Month: January 2022

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200 American (2003)

2022 Entry #007 01-28-22 “200 American” is a 2003 romantic dramedy film which was written and directed by Richard LeMay (director of “Naked as We Came”, “Whirlwind” and producer of “Children of God”). The plot mainly focuses on the increasingly complicated romantic & sexual entanglements of a gay NYC CEO named Conrad (Matt Walton) and Ian / Tyler (Sean Matic), an Aussie hustler.

I purchased this title around the time it was originally released to DVD; I’d never seen it before but I’d started collecting LGBTQ+ DVDs by that point and I’d seen it in a TLA Video catalog. I watched it once. I remembered that the actors were attractive but that the movie looked like it had been recorded on video; it looked cheap, but that I had mostly enjoyed it…despite the acting being hit or (mostly) miss. I also remembered (SPOILER) that the seemingly gay-for-pay hustler came out in the course of the film, which I liked. The only thing that really changed for me this time around, despite me not having remembered most of the film, is that having moved to NYC in 2012, I now recognized a lot of the scenery in a first hand way. Also, for a movie that is focused on gay sex and the relationships that are centered on it, there’s a surprising lack of sex or nudity in the film. I don’t think I cared the first time I saw it, but this time I found it odd, dishonest and slightly frustrating. In the film’s favor…I will offer some light praise: I did occasionally find glimmers of potential, though they were fleeting, and late in the film, when I felt I’d really just like the movie to be over, a dumb joke made me laugh out loud for a good 30 seconds.

I’ve seen LeMay’s “Naked as We Came” and I remember enjoying it much more than this but I will have to revisit it as part of this LGBTQ+ viewing project. I also watched “Children of God” last year, which I loved, and I own a copy of “Whirlwind”, though I’ve never seen it. And though I didn’t hate this film, I can’t really recommend it either. I’d urge anyone interested in Lemay’s work to try the other titles I listed instead.

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Foxfire (1996)

2022 Entry #006 01-28-22 “Foxfire” is a 1996 American teen drama film directed by Annette Haywood-Carter and is a modernized adaptation of the novel “Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang” by Joyce Carol Oates, which was set in the 1950s. This version moves the setting from upstate New York to the Pacific Northwest, centers the story on suburban families rather than the novel’s working class and changes the duration of the story from 3.5 years to just several weeks. This was the first film that I ever saw Angelina Jolie in and just like the film’s narrator, I fell in love with her, despite our sexualities not being the most compatible. 😉

Basically, Jolie’s heavily implied to be lesbian character shows up like the classically cool, archetypal drifter who saunters into town and shakes everyone up. Now, she doesn’t physically get the girl in the movie, but they clearly love each other by the film’s end.

I rented this movie when it was a new release; I watched it on April 5, 1997. I know this because I wrote a poem titled “Charming”, about the film’s characters, as soon as I finished viewing it. I liked it. It’s not a great movie in my opinion. It’s not life changing. But it’s good. I think the performances are what make it worth seeing, while I find the script to be weak at times. Oh. And I like (and own) the soundtrack.

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Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)

2022 Entry #005 01-14-22 “Bedrooms and Hallways” is a 1998 comedy-drama film which was written by Robert Farrar (“Sunday Morning”, “RuPaul’s Christmas Ball”, “Courts mais GAY: Tome 6”) and directed by Rose Troche (“Go Fish”). The plot follows Kevin McKidd (“Nicholas Nickleby”, “De-Lovely”) as a gay man named Leo, who at the suggestion of a straight friend, join a men’s group, where his declaration of homosexual lust causes some unforeseen complications.

I’d seen this entry once before and I had vague memories of Hugo Weaving as a guy that likes to have sex in other people’s homes…but I also remember that this was a subplot, and for the life of me, I could not remember the main storyline of the film. I think part of that is because it’s just a very odd film. I also think that when I saw it the first time, I probably didn’t enjoy it, but that I enjoyed it more this time. It’s still a very strange movie with some odd pacing issues and some tonal problems but it features a very impressive cast and I think it makes a lot of interesting choices.

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How to Survive a Plague (2012)

2022 Entry #004 01-07-22 “How to Survive a Plague” is a 2012 American documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. It was directed by David France (“The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”, “Welcome to Chechnya”), a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings. The film is dedicated to the director’s partner Doug Gould, who died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1992.

A breathtakingly powerful documentary which covers familiar ground I’ve seen in other documentaries and narrative films, yet this managed to provide me with valuable information that I had somehow been deprived of until my viewing experience. Several similar works have been made over the years but they usually rely mostly on present day interviews to paint their stories, while this piece was produced using more than 700 hours of archived footage which included news coverage, interviews as well as film of demonstrations, meetings and conferences taken by ACT UP members themselves! Effectively and responsibly edited, this work is a treasure trove / time capsule that would be impossible to replicate without these valuable resources. Director David France has stated that they knew what they were doing was historic, and that many of them would die. And though the subject may seem treacherous, the story, as revealed here, is actually inspiring & hopeful, rather than bleak and depressing – with many untold or rarely shared stories of perseverance, success & triumph.

Highly recommended.

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Four Quartets (2018)

2022 Entry #003 01-03-22 “Four Quartets” is a 2018 11 minute short that was written and directed by Marco Alessi. The story covers a night out in a club as Raf (Laurie Kynaston) struggles to find his place among the crowd and learns that everything will fall into place if he just lets himself go with the flow.

This was cute. But I had misread the title as “Four Quarters” and kept waiting for the quarters to come into play! Lol Then, reading the title again, everything made much more sense, although I felt like a moron.

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Jermain and Elsie (2017)

2022 Entry #002 01-02-22 “Jermain and Elsie” is a 2017 21 minute short which was written by Ashley Campbell and Adele Silva; directed by Leon Lopez (“Soft Lad”). The short focuses on the unexpected friendship between a sexually ambiguous caregiver and his racist elderly invalid client. Jermain, the caregiver, is practically saintly, but has his own troubles, which reveals hidden depths in Elsie.

I liked this well enough. I was entertained.

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Caught Looking (1992)

2022 Entry #001 01-01-22 “Caught Looking” is a 1992 35 minute short which was written by Paul Hallam and directed by Constantine Giannaris. The story is somewhat confusing but features a man sitting at a computer and he logs into what seems to be an interactive sexual game called “Caught Looking” and then guides his virtual self through various scenarios. At least, I think that’s what was happening. It’s a bit of early 90s queer cyberpunk.

I watched this short over a 24hour period in which I was struggling with a horrible migraine. I’d been unable to receive my medication which had curtailed most of my migraine symptoms for several years and they all came rushing back at once, including scary visual manifestations. In addition to the migraine struggles, the audio for the film was split; the dialogue and music were in one ear while just the music was in the other, making it difficult to understand the dialogue so I ended up listening with just one headphone…so it was a bit awkward. When I later resumed the title I used a mono speaker system which helped.

At varying times I found this piece to be hypnotic, impenetrable, impressive, disappointing, inspired, sexy, dull and a whole host of other contradictory things. YMMV.

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