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Media Whore
Wherein your resident gayboy critic extracts queer entertainment value from an insufferably straight world. This month, Media Whore withers in the shadow of artlessness and is revived by dueling cheerleaders and a musical reverie.
The disparity between the good, the bad, and the ugly couldn’t be greater this month. The good films are so good that they threaten to toss the bad and just plain ugly films into a vast pit of unknowable darkness. The good films will visit the sullied chain megaplexes to offer moviegoers the lightness of their being, driving out the bad, bad summer movies that so recently held "number one movie in America" status under unchallenged--and therefore false--circumstances. It hardly seems fair to revisit these little bits of late summer detritus under such conditions, but, alas, the existence of ugliness makes our recognition of all that is fine and beautiful in this world that much more resplendent.
The Cell is just plain icky. "Oh," people will say, "but it’s visually stunning." The next person who proclaims that an otherwise without merit film is "visually stunning" will be tied to a chair and forced to watch my tapes of Nick at Nite's Facts of Life marathon. Yes, Jennifer Lopez is luminous, but she's always luminous. I can’t believe she took a sabbatical from acting only to return with this piece of spoiled and festering tripe.
When we first encounter serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio), he is a skittish goofball driven by unimaginable pain to do very bad things to innocent women. But, lo, he lapses into a coma, which wouldn't be a problem if he were not the only person who could lead Detective Novak (Vince Vaughn) to his latest victim, presumed still alive. Enter Catharine Deane (Lopez), who has been working with virtual reality techies in an attempt to reach a catatonic boy and bring him back to the world. Golly gee, do you think Deane could use this virtual reality thingamajig to find out where Stargher's captive is being held? Deane has her reservations, but she'll give it a go!
When Deane uses said technology to visit Stargher on his own cerebral planet, the skittish goofball has been inexplicably transformed into a strutting drag queen driven by some grand sense of theater to...overact. In what can only be described as a misguided attempt to out-Malkovich John Malkovich, D’Onofrio flounces around in costumes straight out of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Regardless, Deane falls under his mysterious allure and becomes his willing love slave!
Brace yourselves folks, Detective Novak doesn't know much about this newfangled technology, but if Deane's in danger, he's going in. (You see, there's some mumbo-jumbo crap the screenwriter built into the world of the film whereby a person's reality can be permanently altered if he or she believes that what is happening is real!) But if the experienced Deane is vulnerable to Stargher's spell, shouldn't we be doubly worried about newbie Novak? Yep! He, too, gets caught up in Stargher's web.
I imagine that D'Onofrio is trying to convey some sense of insane and menacing power when he tortures Novak by removing his small intestine through an open wound, winding it around and around on a barbecue spit as creepy jack-in-the-box music plays. But while Novak's ordeal sounds genuinely awful, D’Onofrio’s incessant giggling tends toward Benny Hill and effectively disarms any real terror inherent in the situation. Besides, Novak is a dude! He tells himself it's not real and, just like Dorothy Gale, he effects his own rescue. And while rescuing Deane, he discovers the clue that will lead him to Starghers latest victim. He saves her just in the nick of time. What a guy!
I'm sorry if I seem unduly dismissive of this one, but I'm really weary of films that substitute a lot of smoke-and-mirrors crap for character and story. And not even a dyed-in-the-wool misogynist could possibly be entertained by this serial killer thing anymore. By the "serial killer thing," I am referring to the parade of films in which maladjusted types capture beautiful women, whisk them away to their isolated cave/lair/abandoned building/defunct utility station, slowly torture and kill them (in ways that are deeply meaningful to their little maladjusted murderous minds), and keep mementos of the victims as larkish museum pieces. The next screenwriter who jacks himself off by writing a serial killer movie in some grand effort to work out his fears and frustrations about women will be tied to a chair and forced to watch my tapes of the Nick at Nite Facts of Life marathon.
Speaking of bad writing, I went to see The Replacements in a fit of summer movie malaise and I must therefore note it briefly.
Shouldn’t Keanu Reeves be making contract demands that he be the cutest guy in his movies? I mean, his cuteness factor is his trump card, no? Keanu’s looking just a little ragged around the edges and gets (in my book) completely outclassed by David Denman, the guy who plays the deaf football player. I practically flew home from the theater to look up Denman’s credits and found that he had done some television--nothing substantial. I smell fresh blood.
Of course, it doesn’t help Keanu’s case that he has to recite lines like: "Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory is forever." Since Denman is playing a deaf guy, he gets to take a flyer on the really lame dialogue. Nor is Denman’s character called upon to promote the general zeitgeist of the film, predicated on the notion that stereotypes are really, really funny. Heck, all a filmmaker has to do to get a good belly laugh from the audience is trot those caricatures across the screen whenever he senses adolescent engagement levels flagging.
And I know that I’m about to reveal that I take stupid movies way too literally, but I really must ask this question: Why did the cheerleaders have to be replaced? The meager premise of the film is that professional football players have gone out on strike toward the end of the season. In order to complete the season, teams must field squads of replacement players. But then there’s a lengthy sequence in which ridiculously inept replacement cheerleaders vie for spots on the squad. Why? Did the writer just think it would be awfully funny to show "fat," "ugly," and "old" women waving pom-poms? It's possible that the cheerleaders have walked out in sympathy with the players. If so, would it have killed the screenwriter to give us a single line of dialogue to this effect? Instead, I’m distracted for the rest of the stupid film by the stupid question: Why did the cheerleaders have to be replaced? Screenwriters take note: Exposition and resolution will take your script--even your lame, stupid script--a long way.
By the way, the audience I sat with during The Replacements seemed to really enjoy it, so there will likely be a sequel. Think The Replacements II: Superbowl Bound!
Now if you really want to see a cheerleader movie, or even if you don’t think you do, Bring It On is your late summer movie. I specifically went to see this film because I thought it would be a great target for ridicule, but I was really engaged by its meta-comedy and breezy lack of self-importance. The film lampoons itself before the viewer can by naming the primary high school Rancho Carne (their mascot is the Toro) and letting Kirsten Dunst carry on in mock-dramatic tones over her "cheerleading career."
The film also benefits from the audience stand-in, Missy Pantone. Flawlessly portrayed by Eliza Dushku (she also plays Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Missy is a gymnast from metropolitan L.A. whose family moves her to the ’burbs. Rancho Carne doesn’t have a gymnastics team, so Missy tries out for the cheerleading squad. The squad wants Missy’s skills, but not her attitude, and Missy thinks that cheerleading is, well, stupid. Missy strikes an uneasy alliance with the Toros and eventually makes an honest squad out of them. In the meantime, if certain audience members are finding it difficult to take cheerleading very seriously, they have a fellow detractor in Missy to lead them through the silliness.
And if you liked Dunst as much as I did in Dick--an unfortunately overlooked film from last summer--you’re going to find her incredibly winsome here. She pulls off an unlikely coup in making her character, cheerleading squad captain Torrance Shipman, sympathetic and likable.
As you might expect, since we’re talking about a co-ed squad, there is a gay male cheerleader. But as you might not expect, he’s not a walking stereotype and he’s not the butt of any cheap jokes. Les is openly gay, referring to himself jokingly as "controversial." Some of the football players lamely make fun of him, but the Toros football team is so bad that the championship-winning cheerleaders consider their games as little more than practice sessions for the national competition. Besides, Les, played with subtlety and bravado by Huntley Ritter, has a better body than any of the football players. Perhaps the most surprising gesture is the absolute lack of sexual tension between Les and his best friend, a straight male cheerleader. Our erotic loss is GLAAD's gain.
But let’s give credit where credit is due. Writer Jessica Bendinger lets us enter laughing, only to deftly shift gears in the last half of the film and make us care about whether or not Torrance and her team succeed on both competitive and human levels. Bendinger could have taken the obvious road and vilified Toros rivals The Clovers, an ethnically diverse inner city squad. Instead, Clover leader Isis (portrayed with attitude and verve by Gabrielle Union) is morally incorruptible and proudly victorious. In the end, both squads win in very different ways.
Almost Famous comes along at a musically vulnerable time in my life. I have lately had long-dormant musical enthusiasms reignited by mysterious forces, driving me to used CD stores to buy the Stevie Nicks oeuvre, The Best of Carly Simon, and recently digitized albums by obscure jazz chanteuses. (I can certainly feel superior to my lesbian roommate, who bought The Best of Styx in a particularly weak moment.) And while none of the above artists are represented in the soundtrack to Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe’s opus to the lure of music during our formative years strikes straight to the heart of a certain Media Whore. Lately I have found myself incessantly watching any and all episodes of VH1’s Behind The Music, sometimes noodling along on the Ovation Celebrity Deluxe guitar I asked for and received last Christmas, wondering where my youth went and obsessing over whether I might have made it as a songwriter had I received a guitar when I first requested one many, many years ago.
I am as much a victim of the cult of cool as Crowe’s celluloid counterpart, William Miller (played with subtle vulnerability by newcomer Patrick Fugit). Miller is assigned by Rolling Stone magazine to write a story about up-and-coming rock band Stillwater. The editors at Rolling Stone have no idea that Miller is only 15 years old and he isn't about to tell them--this could be his opportunity to break into the big time. Miller manages to infiltrate Stillwater's inner circle, where he is confronted by his own utter lack of cool. He will never achieve the magnetic grace of Stillwater lead guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup). Crudup exudes cool as the guitar hero and manages a rank--albeit very hetero--sexuality, even under all of that bad 70s hair.
Caught between Hammond’s easy sensuality and Miller’s nervous and self-effacing love is Penny Lane (Kate Hudson). Lane is the leader of a gang of groupies who bounce from band to band playing essential roles in keeping those "creative juices" flowing. Hudson is the daughter of Goldie Hawn--which explains the odd sense of familiarity I felt with her throughout the film--and she portrays Lane with sensitivity and verve. Big ol’ homo that I am, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
By the way, Hudson is engaged to the lead singer of The Black Crowes, and Cameron Crowe is married to Heart lead guitarist Nancy Wilson (who provides the musical score to the film). Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?
My only misgiving about Almost Famous is an unfortunate bit of dialogue during the crux of the film. Stillwater is at a critical career crossroads. They’re on the verge of hitting the big time, but egos and infighting are tearing the band apart. On a charter flight to a tour city, they hit a bad storm. Thinking that this may be their end, band members begin making forthright confessions about past transgressions and their true feelings for one another. Whisked away by the honesty of his bandmates, the drummer sputters that he is a homosexual. Suddenly, the plane rights itself and the audience erupts into laughter as the bandmates scrutinize their now outed brother. The line is played for a bit of fluffy comedic relief and panders to the audience in a way that is way beneath Crowe. It's a throwaway line that this otherwise sensitive and engaging film could have done without.
Overall, Almost Famous is grand. Its sense of yearning to impart relevance and meaning to individual lives is nigh on epic. Legendary rock journalist Lester Bangs (a role that affords Philip Seymour Hoffman a rare opportunity to play a character that is confused by neither his sexuality nor his gender assignment) plays superego to Miller’s adolescent ego and id. Meanwhile, William’s mother, Elaine (Frances McDormand), relaxes her overly protective grip on William only to become Russell Hammond’s conscience, eventually helping him to achieve his better self. Essentially, the film reminds us to be kind to one another, even while the dual cults of fame and selfishness compete for the souls of our weaker selves.
And the soundtrack will keep you humming contentedly with a big stupid grin on your face, wondering why you don’t have a recording of Elton John’s "Tiny Dancer" in your collection, thinking that you still have an hour left before the used CD store closes…
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