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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 2004)
40 1.2004 FILM ..............▼.............. What's up, doc? N o n f ic t io n film s p r o b e p a n d e m ic , p o lit ic s by C hristopher M c Q uain ocumentary film has never had anything approaching the currency it seems to have at the moment. Movies like Fahren heit 9/11, Spellbound and Winged Migration have garnered a degree of audience attention and critical acclaim that nobody would have predicted. DVD upstart Docu- Rama, taking advantage of the DVD formats potential for rescu ing little-seen titles, has recently released two worthwhile docs of pertinence to queer concerns. Rory Kennedy’s Pandemic: Facing AIDS is an expansive, globetrotting inquiry into the impact of AIDS worldwide and the ways that different cultures and national economies have found (or not) to ahsorh the prej udice and expense associated with the disease. Fcxzusing on parts of the glohe devastated hy skyrocketing HIV infection and AIDS cases, Kennedy’s camera, aided hy Danny Glover’s narration, follows AIDS educators and clinicians in hard-hit Uganda, a young woman suffering from social hypocrisy in sex-industry-heavy Thailand and married couples in India and Rus sia, where AIDS is not a “gay plague” at all, hut a disease of, respectively, heterosexual prosti tution and IV drug use. Pandemic’s most positive story is that of Alex, a 27-year-old gay man whose AIDS experience is indicative of Brazil’s relatively progressive handling of AIDS. The fact that he is able, under his d(x:tors’ watchful eye, to live his life fully and go to college is a severe indictment of the rest of the world’s fail ure to produce more stories like his; he’s an • emblem of what is ideally possible in the fight against AIDS. D f Q pívg with Pride Visit u s online at: www.reyreece.com or schedule your appointm ent 503 256-3700 1 800 283-0592 - - - REY REECE DEALERSHIPS VOLKSWAGEN-MITSUBISHI-USED 122nd & E ast B urnside www.reyreece.com R a R d u i c a l b d o G r o u p m a s s a g e a ll n i g h t l o n g Every Wednesday I he N o r t h w e s t 's n e w e s t, cleanest & h o tte s t m e n ’s c l u h bath. 2 8 8 5 N E S a n d y B lv d , P ortlan d, O R 9 7 2 3 2 I n f o l ine: 5 0 5 - 7 3 6 - 9 9 9 9 w w w .stea m p o rtla n d .co m M u s t b e a t l e a s t 1 8. M e m b e r s h i p r e q u i r e d The film’s main liability is its sterile, some what aloof quality; it has a timorous, overly genteel, philanthropic-gesture feel, giving t(x> short shrift to the raw, urgent personal suffering AIDS can inflict. For effectively broadening the viewer’s knowledge of what is still a horrify ing worldwide epidemic, how ever, it gets top marks. On the lighter, slighter, more entertaining side, Emily Morse’s See How They Run is a behind-the-scenes kx>k into San Francisco’s heated 1999 mayoral race, wherein sh(x>- in incumbent Willie Brown got a gtxxl scare from write-in juggernaut Tom Ammiano, a flamboyant gay city supervisor and standup comedian. Morse dcx:s well hy her footage, editing for suspense. What makes See How They Run such great, juicy watch ing, though, is its West Wing- style insight into the headache-inducing, seat-of- the-pants unpredictability of the political pnxress, as well as the issues of big-money contributors, race, sexuality and class that define the race in question. Morse’s regular-San Fran ciscan interviewees ponder which mayoral hopeful has a fairer affordable housing plan, while the two candidates debate who’s more pro-gay. (Ammiano’s candidacy dcx.*s, however, exacerbate pockets of surprisingly virulent homo phobia.) It all just goes to show that even in its most contentious squabbles, America’s most expen sive, most liberal and queerest city is, particu larly given the country’s current rightward lean, a virtually utopian oasis. jH OUT ON 0V0 1 L ove Y ou B aby Strand Releasing hat initially seems like hold sexual mcxl- emism in I Love You Baby comes with a puzzling aftertaste. The film’s love triangle consists of Marcos (Jorge Sanz), a sheltered vil lage dweller just arrived in the big city of Madrid; Daniel (Santiago Magill), an actor with whom the curious and experimental Mar cos falls madly in love; and Marisol, a beautiful Dominican woman stmggling to make it in the big Spanish city. Marcos and Daniel live like soul mates until, after a hilarious slapstick accident at a karaoke bar, Marcos becomes uncertain of his orientation. When he meets Marisol, who has a crush on him that’s been boiling for months, it’s curtains for his relation ship with Daniel—or is it? While directors Alfonso Alhacete and David Menkes (with co-screenwriter Lucia Exteharria) do have a nicely insouciant atti tude toward their characters and their crazy misadventures in love and sex, the film falls pretty far short of being “in the tradition of Alituxldvar,” as the DVD cover boldly boasts. D CUATRO SUf ÑOS " To he fair, this des SOHRI VIVIRf ~ ignation was probably given hy a savvy copywriter at Strand Releasing to put the film into its most flat tering context, which is what copywriters do, hut it doesn’t even come close to achiev ing the screwball absurdity, sexual humor and variation or sideways tenderness you can usually count on from Pedro AlimxJovar. I Love You Baby skims along with decent comic timing, has its share of gtxxJ one-liners and is wrapped up tidi ly at the end with a cheesy hit of stunt casting, all of which renders it more along the lines of a particularly randy Will & Grace episode. The film is funny and progressive enough— hardly a thorough disappointment—hut it does feel like a hit of a cheat; it writes bigger, more interesting sexual-political checks than its final conventionalism can cash. — c m j n ■ 1*4 W M A*>KA * »*» 1 « r W H « * I LOVE Un* in 4 m uto <to AitMceto A «ton**«
