Eating Out: All You Can Eat

Who knew third times a charm?  I thought the first two of these films (Eating Out and Eating Out 2:  Sloppy Seconds) were stupid and dull.  This one somehow pulled out all the stops.  I laughed out loud throughout.  The characters are endearing.  The men are all sexy.  There’s lots of gratuitous male nudity including full frontal.  And you know how annoying it was in To Wong Foo that the gay characters were the fairy godmothers who made the straight peoples lives all better?  Well in this film, the tables get turned and the straight characters help the gay characters lives turn out right.  A solid 4 on Netflix.  And without spoiling it, the funniest line in a comedy this year.  Nice going!

A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël)

Arnaud Desplechin’s complicated and celebratory story of the Vuillard family’s quest for a complete if not perfect Christmas.  Catherine Deneueve stars as matriarch Junon who’s facing a life-threatening illness.  Gathering her adult children and their families together sets the plot in motion.  Issues abound.  Back stories are revealed.  This film is very French, very intellectual, very modern.  A true delight.  Melvil Poupaud provides eye candy as the dreamy youngest son, Ivan. Emile Berling plays tortured teenage grandson Paul to perfection.  And Françoise Bertin is subtle and perfect as Rosaimée, one of the most interesting lesbian characters to be placed within a family in years.  Her role is small but the message is mighty.  This is not a feel good or silly holiday film.  It’s messy and painful at times, but characters redeem themselves and in the end you are filled with hope.  A must-see.

Mad Men: S2

Another stretch of time has passed since I’ve last posted and yes that usually means I’ve been plowing through a season of television.  This time it was Mad Men, Season 2  (see previous post on Mad Men: S1).  When I first started watching this season, I found it hard to enjoy.  There wasn’t one character who didn’t do horrible things on some level or another.  I actually started warming up to Duck, thinking they were giving him a more interesting storyline, and then he did the most heinous thing when he let his dog loose in Midtown Manhattan on purpose.  Back to hating everyone.  A friend at work told me to hang in there, which I did and felt better by the last few episodes.  The season ended with a lot of mystery and a bit of suspense.  I loved Don dropping out and that odd bunch of wealthy free spirits he met in California.  Loved that the father of the girl he fucked was hot for him in a very natural, non-threatening way.  I also loved that Kurt came out so naturally.  Very cool and quite unexpected, especially for the early 60’s, pre-Stonewall.  The actor, Edin Gali is actually Bosnian by birth.  Very sexy.  I really felt for Joan.  I thought she was radiant this season and that rape from her fiance was just too awful.  I felt they really covered a lot of territory in this season and even managed to interject the real Cuban Missile Crisis in the middle of all the chaos of the characters’ personal lives.  Looking forward to Season 3 as soon as it’s released.

Eastern Promises

“You know, it never snows in the city.  It’s never hot.  London is a city of whores and queers.  I think London is to blame for what he is.”  – Semyon.  What a huge surprise this film was for me.  Usually when I hear violence, I shy away from it.  In fact that’s an understatement.  I usually avoid films with gratuitious and excessive violence.  But something interested me about this film.  I’ll admit it was Vincent Cassel, the sexy French actor who plays Russian characters almost as much as he plays French roles.   Cronenberg did an outstanding job with this story.  Yes, there were moments I closed my eyes and waited, but this is the Russian Mafia so it couldn’t be sugar-coated.  I loved that Cassel’s character was gay.  I knew it as soon as he forced Viggo Morgenson’s character to have sex in front of him with a prostitute to prove that Viggo’s character wasn’t queer.  A perfect twist.  And damn them for making the most unsexy extended male nude scene ever in the history of cinema.  I’d give this one a 5, but I don’t want to see it again, too violent.  For that reason, I’d give it a solid 4.5 on Netflix, but you can give half points, so I’m settling on a 4.  Still it was an outstanding film.  I finally get Naomi Watts.  And if there’s ever a Kylie Minogue biopic, Naomi gets my vote.  Meanwhile, Eastern Promises is an excellent study of organized crime and how it affects a civilized society.

Mad Men: S1

It took me two tries to get hooked on Mad Men.  The first time I was really offended by the mysogeny, racism, anti-semitism.  The irony is that there’s virtually no homophobia (yet) because everyone assumes gays don’t exist.  Ah, 1960, a wonderful year.  So many friends have gotten into this series, I felt I needed to give it another go.  It hooked me right away the second time.  I get now that by showing the characters for how people truly were shows the ignorance of the time period.  It doesn’t glorify it, it just shows it as ugly as it is amidst all the beauty of Manhattan.  It’s interesting watching people navigate through the end of the post-WWII easy street boom and also watch the bubbling of feminism.  I really love the characters, especially Joan, Roger, Don, Betty, Peggy and Salvatore.  Poor Salvatore.  He hates himself so much he wouldn’t even entertain the thought of being with a man.  At least in Season 1.  The costuming and interiors are flawless.  I am hooked and in a very good way.  Favorite crushes: John Slattery (Roger).  Yikes, he’s younger than me (thanks a lot imdb!).  And Aaron Staton (Ken).  Lots of yummy guys in this show, but these two really stand out.  This is a new must-see for me.  Part hipster, part comfort food.  With lots of surprises.

Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos)

I finally saw a film in the theater this weekend.  Broken Embraces is Almodovar genius.  I honestly have no idea how this man keeps making such amazing films after all these years.  He is a master and my favorite living director.  This film is full of smart dialogue, intelligent plot, twists and turns, laughter and especially love.  His characters wear their complicated, messy lives on their sleeves, but always redeem themselves by showing purity and revealing their errors to be acts of love.  Broken Embraces is deliciously layered and there are some very silly moments.  It’s classic Almodovar.  I can’t wait to see it again.

Star Trek (2009)

Of  course I should have seen this one in the theater.  But I didn’t get around to it.  I wondered if it would translate to the small screen.  It did.  I was amazed at how good this film was.  I came to the Star Trek franchise rather late for my generation.  I watched the original series cast only in their movies, then watched TNG on TV, then the TNG films.  I was really impressed with the script, storylines and acting in this one.  More story than fighting/war which I loved.  The only weird moment was the Uhura/Spock connection.  Was that new?  I don’t remember that from the original series or films?  I guess we have come a long way.  Now if we could just get Scotty and Chekov together my life would be complete.

Under Capricorn

Another Hitchcock I needed to re-visit.  This is an odd film, taking place in the past (1831) and in Sydney, Australia (though no one has Australian accents in the film).  Ingrid Bergman is her usual intense self.  I haven’t seen all of her films, but I feel like her acting is a bit one-dimensional in most of the films I’ve seen her.  Or is that Hitchcock’s direction of her?  Joseph Cotton does a good job playing a man trying to rise above his class.  In fact the entire film is really a treatise on class.  Michael Wilding is a bit unbelievable as the handsome man who distracts Bergman.  I never realized how queeny Wilding was on screen.  I’m now wondering if his demeanor was just for this film or his real personality bleeding through.  I googled him and read that Elizabeth Taylor referred to him as her gay husband.   I’d give this a 3 on Netflix.  It held my interest, but wasn’t great.

Fracture

Ryan Gosling is without a doubt one of the best actors of his generation.  The same can be said for Anthony Hopkins.  This thriller was good, if not great.  It held my attention and kept me in suspense wondering what would happen up to the very end.  It reminds me of the John Grisham adaptations which I think worked so well for the screen.  They are not amazing films, but well done.  Hopkins continues to remind us he can play scary.  Gosling is a little stiff in this.  But overall, I enjoyed it.  The score was outstanding.  Composers Mychael & Jeff Danna really outdid themselves.

Pariah

Unfortunately you won’t find this excellent short, Pariah on Netflix.  It’s only available through New Day Films.  Official website here.  I ordered it for our collection at work.  First time writer/director Dee Rees did not disappoint.  This 28 minute film packs a lot of chaos and trauma into the life of Lee, a 17 year-old African-American young woman.  Lee is torn between her identities at home, at school and in the lesbian bars she frequents at night.  Currently said to be making a feature length film of Pariah.  The short already has high production values, is edgy and current.  This one is a must-see.