Gay Sundance vs. gay boycott? ‘I Love You Phillip Morris’ & ‘La Mission’ among LGBT entries
Gay Sundance vs. gay boycott?
Despite the gay boycott purportedly in the works, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival has a not insignificant number of films dealing – at least to some extent – with gay-/LGBT-related issues.
Among these, the most widely publicized is screenwriters-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s I Love You Phillip Morris, the unusual tale – based on Steve McVicker’s book I Love You Phillip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, and Prison Breaks – of a flamboyant cop-turned-con man (Jim Carrey) who’ll let nothing and no one stand between him and his big love, a former fellow inmate (Ewan McGregor).
According to Damon Wise in the London Times, “I Love You Phillip Morris is an extraordinary film that serves as a reminder of just how good Carrey can be when he’s not tied into a generic Hollywood crowd-pleaser,” adding, “one could argue that, like [the Peter Weir-directed] The Truman Show, this is another film about a lost naif, but when it plays its final hand, I Love You Phillip Morris is really much, much stranger.”
Another Gay Sundance entry is Peter Bratt’s La Mission, which revolves around the difficult relationship between a San Francisco gay teen (Jeremy Ray Valdez) and his tough, tattooed, ex-con, recovering alcoholic father (the filmmaker’s brother, Benjamin Bratt). After kicking his son out of the house, Dad must face his anti-gay bigotry. Also in the La Mission cast: Erika Alexander, Talisa Soto Bratt, and Jesse Borrego.
More Gay Sundance entries: ‘One Day in a Life’ & ‘Unmade Beds’
Gay Sundance entry no. 3: Stefano Tummolini’s Italian drama One Day in a Life / Un altro pianeta depicts a series of disturbing events and interactions taking place over the course of one deceptively ordinary summer day. One Day in a Life was the 2008 Venice Film Festival’s Queer Lion winner. In the cast: Antonio Merone, Lucia Mascino, Chiara Francini, Francesco Grifoni, and filmmaker Tummolini himself as Grifoni’s boyfriend.
Gay Sundance entry no. 4: Writer-director Alexis Dos Santos’ British-made Unmade Beds, described as a chronicle of the dos and don’ts of London’s club scene. Looks like among the dos are hot threesomes, as the male lead (Fernando Tielve, previously seen in The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth) gets turned on by some bisexual fun.
Gay Sundance entry no. 5: Adam Salky’s U.S. dramatic comedy Dare, about three high-school seniors (Emmy Rossum, Ashley Springer, and Zach Gilford), one of whom is sexually disoriented. Also in the cast: Alan Cumming and Sandra Bernhard.
Gay Sundance entry no. 6: Writer-director Lynn Shelton’s comedy Humpday has a curious – and, at least on computer screen, absurd – premise: in order to take part in an amateur porn contest, two heterosexual male buddies decide to have sex with one another. In the cast: Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard as the will-they-or-won’t-they buds, and Alycia Delmore as Duplass’ wife.
Yet more Gay Sundance entries: ‘Push’ & ‘Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech’
Gay Sundance entry no. 7: Lee Daniels’ New York-set drama Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire (update: renamed Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire) depicts the emotional travails of an overweight, sexually and psychologically abused Harlem teenager (Gabourey Sidibe) whose life is changed after she becomes acquainted with a lesbian teacher (Paula Patton). Also in the cast: Mo’Nique as Sidibe’s tyrannical mother, Lenny Kravitz, and Mariah Carey. Geoffrey Fletcher penned the screen adaptation.
Gay Sundance entry no. 8: Liz Garbus’ U.S.-made documentary Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech presents various contemporary First Amendment cases, including that of a student who sued for the right to wear Bible-inspired anti-gay messages on T-shirts at school.
Gay Sundance entries no. 9–13: Among the 2009 Sundance Film Festival’s shorts featuring LGBT themes or characters are the following:
- Teemu Nikki’s comedy A Mate / Kaveri (Finland), about a supposedly straight guy caught having sex with a (male) friend.
- Marco Berger’s The Watch /El reloj (Argentina), in which two young men spending the evening together may or may not have sex.
- Connor Clements’ James (Northern Ireland; available for free on iTunes, see below), in which an Irish youth tries to come to terms with his sexuality.
- Julian Breece’s The Young and Evil (United States), the story of a gay teen who wants to seduce an HIV-prevention counselor into infecting him with the virus.
- Jenny Olson’s 575 Castro St. (United States), an experimental documentary shot on the empty set of Gus Van Sant’s Harvey Milk drama Milk, which stars awards season Best Actor co-favorite Sean Penn as the openly gay San Francisco politician murdered in 1978.
Update: Gay Sundance entry no. 14: Frazer Bradshaw’s Everything Strange and New, the tale of a married working-class man (Jerry McDaniel) seeking a reason for his seemingly aimless existence. Same-sex intimacy is one of the many possibilities in his path.
Iconic fake orgasm scene & Cold War fears: Sundance shorts available for viewing online
So, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival is underway. Can’t get to Park City?
If you’re in the U.S., the U.K., or Canada, you have until Jan. 25 to check out on iTunes – free of charge – several Sundance 2009 short films, including Connor Clements’ James, mentioned in the preceding “Gay Sundance” segment. Other titles include:
- Justin Nowell’s Acting for the Camera, about an acting class where students reenact Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally.
- Dominic Bisignano’s animated From Burger It Came, about Cold War fears in the U.S. of the early 1980s.
- Patrik Eklund’s Swedish short Instead of Abracadabra, about an adult magician wannabe still living with his parents.
Lastly, below is a partial list of films in competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, in addition to those being screened at the festival’s various sidebars. Movie information via Sundance’s press releases.
Sundance Film Festival 2009 lineup (partial list)
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Bronson | U.K. (Dir.: Nicolas Winding Refn)
Cast: Tom Hardy.An Education | U.K. (Dir.: Lone Scherfig)
Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson, Dominic Cooper.Five Minutes of Heaven || U.K. (Dir.: Oliver Hirschbiegel)
Cast: Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Anamaria Marinca.A French Gigolo / Cliente | France (Dir. & Scr.: Josiane Balasko)
Cast: Nathalie Baye, Eric Caravaca, Isabelle Carré, Josiane Balasko.The Maid / La nana | Chile (Dir. & Scr.: Sebastián Silva)
Cast: Catalina Saavedra, Claudia Celedón, Mariana Loyola, Alejandro Goic, Andrea Garcia-Huidobro.U.S. Dramatic Competition
Adam (Dir. & Scr.: Max Mayer).
Cast: Hugh Dancy, Rose Byrne, Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving, Frankie Faison.Amreeka (Dir. & Scr.: Cherien Dabis).
Cast: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Yussuf Abu-Warda.The Dream of the Romans (Dir. & Scr.: John Hindman).
Cast: Jeff Daniels, Lauren Graham, Lou Pucci, Olivia Thirlby.Sin Nombre (Dir. & Scr.: Cary Fukunaga).
Cast: Paulina Gaitan, Diana Garcia, Damayanti Quintanar, Karl Braun.Park City at Midnight
Black Dynamite | U.S. (Dir.: Scott Sanders)
Cast: Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, James McManus.Dead Snow / Død snø | Norway (Dir.: Tommy Wirkola)
Cast: Vegard Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Charlotte Frogner, Jenny Skavlan, Jeppe Beck Laursen.The Killing Room | U.S. (Dir.: Jonathan Liebesman)
Cast: Chloë Sevigny, Peter Stormare, Clea DuVall, Timothy Hutton, Nick Cannon.Spectrum – Dramatic Films
Against the Current | U.S. (Dir. & Scr.: Peter Callahan)
Cast: Joseph Fiennes, Justin Kirk, Elizabeth Reaser, Mary Tyler Moore, Michelle Trachtenberg.The Anarchist’s Wife / La mujer del anarquista | Germany | Spain (Dir.: Marie Noelle & Peter Sehr)
Cast: María Valverde, Juan Diego Botto, Nina Hoss, Ivana Baquero, Jean-Marc Barr.The Only Good Indian | U.S. (Dir.: Kevin Willmott)
Cast: Wes Studi, Winter Fox Frank, J. Kenneth Campbell.Pomegranates and Myrrh | Palestine (Dir. & Scr.: Najwa Najjar)
Cast: Ali Suliman, Yasmine Al Massri, Ashraf Farah, Hiam Abbass.The Vicious Kind | U.S. (Dir. & Scr.: Lee Toland Krieger)
Cast: Brittany Snow, Adam Scott, J.K. Simmons, Alex Frost.Spectrum – Documentary Films
Wounded Knee | U.S. (Dir.: Stanley Nelson)
The Yes Men Fix the World | France | U.S. (Dir.: Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno & Kurt Engfehr)
Cast: Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno.notes
Sundance Film Festival website.
Rodrigo Santoro and Jim Carrey I Love You Phillip Morris image: Roadside Attractions.
Aaron Johnson and Carey Mulligan The Greatest image: Silverwood Films | Irish DreamTime.
Desert Hearts with Patricia Charbonneau and Helen Shaver.
Classic Lesbian Romance Desert Hearts: Out at the Pictures
The British Film Institute will screen four films with (at least some) gay content in their “Out at the Pictures” series in the next two months. The four titles are: Desert Hearts (1985), Get Real (1998), Julia (1977), and Crustacés et coquillages / Cockles and Muscles / Cote d’Azur (2005). The series will also feature “Generations of Love,” an intergenerational panel discussion. (See full schedule below.)
Based on Pentimento, Lillian Hellman’s 1973 book of (highly fictionalized) memoirs in which Hellman discusses her close friendship with a woman named “Julia,” Julia is my favorite Fred Zinnemann film. Jane Fonda can be quite actressy, but her Lillian Hellman is perhaps her most sober, self-contained characterization, while in the title role Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave delivers one of the best performances of her career as the doomed Nazi fighter (apparently inspired by Muriel Gardiner’s life story).
Also in the Julia cast: Academy Award winner Jason Robards, as Dashiell Hammett; Academy Award nominee Maximilian Schell; Hal Holbrook; Rosemary Murphy; Maurice Denham; veteran Cathleen Nesbitt (the grandmother in An Affair to Remember); and a very young Meryl Streep. First-rate screenplay adaptation by Alvin Sargent. (See the New York Times article on Muriel Gardiner’s book Code Name “Mary.”)
Despite some unnecessary melodrama, especially a longwinded “gays-are-people-too” speech at the end, Simon Shore’s 1998 coming-out and coming-of-age Get Real is worth a look chiefly because of Ben Silverstone’s excellent performance as a gay teenager feeling the first pangs of love and lust. Adapted by Patrick Wilde from his own play.
Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s Cockles and Muscles (Cote d’Azur in the US) is the type of fluffy, feel-good comedy (with a musical number or two) that surely has an audience for it – unfortunately, however, I’m not part of it. The best things about the film are the French Riviera locations and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s charming wife whose husband’s past comes back in the flesh by way of Jean-Marc Barr’s scary-looking, tight tanktop-wearing stud.
I haven’t seen Donna Deitch’s 1985 Desert Hearts, considered by many a seminal point in the depiction of lesbian love on screen.
Additionally, on Feb. 19 the bfi will be hosting a preview of the 23rd London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival’s program, which runs March 25-April 9, 2009, at the BFI Southbank. The “exclusive illustrated sneak preview” will feature a 45-minute presentation of the upcoming festival’s highlights. Seats for the sneak preview are free, but must be booked via the box office. Tickets are restricted to BFI members and their guests only. Click here for ticket information.
“Out at the Pictures” Schedule and brief synopses from the bfi website:
Cockles and Muscles
* Thu 22 Jan 18:30 NFT2
* Fri 30 Jan 20:45 NFT2
Deliciously warm-hearted and sexy comedy set in the South of France.
Desert Hearts
* Tue 3 Feb 18:20 NFT2
* Sat 14 Feb 20:45 NFT2
Groundbreaking, 1950s-set lesbian love story.
Generations of Love
* Thu 8 Jan 14:00 Studio
View highlights from the BFI National Archive and share your thoughts and memories, with both young and older people welcome in this inter-generational session. This month we consider the generation gap. In a community which prides itself on accepting difference, what is the status of cross-generational understanding? (Image: Queer as Folk)
Get Real
* Fri 27 Feb 20:40 NFT2
* Sat 28 Feb 18:10 NFT3
Feel-good coming out comedy, a defining moment in British gay cinema.
Julia
* Tue 20 Jan 20:40 NFT2
* Sat 31 Jan 17:50 NFT2
Fred Zinnemann’s sumptuous WW2 film, with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.
“Gay Sundance vs. Gay Boycott? From Con Man Jim Carrey to London Threesomes” last modified in November 2018.