If it’s simply too hot to leave the house to get into your air-conditioned car and drive to the air-conditioned movie multiplex, there are plenty of films on DVD that are available for purchase or rent. The following is a list of just a few.
Written and directed by, and starring, Helen Lesnick, A Family Affair (Atta Girl Productions/Wolfe Video) is a sort of butch, left-coast Kissing Jessica Stein, combining similar comedic treatments of family, religion, and the search for and ultimate discovery of lesbian love. High strung, but hilarious Rachel (Lesnick), leaves NYC after the latest in a string of serial breakups with physics professor Reggie (Michele Greene of LA Law fame). Persuaded to move to Southern California by her super-supportive card-carrying proud PFLAG-member mother Leah (Arlene Golonka of Mayberry R.F.D and the gay-themed movie Leather Jacket Love Story renown, among others), Rachel, who ‘knew she was gay since she was DNA,’ reluctantly and grudgingly relocates to the golden state in a grey mood. Her pursuit of ‘Mrs. Rightowitz’ is observed and commented on by her gay male friends, as well as her mother, who, after Rachel goes out on a series of disastrous dates, once again persuades her daughter to let her help by setting up a blind date. To Rachel’s surprise, she actually likes blonde, San Diego-native Christine (Erica Shaffer), who is the quintessential shiksa, and before you know it (and following a hilarious sequence in which a panel of Rachel’s friends grills and then hesitantly approves Christine as her lover), the couple begins a relationship.
Lesnick, who at one time studied to become a rabbi, incorporates a considerable amount of Jewish references into the movie, including a large portion concerning Christine’s conversion to Judaism, all with a Woody Allen-esque touch. Allen is even made reference to, as is Lillian Hellman’s play The Little Foxes. Serious conflict arises when the sexy and brainy Reggie (one of the aforementioned The Little Foxes references) re-enters the picture shortly before Rachel and Christine’s commitment ceremony, putting their relationship in jeopardy. Lesbian comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer plays Rachel’s sister-in-law Carol, but it is Lesnick’s comical narration and unusual and expressive face that is the source of much of this funny family affair’s laughs. The two-disc DVD set includes interviews, deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer, commentary and more.
Subtitled ‘The life, art and times of Tom of Finland,’ Daddy and the Muscle Academy (Zeitgeist) is Ilppo Pohjola’s documentary about the late Touko (Tom of Finland) Laaksonen, the one-time music student, who left behind a career in advertising to become one of the best-known illustrators of gay male erotica. In interviews with Tom, we learn about his ability to exaggerate the beauty of his subjects, and how he wanted to idealize them without making them unreal. Tom, who described his technique as a ‘photo realistic approach,’ used exaggeration to compete with advances being made in photography, as well as facial expression and gesture to communicate erotic attraction. His work, which is described as the ‘blueprint’ for the gay male appearance in the late 20th century, is also commented on via interviews with Bob Mizer, of Athletic Model Guild magazine, artists Nayland Blake and Etienne, and employees of the Tom of Finland Foundation, among others. The DVD edition includes an additional forty minutes of ‘extended interview outtakes,’ as well as more than one hundred Tom of Finland drawings in a ‘sketch gallery.’
Paul (Kevin Bishop), a well-dressed, gung-ho 18-year-old piano student in San Francisco makes an impression on both renowned pianist Richard (Paul Rhys), for whom he turns pages at a concert, and Richard’s agent and lover Joseph (Allan Corduner) in Food of Love (TLA Releasing). While in Barcelona with his overbearing mother, Pamela (Juliet Stephenson), following his parents’ separation, he discovers that Richard is also there, and they begin a love affair. When Pamela, who is also attracted to Richard, attempts to seduce him in his hotel room, she discovers a pair of her son’s boxer shorts, but says nothing to either Paul or Richard. Six months later, Paul is living in New York, studying at Julliard, and is in a relationship with an older man. The depiction of the relationships between younger and older gay men is at the heart of the movie, based on a novella by acclaimed gay novelist David Leavitt. However, none of the male characters are as compelling as Stephenson’s needy, but loving Pamela, a sheltered suburban mother coming to terms with her son’s homosexuality. Music may be the food of love, but this movie leaves a sour aftertaste.
Salma Hayek was born to play this role as she demonstrates with her remarkable embodiment of the late visual artist Frida Kahlo in the visually radiant bio-pic Frida (Miramax Home Entertainment). It begins when Frida was a school-aged teenager and she and her fellow art students come upon legendary painter and Communist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) in the school’s auditorium where he is painting a female nude subject. The students, led by Frida, taunt Rivera, the artist who put socialism on the walls, which leaves an impression on the married man with fidelity issues. Back at home, Frida’s sister Cristina (Mia Maestro) is about to get married, and the rebellious Frida, after having sex with her boyfriend Alejandro (Y Tu Mama Tambien’s Diego Luna) in her parents’ house, dresses in male drag for the family portrait. Frida’s life takes an unexpected and painful turn when a trolley accident causes her to endure a three-week hospitalization, multiple surgeries and body-casts. During her recovery period, Frida draws butterflies on her body cast. When her German-Jewish father Guillermo (Roger Rees), sees that she is running out of room, he buys her an easel, paints and canvas.
Following her lengthy convalescence, Frida seeks out Diego to ask his opinion of her work. He praises her and soon they become lovers, and then marry. Diego vows to be loyal to Frida, even though he can’t be faithful, and on a trip to New York, a city that Diego conquers (in spite of the scandal that erupted over his mural for the Rockefeller family), the couple shares Gracie (Saffron Burrows), a female lover who tells Frida that she is a better lover than Diego. More tragedy befalls Frida, including a brief, failed pregnancy, the death of her mother and her sister’s divorce. Acts of infidelity, such as Diego’s affair with her sister Cristy and Frida’s affair with Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush) continue to drive a wedge between the couple until they separate. In Paris, Frida takes another female lover (who bares a resemblance to Josephine Baker) and flourishes, although her health is failing. Returning to Mexico, it is determined that Frida must have her leg amputated. Diego then re-enters her life and they are reunited. Hayek triumphs in this tale of endurance and artistic expression. Director Julie Taymor takes Kahlo’s gift for putting agonized poetry on canvas and translates it to the canvas of the cinema. In fact, Taymor’s greatest contribution is when she brings a few of Kahlo’s paintings to life, including the wedding portrait of Frida and Diego that morphs into the wedding reception and the painting in which Frida cuts off her hair after leaving Diego. The double-disc DVD set includes commentary by director Julie Taymor and soundtrack composer Elliot Goldenthal, as well as a ‘conversation’ with Salma Hayek. There are also AFI and Bill Moyers interviews with Taymor, among numerous other highlights.
Almost 20 years after I first saw My Beautiful Laundrette (MGM), it remains one of my all time favorite movies. Notable for being an early feature-length film by Stephen Frears, as well as a being a career-making role for Daniel Day Lewis, My Beautiful Laundrette is a time capsule of racial and sexual prejudice in ’80s Thatcher England. Hanif Kureishi’s screenplay not only paints a multi-hued portrait of a crumbling empire and the Pakistani immigrant’s experience, it also deftly captures the heat and passion of a forbidden gay relationship. Estranged childhood friends and schoolmates Omar (Gordon Warnecke) and Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) are reunited when Omar hires the unemployed Johnny to help him transform a failing launderette into something spectacular. Their sexual relationship is rekindled as other relationships, including those between Omar and Papa (Roshan Seth), his alcoholic journalist father; Omar and his rich uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey); Nasser and his mistress Rachel (Shirley Anne Field); and Johnny and his street punk cronies, are all put to the test. Sexually and politically charged, My Beautiful Laundrette is indeed a beautiful thing.
Other titles in the MGM DVD series include the movie adaptations of the plays Jeffrey (written by Paul Rudnick and starring Patrick Stewart, Steven Weber and Sigourney Weaver), Bent (which includes Sir Ian McKellen and Mick Jagger) and The Sum Of Us (starring a pre-Oscar Russell Crowe as a gay man whose father is intent on finding him a boyfriend). The three remaining titles include It’s My Party (starring Eric Roberts and Gregory Harrison as estranged gay lovers, and co-starring Margaret Cho, Bronson Pinchot, Lee Grant, Olivia Newton-JohSinatra, Kiss Me Kate with Ann Miller and Les Girls with Gene Kelly and Mitzi Gaynor.