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