Movies Dearz

Tilda Swinton bears a lot in common with the character she plays in Orlando (available today in a new Special Edition DVD). Swinton’s Orlando is a British nobleman who barely ages over four centuries and who is so androgynous, he spontaneously changes sex halfway through the film. Swinton is so ageless, it makes the film seem practically new. Director Sally Potter’s 1993 adaptation of the novel by Virginia Woolf is a ravishing and elegant classic, a time-warping, gender-bending mind trip you’ll never forget.

Orlando begins his story as a young nobleman who is much favored by the aging Queen Elizabeth. Potter’s ingenious casting of queer icon Quentin Crisp as the Queen gives the film a surreal and wonderful quality. Orlando is granted favors and property by the ancient royal before her death, and is much in demand as a would-be groom to the nobility. During a freakishly cold winter, Orlando meets and falls in love with a Russian princess who breaks his heart by leaving. Each chapter of the film is introduced with one word, and Orlando’s next obsession is with poetry, then with politics.


Traveling to central Asia as an ambassador, Orlando feels at first freed by the desert life, but then is pressed into fighting alongside the locals. Unwilling to kill and not wanting to be killed, he awakens to find he’s become a woman. Unfortunately, women are not allotted the same rights and privileges, and Orlando finds herself being denied her rightful ownership of her estate and belongings. Time jumps forward throughout Orlando, and it’s best not to dwell on how or why it happens. Revel in Swinton’s magnetic performance and a romantic interlude with a pre-Titanic Billy Zane.

Potter’s creation is magical and engrossing, and her visual imagery (servants skating with torches, elegant English gardens with hedge mazes, etc,) is unmatched. The new DVD includes two hours of additional material, including fascinating features about trying to film in the newly liberated Russia and Uzbekistan, and a piece on Bronski Beat singer Jimmy Somerville entitled "Jimmy Was an Angel" (and in the movie, he is).

Even if you’ve seen Orlando before, you’ll love it more now.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

With only a couple of artistic virtues and even fewer moral attributes to its credit, Sylvester Stallone & Co.'s new exercise in macho mayhem, The Expendables, is wretched. A throwback to the worst of the tough-guy adventures of the 1980s (remember Cobra, Red Scorpion or Commando?), its cast includes every major male action star of the last 30 years. In addition to Stallone, there's Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin and the Terminator himself, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a cameo. Only Jean-Claude Van Damme seems conspicuously absent.

The gang of former military goons that calls themselves "The Expendables" — the logo is emblazoned on their oversized motorcycles — is enlisted by a CIA functionary (a stiff turn by a strangely angelically-lit Willis) to take down a South American dictator. It becomes too quickly apparent that the seemingly ruthless General Garza (David Zayas, recognizable as the Latino gang leader on HBO's frequently homoerotic Oz) is a puppet of a rogue CIA agent played with sadistic glee by Eric Roberts.


Sadism runs high in The Expendables and ranges from the threat of beheadings to actual beheadings, bodies blown literally to smithereens by high-powered assault weapons, knives repeatedly thrown through the sides of people's heads, and the waterboard torture of a young female revolutionary (the appropriately noble Giselle Itie). This is the kind of movie where burning someone alive isn't adequate punishment; their charbroiled but still breathing body has to be stomped to death. To call the film's violence excessive would be a massive understatement.

The production's two not-quite-saving graces are (1) Mickey Rourke and (2) a pair of impressively staged action scenes. Rourke, who continues to enjoy a deserved cinematic resurgence after his Oscar-nominated turn in The Wrestler and this summer's Iron Man 2, both nails a tongue-in-cheek approach to this material that his castmates sadly lack and manages to pull off the one serious, heartfelt monologue in the whole movie. The latter actually seems out of place, but Rourke brings a desperately needed humanity and pathos to the film within just a few minutes. A fiery plane attack on a villain-occupied dock and a rowdy car chase through busy city streets with guns ablazin' are the film's two memorable set pieces.


Stallone, who also co-wrote the screenplay (with David Callaham) and directs, sports a waxy, veiny physique throughout as the Expendables' leader, improbably named "Barney." The actor who played his nemesis in Rocky IV, Dolph Lundgren, similarly looks like he's had bad plastic surgery. Statham comes off best as the vicious but semi-just Lee Christmas. At 37, Statham also has the distinction of being the film's youngest cast member. That being said, there is something inspiring about seeing a bunch of middle-aged men kicking ass, albeit with the help of stunt doubles and some good editing.

Make no mistake: The Expendables is crap. It makes Stallone's previous directorial efforts Staying Alive and Rambo look like masterpieces by comparison.

Reverend's Rating: D

UPDATE: The Expendables is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

It finally happened. I finally understand the abject agony straight, football-loving men feel when their girlfriends drag them to 27 Dresses, Made of Honor or Sex and the City 2.

I have survived Eat Pray Love, Julia Roberts' seemingly endless cinematic version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s globe-trotting book, but I’m pretty sure I aged seven years and gained a funky white streak in my hair like JoBeth Williams at the end of Poltergeist. How could Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee (not to mention co-writer, actress Jennifer Salt of the 1972 Gargoyles!), and Roberts, one of the most magnetic actresses of our time, unleash such an excruciating, self-indulgent trudge through one not-at-all-interesting woman’s year-long quest to “find herself”?

The simple answer is that this is one book that never should have been made into a movie. I’m sure Liz Gilbert the person is a complex, relatable woman who struggled with real, soul-crushing lack of fulfillment, but that isn’t who ends up on the screen. Murphy and company’s abysmal script takes you places you don’t want to go with a bunch of people you don’t want to know … for two and a half hours!


As the movie opens, Liz Gilbert (Roberts) has it all — she’s married to a pod version of Billy Crudup, is best friends with Doubt’s Viola Davis (and a lump of bald flesh playing Viola’s husband), and travels the world writing inspirational stories while living it up in New York City. Crudup’s Stephen is a directionless dweeb, and when he tells Liz he doesn’t want to go to Aruba with her, she tells him she doesn’t want to be married. She embarks on an affair with James Franco, playing a Joey Tribbiani-type actor who starred in her awful play. We go through another draggy relationship trauma before Liz decides to head off to Italy (to Eat), India (to Pray) and Bali (to Love, although she’s got self-love down pretty well already).

In Italy, she meets a “colorful” group of friends straight out of a Carnival Cruise Line catalogue (who are just about as deep) and devotes herself to eating everything she can get her hands on. Don’t look for the “It’s my ‘No Carb Left Behind” diet” line — part of the sloppiness of the movie is that it feels like they filmed about thirty-four hours of people not doing much and just randomly selected vignettes to throw up on the screen. Did Liz really need to go to Italy to learn that Italians talk with their hands? Really? As far as a love letter to the joys of food goes, Julie & Julia was there first and did it much better.

For no particular reason, Liz packs up and heads to “picturesque” India, meaning that we see her drive through lots of horrid poverty that she promptly forgets about. This is the part of the film I call "The Black Hole of Calcutta". If you have any lists to prepare, paint swatches to choose or quantum physics equations to solve, this would be a good time to do that.


Otherwise, you’ll be subjected to Oscar-nominee Richard Jenkins play "Richard from Texas", a sour-milk version of his character from The Visitor. Liz didn’t seem that into Buddhism when David dragged her to his cult-y ashram in New York, but here she is, seeking enlightenment from his guru who, oops, is in New York. What travel writer doesn’t plan better than that? Liz and Richard (who’s kind of a dick) bicker and he spouts all manner of clichés and you feel like you’re stuck there longer than the four months that elapse. You’ll definitely pray for deliverance around this time, but sadly, you know that there’s a whole other third of a year to get through.

Off to Bali Liz goes, where she reconnects with a seventh-generation medicine man who gave her the idea for her quest in the beginning. Sometime around the two-hour mark, Javier Bardem shows up and runs a bike-riding Liz off the road. The set-up to that dust-up shows them each heading toward each other for what seems like five minutes — please, is there an editor in the house?! Of course, the way to a self-absorbed New Yorker’s heart is through her gashed knee, so the two fall into a passionate love affair.

Can Liz let herself love someone other than herself? I won’t say, but I will say “Thank God for Javier Bardem!” By sheer charisma alone, he brings what little life exists in Eat Pray Love, and he and Roberts share a light, fun-to-watch chemistry. Sadly, you’re so weary by that time, you’ll swear you have jet lag.


What went wrong with Eat Pray Love? It’s shorter to answer, “What went right?” because precious little does. Seldom have so many good actors, writers, the director and production designers worked so hard for such meager results. Despite Julia’s best efforts, Liz is an ungrateful pill. Her friends are tedious and there’s an unpleasant condescension about all the places Liz goes and the people that she meets. Now maybe they should have sent 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon on the quest and let Tina Fey write the script. That premise alone makes me laugh more than I did watching Eat Pray Love.

At the screening I attended, a man passed out and fell over right after India. Every other man in the audience (and quite a few women, I bet) wished they were him (after insuring that the man was okay, of course). I enjoyed the critically-reviled Sex and the City 2, and let me tell you, I wished I were back in Abu Dhabi with the gals, having all the fun that’s missing from this mess.

UPDATE: Eat Pray Love is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling overturning Proposition 8 is the latest historic step toward full equality for GLBT citizens of the US. It is important to note, though, that it wouldn’t have been possible without the courage and persistence of a number of gay men and lesbian women who have prepared the way.

One of these figures, Charlene Strong, is the subject of the acclaimed documentary For My Wife: The Making of an Activist for Marriage Equality. The film will be released August 31 on DVD courtesy of Cinema Libre Studio.

Strong’s partner of nine years, Kate Fleming, was the victim of a tragic flooding incident in their Seattle home. As Fleming lay dying in a local hospital, medical personnel refused to allow Strong to visit since she wasn’t legally her partner’s next-of-kin. Strong subsequently fought for the establishment of hospital visitation rights for same-sex partners, and was instrumental in the expansion of Washington state’s Domestic Partnership laws.

For My Wife seems like a promo for GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) when it showcases the organization’s training program, which Strong went through; this unfortunately distracts from Strong’s inspiring story. So long as the film’s focus is on her and her memories of Fleming — who is heard at one point, eerily, via a recorded birthday message to Strong — For My Wife is a powerful testament to how GLBT love can translate into political power.


Another new DVD release, Off and Running (out August 17), spotlights the joys and challenges experienced within a family raised by a same-sex couple (the movie is also scheduled for a September broadcast on PBS; check local listings). It’s not unlike a real-life The Kids Are All Right: lesbian couple Travis and Tovah Klein-Cloud adopted three children of different races/ethnicities over the course of several years. “Our family nickname is ‘the United Nations’,” their African-American middle daughter, Avery, writes in a letter to her birth mother. Her older brother is of mixed race and their younger brother is Korean.

As the film begins, Avery has just been informed of the identity of the woman who gave her up for adoption while she was an infant. The discovery and Avery’s subsequent identity crisis launches the whole family on a journey that threatens at times to tear them apart.

Travis and Tovah, who are Jewish and who met after each had adopted a child, deserve special commendation, as do all couples who have taken in children needing a loving and secure home. They are naturally confused and concerned as Avery grows increasingly distant from them, and watch helplessly as Avery’s performance at school also suffers. As Travis says of their troubled daughter, “She’s deep in her own dramas.”

Off and Running is an excellent, insightful exploration of a contemporary American family, and is unquestionably more true-to-life than a certain current movie starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore.


Playwright Tennessee Williams may not be as contemporary but has left a significant imprint on GLBT progress. The author of such classic works as The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire was adept at creating sympathetic portrayals of characters on society’s margins, including prostitutes, addicts, the mentally ill and homosexuals. A gay man himself, Williams passed away in 1983.

After his death, a number of unproduced writings were discovered among Williams’ possessions. One of them was a screenplay entitled The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond. Written in 1957, it finally made its way to the big screen in 2009, albeit in limited release. It is set for release on DVD and Blu-ray on September 7.

The film boasts an impressive cast: Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of director Ron Howard, most recently seen as the vengeful vampire, Victoria, in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse); Chris Evans (who made a very hot Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies and will be seen next summer as Captain America); film vets Ellen Burstyn and Ann-Margret; and Mamie Gummer, who happens to be Meryl Streep’s daughter.

The central character in The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond is — true to Williams’ form — a disgraced young socialite, Fisher Willow (Howard). After happily living abroad in Europe for several years, Fisher is summoned home to Memphis, Tennessee by her imperious aunt (Ann-Margret) in the wake of a family scandal.


While the aunt connives to marry her niece off to a wealthy, respectable suitor, Fisher is drawn to Jimmy Dobine V (Evans). The handsome young man is penniless but is the grandson of a well-admired, former governor of Tennessee. Complications both dramatic and romantic ensue when Jimmy escorts Fisher to a Halloween party and the expensive bauble of the film’s title goes missing.

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond is beautifully photographed (by Giles Nuttgens), and Williams’ script includes such quotable observations as “A person of my kind never has enough money” and “Propriety is a waste of time.” There is also a moment when a man overtly checks out Jimmy’s manhood in a restroom, as well as a scene wherein Jimmy strips “to the skin” (off camera, unfortunately) so two men can thoroughly search him for the lost earring.

Sadly, though, there isn’t much else to recommend The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond. Jodie Markell’s direction is stilted and the performances are disappointingly one-note, save Jessica Collins as a waitress yearning for “release” from her dead-end life. Still, it’s good to know that Williams’ pioneering spirit lives on.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Summer is traditionally a time for travel, both domestic and international. If you aren't able to get away this year, a number of new GLBT theatrical and DVD releases from different countries may yet provide a perfect, armchair travel escape.

Men for Sale is an eye-opening, hard-hitting documentary set for DVD release on August 31 by Breaking Glass Pictures. Respected filmmaker Rodrigue Jean spent a year following 11 male sex workers in Montreal, Canada. Through candid interviews with his subjects, Jean exposes a uniform, vicious cycle of childhood neglect or abuse, drug addiction and prostitution. Some of the men started having sex for money when they were as young as 12, usually after they started abusing drugs.

The revelations in Men for Sale become repetitious within a lengthy 145-minute running time, but this serves to underscore the tragic trap in which these men are caught. Although most are in their 20's and identify as heterosexual, one is a 40-something gay man who starred in several porn films starting when he was 16. The majority of self-professed straight subjects bolster their masculinity on-camera by saying they refuse to engage in anal intercourse. However, one of them tells Jean bluntly that this simply isn't true. The film makes clear that when the need for a drug high to ease the pain of a sad childhood is desperate enough, moral and/or physical taboos are easily shed.

Also of note is one sex worker's observation of his numerous political clients. "The guys who pass laws against us (re: prostitution/solicitation and homosexuality)," he says, "are the ones who come looking for us at night." Even in more liberal Canada, sexual hypocrisy is alive and well.


If you're looking for something more upbeat on your cinematic world tour, Spinnin', now available on DVD, is a thoroughly enjoyable dramedy from Spain. The film won the award for Best Feature Film at the Barcelona Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival. It opens with the love-at-first-sight meeting of two men, Garate and Omar (played, respectively, by the very attractive Alejandro Tous and Olav Fernandez), and recounts their subsequent efforts to find a surrogate mother so they can father a child.

The process doesn't go as easily as the couple had hoped, but they gain important insights and new friends in the process. While stylized and erratically edited, Spinnin' is a rainbow-hued movie that also takes on such wide-ranging subjects as Star Wars, soccer, HIV/AIDS and God's homosexuality (!). It is very well-directed and -written by the obviously talented Eusebio Pastrana, who has been described as a "rising auteur." I also found inspiring the numerous moments of physical (not necessarily sexual, although it has that too) and emotional intimacy in the film between even those characters who don't know each other well.

Finally, I would feel remiss if I didn't mention Brazil's From Beginning to End (Do Comeco ao Fim), even though it isn't yet scheduled for release in the US due to its controversial plot. Shown during the just-completed Outfest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in Los Angeles, it is the romantic, sexy, crowd-pleasing, heart-warming love story of two brothers in love ... with each other!


Ok, the film's protagonists, Francisco and Thomas, are technically half-brothers but they share the same mother and were raised together. Their unusual closeness is noticed by their mother and Francisco's father while the boys are still young, but the parents assume it is a natural phase they will grow out of in time.

Following their beloved mother's death, however, the grown (and gorgeous) Thomas and Francisco feel "liberated" and their formerly chaste, brotherly love becomes sexual. Over time, they even exchange wedding rings! As one of them declares, "To understand our love they'd have to turn the world upside down."

Their relationship is tested, though, when Thomas is accepted as a member of Brazil's Olympics swim team, requiring him to go to Russia for three years' worth of training. Left behind and lonely, Francisco gets close to a woman. Will the brothers decide to live more "normal" lives? I'm not going to give things away. Suffice to say that the movie's writer-director, Aluizio Abranches, isn't afraid to go where few have ventured outside of exploitive porn/fetish films.

Most viewers will find the moral implications of the brothers' romance challenging, but it is hard to criticize their sincere love for one another or the desire to express it physically. Moving and thought-provoking, keep your eyes open for From Beginning to End when planning your next international movie experience.

UPDATE: From Beginning to End is now available on DVD from Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

The acclaimed Swedish gay family comedy Patrik Age 1.5 opens this Friday for an exclusive one-week engagement at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles.

Sven (Torkel Petersson) and Goran (Gustaf Skarsgård) are a legally married gay couple who relocate to a suburban village to fulfill their dream of adopting a child. In the face of disapproval from their neighbors, the happy couple forges ahead through a rigorous and daunting approval process. Just when all hopes seem dashed, news comes of an available child: Patrik, Age 1.5. The couple prepare excitedly for the arrival of their one-and-a-half-year-old baby boy, unaware that a decimal mistake was made on the paperwork. When Patrik (Thomas Ljungman) shows up, he is in fact fifteen, criminally delinquent ... and homophobic. Instead of the happy family they had envisioned, the couple must find a way to navigate through the challenges of housing a troubled and troubling youth.

From Regency Releasing, this hilarious and heartfelt comedy-drama was directed and written by Ella Lemhagen and had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and later was Centerpiece Film at Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, where it won the Best Feature Film Audience Award.

With the Outfest Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival just concluding one of its best events in recent years, it was nonetheless clear yet again that the "B" in GLBT too often gets short shrift. This isn't festival programmers' faults since few bisexual-themed films are currently being made, according to a panelist who spoke after the North American premiere of Bisexual Revolution at Outfest on July 10.

The French-made documentary (which is subtitled, in English, Bisexuality: Is It An Art?) is the best cinematic exploration of the subject to date, which isn't hard to conclude when last year's woeful Bi the Way is seemingly the genre's high point. Filmmakers Eric Wastiaux and Laure Michel interviewed bisexual men and women around the world and compiled the insights gained for Bisexual Revolution. The result was shown last year on French television and reportedly ignited overnight a national discussion and a resultant, increased acceptance of bisexuality there.

Wastiaux and Michel, who also participated in the post-screening discussion, confessed to being dubious of bisexuality prior to filming. Both came away believers, and Wastiaux even engaged in his first same-sex experience. The doc takes a broad approach to understanding bisexuality, with Dr. Alfred Kinsey's famed scale of sexuality a particularly helpful resource. Kinsey's research in the 1950's revealed that the vast majority of human beings are neither 100% heterosexual nor 100% homosexual. Rather, we fall along various points of sexual orientation depending on our life experiences, attractions and values. The concept and practice of human sexuality emerged as much more fluid than conservative politicians and religious leaders would have us believe.


Bisexual Revolution makes this 50-year old finding abundantly clear. People of various genders, nationalities, ethnicities and ages discuss their bisexuality on camera with wisdom and honesty. Among the interviewees are American filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell (of Shortbus and Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame), French pop star Yelle, and numerous prominent writers, artists and educators.

At a concise 61 minutes, the film provides a great overview while hardly presuming to be the last word on the topic. Indeed, it serves as a great conversation-starter as evidenced by the French broadcast's aftermath and the post-screening discussion at Outfest. Audience members didn't shy from revealing their own, less-than-100%-gay-or-lesbian experiences. One transgender viewer commented about how even more complex sexuality is from her perspective!

It is unfortunate that bisexuality remains an often confounding and even taboo subject in straight, gay and lesbian circles alike. Bisexual Revolution can only help to de-stigmatize it, thanks to the film's declaration of the great truth that human beings and sexuality are too intricate to be categorized or labeled.

Watch the trailer for Bisexual Revolution here.

Reverend's Rating: B+

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.