JULY 14, 2010:
"FLORENT: QUEEN OF THE MEAT MARKET"
This is a fascinating and charming documentary on the gregarious Florent Morellet, a French native who came to New York and opened a restaurant in, at the time, a crazy location: the meat packing district.
Florent, the all-night diner, became the place to go and was open to everyone from celebrities, club kids, families and tranny hookers. All of these people share their thoughts and warm feelings about Florent, the man and the restaurant. It was there for twenty three years and helped contribute in remaking the area in to a hip and stylish part of city before having to shut down because of an outrageous rent increase.
Florent is a wild, fun loving and thoughtful person and activist and I hope this film get a theatrical release because people should see this film.
JULY 15, 2010:
"FROM URANUS TO TITICACA"
This is a collection of 14 comedic short films that range from high camp, smutty instructional videos, television spoofs, bizarre puppets and "actress", Tanya Roberts pushing a trip to Tahiti. I didn't think most of these were particularly funny and even though the films were short, they felt either underdeveloped or the jokes went on for far too long but I did enjoy a few:
Two mildly entertaining episodes of "Fagney & Gaycey", a gay male take of the television cop show, "Go Go Reject", a film more cute than humorous, is the story of a "Flashdance" obsessed, twink who dreams of becoming a stripper but is told he's just too skinny and the best of the bunch, "Bella Maddo" a weird but actually kinda funny soap opera that has transsexuals and drag kings playing the leads about an aging, vain and selfish mother, a perfect blend of Joan Crawford and Dina Lohan, and the abuse she heaps upon her young daughter, all in the name of love.
JULY 16, 2010:
"PAULISTA (QUANTO DURA O AMOR?)"
Marina, a struggling actress, leaves behind her small town goes to Sao Paulo for a new start. She moves in with Suzana, a lawyer and befriends Jay, who lives in the building. They are all searching for love but try to find it with all of the wrong people. Marina falls for a female bisexual singer who is troubled, Jay is in love with a girl that he has to pay to be with and Suzana gets involved with someone at work but she has a dark secret that she fears may jeopardize their relationship.
The film is very melodramatic, which I normally don't mind but this time it just didn't work for me. It was all too predictable and the characters were not particularly interesting.
JULY 17, 2010
"I KILLED MY MOTHER (J'AI TUE MA MERE)"
Xaiver Dolan, the cute, twenty-one year old writer/director of this semi-autobiographical story, won three prizes at the 2009 Cannes Festival for his terrific first film.
This is the story of a single mother and her gay teenage son, Hubert (played by Mr. Dolan) who have a serious issue with communication. He is a difficult kid and prone to unreasonable outbursts but the problem is that instead of dealing with him like a mature adult, his mother acts as much of a child as he does.
After given an class assignment to interview his parents, Hubert tells his teacher his mother is dead so he wouldn't have to deal with her. This information obviously get back to her and makes their bad relationship even worse.
A great script, wonderfully rich performances and beautiful cinematography makes this definitely my favorite that I saw at the festival and one of my favorite films I've seen this year. I highly recommend you seek this one out.
JULY 18, 2010:
"FROM BEGINNING TO END (DO COMECO AO FIM)"
This is another film from Brazil and it's about two half brothers who we meet as children. They are very close which causes some concern by their mother, who fears that something beyond brotherly love is going on between them, although to me, it seems like she is overeacting, considering their ages. However, when they become young men and their mother passes away, the brothers feel it okay to start a passionate, sexual relationship.
To be honest, I found this to be very erotic, despite the incest theme however, with all of the stunningly beautiful people and the film's glossy shine, "From Beginning To End" never raises much above a gay porn fantasy.
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