A Very Gay Aussie Adventure

Now that homosexuality, gender fluidity and the art of drag are ubiquitous in mainstream entertainment and popular culture—witness the success of TV phenomena from RuPaul’s Drag Race to Pose— it’s hard to believe that just a short time ago, you could only find queer stories in arthouse indie films and maybe the shelves of the more adventurous Blockbuster franchises.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) is a rollickingly funny yet touching gay-themed road movie. It tells the story of three Sydney drag performers as they undertake a bumpy journey of epic proportions, from their urban coastal home through the hinterlands of the desert outback. When a voice from the past sets him on a cross-country odyssey with two friends (who can’t stand each other), a lonely drag queen named Mitzi begins a vision quest of self discovery. The trio pile into a broken down bus named Priscilla loaded with sets and costumes and set off for Alice Springs via parts unknown.

Hugo Weaving as Mitzi

Hugo Weaving (beloved to sci-fi and adventure film fans through his elegantly skilled performances in V for Vendetta, The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix) is superb here, conveying complexity, humor and heart as the deeply conflicted Mitzi (aka Tick) whose surprising secret will change the course of his life.

Terence Stamp, the British-born international sex symbol of the 1960s who played opposite superstars Julie Christie (Far from the Madding Crowd) and Jane Fonda (Spirits of the Dead) nearly steals the whole film with a subtly sardonic performance as Bernadette (aka Ralph), a recently widowed transsexual. (Fans of 1980’s Superman II may or may not recognize Bernadette as the evil Zod of Krypton: “Kneel before Zod!”)

Terence Stamp as Bernadette

Bernadette’s nemesis Felicia (aka Adam) is beautifully played by Guy Pearce (LA Confidential, Mildred Pierce) in a memorable breakout performance. Pearce’s Felicia manages to be hyperactive, obnoxious, flamboyantly queeny and adorable at the same time. Stripped to the waist and showing his lean musculature in several of his non-drag scenes, Pearce also provides a generous helping of eye candy.

Along the way they meet Bob the mechanic (wonderfully played by the down-to-earth Bill Hunter) and his mail order bride (a hilarious turn by Julia Cortez), and a host of other unique characters, including two important people from Mitzi’s former life.

Guy Pearce as Felicia

A balls-out, no-holds-barred celebration of outrageousness in every respect, Priscilla boldly goes where no mainstream movie of the era could. In addition to its glitzy, over-the-top fabulous protagonists, it features wonderful supporting performances by a diverse bevy of Aussie character actors. Irreverence is the order of the day here—amid the many touching moments are countless scenes of indescribable outrageousness. (Don’t even ask me to describe the significance of three ping pong balls or the souvenir excrement of a famous rock star!)

Stunning cinematography spotlights the quirky originality of Australia in this universal story of love, connection and self-acceptance. Once you’ve seen Priscilla, you’ll really feel as if you’ve been Down Under. The Australian outback setting affords viewers a glimpse of the remote and sparsely populated inland areas off the beaten path, peopled by the indigenous tribes of Aboriginal natives and what can only be described as Aussie rednecks.

A dreamy Guy Pearce out of drag—I couldn't resist!

The eclectic and wide-ranging soundtrack spans almost every imaginable genre, from Italian opera to classic standards, ’60s pop to ’70s disco, and Abba to “Hava Nagilah,”  and includes memorably lip-synced renditions of the campy “I’ve Never Been To Me” and “I Will Survive” (accompanied by a native Aborigine didgeridoo!).

There are sober moments as well that underline the prejudice and discrimination that gay people faced in 1994 (and still do in many places), including a violent gay bashing sequence and the beloved bus vandalized with the ugly message  AIDS F***KERS GO HOME (later painted over in fabulous lavender).

No camping while driving, Hugo!

Written and directed by Stephan Elliott, with Oscar-winning costumes by Lizzy Gardner and Tim Chappel, the film was transformed into a West End musical that made it to Broadway in 2011, produced by Bette Midler.

If you love Australia and are interested in a road movie with more than a twist, climb aboard and take this unforgettable journey.

Many thanks to my friend Quiggy for inviting me to join the Blizzard of Oz blogathon party—the perfect opportunity for me to celebrate Pride Month and the splendors of Australia at the same time!

A Longtime Gay Classic

In the 1980s, the rise of the independent film gave us a window on the world largely unseen in mainstream entertainment and storytelling. Gay-themed stories were being told brilliantly and poignantly in films like Maurice, Parting Glances, My Beautiful Laundrette and Prick Up Your Ears. Longtime Companion (1989) is one of the very best of that period.

The film is among the very first to deal head-on with the onset of the AIDS epidemic; Longtime Companion chronicles its devastating effects on a group of NYC friends and acquaintances, many in the entertainment industry. Without pulling any punches, it illustrates how the horrifying mystery illness began its deadly toll on young urban men, forcing the gay community to stand up and be counted. Visibility of gay people in American life was an important first step in gaining support for combating the AIDS crisis, and would prove to be just as important for the LGBT rights movement overall. 

Willy (Campbell Scott) and Fuzzy (Stephen Caffrey)

Longtime Companion is set among these beginnings of awareness and political activism, but is mostly an intimate story about love and loss and friendship and hope, educating heterosexual viewers of the late 1980s that their gay brothers and sisters are truly a part of one human family. (Indeed, one slogan appearing on many of the movie posters was “a motion picture for everyone.”) The original screenplay by Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss, The Dying Gaul) is moving, funny and heartbreaking, and brought to life by an ensemble of masterful actors.

Like its counterpart The Normal Heart (the play by Larry Kramer written in the 1980s but not made into a film until 2014), the narrative begins in Fire Island on July 3, 1981, the day the New York Times published its first article about the cancer affecting the gay community. 

Fuzzy and Lisa (Mary-Louise Parker)

Indeed, the HBO film of The Normal Heart pays homage to Longtime Companion’s opening sequence, which depicts the sexy, risqué fun and decadence of a Fire Island summer set to the tune of Blondie’s “The Tide is High.” But flesh and frivolity gives way to serious concern and ultimate tragedy as one by one, friends and loved ones are felled by the dread disease. 

The cast is first-rate, particularly Bruce Davison (Short Eyes, Mame), who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrait of a stalwart caregiver who encourages his partner (Mark Lamos) to let go of the pain and agony at a bedside death vigil. And Campbell Scott’s halting eulogy to the Bruce Davison character later in the film is equally moving, eliciting both tears and laughter.

Bob (Brian Cousins) and Michael (Michael Schoeffling)

 

Patrick Cassidy as Howard

As the first member of the circle of friends to fall ill with the mystery disease, succumbing to pneumonia,  Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding) is at first young, adorable and full of lively humor, then devastatingly heartbreaking, struggling to breathe in a tense emergency room scene, underlining the disease’s relentless attack on young men in the prime of life. 

Dermot Mulroney as John

Michael Schoeffling (Sixteen Candles) and Brian Cousins are charming as the young couple who turn to New Age positive thinking, vitamin supplements and naturopathic remedies to help their ailing friends and keep their own personal fears and terrors at bay. 

David (Bruce Davison) urges Sean (Mark Lamos) to let go...

Patrick Cassidy (brother of Shawn and and half-brother of David) is effective as the hunky soap opera actor who watches his lover (John Dossett) die while struggling to live and work under the stigma of HIV. The soap opera scene, where everyone gathers in front of the TV to see the first gay kiss on daytime television (which was not to occur in real life for a decade or more), shows us how hungry gay people were to be represented and accepted in popular entertainment media. (Hard to believe now that to be gay before the 1980s was to be practically invisible in mainstream media.)

A very special episode of the daytime drama "Other People"

Mary Louise Parker, before Angels in America and Weeds, adds refreshing humor and fierce humanity to her role as devoted friend and—pardon the expression—fag hag to Fuzzy (Stephen Caffrey ), an entertainment lawyer, and his new lover Willy (Campbell Scott). Together, they devote themselves to easing the pain of others through volunteering for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

The closing of the film, which brings us back to the beach as the protagonists imagine the joyful day the cure for AIDS is found, is memorable and still sob-inducing for those who lived through these troubled times. 

The ending always makes me cry

Establishment cinema, always slow to catch up with the indie film’s finger on the pulse of collective consciousness, would have to wait a few years before the subject of AIDS became the focus of a major motion picture. It was not until Oscar graced the film Philadelphia (1994) and its star Tom Hanks (our generation’s Spencer Tracy?) that an open discourse on the subject of AIDS and its effect on the fabric of everyone’s lives went mainstream.

Since June is traditionally Gay Pride month, today I’m inspired to share my passion for one of my all-time favorite gay-themed films. If you’ve never seen it, it is definitely worth a look.  

The Boys are Back in Vogue?

The fight for marriage equality is all but won as of 2015. Gay rights are now seen by the majority of the world for what they are, human rights. Gay is OK. But just a few short decades ago, the subject of homosexuality was taboo, and honest portrayals of gay people in theater and film simply did not exist. Until The Boys in the Band. 

Mart Crowley’s groundbreaking play was made into a film in 1970 and starred all the actors from its original 1968 stage production. Produced more than a year before the historic Stonewall riots, where a group of bar patrons banded together against police brutality and started the movement for equality, the play provided unprecedented visibility to the contemporary gay experience. Though leavened by its memorably caustic wit and humor, Crowley’s work revealed the loneliness and isolation of the gay lifestyle, and underlined the lack of emotional support available to gay men among members of their own “tribe.”

A rare moment of camaraderie 

In the intervening years between Stonewall and the present day, the reputation of The Boys in the Band suffered a backlash by the gay community itself. Perhaps fearing that Crowley’s brutally honest storytelling would forever brand gay people as pathetic, promiscuous, unlovable freaks of nature, downright scary to the rest of society, many shunned this seminal work for its negative portrayal of gay life. 

Beneath its razor-sharp wit and self-deprecating humor, The Boys in the Band is a searing and often heartbreaking exposé of urban gay life. When a group of friends converge for Harold’s birthday party at Michael’s downtown apartment, high drama ensues. With a nod to Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Albee was among one of several “angels” who helped Crowley along the way), the centerpiece of the story is a terrifying party game in which the participants are dared to phone and reveal their feelings to the one person they have loved.

Natalie Wood and Mart Crowley

It was the play Mart Crowley was born to write. After failed forays into writing for film and television (authoring a campy TV pilot starring Bette Davis as an interior decorator!), Crowley had been working as a personal assistant to movie star Natalie Wood when he wrote the first draft of a groundbreaking and controversial new play. Championed by Wood and her second husband, attorney Richard Gregson (who came between her first and third marriages to RJ Wagner and is the father of actress Natasha Gregson Wagner), the play found its way into the right hands. Edward Albee helped arrange the play’s first workshop, which led to a successful Off-Broadway production that ran for more than 1,000 performances. 

In a rare example of artistic integrity winning out over the financial concerns of the “business of show,” Crowley refused to sell his property to Hollywood unless the entire original Broadway cast reprised their roles. Incredibly, Crowley prevailed, and the film version has forever preserved the brilliant ensemble’s now iconic characterizations. 

Hank (Laurence Luckinbill) and Michael (Kenneth Nelson)

Crowley later wrote a sequel, The Men from the Boys, became a writer and executive producer on Robert Wagner’s series Hart to Hart, and wrote the teleplay for There Must Be a Pony starring Elizabeth Taylor as a fading movie star attempting a comeback. But Boys in the Band is his masterpiece, and the 1970 film has captured it in perpetuity. 

Director William Friedkin (The Exorcist), the only artistic collaborator not a part of the original stage production, brings a cinematic approach to what could have ended up as merely a filmed stage play. His opening sequence captures the energy of New York and offers brief, telling glimpses into the main character’s lives. Though the rest of the action takes place in one setting—various rooms and the terrace of Michael’s apartment—Friedkin’s artful choreography and blocking and masterful use of the camera help drive the story, following and tracking the actors’ movements, darting in and out of the action for two shots, three-shots and close-ups. 

Harold (Leonard Frey) and the Cowboy (Robert La Torneaux)

Wisely, though, Friedkin creates an atmosphere that allows the actors to shine. The all-male cast (save for a fleeting glimpse of future Bond girl Maud Adams in an unbilled bit as one of fashion photographer Larry’s models) is uniformly astonishing, bringing to life just about every archetype in the gay pantheon. 

Kenneth Nelson is unforgettable as the high-strung host Michael, who shops obsessively, frets about his thinning hair and becomes a frighteningly mean drunk when he falls off the wagon early in the proceedings. Leonard Frey is hilariously caustic as neurotic guest of honor Harold, who has issues of his own, struggling with weight, food, acne and being Jewish.  

Kenneth Nelson

Leonard Frey

Peter White

The question of monogamy versus promiscuity is explored through the relationship of schoolteacher Hank and photographer Larry, played memorably by Laurence Luckinbill (longtime husband of Lucie Arnaz) and Keith Prentice. Reuben Greene is quietly affecting as Bernard, who struggles valiantly with the double whammy of being gay and black in a world that is slow to accept either. Frederick Combs underplays admirably as Donald, Michael’s compassionate friend and confidante. 

Peter White (familiar to longtime watchers of the ABC soap All My Children) perfectly captures the sexual ambiguity of Alan, the unexpected guest who serves as catalyst to Michael’s alcoholic breakdown. Robert La Tourneaux is charming and amusing as the guileless male escort who serves as Harold’s birthday present. 

Bernard (Reuben Greene), Emory (Cliff Gorman) and Hank (Laurence Luckinbill) 

Michael and Donald (Frederick Combs)

Cliff Gorman triumphs in the role of the flagrantly effeminate Emory, the outrageously campy queen who cooks up a storm and longs for domestic bliss but can’t find a man except in the dark caverns of the baths.  

To some gay audiences of the time, the character of Emory was as cringe-worthy a stereotype as Uncle Tom and Stepin Fetchit have been to the black community, but through Emory, Crowley makes a strong statement about the gay world’s own caste-and-class system. If you appear to be masculine, the unwritten rule goes, you can sleep with men, as long as you blend in with the mainstream. Hide your fabulousness under a bushel if you want to maintain your dignity as a human being. Effeminacy is the self-hating gay world’s ugly little secret...and only in very recent years has gender-fluid self-expression become more socially acceptable. Today, in viewing Boys in the Band, Emory comes off the strongest and most courageous character in the film.  

Cliff Gorman

But the LGBT community, hyper-vigilant and hyper-aware of how they were being portrayed in films, theater and television, turned their back on Boys for many years. (Interestingly, 10 years later Friedkin directed the even more controversial film Cruising, similarly accused of using gay life to perpetuate negative stereotypes.) Indeed, mainstream entertainment of the past tended to portray gays as either victims or villains, rather than fully developed characters. But in light of the tremendous progress the equality movement has made, the years have been kinder to The Boys in the Band, and I hope it now can enjoy its rightful place in the history of gay film. It is after all, a moving story about people—and Mart Crowley’s complex characters are flawed, fascinating and endearingly human.

Luckinbill, Greene, Frey, Prentice, Combs, Gorman, Nelson, White and La Torneaux

Life is a (Chinese) Banquet

A dozen years before Brokeback Mountain broke ground in its portrayal of gay characters in mainstream film, director Ang Lee made a similar statement with this little-known independent gem titled The Wedding Banquet (1993). With its practically all-Chinese cast (English-language viewers must depend on subtitles for much of the proceedings), it offers a rare opportunity to experience life through the eyes of some of the millions of immigrants who come to New York City for their chance at the American dream. It may be director Lee’s most personal film.

Director Ang Lee

Equal parts farce, comedy of manners and touching family drama, The Wedding Banquet centers upon the relationship of a well-adjusted and well-to-do gay couple who live in Manhattan, one of whom happens to be a native of Taiwan. Wai-Tung (Winston Chao) is a typical New York early ’90s yuppie, a driven workaholic who even multitasks at the gym, listening to his mother’s audiotaped letters from home on his Walkman. His lover, Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein), a physician, is far more laid-back, the exact opposite of uptight Wai-Tung.

Lichtenstein, Chao and Chin

Of course, Wai-Tung has kept his sexuality secret from his traditional Taiwanese parents. His mother is relentless long-distance matchmaker, sending Wai-Tung on dates with suitable Chinese girls who live in the U.S. To put an end to the madness, Simon comes up with the idea of marrying his lover off to Wai-Tung’s female tenant We-Wei (May Chin), a native of mainland China who is desperately in need of a green card.

Wei-Wei is fun-loving free spirit, a bohemian artist who tries to make a home in one of the crumbling warehouse lofts Wai-Tung owns as an investment property. She is wildly attracted to Wai-Tung though she knows that he and Simon are in a committed relationship. But that doesn’t stop her from flirting outrageously with her handsome landlord. Wai-Tung reluctantly agrees to Simon’s marriage scheme, rolling his eyes heavenward and shaking his head. Wild child Wei-Wei is far from the perfect girl for Wai-Tung, even if he were interested.

Wai-Tung (Winston Chao) and his parents (Sihung Lung and Ya-Lei Kuei

The plan to placate Wai-Tung’s parents backfires when Mr. and Mrs. Gao announce that they’ll be arriving in New York for the wedding, forcing the threesome to take their deception to an elaborate new level. Simon and Wai-Tung quickly “de-gay” their home before the arrival of Wai-Tung’s parents from Taiwan, removing gay pride paraphernalia and intimate photos of the couple, and install a happy Wei-Wei in the house, who is delighted to finally have air conditioning. The scene is set for their charade.

General Gao (Sihung Lung) is a very serious and stoic person (it’s easy to see where Wai-Tung gets his intense demeanor from). Mrs. Gao (Ya-Lei Kuei) is the perfect wife and mother, and delighted to be a new mother-in-law to Wei-Wei. But when the Gaos discover that Wei-Wei and Wai-Tung plan to be married hastily at City Hall, they are horrified and disappointed.

The wedding at City Hall

To cheer them up after the shabby City Hall ceremony, Simon takes them all to the best Chinese restaurant in Manhattan for a celebratory meal. Here is where General Gao is reunited with a former member of his regimen, who treats Gao with the utmost awe and respect, offering to stage a proper wedding banquet for the young couple in the restaurant, which is owned by the man’s son.

With the extended wedding banquet sequence, Ang Lee masterfully illustrates the blending of  East and West, giving audiences a slice of life of the culture of Chinese-American immigrants and how they continue to honor their ancient traditions while the next generation becomes more and more westernized. We see how the wedding guests thoroughly enjoy the traditional rituals and games of the Chinese wedding banquet--a rare opportunity for these introverted Asians to let loose and have a little fun. A great scene: To ensure fertility of the union, a baby bounces on the marriage bed in the hopes that the bride will conceive on her wedding night (spoiler--she does!).

As the deception deepens, Simon and Wai-Tung find themselves in conflict, especially after the frisky wedding-night goings-on leave Wei-Wei pregnant. The tension causes ailing Mr. Gao to be hospitalized with a second stroke. Mrs. Gao is told the truth about Simon and Wai-Tung, and is devastated. Wei-Wei decides to terminate her pregnancy. The lighthearted farce has taken a dark turn. How will it end?

Simon has had just about enough

The entire cast is first-rate. Chao, Chin and Lichtenstein (the only Occidental member of the otherwise all-Chinese cast ) enjoy easy chemistry with one another as their characters drive the story, moving easily from farcical and comic to touching and meaningful moments. Lung is perfect as the strong, silent General Gao; one of his best moments is when he reveals to Simon that he knows who Wai-Tung’s true spouse is, and hands Simon the sizeable wedding dowry. Beautiful Ya-Lei Kuei is particularly effective as Mrs. Gao, loving and doting —but stubbornly unable to accept her son’s sexuality. A telling moment: As the Gaos are about to board the plane for home, they embrace Wai-Tung and Wei-Wei. But when Simon attempts to hug Mrs. Gao, she coldly pulls away from him.  

For much of the mainstream filmgoing world, Brokeback Mountain was a “big deal” in its depiction of same-sex love, but independent films like The Wedding Banquet, My Beautiful Laundrette, Maurice and Parting Glances had already been dealing frankly and intelligently with this issue for decades...it was, after all,  one of the chief topics that gave birth to the whole “indie” film movement of the 1980s and ’90s. I hope a whole new generation of gay and gay-friendly youth will discover these wonderful films, especially this rare Ang Lee delight.

Buck Doesn’t Stop Here

Here’s a film that promises oodily, oodily, oodily, oodily fun fun fun, according to the Gwendolyn Sanford tune that plays under the opening credits. The kind of oodily fun that may make some viewers squirm in their seats.

You can look at Chuck & Buck (2000) in two ways--as a quirky, offbeat love story, or as the dark and disturbing tale of a relentless stalker and the enigmatic object of his obsession. This strangely entertaining film works on both levels.

Possibly autistic, definitely obsessive, Buck (Mike White) has led a sheltered life as caregiver for his ailing mother, who has just died. He moves to L.A. to seek out his childhood friend Chuck Sitter (Chris Weitz), who moved away when both were still boys. Trapped in a perpetual childhood surrounded by toys and stuffed animals, Buck is ill at ease in the “real world”  and longs for the days when he and Chuck created a fantasy world of their own.

Mike White as Buck

Chris Weitz as Chuck

But Chuck has erased his childhood identity completely--he’s now no longer Buck’s BFF Chuck at all but Charlie, a successful, seemingly self-assured man with a beautiful fiancee, a high-powered career as a talent agent and a showplace of a home--a typical Hollywood narcissist. And he wants absolutely nothing to do with his socially awkward, embarrassingly blunt childhood buddy. But that doesn’t stop Buck.

And you can’t blame Charlie’s reticence, especially when Buck shows up at his door unexpectedly and suggests that the two resume their secret childhood games, including a round of the old “Chuck and Buck s*ck and f*ck,” with Charlie’s fiancee Carlyn (Beth Colt) in the next room.

Buck’s hopes for a reunion with Chuck— hanging out, climbing trees, and playing secret sex games—are dashed when Charlie is cold and unresponsive and avoids him like the plague. But Buck will not be ignored and begins to stalk Charlie and Carlyn, calling and hanging up repeatedly and even peeping through the window to watch the couple make love.

Lupe Ontiveros as Beverly

Maya Rudolph as Jamilla

But despite Buck’s displays of creepy and perverse behavior, Mike White (who also wrote the script) makes his protagonist ultimately sympathetic. The audience feels Buck’s sense of loneliness, isolation and desire to be loved and to belong. Throughout the film, Buck struggles to make sense of his situation, reaching out to others and exorcising his demons by writing a play about his childhood relationship with Chuck. White and director Miguel Arteta tell the story completely from Buck’s point of view, and the plot’s surprising twists vindicate the character in the end, despite his obsessions and aberrations.

Buck and Carlyn (Beth Colt)

Buck and Sam (Paul Weitz)

Chris Weitz is suitably inscrutable in his role of the cool and aloof Charlie/Chuck. Chris’s brother Paul Weitz takes the role of the moronic actor hired by Buck to play the surrogate for Chuck in Buck’s fairy tale play. (The Weitz brothers’ mom happens to be Susan Kohner, Academy Award nominee for the movie classic Imitation of Life.)

Standout supporting performances add heart, soul and humor to the proceedings. The wonderfully down-to-earth Lupe Ontiveros (Real Women Have Curves, Desperate Housewives)  is endearing as Beverly, the theater house manager whose crusty and cynical exterior protects hopes and dreams for creative achievement that are unlocked by Buck and his strange play.

Charlie’s beleaguered assistant Jamilla is played perfectly by the talented and expressive Maya Rudolph (of Saturday Night Live fame), who can convey more with a roll of her eyes than most actors can do with a five-minute monologue in extreme close-up. When Buck bursts into tears when Chuck refuses to see him, Jamilla is shattered as well, her eyes welling up with tears of her own.

This unusual indie effort led many of its participants to mainstream success. Today, Mike White is well known as the writer and cocreator of the critically acclaimed Showtime series Enlightened starring Laura Dern. The Weitz brothers are the successful producers of films including About a Boy and the American Pie series. Rudolph is now a full-fledged movie star, thanks to her appearances in big hits like Bridesmaids. But they first made their marks by taking chances and pushing the creative envelope to expand the scope of film’s examination of the human experience.

Chuck & Buck is definitely oodily fun, fun, fun for film lovers...yeah.