Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle is coming to the Castro, and I’ll only be able to see #3 before skipping town. Drat. Early on, I wasn’t taken by what he was doing, and dismissed him without looking very closely (my friend Christian and I went to his performance at SFMoMA in 1991[?] and rolled our eyes, seemingly contemptuous of what we thought was pretentious claptrap, but actually seething with jealousy that this young out-of-towner was given a solo show at our museum), but now I’m quite dazzled by his technical accomplishment and very interested in the conceptual basis of his work. Perhaps I’m mellowing with age. Or reading more. But actually, I don’t think I’ll ever feel differently about the juvenilia that’s been awarded the SECA award this year (except Chris Johanson, who is without a doubt, brilliant).
Great First Times
I saw a delightful little film tonight, Raising Victor Vargas, Peter Sollett’s first film about a Dominican-American family in the lower east side, very much a slice of life taken from reality and not from Hollywood cliche. There’s so much tenderness, as well as a lot of young male posturing and sexual agressivity that remains playful, never threatening or escalating into violence. When I was very young, very naive, and very into glamour, in 1985, I took my first trip to New York with my friend Augustine. His “Nanna” offered to put us up in her apartment on West Moshula Parkway. We had no idea that West Moshula Parkway was in the Bronx, and thus an hour away from anything, nor that Nanna lived in the projects. We arrived at 2:00 in the morning with our 5 suitcases and Augustine’s furs (it was May), and my chandelier drop earrings. As soon as Nanna opened the door, she looked us up and down and said “I got someone I want y’all ta meet” and in the morning took us downstairs to meet Winston, her skinny queeny hairdresser, snap snap, who showed us fabulous New York. The guys in the projects would whistle at Augustine, and call him “Miss Thing” but it was all in fun, and we never felt threatened. And some guy always opened the door for Augustine. Maybe we were just lucky, but I did go away thinking that the media had created an illusion that was out of synch with reality. Raising Victor Vargas is a very real and very familiar New York family snapshot, if not completely original, and loads of fun.
I saw another interesting first film this week, Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow, which borrows heavily from film narrative, but creates very rich portraits of bored Asian-American teenage over-achievers who get involved in drugs and crime. An incredible first film–very well-written, with excellent performances.
I also saw Sex and Lucia this week, which I also liked, particularly for its integration of pornographic content, and more particularly for one scene of an enormous mud-smeared glans slowly emerging from an equally enormous mud-smeared foreskin. I am so in favor of this recent European tendency to challenge any distinctions between nudity and pornography. I am not that fond of genre porn because the sex is presented in a language that doesn’t draw from my reality, or even an abstraction of it that moves me, aside from the brilliant “art” films of the Brothers Gage, where you see guys playing with stereotypes and really enjoying what they’re doing.
Mr. Coco, Mr. Coco
I’m drinking a Georgian wine, in honor of Comrade Stalin, from the Kakheti region, it’s awful, the flavor of socialist feet, which I’d prefer associated with a guy named Alexi instead of a wine, but it’s doing the trick, I have the nicest buzz, I just worked out, so there are also the endorphins, I saw the greatest movie this afternoon, yes I did my work, 4th workday of the rest of my life, I’m even ahead, an adaptation of Pinter’s The Homecoming from 1973, with a very young not-yet-bald Ian Holm, incredible, oops, there’s Reese, gotta go…Dinner and then fractions, finally Reese gets long division, he’s soaking in the tub now, Big Chrissy just called, the party’s on Saturday, everybody’s coming, oh no what to do, we’ve created a multi-media presentation for the party, Emily’s exhibition is called Unrequited (Blue) so Chris has cleverly prepared a play list of songs that each feature the word blue, “Blue Moon,” etc… Okay more later, I’m going off to did I get the html right? Boris’s feet I want to have a little buddy who calls me “Mr. Frodo,” …”Mr. Coco”
Russian Ark
Last night I saw Sokurov’s Russian Ark, and am still reeling from it. It is a dazzling cinematic achievement. In one 90 minute take, the camera moves through something like 35 rooms in the Hermitage, in St. Petersburg. The perspective is from that of the narrator, who is guided by a French diplomat through elaborately staged scenes of Russian history. It’s like a cubist experience of time, with history intersecting space on film, and all in real time.
Nighmare, Noir and Elin
Last night I had a really scary dream. Steve told me and Bob about a really great old house that was for sale, cheap and very grand. It was in horrible shape–the roof leaked, the floors were falling apart, no insulation, etc… but it had lovely bones, an old victorian mansion with magnificent detailing, so we bought it, thinking we could fix it. Well, after a while the house terrified me–I was convinced it was haunted. Then the ceiling started caving in. I told everybody to get out (there were all these interesting people living there already), and we escaped just as the entire house caved in on itself and there we were, in the rain, not knowing what to do or where to go.
Perhaps it’s too easy to read, this dream, and hence my anxiety.
Elin’s visiting, my friend from Vinalhaven. Her visits are always very intense, with lots of activity, mostly centered around food and expensive objects. The other night we saw a wonderful film at the Castro, Clouzot’s Quai des Orfevres, (1947). (There’s a small genre of noir films that rarely get screened, including the unique noir musical, Lang’s You and Me, which borrow from both the gangster films of the 30’s and the screwball comedies.) At the center was beautiful chanteuse Jenny Lamour, who teases men to distraction and to develop her career, but is a one-man woman, married to cute pudgy bald Maurice (totally my type). At one point she says “He’s my flame–he may not burn very brightly, but he lights the way…” Her photographer friend, Dora, is infatuated with her, and we become infatuated with the drop-dead beautiful Dora, but in the end, the inspector says to her, “We’re alike—when it comes to women, we’ll never have a chance…” elevating her to some unknown category of unattainable beautiful lesbians. I won’t tell you about the plot, because you should see it. Just delightful.
Fukasaku, Bridge Club
This afternoon I saw Fukasaku’s Black Rose Mansion, (’69), the disappointing follow-up to the absolutely outrageous Black Lizard, one of my all-time favorite camp extravaganzas from Japan (with transvestite actor Akihiro Maruyama as the infamous jewel thief Black Lizard, and featuring Yukio Mishima as one of her human dolls!). Maruyama again starred, but this time as a shadowy chanteuse at an exclusive men’s club. She’s almost Medusa-like in the effect she has on the poor men who gaze upon her and fall instantly in love with her, and are thus doomed.
Last night Big Chrissy and I went to Sarah’s in Atherton for our bridge club. Sarah lives in this really fabulous house with a topiary maze and a Modigliani. She and her husband have a very interesting and quirky art collection, with several major pieces by Nam Jun Paik, Odd Nerdrum, Frank Lobdell, Dale Chihuly, and Alan Rath. There’s a door in one of the downstairs closets that leads to an underground swimming pool. Sarah is a very interesting artist, and I invited her last night to submit some work to the Marjorie Wood Gallery. She served a delicious meal of lamb shanks and white bean soup, and after helping her taste wines for a fundraiser that she’s involved in, we were all a little distracted and a little lit.
The Hours
I saw The Hours last night, which seemed to have every great actress in Hollywood starring in it, each of whom delivered, particularly Nicole Kidman, who was so remarkably un-Nicole Kidman-esque that I got annoyed trying to catch sight of the familiar Nicole; Julianne Moore; and especially Toni Collette in a brief but unforgettable performance as Julianne’s neighbor. At one point, a comforting series of little kisses from Julianne ends in a big wet one planted smack dab on Toni’s lips. Toni says simply, “You’re sweet,” as if unaware of the longing behind the gesture. Even when it’s made implicit that the kiss may have been more, you see the denial delivered very tenderly, and at the same time you see her struggling against falling apart (she’s just discovered a growth on her uterus) behind a facade of smiley cheerfulness.
The film delivered a powerful but subtle message about the development of lesbian cooking skills, beginning with Virginia Woolfe’s near fear of food, to Julianne Moore’s incompetence in the kitchen, a metaphor for her discomfort in the mothering department, to Meryl Streep’s triumphant catering job at the end of the film.
The End of the Festival, and What Else?
Today was the last of the Film Noir festival at the Castro. Actually there are two films playing tomorrow, but I’ve seen them already, and too recently. I saw many films this week that I haven’t even read about, and usually this means one of two things–they’re either not worth knowing about to begin with, or they’ve been sitting in some vault for 60 years. I was the geek standing at the front of the line an hour before each movie started, to assure my 7-11th row center seat, in the hope of discovering some forgotten gem, but, unfortunately, most of the films fell into the category of not worth remembering, but I, as a completist and student of film, had to see The Woman on Pier 13 aka I Married a Communist, just to witness the comic depiction of waterfront communists in the mid-40’s. (As really mean Chicago-style gangsters.) I didn’t revisit the films that I’ve seen a gazillion times (Out of the Past, Dark Passage, Lady from Shaghai, etc…), but focused on the rarer treats. Today’s movie featured a very young and very tasty Tony Curtis in leather police drag (!) and Gilbert Roland’s big face and hairy forearms–widescreen and luscious. The programmer of the festival really pushed the boundaries of film noir, and included many features that were more like film gris, including femmes fatale who actually loved the men they destroyed, really meant well, and didn’t even die in the end.
So what will happen in the next exciting episode of Big Chris/Little Chris? Last night I was told that “It was over,” but tomorrow we’re supposed to entertain a gaggle of international bear celebutantes. A yo-yo, on Big Chris’ string, that’s me, and who knows how long I’ll spin and flip for my beloved big dude.
Stay tuned, gentle reader.
An Afternoon With Ann Sheridan and Armistead
The Ann Sheridan movie was astounding. It hasn’t been screened theatrically for about 40 years, and the Castro presented a beautiful print from the Universal archive. The film, Woman on the Run, opens as a man walking his dog witnesses a murder, and then goes into hiding when he discovers that the killer is a big mobster who will most likely bump him off before he can testify against him. The police race to find him before the killer does, and his wife, whom we find out has been fairly indifferent to him up to now, also tries to find him and in the process discovers her love for him. She is aided in her search by a supposed newspaper man looking for an exclusive, but he’s actually the killer himself! The searchers converge on Playland at the Beach in the final minutes of the film, where Ann Sheridan finally figures out that the newspaper guy is the killer, but as she’s riding the roller coaster and he’s down below meeting her husband for the promised exclusive and a shot in the head! The perspective in this scene is all from the roller coaster as we catch dizzing and quickly caught brief glimpses of her husband below. Great San Francisco location shooting, snappy witty dialogue, Ann Sheridan’s beautiful face, and excellent tension and photography in those last few minutes.
On the way home from the movie Armistead Maupin walked by and said “Hey.” !! To me! He’s so cuddly looking. I said, “Hi.” Should I have said more? Did he think I was someone else? Does he remember meeting me a few years ago when he sat behind me at the Castro? Didn’t he come to the party that I and Bob threw for Ed White? Was he cruising me? Did I blow my chance to create a thrilling new chapter for his tales of the city? Or my cameo walk on in the next series?
Conflict
The big anti-war demonstration today coincides with the screening of a rare noir film this afternoon at the Castro, Woman on the Run, with Ann Sheridan.
There’s no question about where I’ll be.
My political beliefs and practice often conflict inconveniently with Ann Sheridan.