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Mr. Right and
Brotherhood V: Alumni”

Loyal Quest readers might well remember that Glenn’s annual cinematic soirées have rarely met with success. It is easy to see, in retrospect, Glenn’s folly. How could Glenn have even thought to host his Faux Drive-In Movie Nites within the cozy confines of his Riverwest bungalow?

If only Glenn had chosen to spend his tax return windfall on a fabulous new flat screen TV. If only Glenn had thought to spike the Royale Crown Cola. If only Glenn had chosen the films more wisely.
If only. . .

There would be no question of canceling this year; Glenn would brook no argument. Forget that old friends never answered his entreaties. Or that phone messages weren’t returned. How could it have escaped Glenn’s attention that so many friends changed email addresses recently?

Still Glenn persevered and thanks to the modern miracle that is Facebook, a select group – so many delightful new faces – assembled for a night of movie mayhem featuring a fun double feature: “Mr Right” and “Brotherhood V: Alumni.”

Glenn was ready; success was within his reach. First, there was to be vodka, Milwaukee’s own Rehorst Vodka and plenty of it. Forget retro snacks, this time Glenn turned to the delightful Hearty Boys’ cookbook and dished up two of their wonderful appetizers: Artichoke Fritters and Mac and Cheese Skewers. Yum!

Nibble food at the ready, Glenn who is quite the mixologist, prepared decadent Chocolate, Pear and Pomegranate Martinis. The lights were dimmed and into the DVD player went “Mr. Right,” a new romantic comedy set in London.

It would seem that Louise (Georgia Zaris) has been rather too demanding of her dating service; she expects to be set up with men who aren’t gay. Ouch! Her newest squeeze seems to be everything she could possibly want: handsome, sexy and a huge football fan. He’s got to be straight, doesn’t he? Can this be her Mr. Right? Most importantly, dare Louise allow Paul (Jeremy Edwards) to meet her gay friends?

Louise’s best friend is Alex (Luke de Woolfson), your typical struggling actor by day, professional cater/waiter at night. Alex is celebrating his one-year anniversary with Harry (James Lance), a TV producer grown wearied of the crap television he’s responsible for – a hilarious of send-up of “Changing Rooms.”

Harry’s oldest friend in the world is Tom (David Morris), an artist of the moment; his oh-so gay canvases are fetching upwards of six figures. Poor Tom is currently being fleeced by his live-in rent boy, the brawny Larrs (Benjamin Hart). Good thing, then, that Tom’s such a success.

Completing this small circle of friends is William (the totally adorable Rocky Marshall), an antiques dealer who takes his role as single father very seriously. But will he allow his demon-seed daughter Georgie (Maddie Planer) to thwart his budding romance with handsome TV actor Lawrence (Leon Ockenden)?

Once the characters are individually introduced, Tom Morris’s delicious screenplay brings them all together for one fateful dinner party. It is a dinner party of legend: one moment nightmarishly laced with scathing repartee vicious enough to draw blood, encumbered by long, painfully drawn out silences the next. Hilarious yet often painful to watch, it is all very “Boys in the Band.”

By the time the dust settles, much has changed. Not only has Alex left Harry, Lawrence has walked out on William. Tom is outraged that Harry could betray their friendship. Having been so worried about meeting Louise’s gay friends, Paul deems the evening a great success, enjoying every minute of it.

Clearly, the course of true love never did run smooth!

Harry is truly, madly deeply in love with Alex. It is impossible to imagine a more perfect straight guy than Paul. William can’t seem to get Lawrence out of his mind despite the evil child’s best efforts.

Who will find Mr. Right?

When it finally came time to screen “Brotherhood V: Alumni,” it was clear Glenn couldn’t have made a better, less demanding choice. Those familiar with director David DeCoteau’s popular “Brotherhood” franchise know to expect cute guys, plenty of gratuitous male flesh all set within a safe, plot-free environment.

It is prom night at Sunnydale High School and the cute but exceedingly unpopular Leslie (Oskar Rodriguez) has been lured to the deserted girl’s locker room by the beautiful and popular Betty (Maria Aceves) for an ill-advised rendezvous.

Leslie doesn’t find Betty but decides to take a shower while he waits. That’s right, he takes a shower. Takes a shower in a dark, deserted locker room; the girl’s locker room at that. It is impossible to imagine what he must have been thinking. What follows is all very “Murder on the Orient Express.” Then, surely playing homage to “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” all the usual suspects return to Sunnydale High exactly one year later. They find the school shuttered, left exactly as it was post-prom, post-murder. Even the creatures in the science lab are still alive. Still alive one year later. They’re still alive in a deserted high school; one year later.

Shamelessly, the lads drop trou at the flimsiest pretext; two of the cute boys make out until it turns out one is merely a cocktease. Another is hell bent on revenge. Everyone is guilty and nobody seemed to care, least of all Glenn.

Buy it, rent it or forget it...
Who hasn’t dreamt of finding Mr. Right? Admittedly, on occasion, Glenn has settled for “Mr. Right Now” as well as “Mr. Wrong” once or twice. So be it; that’s all part of the oft-times maddening game that is the search for love and which directors Tom and Jacqui Morris capture perfectly in “Mr. Right.” The attractive, talented cast create a group of characters who are once appealing, flawed and happily defy simple stereotyping. Add to the mix a fab soundtrack and as well as a London perpetually drenched in sunshine and you’re sure to find “Mr. Right,” the right choice.

On to “Brotherhood V: Alumni.” Well, the guys are cute and you and your friends should be able to follow along, no matter how many Pear Martinis have been consumed. And who, after all, is counting?

Just the facts…
“Mr. Right” has a running time of 95 minutes and the DVD include a hilarious featurette.
“Mr. Right” is available on DVD with an SRP of $24.95
“Brotherhood V: Alumni” has a running time of a scant 86 minutes and is available on DVD with an SRP of $26.99

From Vol. 17 Issue 2, Feb 25 - March 10
Little Ashes
Little Ashes Movie Poster Glenn often wonders, as he watches one Hollywood misadventure after another, how one becomes a casting director. Are there classes; does one major in “Casting” in film school?

Garland as Dorothy, Davis in “All About Eve;” both are shining examples of sheer casting genius. Yet if Hollywood lore is to be believed, Shirley Temple was originally chosen to follow the Yellow Brick Road just as the originally cast Claudette Colbert playing Margo might have allowed the one-time leading lady a reprieve from the obscurity to which big screen historians now relegate her.

All of which leads Glenn to take a moment to contemplate the casting of the exceedingly pretty but awfully strange “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali in the misguided biopic, “Little Ashes.”

Yes, the same Robert Pattinson who was so memorably zapped by the evil Voldemort in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” And indeed yes, the Robert Pattinson who reportedly said (to Details Magazine), “I really hate vaginas. I’m allergic to vagina.”

Unfortunately, Glenn has no word as to whether or not his on- and off-screen squeeze Kristen Stewart is allergic to the former wizard’s magic wand.

A quick synopsis of “Little Ashes” looks promising, beginning with the curious albeit fascinating ménage-a-trios consisting of the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, legendary surrealist Salvador Dali and experimental filmmaker Luis Buñuel. Together, these three iconic figures of the 20th Century seek to find their unique artistic expressions within a tumultuous Spain careening towards civil war. Much like a sweet maraschino cherry sitting atop a decadent ice cream sundae; director Paul Morrison and screenwriter Philippa Goslett add into this heady mix a passionate affair between Lorca and Dali.

The film starts with the foppish Dali (Pattinson) joining Lorca (Javier Beltran, a Lorca look-a-like) and Buñuel (Matthew McNulty) at university, Madrid 1922. Bu?uel and Lorca quickly welcome the eccentric Dali into their literary circle, Lorca rather more insistently so. Pattinson’s Dali does clean up rather nicely, once the ruffles and pageboy haircut are mercifully excised following an exceedingly cringe-worthy scene during which the nude Dali examines himself in a mirror and, curiously enough, is not exactly pleased with what he sees. .

Lorca subsequently falls truly, madly deeply in love with Pattinson’s Dali. If the multitude of smoldering looks he bestows upon Dali from across the room weren’t clue enough, there’s an exceptionally silly scene which finds Lorca on his knees praying to be free of his impure thoughts.

Good luck with that, thinks Glenn.

Little Ashes

Perhaps sensing the same-sex naughtiness between his friends looming directly ahead, Buñuel flees to Paris to become a filmmaker; his subsequent and now infamous 1929 short “Un Chien Andalou” here revealed as merely a cinematic joke at Lorca’s expense.

With Buñuel now conveniently out of the picture, Lorca and Dali are now free for a moonlit, midnight dalliance far too coy and artfully knowing to suit Glenn.

From here, “Little Ashes” meanders along with nary a narrative arc. Possibly daunted by the physicality of Lorca’s attachment, Dali flees, to join Buñuel in Paris; Lorca pines for him. Dali marries the icy if gorgeous Gala (Arly Jover); Lorca continues to pine after Dali.

Too late in the proceedings, Goslett’s screenplay finally places Lorca within the revolutionary movement, just in time in fact to bestow cinematic sainthood upon a poet and indeed, upon a man who surely deserved better.

Buy it, rent it or forget it...
It must be said; “Little Ashes” left Glenn in something of a muddle. If Glenn were to compare it to such recent straight-to-DVD efforts as the wretched “Wrecked” or the simply ridiculous “Aaron…Albeit a Sex Hero,” “Little Ashes” is looks nothing short of brilliant and worthy of pride of place on anyone’s stack of Gay DVDs. Javier Beltran’s performance in particular as Lorca must be praised, the actor adding much needed weight to even the silliest of scenes, often suggesting depths of character not otherwise present in Goslett’s screenplay. Yet, given its potential, the real tragedy of “Little Ashes” is just how director Paul Morrison and screenwriter Philippa Goslett managed to cock things up as badly as they did. “Little Ashes” looks terrific, in a glossy “Masterpiece Theatre” sort of way yet entirely lacks historical context as well as any sense of place, be it the artistic eccentricities of 1920s Paris or of a Spain teetering towards fascism.

The biggest problem, however, is imagining what Beltran’s Lorca sees in Pattinson’s insipid Dali. Not since Leonardo DiCaprio was cast as the poet Rimbaud has Glenn seen such a travesty of casting. Pattinson’s performance neither suggests the talent that would make Dali the face of Surrealism, nor the drive to become the shameless self-promoter later dubbed by colleagues, “Avida Dollars” (eager for dollars). Indeed, Pattinson is further hindered by speaking with a Spanish accent so awful it rivals the ludicrous parody of Cockney that Dick Van Dyke’s used in “Mary Poppins.”direct

Just the facts…
“Little Ashes” has a running time of 112 minutes “Little Ashes” is available on DVD with an SRP of $26.99 DVD boasts the usual extra features including interviews with the cast and director plus the featurette: “The Making of Little Ashes”

From Vol. 17 Issue 1 Feb. 11-24 2010
“Give Me Your Hand”

One of the great joys of the internet is that one’s friends, particularly those with a wicked sense of humor, can see something online that mte,ight be cu funny or in this instance, unaccountably cruel and with a minimum of fuss, dash it off in an email.

Picture then, if you will, on one of those all-too-rare bright and shining January mornings, a morning Glenn himself received just such an email; a most remarkable missive possessing a link to an article entitled: “Single, sad and ultimately shallow.”

Glenn was horrified! Could this be the long overdue and sure to be unflattering exposé of the film reviewers for Quest?

In point of fact, the email was merely an inquiry as to whether Glenn had yet to make it to a screening of “A Single Man,” the new film by fabulous fashion designer Tom Ford. This time, at least, “single, sad and ultimately shallow” referenced the English literature professor played by the recently Oscar™ nominated actor Colin Firth.

Having taken up a seemingly permanent residence at Milwaukee spectacular Oriental Theatre, Glenn imagines that most loyal Quest readers will have already gotten to see “A Single Man.” Now, for those who haven’t, please be aware that spoilers loom immediately ahead.

Based upon a Christopher Isherwood novel, Ford’s “A Single Man” follows George (Firth) over the course of a single day. For the previous eight months George’s life has been one of unbearable sorrow, ever since the death of Jim (Matthew Goode), the love of his life and partner of 16 years. Literarily exhausted by grief, George is determined to bring his extraordinarily orderly life to an equally orderly conclusion. Companions of a sort, we moviegoers follow George as he painstakingly dresses for his final day at school, tries to reach out to his students during one last class, then clears his desk and empties the meager remains from his safety deposit box. An astonishingly kind man, George even takes time to compliment a most outrageous hairdo (a hair-don’t muses Glenn) worn by one of the faculty secretaries.

Fate proves rather mischievous on this final day. First George has a close encounter of the canine variety; later a gorgeous male prostitute (played by gorgeous supermodel Jon Kortajarena) tempts George back to the living. A gin-soaked evening with best gal pal Charley (Julianne Moore) does little to change George’s mind, however.
Enter Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), an uninhibited student in George’s class. Kenny is rather more successful in recalling George back to the living. Bright eyed and rosy-cheeked, Kenny wears a mohair sweater to class that beggars belief; is this really typical collegiate attire for Southern California circa 1962?

Will Kenny’s youth and flirtatiousness win over the despondent George? Or perhaps it will be Kenny’s gift of the precious little yellow pencil sharpener?

Much like George, Glenn too would have thrown caution (and clothing) to the wind to experience a carefree evening with a cute, very sweet young man. Given that Glenn doesn’t swim, the moonlit nude frolic in the ocean sadly would have been out of the question.

As surely it should have been for George.

Watch it now, or wait for the budgets...
Visually, “A Single Man” is never less than sumptuous yet perhaps director Tom Ford too freely burdens this simple story with the high gloss rather more appropriate to popular fashion magazines. The three trays of little pencil sharpeners, in shocking primary colors and meticulously placed, are dazzling to the eye in a film boasting an otherwise monochromatic palette yet proves far too self-consciously Warhol & Co. Colin Firth effortlessly emanates a sense of loss; excellent too are Matthew Goode as the beloved boyfriend and Nicholas Hoult is suitably adorable in a role calling for little else. As for Julianne Moore’s boozy-turn, it is unlikely she’ll count “A Single Man” amongst her successes but if any poor soul is contemplating a remake “Valley of the Dolls,” she’s your gal.

Isherwood’s place amongst the canon of Gay lit is beyond question; no one book pony he. Yet as beautifully as Firth’s George suffers, Glenn longed for more flashback scenes with his longtime partner Jim. Their story, their love story, written and published in the closeted world of the 1960s is truly what makes Isherwood’s “A Single Man” today so remarkable. That may not be story Tom Ford sought to bring to the screen but it is the story Glenn will keep hoping to see.

Just the facts…
“A Single Man” clocks in at a nifty 101 minutes
“A Single Man” continues at Milwaukee’s Landmark Oriental Theatre as well as cinemas across the country. Gorgeous Matthew Goode can also be found in the recent remake of “Bridehead Revisited” and the fun lesbian romantic comedy, “Imagine Me & You.” In his first film, Colin Firth played opposite Rupert Everett in the queer classic,

Curiously, “Give Me Your Hand” proves rather more than the sum of its parts. Sure, the French countryside is pretty; that’s a given. In the absence any substantial narrative, there’s Alexandre and Victor Carril, all angular cheek bones and ripped abs; stunning slabs of French marble who rarely speak much less come to life. Yet everyone they encounter wants to have sex with one or the other or both of them and thanks to cinematographer Alexis Kavyrchine astonishing, seductive camerawork, Glenn suspects this intrinsically fascinating, enigmatic pair will stay in your thoughts long after the final credits have rolled.

Just the facts…

“Give Me Your Hand” clocks in at a swift 71 minutes
“Give Me Your Hand” is available on DVD with an SRP of $27.99
DVD is delightfully uncluttered with any extra features other than original the film’s original theatrical trailer

Glenn, who isn’t very good with questions of an existential nature, is really in over his head with a film like Pascal-Alex Vincent’s intense first feature, “Give Me Your Hand.”

Loyal readers of “Quest” know that Glenn has a certain weakness for French films. Gorgeous Gallic actors speaking French, surely the most romantic of all the romance languages; what’s not to love?

Take a glance at any list of the best LGBT films and you’ll find a predominance of French entries. André Téchiné’s “Wild Reeds,” a gorgeous coming-of-age film from 1994, remains firmly in Glenn’s Top Ten Gay Films list. Christian Faure’s extraordinary Nazi-era love story, “A Love to Hide” literally reduced Glenn to a blubbering mess. Whilst American filmmakers were cranking out such dubious efforts as “Gay Bed & Breakfast of Terror,” “Cowboy Junction” and pretty much anything starring the admittedly awful and yet criminally adorable Charlie David, French filmmakers were crafting films such as “Come Undone,” “Adventures of Felix,” “The Witnesses” and “Just a Question of Love” also by Christian Faure. The list could (and does) go on and on.

Actually, aversion to subtitles really shouldn’t be much of a deterrent with regard to “Give Me Your Hand,” a visually stunning film not particularly burdened by dialogue.

In a bit of casting which proves positively mind boggling, identical twins Alexandre and Victor Carril have been cast to play a pair of identical twins: Antoine and Quentin, two French brothers who take to the road on a quest to attend a funeral in Spain for the mother that neither knew. continues below

The strapping, good looking lads are virtually indistinguishable: Antoine (Alexandre Carril) who is something of extrovert and boasts a jaunty scar over one eye while Quentin (Victor Carril) is quieter, more sensitive and artistic which makes his subsequent erotic dalliance with sexy farmhand Hakim (Samir Harrag) almost predictable.

Moviegoers are provided no backstory about the brothers other than they are the sons of a baker and this tidbit emerges from the pleasant animated sequence with which “Give Me Your Hand” begins.

The brothers, presumably penniless, would appear not even have access to an auto. In the absence of other options: they walk. At various turns they wrestle and roughhouse. Quentin gets a hole in one shoe. They roughhouse some more. Quentin draws. Both spend plenty of time brooding.

So effective are these two young actors at playing “sullen,” they choose to do little else.

Hitching rides proves a cinch along the country lanes the brothers traverse on their journey. Still, most of the good Samaritans they encounter have other than altruistic motives; cinematographer Alexis Kavyrchine’s camera succinctly capturing the blatant sexual desire invariably found in their eyes.

Yet no hunger proves greater than one brother possesses for his twin. Their relationship is one of intense physicality, one which Freudians are likely to make a meal of, particularly the way they curl up together to sleep.

In an early scene, Antoine bathes naked in a peaceful pond, water gently lapping at his pubes. The sexual tension is palpable as Quentin hungrily watches Antoine. All the while Antoine coyly makes certain of his audience. Yet the tables are turned later when Antoine spies on Quentin’s moonlit antics with Hakim.

When Quentin peacefully slumbers with Hakim, Glenn could not help but wonder if this might be the first time the brothers slept apart. For Antoine, this is a transgression he cannot forgive, creating an unbridgeable rift between the two lads.

LGBT FILMS IN THEATRES OR ON DVD by Glenn Bishop Older DVD Reviews through Vol. 17 Issue 3 March 11 - 24, 2010

LGBT FILMS IN THEATRES OR ON DVD
by Glenn Bishop
Older DVD Reviews through Vol. 17 Issue 3 March 11 - 24, 2010