The Road to Hell is Paved With Hair Extensions

Year: 2004
Director: Paul Etheredge
Cast: Dylan Fergus, Bryan Kirkwood, Hank Harris
Run Time: 1 hour 24 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

You gotta hand it to a horror movie that has token straight characters.

By far the best thing about Hellbent is that, despite its reputation as the "gay slasher film," it does not use its characters' homosexuality as a gimmick. This is a routine slasher following the tried and true formula that happens to feature a cast of all gay characters. Being gay is a part of their lives and is intrinsically connected with their personalities and behavior. It is essential to the story, and this particular tale of bloody mayhem could not exist in its current state if its characters were anything other than queer.

That said, Hellbent is not a good movie.

Although this screenshot alone guarantees that it's not a 100% bad one.

It is the night before Halloween and two young swains are pulling up to Makeout Point for some steamy action that would make Grindr blush. Before they are too far along however, the night ends just about as poorly as any night of clubbing can with both paramours being decapitated by a sickle-wielding madman in a devil mask.

Yes, he's shirtless. What were you expecting, overalls? He's no basic b*tch.

The next morning, Eddie (Fergus) who is some sort of police intern is sent to put up flyers about the murders in the neighboring village of West Hollywood. He is bumbling and charming and falls madly in lust with Jake (Kirkwood), who he sees outside a tattoo shop on a smoke break between ink stabbing sessions. Ignoring the red flag that he's getting cheesy angel wings on his back, Eddie tries and fails to strike up a conversation. 

His work done for the day, he meets up with his friends at a local diner. At least two of them are his roommates, but the movie isn't too keen on making that clear. There's Chaz (Andrew Levitas) the slut (gotta have one), Joey (Hank Harris) the lovable nerd, and Tobey (Matt Phillips) who uses bravado to hide his insecurities. Now, they are more developed than that, but notice how nicely they fall into our slasher archetypes with Eddie as our resident Final Girl.

They traipse through the West Hollywood Forest (note to self: check to see if this is actually a thing) to get to the Halloween party and discover they are being followed by a mysterious masked stranger. Nothing much comes of it, and they quickly forget about it, caught up in the festivities.

Joey goes after a jock crush of his, bolstered by Halloween Spirits and Chaz's encouragement. Eddie falls in with Jake after winning him over with a personal stories about... well, this is the one spoilery type thing about the movie so I'll give that one a rest. Tobey is left to fend for himself and he learns that it's hard to pick up gay men when dressed as a woman.

Do I even need to say that the Devil Killer begins picking them off one by one?

The enormous phallus of death approaches.

The film doesn't offer much in the way of shocks or gore, although some story elements that come into play are quite unique for the subgenre. Made for pocket change, there's not much in the way of production values but there is one artistic element to speak of - the lighting. Although undoubtedly this is only the case because of the shoestring budget, most every scene is awash in sickeningly bright red light that is reminiscent of Dario Argento's Suspiria. Intentional or not, it draws to mind the characters' descent into Hell from the candy wonderland of a West Hollywood Halloween.

The film is ultimately forgettable, but it is filled with enough silly decapitations, actual character development, and sleazy shots of shirtless men to keep it interesting.

Hellbent is a trashy slashy flick, just like the ones I've come to love. But for once it is populated with characters I can relate to and that's all I ever wanted from it.

Body Count: 5
TL;DR: Hellbent is a bad slasher film, but with gay dudes. This is praise.
Rating: 5/10
Should I Spend Money on This DVD? Naw, you can just borrow it from me because of course I own it.
Word Count: 728

Can We Talk About The Great Gatsby?

Every now and then a movie comes out that I truly want to see, but I just happen to not get around to watching until too long after its release date. Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby came and almost went before I dragged my butt out of my apartment to go see it.

When we walked into the theater, I commented to my boyfriend Sergio that I didn’t think I would review this film. I’d already been tainted by reading other reviews and it’s too late in the run to really change any audience minds.

I said I would only write something if I had something unique or interesting to say about the film.

Boy do I.

The Gay Gatsby - Homoerotic Undertones in an American Classic

Now, I haven’t read the book in several years, so this analysis is taken exclusively from the film. No doubt elements of my hypothesis are present in the book, but I am not suitably equipped to make that assessment.

Let’s dispense with the chitchat.

Jay Gatsby is gay.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was known for his use of color symbolism. Yellow windows. Green light.… Pink suit?

OK maybe that one’s a stereotype. But let me continue. The instant Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) moves in next door, Gatsby has him on his radar. In fact he spends a great deal of time spying on him from an upstairs window.

Nick is the only person in the entire history of this earth to have ever received a personal invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Now I know what you're going to say - Gatsby is ostensibly trying to use Nick's position as Daisy's cousin to get in with her. And while he does use this connection eventually, in the beginning he mostly just takes Nick out to dinner and tries to convince him to go swimming with him.

Like a spaghetti noodle - straight until wet.

The instant Nick meets the Gatsby he's heard so much about, he is enamored.

He is so unduly impressed with this man he often describes him as a God on Earth despite his massive flaws and his obvious connections with organized crime. He is too blinded by love to notice his faults. Likewise, he vehemently rejects the advances of Myrtle's cousin (he is only convinced to stay with copious amount of liquor) and largely ignores the beautiful and fabulous Jordan Baker, who gives him numerous chances to... show her his Jordan Almonds.

You'd have to be gay to not notice her. Heck, I'm gay and I even notice her.

When Gatsby finally meets Daisy and their long overdue courtship is realized, it is less than steamy. Yes, there is an intimate connection between the two of them, but remember these are old friends who haven't seen each other in years. There is a sex scene in the movie, yes. But it was one of the few scenes that felt like it didn't gel with the narrative, perhaps for the fact that it wasn't included in the book - which is told from Nick's perspective exclusively. There is no textual evidence whatsoever that Jay and Daisy had a sexual relationship.

A man in love? Perhaps, but clearly not with anyone in frame.

Yes, he thinks he loves Daisy. But how does that explain his continuing friendship with Nick, long after he has brought the two together? For a man whose ultimate goal is to reunite with his long lost love, he seems awfully keen to keep her cousin around. His most intimate moments with Daisy - the shirt scene, the tour of his house, dancing in the grand ballroom - all occurred in the presence of one Nick Carraway. Nick, not wanting to be a bother, insisted he let the two tour alone, but Gatsby wouldn't take no for an answer.

Gatsby's plot to win Daisy back? To impress her with his decadent, glittery parties and sense of style.

Thus, I would like to put forward the argument that The Great Gatsby is not only a literary classic about the American Dream and the lengths to which one can go to pursue it, but of the last bastion of sexual repression in the sexually decadent time period of the Roaring Twenties. The film and book are fraught with women finding their sexuality, raucus parties, and adulterous affairs stacked up to the rafters, but the most deep and abiding love in the film is one that can not yet be expressed in carnal measures.

It is found in small places; in the shade of a tree in the garden, in a glance, in a smile, in the nervous adjustment of a cufflink.

And, in closing, I leave you with this.

Word Count: 795

Archive: November 21, 2012

Some Mini-Reviews

Considering the fact that it’s hard enough to find time to watch movies in my busy college schedule, finding time to write about them is definitely a challenge. So, while I will be as up to date and thorough as possible on reviews of movies that are currently in the theaters, sometimes I watch movies that nobody else really cares about, and shouldn’t necessarily elicit a full review. So as often as possible, I’ll keep you up to date on the less important movies I’ve seen recently (because my own film education is far from finished) in a series of mini-reviews.

But I’m a Cheerleader

Year: 1999
Director: Jamie Babbit
Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, Michelle Williams
Run Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

This film is one of a numerous group of tossaway gay comedies that think they can get away with subpar production on the merit of catering to LGBT audiences.

The thing is, it can. Let’s face it, we’re not exactly seeing Hollywood churn out slick gay comedies by the bushel. While there are certainly some stellar gay movies, cheapie indie comedies are the LGBT cinephile community’s bread and butter.

And this film is certainly a saccharine-sweet example of the genre. The film follows Megan (Lyonne), the titular cheerleader, who is confronted by her parents and friends and sent to an “Ex-gay” camp for teenagers, even though she insists she isn’t a lesbian.

Not a Spoiler Alert: She is.

She falls for the resident bad girl, Graham (Clea DuVall) and they struggle to find themselves in the most poisonous environment for any new lesbian relationship. What follows is 80-something minutes of tender, well-meaning, if not particularly stellar comedy.

Lyonne’s acting is laughably vacant. My friend Shannon put it best: “They could not have picked a straighter actress to play Megan.” Despite not once having me believe that she actually ever had sexual feelings for women, she and DuVall managed to have a spark (chemistry which is owed in its entirety to DuVall’s sturdy performance, without a doubt the best in the movie).

Also featuring appearances by RuPaul and Mink Stole (who always manages to find herself in these things), the movie is solid overall with garish production design and snarky conservative satire. It delivers an optimistic message to gay youths everywhere, but isn’t particularly worth seeing if you happen to be (ew) straight.

Rating: 5/10

Patrik Age 1.5

Year: 2008
Director: Ella Lemhagen
Cast: Gustaf Skarsgård, Torkel Petersson, Tom Ljungman
Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

On a whim the other night, I decided to forgo homework and watch a movie on Netflix. I happened upon Patrik Age 1.5 (or Patrik 1,5), a Swedish film about a gay couple that adopts a 1 1/2 year old child, who due to a clerical error, turns out to be a rebellious, homophobic 15-year-old.

…This week has been a pretty gay week for me, all things considered. 

Anyway, I expected this film to be another throwaway gay comedy, something like a Swedish Big Daddy, a family farce of opposites. What I was given was a riveting (albeit predictable) drama that had quite a set of teeth. Everything is not well in Scandinavia.

Patrik’s (Ljungman) arrival in the lives of Sven (Petersson) and Göran (Skarsgård) turns them completely upside-down. Göran can see the good in his surprise son, but Sven can’t see past the kid’s criminal history and the disagreement drives them apart, especially considering that Sven was iffy on the concept of having kids in the first place.

The couple navigates the rough waters of adoption and neighborhood prejudice and delivers a powerful story of modern LGBT relations (partially undermined by the fact that the Swedish word for “homo” sounds hilariously like “bug.”).

The plot moves along in a pretty standard way, but the interplay between Göran and Patrik is impossible to resist. The actors have impeccable (and completely, thankfully, nonsexual) chemistry, and the result is… incredible.

The gay issues don’t actually take the forefront of the plot, and the story focuses on the family drama, and the paternal relationship between a lonely Göran and his new, at first unwilling, son.

I’ve always said that I appreciate gay films that don’t make too big a deal about being gay (because how else will true equality be achieved?), and this film delivered. The fact that it’s in Swedish also is a huge draw, because foreign languages fascinate me utterly.

I would highly recommend it to anyone who cares about people. At all.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 791