|
advertisement
|
| MAIN
FEATURE |
![]() |
By Steve Warren
MAGE Film & Video makes it more difficult for
themselves to program the Out on Film festival in the
fall by including so many queer and queer-interest works
in the Atlanta Film Festival, June 6-14 at several
venues.
We’re not complaining.
In addition to retro screenings of gay favorites
“Giant,” “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” and
“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” the chosen
films with gay content run the gamut in quality and
subject matter. But some of them definitely merit
attention, from a feel-good feature to artsy shorts and
a local gay boy’s odyssey in pursuit of his favorite pop
star.
The latter is “Stories from the Road: A Film about
Following PJ Harvey,” in which gay Atlanta resident Kyle
Keyser recounts his misadventures as he and two friends
pose as filmmakers making a feature about Harvey at five
stops on her 2001 European tour.
There’s plenty of music for Harvey fans, but this is
one of those rare personal documentaries that strike the
right balance between its ostensible subject and the
showing off of the filmmaker and his pals.
Keyser today acts considerably more mature than he
did two years ago when he and his friends taped their
pursuit of Harvey.
He is looking forward to two big events: his 30th
birthday on June 5 and the U.S. premiere of “Stories
from the Road” at the festival two days later.
You
might think getting permission from Harvey’s people,
which didn’t come through until the day the trio left
the U.S., was the hard part. But that’s not the
case.
Keyser says he’s “trying to be the diplomatic
renegade filmmaker,” but lawyers must negotiate
permission every time he shows the film. There may not
be enough lawyers in the world to arrange a theatrical
run, television showing or home video release.
In other words, unless you can get Keyser to give you
a private screening — and a new “special someone” in his
life may have something to say about that — be sure to
catch it at the festival.
But “Stories from the road” is far from the only
festival title with gay appeal.
“Camp” — think “Fame” during summer vacation —
features a young cast that could be next season’s roster
of finalists on “American Idol” in a musical comedy
about a performing arts camp where it’s normal for boys
to be gay.
A less successful musical is “Bollywood/Hollywood,”
an unexpected comedy from Deepa Mehta, who made the
excellent lesbian drama “Fire.” Much of the comedy will
go over the heads of Americans unfamiliar with the
Indian genre being spoofed. Ranjit Chowdhry plays a
servant who moonlights as a drag queen in this story of
Toronto’s Indian community.
The music of Mahler scores “Dracula: Pages from a
Virgin’s Diary,” which is like nothing seen before. The
film features the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Mark Godden’s
adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel, but there are long
stretches without dancing.
Sometimes psychosexual, sometimes just sexual and
sometimes just psycho, “The Politics of Fur” features a
tour de force performance from Katy Selverstone in the
festival’s lesbian highlight. Adapted from Fassbinder’s
“The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant,” this dark romantic
drama is set on the fringes of the L.A. music industry
where Selverstone is a starmaker.
AIDS figures into a fine documentary and a dim drama
at the festival. “State of Denial” focuses on South
Africa in the year 2000, where 4.2 million people were
living with HIV — the most of any country in the world.
Producer-director Elaine Epstein shot for two years,
capturing key events and tracking a few infected
individuals.
A polemic in favor of assisted suicide, “The Event”
is a virtual remake of Randal Kleiser’s 1996 “It’s My
Party” with the twist that the New York district
attorney’s office, in the person of Parker Posey, is
investigating four suspicious deaths of gay men with
AIDS within six months.
Most of the cast is Canadian, as is
director/co-writer Thom Fitzgerald, for whom this
calculated tearjerker is a major comedown after “The
Hanging Garden” and “Beefcake.”
“Flag Wars” is an effective documentary that echoes
the recent turbulence in Atlanta’s Kirkwood
neighborhood, but the setting is Columbus, Ohio.
Gentrification causes a furor as older African-American
residents resent the influx of younger gays who drive up
property taxes and report code violations of neighbors
who can’t afford to renovate their houses.
Withheld from advance screenings by its American
distributor is the Brazilian docu-drama “Madame Sata,”
about a criminal from the mean streets of Northern
Brazil who became a popular drag performer.
Two programs of shorts are worth mentioning.
“Tales of the Weird” includes “Petunia,” a locally
made “garage musical” with a kickin’ rock score. And
“Estranged” finds Flloyd playing Eleanor, a delusional
woman trying to get an old male lover back with a series
of increasingly desperate phone calls.
Are we supposed to notice that Eleanor is not a
biological female, and if so what does that do to the
story?
The all-queer “Truth Be Told” collection is bookended
by superb films. “Terminal Bar” is a brilliant photo
essay of the final ten years (1972-82) of a New York
drinking establishment as its clientele shifts from
older straight whites to younger gay blacks.
In “O beautiful,” Alan Brown consistently keeps one
camera on each of his two characters, an unsettling
split-screen technique that enhances an already powerful
drama with plenty of erotic tension but a lot more
besides.
The merits of the other three shorts are more
debatable. “Firepussy” is beautifully shot and edited
and stars two hot women who eventually get together. But
the story takes too long to make sense.
The story never did work for me in “The Moment
After,” which was written, directed and co-produced by
its star, Atlanta-born Gerald McCullouch (Of “CSI”
fame), who also wrote and sings the theme song. It
smacks of a vanity project.
Viewers must shift gears quickly for “D.E.B.S.,”
about four high school girls who are secret agents, one
of them engaged in a secret affair with their
arch-nemesis.
It features Tammy Lynn Michaels (Mrs. Melissa
Etheridge) as Max, some good photography and effects —
and some bad acting.
| 
