Little Seen Film of the Day – Hollow Reed

Hollow ReedHOLLOW REED is a tough, British, family drama from 1996 about child abuse.  Oliver lives with his mother Hannah, and her boyfriend Frank.  He still spends time with his father, Martyn, a general practitioner, who becomes suspicious of Frank after Oliver suffers a series of mysterious injuries which he cannot adequately explain.  Eventually, Martyn is convinced of Frank’s abuse, despite Oliver’s silence, and Hannah’s refusal to believe such a thing, and he begins legal proceedings to obtain sole custody.  At this point, Hannah’s lawyer brings up Martyn’s gay relationship with Tom to prove that he is an unsuitable father figure.

Director Angela Pope brings up a lot of tough and frustrating issues in this well-constructed film written by Neville Bolt and Paula Milne.  Hal Hartley alum, Martin Donovan, is remarkable, British accent and all, as Martyn, a role quite unlike what he’d played to that point.  The rest of the cast, including Joley Richardson, Ian Hart and Jason Flemyng are all outstanding, especially young Sam Bould as Oliver, whose stoic, silence is powerfully offset by the hurt, fear, and confusion in his eyes.  It’s unfortunate that Pope’s filmmaking career didn’t go much further than this powerful film.

Little Seen Film of the Day: Colma: The Musical

Colma: The MusicalA charming if somewhat amateurish indie musical that tells the coming-of-age stories of three teenagers recently graduated from high school living in Colma, CA.  Billy, Rodel and Maribel are facing the challenges of young adulthood, and chasing their dreams.  Billy aspires to be a performer, and auditions for the regional musical where he meets a college student named Tara, who is also an aspiring actor.  Rodel is being raised by a single parent and is struggling with how to tell his father that he is gay.  Maribel just can’t figure out what to do with her life.  When Billy’s ambitions threaten to tear the three friends apart, all three must re-assess and find away to move on.

With its micro-budget and low production values, COLMA: THE MUSICAL is a tiny movie, but it has a really big heart.  The musical numbers are strong.  COLMA is the debut film by  Filipino-American H.P. Mendoza, who stars, co-wrote the screenplay, and wrote all the music and lyrics.  Director Richard Wong also co-wrote the film.  There aren’t a lot of films out there telling the Asian-American experience, and it’s nice to see one that is so fresh and accessible.  The film is far from perfect, but it’s a lot of fun and worth a screening.

 

Little Seen Film of the Day – All Over Me

All Over MeAlex Sichel’s coming-of-age film, ALL OVER ME, is one of the plethora of earlyish LGBT films that focuses on the coming out experience, but it’s also one of the better ones.  Allison Folland (so compelling in TO DIE FOR) plays Claude, a teenage girl living in Hell’s Kitchen, struggling with her awakening sexuality.  She is in love with Ellen, a friend with whom she wants to start a punk band.  Problem is, Ellen has a boyfriend, and they may of may not have been involve with the death of a gay musician and neighbor of Claude’s.  The storyline focuses on Claude, in the throes of first love, doing everything she can to make Ellen understand how much she loves her without really saying it explicitly, while slowly realizing that Ellen is not the only person out there, and that there might be more suitable people to share her life with.

The tone is somber, and filled with the appropriate angst that any teen coming-of-age drama, especially one that involves homosexuality, should have.  In addition to Folland, the film stars Tara Subkoff and Cole Hauser, who both went on to successful film careers.  There aren’t a lot of U.S. gay films that I enjoy, and this is definitely one of them.  I was disappointed to see that director Alex Sichel didn’t really have much more of a career in film after this.  She clearly had talent, and I chalk it up o the challenge of making indie films focused on women.

Little Seen Film of the Day – Apartment Zero

Apartment ZeroAPARTMENT ZERO is a most unusual film that made a big impression on me when I saw it in the late 80’s.  Written and directed by Martin Donovan (who later went on to write DEATH BECOMES HER), this combo black comedy/thriller stars Colin Firth as Adrian, a repressed and socially awkward Brit living in Argentina who is struggling to make ends meet operating a repertory theatre with a dwindling audience while paying for the care of his mother in a home.  Despite his social anxiety, he is forced to look for a roommate, and after a series of unsuitable possibilities, settles on the ruggedly handsome Jack, played by Hart Bochner, with whom he is instantly attracted to physically.  The two start up an bizarre relationship, with Adrian intrigued by the charismatic Jack, but more unexpectedly, Jack seeming to share a similar affection for Adrian.

Adrian’s neighbors in the apartment building are an eccentric bunch who immediately take a liking to Jack after being repeatedly rebuffed socially by Adrian, several of which both male and female, become physically involved with Jack.  Adrian resents the connections Jack is making with the neighbors, and begins to put demands on his accommodating roommate.  Adrian’s friend Claudia is involved with a political committee that’s investigating a series of murders that bear a striking resemblance to those committed by members of death squads that operated in Argentina in the 70s.  When she discovers a possible tie between Jack and these death squads, a confrontation between the two leads the film into a violent spiral of revelations and twisted actions.

When I saw APARTMENT ZERO I still wan’t out to many people as a gay man, and the homoerotic undertones of the film fascinated me.  The black humor is exceptionally handled, and the performances by the two leads are terrific, especially Firth as the repressed Adrian.  Sadly, the theatrical cut contained more homoerotic content that was edited from the home video version.  I’m not sure if that version is available to screen.

Favorite Books Read in 2012 – #’s 7 & 8

It’s nerve-wracking being friends with published authors.  I always worry I’m not going to like their books!  Fortunately, that rarely happens, and I have found being completely honest usually serves very well.  This pair of books both took me by surprise.  One I didn’t expect to like, and the other I grew to like more and more after I completed it and time passed.

The Night Circus

#8 – The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I was a slow convert despite the hype. Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus is an exquisitely crafted fantasy/romance/historical mash-up that, like the circus it describes, contains ever-increasing wonders as each page turns. Celia and Marco are bound by their father/mentor respectively to spend much of their lives preparing for, then competing in a mystical challenge. This particular challenge has been repeated for centuries with very little variance in

the outcome: one participant wins, the other is no more. The problem is, Celia and Marco meet and fall in love, despite the challenge, which they are bound to and upon which they are unable to turn their backs.

This bizarre challenge/romance takes place against the backdrop of Le Cirque des Rêves a glorious circus that appears in different cities during the cover of darkness and is only open at night. Morgenstern’s debut is intricately layered and filled with a rich and fascinating cast of characters. But best of all, she manages to continuously convey the wonder of the magical circus tents throughout at 400-page book, without repeating herself, or resorting to cliche. It’s a magnificent effort, and a joy to read.

The Paternity Test#7 – The Paternity Test by Michael Lowenthal

For a novel, that on the one hand, appears as a slightly sudsy melodrama about a gay couple desiring a child, Michael Lowenthal’s The Paternity Test challenged me the way few books do.  Here is my best attempt to convey the complexity of emotions I felt throughout my reading it. At first The Paternity Test seemed like it was going to be a fairly straight-forward story; gay couple, together for a while and facing a turning point, decide to leave the big city, move to Cape Cod and have a child by using a surrogate. There would be the typical dramatic moments exploring issues such as having a child to save a relationship; difficulty with the surrogate, that kind of thing. In fact, I wasn’t all that interested in the subject matter, and wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy it. But when you get an advanced copy from the author himself, you make a point of reading it. 

The first thing I noticed was how compelling it was. I couldn’t put the book down and read it in record time. That said, it was a very tough read for me, stirring up all sorts of conflicting emotions. For much of the book I wasn’t sure I was enjoying it, and had particular trouble with the lead character, Pat. Often I was worried about the direction the book was headed in. Sometimes I had the distinct feeling that I was reading a novelization of “Days of our Lives.” But by the end of the book, I was excited by the journey it took me on, the very fact that I was all over the place emotionally with the characters, yet ultimately having it be a really satisfying reading experience for me. Like parenthood, like relationships, like family, there is nothing simple about The Paternity Test; there are ups and downs, moments of melodrama, laughter, tears, anger… all the things that make a wonderful novel.