Knight at the Movies Archives
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Richard Gere strikes again, another tale of a weary gay hustler, Guy Pearce and Piper Perabo in an offbeat southwest noir
Another week and another trio of films of interest to GLBT audiences – from Q. Allan Brocka’s queer drenched dramedy Boy Culture,
to gay and lesbian heartthrobs Richard Gere in The Hoax, and Guy Pearce and Piper Perabo in First Snow.
“Harsh times call for harsh measures” a drunken James Mason said interrupting Judy Garland’s Oscar acceptance speech at the
climax of A Star Is Born. Incongruously, that’s the line that kept going through my head throughout Richard Gere’s latest star
vehicle, the smart and darkly funny The Hoax. But actually, the remark perfectly applies to the audacious lies, the outsized
chicanery that Gere as novelist and purported Howard Hughes biographer Clifford Irving and his collaborator, Dick Susskind (Alfred
Molina) resort to throughout the course of the film. The movie, from Chocolat/Cider House Rules director Lasse Hallström, is a high
flying act that stays aloft and unlike Irving’s house of cards, never collapses and I think it’s the first great film of 2007.
As I’ve noted before, since his dancing role as Billy Flynn in Chicago, Gere has yet to hit a false note on screen. His choices have
been diverse and fascinating and The Hoax may contain his greatest performance yet. As the compulsive Irving, a male
Scheherazade who spins grander and grander tales eagerly accepted by his rapt audience, dazzled by the celebrity and promise of
riches that association with Hughes will provide, Gere is magnificent as he goes from exhilaration to the depths of despair. He is
matched by his troubled cohort, Molina, in a typically complex performance as Irving’s researcher and enabler. The movie follows
the four months in the early 1970s in which Irving, a failed novelist, at wits end financially, convinced McGraw-Hill publishing and the
rest of the world that he was the vehicle through which reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes had chosen to relate his life story.
William Wheeler’s screenplay, chockfull of great character parts and odd details, takes liberties with the events as novelized by Irving
himself after the fact, gives the movie the black comedy treatment of other great “stranger than fiction” tales and Hallström offers
Gere and cast an acting field day (standouts include a hilarious Hope Davis as his agent and Marcia Gay Harden as Gere’s suspicious
wife). Carter Burwell’s jaunty score and retro era tunes add to the fun, along with the authentic looking production design and
cinematography (the movie has the look of a 70s black comedy like The Landlord or Shampoo). This is a fabulously entertaining film.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Eating Out writer-director Q. Allan Brocka returns with Boy Culture, a dramedy that first played here last fall at Reeling, Chicago’s
gay and lesbian film festival. The movie is narrated by “X” (Derek Magyar), a gorgeously handsome, high class hustler who hasn’t
had sex away from “business” since he was 12. “I may be a prostitute but I’m not promiscuous” exclaimed Barbra Streisand in The
Owl & the Pussycat and apparently X has taken this philosophy to heart. X’s dilemma is that he’s in love with his roommate Andrew,
the just out African American hottie (played by “Noah’s Arc” Darryl Stephens) and wants to break his own rule but he doesn’t know
how to take business out of the equation.
In the meantime, X also finds himself intrigued with his new client, Gregory (Patrick Bauchau who brings authority to an interesting
role), the wealthy, older French patron who just wants to talk until X truly feels desire for him. There are further complications (the
unrequited lust of X’s other roommate, the club kid twink, etc.) which are enacted as X vacillates between Andrew, Gregory – or
neither. The sexy, dead serious X has the arrogant attitude similar to the character Gale Harold played in “Queer As Folk,” a
decided turn off and though X’s musings about sex and love have some of the same insight as those offered by Jane Fonda’s call
girl in Klute this is not to compare Magyar’s delivery of them with Fonda’s (far from it). Rather, it is Bauchau and Stephens who give
the wobbly film a much needed shot of vitality.
Boy Culture has been described as a step up, something with more depth for writer-director Brocka than his previous effort but a
second viewing didn’t warm it up much for me. I much preferred the guilt-free, sunny sex romp of Eating Out to this world weary,
highfalutin stuff.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
First Snow, an intriguing psychological thriller starring GLBT audience favorites Guy Pearce (The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the
Desert) and Piper Perabo (Lost and Delirious, Imagine Me & You) also opens this week. In it Pearce plays Jimmy, a cocky flooring
salesman traveling the long distance roads in New Mexico hustling to make a better life for he and his girlfriend (Perabo). On a
whim while his car is being repaired, Jimmy has his fortune told. Soon after, events the psychic foretold begin to come to pass and
Jimmy goes into a tailspin as it appears his past will collide with his future.
This interesting, offbeat indie, in the Hitchcock mode, from first time writer-director Mark Fergus (who co-wrote the script with Hawk
Ostby) is helped by expert casting (aside from Pearce and Perabo, standouts include J.K. Simmons as the fortuneteller and William
Fichtner as Jimmy’s fellow salesman/best friend) and the film’s other major character: the barren, foreboding New Mexico
surroundings that threaten to swallow Jimmy at a moment’s notice.
to gay and lesbian heartthrobs Richard Gere in The Hoax, and Guy Pearce and Piper Perabo in First Snow.
“Harsh times call for harsh measures” a drunken James Mason said interrupting Judy Garland’s Oscar acceptance speech at the
climax of A Star Is Born. Incongruously, that’s the line that kept going through my head throughout Richard Gere’s latest star
vehicle, the smart and darkly funny The Hoax. But actually, the remark perfectly applies to the audacious lies, the outsized
chicanery that Gere as novelist and purported Howard Hughes biographer Clifford Irving and his collaborator, Dick Susskind (Alfred
Molina) resort to throughout the course of the film. The movie, from Chocolat/Cider House Rules director Lasse Hallström, is a high
flying act that stays aloft and unlike Irving’s house of cards, never collapses and I think it’s the first great film of 2007.
As I’ve noted before, since his dancing role as Billy Flynn in Chicago, Gere has yet to hit a false note on screen. His choices have
been diverse and fascinating and The Hoax may contain his greatest performance yet. As the compulsive Irving, a male
Scheherazade who spins grander and grander tales eagerly accepted by his rapt audience, dazzled by the celebrity and promise of
riches that association with Hughes will provide, Gere is magnificent as he goes from exhilaration to the depths of despair. He is
matched by his troubled cohort, Molina, in a typically complex performance as Irving’s researcher and enabler. The movie follows
the four months in the early 1970s in which Irving, a failed novelist, at wits end financially, convinced McGraw-Hill publishing and the
rest of the world that he was the vehicle through which reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes had chosen to relate his life story.
William Wheeler’s screenplay, chockfull of great character parts and odd details, takes liberties with the events as novelized by Irving
himself after the fact, gives the movie the black comedy treatment of other great “stranger than fiction” tales and Hallström offers
Gere and cast an acting field day (standouts include a hilarious Hope Davis as his agent and Marcia Gay Harden as Gere’s suspicious
wife). Carter Burwell’s jaunty score and retro era tunes add to the fun, along with the authentic looking production design and
cinematography (the movie has the look of a 70s black comedy like The Landlord or Shampoo). This is a fabulously entertaining film.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Eating Out writer-director Q. Allan Brocka returns with Boy Culture, a dramedy that first played here last fall at Reeling, Chicago’s
gay and lesbian film festival. The movie is narrated by “X” (Derek Magyar), a gorgeously handsome, high class hustler who hasn’t
had sex away from “business” since he was 12. “I may be a prostitute but I’m not promiscuous” exclaimed Barbra Streisand in The
Owl & the Pussycat and apparently X has taken this philosophy to heart. X’s dilemma is that he’s in love with his roommate Andrew,
the just out African American hottie (played by “Noah’s Arc” Darryl Stephens) and wants to break his own rule but he doesn’t know
how to take business out of the equation.
In the meantime, X also finds himself intrigued with his new client, Gregory (Patrick Bauchau who brings authority to an interesting
role), the wealthy, older French patron who just wants to talk until X truly feels desire for him. There are further complications (the
unrequited lust of X’s other roommate, the club kid twink, etc.) which are enacted as X vacillates between Andrew, Gregory – or
neither. The sexy, dead serious X has the arrogant attitude similar to the character Gale Harold played in “Queer As Folk,” a
decided turn off and though X’s musings about sex and love have some of the same insight as those offered by Jane Fonda’s call
girl in Klute this is not to compare Magyar’s delivery of them with Fonda’s (far from it). Rather, it is Bauchau and Stephens who give
the wobbly film a much needed shot of vitality.
Boy Culture has been described as a step up, something with more depth for writer-director Brocka than his previous effort but a
second viewing didn’t warm it up much for me. I much preferred the guilt-free, sunny sex romp of Eating Out to this world weary,
highfalutin stuff.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
First Snow, an intriguing psychological thriller starring GLBT audience favorites Guy Pearce (The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the
Desert) and Piper Perabo (Lost and Delirious, Imagine Me & You) also opens this week. In it Pearce plays Jimmy, a cocky flooring
salesman traveling the long distance roads in New Mexico hustling to make a better life for he and his girlfriend (Perabo). On a
whim while his car is being repaired, Jimmy has his fortune told. Soon after, events the psychic foretold begin to come to pass and
Jimmy goes into a tailspin as it appears his past will collide with his future.
This interesting, offbeat indie, in the Hitchcock mode, from first time writer-director Mark Fergus (who co-wrote the script with Hawk
Ostby) is helped by expert casting (aside from Pearce and Perabo, standouts include J.K. Simmons as the fortuneteller and William
Fichtner as Jimmy’s fellow salesman/best friend) and the film’s other major character: the barren, foreboding New Mexico
surroundings that threaten to swallow Jimmy at a moment’s notice.
Two Out of Three Ain't Bad:
The Hoax-Boy Culture-First Snow
4-4-07 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
The Hoax-Boy Culture-First Snow
4-4-07 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
