STAGE REVIEW: CHOIR BOY

(Michael Shepperd) in Choir Boy. Photo by Michael Lamont.

 

Hit that perfect beat boy

 

By Ed Rampell

 

Choir Boy’s setting -- Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys -- is, for this reviewer, the most interesting, unique aspect of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s gay-themed drama. Historically-black educational institutions have, on occasion, been featured in productions, such as Denzel Washington’s superb 2007 movie, The Great Debaters. But for your Caucasian critic this milieu is relatively untraveled terrain and of keen interest, especially as his father taught in Boys High High School, an all-black and Latino facility in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

 

But Drew is very different from Boys High, a public school that’s part of the New York City school system. In addition to being private, Drew is also a religious school. So, just as, say, New York is a character in Woody Allen’s 1979 Manhattan, Drew’s ambiance hovers over Choir Boy -- although institutionally, not so much geographically.

 

The title character is Pharus Jonathan Young (Jeremy Pope), who aspires to becoming the prestigious choir master of Drew, which seems largely dependent for its economic survival on an annual fundraiser featuring the all male singers. Pharus must chart a tricky, precarious path as a gay youth completely surrounded by boys and men (alas, no female characters trod the boards in this play). This includes not only in the classroom, but in his dormitory in general, dorm room in particular, locker room and showers. Scenic designer David Zinn’s understated sets go with the flow, morphing from one scene to another depending upon their location requirements.

 

The play focuses on five young men attending the school, Headmaster Marrow (Michael Shepperd) and Mr. Pendleton (Leonard Kelly-Young has the role which was played by Austin Pendleton at Choir Boy’s Broadway premiere last year). He is this one-acter’s token white character. Pendleton is one of those archetypal (or stereotypical -- take your pick), rumpled Caucasians who has picked up the proverbial “white man’s burden” and is dedicated to educating minorities and Civil Rights. When he’s introduced, Pendleton goes verbally overboard, trying to impress the lads by getting down with the homies (or at least trying to). But later, with an impassioned speech about the “N” word which the homophobic, diffident Bobby Marrow (Donovan Mitchell) insists on using in full, Pendleton reveals his true colors as a Civil Rights crusader who’d marched with Dr. King.

 

(BTW, according to urban mythology, the physician and researcher Charles R. Drew helped invent the process of blood transfusions and died, when the hospital he was taken to after a car accident supposedly refused to give him a blood transfusion because they only had plasma from white people on hand. In any case, Drew did resist racial segregation when it came to donating blood. About a dozen schools are named after this medical pioneer, including a prep school, but none seem to be named the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys.)

 

The playwright does a good job providing back stories for the five young men, especially through their long distance phone calls back home. These provide insights into their characters, what makes them tick and why these scholarship or full-tuition-paying students are attending this private prep school. For most, it is perceived as their ticket to advancing on to university and achieving in modern America.

 

Against this complicated background, Pharus is trying to come of age. As the eponymous choir boy strives to become a choir man, the effeminate Pharus must navigate his emerging sexuality and the strict code of conduct of the prep school, with its official school song of “Trust and Obey” --Presbyterian hymn. There is some full frontal (and back) nudity in Choir Boy, and McCraney takes on the stereotypes relating to the anatomy of black males. If you listen closely to the dialogue, he may be trying to debunk that myth, not simply reinforcing it. As the well-endowed AJ, Pharus’ roommate, Grantham Coleman strikes the right tone as a big brother figure watching out for the confused Pharus as he strives to make and find his way in the moral universe of the religious school and beyond its presumably ivy covered walls. (Both Coleman and Pope reprise the roles they previously played on Broadway.)

 

The play ran for almost two hours without an intermission. Its ensemble is well-directed by Trip Cullman, who also helmed Choir Boy on the Great White Way.

 

 

 

Choir Boy runs through Oct. 26 at the Gil Gates Theater at the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood Village, CA 90024. For tickets: 310208-5454; www.GeffenPlayhouse.com.

 

L.A.-based reviewer Ed Rampell co-authored The Hawaii Movie and Television Book. (See: http://hawaiimtvbook.weebly.com/.) Rampell and co-author Luis Reyes will be signing books at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6 at the bookstore Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105.  (See:Meet Ed..)     

 

STAGE REVIEW: THE GOAT OR, WHO IS SYLVIA?

A scene from The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?

Ewe, sex

By Ed Rampell

Let’s just cut to the chase: This production of Edward Albee’s The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? is simply one of the best plays this reviewer has seen in, well, a dog’s age. The acting is riveting, Ken Sawyer’s direction taut and Albee’s writing letter perfect. Late in his career, the now 86-year-old playwright who gave us Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-- with its scathing, scalding critique of (heterosexual) marriage -- way back in 1961, conjured up this pushing-the-envelope drama (albeit one with lots of laughs) in 2002.

The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? is just ideal to present on the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s boards: As homosexuality and gay marriage increasingly gain acceptance and tolerance in 21^stcentury America, Albee the gadfly moves the goalposts. Note the plural, for in The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? the daring dramatist explores several types of sexual relationships that are universally considered to simply be beyond the pale of polite society. To find out what taboo forms of sexuality Albee alludes to, you’ll just have to hoof it down to the Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre yourself -- and unless you’re a puritanical, patriarchal overzealous proponent of heterosexual monogamous sex (preferably only after marriage for procreative purposes), you’ll likely be glad you did.

Ann Noble is absolutely stellar as Stevie who, on the surface, has the ideal marriage to award winning architect Martin (Paul Witten, who, in a bit of copasetic casting, played a makeup artist in HBO’s 2013 Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra). In The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? our favorite Martin is turning 50 -- and has the über-midlife crisis to end them all. Martin’s outrageous acting out at the mid-century mark makes buying a Lamborghini, or pursuing a trophy woman half his age, seem tame in comparison.

Needless to say, Martin’s unorthodox (to say the least) choice completely disrupts his life and household. Best friend Ross (Matt Kirkwood) goes ape shit. Son Billy (Spencer Morrissey) now finds coping with being gay the least of his problems as his formerly idyllic family life comes to a screeching halt. And as for the wronged woman, for wife Stevie it’s literally up against the wall, motherfucker! (You’ll see what this critic means. BTW ticket buyer: If you value your personal safety your ever considerate scribbler recommends that you do not sit in the first row, which is about as safe as front row seats at a Samoan fire knife dance show. You have been warned, Dear Reader!)

And now a word about Noble: Your erstwhile scribe last had the pleasure of seeing her roam the moors and heaths of Antaeus Company’s 2012 Macbeth wherein, his review singled out “Noble as Lady MacBeth …the ultimate henpecker, ever prodding her beleaguered husband on. She’s more terrifying than Scotland’s other infamous horror, the Loch Ness Monster. Noble is positively harrowing with her crimson locks and reddish period outfit, all redolent of her blood obsessed psyche…” Considering the twists and turns The Goat takes one could say, with tongue planted firmly in cheeky cheek, that Noble is in “danger” of being typecast. What’s next? Starring as “Norma Bates” in a female version of Hitchcock’s classic, re-titled Psycho’s Psyche?

What makes Marty run? Noble’s performance, sculpted with the finesse of a Rodin or Michelangelo, provides clues. Her Stevie (hmm, odd choice of names selected by the gay bard, eh wot?) seems like a person full of artifice, who acts out roles in her daily life, such as dutiful wife or urbane sophisticate. For instance, in a vignette full of Albee’s dazzling wordplay, she and Martin partake in well-rehearsed (that is, by the characters -- although these polished thesps obviously all worked their tails off) banter, expertly parodying a British comedy of manners.

So the role playing, persona-wearing Stevie stands in sharp contrast to her husband’s devastating, off-kilter choice, which is to pursue a totally (literally) natural partner, who, as Martin says, is completely “guileless.” Noble, by the way, has lovely thighs and a heaving bosom; although this may strike some as sexist, this is important to note as it makes Martin’s actions seem even stranger and more bafflingly incomprehensible. The fact that we’re repeatedly informed that, as husband and wife for 20-ish years, Stevie and Martin never strayed and maintained a fulfilling, even exciting sex life, all conspires to make hubby’s philandering all the more mystifyingly puzzling.

Albee is asking a simple yet profound question: Do we have the right to love who we want and in our own ways? Especially if said love is consensual? Do you remember how much outrage Woody Allen’s defense of his romance with his wife’s much younger (and shall we add non-white -- let alone non-Jewish) daughter was? “The heart wants what the hearts wants.” Well, The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? takes the Woodman’s notion to the nth degree. What is especially telling is Martin’s honest response when he attends a 12-step type program for those “suffering” from similar afflictions.

Robert Selander’s stylish set -- or what’s left of it by the end of this one-acter -- also merits mention as it succinctly expresses the personalities of the play’s chic urbanites. The entire deftly directed ensemble is spot on, with the Noble savage the standout, proving once again -- as she did when portraying Lady Macbeth -- that: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Seriously fellow theatergoers, please roll out a wheelbarrow full of Ovation, Tony, Obie, etc., awards for this actress, as Ann Noble deserves a flock of theatrical accolades while she leads the lyrical lambs to slaughter. Those who love great theater should gallop -- on all fours -- down to see this hilariously provocative dramedy from one of our boundary-pushing peerless bards.



The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? runs through Nov. 23 at the Davidson/Valentini Theatre at the Los Angeles LGBT Centerat Ed Gould Plaza,1125 McCadden Place, Hollywood, CA, 90038 through Nov. 23. Free onsite parking. For more info: www.lalgbtcenter.org/theatre; (323) 860-7300. 

 

L.A.-based reviewer Ed Rampell co-authored The Hawaii Movie and Television Book. (See: http://hawaiimtvbook.weebly.com/.) Rampell and co-author Luis Reyes will be signing books at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6 at the bookstore Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105.  (See: http://www.distantlands.com/events-calendar/.)     

 

 

OUTFEST 2014: BFFS

A scene from BFFs. 

Friends and lovers

By Miranda Inganni

When Kat (Tara Karsian) receives an all-expense paid trip to a retreat entitled Closer to Closeness, Kat and her best friend Samantha (Andrea Grano) cannot pass up the offer. The only catch is that it is a couples retreat and both ladies are single.  Or are they?

Posing as a lesbian couple at the retreat, Kat and Samantha work through various group sessions – performing trust and communication exercises with the rest of the couples – in order to take advantage of the beautiful scenery, fabulous food and fun of this free weekend getaway. But somewhere between the ropes course and an exercise in self-expression, the two friends realize that they might have more than a friendship. 

Of course, this is not that surprising. How often do we hear of someone describing their partner as their “best friend?” The difference being that usually those couples already know about their sexual orientation.

BFFs stars Karsian and Grano co-wrote and produced this exceptionally well written and acted film. Directed by Andrew Putschoegl, and with help from an excellent supporting cast -- including Jenny O’Hara, Pat Carroll, Richard Moll, Sigrid Thornton, Sean Maher, among many others --  BBFs explores the answers to pesky questions such as what is important in a friendship and how is that different in a romantic relationship? Karsian and Grano have exceptional chemistry with each other. Between that, the witty writing and massive talent of the supporting cast, BFFs is a sharp-tonged, slyly subversive exploration of love.

LAFF 2014: EAT WITH ME

in Eat with Me. 

Half-baked

By Ed Rampell

Eat With Me, which world premiered at the LA Film Festival, alternates between being an enjoyable, poignant coming out comedy drama and a paint -- or rather film -- by the numbers story. The plot of writer/director David Au’s feature-length directorial debut movie also has more holes in it than -- to use a culinary comparison -- Swiss cheese.

Elliot (the diffident Teddy Chen Culver) is a restaurateur of what is presumably a Chinese (like much else in this story, Au never specifies the ancestry of his Asian-American characters) eatery that is more or less a run of the mill dive in (presumably) a rather generic Downtown L.A. that could be the downtown of almost any urban American center. As the restaurant with its mediocre menu faces shuttering, after a falling out with her husband (over what, we’re never really quite sure) Elliot’s mother, Emma (the wonderful Sharon Omi), suddenly shows up out of nowhere and starts lodging at her son’s pad in (presumably) Downtown L.A.

Complications ensue, as Elliot’s homosexuality becomes an inescapable fact that Emma must contend with and face. She had more or less previously known of her son’s sexual orientation but preferred to ignore it. Eat With Me is most insightful when it shows how Elliot’s parents’ failure to communicate is passed down to him, resulting in his inability to form lasting relationships and his miscommunication with the sensitive musician, Ian (Aidan Bristow).

The various cooking sequences have that painting/filming by numbers quality: There is a food network, chefs are celebrities, Anthony Bourdain has replaced the news on CNN, so Au appears to be pandering to that coveted foodie demographic.

The strength of Eat With Me is its cast, led by the estimable Sharon. Oh my, Omi is stellar as a loving if traditional, conservative mom who struggles with her son’s “deviance” off the beaten sexual path and with her deep maternal instincts, which she expresses by cleaning his loft and by, but of course, cooking for the son she is desperately trying to reach to and connect with. Previously, Omi has mostly been confined to small big and little screen roles but here this gifted artist is allowed to shine in a lead role, and we are all the better for it.

SFIFF 2014: LA DUNE



Hanoch (Lior Ashkenazi) Vardi (Niels Arestrup) in La Dune.



Buried hearts

By Miranda Inganni

Writer-Director Yossi Aviram’s French/Israeli film, La Dune, tells the tale of men lost – and needing to be found.

Middle-aged Hanoch (Lior Ashkenazi) likes cats, kids and chess, but mostly from a distance. When a chance at fatherhood arrives, Hanoch leaves Israel for France.

Meanwhile outside of Paris, soon-to-be-retired Detective Reuven Vardi (Niels Arestrup) locates the missing writer Moreau (a small, but impactful part played by Mathieu Almaric), who does not respond well to being found.

Upon returning home, Reuven begins to pack up his professional life while he and his partner, Paolo (Guy Marchand) pack up their personal lives for a new apartment and a much needed vacation. But one last missing person’s case calls his name.

Local lass Fabienne (Emma de Caunes) has found a man washed ashore in the South of France who either cannot or will not talk. He has no identification on him, so the man found is yet a man unknown. He does, however, have a small clue to his identity on him -- a newspaper clipping about the Moreau case. Seemingly unbeknown to the characters, this silent man is in fact Hanoch.

As Reuven delves more into Hanoch’s case, he is forced to reflect on his own life choices. Hanoch seems to have deep secrets and carries a great burden. Sadness? Shame? Guilt? All of the above and more? But Reuven is weighted by his own past – the buoy of his current love and life cannot forever keep him afloat. As the two men spend more time together, Hanoch seems desperately to want Reuven to uncover his identity, but not by Hanoch revealing it. It is imperative to Hanoch that Reuven figure this out on his own.

Aviram’s feature debut is a touching, understated look at a long-estranged duo. The exceptionally talented cast contributes excellent performances of these characters that quietly exude complex lives. Director of Photography Antoine Héberlé captures a warm, rich softness that effectively enhances the story. Lacking unnecessary dialogue, La Dune speaks to the heart about loves lost and found again.

SFIFF 2014: PELO MALO

Junior (Samuel Lange Zambrano)in Pelo Malo.

Hairs looking at you, kid

By Miranda Inganni

To what lengths will a young boy go to get the attention and love he so desires from his mother? In Mariana Rondón’s film Pelo Malo (Bad Hair) the more appropriate question might be, just how short is he willing to shear?

Nine-year-old Junior (Samuel Lange Zambrano) is fixated on straightening his hair for his school photo. You could say Junior sways to his own music. Sadly, his single mother is more concerned about her son’s perceived sexual orientation, which causes her great consternation.

In desperate need for child care, the mom of two young boys, and a recently unemployed security guard, Marta (Samantha Castillo) turns to her former mother-in-law, Carmen (Nelly Ramos) for help. Carmen allows Junior all the freedom he thinks he wants to straighten his hair and dance around all day. Unfortunately, tough Marta strongly dislikes her son’s pursuits of song, dance and comfort and takes matters into her own rough hands. Junior cannot win -- it is always a battle of wills with his mother. He constantly falls into the traditional binary of being too feminine or too masculine for Marta’s taste, but never just his mother’s loved little boy. Marta fears that her son is gay because she never touches him, and yet she never reaches out to him. Quite to the contrary, Marta pulls away from her son frequently -- at home, on the bus, walking through the neighborhood. She is so removed from him yet is constantly trying to teach him lesson; sadly, usually in the worst kind of way.

Set in the gritty, overcrowded high rise apartment blocks in Caracas, Venezuela, Rondón (Postcards from Leningrad) tells the story without an overbearing sense of judgment. All the actors perform wonderfully, with young Zambrano turning in a heartbreaking performance and Castillo embodying his tough-as-nails mom. Rondón puts a twist on what many perceive as the traditional masculine and feminine rolls in this touching film.

FILM REVIEW: FREE MEN

 Younes (Tahir Rahim) in Free Men.

Some might

By Ed Rampell

The 1942 classic Casablanca is set in North Africa. However, its World War II era protagonists are all Westerners. But what role did North Africans play during WWII? French cinema has been revisiting this with Rachid Bouchareb’s 2006 Oscar-nominated Days of Glory (Indigenes), and now with Free Men, another great movie by a director with North African roots, French-Moroccan co-writer-director Ismael Ferroukhi.

Free Men takes place entirely in France, where -- due to its colonial empire -- there was a substantial population of Arab ancestry during the Nazi occupation. For the most part, cinema has overlooked the role Arabs played during WWII; the Bush era propaganda mantra of the “Axis of Evil”, which included Iraq, even implied those Arabs were part of the Axis powers, which included Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy and Tojo’s Japan. But Free Men, which is inspired by real life events, tells a distinctly different story.

Tahar Rahim (who gave such a towering performance in 2009’s A Prophet) plays Younes, a black marketeer coerced by the Nazis to spy on Paris’ Mosque, a hotbed of anti-Nazi activity presided over by its rector Ben Ghabrit (Michael Lonsdale). Like the filmmaker Bouchareb, Younes is of Algerian ancestry, and like Malcolm X he rises from being a lumpenized criminal to attaining political consciousness, joining his cousin Ali (Farid Larbi) and love interest Leila (Lubna Azabal) in the Resistance. However, the North African comrades make a point of not only resisting fascism, but colonialism, too.

An excellent director, Ferroukhi’s action packed film is tautly, tensely paced and full of suspense and wartime heroics, as the Arabic partisans shoot it out with the Nazi occupiers. But what makes Free Men especially noteworthy is not only its depiction of noble Arabs resisting those ignoble Nazi savages, but the relationship between the Muslims and the Jews in occupied France. Guess who the rescuers of the persecuted Jews are in this eye opening picture? Wow! Who knew? To further enrich the film’s deep texture, there’s even a gay subplot as Younes befriends the famous North African singer Salim (Mahmoud Shalaby), who turns out to be not only Jewish, but also homosexual, to boot. 

It has often been remarked upon that when African-American WWII veterans returned home to America after helping to defeat fascism abroad, that they were unwilling to accept segregation at home. Blacks’ anti-fascist wartime service is widely credited with inspiring the ensuing Civil Rights and Black Power movements. In the same way, one imagines that Arab freedom fighters who felt their oats by resisting Nazism would likewise find postwar colonialism in countries like Algeria intolerable, thus inspiring struggles such as those immortalized in Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 masterpiece, The Battle of Algiers. And Free Men is a worthy successor to that revolutionary classic.

  

THEATER REVIEW: PEACE IN OUR TIME

No, el coward

By Ed Rampell

The Antaeus Company -- which “strives to keep classical theater vibrantly alive by presenting productions with a top-flight ensemble company of actors” -- has succeeded admirably in doing so by reviving two great anti-fascist dramas. Both plays presented by Antaeus are alternative histories that imagine “what if” fascism had taken over England and America. 

Noël Coward is primarily remembered as a sophisticated showman, composer of songs such as Mad Dogs and Englishmen and an urbane writer of risqué romances, such as Brief Encounter (about an extramarital affair), Private Lives (which Liz and Dick rather famously revived onstage in 1983) and Blithe Spirit (about a ghost haunting her husband after he remarries). But Coward’s 1946 Peace in Our Time shows that when the playwright encountered Nazism, he was anything but blithe in his spirited drama about the public lives of Englishmen confronting Hitler’s mad dogs.

Peace in Our Time is actually more in the mode of Coward’s 1942 Oscar-winning moral boosting masterpiece World War II film, In Which We Serve, which he wrote, scored and co-directed with David Lean, than his sexy stories. Like Serve, Coward’s love affair in Peace is with England, as Brits battle blitz. John Apicella’s projections of archival footage of the Battle of Britain, etc., help set the scene. During the first act the Third Reich conquers the U.K., and the rest of the two-hour and 45-minute or so play takes place in a London pub where we encounter a cross section of British society.

Just as a school served as a microcosm for Britain in Lindsay Anderson’s 1969 student revolt film, If…, Peace’s pub likewise doubles as a microcosm of an imagined occupied England. There are resisters, collaborators and of course, Germans, in the pub, which is an abbreviation for public house. Antaeus’ Co-Artistic Director Tony Amendola pointed out to me that these drinking establishments played a central role in British culture as a central meeting place, which Shakespeare noted in his plays featuring Falstaff. Scenic Designer Tom Buderwitz has done yeoman’s work and performed marvels in transforming the Deaf West Theatre’s stage into a highly realistic replica of a pub, and deserves kudos for his realism and attention to detail.

Australian Barry Creyton’s adaptation of Coward’s Peace adds nine of Coward’s own Music Hall-style songs that weren’t in the original version of the drama, and they are seamlessly interwoven into the play, accompanied by an upright piano with Richard Levinson tickling the ivories. The ditties obviously serve to liven things up, and numbers such as London Pride, Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans (banned by a humorless BBC!) and Could You Please Oblige Us with a Bren Gun? fully display Coward’s clever wordplay and wit, which Monty Python, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook evolved out of.

Casey Stangl does a far better job directing his ensemble cast than the baseball manager with a similar name did managing the New York Mets back in the 1960s. Unlike the Mets, the Antaeus team never drops the ball, which continues rolling along. As there are 22 speaking parts, and the roles are double-casted on alternate nights, your intrepid reviewer only has space to single a few thesps out who trod the boards opening night.

Steve Hofvendahl is steadfast as Fred Shattock, the stalwart bartender with a slow fuse who precariously presides over his slice of British life. Emily Chase has a masterful, veddy English accent that sounds as if she shoplifted it from PBS’ Masterpiece Theater. Chase alternates in the role of the writer Janet Braid, who personifies patriotic spirit and love of the “sceptred isle,” unblushingly quoting Sakespeare’s  immortal lines -- “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” – as a rebuke to the Nazi collaborator. Take that!

As said turncoat, JD Cullum is perfect as Chorley Bannister, the snobby editor who, after the Hitlerian invasion, goes along to get along. However, it seems that this character is supposed to be gay, and if this is the case, it’s sad that Coward, himself a closeted homosexual, would choose to make the Brit who sells out to the Germans a practitioner of the love that dare not say its name (especially under Third Reich rule!). If Coward equated collaborating with being queer and considered homosexuality to be a signpost of a personality or character defect, then the otherwise valiant anti-fascist Coward was here a rather cowardly lion.


Peace in Our Time runs through Dec. 11 at the Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. For more info: (818)506-1983; www.Antaeus.org.

FILM REVIEW: FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

A scene from Friends with Benefits.

Marital parachute

By Don Simpson

As if revenge for losing the Swan Queen character to Natalie Portman's Nina in Black Swan, Mila Kunis one-ups Portman's role as Emma in No Strings Attached with Friends with Benefits. At least that is the word around Tinseltown (in Austin). Though I like Portman, I have avoided No Strings Attached with her portrayal as Jamie in like a STD because I do not want to watch her makin' whoopee with co-star Ashton Kutcher. (Maybe it is unbridled jealousy, but I do not find them to be a likely pair.) Kunis and co-star Justin Timberlake, however, seem like they would be a more likely (and likable pair), and I guess they are.

Jamie (Kunis), a Manhattan headhunter, has placed Dylan (Timberlake) in a high-profile position as Art Director forGQ magazine. While cozily watching Jamie's favorite movie -- a film-within-a-film rom-com with a satirically amped-up cheese factor -- like BFFs, the emotionally psychotic Jamie and the emotionally vacant Dylan decide that sex can be just like...um...tennis? Tennis is a recreational sport enjoyed among friends who cordially shake hands at the end of the match and then go their separate ways; surely sex among two impeccably beautiful Hollywood stars can be enjoyed as a recreational sport as well. Jamie and Dylan give it a go and the experiment goes well at first. The pair are able to communicate their sexual likes and dislikes in bed and fulfill each other's desires to the rhythm of Dylan's repeated sneezes. (Note: Dylan sneezes whenever he ejaculates.)

Eventually, though, all of their repressed emotional baggage bubbles to the surface, thus disproving their theory that friends who sneeze together can remain just tennis buddies. If Jamie and Dylan cannot pull off this experiment, where does that leave the rest of us horny Americans? Well, it looks like heterosexual marriage truly is our only road to eternal salvation. Thank God! And thank you, Jamie and Dylan, for taking one for the team so that no other God fearing Americans will need to go down the dastardly rabbit hole of emotionless sex.

Two films in one calendar year (three if you include November 2010's Love and Other Drugs with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway) about loveless fuck buddies must mean something about our modern society, or at least there will be plenty of bible-thumpers who will say so. Of course if the bible-thumpers would just sit down and watch Friends with Benefits, they would realize that Friends with Benefits redeems itself in God's eyes (well, at least a God who is not opposed to premarital sex) by the closing credits.

Despite the manic meta-ness of its first half, the second half of Friends with Benefits shamelessly relies on all of the very same rom-com genre tropes that the film had just hysterically satirized. As with Easy A, writer-director Will Gluck's previous film, the wink-wink-nudge-nudge Gen-X quotation marks of Friends with Benefits are exclaimed ad nauseum. Gluck's hyperactive propensity for pop culture references (flashmobs, iPads, T-mobile, Harry Potter, John Mayer, Third Eye Blind, Criss Cross, etc.) would be much funnier if he could utilize them with more restraint. Instead he leaves the valve wide open, thus drowning the audience in what could have been some really funny stuff. Besides, by eventually embracing all the clichés that Friends with Benefits so manically attempts to deconstruct, Gluck is essentially saying that all of the jokes from the first half of the film were for naught.

Friends with Benefits also seems intent on making excuses for Jamie and Dylan's lack of sexual morality. One look at Jamie's boozy and slutty single mother (Patricia Clarkson) and we know that Jamie inherited her sexual prowess (yet no physical traits) from this woman; and in a continuance of the cinematic device of characters being defined by the films they watch, Jamie's mother watches Paul Mazursky's Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. The reckless promiscuity of Jamie's mother has also forever blurred Jamie's ethnic identity -- she has no idea who her father is, therefore Jamie does not know her own ethnic background.

Dylan's father (Richard Jenkins) is mentally wasting away due to Alzheimer’s -- though he does enjoy some suddenly lucid flourishes during which he is able to deliver crucial motivational monologues to Dylan -- and Dylan feels guilty for leaving his father in the sole care of his sister (Jenna Elfman) in Los Angeles. Dylan's estranged mother divorced his father ten years ago, abandoning their family in a time of need, resulting in abandonment and commitment issues for Dylan.

Dylan is also riddled by fears of being presumed gay. His ex-girlfriend (Emma Stone) thinks he likes a finger up his ass during sex; Dylan feels "emasculated" when Jamie is on top of him in bed; and, a sure-fire sign of gayness (at least according to Friends with Benefits), Dylan likes Harry Potter. Dylan's fears are then magnified tenfold when his gay co-worker (Woody Harrelson) suggests that they go "trolling for cock" together. The only good that could possibly come out of all of the gay jokes is if you turn this into a drinking game, slurping one down every time the word "gay" is used in relation to Dylan's sexuality.

LAFF 2011: AN ORDINARY FAMILY

A scene from An Ordinary Family.

Out to dinner

By Don Simpson

Seth (Greg Wise) and his boyfriend, William (Chad Anthony Miller), show up at the lake house while Seth's unsuspecting family members are enjoying their annual week-long vacation. Before they announce their arrival, Seth confesses to William that his family does not know they are coming. As it turns out, Seth has been estranged from his family ever since he abandoned working beside his older Christian minister brother, Thomas (Troy Schremmer), and ran away to live with William, whom he met on Chatroulette. The Biederman family presumably does not know that Seth is gay and they certainly do not know that he has been sharing a bedroom (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) with William.

Seth’s arrival with William in tow catches the Biederman clan off guard. The tension -- stemming from the most socially conservative member of the family, Thomas -- reaches its boiling point during dinner. Presumably, Thomas, a straight-laced minister and family man, does not like Seth and William discussing how they met in front of his young and impressionable children, but we know there is more to this story that is fueling his outrage.

The Biederman family comes around to accepting Seth and William fairly quickly, and Thomas remains the only holdout. (Admittedly, I am a little surprised by how quickly their mother, played by Laurie Coker, comes around to accepting Seth.) Mattie (Janelle Schremmer) -- Thomas’ significantly more open-minded better half -- tries to convince him to open his heart to Seth, but it seems that Thomas will never get beyond his homophobic Christian biases.

Seth and Thomas’ sister (Megan Minto) is married to a rotund husband, Chris (Steven Schaefer) and it seems Chris’ primary purpose is to provide some much needed comic relief-- especially when paired with William -- to the otherwise serious family drama.

The chemistry between the real-life married couple Troy and Janelle Schremmer is undeniable, thus contributing to Akel’s obvious desire to achieve cinematic realism. That said -- Akel and Patterson’s script is so well-written that it sometimes plays in detriment to the film’s sense of realism.

Writer-director Mike Akel’s (Chalk) An Ordinary Family conveys the age-old conflict between religion and homosexuality from a relatively unbiased perspective. Akel -- who co-wrote the script with Matt Patterson -- never gets too preachy, though it is quite obvious that Akel is of the opinion that Christians should be more accepting of gays; otherwise the portrayal of the Christian minister is just as favorable as that of the gay characters. Accordingly, An Ordinary Family will be enjoyable for Christians and gays alike -- though there is no denying that its target audience is gay Christians, a niche crowd if ever there was one. I fit into none of these categories yet applaud An Ordinary Family for its open-mindedness and its ability to intelligently discuss (without ever becoming argumentative) the acceptance of gays by Christians without offending either side of the equation. Also, An Ordinary Family is one of the few films that prominently features gay characters in leading roles that I would not consider a gay film, which is something I wish there will be more of in the future.

HOLLYWOOD BRAZILIAN 2011: ROSA MORENA

Thomas (Anders W. Berthelsen) in Rosa Morena.

The kids of Brazil

By Miranda Inganni

Middle-aged, Danish and gay, Thomas (Anders W. Berthelsen) desperately wants a baby. Unfortunately, Danish law makes that quite difficult for him, so he heads to Brazil to see his old friend, Jakob (David Dencik), and his wife, Tereza (Vivianne Pasmanter). It's here that Thomas learns that when the legal route fails, there may be another way to secure a child.  

Maria (Bárbara Garcia), a beautiful Brazilian can't afford her unborn baby so she and Thomas enter into an agreement that should benefit everyone, but when human emotions, selfishness and an overly protective boyfriend, Denilson (Pablo Rodrigues), get involved, things get ugly.

Directed by Carlos Augusto de Oliveira, the Danish-Brazilian Rosa Morena teeters on the verge of being a sweet and touching film. Unfortunately, it's hard to feel much sympathy for Maria. She can't seem to quit the drink while carrying her child, nor does she show much maternal instinct for the rest of the children in her brood. And Thomas is quite clueless -- apparently losing himself in familial feelings while finding a fondness for females, all the while burning through his bank account.

Politically sensitive to the issue of "purchasing Third World babies", the closing night film for the Hollywood Brazilian Film Festival is a smart drama featuring fine acting.