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 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. Death Proof is resolutely uncomplicated: Russell scours Californian highways to rough-up women of questionable virtue until he meets resistance in short skirts; it’s like that episode in which Daisy Hazzard kicks arse. Again and again. Missing is the complex, layered Tarantino of old. Certainly his earlier work was no less violent or stained than the pummelling Death Proof, but they had a greater subtlety and sense of purpose than mere homage. This simply reveals what a good film student Tarantino is. As with Kill Bill 1, he reworks the original tone to great effect, though watching a new film from a bygone era is hardly reason enough to buy a ticket. Even a cat eventually gets tired of playing with a mouse. Had Tarantino put his hormones to work, Death Proof could have been bigger than fast car carnage. Instead it’s an unwieldy, and ultimately boring, slog.
 JESSE JAMES (M)
Starring Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck
Directed by Andrew Dominik
It’s a long way from the brutality of Mark ‘Chopper’ Read to the poetic eloquence of Jesse James, yet the boy from Melbourne makes that leap with a remarkable film probing mortality, obsession and the cult of celebrity. This is no John Wayne western, owing more to Terence Malick than Sergio Leone. It opens as a reflective James (an impressively nuanced performance from Pitt) considers his career, his young family and his new concerns. The scene is stripped back to sparse essentials, recalling The New World with more dialogue. And guns. Nineteen-year-old Robert Ford (a screen-hugging revelation from Affleck) desperately wants to join the gang. Besotted since youth, his fascination is something of a joke to his brothers yet eerily attractive to the outlaw. Pitt portrays James as a weary insomniac, an acute sociopath with a repetitive disorder. His depressed silences are packed with menace; his jokes are frightening. Acutely concerned by Ford’s star-struck naivety – “You wanna be like me, or do you wanna be me?” – James corrals him through ridicule to do one thing he can’t do himself. Ford’s compulsive denial is explosive. The challenging runtime flashes past as Dominik deftly shifts gears from intriguing through compelling to present a riveting study of a flawed character.
 CINEMA REWIND
Less than Zero (1987)
Brett Easton Ellis was one of a new breed of ’80s authors whose hotshot style walked hand-in-hand with the decade of greed. He addressed excess wallowing knee-deep in a world that slapped of crack with a twist of cocaine. Forget Curacao Cocktails, he knew where the party was really at. Add Hollywood bad-boy Robert Downey Jr. in a role he was born to play, and fellow brat-packers Andrew McCarthy and James Spader, and you can’t go wrong. Less Than Zero opens a lid on life in Beverly Hills’ fast lane: money, sex, glamour and ’80s-styled self-destruction. Clay is a clean college kid concerned that his sweetheart is getting too chummy with her coke-addled flatmate Julian. He’s heading for the bottom and will take everyone with him. Expertly shot like a fashion magazine, Julian’s spiralling demise is all the more poignant for the beauty of his superficial life. Yes Less Than Zero is something of a bummer, but for an urgent reminder about the perils of drug addiction, it rings as true as ever. Downey Jr. is frighteningly effective, but perhaps he wasn’t really acting… For as George Carlin once quipped, “Cocaine makes you feel like having some more cocaine.”
Did you know ...
• This marks Brad Pitt’s feature debut in an uncredited role as ‘partygoer’. He received $38.
• Harley Peyton largely abandoned Ellis’ novel when writing the screenplay. He is currently working on The Topkapi Affair, a new Thomas Crown feature starring Pierce Brosnan and Angelina Jolie (rumoured).
• Keanu Reeves was originally cast as Clay Easton, the part that went to Andrew McCarthy.
• Spader later cemented his career with an attention-grabbing role in Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape. Most recently he refound fame as Alex Shore in TV’s Boston Legal.
• Look for The Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Flea as Musician #1. He was born in Melbourne in 1962.
 DVD REVIEWS
Mr. Leather
Directed by Jason Garrett
Released by Out & About Films via Eagle Entertainment
Nine men, all of them different, each share the same dream. They long to be crowned with the tiara-topped black leather cap that signifies the ultimate prize in the 2003 Mr LA Leather Contest. None of these fine specimens are in it for the glory, of course. None of them are in it to get laid. No, these fine upstanding community-minded gents are in it to become unpaid ambassadors for the little understood leather lifestyle. At least, that’s the line they have to spin the judging panel if they are to have any hope of coronation.
Nonetheless, we explore their favourite fetishes, meet their partners and pets and discover how they got into the leather scene. We see them study leather history, practice their speeches and agonise over their outfits and strategy. We even see them sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ as if to suggest these darkly clad deviants are no terrorists.
Early on in the piece we discover that you don’t have to be overly butch to be a leatherman – at least a couple of contestants may look like Tarzan but talk a lot more like Jane. As one contestant’s partner tells us, “I think the judges will be impressed … until he opens his mouth.” Other contestants face different hurdles: one is disadvantaged by his status as a ‘Boy’ – traditionally, the judges’ hearts belong to Daddies. Another is dismissed as ‘too shallow’, and woe-betide the chapless chap who uses the pageant to burst out of a uniform rather than leather-laden closet.
The intimate lives and interesting wardrobes of these nine contestants make for a compelling and sometimes dramatic documentary. We’re also treated to some rather graphic depictions of favourite leatherman pastimes such as bondage, bootlicking and fisting – the latter proving particularly, er, eye-opening. But while director Jason Garrett is happy for us to know which contestants are bootlicking bottoms but fisting tops, we learn very little about their ordinary and everyday lives away from the leather scene. As several subjects note, the leather scene is a marginalised subculture, even within the already marginalised gay community. Far from being irrelevant, a little more information about the more mundane aspects of the contestants’ lives would help to humanise not only them but also the whole leather scene.
 The Gymnast
Cast includes Dreya Weber, Addie Yungmee, John Lee Ames
Directed by Ned Farr
Released by AccentQueer through MRA Entertainment
Winner of numerous film festival awards, including Best Feature at Outfest 2006, The Gymnast is a quality lesbian love story. But it’s also much more. It tells the story of thirtysomething Jane Hawkins (Dreya Weber), a woman whose life is unfulfilled on so many fronts. Her dreams of Olympic glory passed long ago through injury and other events. She hates her job as a massage therapist. Her marriage is passionless. Her unappreciative husband thwarts her desire for a child. However, a chance meeting with a former team-mate, Denise, inspires Jane to reconsider the direction of her life. She begins to rekindle her passion for gymnastics and rediscovers her abilities. While visiting a gym, she is spotted by a coach and asked to team up with young American-Korean gymnast Serena (Addie Yungmee) to develop an aerial act. Ok girls, we know where this is going, don’t we?
Yes, love begins to bloom between these flexible new friends. But this new romance is problematic. After all, Jane’s a married woman with no previous lesbian inclinations. It’s hardly smooth sailing for Serena either, who must come to terms with the homophobic cultural baggage she has inherited from her Korean family and her Jewish religion. Perhaps it’s not surprising when Denise suggests Jane’s ‘infatuation’ is a form of denial about her own marriage.
As a lesbian love story, The Gymnast may disappoint some. There is little physical passion between the two leads. Rather, their relationship is beautifully suggested through their aerial interactions. Pigeonholing the film as a lesbian love story will rob it of a much-deserved wider audience. Ultimately, it is the story of a caged bird that does more than just yearn to be free.
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