of uber-androgynous or otherwise unusual-looking amateurs. But regardless of who's involved, fisting is still fisting, and while the settings may vary (on a bed, in a nightclub, hovering over a toilet), 80 minutes worth of the same basic maneuvers and close-ups makes for a less-than-stimulating Night. �Tami Fertig (July 20, 9:30 WT)

The basics of Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel are by now overly familiar, which may explain why director Duncan Roy felt he could ignore the basic logic of storytelling and character development in adapting it. What remains is a noisy spectacle that might even be considered homophobic if it were slightly coherent. Former 7th Heaven teen idol David Gallagher plays the title role with a face empty of emotion throughout; his soul doesn't seem too great a loss. The only explanation given for his corruption is his discovery of homosexuality, with his changing image (in a video installation rather than a portrait, here) taking on the tell-tale signs of AIDS along with a silly sneer. If the parallels are too subtle, Roy helpfully accompanies another character's first appearance with facial lesions by flashing the word "AIDS" in big block letters (a ham-handed sub-Godardian technique he also uses for Wilde quotes). �S.B. (July 19, 7:15 WT; July 21, 4:45 WT)

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Rock Haven

Rock Haven tells an old, sad love story: Boy raised as devout Christian, boy meets boy, boy attracted to boy, boy meets painful confusion and endless self-doubt (over and above the hard knocks of hetero adolescence). As you might expect, several scenes are quite wrenching. However, writer/director David Lewis' script doesn't adequately recognize the full depth of religious fundamentalism's tyranny. As a result, the conflict, while compelling, resolves itself far too easily and without proper recognition that this kind of stuff doesn't get worked out in a few conversations held over a single month. It dominates years and lives. �P.B. (July 20, 7:45 AB; July 22, 2:30 WT)

Suffering Man's Charity

Nuttier than a fruitcake (and no slouch in the fruit department, either), Alan Cumming's high-strung farce is hysterical in every sense of the word. As a high-strung music teacher who takes in David Boreanaz's struggling writer, Cumming is a shock-headed cartoon of repression and desire, chastising his preteen pupil for mangling the names of dead composers while furtively lusting after his putatively straight houseguest. A dizzy first act turns into bloody Grand Guignol when a spurned Cumming wraps a shirtless Boreanaz in Christmas lights and starts whipping him with a cello bow, and it only gets crazier and more disjointed from there. The movie is plainly insane, but its madness is sometimes inspired, notably during the few minutes when a drunken, expletive-spouting Karen Black wrests the movie from its leads. �S.A. (July 21, 9:30 WT)

As he did in last year's Open Cam, Robert Gaston constructs a flimsy thriller framework just sturdy enough to support the weight of the sex scenes he hangs all over it. The lensed-in-Philly whydunnit (the killer's face is revealed at the outset, and his motives hinted at) involves a lesbian P.I. teaming with a gay insurance investigator to locate the latter's Mapplethorpe-like twin brother. Nobody in the film ever looks as convincing wielding a gun as taking off their pants, which I guess still qualifies it as an "action" flick. �S.B. (July 19, 9:30 WT)

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The Victim

Aspiring actress Ting (Pitchanart Sakakorn) finds steady, if slightly strange, work staging live crime scene dramatizations for police and media. But after she's tasked with her highest-profile gig yet � re-creating the gruesome unsolved murder of the former Miss Thailand � she starts receiving less-than-friendly communiqué from her subject's slashed-up specter. For all of The Victim's tired J-horror devices (dead girl with hair in face appears; dead girl with hair in face moves erratically; dead girl with hair in face causes hapless character to cower in corner/instantly decompose), director Monthon Arayangkoon manages to pepper the movie's opening hour with some truly creepy moments (the queer subtext arrives courtesy of Chokchai Charoensuk's plastic surgeon, whose unrequited love for the beauty queen turns sour). What follows this simple-but-effective first act, however, is something else altogether � a baffling, entirely unnecessary shift in narrative that's so obtuse it's difficult to describe. (Without giving too much away, let's just say it's troubling when a movie-within-a-movie is vastly superior to its vessel.) As the film glugs farther and farther down the faux-clever postmodern drain, it's a wonder the entire thing doesn't end up being the snow globe daydream of an autistic child. �D.L. (July 22, 9:15 PMT)