rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (06/07/85)
The New England Gay & Lesbian Film Festival: Week #3
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P.S. Don't forget the Gay Pride Parade on Sunday, June 16. See GCN or
Bay Windows for details.
(Info taken from bulletin of ORson Welles Theater)
June 19/20 Wed/Thurs
THE CLINIC (David Stevens, Australia?) 1:00 4:25 7:55
From the director of A TOWN LIKE ALICE, comes this saga of life in a
VD clinic, "starring Chris Haywood as a sympathetic gay doctor and
Simon Burke as a handsome but oh-so-straight assistant."
TRASH (Andy Warhol, US, 1970?) 2:40 6:05 9:40
A film so deadpan you'll climb the walls. Starring "that great hunk
Joe D'Allessandro and that great transvestite Holly Woodlawn." When
they were made, Warhol's films were the only ones with homoeroticism
(besides the underground and the porno mills). Many an art student
frittered away hours in seedy cinemas screening Warhol & acquiring
impressive amounts of sitzfleisch.
June 21/22 Fri/Sat
Complete shows of 2 items below at 3:00 6:00 9:00
SALO: 120 DAYS OF SODOM (Pasolini, Italy, mid 70s)
Boston Glob film reviewer "Michael Blowen called this `the most dis-
gusting film I've ever seen.'" See for yourself! I've avoided viewing
it for years for the sake of my mental health. It's the kind of film
a Guccione wouldn't dare make: describing the sadistic excesses, mur-
derous & sexual, performed on war captives by a group of German Nazis
holed up in a villa in northern Italy in 1945. "Be warned: this is
only for the strong of heart, mind, and stomach."
LOADS (Curt McDowell, SF)
One of the most prolific underground filmmakers offers a "raunchy
account" of his "adventures with straight boys and the hospitality
he extends to them" and "is a funny and perceptive look at the
interaction of gay and straight sensibilities. It also has some
very hot sex!"
June 23/24/25 Sun/Mon/Tues
MAEDCHEN IN UNIFORM (Woman director, Germany, 1931?) 3:50 7:55
An early classic with a surprisingly positive portrayal of lesbianism
that amounts to a kind of cheerful expressionism, this amazing film
tells how "a willowy, young girl in a fashionable school flowers,
when a sympathetic teacher gives her special attention." A woman
also wrote the screenplay.
THE WOMEN (George Cukor, US, 30s or 40s)
"Clair Booth Luce's ode to wisecracking cattiness given the full
expensive MGM treatment. George Cukor directs a fabulous cast with
Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Mary Boland, Ruth Hussey, and Norma
Shearer. This print has the technicolor fashion show sequence intact."
June 26/27 Wed/Thurs
TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (US, 1984) 1:00 5:00 8:00
A moving documentary about San Francisco's first openly gay Supervisor,
who was murdered in city hall in 1978 by a homophobic fireman, it traces
Harvey's eccentric but flamboyant political career, giving just a glimpse
of the Castro Street culture of 70s' SF (THE book or movie on the Castro
has yet to be done, if it ever will). "The winner of of the Best Docu-
cumentary award by almost every critic group this year, including the
New York Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics." But
someone should've told narrator Harvey Fierstein to gargle before he
recorded!
BURROUGHS (US, 1984?) 3:30 6:30 9:40
A rather fascinating film biography of gay writer, lecher, ex-junkie,
meditator and genuine oddball William S. Burroughs (NAKED LUNCH, CITIES
OF THE RED NIGHT et alia), from his days as one of the original Beats
to his current status as septuagenarian poet laureate to Punkers and
New Wavers. A rare bird observed in full flight.
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I'd like to dissent from Steve Dyer's review of DRIFTING. While I don't
think it's one of the greatest gay films ever made (as someone claimed)
and its main conceit (the protagonist is a director who, like the real
director presumably, is at a loss about how to make his next film) and
a few of the scenes (the director puts his friends through a casting
couch performance to humiliate them) are pretentious & silly, the film
was interesting and even seductive in its real drift among the encounters,
couplings, and conflicts among the characters. Besides, there are some
great lookers among the cast!
Gay life in Israel is by all reports not good, but compared to that of
Greece (as accurately depicted in the movie ANGEL), it's nearly heaven.
I didn't find any of the characters "despicable". On the contrary, I
found their frankness refreshing and their motives and actions realistic.
Oh well, de gustibus non est disputandum!
The other Israeli film, EACH OTHER, had charm but suffered from lack of
ambition: all the dykes in the audience loudly booed at the end. Said
one: "This movie confirms the belief that lesbians don't have sex!"
Cinematically,
Ron Rizzo