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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 15, 2002)
his subculture, hisses, “TixJay sexual preference, tomorrow a tattoo." There’s also the loveliest mother-daughter coming-out scene in lesbian cinema history (not too sappy, I promise). Honestly, Kissing is not the perfect lesbian film. It’s more like the perfect gay film for straight people to help them feel more comfort able with the whole thing. But it’s witty with moments of graceful insight, and the characters are endearing. It’s very much worth leaving your too-high expecta tions at the door. — LB Iris B ased on John Bayley’s two books of posthumous mem oirs about his wife, the late novelist Iris Murdoch, Richard Eyre’s film features Kate Winslet play the impressive perfor young Iris Murdoch mances by Kate Winslet, Hugh Bonneville, Judi Dench and Jim Broadhent as, respectively, the young and old Bayley-Murdochs. Iris (now playing at Fox Tower Cinem as) shifts evenly through time, from Murdoch’s twilight as an Alzheimer’s sufferer to her col legiate days o f courtship with Bayley. They are depicted here as charmingly eccentric, smart, sometimes contentious old English goats whose love for the literary life is all- consuming. A beautiful sequence featuring the elderly couple shopping at a modem supermarket while theorizing about philoso phies of life is both funny and revealing; the film would have benefited from more such well-constructed scenes. On the days-gone-hy front, Winslet is com pletely winning, as usual. She also hears an amazing resemblance to the young Murdoch, a woman of intellect who, socially speaking, was— with her open bisexuality and regular practice of free love— something of a more pleasant and less selfish version of Anais Nin. (Murdoch’s great 1967 novel, A Fairly Hon - ourahle Defeat, is a rarely acknowledged land mark of literature with its rich, emotionally complete homosexual characterization). However beguiling the players, though, Iris ultimately fails to achieve real impact. It evokes the feeling that we’re treading much too lightly over the complex story of this ven erated novelist, her degenerative disease, her struggles with love and lust, and her challenge as a woman to he taken seriously as a writer. All is included, hut nothing seems genuinely explored. Eyre’s aim seems to have been preci sion and completeness rather than feeling or perspective, as if his movie project was merely a fact-finding mission. The actors consistently heat Eyre’s overly timid atmosphere to convey some energy and immediacy, and they alone make this a film worth seeing. Murdoch’s memory and estate might benefit from the fact that Iris will intro duce her work to a new audience, hut she doubtless would have been bemused at best by Eyre’s silver-screen tiptoeing. — Christopher McQuain B u rn t M o n e y 4 ene and Angel are a pair of hank robbers known as “the twins” operating in Argenti na circa 1965. Their symbiosis extends to their sex lives, and the Bonnie and Clyde anti- hero glamour is cemented when we discover their bad-boy danger: Nene is a hard-bitten ex- con, and Angel is tortured by voices in his head. After a big job goes wrong and police are killed, the lovers find themselves on the lam. In true noir fashion, they’re eventually done in by a dangerous dame, in this case a beauti ful prostitute. Director Marcelo Pineyro and writer Marce- lo Figueras have created a sensuous, overheated riff on what we’re told in the end credits is a true story. The staging of the final showdown with the cops makes for a disappointingly flaci cid ending; it’s all straightforward action-movie blare, which seems like a complete failure of nerve when contrasted with the slow simmer preceding it. Up to then, however, Pineyro maintains a tense, dark and extremely sexy (although not very P.C.) tension that will he both familiar and wel come to anyone who enjoys the grimly thrilling, unrestrained, erotic atmosphere of the great noir pictures. (Burnt Money plays March 29 to April 4 at Cinema 21. )jn —CM N By Claudia Shear • March 26-April 14,2002 “It’s hard to be funny when you have to be clean.” - M iss West A play about Mae West - the Queen of Quip - and an unlikely couple who love her. Character, not caricature, creates a “small marvel of humor and humanity.” (New York Post) J u s t O u t & P o rtla n d C e n te r S ta g e invite you to our G ay & Lesbian Audience night, Tuesday, April 2nd. Mingle with cast, crew and hostess P o is o n W aters after the show at D ra g o n fish A s ia n Cafe. can 503.274.6588 &visit w w w . p c s . o r g I Q e n te r *0*T LANO Experience the experimental athaniel Dorsky’s name isn’t automatically | associated with those of his predecessors, i queer creators of avant-garde short film like Kenneth Anger ( Scorpio Rising ) and Jack Smith (Flaming Creatures). The work of this artist— who was horn and raised in New Jersey, joined New York City’s mid-’60s experimental film juggernaut and now lives and works (along with fellow filmmaker and his partner of 25 years, Jerome Hiler) in the creative hotbed of San Francisco— lacks the confrontational "edge” associated with more storied and well- known underground gay cinema. Anger and Smith were staunchly Western filmmakers, exuberantly playing with and dese crating pop culture symbols as an act of defiance. In comparison to theirs, Dorsky’s work could he described as Eastern-contemplative and anti- symbolic, more concerned with images them selves— the actual tangibility of texture, light and color— than their subjective implications. Four Wall Cinema’s Luminous Motion: The Silent Films of Nathaniel Dorsky isn’t a retrospec tive and doesn’t include his earliest trilogy— 1964 s Ingreen and A Fall Tnp Home and 1965’s Summmwnd— which recounts his childhood and adolescence as well as his struggle with then- taboo homosexuality. Instead, the program con centrates on three of his more recent films, Varta- tions, Arbor Vitae and Love’s Refrain; none is more than a decade old, and they uniformly reflect a formalist, purist, non-narrative sense of the visual. It’s a more complete and serious version of American Beauty’s plea to “look closer.” The 1999 Oscar winner’s emblematic existentialist image of a floating plastic hag was, in fact, an homage to Dorsky’s work. His films are gorgeous, colorful scraphtxiks of the beauty to be found in the juxtaposition of everyday images and ridding those images of their narrative baggage so we can appreciate the immediate curiosity and strangeness of each iso lated object. Dorsky’s work might he formal in intent and rigorous in execution, hut it’s also quite literally “feel good” cinema— after a view ing, our visual palette is cleansed, our perspec tive altered to something approaching serenity. -C M L uminous M otion : T he S ilent F ilms of N athaniel D orsky plays 7:30 p.m. March 18 and 19 at Four Wall Cinema, 425 S.E . Third Ave. The Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway Special thanks to our show sponsors... MERRILL CORPORATION And GALA night sponsor.. just nm - Stage H. Pat & Trudy Ritz V isualize T o u r /nnw oeaat^ Personal Image Design • Hair & Wig Styling • Specializing in Trans-Formation • Professional Makeup • Exp. with feature film & T V • Friendly Private Salon • (URISTinOS A ¡vende Creations EVERY BOOK OF GAY EROTICA ALWAYS M STOCK! <@> Paradise Visions. Luscious, explicit new drawings by Sadao Hasegawa. Exclusive! $50. <®> Bears on Bears. An oral history of all things hairy, beefy, masculine, and loving. $15. <@> Friction 5: Gay Erotic Fiction. Virgins, vampires, bathhouses, daddies— whew! $16. 505 2 8 6 -7 0 0 0 DOWNTOWN @ 927 SW OAK • 226-8141
