10

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

SEPTEMBER 2, 1994

ON WITH THE SHOW

Drag, androgyny, and Oscar Wilde in the movies

by Jerry Semas

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's gender-confusion. It's Pat! Pat, the androgynous character created by Julia Sweeney on Saturday Night Live makes "it's" debut in a film of his/her own this month. Sweeney is so confident the film will be a hit that she has left the series. Holy shades of Mary Gross, Terry Sweeney and Garret Morris. Can you name one hit movie which featured Joe Piscopo since he left the series?

Gay actor Andrew Robinson has become a semi-regular on Paramount's hit series Star Trek, Deep Space Nine as Garak, the Cardassian tailor. Robinson has been typecast as a heavy in movies and television for years. If you catch old reruns of '70s police shows you'll probably find him holding a hostage or stalking a victim.

The land down-under is the latest cornucopia of gay-oriented films. Joining the ranks of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Pornographer comes the film version of David Stearn's play The Sum of Us Columbus-area audiences were treated to Reality Theatre's stage version in January, and Canadians caught the film at the current Montreal World Film Festival. The film, like the theatrical version, explores the relationship between Harry, (Jack Thompson), and his gay son Jeff (Russell Crowe), and the romantic relationships they develop with other people. At recent screenings one particular scene has captivated audiences. It features a flashback in which Jeff recalls that his cherished grandmother lived for years in a lesbian relationship after her husband died, but was brutally separated from her lover when it was decided the elderly couple could no longer care for themselves. This Australian production was directed by Kevin Dowling and Geoff Burton.

Oscar Wilde may be next year's film fad with two pictures about the flamboyant writer

on their way. A Man of No Importance is a tragicomedy about a Dublin, Ireland bus driver in the 1950's who thinks he's Oscar Wilde. The film stars Albert Finney, Michael Gambon and Oscar winner Brenda Fricker. Director Suri Krishnama also directed O Mary, This London. The other Oscar Wilde vehicle is being developed by producer-director Mike Nichols (Wolf), who is counting on Liam Neeson to star in a biographical movie. More than a

century since his

dazzling trio since Uncle Miltie was on television. Watch for Stockard Channing and Blythe Danner as real females.

Following on Wong Foo's skirt-tails comes hunky Wings series star Tim Daly in his latest film. Currently filming in Montreal is Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, in which Daly also wears a dress (actually, many dresses, jewelry, matching handbags and accessories). In this twist on the Robert Louis Stevenson tale, Lysette Anthony plays Jekyll's fiance

birth, Oscar Wilde'I have a lifelong aversion to who begins to believe athleticism. If God had

will finally receive long over due honors. On February 14, (the

intended us to be athletes, 100th anniversary of he would have given us

the debut of The Im-

portance of Being jockstraps."

Earnest) Westminster Abbey in London in-

stalled a plaque bear-

that her beau is a transvestite. Could it be the Victoria's Secret catalog in his medical bag? Another film on a similar theme was

Sir Ian McKellen made a few decades ago called Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.

ing Wilde's name on the abbey's new memorial window.

Actor and comedian John Leguzamo (as Chi Chi) joins Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze (playing Vida Boheme) as three drag queens in To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar, which is currently filming in New York. Leguzamo is not a virgin to drag roles, having played a female in his one man show Spic-O-Rama a few years ago. Though John and Wesley make striking females, Patrick can use some make up tips.

Many people are already commenting on the resemblance between this film and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but director Stephan Elliot describes Priscilla as "nice and chatty, while ours is a musical, tasteless, loud and brash." (Gee does that mean Roseanne is doing a cameo in it?) The characters in To Wong Foo go on a cross-country trip and have car trouble in Loma, Nebraska, a place which hasn't seen the likes of this

It may not be for mom and dad, but those who are into obscure and unusual motion pictures should take a note of All You Can Eat, a film from Germany compiled of facial close-ups of men in porno movies having sex. The work was shown at the recent San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

Glitterbug, called director Derek Jarman's "other" final film after the release of Blue, is currently in distribution. This 60-minute piece looks back at the pre-AIDS era of parties, drugs and drag assembled from silent super8 home movies shot by Jarman's friends from 1970 to 1985. Described as a video diary, Glitterbug is a perfect contrast to Blue, Jarman's film of a blue screen. Where one is without sound, the other is without image.

The hit new, (at least here in the States) series Absolutely Fabulous has detonated a huge following in a very short time. Airing on the Comedy Channel, AbFab centers on two best friends, Edina and Patsy (played by

Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley), who worship LaCroix, drink champagne for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and call everyone "sweetie, dahling." And though they aren't drag queens, the two often dress like them. A recent episode featured one of Edina's exhusbands who attended her birthday party with his male lover. Though often rude, always sharp and quite witty, this cross between I Love Lucy and a British version of Married with Children is the freshest thing on television.

More tricks of the trade. John-Palu Davidson's new documentary Boys From Brazil is an emotional look at South American transvestite prostitutes. The film's subjects describe the differences from living life as a male to presently as a female. When asked what happened to her former male identity, one hooker replies "I killed him, because that wasn't his true identity."

Another documentary which has reached a few film festivals around the globe is Not Angels, But Angels. The picture focuses on teenage boys who are forced by Czechoslovakia's economic turmoil to turn tricks at Prague's train station. Through a collection of personal interviews, their stories are told with solemn truth and occasional humor.

I'm ready for my centerfold, Mr. De Mille! Rocky Mountain magazine recently reported that Glenn Close, who owns a coffee shop in Bozeman, Montana, raised a few local eyebrows when she bought a local smoke shop. As the story goes, the actress went through the shop's magazine racks and ousted all current and future copies of Playboy, Penthouse and other periodicals of passion and pleasure. Added to the shops inventory were Poets and Writers, Calliope, the Village Voice and the Advocate. Thank you, Norma Desmond.

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