may 17.2002 » ju st out 39
FILM
T
B
o rsta l
B
Compromised
oy
Hollywood Theatre, May 17 to 23
Filmmakers stumble on new adaptations
ased (rather loosely, apparently) on the
teen-age journal o f Brendan Behan
(Shawn Hatosy), an Irish writer who
joined the Irish Republican Army before
the age o f 10, Borstal Boy begins with Behan’s
apprehension in 1940 by English authorities as
he enters the country strapped with explosives.
After a brutal beating, he’s sent to a rural
“borstal” for underage offenders. He initially
resists the kind, helpful overtures o f the head
master (M ichael York o f C abaret fame) and of
Charlie (Danny Dyer), a fellow inmate who is
unabashedly gay. But Behan’s m ilitant nation
alism undergoes complex shifts as he plots a
jailbreak and finds him self developing roman-
tic/sexual feelings toward two of the English
B
as they fix up a studio for her painting; Behan
tactfully encourages a quasi-illiterate mate in a
halting attempt to read; the soft-spoken prison
librarian suggests Behan read the work of his
fellow Irishman Oscar Wilde, and later, when
pressed to fill one of the female roles in the
borstal production o f The Importance o f Being
Earnest (an improvement over Oliver Parker’s
new film version), he confesses, “I always felt I
was bom to play a great lady.”
However, if the casual interactions between
characters seem loose and natural thanks to the
ease o f the performers, it also points out the
general badness o f the big moments.
W ith the exception of a violent con
frontation toward the end, they seem
nothing more than empty, bombastic
distractions from the movie we really
want to be watching.
Obviously, most of the events depict
ed actually occurred in some way, but it’s
doubtful they happened with composer
Stephen O ’C onnell’s loud, high-strung
score constantly undermining them.
On-screen emotion is often more effec
tive without music— certainly without
this sort of meretricious, manipulative
A home for underage juvenile delinquents is ju st what
drivel— instructing us how to respond.
cute, bi Shawn H atosy (right) needs in B orstal Boy
Borstal Boy is laudable for its assort
ment of good performances and realistic, open-
“enemy”: the headmaster’s daughter, Liz, sent
ended blurring of sexual orientation. Like Y Tu
home from Paris because o f the Germans, and,
Mamá También, it boasts a remarkable (bi)sexual
to his own surprise, Charlie.
sophistication. If only it also had the unflagging
T he film is engaging in its unobtrusive
smarts, humor and integrity. As it stands, the
sequences: T h e boys joke irreverently with Liz
HIDED REVIEWS
T he W eekend
Strand Releasing
ew Queer Cinem a was
bom in the early 1990s
and, according to some
observers, died at the end of
that decade— buried under
an avalanche o f mediocre
cofning-out stories, sitcomish gender-bender
comedies and sappy A ID S dramas.
Into the final category falls Brian Skeet’s
The W eekend, a m ock-Chekhovian drama
adapted from the novel by Peter Cameron.
This maudlin mess o f a film is a close-up look
at a group o f friends and relatives o f hunky
Tony (D .B. Sweeney) “relating” to each other
N
for two excruciating days on the one-year
anniversary of his death from A ID S.
T h e characters are all “types” with a nobili
ty that verges on the nauseating. They’re rich
and bored and hurting', their lives just aren’t the
same without Tony. (It doesn’t help that in
flashbacks, seen through a precious blue filter,
show he wasn’t even interesting, much less
charismatic.)
Everybody speaks in homilies and clichés
that might have worked on the printed page
but sound silly on-screen. It’s hard to take seri
ously lines like “T here are things you lose you
don’t ever get back. You can never have them
again except in the smudgy, carbon copies o f
memory.” And you know how smudgy carbon
copies o f memory can get.
T h e film is awash in this kind of fake insight,
which, combined with self-consciously autumnal
movie is intermittently enjoyable,
but, as a whole, it feels like a thor
oughly compromised piece of work.
— Christopher McQuain
T
he
B
u s in e s s o f
F a n c y d a n c in g
Northwest Film Center, May 31 to
June 6 (filmmaker in attendance May 31)
et it hereby be known: Just because
Evan Adams’ fine acting cannot save T h e B u sin ess o f
you are a brilliant writer does not
F
an cydancin g
mean you are a brilliant director.
screaming, “Move around or something!”
The Business o f Fancydancing is rich with
Adams does his absolute best to add some
promise. Loosely based on Sherman A lexie’s
heart to Polatkin, but, in the end, h e’s as mys
acclaimed book of poems and short stories, it
terious and irksome as he is in the beginning.
follows one Seymour Polatkin (Evan Adams),
Fortunately, Adams can at least act, which is
a young, gay, Indian poet who left the Spokane
more than can be said o f the rest of the cast.
reservation for college and never looked back.
Making the experience less excruciating is
T hat is, he never went back; nearly every
the sound quality, editing and soundtrack. A lex
word he pens is about the “rez,” which rather
ie wrote some of the tracks, which is not surpris
irks his old chums: “a little public relations war
ing. T h e beautiful and completely appropriate
rior,” his former best friend spouts bitterly.
musical forms— chants, songs and poetry— fall
W hen Polatkin must return to the rez upon
over the scenery like a comfortable blanket. It
hearing of a friend’s death, all his worlds collide.
makes you wish whoever was in charge of the
W ith this kind of identity crisis and cross-
sound had control over the entire production.
cultural issues at the heart of your story, the pos
The nicest bits of the movie come when
sibilities for fascinating and provoking film are
Polatkin reads his (Alexie’s) poetry for bookstore
endless. Alexie, however, wastes the opportunity.
crowds. The work is so riveting, it makes you gasp.
Somehow the writer’s beautiful prose got
Do yourself a favor: Skip the film and buy
dazed and confused when he adapted it to script
the book— or any A lexie book. He’s a magnifi
and screen. T he dialogue is short and choppy
cent writer, and, really, that’s enough.
and laughable, and characters stand in one
— Lisa Bradshaw j n
place delivering it to the point where you’re
L
cinematography and lifeless performances, make
for two hours o f cinema that seem like, well, a
weekend. Recommended only for fans o f quiet
suffering and Queer Cinem a completists.
— Gary Morris
S peedway J unky
Wolfe Video
his predictable, low-
rent-boy flick likely
would attract a larger
audience with a more accu
rate title— say, My Own
Private N evada or M idlite
Cow boy. It’s hard to fathom why executive pro
ducer Gus Van Sant backed this project.
Jesse Bradford— so adorable and likable since
his breakthrough performance in 1993’s Kmg o f
T
the Hill — here is reduced to nothing more than a
small-town buffoon. Johnny thinks he can make
it big as a race-car driver because— get this!—
he’s really good at playing Pole Position.
So off he goes to Las Vegas, where he co n
nects with Eric, a gay hustler who falls for the
' unbelievably naive straight hick. Newcomer
Jordan Brower shows promise in the film’s only
! dynamic role.
But what little heat his character generates
is doused by cliché: Jonathan Taylor Thom as
(Home Improvement) chewing the scenery as
•Steven, a streetwise kingpin who shows Johnny
the ropes; Daryl H annah ( Splash ) slumming it
as Eric’s mother figure; and Tiffani-Amber
Thiessen (Savèd by the Bell ) living up to my low
expectations as a hom y newlywed. A ll that’s
missing is the narcolepsy.
— Jim Radosta JT1
Su n days Sw in y
ABOARD P ORTLAND S P I R I T
America's most treasured art form returns to the city's only floatin g venue. Portland Spirit
launches its 2 * annual Jazz Brunch senes. Beginning June 2 nd. the area s fin est musicians
send notes sailing exery Sunday. D ifferent artists an d sounds will be explored weekly.
Join us fo r one, multiple, or all eighteen performances.
Portland
Upcoming
Cruise Events:
C all (503) 224-3900
or
(800) 224-3901 •
Live Jazz Brunch Series -
Every Sunday, June 2n d ~ September 29th
book online now at www . portlandspirit . com