2 DAYS IN PARIS (MA)

Starring Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg
Directed by Julie Delpy

2 Days in Paris is the kind of biting comedy Woody Allen could have made, a non-stop talk-fest that for all its laugh-out-loud moments (and there are many), engages the audience with its intimacy. Jack and Marion have dropped in on her parents (Delpy’s real life family) who bitch and fight and curse as Jack is embraced and vilified in turn. “With such a weird face,” says Marion’s smiling mother, “he’d better be smart.” There’s an echo of Before Sunrise that puts the couple on a crash-course with altercation, but in broadening the character base this offers more, foremost a string of Marion’s ex-lovers who confirm Jack’s Small World theory as it applies to their sex life. Explosive jealousy follows, leading Jack to declare that her ‘temper’ is an “impulse control disorder that requires medication!” Although the story drifts and the extended and unnecessary use of wobbly-cam becomes irritating, 2 Days in Paris is a joyous meditation on relationships: between friends, family, couples, countries and cultures. “You led the way in rude,” says Jack of the French. Like Allen of old, Delpy has taken a microscope to of her own city and found it funny, flawed, wonderful and wildly entertaining.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS (PG)
Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig
Directed by Chris Weitz

In a parallel universe, people wear their souls on the outside. ‘Daemons’ are a girl’s best friend and populate the world of The Golden Compass, where the ruling Magisterium is disappearing hundreds of children and plotting against a heretic scientist. His niece Lyra sets course for the Arctic Circle where witches and warrior bears, a golden compass, Gyptians and an Aeronaut hope to stay ahead of the scheming Mrs Coulter (Kidman). Lyra’s success would ruin the Magisterium’s plan for universal domination. Gottit? Feel free to say no, for if The Golden Compass is anything, it is unattractively complex. In compressing His Dark Materials’ trilogy, Chris Weitz has created a thundering juggernaut of a film that veers from point to point with the grace of a, well, juggernaut. In the rush to introduce characters, set scenes and introduce more characters, no time is spared to digest the goings-on, and there is a lot going on. Yet anyone suffering ADD will be duly rewarded. The Golden Compass is a luscious production, thrillingly driven by a gutsy heroine. Aiming for another LOTR cash-cow epic, producers New Line may regret trimming the run-time. Find out next year when (if) the hysterical Golden Compass finds its course.

CINEMA REWIND 

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

This high-camp howler was a hit at the Mardi Gras Film Festival that invoked the spirit of John Waters. Meagan is an all-American Christian cheerleader until her parents get the idea that she might be – gasp – a lesbian! All the clues are there: she eats tofu, has a Melissa Etheridge poster and hates kissing her boyfriend whom, it must be noted, goes after her with all the sensuality of a drain cleaner. They send Megan to True Directions, a correction camp for homosexuals. Confronted by the reality of her orientation (yup, she’s a muncher), Megan is thunderstruck by the idea, which has cast her adrift in a queer, queer world. This satirical pole gets about half way up the arse of the moral majority and while you probably want more, the collective campery of RuPaul, Cathy Moriaty and Mink Stole push the right buttons. It might not be a classic, but where else would you see Julie Delpy as a lipstick lesbian at the Cocksucker Club?

Did you know...

•    Emerging briefly from a string of TV on shows like The Gilmore Girls and The L Word, director Jamie Babbit shot this year’s Itty Bitty Titty Committee.
•    Clea DuVall has since starred in Girl, Interrupted, 21 Grams and TV’s cult series, Carnivale. She is soon to appear in Anamorph opposite Willem Dafoe.
•    RuPaul has signed to do Another Gay Sequel, the sequel to Another Gay Movie. The rest of the cast are still in negotiation.
•    As Sloppi Seconds, John Waters regular Mink Stole had a minor role in Another Gay Movie that hit the cutting room floor. The same year, she appeared as Helen in Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds.
•    Kimberly is played by Heath Ledger’s ex-squeeze, Michelle Williams. The Oscar-nominated pair met on the set of the oh-so gay Brokeback Mountain.

DVD REVIEWS

The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green

Cast includes Daniel Letterle, Meredith Baxter, Dean Shelton
Directed by George Bamber
Released by Out & About Video via Eagle Entertainment

If Ethan Green’s social life was as unfabulous as cartoonist Eric Orner would have you believe, his strip would never have been syndicated in gay mags across the globe, published in book form, merchandised on T-shirts and mugs and now filmed as a breezy, live action romantic comedy. Daniel Letterle (CAMP) plays the 26-year-old Ethan, who is famously unlucky in love. But as the film opens, he thinks he’s finally hit a home run with Kyle (Diego Serrano), a spunky pro baseball player, who just happens to be married. But Ethan has bigger worries. His landlord also happens to be his ex, Leo (David Monahan), who wants to evict Ethan and his lesbian gal-pal Charlotte (Shanola Hampton) and sell the house.

In a bid to stall the sale until his new beau agrees to ditch the wife and move in with him, Ethan enlists the aid of 19-year-old party boy and sex machine, Punch (Dean Shelton), who recommends a deeply depressed realtor, Sunny Deal. In a suitably black comedic cartoon interlude by Orner himself, we discover Sunny never recovered after accidentally gassing her cats. But while Ethan juggles romance with Kyle and a round of romps with Punch, he begins to pine for Leo, who’s about to ‘marry’ the new man in his life, a Log Cabin Republican from Texas.

Bamber coaxes likeable performances from the major players, who are aided by strong supporting characters such as Ethan’s mother, a gay wedding planner (Meredith Baxter) and his moustachioed ‘Aunties’, the Hat Sisters (Joel Brooks and Richard Riehle). Orner originally based the sisters’ outrageous characters on a real-life Boston couple famed for wearing, for example, papier maché replicas of bird baths on their heads and matching frocks.

The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green zips along at a cracking pace and maintains a good humour throughout, all of which help to paper over the plot contrivances and workmanlike camerawork. It’s a modest farce that won’t produce any belly laughs, but it’s not bad for a few giggles on a quiet night in. 

Relax…It’s Just Sex

Written and Directed by P.J. Castellaneta
Starring Mitchell Anderson, Jennifer Tilly, Lori Petty, Eddie Garcia
Released by Force Queer via Force Entertainment

Despite the eye-catching title, the horizontal hula is not the focus of this modest 1999 feature. Rather, it’s all about relationships. And even then, writer-director PJ Castellaneta suggests it is our friendships that provide the greater sustenance to our lives. Opening with a brief but humorous primer on ‘homosexuals’ and ‘lipstick lesbians’ in mock ’50s documentary style, the film segues into a discussion on whether it is best to spit or swallow. Women, we’re told, prefer to spit into Mason jars, which can then be examined at group meetings.

Perhaps a little too slowly, we’re introduced to an ensemble cast of characters reflecting every possible sexual orientation and an assortment of races. At the centre of the story there’s Vincey (Mitchell Anderson), a frustrated gay author who’s “tired of kissing strangers” and dating “psychopaths”, and his “fag hag”, Tara (Jennifer Tilly), a talkative mother-figure to the group, which also includes whitebread gym queen couple, Dwight and Diego, African-American lesbian, Sarena (Cynda Williams), her soon to be bisex ex, Megan (Serena Scott Thomas), and her butch secret admirer, Robin (Lori Petty). There’s also Tara’s HIV-positive brother (Eddie Garcia), an arty AIDS conspiracy theorist, and even a couple of straight men to boot.

Essentially, the film follows members of the group as they deal with life’s ups-and-downs over the course of several months. Relationships begin and relationships die, and an orientation changes, leading to an hilarious cameo in which a snobbish PFLAG mum (Susan Tyrell) dreads having to explain her daughter’s new beau. With its mix of drama and comedy, Relax ... has realistic dialogue and the relationships are engaging. However, a harrowing gay-bashing scene may upset some viewers, but not for the reasons you might expect.

MOVIE REVIEWS 

CRAZY LOVE (M)

Burt Pugach, Linda Pugach
Directed by Dan Klores

Never was a documentary so well titled. This examination of obsession was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for, among other reasons, its capacity to surprise. Outside of US tabloid press, the story of Burt and Linda Pugach barely rated more than a few column centimetres. In 1959, they generated headline after headline as their love affair exploded. Burt was a hot-shot film lawyer with a taste for women. He meets Linda and begins a torrid affair but fails to disclose his marriage. Falsifying divorce proceedings, Burt woos her back. Linda’s mother unearths the truth; Burt hires goons in the belief Linda will turn to him for protection. The attack makes national headlines. Fourteen years later, on release from prison, Burt tries to win back Linda’s heart. It’s the kind of story that makes press barons rich, and many rode a long way on the obsessive, crazy love of Burt Pugach. What makes Klores’ documentary so fascinating is the page-turning revelations he piles up. Mixing talking-head testimony from Burt (80), Linda (70) and their close friends (extras from The Nanny) with photographs, press and television clippings, he creates a forceful montage. Burt and Linda kick it into touch – her compliance, his near total lack of remorse.

SEPTEMBER (M)

Starring Xavier Samuel, Clarence John Ryan
Directed by Peter Carstairs

In most regards, September is a companion piece to Somersault and Romulus, My Father: the former for its haunting, ethereal tone; the latter for an acute sense of time and place. 1968 was the year that legislation forced employers to pay Aborigines an equal wage, a time when cinemas were still segregated. Two 15-year-old boys are growing up side by side in different worlds – Ed is the son of a struggling farmer, Paddy the son of an Aboriginal labourer. The boys are inseparable, and then Amelia arrives at school. There’s a touch of To Kill a Mockingbird about the narrative structure – the way in which small things quickly escalate, and how good men like Ed’s father sided with institutional racism against lifelong friends. September is also a film about what’s not said; much more is conveyed in the elegant pauses than through sparse dialogue. A fresh cast give strong, credible performances though the film’s brilliance lies in its score and cinematography. Here runs a line of muted exchange as striking landscapes conduct a sublime underscore to the immediate drama. Whether it is a school bus flying across the asphalt, or a lone tree being slowly drawn into focus, September is an exquisite film that rewards patience in exploring the value of friendship.

CINEMA REWIND  

Two Hands (1999)

Crime flicks have always held a special place in the hearts of Australians, and one of the recent best also cemented Heath Ledger’s career. Fresh from a starring role in the standout college hit, 10 Things I Hate About You, a bewitchingly charismatic Ledger played 19-year-old Jimmy, a kid who makes a stupid decision with devastating results. Having lost the loot of a Kings Cross kingpin (a superb Bryan Brown), Jimmy plots a job to pay him back. It’s that, or find himself a dead man. Jordan expertly balances his firecracker on a yin/yang motif that runs throughout the film, best evoked in Brown’s role as gangster/patriarch and the scary-dark, energetic beauty of its Sydney backdrop. It resurfaces neatly with Susie Porter as the caring mother who trains Jimmy to do the job. Yet philosophy is only part of the film. Fun-filled suspense is the driving force that shoots Two Hands like the little Aussie rocket it is.

Did you know ...

•    Gregor Jordan’s next project was Buffalo Soldiers with Joaquin Phoenix. Nervous distributors held the film back because of its anti-war sentiment. He returned to Australia to work on Ned Kelly, again starring Heath Ledger.
•    Note how the bad guys drive Ford cars, while the good guys drive Holdens; as it should be.
•    Look for Kieran Darcy-Smith as Craig. He’s currently in cinemas in the excellent Australian family drama, September.
•    Heath Ledger is in pre-production on The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s sequel to Batman Begins. He plays a pre-Jack Nicholson Joker.
•    Two Hands won five AFI awards from a near-record eleven nominations. Bryan Brown also picked up a FCCA award for Best Actor. Jordan won a Bronze Horse at the Stockholm Film Festival. He is currently filming an adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis’ The Informers with Winona Ryder and Mickey Rourke.

DVD REVIEWS 

Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds

Cast includes Jim Verraros, Marco Dapper, Mink Stole
Directed by Phillip J. Bartell
Released by Out & About Video via Eagle Entertainment

Sloppy Seconds is the unapologetically silly and schlocky tale of gay college student Kyle (2002 American Idol contestant, Jim Verraros), who tries to win the affections of the new boy from Idaho, Troy (Marco Dapper). Aided by his proud gal pal, Tiffani (Rebekah Kochan), Kyle pretends to be a successful convert to the joys of cunnilingus after the handsome country boy admits to being “confused” about his sexuality. Together, Kyle and Troy attend Coming In, a campus ex-gay group whose motto, ‘Homo NO More’, is the proud achievement of its not-so repressed leader. The scenes involving the group are among the film’s funniest (and cruellest), as the members none too convincingly attempt to paint themselves as heterosexual. Meanwhile, Kyle’s ex, Marc (Brett Chuckerman), who replaces Desperate Housewives’ Ryan Carnes in the role, takes a slightly more honest approach to seducing Troy.

Though first and foremost a comic romp, Sloppy Seconds does spray a few positive messages throughout, as you might expect from a script co-written by Q Alan Brocka (Boy Culture). And for a film populated with such Jalapeno hot men (the credits include characters such as ‘Very Hot Guy’, ‘Hot Shirtless Guy’, ‘Hot Clothed Guy’, and ‘Hot Surfer Guy’), it’s a relief to find our hero, Kyle, is more a mild American Mustard. Billed as the first American gay sequel, this, er, tastefully titled sex comedy is clearly no Godfather Part II, but it is that rarest of films, a follow-up widely regarded as an improvement on the original. Like the original, which defied the critical drubbing it received, Sloppy Seconds went on to become a modest hit on the US rental market. And so it should here. Some full frontal male nudity and strong female roles make Sloppy Seconds an ideal no-brainer for a night in with your gal pals.

Whole New Thing

Cast includes Daniel MacIvor, Aaron Weber
Directed by Amnon Buchbinder
Released by Force Queer via Force Entertainment

Just when you thought the gay teen coming-of-age drama had worn out its welcome, along come the Canadians with a Whole New Thing, an intelligent, endearing and original tale set in the frigid wilds of Nova Scotia.

Though many of the initial elements will be familiar, the film ventures into territories many would prefer remain unexplored and unspoken, such as beat sex and intergenerational attraction.

Our central character is an intelligent and somewhat androgynous 13 year-old boy, Emerson (Aaron Weber), the only child of ex-hippie parents, Rog (Robert Loy) and Kaya (Rebecca Jenkins), whose attempts to build an idyllic life have faltered. Rog’s unfulfilled dream of simultaneously saving the planet and making a fortune by turning human waste into alternative fuel have instead tuned their marriage into, er, human waste. Kaya has enjoyed better success in her own project, home-schooling Emerson. But when Emerson is sent to a local school it becomes clear just how different he is to his peers. Though he handles the redneck bullies with admirable aplomb and cutting wit, he is less prepared for the crush he develops on his English teacher, Don Grant (Daniel McIvor), a fortysomething gay man dealing with a failed relationship and a homophobic, senile mother. Though the plot developments may not set the world on fire, A Whole New Thing works best in its detailed portrayal of human interaction. This is due in no small part to the terrific cast of talented unknowns, chief amongst them first-timer Weber, who is utterly believable as the precocious, gifted and very charming teen.

DEATH PROOF (MA)

Starring Rosario Dawson, Kurt Russell
Directed by Quinten Tarantino

Tarantino presented Death Proof to packed houses at the Cannes Film Festival as audiences whooped and hollered from the first frame to the rousing, blood-soaked finale. After all, the villainous, misogynistic Kurt Russell had just been slain many times – one death simply wouldn’t be enough...

 PLUS: Jesse James and Less than Zero on Cinema Rewind. DVD REVIEWS: Mr. Leather and The Gymnast.

SUPERBAD (MA)

Starring Jonah Hill, Michael Cera
Directed by Greg Mottola

“You know when you hear girls say, ‘Ah man, I was so shit-faced last night, I shouldn’t have fucked that guy’? We could be that mistake!” says Seth, enthusiastically motivating his best friend Evan...

PLUS: The War on Democracy and The Coroporation on Cinema Rewind.  DVD Reviews: Hate Crime and Nina's Heavenly Delights.