2024 Entry #59 09-05-24 “Life as a House” is a 2001 American drama film produced and directed by Irwin Winkler (“De-Lovely”, “The Wolf of Wall Street”) based on a screenplay by Mark Andrus (“As Good as it Gets”, “Otherhood”). The story focuses on a man who is anxious to repair his relationship with his ex-wife and teenage son after he is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
I’ve always enjoyed this movie, though its attitudes towards body jewelry annoys me as I have a labret piercing and I love it. lol The film is great though, emotionally, and it takes several unexpected turns. It’s not perfect, but it’s very good.
As for the queer content, early in the film, Hayden Christensen’s character is led into the world of sex workers by his frenemy and would-be-pimp, a seemingly straight guy played by Ian Somerhalder (“Rules of Attraction”, “Law and Order: SVU”) – who initiates an encounter between Christensen’s character and a john (played by Sam Robards from “American Beauty”, “Bounce”) – which is interrupted by the police – which becomes a key plot element later in the film. It’s pretty tenuous but it is there.
2024 Entry #017 01-13-14 “Friends and Family” is a 2001 gay-themed comedy film written by Joseph Triebwasser and directed by Kristen Coury. The film follows Stephen Torcelli (Greg Lauren) & his partner, Danny Russo (Christopher Gartin), as they struggle to keep Stephen’s parents from discovering that they’re enforcers for the Patrizzi crime family.
The film plays on stereotypes, but being a silly comedy, there are a lot of stereotypes here – and most of it isn’t all that funny; I can see why the writer and director (apparently) never worked on another film ever again. You have the butch gay couple (who never kiss or show much affection for one another). You have the supportive mafia characters, who pretend to be gay in support of the couple. You have the Don’s straight sons, one of which wants to be a fashion designer and the other a cook. And you have another character’s parents who are members of an anti-government militia. There’s also an annoying and rather abrupt ending. Most of this didn’t land for me, but it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was going to be after the first half of the film left me wishing I could just shut it off. It’s not great, or even particularly good, but it could have been far worse, which is all the praise that I’ll give it.
2024 Entry #011 01-07-24 “Kissing Jessica Stein” is a 2001 American independent romantic comedy film, written and co-produced by the film’s stars, Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen; directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld (“Fanci’s Persuasion”, “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde”, . The film also features openly gay John Edward Cariani (“The Good Wife”), Ben Weber (“Sex and the City”, “The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy”) Tovah Feldshuh (“Friends & Family”, “Ugly Betty”, “The Good Wife”), Scott Cohen (“Oz”, “Gia”), Jackie Hoffman (“Queer Duck: The Movie”, “The New Normal”, “The Good Wife”, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”), Brian Stepanek (“Six Feet Under”, “Green Book”), Jon Hamm (“Ally McBeal”, “Mad Men”, “A Single Man”, “Howl”, “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie”, “Mean Girls”) & Michael Showalter (“Wet Hot American Summer”). The film is based on a scene from the 1997 off-Broadway play by Westfeldt and Juergensen called “Lipschtick”.
The story follows the title character, a Jewish copy editor living and working in New York City, who is plagued by failed blind dates with men, and decides to answer a newspaper’s personal advertisement, placed by a thirtysomething art gallerist, a ‘lesbian-curious’ woman. I had seen this movie once before, when I purchased it for my collection, when it was relatively new – so close to 22 years ago. Of that viewing, I remembered a powerful scene between Jessica (Jennifer Westfeldt) and her mother Judy (Tovah Feldshuh) on a swing, in which Judy reveals that she is supportive of Jessica’s relationship with Helen (Heather Juergensen), the gallerist; I cried both times that I saw it. The other scene I remembered was the breakup between the two women and the reasons for it. Otherwise, I remembered nothing; not even that it was set in NYC.
This movie is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I enjoy it, but I could have loved it and I didn’t. I think there are a few really successful ideas here about relationships and what constitutes a healthy one; how people can inspire us to be better than we were before – and can simply inspire us to do our best, our most creative work, which isn’t the same thing. But I think the tone of this piece is a little too “safe” and is so hellbent on being fluffy and fun that it often does a disservice to the strength of these messages. And I think that this silly romantic comedy occasionally gets out of its own way and allows for depth and honesty.
And then there’s the other problem, which may be more problematic for some than others: I’m not certain there are any lesbian characters in this supposedly lesbian themed film. I think if the film stood its ground more often and didn’t pull its punches this would be less annoying, because there is something to be said for the experiences of women who have relationships with women beyond lesbianism, but because it plays everything as frothy and weightless, that subject matter is presented as nearly devoid of anything of worth, and it didn’t have to be that way. But because of that, I wish the film had just allowed these characters to be lesbians. A fun lesbian comedy would be both easier to convey and a more welcome story to discover, as finding lesbian films which actually feature lesbian characters, who aren’t there only for decoration or flavor seems to be shockingly rare. Though I do give the movie some props for one of the bisexual women ending up with a woman, as her ending up with a man would have been so obnoxious as to spoil the film altogether.
Overall, this IS a silly romantic comedy, but every now and again there is something of greater value to be found here, which suggests this story could have been something much better.
2024 Entry #010 01-06-24 “Mulholland Drive” (often stylized as “Mulholland Dr.”) is a 2001 surrealist mystery film written and directed by David Lynch (“Dune”, “Wild at Heart”, “Twin Peaks”, “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me”). The film stars Naomi Watts (“J. Edgar”, “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans”), Laura Harring (“Gossip Girl”, “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”), Justin Theroux (“I Shot Andy Warhol”, “Ally McBeal”, “Sex and the City”, “American Psycho”, “The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy”, “Six Feet Under”, “The Sleepy Time Gal”, Mark Pellegrino (“Capote”) and Robert Forster (“Desperate Housewives”) and was the last feature film to star veteran Hollywood actress Ann Miller.
The film seemingly tells the story of an aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Watts), newly arrived in Los Angeles, who meets and befriends an amnesiac woman (Harring) recovering from a car accident and the two become lovers. The story follows several other vignettes and characters, including a Hollywood film director (Theroux). In the final act there is a jarring change of perspectives in which many of the roles we’ve been following are altered, and the audience is left to decide for themselves what actually happened. Despite this unconventional twist, “Mulholland Drive” is often regarded as one of Lynch’s finest works and as one of the greatest films of all time. It was ranked 8th in the 2022 Sight & Sound critics’ poll of the best films ever made and topped a 2016 BBC poll of the best films since 2000.
It might surprise some (and disappoint others) that I had never seen this film before watching it yesterday. Despite loving the original “Twin Peaks” series, the prequel film “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” and Lynch’s version of “Dune”, I generally don’t think of myself as a big David Lynch fan. I saw “Lost Highway” in theaters and fell asleep, but I hated what I did see and I’ve never been tempted to revisit it.
Having said that, I found this piece to be quite moving at times, disquieting at others. In the beginning, following the opening credits, I disliked the film’s tone, which was epitomized in Naomi Watts and her performance. However, the change in perspectives (among others things) changed my response as well. I didn’t write this review right away because I wanted to spend some time with my thoughts on the film, and I’m convinced (like many others) that the final section of the film is the true tale, while everything after the opening credits up to that point is a kind of fantasy or self deception, which circles back around at the end of the film. It’s complicated, clearly. I can see why so many people both love and hate it. I think I love it. I may need to watch it again at some point. In retrospect, this feels like a masterpiece, but while I was watching it, I didn’t feel that way at all – which itself is fascinating.
