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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2000)
3 4 i * * a t o « « t » July 2 1 . 2000 When an ord in a ry Realtor sim ply won't d o... f ■ 0 www.climbatree.com 933 SE 31 si Ave. Portland, OR 97214 office: 5 0 3 -2 3 8 -7 6 1 7 provocat/ve lb . R E A L IO P ® A phiirinirn man stalks his boyhood buddy in Chuck and Buck; politicians persecute m utants in X-Men Buck is a winning, conscientiously written, warmly executed exam ination o f love and sex that is, despite its daring and rather serious sub -r/im s ject matter, a funny, smart, touching and very entertaining film. — Christopher McQuain - Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE X -M en The one m ovie a t th e lo o o Sundance A i l m p e s tjv a i th a t i wouldn’ t h e s ita te to c a n £ *T R A o f t D iN A R v " U.S. senator stands in chambers, rallying his fellow politicians in an effort to push a new law to track those different from Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY T e w ip io : Leonard Maltin, PLAYBOY ARTISAN ENTERTAINM ENT* BLOW UP PICTURES , FUN DE COCO w M IRE W HITE CHRIS WBTZ UK ONTIVEROS BETH COU PAUL WBTZ CHUCK l BUCK" £ T ELAINE M ONTALVO ^ . JOEY W ARONKER TONY M AXW ELL SM OKEY HORM EL JEff BETANCOURT SCOTT M. CORE BETH COIJ RENEE DAVENPORTCHUY CHAVEZ THOM AS BROW N CHARLES J.RUSBASAN JASON KLIOT JOANA VICENTE a:,: M ATTHEW GREENFIELD »WHITE * M IGUEL ARTETA R i RESTRICTED I JWOfF 11 RtOOlWS ACCO*«W*WG »I * m *c OMomT outß om 1 # • V JB I 1 W ww w rhiirknhurk mm ARTISAN » ® blow 2000 up pictures, art,,a 1 ,,een"eli W W .U I U I M I U U I H .I U I U lie All Rights Reserved f o r rô tir»« r f o to n t q o to * « » » M m r o t i i » « <om EX C LU S IV E EN G A G EM EN T STARTS FRIDAY, JU LY 28 th THEATRE CINEMA 21 (503)223-4515 ìx ^ 0»W 0«T«W iT» One o-r the neap's best and m ost : Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan check each other X-M en % c he gay film for the new millennium has arrived. Chuck and Buck, directed by Miguel Arteta and written by M ike II W hite (w ho also plays Buck) is a truly brave m ovie that ignores conventional cin e matic notions o f sexuality to study the unique relationship o f the title characters. Buck is a childlike, mentally slow 28-year-old who lives alone with his mother. W hen she dies, he invites his very closest childhood friend, Chuck, and Chuck’s fiancee, Carlyn, to the funeral. Buck’s entirely too affectionate behavior toward Chuck seems to raise uncomfortable memories utterly foreign to Chuck’s grown-up life as a hobnobbing Los Angeles talent scout and record prcxlucer, and he flees angrily. But he’s already extended Buck an insincere, token invita tion to visit, and Buck, who is naive enough to take Chuck’s offer at face value and believe it still stands after his unwanted advances, picks up and relocates to a Lis Angeles residence hotel. T h e rest o f the m ovie involves Buck’s attempts, despite C huck’s increasing hostility, to con vin ce him to pick up their relationship where it left off. During his breaks from stalk ing Chuck and Carlyn, Buck writes a play, which he convinces Beverly, the box office manager at a children’s theater, to cast, pro duce and direct. T h e play, Hank and Frank, is heavily autobiographical, and Beverly pithily observes that it’s “ not for children” hut “ a love story— a h om oerotic. . . misogynistic. . . love story." Actually, Buck’s “ misogyny” is directed toward one woman in particular: A very Car- lyn-like witch in the play casts a spell on Hank and Frank to make them forget their happy closeness. Ultimately, Buck’s need for C h uck ’s love can’t he fulfilled in the way he wishes, and the film ends on a bittersweet, not entirely resolved hut believably optimistic note. Chuck and Buck has characters and events the likes o f which you’ve never seen before in any m ovie, hut they’re never made to seem bizarre or sensational; instead, they’re conveyed with guilelessness and grace. T h e film ’s sexually frank look at this most unlikely couple will hardly appease viewers, gay or straight, desirous o f idealized, sexy m ovie pairings, but Chuck and “ normal” citizens, all to protect the nation’s children. In Mississippi, a young girl is thrown out o f her house by her parents when they discover her hidden secret. Protesters wield signs promising bodily harm to those they hate and fear. Sound disturbingly familiar.7 These events occur in the excellent new action film X-M en, based on the popular Marvel com ic book series. In the m ovie, those persecuted are “ mutants,” each o f w hom is genetically different from H om o sapiens. Sir Ian M cKellan stars as M agneto, and his super-powered character will take whatever actions he deems necessary to protect mutants from the hateful world around them. “ In a way, I feel like I’m a ‘mutant,’ ” he says in the film ’s press materials. “ Being a gay man, I often am thought to he to o dangerous, unusual and abnormal to he allowed into soci ety as a whole, judging by the laws that prevail in my country and indeed throughout the world. A n d it’s not just gay people w ho can identify with these characters, hut other minorities as well.” T h e undercurrent o f anti-mutant sentiment seen in the film— and its similarity to anti-gay movements in the world today— is part o f what drew director Bryan Singer to X -M en. During our recent interview at a N ew York press ju n ket, he agreed the “ mutants” have m uch in com m on with homosexuals. “ Unlike if a person is horn into a race or something like that, at least they have parents who are like them, who are o f the same national ity or ethnicity,” he explains. “ But if you’re 13 or 14 years old and you’re some guy and you realize you re liking other guys or some girl and you start realizing you like other girls...there’s nobody. You don’t have your parents; you’re really [alone).” In the film, the anti-mutant Sen. Kelly is played by Bruce Davison, w ho told me he was feeding o ff some o f the rants o f political trou blemakers from the past (Sen. Joseph M cCarthy) and the present (Sens. Jesse Helms and Orrin Hatch and pop psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger). Still, he noted that his characters com euppance is revolutionary. I like the journey that the character goes through, Davison says, "starting out as this right-wing reactionary political hate-maker and ending up walking a mile in the mutant’s moccasins. — Andy M angels
