if i could turn back time...

I have a lot of jobs.  I have a lot of DVDs. I have a lot of opinions.  I get distracted. 

Living and working in Los Angeles, it's easy to get lost in the cavalier negativity and hearsay pervading the industry.  Everybody thinks they know the inside track, despite the fact that the rules are changing from day to day.  I stay out of it.  I'd much rather eat sheet cake in bed with my boyfriend than network at a pool party with the a-gays and their gay-for-pay boyfriends. 

The fact of the matter is, unless you're a $300 million dollar comic book franchise remake or a romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson (or a minstrel show), your movie is never going to see the light of major theatrical distribution. With ticket prices soaring upwards of $20 and 3D-conversion guaranteeing a miserable theatre-going experience, netflix and on-demand services are the new distribution model.  The days of being marked a pariah for having your film go "Direct to DVD" are long gone.

Caught in the eye of this tornado was a movie made for Warner Bros in 2007.  This movie had no stars attached, no gratuitous sex scenes, and it was a dark comedy (an anathema to studio executives), so the film was secretly shopped around to other studios for distribution.  When this happens, for whatever reason, it puts a stink on a project where, regardless of the actually film being interesting or competently made, people automatically assume it's terrible.  Websites start publishing editorials, agents assume the hearsay is fact, the filmmakers stop getting meetings and the films winds up on the shelf, indefinitely.

By the time Trick 'r Treat was released in 2009, whether due to the word of mouth or to my inherent loathing of Leslie Bibb (and maybe because I felt slighted for never having been invited to one of Mike Dougherty's Halloween parties), I disregarded the movie entirely.  When my work buddy went to the "premiere" at Screamfest, I openly mocked him.  I was foolish.  I was wrong.

The Good.

Trick 'r Treat is beautifully designed.  This movie feels like the greatest Halloween you've ever imagined in your dreams - too perfect to ever exist corporeally.

The Bad.

Why is Leslie Bibb in this movie?

The Exquisite.

Mike Dougherty is a great artist, but with Trick 'r Treat, he proves to be a great director as well.  Lots of care and research went into presenting the mythology and atmosphere of Halloween.  In addition to creating one of the most adorable and malevolent serial-killing pumpkin-scarecrow toddlers ever captured on film, there are quiet moments of unexpected sympathy and pathos interlaced amid the mayhem and gore of Trick 'r Treat.  This movie feels personal, as if everyone involved genuinely cared about telling these stories and presenting this world to the best of their ability. Mission accomplished, gentlemen.  Time is serving this movie well, it holds up better than most horror anthologies. Ten years from now, it will be Trick 'r Treat, and not Charlie Brown that happy families will relish while carving their jack-o'-lanterns and gorging themselves on candy corn.

revenge of the nards

Poor Emily Blunt.  She's pretty.  She's a lovely actress.  She's obviously a riot at a party.  Ostensibly, she has done nothing wrong.  But even Emily Blunt can't overcome a shipwreck of bloated, arrogant actors phoning in performances to buy scotch and cigars.  No matter how many frocks and bustles she adorns with the emotive power of her bosom, Emily can't act her way out of a crock pot of incoherent studio notes and bargain basement CGI.

Today, I'm going to tell you a scary story.  We're going to talk about The Wolfman (2010).

Mark Romenek was a clever man with a development deal.  He was the music video genius who thought to put Fiona Apple in a filthy wood-paneled hotel suite with a bunch of models and an eight ball.  Mark spent a lot of time plotting the perfect way to reinvent the classic Universal monster movies while still being true to his voice, style, narrative...

I've heard rumblings from all sides.  It appears that Mark was a nightmare to the powers that be (ie: he had ideas and wanted to get paid for them), so his wolf-baby was taken away from him.  Joe Johnston was brought in (a'la Brett Ratner) to make the movie under-budget and in time for a 2008 release.  Rick Baker was supposed to do the transformations, but the studio didn't return his calls after he showed them some basic models.  Three years went by. 

So, this year on my favorite holiday, Valentine's Day, the movie finally came out with a whimper.  Someplace between Frozen and The Crazies and Shutter Isaland, it came and went.  Sad.  But watching it is even more depressing.

Maybe I'm jaded by the behind-the-scenes carrying ons.  Perhaps knowing "what might have been" marred my viewing experience.  While at times it is certainly pretty to look at, The Wolfman (2010) is bad.  It's not off the rails like Catwoman or Dreamcatcher.  There are no boyband members playing cancer-ridden retards who just so happen to be from outer space.  Sharon Stone never appears to look directly into the camera or curse Halle Berry.  It's just poor Emily Blunt, working so hard, stuck in a makeshift movie that she never asked to be in.  The Wolfman is like all "event" movies to come out in the past couple years: lots of things happen, it looks expensive, it's not short - and after watching it, you have no idea what just happened.  Scenes go on and your mind wanders.  This is not good.

There are lessons to be learned in this instance.  Benicio Del Toro is a dick.  Anthony Hopkins is grossly overrated.  Emily Blunt should be in all manner of film.  Don't even waste the hard drive space to download this movie illegally.  Watch  The Wolf Man (1941), a movie that loves you and can't wait to tell you a good story.  

Don't listen to Maria Shriver or Rob Lowe

"I have silver bullets in here."

Lately, I find myself growing increasingly weary of Los Angeles.  Any day now, I'm sure that I'll wind up running around naked in some farmer’s backyard in Fresno waiting for the aliens to come and take me home. 

I’m just sick to death of these fratty, trust-fund kids-turned-executives with their endless, meandering “notes.” They’re all dating teenagers who can barely walk in heels, let alone speak coherently on the subject of healthcare reform. None of them care about TV and just want to be sports agents, but their dad’s know the CCO of Lionsgate, so here we are - they get offices and I have a blog.  Enough is enough!

All my snack breaks are spent perusing Manhattan real estate over my Danon Light & Fit yogurts. Then I remember that real magic of California living is that I can always hop in my car with my ipod blaring and, an hour later in either direction, I can have a day-trip in some of the most beautiful landscapes in the country. Just ask Dee Wallace (formerly Stone)!

Dee was equally burnt out in the early eighties.  

As a single mother, she had to work at least three jobs to keep her gay son in leg-warmers and jelly bracelets. Her E.T. check had yet to clear so she was working as a TV journalist, going undercover for the LAPD. 

One night, after a particularly arduous stakeout in a pornography shoppe, she reached her breaking point. Nothing is ever enough when you work for straight men and you’ll never get a thank you or a grapefruit basket!  What’s it all worth?

Dee needed to get away so, upon the bequest of her therapist, she drove a couple hours north to a day spa in the redwoods. Good for her. My therapist just tells me that everything’s my mother’s fault – she never offers me a weekend away, all expenses paid.

When Dee starts hearing The Howling (1981), she realizes that, in California, things are never what they seem. All these hippies offering facials and redwood yoga are actually flesh-hungry WEREWOLVES! And you wonder why I refuse to go to Coachella or that hippy, Wicker Man thing in the desert!

What The Howling lacks in nuance and tone and effects (it’s a very different animal than An American Werewolf in London), it makes up for it in damsel-in-distress/Dee Wallace realness.  

Just like a transplanted New Yorker trying to make sense of Los Angeles, Dee is emotionally raw and it's fascinatingly out of place. With that said, I think I'm gonna drive my Mazda rx7 up the coast this weekend.  I could use a day of redwood yoga!

hungry like the wolf

"That's enough with the biting."

I’m gonna tell you a secret: sometimes I get a little hungry for a happy ending. Socially awkard girls with no marketable skills and borderline lesbian tendencies get to swoon over sparkley hipster vampires and LatinX werewolves. Women of a certain age have Nancy Meyers romantic dramedies with terrible overhead lighting and self-hating female leads. For me, escapism is imagining a world where gays can live happily ever after in functional relationships (if they so desire) with a craftsman homes and reasonable taxation for representation. 

While it’s wicked awesome that Milk and Brokeback Mountain can make piles of money and get progressive soccer moms to feel like they’re reaching out to minorities – these movies still make a martyr of the fags.  We die so people feel “woke.”

But then I had to wonder: Can we ever have a happy ending?

From time to time, when starved for any reflection of the contemporary gay experience, one begins to see gay subtext in the mainstream. 

You don’t have to be Nancy Drew to see that the Neil Jordan/Jodie Foster movie, The Brave One, was clearly intended to be a lesbian revenge thriller - no one gets bashed for being heterosexual in Manhattan.   Popularized by Quentin Tarrantio and Kevin Smith, once you look at Top Gun through the gay kaleidoscope, it’s impossible to see it as anything but a story of two men coming to terms with their love for each other…no straight guy would sing karaoke to Kelly McGillis. 

Wes Craven (always a friend to the gays) and Kevin Williamson (always gay) made a movie that no one saw called Cursed (2005). Cursed uses werewolf bloodlust as a metaphor for dormant sexuality with the 1990s popcorn horror paradigm as its model, only it was released in 2004.  Both pastiche and ahead of its time, Cursed may be the gayest entry in the Craven oeuvre and it comes SO close to presenting a gay happily-ever-after that it merits exploration.

Jesse Eisenberg and Christina Ricci are siblings who are touched by The Wolf. Christina wears ill-fitting business suits and styles her hair in a bun to imply that their parents are dead.  Like Judy Greer and Portia DeRossi (who also ham it up in Cursed), Christina doesn’t exist without a gay audience.  Her performance counters realism. Always mindful of her deaf fans, she makes a lot of faces and indicates everything.  She is drawn to emotionally distant men (amen) and men are drawn to her. Pacey from Dawson’s Creek is her boyfriend and he has perpetual stubble on his face as to indicate that he is a werewolf.  Milo Ventimiglia is the captain of the high school wrestling team. He drives a camaro and he’s in love with Jesse Eisenberg. 

Jesse and Milo pretend to compete for the attention of an anorexic girl to make her feel better about herself, it’s very sweet, but they really just want to wrestle with each other. When push comes to shove, Milo comes out to Jesse and, together, they fend off the werewolf hoards and still have time to go out on the town with Lance Bass and his obnoxious Florida friends.

Let there be no question that when a movie has its climax in front of a Cher mannequin, it's a GAY MOVIE.  So why does Jesse never say, "Hey cool, Milo - I think my neurotic misanthropy is actually a smokescreen to cover-up my stifled homosexuality as well, let's make out!"?  

Why must we read between the lines?  How can a movie be so queer as to have Judy Greer play an evil publicist who happens to be the Queen of the computer-generated Wolves in a Bob Mackie slit-to-the-crotch purple gown and not have the balls to just let its secondary lead live happily ever after with a hot (albeit physically and emotionally diminutive) boyfriend?  Considering that Hollywood still refuses to let women carry movies, I suppose it really isn't homophobia as much as it is misogyny and the bottom-line.  At this point in his career, post-Scream and Dawson's Creek, Williamson could have done better.  He could have pushed boundaries instead of uncle tom-ing his gays.  If you try to appeal to everyone (ie: the Weinsteins), you wind up making no money and your movie is exiled to the graveyard of castrated opportunities.  Lesson learned.