Movies Dearz

Returning for her third direct-to-video movie with Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (available this week on Disney DVD and Blu-ray), everyone’s favorite pixie comes face to face with her first human being … and it’s not Peter Pan.

Continuing with the various season-themed plots of its predecessors, Great Fairy Rescue finds our heroine (once again voiced by Mae Whitman) attending “Summer Fairy Camp” on the “mainland” (England, circa 1920s). Alas, the close proximity of humans and all their various gadgets and gizmos proves too much for a certain tinker fairy. With the haughty speed fairy Vidia (Pamela Adlon) in protesting pursuit, Tink risks breaking the cardinal fairy rule (“don’t be seen by humans”) and sets out to check out a neighboring home.


The residents of said home are Dr. Griffiths (Michael Sheen, of The Queen and Frost/Nixon fame), a preoccupied entomologist, and his young daughter Lizzy (Lauren Mote), a curious, imaginative child crazy about (naturally) fairies. Soon after arriving at their summer home, Lizzy puts out a homemade “fairy house” to lure them to her and, before you can say “Faith, trust and pixie dust”, she’s captured Tinker Bell.

Despite being locked in a birdcage and menaced by a pudgy cat, Tink quickly discovers that Lizzy just wants to learn more about fairy folk like her. And, since she can’t fly home due to a nasty storm outside, Tink decides to stick around and teach her a thing or two about fairies (including a flying lesson), even if they do have to overcome a certain language barrier ...

Click here to continue reading my Toon Talk review of Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue at LaughingPlace.com.

I wasn’t very familiar with Allen Ginsberg's writings or with the 1957 obscenity trial over his best-known work, “Howl,” prior to seeing the fascinating new film inspired by them. Howl, the movie, is scheduled to open in Los Angeles and premiere on video-on-demand this Friday and expand to local theaters in October.

Howl is the first narrative film by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, the duo behind such award-winning, gay-themed documentaries as The Celluloid Closet, Paragraph 175 and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. Their latest production has already had the honor of being the Opening Night selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and Outfest, L.A.’s Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

The movie actually entails three distinct but overlapping storylines: the legal case against the publisher of Ginsberg’s poem, which contained then-graphic language and references to homosexual activity; a biography of Ginsberg himself that depicts his inseparable awakenings as a writer and a gay man; and a strikingly animated rendering of the infamous poem, which has come to be regarded as a literary classic.


The People vs. Ferlinghetti, as the obscenity trial over Ginsberg’s work was formally known, took place in the midst of the conformity-driven Eisenhower era. The case has been described as “one that involved as many literature professors as lawyers and put the power of words itself on trial.” The presiding judge ultimately decided in favor of Ferlinghetti, but not before reports from the trial had exposed many mainstream Americans to the “F” word and the mechanics of gay sex. Even today, some radio stations refuse to air readings of “Howl” due to their fear of violating FCC obscenity rules.

The all-star supporting cast of Howl primarily appears during the trial segments. Oscar nominee David Straithairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) plays the frequently flummoxed prosecuting attorney, Ralph McIntosh. Jon Hamm of TV’s Mad Men is Ferlinghetti’s lawyer, Jake Ehrlich, who is said to have inspired Raymond Burr’s iconic performance as Perry Mason. Bob Balaban is great as the conservative yet clear-eyed and thoughtful Judge Clayton Horn (who could well have been a role model for current Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, who recently overturned Proposition 8) and Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Treat Williams and Alessandro Nivola briefly portray various witnesses.

While Epstein and Friedman’s recreation of the trial is illuminating and riveting, it is Ginsberg’s personal story that gives the movie its heart. James Franco of the Spider-Man series and Milk gives an excellent performance as Ginsberg. The revolutionary writer became renowned as one of the fathers of the Beat Generation along with Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and others, most of whom were gay or bisexual. Ginsberg, who passed away in 1997 (his longtime partner, Peter Orlovsky, just died earlier this year), wasn’t exactly known for his looks. As a result, the photogenic Franco has been criticized in the role by some. This is unfair, especially since the film depicts Ginsberg’s younger years, and Franco otherwise nails the poet’s distinct worldview, vocal cadence and passion.


Ginsberg is also regarded as a champion of sexual and political liberation for his honesty and willingness to convey the homosexual experience in “Howl” and many of his other poems. Eric Drooker, who had collaborated with Ginsberg on an illustrated version of his poems, drew the animated adaptation of “Howl” that serves as the third aspect of the current movie. The style is similar to the acclaimed 2008 feature Waltz with Bashir, a stylized animated account of dark historical events.

As guitarist Lenny Kaye said of Ginsberg, “He made us see that poets were pop stars.” He also helped to usher in the modern era of GLBT liberation and equality through his writing. Howl serves as a fitting tribute in addition to being inspiring cinema.

Reverend's Rating: B

UPDATE: Howl 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.

When a shy young postman meets a famous poet-in-exile in a small Italian fishing village, a beautiful, inspirational friendship begins. So goes the plot of Il Postino (The Postman). It was first a 1985 novel, then an Academy Award-winning 1994 movie. Now, Il Postino is an opera that will be having its world premiere in Los Angeles September 23-October 16 courtesy of LA Opera.

The film was nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor and Adapted Screenplay, and won the Oscar for Best Music Score. Funny, dramatic and romantic, it was an unexpected foreign-language hit in the US and around the world. Acclaimed opera composer and librettist Daniel Catan saw Il Postino as the perfect subject for his next work.

“I realized, from the very first time I saw the film, that it was a suitable theme for an opera,” Catan says. “It deals with art and love: the foundations upon which we build our lives. Love is what makes us human, and art is our most sophisticated tool for achieving that humanity.”


World-renowned tenor and LA Opera General Director Placido Domingo will portray exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in Il Postino. Domingo stated, “I am very excited to participate in the world premiere of an opera by one of today’s most important composers.” Catan and Domingo had spoken for several years about one day collaborating on a new work.

According to Catan, “Opera is one of the most complete art forms ever imagined, for it includes music and poetry.” It is little wonder, then, that so many gay men have been attracted to opera over the centuries, both as performers and as patrons.


Il Postino is the first production of LA Opera’s 25th anniversary season. Other, classic operas scheduled through Spring 2011 include Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Verdi’s Rigoletto and the ghost story The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten.

All LA Opera productions are performed at the world-famous Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Individual tickets and subscriptions for the entire 2010/2011 season are available by phone at (213) 972-8001. Information is also available at their website.

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

Has it really been only 25 years since the lackluster debut of The Black Cauldron? Watching the recently released 25th Anniversary DVD of Disney’s failed animated adventure, it’s hard to believe that it was merely four years later that we saw The Little Mermaid. A lot changed between the time the former film flopped and the latter hit, and even more in the intervening years, leaving The Black Cauldron floundering at the bottom of the Disney canon. It also didn’t help that it was the film that nearly ended Disney animation for good.

Based on the book series “The Chronicles of Prydain” by Lloyd Alexander, The Black Cauldron was Disney’s attempt to toughen up its image. And, with scary scenes of a walking dead army and glimpses of blood and gore, they succeeded to an extent, at least as far as the MPAA was concerned. The rating service branded the film with a PG rating, the first ever for a Disney animated feature.


However, even with such attempts at prestige as employing 70 mm widescreen (much like its obvious inspiration, Sleeping Beauty) and enlisting legendary film composer Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird) for the score, not to mention a budget that was the highest for an animated feature at the time, The Black Cauldron was dead on arrival back in 1985. Audiences just weren’t interested in a dark Disney cartoon fantasy with no songs and, more importantly, no heart ...

Click here to continue reading my Toon Talk review of The Black Cauldron at LaughingPlace.com.

"Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion."

These words of the narrator, Tom Wingfield, open Tennessee Williams' classic play The Glass Menagerie, first produced in 1944. While the words may be the same, the revival now playing at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles through October 17 is a bolder, longer and — most surprisingly — funnier staging than has likely ever been mounted. It also brings the play's autobiographical and homosexual subtexts roaring to the fore.


Director Gordon Edelstein and an exceptional cast headed by Judith Ivey take what purists may perceive as excessive liberties with the work. However, Williams actually encourages this in his original forward: "Being a 'memory play,' The Glass Menagerie can be presented with unusual freedom of convention." Taking full advantage of such license, the current production is set in a New Orleans hotel room that Tom has taken refuge in after fleeing his stifling family home in St. Louis (wherein the action ordinarily takes place). Furniture is occasionally moved while the play's three other characters enter and exit or are viewed through a translucent wall to evoke the original setting, but the hotel room remains dominant.

Tom (played superbly by Patch Darragh) sits at his typewriter, situated alongside the collection of tiny glass animals from which the play draws its title, and begins to write. He reads aloud as he types Williams' dialogue. Immediately, Tom's function as a stand-in for the author becomes apparent. Tom's overbearing mother, Amanda (Ivey), and sensitive sister, Laura (Keira Keeley), enter when evoked. The pivotal "Gentleman Caller," Jim O'Connor (a very impressive turn by Ben McKenzie of TV's Southland and The O.C.), also appears as written although Tom is clearly more romantically/sexually interested in him here than is usually presented.


Laura is treated as tragically as ever, although her after-dinner conversation with Jim is, while faithful to Williams' text, significantly lighter and funnier. This actually has the effect of making Jim's eventual rejection of her that much more painful to watch. Keeley is excellent as Laura, and makes the physically- and emotionally-stunted character touching without being pathetic.

For many, the main draw of the Taper's production will be the chance to see Ivey as Amanda Wingfield, who is probably Williams' most memorable female creation after/alongside Blanche DuBois. Ivey is great if at times overripe, the result perhaps of overindulging Amanda's "giddy and gay" side. She also seems to be channeling Beth Grant in Sordid Lives when she displays excessive sympathy ("Awwwwww, you're a Christian martyr, yes, that's what you are!") during her telephone calls to potential magazine subscribers. But when Amanda gets serious, so does Ivey, and she gives the woman a rage that eclipses any prior incarnation of Amanda I've seen.


I largely appreciated the production's more overt depiction of Tom's homosexual tendencies even if at times it felt excessive. Tom comes across as more flamboyant than usual and even speaks with a slight lisp; there are moments when he sounds like Truman Capote. An uncomfortable moment arises while he drunkenly relates his late-night encounter with "Malvolio the Magician" to his sister. With his pants down around his ankles and clad only in boxer shorts, Tom mounts his bed on all fours and makes it very clear that he served as one of the illusionist's "tricks"!

Edelstein & Company's Glass Menagerie certainly isn't our parents' version, but it makes for a revelatory and often enthralling night of theatre.

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

When you meet Mink Stole, please suppress the urge to shout “Is this the C***sucker residence?!” or any other raunchy line from one of her classic John Waters films.

Right now, Stole (born Nancy Stoll in Waters’ beloved Baltimore) is having a ball touring the country as part of the Peaches Christ Experience in 4D, a wild throwback to the days of fright-master William Castle, who dressed up his often less-than-stellar films with totally immersive events and gimmicks at every screening. While you won’t have to worry about electrified seats (as in The Tingler) at All About Evil, almost anything else goes. “First of all, Peaches is fabulous. He’s such a dear and he’s really fun. We work really well together. Also, it gives me a chance to connect with people in a way that I can’t unless I’m there in person. I love meeting ... can I say it? I love meeting my fans.”

She’s excited to visit Phoenix for the first time (outside the airport), but she was concerned. “Are you illegal,” she asked. “Am I allowed to be talking to you? Cohen doesn’t sound Mexican, so I’m probably safe.”


Stole became a cult film icon through her frequent collaborations with her good friend Waters, including unforgettable work as Connie Marble, Divine’s nemesis in Pink Flamingos, Divine’s daughter Taffy Davenport in Female Trouble and poor put-upon divorcee Dottie Hinkle in Serial Mom. Since then, she has become the go-to woman with gay filmmakers like Q. Allan Brocka, who use Stole’s fame and popularity to enliven movies like Eating Out 2 and 3.

“It’s been almost twenty years since we made Serial Mom, but I’d say (I get recognized) far more for Serial Mom than from (John’s) earlier films. I love Dottie Hinkle. The older people remember me from Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, but the younger people remember Serial Mom,” she explained. “John creates these characters that do things we would all love to be able to do, but you can’t live like his film characters. You’d have no friends, you’d have no life,” she laughed.

“The great thing is that All About Evil brings me full circle. I made a film with Natasha Lyonne called But I’m a Cheerleader, where Bud Cort and I played her parents. We thought she was gay, so we sent her to a camp to make her straight. We kind of tortured her. So in All About Evil, Natasha gets to get me back.”


Stole is also an accomplished musician when not acting. “I’m in the recording studio with my band working on our first album, and I have to tell you, that’s making me happier than anything else. We’re having so much fun.” She describes her music as an eclectic mix of rock and swingy jazz. “Some of it’s moody and atmospheric and some of it’s more rock-y. You know, I should be on my third or fourth album, but I’m just starting on my first,” she admitted. “I’m feeling a sense of urgency.”

She’s excited for people to come out and enjoy the pre-show, in which she promises a duet with Peaches Christ. “But it’s all about All About Evil, it’s not about me. I love the film. I think it’s very funny, and I don’t like horror movies. I sort of watched it looking through my fingers.”

All About Evil: The Peaches Christ Experience in 4-D will screen at MADCAP Theaters in Tempe this Friday September 17.

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

“What is it you can’t face?”
— Mother Superior in The Sound of Music ... and The Divine Sister
Was there ever a line more hilariously misheard? I think not, and so, every night, did audiences lucky enough to see the latest Charles Busch masterpiece, The Divine Sister, which ended its sold-out run last February at the Theater for the New City and re-opens tonight at the Soho Playhouse. The line originated in The Sound of Music, but is used to much better effect in The Divine Sister. Holy crap, it’s hilarious, as a wacky Mother Superior (and former girl reporter) works her wiles on the people of Pittsburgh to get a new convent school built. Mother is of course played by Busch himself, and it’s a fabulous multifaceted role (with a hilariously dubbed musical number) that shows off Busch’s command of all cinematic religious heroines from The Singing Nun to The Trouble with Angels to Agnes of God to The Da Vinci Code.

The dream cast includes the sublime Julie Halston as Sister Acacius the wisecracking right hand nun and Alison Fraser as Sister Walburga, a Teutonic terror from “Der Mother Haus” in Berlin. And what about that nuisance of a Postulate, Agnes (Amy Rutberg), who keeps hearing the Lord’s voice(s) in her head? Is she suffering from Stigmata or ... something stickier? Jennifer Van Dyck, so lovely and funny in Busch's The Third Story, plays Pittsburgh’s richest woman and – gasp! – Atheist! , as well as (in an inspired performance) a young male student who is questioning his sexuality, much to Mother Superior’s dismay.


Agnes’ hysterics have brought media attention, not to mention a man from Mother’s pre-nun past. Will Mother Superior fall back into the arms of her former lover? Will Sister Acacius face what she can’t? Will the evil albino monk and his incognito confidante succeed in their nefarious plot to unseat Jesus as the true Messiah (who knew he had a sibling?)?

Busch channels Rosalind Russell, while Halston makes her Brooklyn sister a tough-talking treat. Watching Busch and Halston spar and joke together is like watching a classic comedy team in their prime, albeit in wimples. Rutberg is sweetly kooky as the addled Agnes and Fraser is a hoot as the fearsome frau.


The Divine Sister is Busch’s robust and raucous return to the downtown shows that made him famous, like Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Psycho Beach Party. The production design is ingeniously low tech, almost as if it were created by and for a Catholic grade school. The pillars and walls of St. Veronica’s are covered in bricks that bear the unmistakable look of kitchen sponges, while the grand chandelier that lowers to indicate the dowager’s mansion is made of gold-painted paper plates, plastic knives, forks and spoons. There’s plenty of Busch’s trademark one-liners and intelligent parody, and just enough gleeful vulgarity to salute its East Village roots.

These days, with the rabidly anti-gay agenda being pushed by the Catholic Church and the current Pope, it is refreshing to enjoy a show that celebrates a more innocent time in Catholicism where all you need for happiness is a saucy sister with a guitar.

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