DVDebut: Sebastian Gutierrez is back with ELEKTRA LUXX (or Women in Trouble,Two)

If you are one of those, like TrustMovies, who could not get enough of writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez's earlier comedy about porn stars, in-flight sex and lesbian love, Women in Trouble, you'll be happy to learn that it's sequel-of-sorts ELEKTRA LUXX is now available on DVD. Is it as good as the original? (Come on: Is The Godfather: Part Two better than The Godfather -- and if so, by how much? You get the point.) Gutierrez' original was fast, frisky fun that proved a non-stop delight right through to the sudden appearance during the end credits of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as Bert Rodriguez, the host of a homemade cable show dedicated to porn actresses.

Gordon-Levitt appears again in the new film, in a more major manner. That's he, just above, with Malin Akerman, as a young lady smiitten enough with Bert show him her portfolio. (An uncredited Julianne Moore also appears, but you'll have to see this movie to learn just who she plays.)

The filmmaker, shown at right, comes back again and again to this foolish but quite sincere young man -- and his show -- as Rodriguez tries to take in the sudden retirement of his favorite star, the titular Elektra (Carla Gugino, below, left), who, it turns out, is pregnant by a late rock idol (whom we met having that aforementioned in-flight sex during the original film). The object of said sex, a flight attendant played by Marley Shelton (below, in dark glasses), is also back.

Also seen again are the porn star/call girls played by Adrianne Palicki (below, left) and Emmanuelle Chriqui (below, right). Ms Palicki is as ditzy and delightful as ever, with Ms Chriqui as put-upon and beautiful. They make a pair-and-a-half of pulchritude and missed-connection sweetness.

Newcomers to the new film include the always terrific Timothy Olyphant (in bed, below, with Ms Gugino), Justin Kirk, Lucy Punch and Kathleen Quinlan (two photos down). The newcomers hold their own pefectly with the veterans, for everyone is in sync with Gutierrez's silly, loony-tune series of sexual (and otherwise) shenanigans.

I would guess that, compared to Women in Trouble, Elektra Luxx was shot more quickly and on a lower budget. It seems definitely more off-the-cuff in every way. But this does not stop the humor -- nor the sweet delight the performers take in their roles and their connections with each other -- from coming through just as strongly. If you disliked the original, you will feel no differently toward its sequel. And if you loved it, as did I, chances are, you'll be smiling right through to the end of this film, too.

Sure, Gutierrez's duo in no way reflects the real porn industry or what it does to its "work force." Instead, it's  women -- at work and play and love -- that the two films celebrate. There is a giddiness about what the filmmaker and his cast are up to that is quite catching. I could easily sit still for the third and fourth part to what I hope has now become an ongoing series.

Critics were quite down on this movie (2/3 con, 1/3 pro), so clearly, it appeals most to what we'd have to call "specific tastes." Because so much of the content has to do with what happened in Women in Trouble, I do suggest that, if you haven't yet seen it, you rent that earlier film before viewing this one. Elektra Luxx is available now for sale or rental -- from the usual sources.

Lou Ye's SPRING FEVER: difficult and feverish -- but worth wrestling with

Just keeping the characters straight (though most of the males are gay or bi) should present the first big hurdle in viewing SPRING FEVER, the latest half-hidden passion fest from Chinese bad boy Lou Ye. It took TrustMovies a good portion of the film's 107-minute running time to piece together who these people were and what was going on. Post-screening, as he stood and talked with two compatriots about this film -- all of us still struggling to make certain we had our facts correct and with mixed (but much more positive than negative) feelings about the movie -- he realized how taken he had been with Mr. Lou's alternately delicate and deeply-felt creation.   

Still in trouble with the powers-that-be, after earlier no-no's like Weekend Lover (censored), Suzhou River (banned) and Summer Palace (which got this writer/director banished for five years), Lou, shown at left, now tackles homosexuality head-on and comes up with a movie that is difficult, unusual, but very hard to shake, once it's gotten its claws into you. China might want the world to believe (as Israel once asked us to do) that there is simply no homosexuality within its own borders (and even if there were, the state would certainly not countenance it -- no, no, no!), but if we accept Lou as our guide, man-to-man love is all over the place -- closeted, perhaps, with plenty of secret assignations, but also pretty "out there," complete with cross-dressing nightclub performers, trannie bars, the works!

Seemingly shot on the fly, often dark and muddy, the movie features a lot of man-on-man heat, mostly heavy petting ("All that kissing!" as one IFC employee put it at the screening I attended), with some nudity now and then (rear rather than frontal).  What interests Lou (if not, perhaps, you) is the great passion involved here, and the need of the individual to act on it and to have the privacy to do so, at the same time as the state insists on overseeing everything.  This is a conundrum difficult to resolve, and part of the pleasure of the finale, or so it seems to me, is that this individual-against-state situation does at last find some peace and resolution, even if much has to be given up in the process.

The movie begins as a gay twosome, expands to a trio (the wife of one of the men) and then into a quartet, when she hires a photog-
rapher to follow her husband. The photographer has his own girlfriend, though he soon becomes fixated on the unmarried of the two gay men, and so finally the movie is a quintet -- until, sadly, it becomes a quartet again -- of lonely, unsatisfied people frustrated by their own needs, half of which are forbidden by the state.

Beginning with scenes of flowers in the rain and poetic quotes to match, Lou runs the risk of seeming pretentious.  Yet the poetry -- of seasons, insects, flowers and feelings --  begins to take hold in the writing and even in the sub-par visuals.  There's a hypnotic quality to the movie, along with a sadness and melancholy that is finally unshakable.  Spring Fever marks another collaboration, after Summer Palace, with writer Mei Feng (who won, to some disagreement, the Best Screenplay award at Cannes last year).  It is certainly an unusual screenplay, I'll give it that: one that challenges but also rewards.

Guilt, identity, a fluid sexuality, and questions, question, questions. Besides the incursions of the state, there is something else that is keeping the two original male lovers apart.  When the equation changes, and the more female of the two bonds with the photographer, the same inability to give over and commit is still there.  Is this the inscrutable East?  Or the even more inscrutable notion of sexual identity?

You try to figure it out, as Spring Fever, via Strand Releasing, opens this Friday in New York City at the IFC Center and maybe elsewhere, soon, I hope.

PORNOGRAPHY: A THRILLER opens in NY, offering a good example of the "gay" film

What's the difference between a "gay" movie and a movie that has a "gay" theme? Two films open this week that illustrate the ques-
tion rather well. PORNOGRAPHY: A THRILLER offers the former, while HANDSOME HARRY shows us the latter. TrustMovies will cover Bette Gordon's new work later this week; for now, let's stick with our gay film, written and directed by David Kittredge (pictured below).

In some ways, I suppose, "gay" film can be defined via the same route that a certain Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, back in 1964, used to define obscenity: "I know it when I see it."  Well, when I see "it" -- gay film, that is -- what I see is generally some-
thing very low-budget; with acting, writing and directing that is usually serviceable, at best; offering plenty of skin, sometimes full-
frontal; with its themes/ideas/situations all quite restricted to a like minded/bodied group and thus preaching to the converted (it's hard to imagine non-gays being particularly interested in these movies).  To my mind there is nothing inherently wrong in producing a gay film, but this does rather mark your level.  What distinguishes Pornography: A Thriller is that, while all of the above remains true and on view, the film manages to transcend its own genre in many ways.

The performances range from serviceable to surprisingly good, the direction is generally strong and sometimes quite imaginative, and the screenplay is far above the usual paint-by-numbers model.  As writer, Kittredge clearly wants to tackle the subject of pornography and gays: why we watch, what we think want from this -- and what we actually get. To achieve his ends, the filmmaker has written a sort-of thriller in which events from the past (the disappearance of a semi-famous gay porn star) keeps haunting those in the present, with the situation remaking itself over and over in similar-yet-different ways. Also in the mix are themes of identity, the "other" and sleaze/quease-producing idea of  gay "snuff" films.

As a director Kittredge has come up some more-interesting-than-usual visuals to keep us hooked: An angel that may remind you of the recent Red Riding Trilogy; quick shifts from present to past and back again that keep us off-balance and alert; camera-
work, sets and lighting that take us into strange and unknown territory befitting the thriller/otherworldly aspects of the tale.  The filmmaker has conceived of his creation as a kind of crossword puzzle (a character doing crosswords pops up now and again) in which everything connects -- if only we can discover those connec-
tions.  Comparisons have made between Kittredge's work and that of David Lynch, and while these are valid, I would suggest that the former has a way to go to catch up with the latter. 

As fantastic as things do get, they still sometimes remain a little too literal for my taste.  And repetitive.  By the end, the movie (along with some of its characters) seems to have been hoist with its own petard.  Still, Kittredge's ending is a nice, ironic surprise that works on several levels: "Isn't this what you want to see?" a character asks, repeating an important line we've already heard once or twice.  He's asking that question of the camera -- which takes in those within the film, as well as us voyeurs without. The answer, of course -- together with the soft-core "money" shot we've been waiting nearly two hours to view -- is Yes!  The beauty part is that Mr. Kittredge has given us, if not all we might want, considerably more than we usually get.

Pornography: A Thriller opens Friday, April 16, in New York City at the Cinema Village.  Let's hope it makes it way to some other urban center around the nation before, one expects, that upcoming DVD appears.

The Gay Outsider: films of William E. Jones screen at Anthology Film Archives

All gays are necessarily outsiders, but within this "outsider" status, the filmmaker under consideration here occupies a rather special place. What a strange -- at times bracing, at others boring -- experience it is to watch in relatively quick succession half a dozen works (roughly eight hours of viewing time spent) from gay experimental-though-never-inaccessible filmmaker William E. Jones, much (maybe all) of whose work is being given a week-long run at Anthology Film Archives in New York City.  The program is co-sponsored by MIX NYC (the folk who bring us the NY Queer Experimental Film Festival) and by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU.

From his first foray into more-of-less feature-length film, MASSILLON (70 minutes, 1991), the autobiographical account of growing up as a gay man in the mid-western U.S., Mr. Jones (shown at right) proves via both his narration and visuals a rather dry and stately guide to his own and to gay life in general.  His voice, flat and calm with a minimum of feeling expressed, is actually rather soothing to hear.  TrustMovies grew fond of it after awhile, and missed it in those documentaries in which it was not present. The filmmaker is highly selective about what he chooses to show and tell. From religious no-nos to the first stirring of rumors of the 'other' to wrestling, friends, and his "first time" (about as un-sexy as can be imagined), he leads us along a path both typical in its budding of homosexual urges and yet highly individualized.  Then suddenly Jones jolts us with a shift in tone and tenor to a radio rant from a fundamentalist religious speaker.

In Part 2, we get a tour of British and American law regarding sodomy, from centuries ago through the 1980s.  Part 3 sees our "hero" moving to California and into a sterile housing development accompanied by a too-lengthy run-down of the terms used for homosexual.  I found Jones less interesting when he gives us history -- perhaps because I already knew much of it, except for the story of the Catharis (Bulgarians in what is now Southern France), which I found fascinating.

All of Jones' visuals, by the way, use landscape, with, unless I missed something, no humans shown until nearly the very end of the film, and even then only at great distance.  When Jones mentions "hoping to return to the moment before I knew that desires had names," I think you'll understand how he feels. His narration is quite direct: the fellow uses no euphemisms, though his visuals are chaste.  Even when offering up men and skin, as in the photo, top, Jones stops well short of anything hard-core, or, for that matter, soft.) Filmed between 1987 and 1990, Massillon was remastered in 2007. It ends with a 1773 quote from Denis Diderot that remains as timely now as then.

In 1997, Jones made FINISHED, a very odd doc about Alan Lambert (above, whose real French-Canadian name was Alain Lebeau), a young man who made his fortune, such as it was, "acting" in gay porno films in Southern California and committed suicide at the young age of 25.  Jones gives us a quick take on So. Cal. gay porn, delves into the "philosophy" of Lambert (cult-like and very odd), speaks to a few of his friends, and ends up with little of note. He clearly had a crush on Lambert/Lebeau, but either due to the unwillingness of anyone close to the porn star to talk much, or to Jones' own penchant for reticence, not much manages to surface here.  Lambert appears to have been a self-deluded nut, and Jones' use of scenes/snippets from the classic film Meet Joe Doe does not really compute. Watch Adored: Diary of a Porn Star for more fun and even perhaps, in its campy way, more depth.

A Jones "shorts" program is also included in this retrospective: four films ranging from eight to 29 minutes and spanning 1986 through 2006.  The only one of the four that I was able to view was the very interesting, 19-minute THE FALL OF COMMUNISM AS SEEN IN GAY PORNOGRAPHY (Really: How can you resist that title?).  As usual, we have Jones' dulcet voice washing over us with comments about history, pornography, economics, Capitalism, Communism and more, while we watch probably the most beautiful group of young men seen in any of Jones' work.  Also as usual, even though this short deals with pornography, we get no full frontal, just a lot of nice skin and terrific faces.

The filmmaker notes that the porn actors of eastern Europe are paid 1/10th of what their counterparts elsewhere earn. And that they tend to stare at the camera with something approaching malice.  Indeed they do: the hostility of some of the faces is jarring.  We see a few of the boys auditioning for their new career, as an aging director interviews them about their preferences while feeling them up.  Interesting and full of pulchritude, as is the case with much of Jones' work, the film never goes anywhere and remains more of a tease and provocation than a fully thought-out work.

TEAROOM, on the other hand, delivers the goods -- even though these goods (above and below) come in quite ordinary wrapping.  Jones put together his creation in 2007, though it was actually filmed (by the Mansfield, Ohio, Police Department) in 1962. After installing a camera to shoot through a two-way mirror in a closet door, the police captured scene after scene of men of various classes and races engaging in sexual activity.  Though the film is grainy as hell, with a stationery camera that could not peek around corners, you can make out the occasional stiff member and see all sort of sexual positioning taking place.  The footage was later used by the Ohio courts as evidence, and all the men shown here were found guilty. At this time in Ohio, sodomy carried a mandatory sentence of at least one year in the state penitentiary, and so Jones' film, as is often the case with his work, becomes a kind of "found" object that offers up suppressed history, simultaneously making it into something new for our own time.  Sans narration, the only noticeable directorial touch here is a title card that reads 15 Steps -- the number that leads down into the men's room at hand.

For me, the biggest surprise in the lot -- as well as the most interesting and professionally handled -- is Jone's relatively standard, talking-heads documentary from 2004 entitled IS IT REALLY SO STRANGE?  If I have ever heard previously of the musician Morrissey, I evidently did not pay enough attention to know anything more about him than his name.  But Mr.Jones certainly did.  A kind of hero to the filmmaker and the subjects he interviews (due to lyrics that spoke directly to the needs and desires of, primarily it would seem, gays and Latinos), Morrissey never became mainstream, though he did achieve about as much fame as possible within the status of "cult."

 

With this documentary we're back to the witty, subdued Jones narration, as he interviews maybe six or eight subjects about their connection to Morrissey and his songs.  What distinguishes the work is its lovely combination of honesty and intelligent response from all the interviewees and the un-pushy but still probing questions and follow-through from Jones.  This is one of the best represetnations of Latinos in documentary film that I have ever seen.  At the same time it is one of the best fan movies of all time: genuine, sweet, sad, real, and neither judgmental nor fawning.  At one point Jones and his photographer take photos of the actual Morrissey and speak to him (and they interview others who have had their own "personal" experience with the musician).  What a treat -- and a change from the relatively empty Finished.

The work that perhaps most earns the name experimental, not to mention ambitious, might be v.o. from 2006, which, I am guessing, refers to "voice-over."  Here, the filmmaker combines occasional narrative with constant visuals of gay pornography (produced prior to 1985) then sets all this to music and soundtracks that have nothing to do with the original visuals that we are seeing. Instead, the sound often comes from famous foreign-language films (in Spanish, Portuguese, German and French). Film buff that I imagine myself to be, I still did not recognize a single sound track. (Let's hope this means I am simply more visually-oriented, rather than that I am losing my memory.)

In v.o. we see meetings, cruisings (one featuring the famous Peter Berlin), courtships, breakups, and the results of this visual/aural crush are sometimes amusing but more often work as a way to distance us from our usual reactions.  The lengthiest segment (below) is devoted to a film about sex in the New York subways (giving new meaning to TheTaking of Pelham 123), and one of the biggest surprises is the jolt these visuals offer as they bring back a subway system almost completely covered with graffiti.  Once again, this is porn-free porno, which may disappoint some but should give others entry into a distinctly different way to see,
hear and think about film.

The Films of William E. Jones series screens Friday, February 26, through Thursday, March 4, with the filmmaker appearing in person to introduce the first screening of each of his films.  You can find the complete AFA Jones' schedule here.

DVDebut: WOMEN IN TROUBLE -- an encore recommendation

Having seen this movie twice now, loving it even more the second time around, I'm tub-
thumping for it once again. Forget The New York Times' review -- which may have predisposed you against WOMEN IN TROUBLE -- for it is one of the year's funniest and sweet-
est comedies (for nasty comedy, see The Hangover), so full of love for women of all kinds (though these are mostly of the non-standard-family variety) that it bubbles over with effervescent charm.

My original review appeared here last fall, so I'll try not to repeat myself. Watching the film again, made me even more appreciative of Josh Brolin's wonderful turn as a British rock star and Cameron Richardson's dear rendition of a Canadian masseuse, who is told by her patient (the great Adrianne Palicki, shown right at bottom, doing a modern-day Judy Holiday/Gracie Allen combo) that, although she's never been to Canada, she loves -- no: I cannot spoil this delightfully screwy line.

There is so very much to admire and laugh at/with in Sebastian Gutierrez's lovely film (the writer/director is shown at left) that you owe yourself the chance to see this one. I am wondering if it does not possess an especially gay sensibility -- the kind of cultural slant that sees women as objects of great beauty and charm, even when they are at their silliest or most vulnerable. I don't know how else to account for the unusual sweetness at the core of the movie. Even though it deals with porn stars, call girls, clueless therapists and control freaks -- and deals with them in a manner that is definitely not gritty/realistic -- you end up adoring all these women who exist in some alternate universe of sexual shenanigans and often same-sex love, even though the film provides almost nothing in the way of sexual excitement or stimulation. Instead, all of this is all used in the service of comedy. My companion notes that, while a sexual motor seems to be guiding everything, the result is charm and amusement rather than arousal.

Whatever: The movie works quite wonderfully for all of its 90-odd minutes. And don't miss the end of the end credits -- in which an "interview" takes place between two of the stars and what looks like a public-access station host (played by an well-known actor who get star credit but whose actual time in the film is but a five-minute interview). This is a final, delicious treat.

Women in Trouble debuts this week on DVD and is available from all the usual sources.

Photo of Mr. Gutierrez by Jeff Vespa, courtesy WireImage.com

Tabakman/Doster's surprising (and very hot) EYES WIDE OPEN gets a theatrical run

It was only three weeks ago that EYES WIDE OPEN (Eynaim Pekukhot) made its New York debut as part of the 19th New York Jewish Film Festival, and now here it is opening in a commercial run.  This is the first full-length, narrative film from director Haim Tabakman (shown below), in which, as writers, he, along with producer Rafael Katz, French connection David Barrot and the film's original screenwriter Merav Doster were all involved.

An ugly film to watch (the settings -- workplace, apartment and "shul" -- could hardly be more drab and unappealing), Eyes Wide Open takes place in Israel's ultra-orthodox Jewish community, in and around a butcher shop in which one of its leading characters, Aaron, labors and which, due to the recent death of his father, he now owns.  Into Aaron's life one day comes the transient Ezri, a young man whom Aaron hires to help in the shop. (The only other major character in the film is Rivka, Aaron's wife.)  Ezri is gay (we learn this fact fairly quickly), and Aaron soon finds himself attracted to the young man.


Though this attraction grows throughout the course of the film and is returned in kind by Ezri, the orthodox community, which permits no deviation -- certainly not one this deviant -- rises to what it perceives as a challenge to its very being, as does Rivka, fighting as best she can for her man and her life (the couple has four children).  But passion, clearly new to Aaron though not to Ezri, cannot be easily halted. Though, god knows, Aaron tries.  This is one of  the great strengths of the film: How hard Aaron attempts to deflect, prevent what is happening.  "We can refrain!" he pleads with Ezri, for this is what  his religion teaches.  "We can restrain ourselves!"  This restraint builds and builds; when the explosion comes, it is overwhelming -- for both the characters and the viewers -- resulting in one of the hottest sex scenes in cinema history.  And one, I might add, in which the participants remain fully clothed.

 Eyes Wide Open, a broadside against fundamentalist thinking (and behaving), does not end with the coupling of the two men.  This action only begins the suffering to come and answers the question -- Can the true array of human sexuality coexist within orthodox religion? -- in the negative.  So effortlessly real are the performan-
ces of Zohar Strauss as Aaron and Ran Danker as Ezri, and so relentless yet believable is the screenplay in its setting-up and working-out of this face-off between immovable objects that we viewers are held captive and pummeled into submission by the enormous constraints imposed by the fundamentalist community.


I wonder: Does a movie exist that shows this community in any joyous light? If so, let me know.  If not, maybe it's time to make one.  If that is even possible without every character towing the highly constrained line that "god" has decreed.

Eyes Wide Open, from New American Vision, makes its New York theatrical debut tomorrow, Friday, February 5, at NYC's Cinema Village. A DVD release will come eventually via First Run Features.

NYJFF continues with Tabakman/Doster's surprising EYES WIDE OPEN

TrustMovies has only seen two of the 32 films in this year's 19th New York Jewish Film Festival, but both were worth the watch -- EYES WIDE OPEN (Eynaim Pekukhot) in particular. This is the first full-length, narrative film from director Haim Tabakman (shown below), in which, as writers, he, along with produ-
cer Rafael Katz, French connection David Barrot and the film's original screenwriter Merav Doster were all involved.

An ugly film to watch (the settings -- workplace, apartment, "shul" -- could hardly be more drab and unappealing), Eyes Wide Open takes place in Israel's ultra-orthodox Jewish community, in and around a butcher shop in which one of its leading characters, Aaron, labors and which, due to the recent death of his father, he now owns.  Into Aaron's life one day comes the transient Ezri, a young man whom Aaron hires to help in the shop. (The only other major character in the film is Rivka, Aaron's wife.)  Ezri is gay (we learn this fact fairly quickly), and Aaron soon finds himself attracted to the young man.


Though this attraction grows throughout the course of the film and is returned in kind by Ezri, the orthodox community, which permits no deviation -- certainly not one this deviant -- rises to what it perceives as a challenge to its very being, as does Rivka, fighting as best she can for her man and her life (the couple has four children).  But passion, clearly new to Aaron though not to Ezri, cannot be easily halted. Though, god knows, Aaron tries.  This is one of  the great strengths of the film: How hard Aaron attempts to deflect, prevent what is happening.  "We can refrain!" he pleads with Ezri, for this is what  his religion teaches.  "We can restrain ourselves!"  This restraint builds and builds; when the explosion comes, it is overwhelming -- for both the characters and the viewers -- resulting in one of the hottest sex scenes in cinema history.  And one, I might add, in which the participants remain fully clothed.

 Eyes Wide Open, a broadside against fundamentalist thinking (and behaving), does not end with the coupling of the two men.  This action only begins the suffering to come and answers the question -- Can the true array of human sexuality coexist within orthodox religion? -- in the negative.  So effortlessly real are the performan-
ces of Zohar Strauss as Aaron and Ran Danker as Ezri, and so relentless yet believable is the screenplay in its setting-up and working-out of this face-off between immovable objects that we viewers are held captive and pummeled into submission by the enormous constraints imposed by the fundamentalist community.


I wonder: Does a movie exist that shows this community in any joyous light? If so, let me know.  If not, maybe it's time to make one.  If that is even possible without every character towing the highly constrained line that "god" has decreed.

Eyes Wide Open will make its New York debut this Tuesday, January 19, at 7:30 at Manhattan's Jewish Community Center, and then will play the FSLC's Walter Reade Theater this Saturday, January 23, at 6:30pm and again Sunday, January 24, at 6.  Good news: this  film has been picked up for U.S. theatrical distribution by the relativel;y new company New American Vision.  The DVD release will come eventually from First Run Features.