outtakes 2010
Time for my annual Outtakes write-up. Behind the cut: gay cowboys! Gay True Blood!Godric! Gay Robert Pattinson! Hmm, truisms sure are yummy.
Awakening
4 short films:
Set in the Pantanal area of Western Brazil, and fictionalised from a true story, a handsome young cowboy explores his desire for a fellow gaucho in Cowboy Forever. Beautifully shot landscapes form the backdrop for a true love story in the open air in this tribute to Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. Jean-Baptiste Erreca, France, 2006, Digibeta, 26 mins French and Portuguese with English subtitles.
A nice guy-discovers-identity story, not as grim as Brokeback Mountain. The background action was in Portugese whereas the protagonist kept up a voiceover narration in broken English. That sort of execution is in direct contravention of "show don't tell", which I have seen done well on occasion, especially if there is an intentional disconnect between the audio and the visual. Here I think it worked half of the time, whereas the other half felt clunky narratively for the same reason. I liked the story, though I felt the emotional flow of it was a bit jarring and couldn't quite follow how A eventually got to B. 5/10
*
In Steam two men find themselves in an increasingly frightening situation in a sauna - they have a momentary liaison, but then can't seem to find the exit, and the temperature's steadily rising… Eldar Rapaport, USA, 2009, Digibeta, 16 mins.
I really liked this. There is lovely attention to texture - of skin and hair and the contrast of cold tile. The first half of the short film was entirely porn without plot, and then it gradually gets confusing and weird and you don't know where it's going... until you come to the audacious, innovative reveal. Highly recommended. 8.5/10
*
16 yr old Carsten is attracted to his girlfriend's father in Awakening (pictured). Could it be they have more in common than they first thought? Christian Tafdrup, Denmark, 2008, Digibeta, 38 mins, Danish with English subtitles.
This stars Allen Hyde, who some might know as Godric in s2 of True Blood. I'd seen this short film back when I was obsessed with Godric/Eric, but didn't mind seeing it again. While it's not a particular standout, it's a solid coming-of-age story, with quite a lot of understated humour and emotion. 7/10
*
Finally in the erotic, brooding Under the Bright Sunshine two Mexican gunslingers are haunted by a brief encounter in the desert. Jesús Torres Torres, Mexico, 2008, Beta-SP, 20 mins; Spanish with English subtitles.
Everybody got a bit wtf at this one. It was extremely slow (even by my standards, and I'd like to think that I've paid my dues with leisurely films), and I didn't follow the way the plot unfolded. Admittedly it was because I started drifting in and out of sleep, and I don't think I was the only one. The very bad film quality didn't help. I'd say the filmmaker was trying to channel the style and gravity of Sergio Leone into a queer context, which sounds fabulous in theory but not so much in execution. 2/10, subject to a rewatch where I don't fall asleep.
***
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
Dir: Glenn Gaylord, USA, 2009, Digibeta, 82 mins.
Bawdy, hysterical, and chock-full of eye candy, this third instalment in the Eating Out series is another guilty pleasure. When new boy in town, the cute, geeky Casey, wants to woo sensitive hunk Zack, he turns to trashy friend Tiffani for advice. She convinces him that the best way to achieve this will be to chat online, using the phony profile of Ryan, Tiffani's hot, straight, stripper ex-boyfriend.
Well, we all know where this will go, and it doesn't involve a huge wardrobe budget... Of course soon the real Ryan shows up and it takes some fancy footwork, and a daring sexual escapade, before Casey can figure out how to set things right and perhaps even find the love he's been seeking. Starring a litany of hot, out gay actors, Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat delivers all the raunchiness of the first two films plus an added dose of perfectly judged romance to deliver the most satisfying chapter yet.
I haven't seen the others in the Eating Out instalments, but after seeing this one, I definitely got the flavour of the rest. It's the queer B-movie at its naughtiest - outré jokes, full frontal, soapy, shiny and irreverent and very much knowing it. I guess it's kind of the gay version of one of those pastiche piss-takes like Scary Movie or Date Movie. Sometimes the jokes are surprisingly incisive, at other times they are absolutely cringe-worthy. I generally liked it, but could have done with less gross-out humour. I think the optimal alcohol consumption prior to my seeing this movie would have been 2 glasses of wine - and I only had the one. 7/10
***
Little Ashes
Dir: Paul Morrison, Spain/UK, 2009, Digibeta, 112 mins
Current celebrity magazine cover boy, Twilight's Robert Pattinson, plays Salvador Dalí as a young man in love with poet Federico García Lorca when both were students in 1920s Madrid.
The story, based on admissions Dalí made late in life about the romance he and Lorca had shared in their youth, begins with 18 yr old Dalí arriving at Madrid University and soon falling in with the university's social elite, poet Lorca and film student Luis Buñuel.
Madrid in 1922 is a city wavering on the edge of change as traditional values are challenged by the dangerous new influences of jazz, Freud and the avant-garde. As Dalí and Lorca's attraction grows, a ferment of art, politics and sexuality swirls around their tentative romance.
With breathtaking cinematography and a haunting soundtrack, this is a lush, beautiful telling of a doomed affair played out against the backdrop of the looming Spanish Civil War.
I admit it, I have a bit of a thing for RPattz. Not to the point where I'd wear his face in my undies, but the man is pretty. Dalí kicks all manner of arse from here to Sunday, so it was both exciting and scary to see Pattinson taking on the role.
I so wanted the film to be good, and it had so much potential to be good. I was imagining something awesome, like a cross between Frida and Another Country, and Little Ashes fell well short of that. I suppose it wasn't necessarily a bad film per se, but I just get so angry whenever I see a wonderful idea squandered by less-than-wonderful execution.
Disclaimer: I don't know if it's a problem with the transfer or with our screening in particular, but the lighting was so dark. We physically couldn't see what was happening onscreen 20% of the time. So maybe I ended up missing a lot of emotionally intense scenes because I was trying too hard to figure out where one person's neck ended and the other person's face began.
Of what I did manage to see, all the elements - the characters, the history and politics, the art - just didn't seem to integrate. There were moments where it all clicked, but most of the time it didn't seem to find its mark. Pattinson played Dalí as egomaniacal and occasionally damaged, which is historically true, but as a character it left me cold. I don't know if it's fair to blame the actor or the script for not being able to pull off something more nuanced. I know at least some of that is because the art didn't play a large part in the story, and certainly not anywhere as beautifully integrated as the art in Frida, where you really get to feel how the artist connects to her/his work and get to know their character much better as a result.
Some scenes were beautifully constructed and expressed - there was a wonderful scene where Dalí and García Lorca ride bikes and lie on the beach together - but equally there were a number of scenes that felt very artificial, so aware of itself trying to build emotional intensity that it became almost comical. I couldn't really buy the 'ship.
It was, however, rather priceless to see Dalí effortlessly channelling Edward Cullen in one particular scene where he runs around in the background stalking García Lorca. You can take the man out of Twilight, but it seems like you can't take the stalker out of the man.
5/10, subject to a rewatch with better lighting?
***
Strella
Dir: Panos H. Koutras, Greee, 2009, Digibeta, 111 mins, Greek with English subtitles
Bidding farewell to his prison lover, Yiorgas is released after serving 14 years for a murder committed back in his home village. A tough, care-worn character, he searches Athens for his lost son. One night he encounters Strella, a young transsexual. Their developing relationship intertwines with his unfolding past and a mythic, operatic story unfolds.
Grounded in passionate performances by the two leads, and dramatic cinematography that revels in Athens' queer nightlife against a Callas soundtrack, this is one powerful story. All conventional notions of love, family and gender are confounded in an absolutely absorbing cinema experience.
We know the audience will be talking about this film long after the credits roll - and with good reason, as director Koutras has crafted a thoroughly modern queer love story mixed with Greek mythology to create something electric, redeeming, and not to be missed.
It's hard to go into detail without being non-spoilery. Suffice to say this is my kind of fucked-up, and even I was pretty squicked at points. At least it was the thinky kind of squick. Powerful and interesting. Various thematic elements tied together well, and the film had a sense of being handled adeptly by a director who knows what he's doing - which I admit is not always the case with the film selection at Outtakes.
Criticisms: sometimes the shaky camerawork was a bit much and got into motion-sickness territory. I also think the entire last scene suffered from Spielberg Syndrome (Or: Return of the King Syndrome) and simply didn't need to be there, and that the film would have actually benefited a lot from ending on a more poignant, open-ended note. I always complain that queer cinema has a way of setting up fantastic conflicts only to hastily wrap them up in a neat bow in a way that's not altogether believable, just so that we'd get a happy ending, and that criticism applies here to some extent. But maybe I'm just being unfairly critical regarding this film's ending because it worked well enough.
Overall, I really enjoyed it. It was compelling, entertaining, and made me care about the characters. Recommended. 8/10
Awakening
4 short films:
Set in the Pantanal area of Western Brazil, and fictionalised from a true story, a handsome young cowboy explores his desire for a fellow gaucho in Cowboy Forever. Beautifully shot landscapes form the backdrop for a true love story in the open air in this tribute to Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. Jean-Baptiste Erreca, France, 2006, Digibeta, 26 mins French and Portuguese with English subtitles.
A nice guy-discovers-identity story, not as grim as Brokeback Mountain. The background action was in Portugese whereas the protagonist kept up a voiceover narration in broken English. That sort of execution is in direct contravention of "show don't tell", which I have seen done well on occasion, especially if there is an intentional disconnect between the audio and the visual. Here I think it worked half of the time, whereas the other half felt clunky narratively for the same reason. I liked the story, though I felt the emotional flow of it was a bit jarring and couldn't quite follow how A eventually got to B. 5/10
*
In Steam two men find themselves in an increasingly frightening situation in a sauna - they have a momentary liaison, but then can't seem to find the exit, and the temperature's steadily rising… Eldar Rapaport, USA, 2009, Digibeta, 16 mins.
I really liked this. There is lovely attention to texture - of skin and hair and the contrast of cold tile. The first half of the short film was entirely porn without plot, and then it gradually gets confusing and weird and you don't know where it's going... until you come to the audacious, innovative reveal. Highly recommended. 8.5/10
*
16 yr old Carsten is attracted to his girlfriend's father in Awakening (pictured). Could it be they have more in common than they first thought? Christian Tafdrup, Denmark, 2008, Digibeta, 38 mins, Danish with English subtitles.
This stars Allen Hyde, who some might know as Godric in s2 of True Blood. I'd seen this short film back when I was obsessed with Godric/Eric, but didn't mind seeing it again. While it's not a particular standout, it's a solid coming-of-age story, with quite a lot of understated humour and emotion. 7/10
*
Finally in the erotic, brooding Under the Bright Sunshine two Mexican gunslingers are haunted by a brief encounter in the desert. Jesús Torres Torres, Mexico, 2008, Beta-SP, 20 mins; Spanish with English subtitles.
Everybody got a bit wtf at this one. It was extremely slow (even by my standards, and I'd like to think that I've paid my dues with leisurely films), and I didn't follow the way the plot unfolded. Admittedly it was because I started drifting in and out of sleep, and I don't think I was the only one. The very bad film quality didn't help. I'd say the filmmaker was trying to channel the style and gravity of Sergio Leone into a queer context, which sounds fabulous in theory but not so much in execution. 2/10, subject to a rewatch where I don't fall asleep.
***
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
Dir: Glenn Gaylord, USA, 2009, Digibeta, 82 mins.
Bawdy, hysterical, and chock-full of eye candy, this third instalment in the Eating Out series is another guilty pleasure. When new boy in town, the cute, geeky Casey, wants to woo sensitive hunk Zack, he turns to trashy friend Tiffani for advice. She convinces him that the best way to achieve this will be to chat online, using the phony profile of Ryan, Tiffani's hot, straight, stripper ex-boyfriend.
Well, we all know where this will go, and it doesn't involve a huge wardrobe budget... Of course soon the real Ryan shows up and it takes some fancy footwork, and a daring sexual escapade, before Casey can figure out how to set things right and perhaps even find the love he's been seeking. Starring a litany of hot, out gay actors, Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat delivers all the raunchiness of the first two films plus an added dose of perfectly judged romance to deliver the most satisfying chapter yet.
I haven't seen the others in the Eating Out instalments, but after seeing this one, I definitely got the flavour of the rest. It's the queer B-movie at its naughtiest - outré jokes, full frontal, soapy, shiny and irreverent and very much knowing it. I guess it's kind of the gay version of one of those pastiche piss-takes like Scary Movie or Date Movie. Sometimes the jokes are surprisingly incisive, at other times they are absolutely cringe-worthy. I generally liked it, but could have done with less gross-out humour. I think the optimal alcohol consumption prior to my seeing this movie would have been 2 glasses of wine - and I only had the one. 7/10
***
Little Ashes
Dir: Paul Morrison, Spain/UK, 2009, Digibeta, 112 mins
Current celebrity magazine cover boy, Twilight's Robert Pattinson, plays Salvador Dalí as a young man in love with poet Federico García Lorca when both were students in 1920s Madrid.
The story, based on admissions Dalí made late in life about the romance he and Lorca had shared in their youth, begins with 18 yr old Dalí arriving at Madrid University and soon falling in with the university's social elite, poet Lorca and film student Luis Buñuel.
Madrid in 1922 is a city wavering on the edge of change as traditional values are challenged by the dangerous new influences of jazz, Freud and the avant-garde. As Dalí and Lorca's attraction grows, a ferment of art, politics and sexuality swirls around their tentative romance.
With breathtaking cinematography and a haunting soundtrack, this is a lush, beautiful telling of a doomed affair played out against the backdrop of the looming Spanish Civil War.
I admit it, I have a bit of a thing for RPattz. Not to the point where I'd wear his face in my undies, but the man is pretty. Dalí kicks all manner of arse from here to Sunday, so it was both exciting and scary to see Pattinson taking on the role.
I so wanted the film to be good, and it had so much potential to be good. I was imagining something awesome, like a cross between Frida and Another Country, and Little Ashes fell well short of that. I suppose it wasn't necessarily a bad film per se, but I just get so angry whenever I see a wonderful idea squandered by less-than-wonderful execution.
Disclaimer: I don't know if it's a problem with the transfer or with our screening in particular, but the lighting was so dark. We physically couldn't see what was happening onscreen 20% of the time. So maybe I ended up missing a lot of emotionally intense scenes because I was trying too hard to figure out where one person's neck ended and the other person's face began.
Of what I did manage to see, all the elements - the characters, the history and politics, the art - just didn't seem to integrate. There were moments where it all clicked, but most of the time it didn't seem to find its mark. Pattinson played Dalí as egomaniacal and occasionally damaged, which is historically true, but as a character it left me cold. I don't know if it's fair to blame the actor or the script for not being able to pull off something more nuanced. I know at least some of that is because the art didn't play a large part in the story, and certainly not anywhere as beautifully integrated as the art in Frida, where you really get to feel how the artist connects to her/his work and get to know their character much better as a result.
Some scenes were beautifully constructed and expressed - there was a wonderful scene where Dalí and García Lorca ride bikes and lie on the beach together - but equally there were a number of scenes that felt very artificial, so aware of itself trying to build emotional intensity that it became almost comical. I couldn't really buy the 'ship.
It was, however, rather priceless to see Dalí effortlessly channelling Edward Cullen in one particular scene where he runs around in the background stalking García Lorca. You can take the man out of Twilight, but it seems like you can't take the stalker out of the man.
5/10, subject to a rewatch with better lighting?
***
Strella
Dir: Panos H. Koutras, Greee, 2009, Digibeta, 111 mins, Greek with English subtitles
Bidding farewell to his prison lover, Yiorgas is released after serving 14 years for a murder committed back in his home village. A tough, care-worn character, he searches Athens for his lost son. One night he encounters Strella, a young transsexual. Their developing relationship intertwines with his unfolding past and a mythic, operatic story unfolds.
Grounded in passionate performances by the two leads, and dramatic cinematography that revels in Athens' queer nightlife against a Callas soundtrack, this is one powerful story. All conventional notions of love, family and gender are confounded in an absolutely absorbing cinema experience.
We know the audience will be talking about this film long after the credits roll - and with good reason, as director Koutras has crafted a thoroughly modern queer love story mixed with Greek mythology to create something electric, redeeming, and not to be missed.
It's hard to go into detail without being non-spoilery. Suffice to say this is my kind of fucked-up, and even I was pretty squicked at points. At least it was the thinky kind of squick. Powerful and interesting. Various thematic elements tied together well, and the film had a sense of being handled adeptly by a director who knows what he's doing - which I admit is not always the case with the film selection at Outtakes.
Criticisms: sometimes the shaky camerawork was a bit much and got into motion-sickness territory. I also think the entire last scene suffered from Spielberg Syndrome (Or: Return of the King Syndrome) and simply didn't need to be there, and that the film would have actually benefited a lot from ending on a more poignant, open-ended note. I always complain that queer cinema has a way of setting up fantastic conflicts only to hastily wrap them up in a neat bow in a way that's not altogether believable, just so that we'd get a happy ending, and that criticism applies here to some extent. But maybe I'm just being unfairly critical regarding this film's ending because it worked well enough.
Overall, I really enjoyed it. It was compelling, entertaining, and made me care about the characters. Recommended. 8/10