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Reviews
Ode to Billy Joe (1976)
Confused version
If this is truly supposed to be an adaptation of the Bobbie Gentry song, it makes utterly NO sense. I'm gay, so I'm usually sensitized toward picking gay references out of pop culture, but to make Billy Joe in the film struggle with his sexuality is fairly ridiculous.
If you read the lyrics to Bobbie Gentry's song, it seems pretty darn obvious that what the narrator and Billie Joe are throwing off the Tallahatchee Bridge is their out-of-wedlock baby.
Just Google search the lyrics, listen to the song, and see if that interpretation doesn't make much more sense than how the movie presents the story.
Fright Night (1985)
Okay film with an interesting characteristic...
The film is okay at best. McDowall and Sarandon are over-the-top but good, the kids all basically stink.
What I wanted to comment on is "Fright Night"'s place as one of the gayest non-gay films of all time, and a film so sexual you wonder how it got past the Hollywood censors.
You know the films I'm talking about: "X-Men 2." "Chariots of Fire." They have absolutely nothing to do with gay or lesbian issues, but at the same time they are, unintentionally, almost completely gay films. Same with "Fright Night."
Let's get the obvious out of the way first: Stephen Geoffrey goes on to a gay/bi porn career and Amanda Bearse comes out of the closet during her time on "Married...with Children." Here they're just bad actors.
The only-slightly-less obvious: Sarandon has a magnetic sexual hold on everyone else in the film. His right hand man is also his lover, and it's obvious from the very first scene to anyone who's not dense to such things. While his sexual relations with Bearse are portrayed on camera, Sarandon also takes Geoffreys, it's just done in a haze of smoke and mist and cut away cameras. Even Ragsdale is practically salivating over the guy, totally ignoring Bearse throughout much of the film.
As to over-the-top sexuality, people who get up-in-arms about intergenerational relationships seem to have missed the molestation overtones in "Fright Night," both Sarandon's seduction of Bearse and his seduction of Geoffreys. Censors in the '80s missed so much...
The Celluloid Closet (1995)
Very good, but read the book before viewing
"Celluloid Closet" is extremely well-made, but one hesitation must be registered. If you haven't read the book of the same name by the late film historian and critic Vito Russo, you are missing out. The film does not really engage -- perhaps it was impossible for it to engage -- in the wide-ranging commentary about the Hollywood scene that Russo is able to. It is punchy, funny, devastating at times. But the book is all that and more. Take the time to search out a copy of the 1987 expanded edition, which has been reprinted several times since.
Also, is there any irony in the fact that Lily Tomlin, who at the time had always refused to clearly and unambiguously come out of the closet, delivers the narration? Read Russo's book, and realize that he would be spinning in his grave at this turn of events. "Celluloid Closet" the book sounds a clarion call for the necessity of members of the Hollywood community to come out and claim the movies as their own. "Celluloid Closet" the movie cops out on this point.
9/10.
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Puerile, Homophobic Crud
For all that anyone complains about racism in "Blazing Saddles" -- jokes about race in the movie range from actually satirical to stupid -- there are very few who will call Mel Brooks on his consistent, career-long homophobia. It wasn't funny in "The Producers," it's not funny here. I've always been suspicious of comedians who say that as long as they offend everyone, it's okay. Actually, it's really not. There is a way to use stereotype to examine and question, and there's a way to use it so that it simply makes you sound ignorant. Brooks falls in the latter category in "Blazing Saddles."
Deliverance (1972)
Recommendation
The only reason I comment on "Deliverance" is to recommend that viewers search out a copy of Henry Hart's biography of James Dickey, "The World as a Lie," in order to read fascinating sections that discuss the background of Dickey's book and the making of the movie. It will help dispel a bunch of the myths and legends that have arisen surrounding the events of the book and film -- particularly the rape scene, which has no factual basis to support those who judge certain regions of the U.S. and those regions' peoples based entirely on viewing this film.
Baxter (1989)
One great performance in an addled little film
To start, the young boy in "Baxter" gives a highly credible, palpably evil performance as the young, Nazi-obsessed boy who comes to own this very strange pitbull suffering from existential dilemmas. The movie is also helped by the sense of dread hanging over every scene with the dog. If you've been trained to be wary of pitbulls, this movie will freak you out.
The whole thing adds up, however, to little more than an exercise in morbidity. While it accomplishes that goal very smoothly, there isn't much else to recommend "Baxter." The rest of the characters aren't very well fleshed-out, and the dog's endless yammering is laughable.
4/10.