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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 1995)
just out T n ovtm bsr 17. 1009 ▼ 33 OUT AT THE MOVIES H ome for the H olidays Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Ann Bancroft Directed by Jodie Foster W ell, she did it. Jodie Foster has man aged to make a movie with strong gay content that will also appeal enormously to the mainstream. A movie clever enough for us cynics, but one that doesn’t stray so far from the Hollywood formula that it’ll lose Mom and Pop. In many ways, Home fo r the Holidays is the perfect holiday movie. First off, it’s about Thanks giving—a more religiously inclusive holiday which is far less sentimental (no wretched theme music) but equally as tortuous, especially since going mema home for Thanksgiving is often an indication of how bad it will be for the winter holidays and New Year’s. And second, the family in the film is startlingly familiar—the loony aunt, the ineffec tual father with a heart condition, the yuppie sister and her demon spawn, the rebel brother who doesn’t come home much, the chain-smoking neurotic mother, and our heroine, Claudia, the single, arty, liberal sister who lives in the city and tries to be the bridge between them all. The setup for Claudia’s going home is outra geously funny, and Holly Hunter does a wonderful job. Her big broWn eyes perfectly register every pained emotion and we, the audience, instantly love her. At the heart of the movie is Claudia’s loving relationship with her brother Tommy, played by the some times irritating Robert Downey Jr. Tommy and Claudia are each other’s island of sanity as they attempt to survive the weekend, each indulg ing the other’s need to let off some steam. Of course, Tommy is gay, a fact exemplary in both the way it’s ca sually conveyed and portrayed. The character neither completely avoids camp nor thrives on it—his jestering seems as natural as his playing football with the guys. His long-term committed relationship gets as much time as his confrontation of anti-gay remarks and, when he comes into the line of fire, attacks on him seem no different than attacks on the other mem bers of his family. And what does he do for a living? Well, this is original—he’s the sales rep for some big alcohol company (Absolut? Dewars? Tanqueray?). While the film takes a strange turn toward the end, suddenly becoming Four Weddings and a Funeral, Part II, the happy ending doesn’t negate the realistic message about family—you lose some, you win some and you let some go. If you have to see a movie with your family when you go home this year, make sure it’s this one. with her character’s gay male live-in companion, who unfortunately comes to a grotesquely bitter end along with the rest of the men in the movie. T otal E clipse Leonardo DiCaprio, David Thewlis Directed by Agnieszka Holland ’d rather chew on crushed glass than have to sit through this tedious portrayal of two filthy, arrogant, miserable, self-indulgent poets in a cruel and obsessive relationship ever again. Good acting can’t make up for a rotten script, and when Thewlis’ character sets his wife on fire it really does nothing to alter the blood-curdling image of him as a hateful misogynist in last year’s Naked. The love scenes aren’t even good. Man/boy love has never looked less appealing. I Sculptai ceramics by Nancy April Directed by Gregg Araki W hile many people find his tales of sub urban L.A. teen angst amusing ( The Living End, Totally Fucked Up), Gregg Araki’s style has always caused speculation about whether it was really “experimental” or more like “accidental.” This time out his disenchanted teen age characters drive around and get into trouble supported by a big budget, some of which he wisely spent to ensure higher quality production values and some of which he threw away on gallons of fake blood and funny celebrity cameos (H eidi Fleiss; Brady B uncher C h risto p h er Knight; Loveboat's "Julie McCoy,” Lauren Tewes; Margaret Cho). Araki ap parently wanted familiar faces to pop up in the movie at random, as in a surreal dream. While the idea is very clever, none of these stars are very cleverly utilized—and if you blink you might miss one. That said, Doom Gen eration is still by car the openly gay director’ s> best film yet. Like Gus Van Sant’s To Die For, it’s more accessible to the mainstream (it helps to be able to clearly hear the dialogue for a change), while maintaining an alternative, queer sensibility. Sub titled “a heterosexual movie,” Doom manages to provide lots of heterosex moments tainted with a decidedly homoerotic gaze. All the stars of this love triangle (two guys and a girl) are cute, but the bisexual bad boy, played by the delicious Johnathan Schaech, guarantees that the sex scenes are the hottest you’ll see in any film this year. If you’ve been craving exactly that, then Doom is worth seeing for this reason alone. Casting gay pom stars as the gay-bashers in the film is a nice touch, but mostly the queer thing is a big tease (don’t we get enough of that from straight directors?). Araki has never been one to look to for queer empowerment messages in his films— that’s not his agenda. OK, fine. But the queer note this film ends on is a little too pointlessly disturbing for me. Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter Directed by Jon Amiel G aywatch F Fine works in clay, glass, wood, fiber, and jewelry by Americas best. D oom G eneration C opycat inally a decent thriller, after numerous low-life attempts to copycat such genius as Aliens and Silence of the Lambs. As if we needed more reason to love Weaver and Hunter, both women bring their diva power to this film about a tough cop and a gun-shy shrink trying to crack a methodical, cultish serial killer who is copying the murder styles of infamous psychotics. Weaver solidifies her status as a fag-loving woman Discover the Fine Art of American Craft Minor gay content in coming attractions: the prototype fag best friend in Copycat ; Madonna gives a lesbian nose-kiss in Four Rooms. Minor but noted gay slurs in coming attrac tions: an anxiety-producing joke about a son grow ing up to be “an interior decorator” in Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite. Cathay Che is a writer living in New York City. 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