Del Shores' SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES: a very funny, moving, filmed play about growing up gay

One of the characters in SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES -- a new work from perhaps America's best and funniest writer/filmmaker to tackle the gay issue, Del Shores -- notes in passing that this is all preaching to the con-verted. Maybe so. But, Jesus Christ, what a sermon! TrustMovies admits that, going into this two-hour-and-18-minute movie, it did seem initially like been-there/done-that. But very quickly the story and characters take on the particularities of lives lived. If you're gay, or if you're close to anyone who is, I suspect that Southern Baptist Sissies will very quickly become irresistible.

Shores, shown at left, has literally filmed his play, which was done some time back theatrically at the Zephyr Theater in Southern California. But like a smart filmmaker, he uses the camera gracefully and cleverly, coming in for close-ups and moving it wisely to take us from scene to scene, location to location. We see, and in fact become part of, the theater audience, and yet the end result is more of a movie than anything else. But it's a movie that features live acting. And what acting!

Southern Baptist Sissies tells the story of four boys -- above, left to right: Benny (William Belli), Andrew (Matthew Scott Montgomery), TJ (Luke Stratte-McClure), and Mark, our narrator and more-or-less lead character (Emerson Collins) -- beginning at age twelve and taking them through their teenage into their young-adult years. They are gay, and they are part of the Southern Baptist Church, and how each boy handles his situation -- with irony/anger, pretense that it doesn't exist, constant and worthless prayer, or full-out embrace of his homosexuality -- becomes the full tale we experience.

Along with our boys, we meet their parents (what's left of them -- mostly women seem the care-givers here), their pastor (played well by Newell Alexander, above), whose church takes literally center stage, and also a couple of hilarious denizens -- below, left, Dale Dickey, and right, Leslie Jordan -- of a local gay bar where one of our quartet ends up working/singing as a female impersonator.

All this is woven more and more expertly as the play moves on. Via comic repetition, storytelling, history and depth of characterization, we come to care so much about all these people. Even those deluded church folk. Mr. Shores strips away the cant and nonsense from those who must take the Bible word-for-word, and yet I think he still maintains some caring for these folk as human beings. There's plenty of anger here but not, I think, much hatred.

What there is plenty of in Southern Baptist Sissies is entertainment and feeling. Every single actor is terrific in capturing the specifics of his or her character. Best of all is the young Mr. Belli, who may never again in his career get a role (roles, really) as good as he's found here. Few actors do. Mr. Belli plays the adorable blond Benny (left, in third photo from top), as well as the chanteuse (above and below, right) that he morphs into as an adult. He is simply wonderful in both roles, singing and acting up a storm with not a moment that rings false. And yet he never seems to be stealing the scene. He fits right into the ensemble.

It is difficult to explain exactly how Mr. Shores manages to keeps us glued for so long and so tightly. But he certainly understands, as the best dramatists do, how to deepen character via situation and event, until we're hanging on every word and deed.

I am a bit loathe to recommend this one as highly as I have clearly already done. As I say, we're preaching, I guess, to the choir. But if we take what Jesus himself actually preached as any kind of guide -- love and forgiveness first: the Beatitudes were all about blessings for what one is and does, as opposed to the Commandments, which were all about Don't -- one imagines that, were our pal J.C. able to view Southern Baptist Sissies, he would heartily approve.

The filmed play/musical has been touring the country for some time now, playing various cities coast to coast. Next up are Sioux Falls, SD, at the Club David on May 4th; Sedona, NM, at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on May 8th; and an extended run in Raleigh, NC, at The Rialto, beginning July 18th. As more dates appear, I'll post them here.

There will also be a DVD coming eventually -- as well as, I hope, stream-ing via various links. Keep watch here, and I'll try to update as new information arrives.

Paul Middleditch/Chris Matheson's RAPTURE-PALOOZA: at last, a rapture movie for atheists!

TrustMovies is not absolutely sure why this funny, charming, raunchy-as-hell and irreverent (in the best way) movie about what happens after the rapture didn't get more notice when it arrived in a few theaters (June 2013, the same month as that other, bigger rapture movie, This Is the End, appeared). Perhaps because this is actually the better film. Unlike This Is the End -- which wants to have it both ways, making fun of The Rapture but of course believing in it, too, by having its characters try to get raptured themselves -- RAPTURE-PALOOZA, casts a dry eye on the whole Christian religion thing and comes up with its own smart, funny method of handling fundamentalism. I can understand why this film was undoubtedly not released in the USA's southern regions. Angry audiences might have burned down the theaters that dared to screen it.

But now -- because the film is available via Netflix streaming -- you can laugh your socks off, even as you are just a tad amazed at what the movie-makers get away with. Yikes! Writer Chris Matheson and director Paul Middleditch (shown at right) have done such clever stuff here -- some of it silly, foolish but awfully funny, other of it surprisingly flat-out raunchy -- that those of us who dearly wish that the great majority of the world's population did not insist on worshiping some wish-fulfillment deity can only bow our heads in gratitude to the smart and smart-assed pair.

The fun begins at once, as The Rapture, as seen here, uses the smallest of special effects, and manages to make all other movies on the subject seem like pikers (even with the vast special effects of This Is the End, what these two do beats all). The movie is narrated and stars one of Hollywood's quietest and least "showy" young actresses, Anna Kendrick, above, who doubles as a kind of stealth missle here. She has the aspect and affect of a valley girl, Seattle style, underneath which resides a depth of pure smarts.

Her antagonist in the film is played by Craig Robinson (yes, the same actor also starred in This Is the End: Careful, Craig, you're going to become the go-to guy for Rapture movies), who is hilarious holding up the raunchy end of the film. His piano/sex serenade to Ms Kendrick is one for the books. Robinson plays the AntiChrist come to big, Black life, and he is wonderful --funny, smarmy and double-dense in the role. People have cried racism here, but as Robinson also Executive-Produced the movie, I don't think so. "The Beast," the name that this character insists on calling himself, is a terrific role, and Robinson runs with it and scores big.

Ms Kendrick's boyfriend, Ben, is played by a fellow named John Francis Daley, above, right, who is fine, but the movie belongs to Kendrick and Robinson. In the supporting cast are the likes of Rob Corddry (at left, below) and Ana Gasteyer, playing parents of our hero and heroine, and both are their usually excellent selves. Ms Gasteyer, as a mother who was raptured and then sent back (finding out why provides yet another funny scene) is particularly hilarious.

You may think you'll know where the movie is going, so let me warn you: You don't.  It simply keeps growing more irreverent and funny, and when Kendrick finally announces, "No one is in charge, so let's act like adults," the irreligious among us will be whooping out a cheer.

Don't let this one get by you. You can view Rapture-Palooza -- from Lionsgate and running 85 minutes --  now via Netflix Streaming, Amazon Instant Video and on DVD.