40
JuMt mm ' february 1. 2QQ2
FILM
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Hit and miss
Punks offers nothing more than eye candy,
but Storytelling is a triumph
by
«n
Sunday. February 24, 2002 @ 2 p.m
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C hristopher M c Q uain
unk” is African American slang for
I “homosexual.” In the case o f Punks,
B C writer/director Patrik-Ian Polk uses
the term to refer specifically to a
group of four disparate men of color (three
African Americans and one Latino) living
in the gay ghetto of West Hollywood.
Marcus (Seth G illiam ) is a 20-something
photographer who, despite good looks and a
friendly personality, has trouble finding a
date. Crystal (Jazzmun), a drag queen who
performs a Sister Sledge-based act, is strug
gling to keep her extremely contentious
coterie of lip-syncers from breaking up.
Hill (Dwight Ewell) catches his longtime
partner making out with another guy and
embarks upon a series of hot but empty one-
Innocent Marcus (left) has the hots for straight boy
night stands. Dante (Renoly Santiago), a
Darby in Punks
spoiled rich hitch from Beverly Hills, hangs
around the periphery of the group, apparently
his hatred of school, his desperate daydreams of
for the sole purpose of interjecting the occasion
becoming a television talk show host— are
al finger-snapping bon mot.
brought into focus by Toby Oxman, a faltering
New York City filmmaker who ventures into
Marcus’ drama-laden chance for true love
arrives in the form of Darby, a music producer
upper-middle-class suburban New Jersey to make
who moves in next door. Darby is gorgeous and
Scooby the star of a documentary. Toby’s docu
sweet, but shy Marcus contents himself, as usual,
mentary is too noble, however, to allow for dirty,
with taking photographs of his crush. Darby’s girl
bothersome details like Scooby’s sexuality and his
friend (alas!) follows him from the East Coast, but
family’s casually disrespectful treatment of their
Marcus immediately senses something amiss be
maid, Consuela (the fabulous Lupe Ontiveros).
tween them and wonders if he knows something
The film’s who-cares take on Scooby’s situa
about Darby that Darby doesn’t know himself.
tion is technically gay-positive, but it’s not that
Punks is possessed of an extremely commer
simple. “Gay people are human beings, too,”
cial nature, partially explained by the fact that
Scooby’s baby brother, Mikey, smugly admonishes
it’s another production from Kenneth “Babyface”
at the dinner table. Later, Mikey— clearly a future
Edmonds. Like Soul Food, this is an attempt to
“compassionate conservative”— dismisses Con-
suela’s grief over her dead son, a criminal execut
depict unquestionably underrepresented African
American lives with dignity and honesty.
ed by the state, telling her “bad people should be
But Punks falls short on the honesty front; the
killed” before ordering her to clean up the grape
smallest African American gay role in any Spike
juice he has spilled on the kitchen floor.
Lee film is better drawn than all of these charac
In the world according to Todd Solondz, the
ters combined. Any possible cultural impact suf
road to hell is paved with glib answers to life’s
fers from Polk’s easy salving away of their social
problems, lip-serviced good intentions, patroniz
and emotional wounds. Instead of exemplifying a
ing classism, detached intellectualism and sancti
vibrant local color, his insertion of WeHo gay
monious political correctness. This is evidenced
vernacular comes off as a trite panacea.
both in Scooby’s story, which takes place in a
The film’s questionable idealization of hetero
section of the film titled “Nonfiction,” and the
sexual masculinity as something both at tainable
shorter, more brutal “Fiction” piece preceding it.
and highly desirable and its insistence on slapping
Storytelling is painfully honest in a way that
a smiley face over any subject even approaching
likely will be beyond the comfort zone o f many
the confrontational make Punks impossible to take
an audience member. But regardless o f its
seriously. But for the obvious and deadening good
provocative, sometimes excruciating content,
intentions of its creators, it could have worked as
it’s also quite humane— a progressive, smart,
the hybrid sitcom/soap it so structurally resembles.
truly moral film with a refreshing lack of
preaching or pretension and, even more impor
he films of Todd Solondz often are criticized
tantly, a wicked sense o f humor. J H
as gratuitously unpleasant, sometimes to the
point of perversity. But if the depictions of
C inema 21, 616 N.W . 21st A ve., screens Punks
inexorable schoolyard hierarchy in 1995’s Wel
through Feb. 7 and Storytelling from Feb. 8 to
come to the Dollhouse and the more tortuous
14. For more information call 503-223-4515.
aspects of human sexuality in 1998’s Happiness
were uncomfortable, it wasn’t necessarily
C hristopher M c Q uain is a Portland writer and
because of sadism on his part but a principled
filmmaker.
lack o f sentimentalized “poignancy.”
With Storytelling, Solondz turns his
unsparing eye on a gay character. The fact
that suburban high school burnout Scoo-
by Livingston’s sexual experiences tend to
involve his male best friend are less a
problem for Scooby than for his popular
younger brother, Brady, a crudely “toler
ant” football star who nevertheless has a
reputation he can’t afford to sully with a
sibling’s homosexuality.
Scooby’s own issues— his harried,
clueless bourgeois parents (John Good
Gay teen Scooby is the focus of documentary filmmakers
man and Julie Hagerty, both delightful),
in the darkly comic Storytelling
T