Timothy McNeil's ANYTHING: the love story may be expected but it still works beautifully

John Carroll Lynch is one of those great character actors -- like the late Elisha Cook, Jr. or Harry Dean Stanton (but not nearly as old and grizzled as was the latter) who will someday be given his own page-or-two appreciation in a magazine such as Film Comment or Cineaste. Film fans who relish undersung and versatile acting can get their fill of this fine actor now, as -- finally -- he stars in his own, very good little American independent movie, ANYTHING, as a late-middle-aged man named Early, recently widowed, who travels from Mississippi to Los Angeles, first moving in with his uber-controlling sister and her family, and then striking out on his own to find an apartment in Hollywood.

There he meets and begins tentative, oddball relationships with a few of his not-quite-cut-from-the-same-cloth neighbors: a pair of "druggies" downstairs and the transsexual hooker who lives across the hall.

Oh: You're grimacing already? Well, straighten your face and give Anything a shot. As written and directed by Timothy McNeil (shown at right), the movie may be fairly "expected" in terms of what it does and where it goes, but the dialog is often so good -- genuine, specific and occasionally poetic and beautiful -- and the acting absolutely first-rate from the supporting cast on upwards that surrendering yourself to the story will simply happen, and easily, as this movie ambles sweely, sometimes sourly along.

In the leading role, Mr Lynch (above and below) is so quietly perfect and un-showy (he should win an Oscar, but performances this subtle and true seldom do) that he makes Anything and everything that happens believable. And in a tale like this one, that is quite an accomplishment.

In the transvestite role, Matt Bomer, below, makes a very alluring, young, would-be woman, not perhaps quite feminine enough to fool aficionados but very pretty and very believable, all the same. Mr. Bomer manages to be angry and pushy, while simultaneously making his vulnerability and hopefulness apparent, as well. He's a great match for Mr. Lynch, and the two of them work quite some magic to bring the film to fruition.

As that too-controlling sister, Maura Tierney (below, right) also proves a powerhouse in her own way. Again, the role itself may be an obvious one but Tierney's performance helps take it out of the "typical" to give it honest, specific roots.

All of the supporting roles -- from that of the group of "trans" friends to Early's nephew and brother-in-law, and particularly those of the downstairs druggies -- are brought to fine life. Even within the confines of their little screen time, these characters are given fuller, more complex lives than most movies of this genre would supply them.

One of the film's special moments comes early on, as a dinner guest at the sister's home talks too lengthily and embarrassingly about her late and older-than-she husband, whom she loved deeply, even if she did not want to have sex with him. In its oddball and almost comic manner, the scene lays the groundwork for much of what follows. By the time the film has reached its quiet, moving conclusion, with but a single yet most appropriate word spoken, if you are not fully in tune with these complicated people and hopeful for their future, I'll be very surprised.

From Paladin and running just 93 minutes, Anything opens tomorrow, Friday, May 11, in New York City at the AMC Empire 25 and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center. Elsewhere? I'd hope so, but maybe not. Eventually, though, you'll be able to catch it via DVD or streaming.

Michael Almereyda probes Hampton Fancher (and Hollywood) in new doc bio-pic, ESCAPES

If TrustMovies had to pick a single quality that describes what filmmaker Michael Almereyda consistently achieves more than any other in his films, I would call it empathy for the subject at hand. Almereyda's style is often so strange (and equally wonderful, however) -- have you seen his Happy Here and Now? -- that the empathy comes across as something other than the more usual 'sympathy' that pushes us to shed a tear for our poor protagonist. Yet that empathy stands tall amidst other conflicting feelings: surprise, wonder, confusion, even occasional queasiness.

In his second-latest film, ESCAPES (another new one, Marjorie Prime, opens soon), Almereyda, shown at left, takes a good, long, loving look at a fellow possessing the very classy name of Hampton Fancher that many of us have heard of yet probably know little about. The filmmaker begins by showing us, as we hear Fancher's gravelly-yet-mellifluous voice (which narrates the entire documentary), our young man (shown below) as the typically hot-looking-yet-impoverished Hollywood actor, struggling to make ends meet, even as he refuses to be taken care of by his current and more successful actress girlfriend. That girlfriend is owed some money by her ex-boyfriend, and Fancher is keen on her getting the debt paid back. That story turns out to be just one of many succulent tales that Fancher regales us with over the course of this consistently interesting, surprising and enriching 89-minute movie -- which bounces along merrily, due to both Fancher's abilities as a raconteur and Almereyda's very interesting use of accompanying visuals.

What the filmmaker has cleverly done here is to splice together one after another of Mr. Fancher's many appearances on screen and TV (50 of them are seen here by my count) to form a kind of constant backdrop for the actor/writer's storytelling. Other actors -- from Troy Donahue (below, left) to Raymond Burr -- appear with Fancher in scenes from his various films and television series.

The key to why these scenes were specifically chosen appears to be their mood and the intention of the characters on screen, reflecting whatever situation Fancher is currently describing. They're clearly not that situation, but the manner in which they reflect it is by turns amusing, surprising, graphic and/or silly. It's all great fun, in addition to being an original and appropriate way to couple visuals to verbal storytelling.

Among the many anecdotes, the best may be Fancher's tale of arriving in Harrisburg, PA, for a special screening of an earlier (and evidently pretty awful) movie he'd made, and then coupling for a day (and a night) with the plain-Jane secretary of the person in charge of his appearance there. This is a humdinger and then some, and it just keeps getting better as it goes along. Divided into chapters with interesting heading, the movie spends one of these giving us a fascinating take on Fancher's own early history, growing up (at right) at as part of a half-Hispanic family in Southern California and then ending up, for a time, as an evidently pretty good Flamenco dancer (below), before setting his sites on a career as an actor, and then a writer, in Hollywood.

His career as the former did not take off, past a slew of minor and then supporting roles, and he admits in the course of the film that he never really wanted to act and was, in fact, a lazy actor, who never bothered doing his homework regarding character. It was as a writer (as well as executive producer of but a single film) that he is likely to be best remembered. That film was Blade Runner, which, as an actor, Fancher had tried to option from its author Philip K. Dick early on, and was finally able to do with the help of his good friend and (by then paralyzed) actor Brian Kelly, who had starred in the popular TV series, Flipper. The section devoted to Kelly sheds a good deal of new light on Fancher, the friendship between the two men, their careers and competitiveness, and Fancher's psychological profile.

The man's relationship with several women important in his life comes to the fore, as well, especially that of his connection to and love for actress Barbara Hershey. Of course, it is via Fancher himself that we are hearing all this, but I have to admit that the guy seems like a relatively reliable witness and somebody I might have been happy to know and be lucky enough to call my friend. (That's the more-or-less current Mr. Fancher -- still a good-looking guy, even as he approaches his 80th year -- shown above and below.

From Grasshopper Film, Escapes opens tomorrow, Wednesday, July 26, in New York City at the IFC Center, and from there moves to another 14 cities around the country over the weeks to come. It will play Washington DC at the Landmark E Street Cinema beginning August 4, and in Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt, starting August 11. To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, simply click here then scroll down to the bottom of your screen and click on Where to Watch.

Fashion, Hollywood and Homosexuality in Gillian Armstong's WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED

If the name Orry-Kelly means nothing to you, you're either young, straight, or simply uninterested in the heyday of Hollywood and its famous fashion designers. TrustMovies has never been all that interested in fashion (he often quite literally loathes it), but he is bi- and has had a hard-on for Hollywood since around the age of two (when he ran away from home and off to a "picture show," as he then called the movies). Although he didn't realize it until he saw the film under consideration here, he's also been a huge fan of Orry-Kelly's work. Those memorable gowns from Les Girls, above, are in fact long-time favorites of his (the movie may be second-rate, but its fashions are absolutely first-).

The new documentary about Orry-Kelly, WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED has been directed by Gillian Armstrong (shown above, at right, with multi-Oscar-winning costume designer Catherine Martin) and written by Katherine Thomson, both of them Australian, as was Orry-Kelly himself (who, for purposes of space and repetition, will henceforth be referred to as O-K). What these two have given us is really a kind of celebration of O-K: his life, work, sexuality and in particular his ability to live a relatively uncloseted life in tinseltown long before many other gay men cared to and/or were able to do anything like this.

Incredible as it seems, O-K costumed some 301 movies between the years of 1930 and 1963. And many of these were amazing, pivotal works whose costumes were vital to the films, and, as one of the many fascinating interviewees points out, they look as good, and almost as "modern," today as they did back then. O-K clothed some of Hollywood biggest stars -- from Bette Davis and Rosalind Russell to Marilyn Monroe and Shirley MacLaine -- and most of them loved him and his work. One of the joys of this lovely documentary is how well it makes us understand what and how the designer was doing, why it was important and especially why it worked so well. You'll come away from the movie with a new (maybe renewed) sense of the importance of fashion to films.

The movie also captures this Hollywood era in spades, with particular emphasis on what it was like to be gay in Hollywood from the 30s into the 50s and early 60s (O-K died in 1964). We get a good sense of the man's history, and the filmmakers choose to do this via some charming and intelligent re-enactments using actors in the roles of O-K (a sly, sweet job by Darren Gilshenan, above, as the adult O-K, and Louis Alexander, below, as the younger version),  his mother (Deborah Kennedy), and even briefly his first and perhaps greatest love, a fellow named Archie Leach (known to you all as Cary Grant and played in this film by Nathaniel Middleton).

Based in good part on O-K's unpublished memoirs -- which, according to Wikipedia, were discovered in the care of a relative after the man's death -- the film does full justice to the designer's humor, panache, style and wit, regarding both his work and his attitudes. I suspect he would be pretty damned pleased with this funny and charming documentary -- in which some very good and still-living costume designers, along with actors like Jane Fonda, who worked with the man a few times in her early career, talk about him fondly and with great appreciation.

Ms Armstrong, whom many of you still remember for My Brilliant Career) does a fine job of keeping all this moving and snappy so that interest does not lag for a moment. And her interweaving of the reenactments with historical footage and scenes from various film makes her documentary non-stop eye-opening and appealing.

The movie is a fine appreciation of a man and his time in a town that was anything but welcoming of his kind -- and yet in which he managed to make a place and a name for himself. This is a wonderful story, and -- despite a couple of odd fact mistakes -- I am so glad we are now able to see it. (That's a photo of the real Orry-Kelly, at left.)

From Wolf Releasing and running 99 minutes, Women He's Undressed opens tomorrow, Friday, July 29, in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema for a week's run, after which it hits home video on Tuesday, August 9 -- for purchase or rental.

Todd Solondz is back with WIENER-DOG, his own brand of sequel to Welcome/Dollhouse

I'm not at all sure I agree with so many critics who claim that the movies of Todd Solondz are misanthropic. The guy has a dark view of humanity, all right, and of life as it's lived by so many of us on this maybe-soon-to-be-uninhabitable earth. Yet the feeling I am left with, time and again after viewing his films, is one of sadness more than anger or hatred at our "miserable selves." (That his films are leavened with a lot of humor, black as it often is, also adds to their enjoyment level.) I'd call Solondz an angry humanist.

The filmmaker's latest outing into the land of the lousy is WIENER-DOG, which doubles as a kind of sequel to his first real indie hit, Welcome to the Dollhouse, which, among other things, put actress Heather Matarazzo on the map. But Solondz being Solondz (the filmmaker is shown at right), the film is very different from almost any sequel you'll have seen because its star, and the "link" that joins each of its segments, is an adorable little dachshund, the wiener-dog of the title. Functioning as a kind of all-purpose object upon which the humans that surround it can heap whatever nonsense they like (think maybe Bresson's Au hasard Balthazar, but -- heresy, I know -- Wiener-dog is the better movie), this little dog is something else.

Yes, we do encounter a grown-up version of Dawn Wiener (the character played in the original by Ms Matarazzo), and here she is performed by none other than the new indie queen (though now somewhat mainstream), Greta Gerwig, who becomes, as Ms Gerwig always manages to do with each new role, this character to an absolute T.

But we only spend a little time with the new Dawn, as in fact we do with all the characters that act as satellites to our Wiener-dog, who moves from owner to owner -- the first of which we is Solondz's typical suburban family ripe for rot. In this case that includes mom (Julie Delpy, below), dad (Tracy Letts) and little son (a lovely job by Keaton Nigel Cooke, above). Entitled, self-serving, lying, hypocritical and seriously deluded, mom and dad manage to just about decimate their sickly son's little dog.

From its nuclear (holocaust) family through Dawn and a traveling Mariachi Band (shown at bottom), then to a pair of young marrieds with Down Syndrome, our Wiener moves from person to person, place to place. Solondz doesn't always let us see or even learn how these folk are connected, nor does he need to. By now we've seen enough movies to know the "connection" ropes. And he is a skilled enough filmmaker to have each scene grab us with immediacy, force and often fun.

The filmmaker even provides his 90-minute movie with its own short but smart intermission, during which there's not enough time to go get popcorn but at least we hear a terrific little song during the break. And then we're back to business as our Weenie rests in the hands of a NY film school professor and would-be screenwriter (played with delightful manic perseverance but noticeably declining gusto by Danny DeVito). Solondz uses this section to make sweet and nasty fun of independent film, auteurs, education, Hollywood and more -- and for the one sublimely hilarious scene alone, in which DeVito and the school's head interview a prospective student, this movie is worth seeing.

Then our dog is whisked away to the lap of Ellen Burstyn (above), doing another of her recently fine round-ups of aging matriarchs (House of Cards, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You), on whom her granddaughter (Zosia Mamet, below) pays a call with her artist boyfriend (Michael Shaw) in tow. From each new owner, Wiener gets a new name but soldiers on, as ever. How our doggie becomes immortalized is, as they say, one for the books. But not, I think, for PETA people.

The movie is dark, ugly, sad, hugely comic and full of wonderful performances -- as you'd expect from a cast this good. Crowd-pleasing it ain't, but Mr. Solondz knows exactly what he is doing. Long may he grow angry, hold up that mirror to our foibles, and keep on filming them.

From IFC Films and Amazon Studios, Wiener-dog hit theaters last weekend in New York and L.A. and will opens here and there around the country this coming Friday, July 1. In South Florida, you can see it in Miami at the Bill Cosford Cinema and Miami Beach Cinematheque. Then on Friday, July 8, it opens in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters.

Jeffrey Schwarz & Allan Glaser's TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL: an engrosssing, enriching, informative look at the lives--real and manufactured--of a 1950s Hollywood star

Back in the mid-20th-century, who didn't have a crush on Tab Hunter? That uber-adorable blond boy of German ancestry, whose gorgeous face and sveltely muscular body set the screen ablaze from his first big role (opposite Linda Darnell), almost immediately became the nationwide idol of teenage girls (and boys with certain proclivities), going on to make a couple dozen film and/or TV appearances over a ten-year period that would ensure his entry into the Hollywood pantheon. Critics may have come late, if at all, to his actual acting ability, but nobody, I suspect, could gainsay the guy's ability to turn heads, hearts and libidos his way. Now comes a new documentary, TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL, that not only tells the actor's story -- damned well, too -- but might easily stand in for a textbook case of how the Hollywood dream factory created then sold those dreams to a more-than-willing public. The film is also one of the best documentaries made thus far about the career and lives -- real and manufactured -- of a Hollywood "star."

The creation of producer Allan Glaser (shown at left) -- the actual identity of whom becomes apparent toward the end of the documentary, at which point it couldn't seem more pleasing and appropriate -- and director Jeffrey Schwarz (below, right), the film should prove catnip to Hunter's many fans, most of whom are now senior citizens. Beyond this, however, the movie may very well capture the somewhat younger audience who knows Hunter from his later work with John Waters, Paul Bartel and Divine (Polyester and Lust in the Dust).

Mr. Schwarz's fine work (he both directed and edited the documentary) weaves together Hunter's career with his life, his family (an older and much-looked-up-to brother, a mother with mental problems and an absentee dad), and the necessity of remaining in the closet due to his homosexuality -- which was not only a Hollywood career-breaker but illegal and grounds for imprisonment back in the 1950s. Schwarz allows Hunter to tell his own story, abetted by a terrific library of archival photos, clips from various films and Hollywood "news" footage from that era.

Mr. Hunter (above in his "dreamboat" days, below in his current life) appears to be a pretty "private" guy, almost as much now as in his heyday when he had so much to hide. Still, at the film's beginning, he promises to give up the goods, and by and large he does just that. (The movie's title, by the way, is a nasty nod to the nastiest magazine of its day, Confidential, that delighted in opening up scandals -- often sexual in nature, with homosexual best of all, of course -- that could and often did destroy an actor's career.)

When the magazine "outed" Hunter, the advice of one of his mentors, Warner Bros.' Jack Warner, proved smart and helpful to the young actor. As did that of some of his co-stars and leading ladies -- from Natalie Wood and Debbie Reynolds to Venetia Stevenson and Etchika Choureau -- all of whom seemed to have liked and cared quite a bit about this rising star.

Ms. Stevenson, in fact, tells us that she didn't at all mind being seen dating Hunter and likewise dating Anthony Perkins (shown in background, above), thus acting as a "beard" to cover up the affair between the two (yes!). The Perkins connection proves one of the film's most interesting aspects, as it sheds a lot of light on the gay dating habits of that day, as well as on the character of the also-very-private Mr. Perkins, whose affair with Hunter seemed to cool, due to a certain television and then movie property called Fear Strikes Out.

Hunter's lead-role appearance in the TV version, and Perkins' follow-up in the movie makes for some very interesting fodder for ideas about ambition and betrayal in Hollywood. Hunter's work in television and even in legitimate theater also proves salient, interesting and even sometimes amusing, as shown here.

Some of us may have forgotten just how successful was Hunter as a recording artist -- something else the film makes sure we understand. Warner Bros Records, in fact, was created because Hunter's number one pop song was recorded for Dot Records (only because Warners did not yet have its own record label!).

The documentary is full of fascinating stuff like this, and its 90 minutes seem to fly by. By the finale, you'll have grown to admire and appreciate Mr. Hunter (as well as his producer, Mr. Glaser, and director Schwarz), feeling, I suspect, that there is great deal more to the man and his work than first met the eye. Though what met that eye was -- still is -- rather extraordinary.

Tab Hunter Confidential, from Automat Pictures and The Film Collaborative, while continuing at New York City's Village East Cinema, opens today, Friday, October 23, in other cities, and hits Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt next Friday, October 30. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed.

Yoon-suk Choi/John Kafka's animated BACK TO THE JURASSIC proves a charming little winner

Are you tired of paying top dollar to see a new big-budget animated film in a theatre? Recent samples, often in 3D, can cost a family of five more than $100 to view. You and your kids might want, instead, to settle in on your couch and watch a new animated movie -- BACK TO THE JURASSIC -- that arrives, if I'm not mistaken, via a combo of Hollywood and South Korea, this coming Tuesday on DVD and Blu-ray.

Directed by Yoon-suk Choi and John Kafka, this what-you-might-call B-movie animation tells the tale of a dinosaur-obsessed school kid, his younger sister and best friend, Max (above), all of whom live in a town seemingly devoted to dinosaurs and their ilk (everything, from the museum to the local diner, is dino-themed). This youthful crew ends up taking a unexpected trip via time machine back to the Jurassic period where they encounter a multitude of dinosaurs, one of which (below and voiced by Melanie Griffith) takes a maternal interest in the threesome -- due to that time machine's looking an awfully lot like the dino egg she so recently was hoping to hatch.

TrustMovies admits that he was not expecting much from this movie, when he settled back on his daughter's couch with his grandson and began to watch. But what do you know? The film proved much better than expected. Charmingly plotted and written, and featuring voices of some first-rate talent (along with some second-rate who are used quite well), Back to the Jurassic is enchanting and fun from first frame to last.

Full of energy and more wit than you might have imagined, the movie handles themes like disobedient children, over-protective parents, sibling rivalry, and of course dinosaurs of both the benign and scary varieties with aplomb and pizazz. It proves consistently entertaining for the kids (my seven-year-old grandson rated it very highly and immediately told me that he wanted to see it again), while providing an easy, pleasant watch for adults, too.

The animation is very well done: immensely colorful, alternatingly bright and dark, and always enjoyable to view. The movie will immediately grab the attention of young kids and keep them focused (at one point I asked my grandson if he had understood one of the more sophisticated moments/situations, and sure enough, he had), and I suspect you adults may be surprised at how often this movie has you smiling.

Once the kids land in the prehistoric period, their respective parents must high-tail it after them and bring the crew back home. Mom (above, left) is voiced by Jane Lynch, but thanks to the very poor and incredibly incomplete website of the film's distributor, Alchemy, plus almost no information about the film available on the imdb, I don't know who voices Max's dad. Traveling through time and back is pretty much the plot, with the protagonists (the kids, parents and good dinos) set against their antagonists (a couple of very bad dinos, voiced by brothers William and Stephen Baldwin).

Running just 86 minutes, this fleet and frisky film is worth a look if you have young kids. It hits the street this coming Tuesday, June 9, on both DVD and Blu-ray. 

The "feel-good" film as a kind of pornography: exploring CHEF and MY STRAIGHT SON

One recent evening immediately after we finished watching CHEF -- probably the most popular would-be "independent" film of the current year and a movie that everyone I know who goes to movies seemed to enjoy -- my spouse declared, "Feel-good movies are like pornography." "What do you mean?" I immediately asked him. He shrugged and answered, "I just feel that way about them." I mulled over his statement -- which all of a sudden seemed to make very good sense. "Are you saying," I enquired, "that watching pornography gives you inflated -- and mostly wrong -- notions about sex and how it should be, in the same way as feel-good movies give you inflated -- and mostly wrong -- notions about life and how it should be?"

"Yes," spouse replied. "That's it." Now, we both had enjoyed Chef, which is very cleverly written, acted and directed. But because everything -- and I mean every single thing in the movie -- works out as needed to leave everyone getting exactly what they want and as happy as clams, the aura of feel-good hangs over this film so heavily that it ought to make it difficult for a thinking person to embrace the movie fully. Interestingly, the fact that it is so very well-made (it's written and directed by Jon Favreau, pictured above) is an irony that actually adds to its burden. If it weren't so damn clever and enjoyble, you could see through it more quickly and keenly.

AZUL Y NO TAN ROSA (Blue and Not Quite Pink, in the English translation), which is being released to DVD with the simpler but not nearly as smart title, My Straight Son, is much less glossy and expertly finished yet is by far the stronger film. More melodramatic than it needs to be, and biting off such a huge chunk of "life" that you just know it won't be able to digest it all, the movie (written and directed by Miguel Ferrari, shown at right) turns out to offer us nothing less than the coming-of-age of an entire country, Venezuela -- from individuals and family to police, priests and the media. The subject, around which the movie circles and about which the populace is educated, concerns the rights of  "the other," with particular emphaiss on the GLBT population.

While Chef busies itself with the plight of the entitled to keep doing what it wants and what will bring it greater fortune and fame, Azul-Rosa/Straight Son cuts a swath through Venezuelan society that takes in various classes and cultures. Both films are quite entertaining, but what makes Chef so pornographically feel-good -- its characters getting everything they want without real life once intruding -- is what does not occur, and thus saves the Venezuelan film from that morally smarmy and skeevey overlay.

The protagonists here are the gay dad, fashion photographer Diego (Guillermo García, above, right), and his straight teenage son, Armondo (Ignacio Montes, above, left). The two have not seen each other for some years, and now Armondo, who lives in Spain with his mom, has come for an enforced and extended visit with a dad at whom he is very angry, and who is about to start a new life with his lover, a successful and kindly gynecologist named Fabrizio (Sócrates Serrano, below).

For his part Armondo becomes involved with a young girl on the Internet, and romance -- via the tango -- begins to stir. In the course of the story, which takes a few unexpected turns, the major characters must come to terms with death and rejection -- hardly staples of the feel-good genre -- while the supporting players, particularly the transgendered entertainer, Delirio (Hilda Abrahamz, below, left), and Perla Marina, Diego's assistant at work (Carolina Torres), are faced with their own issues of finding one's place in the world and spousal abuse.

By the end of this rich and rewarding movie, progress has made made on all fronts. But it's progress, not massive achievement, which again sets the film apart from its feel-good companions. How the son's relationship with his tango-loving girlfriend, below, comes to its conclusion provides yet another road that the feel-good film would never travel.

Especially fine is the manner in which the movie handles a popular Venezuelan TV show and its anything-for-ratings hostess (Beatriz Valdés, below). This is absolutely plum, and the short speech given by Delirio at movie's end, which in other circumstances might be heavy-handed, here seems just about perfect.

This TV show is watched by, it would seem, the entire Venezuelan populace, including Diego's parents (shown below), and his father's reactions to the the hostess, to his son's homosexuality, and to the priest who appear on the show to speak against gays and gay marriage, are interestingly contradictory and seem absolutely real.

For all its minor faults and occasional melodrama, on balance Blue and Not Quite Pink achieves a state of grace by virtue of its ability to confront its country's prejudices and hatreds and then help lift both its characters and the country out of the swamp of stupid consumerist culture into something approaching a little wisdom.

Both films have recently made their DVD debuts and interestingly enough have the same running time of 114 minutes. While Chef -- from Univeral Pictures -- has probably been viewed by one hundred times the audience that will see My Straight Son, I urge you to check out the latter, from TLA Releasing, and available now for both sale and rental.