how meta can you get?

"What am I supposed to go to college?  Grad school?  Work!?"

Scream 4 (2011).

The good.

This movie is good.

The bad.

Nothing in the movie is bad.  Well nothing except for the god-awful presence of that dippy girl from the Friday Night Lights show who needs to stop being in movies.  Full stop.


The Exquisite.

(minor spoilers ahead)

Going in, I think we all had our theories as to how a new Scream trilogy could be relevant today. Obviously Sydney would have to die in the opening. Obviously Sydney would wind up being the killer, vanquished only by Gail Weathers in a stab off leaving a whole cast of doe-eyed teens to carry on the legend of Ghostface.  I’m happy to report back that we were dead wrong. Scream 4 is better than any of us could have imagined.  Williamson does, in fact, know best.

While the original Scream loved its teenage protagonists, Scream 4 stabs into them with Chayeskian zeal.  This movie is rock'n roll, spitting in the face of an entire generation who have defiantly rejected narrative storytelling.  Scream 4 loathes the A.D.D. culture engendered by a twenty-four hour news cycle.  Scream 4 hates Taylor Lautner, and the Jersey Shore.  Scream 4 does not want you to leave your iphone on the dinner table - it's rude.  Scream 4 is lashing out at tweens who just expect fame and fortune because they see it on television, gutting Rebecca Black like a school of carp in its wake. 

In this arid climate where theatrically released, big budget horror movies are ostensibly dead, Scream 4 is everything - a long lost postcard from the nineties sent to remind us that things used to be really good.  Believe it or not, it's been nearly fifteen years since a celebrity was famous for actually having some modicum of talent. In an America that is trying to pass off Donald "Rosie is a fat pig" Trump as a serious political contender, Scream 4 is mad as hell and it's not going to take it anymore.  While I hate to draw lines in the sand like that dreadful Tea Party (that doesn't help anyone), if you can't at least appreciate this film for its pinsharp social commentary then you are no longer invited to my Sunday brunches. 

There are gay characters, sure.  More importantly, though, Scream 4 is post-gay movie. We homos don't have to live in subtext anymore - being gay doesn't make you the psychopathic serial killer it did in 1996. Gays and straights coexist and can even band together to get through the night. We’ve come a long way, baby. Listen - just because we don’t have to live in the shadows or act out in shame, that doesn’t mean that Scream 4 isn’t a gay movie. Trust me, there were more queens packed into the Acrlight Cinedome last Friday than at the Elton John's Baby Shower. People dressed up like Drew Barrymore, people brought their dogs – it was like gay Christmas!

"Don't fuck with the original."

If we gays love one thing, it’s a strong female protagonist and Scream 4 delivers them in abundance. Aside from Hayden Pantypants and her fabulous haircut, this is the film where Sidney Prescott officially surpasses Laurie Strode as the Queen of franchise horror. Neve Campbell is remarkably tuned in. While she clearly could have given a shit about Scream 2 or Scream 3, in this go around she is serving us Final Girl 2.0. Sydney has become a hero, someone who can go head to head with the object of her dread and maybe even come out ahead. Her return to the small town that made her is electric. This movie is fresh, it's funny, and it reminded me why I used to be scared to use movie theatre restrooms. 

Alas, Scream 4 was a flop at the box office this weekend  - proving once and for all that people don't want ideas or compelling characters with climactic denoument in their movies.  They want bunnies who poop jelly beans.   So, if you haven't already, go and see Scream 4 and then go and see it again. Do it for our country, dolls.  Don't let the terrorists win.

xoxo

a few things to consider...

Insidious (2011) functions best if you pretend that it's a sequel to The Entity.  Just imagine that James Wan was making this brokeass movie somewhere out in the Valley only to have Barbara Hershey show up one day at the craft services table to decide that she wanted to be in it, systematically taking more and more lines from Rose Byrne and ingratiating herself to Leigh Whannel.  Good job, Barbara.  You never let us down.

I also think it will help any Insidious viewing party to know that Patrick Wilson used to be my neighbor in Brooklyn and he is a kind and lovely man with the voice of an angel and triceps worthy of a men's magazine.

At its best, Insidious feels like getting felt up during a field trip to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion when the cars keep breaking down.  It's atmospheric and full of macabre glee.  Joe Bishara's score is fantastic.  At its worst, this movie is blatanly riffing on Poltergeist  - replacing JoBeth Williams with Patrick Wilson.  In today's landscape of crappy movies that hate their audience, I think we can all agree that there are worse crimes than competantly ganking a classic.  I live for moments when it becomes obvious from watching a film that the people making it actually enjoy movies.  Insidious is such a film.  Go see it.

not since Mandy Lane

“If you want to do that sort of thing, I suggest you go somewhere else.”

Hi dolls. Look, I'm sorry I’ve been away for a while. Let's be honest.  There hasn't been a single movie worth discussing. Besides, I’ve been desperate to educate myself on the world beyond the west side of the 405 freeway.  For example...

It has recently come to my attention that one must travel intercontinentally if one really wants to find a horror movie that works beyond its perfunctory opening weekend grosses. Take for instance a little gem I discovered during my anthropological field work at the Sydney Mardis Gras called The Loved Ones (2009).

Imagine Disney's PROM! after she wound up drugged and inappropriately touched by All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. Like all those Disney girls, she's a got crazy religious parents so she's forced to carry the baby to term because they live in a fascist state like Tennessee or Alabama. Poor thing. But don't cry for Disney's PROM! because the unwanted baby that she winds up having is The Loved Ones and it's fantastic. With all the gowns and glitter, with all the cute boys with no shirts on, the kids getting high and going to third base in their parents cars, all the nerdy boys scoring with impossibly out of their league slutty chicks, The Loved Ones delivers everything you could want from a Prom movie and it has man-eating zombies.   It's better than a Vegemite sandwich and a pint of lager (that's Australian for burger fries and coke). 

The Loved Ones is about that almost-hot Aussie kid who was in that gay, Australian surfer movie and then went on to cash a real cute paycheck to wear pancake makeup and get high with the cast of Twilight in a lace-front wig. 

Despite being a male protagonist in a horror film, we can tell this almost-hot Aussie kid is not a gay because when the average girl next door asks him to go with her to the prom, he doesn't even remark on her cheap, drugstore brand eyeshadow; rather, he politely declines.  You see, the almost-hot Aussie kid's been a bit preoccupied since that otherwise idyllic day when he and his father were out on a driving lesson and they happened upon a shirtless man swathed in his own blood meandering down the lane.  Long story short: the dad winds up dead.  It happens. 

Six months later, the almost-hot Aussie kid's still going through it.  He can't even bring himself to tell his adorable girlfriend that he loves her, even though she sees no shame in blowing him in the high school parking lot.  Good for her.  I mean, this kid is so sensitive that he wears a razor blade necklace around his neck to better cut himself.  True to straight guy form, these character flaws only makes him more desirable to everyone else.  In short, this almost-hot Aussie kid from the gay surfer movie is a teenage dream.

Of course, being a teenage dream invariably puts a boy in mortal peril (just ask that Jonas brother that fucked over Taylor Swift).  When you're pretty and popular, everyone feels like they own a part of you.  I don't know where I'm going with this, but you're just going to have to trust me - The Loved Ones is delicious. 

This is a movie where a street smart girl see no shame in giving her boyfriend a handy-j on the dance floor at the Prom.  This is a movie where an unpopular, homicidal tween listens to Kasey Chambers on repeat.  Enough said.  First Nicole Kidman and now this!  Thank you, Australia, this was well worth the flight.

Love Never Dies

"The luckiest man who walks on this Earth is the one who finds true love."

Realizing the hypocrisy inherent to an organized religion that would have him kill hundreds in its name but refuse to grant his beloved access to Heaven, our protagonist tears into the altar like a Medieval Elizabeth Berkley. Screaming himself raw, he renounces God and vows to return from the grave to avenge his beloved’s death with all the powers of Darkness. This all happens before the credits roll.  

In honor of this most sacred of holidays, I present you with one of the great romances of all time. 
Both deliciously campy and sumptuously sincere, this year’s best Valentine is Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you."

Four hundred and thirty five years go by in a flash and Winona Ryder finds herself engaged to be married to Keanu Reeves.  She is absolutely desperate to consummate their relationship, but he’s having a hard time concentrating on his made up dialect.  He can't be expected to focus on acting as someone from abroad and Winona's vagina. So frosty Keanu goes off to Carpathia and leaves Nona in the care of her best friend, Sadie Frost.  Slutty Sadie is empowered by her wealth to choose her own suitor, whereas Nona is saddled with Keanu, miles away. Just when we think all hope is lost for poor Winona, bound to girded loins for all eternity, Gary Oldman comes to town.

At first, Mr. Oldman is just a shriveled old queen in a dressing gown - holding Keanu at bay in his hilltop castle like a latter-years Tab Hunter.  But what a difference an ocean liner and a handful of sailors can make! By the time Gary makes his way to jolly-olde London, he looks great. Young and fresh.   Desperate to shed any lingering homoeroticism, he absolutely goes to town on Sadie Frost, dressing himself up like a wolf monster and tearing into her on top of a stone sarcophagus.  Naturally, Winona watches all of this like a seasoned voyeur - but the moment Gary sees her watching him plow into her best friend, he realized he's inside the wrong girl. It's love at first sight.  

If that isn't romance, I don't know what is.

While it's obvious that Gary is up for the task of reaping Winona's lady parts to full blossom, he still goes through the motions of seducing her - taking her to the movies, getting her drunk on absinthe, etc.  Romantic. To indicate sexual awakening, Nona starts wearing her hair down and lowers her bust line. Finally feeling a connection to a man that she could never have imagined possible with Keanu, she begins to weep.  Gary turns her tears into diamonds.  

This is the only love story to ever talk about.

Naturally, once Winona starts feeling good about herself, Keanu is off in a convent in Romania suffering from a violent brain fever and insists that she leave London at once and marry him there.  How rude. Meanwhile, even though Sadie has infected a nasty blood virus from her cemetery romp with the Wolfman, that doesn't stop her from giving Nona a gigantic diamond ring - what a good friend!  Unfortunately, generous or not, 1897 wasn't the best time to be a slut and poor Sadie winds up getting her head chopped off.

Seeing what becomes of the sexually liberated, Winona runs back to Keanu.  

In a traditional marriage, she’s miserable - now keenly aware of what she shared with Gary and what’s missing with Keanu - that love without carnality is not complete.  Gary senses her deep unrest and, accordingly, he transforms himself into green mist, sneaks into her bedroom and finally consummates their forbidden love.  

Despite his protestations,Winona gives herself freely and, in the most glamorous love scene ever captured in a horror film, Winona drinks blood from his bare chest.  She is baptized in his blood. Now that's a Valentine's Day to write home about!

"I want to be what you are - see what you see - love what you love... you are my love and my life always."

"Take me away from all this death."

Of course, Keanu eventually gets wind of her infidelity and wrangles all his stoner buddies away from the Chateau Marmont long enough to go after Gary Oldman.  Poor Winona is left tearing at her bosom in the snow with nothing left to live for but the latest Black Friday sale at Saks and the odd bit part alongside pasty, gay-hating fatsos.

Beyond the legendary costumes, the antique lamps, lavish sets and all the peacock feathers, is Bram Stoker's Dracula a gay film?  Absolutely. 

Dracula is about deep and forbidden love in the face of an oppressive patriarchal society.  In 1992, vampire movies were still dangerous.  AIDS was everywhere.  To consummate a gay relationship was, in a way, flirting with mortality.  AIDS is an infection of the blood, to be a vampire was to be infected.  Sexuality equaled death.  It still does in some parts of the country.

"Our love is stronger than death."

1992 was glorious.  It was a time when Winona had the power to bring this script to Frances Ford Coppola, despite having just dropped out of The Godfather III.  It was a time when Anthony Hopkins was capable of giving an interesting performance.  It was a time when a smartly done, intellectual horror, love story made with practical effects in the old Hollywood tradition could be a blockbuster.  Sadly, this is a time long gone by.  But that doesn't mean we can't have a happy Valentine's Day, dolls.  Let's have a good one for Winona.

Elegance is Learned

Welcome to the Second Annual FaggotyAssAwards!!!

My team and I have been setting up all day for this and the red carpet glamour is positively infectious.
Let's see who dropped in this year!

America's favorite lesbian, Amber Heard!

Lea Michele and her best gay (noticeably without his loser boyfriend)...

 ...straight from Muir Island, Michael Fassbendover

      ...and obviously no awards spectacular would be complete without the incandescent star of stage and screen, Idina Menzel!

Now take your seats, boys and ghouls, because it's time for a FaggotyAss musical number!

Isn't that fun?  But now it's time for winners!  I'm pleased to present this evening's first FaggotyAssAward to....

JAMES FRANCO!!

Sorry losers.  Congratulations, Jimmy - you earned it, doll.

Honestly, who cares about boys in movies?  Everyone knows the true marker of how a perfectly average movie can become the stuff of legend is the performance of its FaggotyAssBestActress.   The FaggotyAssBestActress of 2010 is...

NATALIE PORTMAN.

Natalie couldn't make it this evening because she's at home licking pistachio ice cream off her husband's abs.  Miss Barbara Hershey was kind enough to prepare something in her stead.

Give it up for Barbara Hershey, ladies and gentlemen!!  Wow, Barbara.  Believe me, we could listen to you perform monologues all night - but, unfortunately, we have more work to do so Jonathan Groff is gonna take you backstage now.

Only one film truly captured our hearts and minds this year, dolls.  This film managed to capture the exquisitely painful and elegant pursuit of perfection that we all experience every morning when we walk out the front door.  The rumors are true, the FaggotyAssAward for the Best Movie of 2010 goes to...

BLACK SWAN.

Good work everyone.  As for you dolls watching from home, I'm happy to announce that the cornucopia of excess that is the 2010 FaggotyAssGiftBasket goes to David for understanding the importance of a good sheet cake.

baby, it's cold outside

How on earth have we not discussed the fact that Melissa Leo is in a horror movie about an evangelical family that bears an uncanny resemblance to the funeral crashing, "Sodomites Burn in Hell" sign carrying Phelps clan?!?

Red State is directed by Kevin Smith who, upon producing the documentary Small Town Gay Bar, has proved an unlikely ally to the homosexual agenda.  I think we should get into it (but I do understand if you can't get into it because the two screenings at Sundance are totally sold out - so we're gonna have to wait until it gets released this spring).

Let's do it for our country...

Girls!  Girls!!

In these dark times, we're only as good as the company we keep.

My internet besties, Kindertrauma, have been nominated for an award. 

What are you waiting for??  Vote for them!

xoxo