You Say Tomato

In Which I Plagiarize Myself

In the tradition of Gert, I’m going to turn something I wrote in someone’s comments box into a blog posting. (It's leveraging, not laziness.)

The magnificent The Minor Fall, The Major Lift linked to Michael Bronski’s Boston Pheonix story about queer content in the Harry Potter books, to which I responded:

The "Harry Potter books as coming out stories" theory has been around for a while (I first saw it articulated by Tony Scott in Slate back in 1999), but judging the latest book by its cover, I think Bronski's missing something. The back cover of my edition (Canadian, "adult" cover) shows Rowling in the typical library porn pose. Among the books on her shelves are The Well of Loneliness and The Ladies of Llangollen. It isn't any of the kids that are going to be coming out, it's Professor McGonagal. (I can't think why I didn't see this coming years ago, what with all that tweed and tartan in her wardrobe.)

Of course, I suppose Rowling might have posed in front of someone else's books ...

Cinematic Orchestra in Victoria

Gosh, long time no blog, eh? Another 17 movies and 11 days of SIFF to go (but don’t worry, I didn’t see movies every day, so you’ll be spared some of the excruciating details), but this isn’t the moment for that.

Of course, the film festival has been over for two weeks now, and I haven’t blogged for three weeks, so what gives? There are boring reasons—I’ve been really busy at work—but also, thank X, fun ones—I bought an iPod and most of my spare computer minutes have been devoted to loading my little box and perfecting my playlists. I also got a cool assignment at work—mind-blowingly cool, in fact, but also very intimidating and requiring major pre-planning, so that’s also eaten up a lot of time and brain cycles too.

Last weekend, R and I went to the lovely (and I mean that most sincerely) Victoria, B.C. As always, it was a fabulously relaxing weekend of shopping, reading, and lounging—as well as fine, fine dining—but I was also a bit conflicted. After all, it was Harry Potter weekend. Naturally, I picked up my copy first thing Saturday morning, and all weekend I was torn between doing the things I always love to do in Victoria and turning my back on it all and sitting in our hotel room reading the book. (I just finished this morning. That was another conflict—I wanted to stretch it out and savor it, but I was terrified that those much-vaunted surprises were going to be spoiled for me by the evil media.)

Also in Victoria I went to an actual gig—R and I saw the Cinematic Orchestra and LappElectro opening up the Victoria Jazz Festival. I’m a big fan of the Cinematic Orchestra, and I was well up to see them, but the circumstances were far from ideal—it was a late gig (theoretical start time 9:30, so you know what that means) in an outdoor venue (the Market Square), and it was cold—freezing cold by the time the music started. People in the audience were so desperate to avoid hypothermia that most folks were standing around chatting or generally focusing their attention elsewhere as they moved around trying to stay warm. The band(s) were also freezing cold—it’s just not a good sign when musicians leave their instruments to go hold their hands under the heaters, and that was happening all the time.

The support act, LappElectro, were very good, but their music struck me as somehow inessential. Perhaps it was because it seemed almost too easy—band leader and definite focus Daniel Lapp looks a lot like Boris Johnson with a hipster haircut, and he takes “multi-instrumentalist” to the extreme, at times establishing a background sound then playing a riff on his various instruments—saxophone, trumpet, cor anglais (!), violin. It was impressive but a bit soulless. The only time I really felt like he meant it rather than just playing to show us that he could was in the fiddle tune he played—I’m no fan of the fiddle, but there was more of a connection with that song. (He’s also recorded a fiddle CD.) He even sang a song—a really lovely Chet Baker-type tune. Overall, though, it seemed like Lapp and his band suffered from having too many options—rather than reaching out, apparently randomly, to the five or six instruments he had available, it might’ve been better if he stuck to one or two, and instead of developing bands and recording in four musical styles, perhaps he’d get the attention he deserves if he focused on just one.

It was really cold and late by the time Cinematic Orchestra came on, and although they played well, they were a bit jazz wanky when the singer (Niara Scarlett?—they weren’t terribly good at IDing folks) wasn’t on stage. They committed the sin Tony Wilson accused jazz musicians of: amusing themselves rather than the audience. Still, it’s exciting to see a combination of full-on jazz musicians playing original material accompanied by PC’s scratching and J. Swinscoe’s samples. One trivial complaint, though: Why would a band led by a really short guy do a tour T-shirt that has something written on the butt, when that writing will show up around the back of the knees of anyone less than 5’10”?

SIFF, Day 13

I had to see Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, set as it is in possibly my favorite English city, Nottingham (to make a home, anyway—London’s divine, but it’s not the easiest place to live). It’s a place I know pretty well, having gone to university there and having hung around a little post-graduation, but there were very few places or situations I recognized. This isn’t Notty’s well-appointed downtown shopping, eating, and entertainment district or the touristy Robin Hood/Maid Marion stuff, it’s Carlton and Gedling. By no means the “worst” bit of Nottingham—actually, I thought the aspirational interiors of the various characters’ houses were beautifully done—but a rather bland place that lacks specificity.

Although it had been nine months since I read Mike’s review of the movie on Troubled Diva, it came to mind about five minutes in—as Mike said, one major problem is that the big names (at least in Britain) in the all-star cast play exactly to type: “[Kathy] Burke is a tough, no-nonsense, loveably hard-bitten old bird in a nasty shell-suit; [Robert] Carlyle is a dangerous, threatening eminence noir, a potential psycho who dabbles in petty crime; [Ricky] Tomlinson is an eccentric Scouser scruffbag with an essentially passive nature and a ‘heart of gold.’ ” Since Burke and Tomlinson’s type isn’t quite so cast for U.S. viewers, I wondered if last night’s audience would pick up on that, but two conversations I overheard leaving the cinema put any such questions right out of my head: Two women behind me were wondering why the accents were so dissimilar, and a group of disappointed viewers grumbled about having seen Robert Carlyle play that part about six times already. (Hey, me too, but sometimes it pays off. Think about his terrifying Begbie in Trainspotting or his incredible portrayal of a soccer fan unhinged by memories of Hillsborough in Cracker. The man can act—I just wish he were a little more choosy about the roles he accepted.)

The plot of Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is your basic "torn between two lovers when an old flame rides into town" trope. Shirley (Shirley Henderson) has to pick between Dek (Rhys Ifans), a dependable Taffy plonker who’s loving and a good provider but a bit of an embarrassment, and Jimmy (Carlyle), an unreliable Jock loser who’s charismatic, sexy, and dangerous. In the end, it’s daughter Marlene’s bullshit-detecting calmness that helps Shirl make the right choice. Marlene can see that Jimmy might have the gift of the gab, but he has nothing to say. Once she helps Dek let go of the daytime-television-inspired psychobabble he usually spouts and say what he really feels, there’s no contest. Getting rid of “Baby,” his beloved status-setting car, is the best move he could make.

As always, Shirley Henderson is marvelous—her great gift is for endowing looks and silences with huge import. You don’t see the depth of her characters when she speaks, but rather when she shuts up and just stares. Finn Atkins, who played daughter Marlene with incredible composure has the same gift—and as Mike said she completely stole the show, especially in a scene where she lies in bed, gazing silently ahead trying to hold it together.

SIFF, Days 11 and 12

Just two movies this week—work is just such an inconvenience sometimes, isn’t it, though I wouldn’t be without it—but good ones.

I came home from Hard Goodbyes: My Father and immediately gave it the top ranking on the passholders’ ballot—the only movie I’d rated that highly thus far. After a day or so of reflection, I tempered my opinion somewhat, but it was certainly very winning short-term. The movie had so much going against it: the worst title ever, it’s Greek—and the few Greek movies I’ve seen in the festival over the years have been exceedingly slow and not to my taste, and it’s a boy’s coming-of-age story—something I’ve had my fill of. In practice, though, this simple film (in that not a lot actually happens) was very affecting, and the child star, Yorgos Karayannis, was amazing. Elias lives with his mother and older brother in Athens. His father is a traveling salesman whose work takes him away from the family for extended periods, which leads to tension with his wife, resentment from his older son, and confusion from Elias. After one trip home, dad takes off, leaving a note telling Elias he’ll be away longer than usual, but not to worry, he’ll be back before the moon landing. Just hours later, he’s killed in a car crash, but Elias refuses to believe it—instead he puts his faith in the note his father left him. The rest of the movie deals with Elias’ elaborate denial mechanisms, his incredible imagination, and his gradual acceptance of the truth, a sort of compromise between trusting that people will keep their promises and learning when to let go. I admit that one of the reasons I liked it was that the date of the moon landing was given as July 21, 1969—my birthday. I have a very vivid memory of staying up into the early hours of my eighth birthday to see the moon landing (tricky because the next day we were taking a birthday day trip to Blackpool, and my folks were worried I would be too tired). In the States, because of the time difference, July 20 is considered the anniversary of the landing!

The next day, Tuesday, I saw The Girl From Paris and loved it. I almost didn’t see a movie—the film I’d been intending to see, Brats, didn’t arrive in time, so The Girl was a last-minute substitution. I’d been burned by ill-chosen films Sunday, so I was reluctant, but when two of my fellow Deluxe diners (and fellow disappointed Brats-fanciers) recommended it, I changed my mind. Man, what an awesome movie. True, there were very graphic scenes of farmyard slaughter, but they were absolutely integral to the story of a 30-year-old Parisian who says goodbye to traffic jams and city living and heads out to the Rhone-Alpes to become a farmer. The story of the development of the relationship between the crusty old farmer who used to own the spread and the fancy city slicker who sells her goat cheese on the Internet and turns the farmhouse into a country inn is slightly cliché but very sweet. Mathilde Seigner was perfect for the role—she looked the part and played it beautifully—and Michel Serrault was just as perfect as the irascible old farmer who eventually comes to admire the newcomer and share the pain of his various losses.

SIFF, Day 10

Sunday was a bit of a bummer, SIFF-wise. Since my first glimpse at the schedule, I’d known exactly what I wanted to see come June 1 (Song for a Raggy Boy, Minimal Stories, and Bollywood/Hollywood), but a combination of laziness, back-to-work jitters (I swear this round-the-world movie tour made four days away from the office seem like four months), R being under the weather, and a failure to get my ass out of the house in time to catch the bus down to Pacific Place completely discombobulated my plans. So, instead of the long-planned movies, I saw:

A shorts package called “The Hush,” which turned out to be eight short films—at least half of which were truly dire—without words. Even the two decent ones—Misdemeanor, which won the Best Short award at the Berlin Film Festival, and Kenneth Branagh’s Listening—were rather lame. Misdemeanor had all the too-earnest signs of the MFA course work that it was, and Ken’s opus, even though it featured the divine Frances Barker, the lovely Nanette Newman, and Withnail’s sidekick Paul McGann, was like a second-rate episode of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected. The next time I hear someone raving about shorts, I’ll remind myself of the 90 minutes I lost forever on Sunday afternoon.

Seaside is a very slow-moving French film in the Eric Rohmer style, but without Rohmer’s redeeming personality insights. Set in a once-fashionable but now outmoded resort town, the movie trundles through the seasons—summer, when visitors fill out the place and provide the year-rounders with seasonal work; winter, when everything starts to fall apart; spring, when it all goes to pieces; and summer, when the regulars return, which serves to highlight the absence of some former residents. Although it was nicely filmed, and the characters were distinguishable (which shouldn’t be an achievement, but is), they were ciphers with tics and bad habits rather than rounded characters. I confess I fell asleep from time to time, which seemed like a reasonable reaction.

SIFF, Day 9

Ironically, I saw fewer films on Saturday than I’ve been managing on weekdays. I blame my awareness that I’m back to work Monday. Well, that and the fact that there was nothing I wanted to see at 11:30. This is the first year that I’ve paid attention to my movie count (which stands at 31 as of Sunday morning), but I’ve resisted the temptation to see movies just so I can add to my total. I will admit, though, that on Saturday afternoon I eschewed a movie that interested me (Big Girls Don’t Cry) in favor of one that didn’t (The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well) so I would be in the “right” venue to ensure I’d get into the 6:30 gala showing of Whale Rider. And boy was I glad I did that, even though the 1:45 movie was a major stinker.

Gasoline, from Italy, was about a lesbian couple and their attempts to dispose of a body, and movies with that premise always have the problem of silliness—if I’ve learned anything from decades of movie-watching, it’s that you should never try to dispose of a body, it rarely turns out well! Lenni gave up her life of privilege when she met and fell in love with Stella, a gas station proprietor (don’t be thinking suited-up entrepreneur, though, they’re both in their very early 20s). When her mom shows up two years later and tries to get her away from the “dirty” life lived on the side of a highway, the trouble begins. Add three tweaked-out crazies out for a night of ever-escalating videotaped thrills, and the movie turns into an extended chase scene with a convincing sense of pervasive danger. Although there’s nothing special about the film, the relationship between Lenni and Stella was convincing, and it certainly held my attention.

As I mentioned before, I chose to see South Korea’ The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well not because I fancied it, but rather because I wanted to be sure that I’d get in to the 6:30 movie. It was worth the sacrifice, but oy, what a mess of a film The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well was. It started out decently enough, with a selfish, cheating novelist who’s stringing along one woman who’s clearly in love with him and having an affair with a different married woman. I like the idea of unattractive characters being at the center of a film, but in practice, this guy was such a jerk that I lost any respect for anyone who had positive feelings toward him. About one-third of the way in, the movie stopped making sense—afterward I suggested to another puzzled survivor that they’d played the reels out of order. The director, Hong Sang-soo, was designated one of this year’s, Emerging Masters, but based on this showing and the comments of other people who’ve seen his other work, I think that must be in Bizarro World.

Fortunately, Whale Rider redeemed the day. The story of a Maori community’s struggle to find a new leader—all the while ignoring all the signs of greatness in one member who happens to be a girl—was a marvelous feel-good movie full of very moving traditional Maori teachings. The acting was uniformly excellent, especially by Keisha Castle-Hughes as Pai, who amazingly was 11 when the movie was filmed, and Rawiri Paratene as her grandfather, the chief. After the movie, they were both in attendance, as was Cliff Curtis who played Pai’s father (and who does a lot of work in American movies—usually playing Arabs or Latinos—but who I remember as the sexy Fraser in the fabulous 1993 movie Desperate Remedies). It was definitely one of the coolest Q&A’s I’ve ever been to—we even did a very simple haka—and it’s amazing how poised the now-13-year-old Castle-Hughes is. No wonder this movie has won so many audience awards. It would amaze me if it doesn’t win the Golden Space Needle this year.