Streaming tip: Stacie Passon's CONCUSSION shows us what a bump on the head can do

Never for one moment uninteresting, yet forever making us want to get deeper into things as it glides along the surface of its main character's life, CONCUSSION, the writing/directing debut of actress Stacie Passon (shown below), is one of the better movies I've seen in some time about the lives of present-day lesbians and how they manage work, love, family (including children). The movie begin with the delivery of a bad bump on the head, as a ball thrown by one of those children bloodies the side of the face of our heroine, Abby (Robin Weigart). Whether this event itself causes a kind of disconnect in Abby's life or that disconnect was fully there, waiting to be exposed, is up for grabs. But what happens from here onwards makes for quite the change in our working housewife's life.

Abby already has a career as a successful woman who locates real estate that "needs work," does that work, and then sells at a tidy profit. She is also married to a woman with her own successful career, and the pair have two children: a boy and a girl who are, one assumes, pretty normal and relatively happy. But all this -- which would be plenty on the plate of most people I know -- is somehow not enough. Via some happenstance involving friends, clients, co-workers and their "connections," Abby comes upon the opportunity to act as an escort -- which, after a bit of coaxing and working out her own "rules of the game," she does. How she manages all this is the meat of the movie. Why she does it, why she needs to, we never really learn.

Consequently the movie skates along, quite nicely for the most part on the surface of things. We see these "connections" made, and they are certainly believable enough; we watch as client after client is serviced by Abby -- often psychologically, as much as sexually; and then, at last, we watch things (sort of) fall apart.

Some movie-makers would use this kind of story as an excuse for heavy melodrama, or maybe something in the thriller genre, not to mention the possibility of high (or low) comedy. Ms Passon opts for none of the above. Instead she goes for almost mundane reality, and the result, as I note above, is never uninteresting. But so much remains out of sight and mind.

Does this woman love her children? Is she even capable of this? It certainly doesn't show in what we see. Which makes us worry for those kids' future. The relationship between spouses is also fraught and barely probed. Both women have their problems and issues, it is clear. By the end they may have begun to work on this. Or maybe not. They might simply go back to that all-surface life.

Performances are fine right down the line. Everyone is so good in fact, that we want to know more about them all -- from the elusive, shy client played by Laila Robins to the the pert little girlfriend (played by, I believe, Emily Kinney) of Abby's contractor, who has set up this entire escort service. But the movie, such as it is, belongs to Ms Weigert, who is as usual, quite good, so far as she is allowed to go. Which is, again, all glistening surface.

The core, which is missing from Abby's character (we never see her prior to getting that titular concussion), is also missing from the movie itself. This makes it unusual, certainly -- as if this is the life we'll have once those pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers have taken over completely. I don't know that this is anything like what Ms Passon wanted to achieve. But it is something of an achievement, granted an odd one, nonetheless. You can watch the movie now on Netflix streaming, Amazon Instant Video, and probably elsewhere, too.

Rumor has it: Williford/Marcarelli's THE GREEN heads straight for VOD and DVD

Talk about stacked! And I am not -- though I very well could be -- speaking of one of the hunky leading men, the borrowed-from-Broadway Cheyenne Jackson, who co-stars in THE GREEN. Instead, I'm referring to the film's screenplay (by Paul Macarelli), an increasingly paint-by-numbers affair that sets up a semi-happy gay couple (a high school teacher and his caterer companion) in a small New England town suddenly beset with a nasty accusation of inappropriate behavior, after which nearly everyone turns against them -- including the twosome itself. Soon a deep dark secret from the past is revealed, and by the time the movie comes, via one over-wrought scene after another, to its feel-good conclusion, we're drowning in cliché.

This is too bad. The filmmakers (TV soap maven Steven Williford of All My Children, shown at right, directed, and legit theater vet Daryl Roth is one of the executive producers) have rounded-up a good group of actors -- some "name," some not-so -- all of whom deliver as best they can. They all have  their moments, but with a screenplay that seems as increasingly contrived as this one, those moments appear just part of all the melodrama that's coalescing into a very deep pile of sturm und drang.

In the cast are some real stalwarts, particularly on the femme side. Julia Ormond (above, right) does another fine job as the accused’s smart, genuine and realistic attorney;

Illeana Douglas (above, right: always great to see her on-screen) is nudgy, funny and vey real as our hero’s best pal; and Karen Young (shown at bottom) is aces as the confused and put-upon mother of the young student whose “accusation” (except that it isn’t quite that) sends everyone into conniptions.

It’s the male members who are more problematic, but this, I suspect, is due to their not being so easily able to rise above a screenplay that piles on the angst-filled events with a shovel, in the process, stacking its deck a little too heavily against the protagonist. In the leading role Jason Butler Harner (above) is mostly dour and single-note, though a nicely ironic sense of humor does show through at times. Mr. Jackson, shown at right, as his partner, provides a pleasant change from the glum (and some eye-candy).

As the troubled student, Jason, Chris Bert (being bullied, above center) performs impressively as the kid who's utterly beside himself, even if his character must finally rely on a back story that is a little too standard. In the role of the kid’s stepfather, Bill Sage is properly pig-headed, venal and nasty, but the finale’s “surprise” revelation, accompanied by the most melodramatic events possible under this fraught situation, will come as a shock only to those who have not seen this particular character -- a favorite boogeyman of gay fiction for years now -- maybe thrice-too-often.

The movie wants to tell us that, despite the many gains gays have made over the past few decades, we’re still under the guns of prejudice and homophobia once an accusation is raised. So instead of retreating into silence and fear, a stand must be taken. Well and good. And younger gays, with much less experience in art or life may just bite.

But those of us who’ve been around the block a few times will probably not be satisfied with a movie that unreels like an increasingly schlocky melodrama coupled to an after-school-special featuring a dollop of extra dirt.

The Green, from FilmBuff, goes straight to VOD this Tuesday, October 18, and then to DVD one month later on November 22 -- available for purchase or rental.

WORD IS OUT is back: Mariposa Group's doc, more timely than ever, opens at AFA

Had the camera ever captured gays and lesbians so thoroughly and professionally than did the  landmark documentary WORD IS OUT?  Probably not, and certainly not in this direct, honest, surprising (even now) manner, with all the variations in age, type and color. ("I am not the black lesbian," the woman shown below notes, as she explains why she had to consider at length her decision to participate in the film. "I am a black lesbian.")

Call it "early talking heads" if you must. But see it -- if only for another woman, now a senior citizen, who explains why, growing up, she didn't much think about her outsider status: "We moved from England to Canada, and when you have something like poverty to work out of, you perhaps don't pay that much attention to certain other things."  Other things? Our identity maybe -- yet one that for many of us played second, if not third or fourth, fiddle to so much else.

Probably the first thing that hits you after watching a few minutes of Word Is Out will be simple shock at how effortlessly well-spoken, alert and intelligent are all of these people.  Were any more proof needed of the dumbing-down of America, this documentary delivers it.  Thirty-five years, it appears, is long enough to see a noticeable decline in standards of speech and the ability to communicate extemporaneously. Of course, you say: these people were chosen somewhat on the basis of their ability to be coherent.  But then, so are those chosen for today's documentaries, as well. (One of the rare recent examples that offers intelligent, well-spoken people is this week's Off and Running from Nicole Opper.)

And, oh, the variety on display. One lipstick lesbian (before that moniker became popular) talks about looking feminine and going against the grain of the day. Another (above) serves us up a history of women in the military during the 40s and 50s.  Yet another, who found it terribly difficult to appear to be different, tells of finding herself suddenly aghast at marching for the Vietnam War.  "Everything was based around trying to hide my lesbian self.  It was not safe to be vulnerable and so a lot of life had to do with hiding."

The men get their licks in, too, and there are all kinds of them on display, from the nellie to the naughty, seniors to sports lovers.  One blames religion. "Not Jesus: He was the savior.  It's the churches that are ruining things."  Another (below) speaks of his incarceration in a hospital where he underwent shock therapy (one of the women spent a similar stay but managed to avoid the shock).  They did it willingly, they tell us, to please their families.  Shock treatment!  How did you handle that, asks the interviewer?  "I had to make a secret, safe place in my life -- without any help from anybody else,"  he explains and then considers for a moment. "Except perhaps from my dog."

The movie is divided (unnecessarily, it seems to me) into three sections.  Part Two covers growing up, although the first part provided plenty of insight into that realm, too. This second section seems to offer more humor than its earlier counterpart, though one particular young woman (shown below), so sad-eyed and quiet and that she can barely look into the camera, talks of eventually finding another job, perhaps becoming a plumber.

While it is the attraction to a sexual partner of the same gender that gets us crucified, Word Is Out spends little time on the subject of sex.  It's rather a given, really.  Finding a relationship, comfort, love over the long-term is much more important to these people.  An occasional song by gay and lesbian groups breaks up the interviews (one duo of young women sings a particularly beautiful number in harmony). After a time, you realize how much you really like all these people on view.

In Part Three -- titled From Now On -- we sense the interview-
ees struggling with change: feminism, liberation and coming to terms with, as one person puts it, "the ways in which we hold each other down." Indeed.  Among the salutary effects of this fine documentary, both of its time and ahead of it, is that, thirty-five years later, we can simultaneously marvel at how much has changed -- and how little.

Word Is Out (the first feature-length documentary about lesbian and gay identity made by gay filmmakers) was directed by the Mariposa Film Group, consisting of Peter Adair (a photo of the late filmmaker is shown above), Nancy Adair, Veronica Selver, Andrew Brown, Robert Epstein and Lucy Massie Phenix -- some of whom have gone on to very nice careers.  Distributed by Milestone Films (Dennis Doros & Amy Heller ), it has been newly preserved to 35mm by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.  It opens tomorrow, Friday, January 29 for a one-week run at New York City's Anthology Film Archives., playing daily at 6:30 and 9:15pm, with 3:45 pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday.