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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 2001)
4 * ’ FILM Haiku Tunnel ig Eden relates the case of one Henry Hart (Arye Gross of the original Ellen cast), an up-and-coming painter who, after receiv ing an urgent call back to his idyllic hometown to care for his ailing grandfather, frets about the problems he left behind when he moved to the big city. Will he finally he able to tell his grandfa ther he’s gay? Will the torch he’s been carrying for star football player Dean Stewart (Tim DeKay), with whom he had a discreet fling in high school, finally blaze forth from the closet? Further complicating matters is the presence of Pike Dexter (Eric Schweig), a quiet but solicitous Native American who runs the local convenience store. Pike’s crush on Henry is apparent to every one hut Henry, who’s too busy attempting to re kindle things with Dean—now the divorced father of two and still merely flirting with homosexuali ty—to notice all the random acts of kindness and senseless beauty Pike subtly is directing his way. Before this foray into filmmaking, writer/direc- tor Thomas Bezucha was, according to the pro duction notes, a corporate image consultant and “visual director” for Ralph Lauren boutiques. This is telling. His vision of small-town life and inter personal relationships unmistakably reflects the best-case-scenario reasoning one would expect to find in a Polo print ad campaign set in someone’s elaborately idealized, freshly-ironed-flannel fanta sy of “small-town America.” Despite several technically present conflicts (Henry’s painting career vs. his commitment to his family and hometown, his delusional near obsession with Dean vs. Pike’s genuine, undilut ed feeling toward him), the almost relentlessly serene (read complacent), well-intentioned tone of the film never allows us to feel like any thing is on the line, like anything ever really B Where the boys are of whom are given enough shading to push them beyond mere “types.” Haiku Tunnel fails to be as incisive as the Kombluths obviously pictured it; more funny and perceptive cubicle-bound comedies, like 1996’s Clockwatchers and 1998’s Office Space, come to mind. The brothers do, however, have a smart ear for comically banal work place dialogue, providing enough sufficiently amusing moments to make the film a modest pleasure. Gay men pop up In three new films by C h r is t o p h e r M c Q u a in could go wrong for these people. Although Big Eden has a few very nicely acted and well-written scenes—particularly the ones with the grandfather and an emo tionally charged confrontation between Henry and Dean— it has a palpable lack of tension or anticipation throughout. N oth i ing lends the obligatory happy ending a sense of genuine relief or satisfaction. It would he unfair to insist Bezucha if* include, for verisimilitude, the fundamen IF talism, racism, homophobia or simply iso * JSSb lation faced by many gay citizens of small towns. This is fiction. (Escapist fiction, given every resident of Big Eden, Mont., seems to consider gay romance beyond reproach and exactly comparable to the Big Eden straight variety.) But in creating an unrec at once oh-so-knowing about corporate hierar ognizably just, imperturbable world, Bezucha chy and neutralized by its overly insular, benign sacrificed too much momentum and interest to take on it. A trace of undeserved smugness let the film develop into anything more than a cheerful, perfunctory greeting card. manifests in Kombluth s occasional descent into pedantic, self-impressed mugging. He and his brother Jacob (the other half of he indie comedy Haiku Tunnel makes much the writing/directing team) more adeptly strike self-referential ado of the fact that writer/director Josh Kombluth is playing a the funny hone when they’re exploring the exag gerated peculiarities of the characters who popu professional temp named Josh Kombluth. Tongue-in-cheek autobiographical overtones late their movie: the clueless attorney boss; the middle-aged, icily pleasant office manager with a aside, the film’s overconfident conceit that it’s robotic personality; and Josh’s fellow secretaries (a astutely satirizing the typical temping experience ditz, a curmudgeonly realist and a chatty, helpful and the world of office anxiety is a major flaw. gay man who’s attracted to security guards), most Like the Dilbert comic strip, Haiku Tunnel is T s some friends and 1 left a suburban showing of Zoolander recently, where we had laughed considerably louder and longer than most of our fellow movie goers, we idly speculated the film might get more mileage from a gay male audience than the (presumably) mostly straight audi ence present that night. Is it overgeneraliz ing to postulate that a gay viewer would find Zoolander's fashion world and Frankie Goes to Hollyu'ood references more amus ing than a straight one? N o matter. Although trailers make the film seem dull- witted at best, writer/director/star Ben Stiller brings an entertainingly manic absurdity to the story of Derek Zoolander, a vapid male model * saddled with saving Malaysia’s underage sweat shop employees from an evil fashion industry plot to forestall international child labor laws forever. Some wearisome bits are broad and over- long, but zesty, inspired direction and skewed parody, not just of the fashion biz but of our entire celebrity and consumer culture, make Zoolander more worthwhile than it looks. j n A C h r is t o p h e r M c Q u a in is a Portland writer and filmmaker. 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