It’s only the first week of December and I am already looking for reasons not to leave the house. Even though the weather has been mild, I know what winter is like in Chicago. If, like me, you prefer to get your entertainment at home during the long, cold, gray month of December, I would like to recommend (or not recommend) some recent video and DVD releases (# = queer interest). More next week …
Divided We Fall (Columbia TriStar) : This excellent 2000 Oscar-nominee for Best Foreign Film tells yet another compelling story about people in Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1943 Czechoslovakia, a married, but childless, couple…Josef (Boleslav Polivka) and Marie (Anna Siskova)…take in concentration camp escapee David (Csongor Kassai), the son of a Jewish industrialist who was Josef’s former employer, and hide him from the Nazis in their small apartment. So as not to call attention to themselves or their secret, Josef goes to work for scheming Nazi collaborator Horst (Jaroslav Dusek), another former employee of David’s father. The suspicious Horst also has a crush on Marie, who rebuffs him. To avoid having a shamed Nazi move in with them…a plot by Horst to expose them…the married couple makes up a story about Marie being pregnant and enlists David to be the sperm donor, because Josef is sterile. Divided We Fall is a beautifully told tale about what abnormal times do to normal people, with performances (particularly from Polivka, Siskova and Kassai), that leave a mark, as indelible as a tattoo, on one’s memory. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
# Lost And Delirious (Lions Gate) : Canadian girls-boarding-school movie alert! Heavy-handed symbolism involving birds of prey, broken mirrors, blood bonds, bravery, boys, breasts, birth mothers, breakdowns, betrayal, bratty sisters, the Bard, and butch and femme abound, making this a true B-movie. Piper Perabo, as fragile tough girl Paulie, devours scenery as fast as her perky lips will allow. Her love interest Victoria (Jessica Pare’) cries on cue and new kid in the dorm Mary a.k.a. Mouse (Mischa Barton who was so wonderful in Lawn Dogs) looks like she’s always on the verge of tears, as well. Jackie Burroughs (Mother Mucca, from More and Further Tales of The City) achieves a level of Maggie Smith/Miss Jean Brodie in her role as devoted headmistress Miss Vaughn and Graham (Dances With Wolves) Greene’s gardener is a bright spot. Did I mention that the movie’s soundtrack predictably includes music by Ani DiFranco and Me’Shell Ndegeocello? Director Lea Pool needs to spend some time in detention for this fractured fairy tale. NOT RECOMMENDED
On cable:
Sundance Channel (www.sundancechannel.com for times and dates)…The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, Anatomy of a Scene: Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Anatomy of a Scene: The Deep End, Chuck & Buck, Conversations In World Cinema: Christine Vachon, Conversations In World Cinema: John Waters, The Delta, Different For Girls, The Doom Generation, Edge of Seventeen, Get Real, Hide And Seek, hITCH, Inside Out, Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer’s End, Stonewall.