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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 2001)
October 5. 2001 ' J u s t « « 1.37 Phone 5 0 3 2 7 4 -9 9 3 6 KAREN M. 5WEIGERT, MD O bstétrico and Gynecology N ot surprisingly, L .l.E . hasn’t stirred up widespread controversy despite its seem- ingly provocative subject matter. It lacks the pitch-black comic irony o f auteur Todd Solondz’s Happiness, which also brought the viewer uncomfortably close to the pedophile next door. More importantly, it has nary a fraction of the 1998 film’s graphic sexual detail, which keeps things considerably less disturbing. L .l.E ., an acronym for Long Island Express way, follows the peculiar relationship between 15-year-old Howie Blitzer (Paul Franklin Dano), a precocious juvenile delinquent set adrift in suburbia through the death of his mother and the neglect of his white-collar criminal father, and “Big John” Harrigan (Brian Cox), a Vietnam veteran and the neigh borhood child molester. When Howie and Gary, a slightly older fel low hooligan for whom Howie has a sexual attraction, break into John’s house, the older man.catches a glimpse of Howie as they make a run for it. John later tracks him down, calling him to task for his crime and disconcertingly wondering aloud what Howie has to offer him that’s worth the thousands of dollars in stolen property he and Gary made off with. John knows Gary, who’s been selling his body at a seedy rest stop (a favorite John haunt) for some time, hut he hasn’t seen Howie before F sx tion— not a monster but a man rendered danger ous by his monstrous pathology. 5 0 3 2 7 4 -2 6 6 0 T railers for Sordid Lives, writer/director Del Shores’ big-screen version of his popular stage play, make it appear colorful, quirky and rather annoying, with zany drag queen antics, Olivia Newton-John as a gum-snapping barfly singer and general “outrageousness.” It’s a pleasant surprise, then, that the film actually works on its own modest terms. At first, the story does sound overly con trived and unnecessarily complicated: In small town Texas, an aging woman dies in a hotel room when she trips over the wcxxJen legs of her adulterous paramour. Her bereaved family includes a pragmatic but addled sister who’s trying to quit smoking, two grown daughters who fight over the funeral details and a son who’s been in a mental institution for 20 years for his flamboyant homosexuality and is under going conversion therapy with a brittle woman whose book deal depends on the unlikely theo ry that he can be turned hetero. Meanwhile, her gay grandson—the 20-some thing offspring of the more uptight daughter— is ambivalent about leaving Los Angeles to attend the funeral, because he thinks returning to his eccentric but conservative hometown will force him either to butch it up or to come out. Thrown into the mix are Delta Burke as the 1130 N.W. 22nd, 5uite 320, Portland, OR 97210 COX ELECTROLOGY IN NW PORTLAND A Permanent hair removal for all genders / : W ^ Private office By appointment only M w i w u w Complimentary consultation O t u s V y - - - V tO X / ( 503 ) L e E e / V e le C e 916-1869 1815 NW Flanders #1103 Disposable probes I . License # 0 4 1 1 5 0 0 0 0 2 2 \\4 TOWARD GLOBAL WELLNESS... Experience the Difference 1 Sherrie Taha ( NIKKEN IN DtPtSDtN T DISTRIBUTOR w w w .n ik k e n .co m Schedule a f r e e in-home demonstration of the LEADING magnetic technology. ÜT DJ fJlJMiJij t 503 ) 236-5910 D i s t r i b u t o r Í.D . -e-e-f- ~’0 0 Also check out m Malncil Make a dab go get tañer i P eople exposed to I n m s 47 SECONDHAND SMOKE ARE 34% v MORE LIKELY TO GET Paul Franklin Dano (right) finds a flawed father figure in L .l.E . and is instantly taken. Street-smart Howie holds his own with John, developing an odd rapport while keeping him at hay sexually. But when Gary splits for Los Angeles and Howie’s father is arrested by the FBI, the teen ager turns to John, who offers him a place to stay and the chance to drive his car, a typically red, shiny, sporty signifier of midlife crisis. With Howie rendered vulnerable and alone, in such close quarters with a kindly and persuasive ped erast who is ¿Uso the only palpable adult pres ence in his life, the situation becomes consider ably more tense. L .l.E . (opening Oct. 5 at Fox Tower Cine mas) has some problems— most notably the too-flashy editing and intrusive soundtrack, which give some sequences an expendable, MTV feel that momentarily drains the film of its seriousness and momentum. At the same time, it’s also admirably nebulous. Cox is a perfect physical presence for John, a burly, saggy, impotent windbag full of false brava do disguising an underlying obsession that’s both predatory and pathetic. Without being asked to sympathize with his destnictive (not to mention illegal) predilections, we’re shown how they ulti mately thwart him, how sadly futile his dream of perpetual youth is. Fortunately for Howie, he secs this damaged figure the same way we see him: a contradiction to be approached with cau- wife of the man with the wooden legs and, yes, Newton-John, who serves as the same sort of lone Greek chorus figure that Jonathan Richman played in There’s Something About M ary. This combination of good aesthetic choices allows the film to walk its self-imposed tight rope between shrillness and complacency. The actors are so apt and comfortable in their roles that even some bad dialogue is saved from itself through genuinely creative, collaborative delivery. The raw shooting style and art direction are shamelessly low-budget, lending the entire affair a shopworn, lived-in feel. You practically can smell the acrid odor of cigarette smoke per meating the living room curtains. An antidote for the film’s more-than-occa- sional descent into the trite and too-florid is provided by Shores in the form of snappy asides, believable absurdity and pleasurably irreverent impropriety that wouldn’t be out of place in a John Waters film. Sordid Lives (opening Oct. 5 at Hollywood Theatre) is hardly high art, but it’s an entertainment more jagged, original and pleasurable than anyone had a right to expect. J H is a free-lance writer and aspiring filmmaker who divides his time between Portland and a state of irony. LUNG CANCER. were C h r is t o p h e r M c Q u a in Oregon D epartm ent of H um an Services
