Knight at the Movies ARCHIVES
You I Sorta Like:
You I Love, Be Cool
3-9-05 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
When I first saw You I Love (it played last year as part of Chicago's ay and lesbian film festival) it seemed a
hodgepodge of the worst sort but a second helping has given me a new appreciation of this rarity: a Russian
gay/straight sex comedy. Though I think it’s still a pastiche of clichés (a comedic Sunday, Bloody Sunday), it’s a
very entertaining pastiche and the film’s glimpses into Russian culture (it’s in Russian with subtitles) and sexual
mores is exotic enough to recommend it.
The film also resembles the early 80s gay/straight triangle, Making Love, albeit a wacky variation on it.
Ironically, this movie reverses what was interesting and tantalizing in that well meaning but ultimately dull, early
hallmark of gay cinema. Here, it’s the straight relationship that’s out of the ordinary while the gay coupling that
supplants it seems forced and far fetched. Some of that has to do, I suppose, with cultural advances and some with
the film’s affection and fascination for the offbeat gay character that unwittingly puts a crimp into the straight
relationship.
For me, however, it had everything to do with the breathtaking beauty of the actress Lyubov Tolkalina who plays
Vera, the female of the trio (playing the Kate Jackson part). Her male co-stars on the other hand, though
handsome and cute in an offbeat way, will never be mistaken for Russian doubles of Michael Ontkean and Harry
Hamlin, their American counterparts. When Ontkean planted a kiss on Hamlin’s lips in 1982 and proceeded to
make love to him audience members, both gay and straight gasped. Straight audiences because they were
shocked to see two well known handsome actors not just playing gay but ACTING gay; gay audiences for the same
reason – but also because for us here at last was the fulfillment of a long cherished fantasy blown up 50 feet high.
Here it’s the beauty of Tolkalina that’s riveting.
I want to digress for a moment because once again I am discussing the physicality of actors (I think sometimes my
reviews read like lost episodes of In Living Color’s “Men on Film”) but that’s one of the appeals of movies for many
people – the beautiful, sexy, glamorous, offbeat specimens Up There. I first articulated this after seeing Making
Love for the first time. Ontkean and Hamlin weren’t the mincing fags or murderous drag queens we usually saw
onscreen – they looked like the gorgeous hunks my friends and I saw at the bars. That was revelatory for me and
I immediately gave myself permission to objectify the onscreen male figures the way my straight movie critic
counterparts had been openly objectifying women onscreen since movies began. I don’t think this is a practice that
needs a defense but perhaps one that needs to be explained. To respond to a movie actor’s looks actually seems
an unspoken responsibility for the audience. To not do so might upset certain movie stars – after all, that’s one of
the reasons the actor’s up there to begin with. Openly gay audience members also have the additional luck of
being able to openly appreciate both men and women. In other words, we’re equal opportunity objectifiers!
But back to You I Love. At the beginning of the film Vera, a newscaster, accidentally meets advertising executive
Tomofei (Evgeny Koryakovsky – in the Michael Ontkean role). Tomofei has been fantasizing about Vera after
watching her broadcasts (more objectifying!) but after the two begin dating, he’s drawn instead to Vera’s unusual
characteristics. For one, Vera’s a food fetishist who declares, “I lose control of myself – I want to eat all the time”
just before she and Timofei make love for the first time. Afterwards, instead of a cigarette, she takes a bite out of
a big green apple.
Timofei, who seems like a convenient sponge for anything that will distract from his boring life, eagerly joins Vera
in her food addiction (who, considering her spectacular figure, must also be a closet bulimic or have a metabolic
rate off the charts) and we get a quick progression of their relationship via a quirky food montage. But fate, in the
form of simpleton Uloomji (Damir Badmaev – in the Harry Hamlin role) bursts in on the couple’s adventures in
dining paradise. Tim accidentally hits Ul with his car, knocking him unconscious, and brings him home to make sure
he’s okay. Soon Ul, who is a free spirit, has seduced Tim.
When Vera finds out she is devastated but determined to hang in there because Tim vows that it is, “You I love.”
Ul, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to have a second of guilt about busting in on the relationship between the two. When
Ul’s family intervenes, however, the movie staggers off in yet another obstacle to the course of true, ménage-a-
trois love though all I wanted it to do was get back to examining what made the mixed-up Vera tick and what drew
her to the rather mundane Timofei in the first place.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rock plays a giddy gay bodyguard who wants to be a movie star in Be Cool, the sequel to the masterly black
comedy from 1995 Get Shorty and draws big laughs in a supporting part. But it is Vince Vaughan, playing the
Rock's boss, who steals the movie from him and out from underneath the nose of star John Travolta, who returns
as Chili Palmer, the one time “shylock” turned movie producer, something that was unthinkable in the first film.
That’s the real problem with the movie – everyone steals scenes left and right from Travolta because the character
of Chili Palmer – who never seemed out of his element in the cutthroat world of the movie business (that was part
of the joke) – seems to be one step behind everyone else when he tries his hand as a music manager and no longer
seems so “cool.”
Though the movie is entertaining as it chugs along and Uma Thurman, Cedric the Entertainer, and Robert Pastorelli
(in his last role) offer solid support consider that line-up and compare it with Travolta’s backup from the original:
Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito (who makes a cameo here), Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, Bette Midler, and
especially Rene Russo. Also, unlike Get Shorty, there’s no John Lurie jazz score this time either and the chemistry
between Thurman and Travolta is nil while their highly touted rematch dance sequence (after their first in Pulp
Fiction) barely re
You I Love, Be Cool
3-9-05 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
When I first saw You I Love (it played last year as part of Chicago's ay and lesbian film festival) it seemed a
hodgepodge of the worst sort but a second helping has given me a new appreciation of this rarity: a Russian
gay/straight sex comedy. Though I think it’s still a pastiche of clichés (a comedic Sunday, Bloody Sunday), it’s a
very entertaining pastiche and the film’s glimpses into Russian culture (it’s in Russian with subtitles) and sexual
mores is exotic enough to recommend it.
The film also resembles the early 80s gay/straight triangle, Making Love, albeit a wacky variation on it.
Ironically, this movie reverses what was interesting and tantalizing in that well meaning but ultimately dull, early
hallmark of gay cinema. Here, it’s the straight relationship that’s out of the ordinary while the gay coupling that
supplants it seems forced and far fetched. Some of that has to do, I suppose, with cultural advances and some with
the film’s affection and fascination for the offbeat gay character that unwittingly puts a crimp into the straight
relationship.
For me, however, it had everything to do with the breathtaking beauty of the actress Lyubov Tolkalina who plays
Vera, the female of the trio (playing the Kate Jackson part). Her male co-stars on the other hand, though
handsome and cute in an offbeat way, will never be mistaken for Russian doubles of Michael Ontkean and Harry
Hamlin, their American counterparts. When Ontkean planted a kiss on Hamlin’s lips in 1982 and proceeded to
make love to him audience members, both gay and straight gasped. Straight audiences because they were
shocked to see two well known handsome actors not just playing gay but ACTING gay; gay audiences for the same
reason – but also because for us here at last was the fulfillment of a long cherished fantasy blown up 50 feet high.
Here it’s the beauty of Tolkalina that’s riveting.
I want to digress for a moment because once again I am discussing the physicality of actors (I think sometimes my
reviews read like lost episodes of In Living Color’s “Men on Film”) but that’s one of the appeals of movies for many
people – the beautiful, sexy, glamorous, offbeat specimens Up There. I first articulated this after seeing Making
Love for the first time. Ontkean and Hamlin weren’t the mincing fags or murderous drag queens we usually saw
onscreen – they looked like the gorgeous hunks my friends and I saw at the bars. That was revelatory for me and
I immediately gave myself permission to objectify the onscreen male figures the way my straight movie critic
counterparts had been openly objectifying women onscreen since movies began. I don’t think this is a practice that
needs a defense but perhaps one that needs to be explained. To respond to a movie actor’s looks actually seems
an unspoken responsibility for the audience. To not do so might upset certain movie stars – after all, that’s one of
the reasons the actor’s up there to begin with. Openly gay audience members also have the additional luck of
being able to openly appreciate both men and women. In other words, we’re equal opportunity objectifiers!
But back to You I Love. At the beginning of the film Vera, a newscaster, accidentally meets advertising executive
Tomofei (Evgeny Koryakovsky – in the Michael Ontkean role). Tomofei has been fantasizing about Vera after
watching her broadcasts (more objectifying!) but after the two begin dating, he’s drawn instead to Vera’s unusual
characteristics. For one, Vera’s a food fetishist who declares, “I lose control of myself – I want to eat all the time”
just before she and Timofei make love for the first time. Afterwards, instead of a cigarette, she takes a bite out of
a big green apple.
Timofei, who seems like a convenient sponge for anything that will distract from his boring life, eagerly joins Vera
in her food addiction (who, considering her spectacular figure, must also be a closet bulimic or have a metabolic
rate off the charts) and we get a quick progression of their relationship via a quirky food montage. But fate, in the
form of simpleton Uloomji (Damir Badmaev – in the Harry Hamlin role) bursts in on the couple’s adventures in
dining paradise. Tim accidentally hits Ul with his car, knocking him unconscious, and brings him home to make sure
he’s okay. Soon Ul, who is a free spirit, has seduced Tim.
When Vera finds out she is devastated but determined to hang in there because Tim vows that it is, “You I love.”
Ul, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to have a second of guilt about busting in on the relationship between the two. When
Ul’s family intervenes, however, the movie staggers off in yet another obstacle to the course of true, ménage-a-
trois love though all I wanted it to do was get back to examining what made the mixed-up Vera tick and what drew
her to the rather mundane Timofei in the first place.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rock plays a giddy gay bodyguard who wants to be a movie star in Be Cool, the sequel to the masterly black
comedy from 1995 Get Shorty and draws big laughs in a supporting part. But it is Vince Vaughan, playing the
Rock's boss, who steals the movie from him and out from underneath the nose of star John Travolta, who returns
as Chili Palmer, the one time “shylock” turned movie producer, something that was unthinkable in the first film.
That’s the real problem with the movie – everyone steals scenes left and right from Travolta because the character
of Chili Palmer – who never seemed out of his element in the cutthroat world of the movie business (that was part
of the joke) – seems to be one step behind everyone else when he tries his hand as a music manager and no longer
seems so “cool.”
Though the movie is entertaining as it chugs along and Uma Thurman, Cedric the Entertainer, and Robert Pastorelli
(in his last role) offer solid support consider that line-up and compare it with Travolta’s backup from the original:
Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito (who makes a cameo here), Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, Bette Midler, and
especially Rene Russo. Also, unlike Get Shorty, there’s no John Lurie jazz score this time either and the chemistry
between Thurman and Travolta is nil while their highly touted rematch dance sequence (after their first in Pulp
Fiction) barely re