At the movies: Queer.

 Take a soak in some primal gay psychedelia- it'll be good for you.

At the movies: Problemista.

 Problemista is just an utter delight, and I wish more people were seeing it.

At the movies: All Of Us Strangers.

 

If you didn't see it yet, you damn well better do so.

At the movies: Strange World.

 Disney's doing something interesting, and the general public couldn't care less, which is very sad.

Also, Jaboukie Young-White is the queer hero of a Disney movie, and that's awesome.

At the movies: Saint Laurent.

The best movie in town currently is this. It has lots of sex, uncompromising nudity, drug use, cute dogs, hot guys, gorgeous women, amazing clothes, seductive music, and a heap of amazing acting. It's artsy, unafraid, and essential viewing.

Some thoughts on Behind the Candelabra.

This is a film worth seeing. Fortunately, thanks to the way viewing works these days, HBO Go is carrying it at your leisure. I've tried to get at everything I could possibly want to see about the film and what all it covers, but there's still something uncanny about it that feels elusive. What are your thoughts on the matter? 

Getting to know you: Peter Depp.

An interview I did with badass comedian/TV star Peter Depp for the Nashville Scene.

At the movies: I Love You Phillip Morris.

Almost two years after I saw it initially, the big deal GLBT film of the year (because there can only be one or two a year) finally makes it out into the American world. It's a twisted and funny story and well worth your time.

At the movies: Taking Woodstock.

Director Ang Lee likes to tell stories about people making their way out of repressive lives and finding their own paths to liberation, and Taking Woodstock fits that theme perfectly. It’s a subtle, small film that nonetheless makes late-60s hippie ideology appealing, specifically because of how it shows the impact of those ideas on a lonely life.

In 1969, Elliot Tiber (The Daily Show’s Demetri Martin) is trying to keep himself afloat while helping keep his parent’s upstate New York hotel in business. When a fledgling rock ‘n roll festival finds themselves in need of a place to take over for a few weeks, Elliot decides to open up his small town to the Woodstock nation (as well as his own compartmentalized self to the possibility of genuine smalltown eroticism- "you smell good,like an apple fritter" possibly being the best pick-up line the cinema has given us so far this year), making history in the process.

It’s a strange world we live in right now, and despite a dismissive debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Taking Woodstock is the kind of film that feels like it has a place in the modern multiplex. It takes the abstraction of liberation that the peace and love moment offered up, then shows us that working on a person-by-person basis, with the end result of making the viewer feel a little bit better about humanity when the film ends. It’s a sweet trifle of a film with great performances from Martin and Liev Schreiber (as cross-dressing former marine Vilma), and its genial sense of warm-hearted community will win you over completely.

Flashback at the movies: Urbania.

I’m going to challenge Nashville filmgoers with this one. One of my other jobs involves selling tickets at a local googolplex, so I know how you react when it comes time to spend your movie dollars. It seems that the only phrase that scares the typical Nashville moviegoer more than “it’s subtitled in English” is “it deals with gay issues.” So I’m faced with a dilemma when a film like Jon Shear’s Urbania drops into the picture.

It isn’t just that it happens to be the finest English language film I’ve seen all year, nor is it the fact that as a means of telling a story cinematically it is peerless in its use of editing (as shocking as it may seem to those who have been weaned on the frenetic and incomprehensible vidiot-montage tendencies of Michael Bay, editing should help tell the story), mood, and image. The dilemma I find with this film is this: how do I get people to experience this unique and moving example of fully realized cinema without pandering to the people who are left quaking in their boots by the thought of two men kissing onscreen?

Well, to be truthful, fuck ‘em. This film speaks to and analyzes the soul of the bereaved better than anything I’ve seen since Carl Franklin’s One True Thing and Lars von Trier’s The Idiots. As the protagonist Charlie, Dan Futterman (from Shooting Fish and The Birdcage) delivers a performance that ranks up there with Tom Hanks in Joe Vs. The Volcano or Joan Allen in Nixon or The Ice Storm or, for that matter, Holly Hunter in anything – quiet, unshowy work that merits inclusion among the truly great screen performances of our time.

What’s more, in opening up Daniel Reitz’ play Urban Folk Tales, director Shear (working with Reitz) presents us with a story that has to be told cinematically. As a play, there is no way that this experience could have had the same cumulative effect on the viewer as it does in its fully realized form as a film. Shear’s gifts as a director should lead to a very promising future for the former actor, as his realization of the script (with ace cinematographer Shane Kelly) is coupled with an understanding that continues to elude more-established filmmakers like George Lucas and Robert Zemeckis – that technology is a great boon when it is used in the creation of a good and unique story. Urbania’s press notes state that it is only the second motion picture to be finished completely in the digital realm. The first one: Star Wars, Episode I, natch. The gap between the two couldn’t be greater.

Deep down at its hardened but benevolent core, Urbania is a tale of frustration, desire, loss, redemption, lust, and peace. It manages to be powerful, sad, darkly funny, randy, laden with regret, and filled with every sort of palpable emotion. It dishes out a lot of sex (the good, transgressive kind) and violence (the horrifying kind, where you feel every punch and slap and cut), the latter being very important when hate-crimes legislation is being diddled with by much of the newly-elected phalanxes of the government, and as an emotional journey, the only comparison I can make is with Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut or Bruno Dumont’s L’Humanite.

The Dumont film is an interesting comparison piece, as it begins with the aftermath of a horrifying act of violence and expands outward, becoming an examination of humanity and guilt. Urbania begins with a similarly devastating aftermath and focuses inward, bearing down on Charlie’s soul with an unyielding gaze, and finding within it the film’s final frame, a simple image so satisfying and right that it stays with you for days.

At the movies: I Love You, Man.

As an L.A. realtor Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) gets closer to his upcoming wedding, he realizes he has no male friends, an imbalance which he seeks to remedy when he meets Sydney (Jason Segel). As the two develop a friendship, Peter discovers a whole new world, especially when it comes to dealing with his wife-to-be's reaction.

Rudd and Segel were comic gold in last year's Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and both have been A-list material in the recent wave of big-ticket R-rated comedies, so pairing the two in this film is a given. Add in the fact that director/co-writer John Hamburg (who made the masterpiece Safe Men) and you have a recipe for greatness, though one that feels a little compromised in tone, hinting at perhaps a stranger, less audience-friendly incarnation in an earlier cut/draft.

The only weak note in the film is Andy Samberg, playing the kind of homewrecking stereotype that gives gay men a bad name. He is fortunately counterbalanced by a exceptional Thomas Lennon, who brings some dignity to what could have been demeaningly stereotyped.

If I Love You, Man doesn't quite hit the heights of Forgetting Sarah Marshall or explore the weird tangents of Role Models, it's still a delightful film, and it's anchored by an exceptional Rudd performance, easily one of the finest of the year. And what Role Models did for Kiss, this film doesn for Rush. Proceed accordingly.

At the movies: Doubt.

In adapting his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play, John Patrick Shanley (the masterful Joe Versus the Volcano) gives us the acting steel cage match of 2008: in this corner, Meryl Streep as the tough-as-nails nun who takes no crap, and in the other corner, Philip Seymour Hoffman as the progressive priest with a secret. Grab your rosaries and some popcorn, because sparks will fly- this is the Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla of Oscar bait.

With its central Hoffman/Streep showdown, its addressing of issues of sexual impropriety amongst the clergy, and its focused and claustrophobic use of the central church school setting, Doubt is primed for Oscar gold. Already legendary character actress Amy Adams (Enchanted, Drop Dead Gorgeous) also shines as the voice of steadfast decency, and Viola Davis, always a mark of quality, takes a two-scene cameo and makes it an indelible portrait.

It's Acting with a capital A here, folks, with Streep tearing into her role with a steely presence at times reminiscent of The Blues Brothers' Mother Superior- it's hard to believe how ebullient she was in Mamma Mia! In comparison to this. She hits around eighty-five percent of the time, but when she misses (that is, the very end), it's a doozy. Theatre buffs and anyone who likes to see acting titans battle shouldn't miss this.

Alternate endings that could shake the world. 1: Pineapple Express.

Because I truly love Pineapple Express. WARNING: Do not click on this link if you haven't seen Pineapple Express or can't handle blunted-out love.

A big smile, a lot of laughs: "Shall we begin?"

A chat with Lisa Coleman. A hell of a way to start off 2009, with one of the most brilliant people in the music bizness.

At the movies: Milk.

Dealing with the life and death of one of America's first openly gay public officials, Milk is the story of Harvey Milk, who helped to organize San Francisco's gay and lesbian community politically in the mid-seventies in a protracted battle against a Proposition which would make gays and lesbians into second class citizens (sound familiar?). Until his death at the hands of a former co-worker, he was the face of gay visibility and power in the country.

Gus Van Sant, fresh from his quirky quartet of moody and expressionist art films (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days, and Paranoid Park), makes a triumphant return to mainstream film with this effective and inspiring biopic of one of America's unsung heroes. A bawdy, outspoken charmer with a complicated love life and a gift for organizing, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) doesn't seem like the kind of personality that would fit with Van Sant's current aesthetics. But in getting in touch with his narrative storytelling abilities, Van Sant has tapped into something palpable and electric, with audiences responding in kind.

Penn simply hasn't been this fun in decades; but in this funny, fierce performance, he really taps in to an essential humanity that too often he seems to shunt in delving into characters. The supporting cast (particularly James Franco, whose performance here complements his druggy/sexy Pineapple Express turn nicely, and Josh Brolin, who proves there's simply no one he can't play effectively) helps sustain the film's 'you are there' attitude toward 70s San Francisco, and the film's lessons are good ones, with a tone that manages to be both inspiring and mournful. But this is Penn's show, and he delivers.