Shortbus is one you want to catch

As the director of Shortbus, John Cameron Mitchell is like that dad who thinks the best way to teach his kid how to swim is to throw him in the water. The movie opens with a barrage of explicit sex shots, from a couple going at it like the puppets in Team America: World Police, to a dominatrix whipping a young man, to a guy performing fellatio on himself.
And, yes, the penises are erect, there is penetration and semen; dripping gobs of semen and some of it shot on the wall as a contribution to a piece of art. And Shortbus is art, not pure porn as some critics have suggested.
Certainly, these opening scenes and others that follow are as hard core as any XXX movie out there but, in true porn, the aim is to arouse and only that; there are no stories and no real actors. Shortbus has stories to tell and it has something to say.
Imagine that: a movie that has sex in it and isn’t afraid of it; that doesn’t us it as a tool of violence or as a sudden, contrived relief of tension between characters.
Shortbus features the huge Canadian talent Sook Yin Lee (host of CBC Radio’s Definitely Not The Opera) as a sex therapist named Sofia who, despite being sexually creative and energetic with her husband Rob (Raphael Barker), has not yet achieved orgasm in her life.
Two of Sofia’s clients are the gay couple Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and James (Paul Dawson), the former of whom is positive and upbeat, while the latter is lost and depressed. They’re in a funk that they try to break out of through infidelity, eventually taking in a naïve young man named Ceth (Jay Brannon) as a third partner.
Meanwhile, the dominatrix Severin (Lindsay Beamish) befriends Sofia and they form an awkward relationship. Toss in Caleb (Peter Stickles), a peeping tom and stalker who is obsessed with Jamie and James, and you’ve got an impressive league of extraordinarily fragile and confused misfits.
The characters all frequent a sex club called Shortbus (in school, the smaller buses were for the challenged and gifted), located in a surreal New York that is clearly still feeling the rawness of 9/11. The tragedy undoubtedly left a lot of the city’s residents numb and the Shortbus characters all seem to be turning to sex as a way of reminding themselves that they are alive, trying to connect with people in the most intense and tangible way they know.
Studies have shown that pregnancy numbers skyrocket in the wake of large disasters, whether they are natural, like earthquakes, or man-made, like 9/11, which saw a 20 per cent rise. The theory is that people feel small and vulnerable and their survival instinct kicks in; the need to perpetuate the race and get in touch with another human being in the most intimate way possible.
That is the essence of Shortbus and what allows it to be both sad and comedic. It is about misfits, people who felt disconnected before 9/11 and only feel more so now. Their attempts to feel and be needed are so desperate and naïve that they are often hilarious.
My favorite scene (spoiler alert!) is when there is a threesome with Jamie, James and Ceth, and Jamie sings “The Star-spangled Banner” into Ceth’s ass. Jamie asks if that’s the first time someone has sang the U.S. anthem in his ass, to which Ceth quickly responds, “No.”
Mitchell also wrote, directed and starred in the tremendously entertaining cult movie, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He’s obviously not trying to win mainstream audiences with these first two movies; he’s just telling different stories and he’s telling them well. If only all artists were so bold.

NHL fans get the shaft again

Well, it sure looks like NBC was a great choice for NHL hockey. This past Sunday, with the Ducks and Red Wings set to go into overtime, NBC decided to switch over to something more exciting: horse racing!
That’s right. And it wasn’t even race time yet. It was the Preakness pre-race show! Hmm. The NHL Western Conference final vs a horse racing pre-show . . . Dave Hodge must have tossed 10 pencils behind his back!*
It’s bad enough that play-by-play guy, Mike Emrick, uses expressions like “padded down” (leg save) and “waffle-boarded” (blocker save). Now the great game of hockey gets pushed aside for midgets on horses going in a circle.
What next? "We are now going to leave game seven of the Stanley Cup final now for the preliminary match of the southeast regional crokinole championships!"
Okay, moving on to even stupider (it’s a word if I say it is) stuff: the NHL finals don’t start until Monday. That’s right: a six-fricking’ day lay-off. I’ll be thinking football by then!
Today is Wednesday. I could have lived with Saturday, always a good night for hockey.
What’s the deal? Is there a dog show at the Honda Centre?
And I thought the NBA playoff schedule was hard to follow.

*(for those of you who are too young to remember, CBC cut from a game once, way back when Dave Hodge was with them. An unimpressed Hodge voiced his disappointment in CBC and tossed his pencil in the air in frustration. Shortly after that, Hodge was sent packing by CBC.)

Pan's Labryinth something to behold

I was recently the winner of a 52-inch flatscreen plasma TV in a draw, and the timing couldn’t have been better, with Pan’s Labryinth just being released on DVD.
For anyone who hasn’t yet seen this movie, if you don’t have a big screen TV, find someone who does because that is the only way to truly appreciate this beautiful film.
Pan’s Labryinth is set in 1944 fascist Spain and is the story of a girl, Ofelia, who is fascinated with fairy-tales, who is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army.
During the night, Ofelia meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of a nearby labyrinth. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.
I was immediately struck by how wonderfully shot Labyrinth is.
It is crystal clear and filled with amazing colors, mostly dark ones, and has breathtaking camera work that swoops along with the fairy and provides breathtaking viewpoints and angles. There are also some great transitions. One of my favorite shots is when the camera crawls around a tree with the fairy, and watches Ofelia’s car drive away.
Labryinth was written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who also directed the brooding and stylish Cronos, as well as Hellboy and Blade II. In all four movies, he shows a great knack for working in dark tones and material.
Parents shouldn’t be misled by the mention of fantasy and fairy tale. While Labryinth is both, it is not for children or even the squeamish.
The fantasy aspect has some real frights and gruesome scenes and, in the real world, there are some jarring scenes of violence that are alternately numbing and cringe-inducing. Yet, no matter how horrific the content, it always looks amazing!
There are also strong performances by the cast, particularly by Sergi Lopez as the ruthless Captain Vidal, who matches Ralph Fiennes’ turn as the evil SS commandant Amon Goth in Schindler’s List. Ivana Baquero is charming as Ofelia, and Maribel Verdu shows strength and compassion as Vidal’s maid, Mercedes, who is secretly aiding the Spanish rebels.
Oh, and have I mentioned monsters yet?
The effects are tremendous, with Del Toro opting more for makeup and prosthetics than digital effects. The faun/Pan is very much like the mythological Pan, being a goat below the torso, but his head looks like an ant’s, except with the huge, looping horns of a big horn sheep.
There is also a disgusting giant toad and some other fairies but the most interesting and frightening character for me is a misshapen being whose eyes sit before him on a plate – until he is awakened and places his eyes in the palms of hands.
Pan’s Labryinth is Spanish and subtitled, which shouldn’t matter to true movie buffs because we all know that foreign movies are by and large better than what comes out of Hollywood but, if you’re one of those people who don’t like to “read movies,” make an exception with this one. It is absolutely thrilling and gorgeous to behold.
I was fortunate enough to see it the first time on one of the Imax screens in Silver City in Vancouver a few months ago. If it happens to be still playing at a theatre near you, hurry up and see it. If not, get chummy with someone who has a big screen and rent it.
Your eyes will thank you!

Stuck!

Since I just finished a busy weekend being involved in the Skeena Zone Theatre Festival, hosted in my home town of Prince Rupert, B.C., I thought it appropriate to start my new blog site with some comments on that.
In the festival, our club mounted my latest one-act play, "Stuck," which is about an executive at a social service agency who returns to his office late one Christmas night and finds a thief at his desk. From there, a verbal tug-o-war ensues as the thief tries to gain his freedom through words and manipulation. There are also two smaller roles: the wife of the executive and the friend of the thief.
Right off the top, I would like to thank the cast and crew for all of their hard work as we put this show together in a very short time of six weeks. It was rough in some places but, overall and judging by audience response (except for the middle show in the opening run - what was that?!) - it was pulled off quite well.
A special thanks to my good friend, Rod McNish, who directed the play. He had a number of unconventional ideas that were used in both the rehearsal process and in the actual production, which really allowed me to stretch my mind and acting muscles.
There were some who didn't get his set vision, with the three levels: the drunks being on floor level, the office being a couple of feet higher, and the home of the executive a couple of feet higher than the office. The festival adjudicator said if the audience doesn't get it, then the director has failed. I disagree.
In most cases, yes, the director should present something the audience will "get," but, sometimes you have to go outside the normal boundaries and even if the audience isn't consciously aware of what they are seeing, they may be "getting" it on an unconscious level and still be enjoying it. You know, kind of like a David Lynch movie!
Speaking of movies, I'll have a lot to say about that subject in this blog, starting with a review of Pan's Labryinth, which just came out on DVD.