GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE March 16, 2001

eveningsout

The 20 best gay films get the DeCaro treatment

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Frank DeCaro is the film reviewer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He has developed his own persona, full of camp, irreverence, and oodles of humor to boot.

DeCaro spoke with the Gay People's Chronicle from his New York office, having

Frank DeCaro

just returned from Key Biscayne, Florida where he was filming his fourth annual Oscar special, "The Out at the Movies Fabulous Big 'O' Special."

He is also touring the country, sponsored by Absolut vodka, with a multi-faceted presentation celebrating the best twenty films of queer cinema from the 20th century.

DeCaro is appearing in Cleveland on Saturday, March 17 at 7 pm at the Cleveland International Film Festival, in conjunction with their Ten Percent Cinema.

DeCaro's presentation will include several clips from the top 20 films and some of his trademark schtick. He has already played to sold-out audiences in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York.

The top 20 list includes some favorites, some unexpected choices and some blatant omissions.

"Mostly, I am surprised," said DeCaro, "that there is not a single John Waters films on the list." Waters, who is gay himself, has contributed greatly not only to queer cinema, but also to independent and experimental films. DeCaro believes that, "Female Trouble is Waters's Citizen Kane, and it should be on that list."

DeCaro was with The Daily Show even before Jon Stewart took over the main seat. "Out at the Movies" is DeCaro's segment where he jokes his job "is to find the gay subtext in all films and to put it in where it isn't there." For the past three years he has also been doing an Oscar special which discusses and lampoons the top five Academy Award categories.

In the past years DeCaro has hosted the special from his urban dwelling in New York. Last year he played a gay, fur-wearing pimp/entertainment mogul driving around in a limousine with his muscle boy wearing nothing but leather hot pants as he hosted the special.

This year, in homage and irreverence to the box office hit Castaway, DeCaro plays a stranded, marooned man on an island who bides his time by dealing with this year's Oscar nominations.

"I fall off a gay cruise ship and wash up on a deserted island," explains DeCaro. "I have four costume changes, all of them gorgeous caftans." In the film, the Tom Hanks character stays alive by creating a love persona out of a soccer ball he fondly names Wilson, after its brand

name. I asked DeCaro if his show will have Wilson's equivalent.

"I can't give that away," he deadpans, "but let's just say that there are balls on our show as well."

DeCaro seems very thrilled with this year's special, which starts to air on March 22 after The Daily Show, and will be rebroadcast several times between then and the Academy Awards ceremony on March 25.

"I think we have created a special which will make people laugh even with the sound turned off," he states. "I look like Mrs. Roper (from Three's Company) on a helium pill," he explains, referring to his four caftans.

DeCaro's 2000 Oscar special was named one of the best television specials by the Chicago Sun Times' TV critic.

"We were just two slots behind the special Jesus, so we were in good company," DeCaro notes.

That's certainly high praise, for a comedy special to be put in the same company as a large extravaganza put on by one of the major networks. DeCaro believes that this year's special is the best they have ever done. The New York Times wrote in 1999 that "his campy and often catty film reviews are among the funniest things on television," and in 2000 Genre magazine named DeCaro one of the "Ten Men We Love Best."

As for this year's Oscars, DeCaro was surprised that Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger star Michelle Yeoh wasn't nominated. He is also puzzled by the lack of nominations for Almost Famous and Wonder Boys. On the other hand, he is very pleased with

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many of this year's nominations.

"I am pulling for Russell Crowe," DeCaro says emphatically. Then with a pause and a guffaw, he adds, "I am sure a lot of men are 'pulling' for Russell Crowe." He also fervently hopes that Julia Roberts wins this year's Best Actress award and expects Benicio Del Toro and Kate Hudson to walk off with the Supporting Actor nods.

Born in New York, DeCaro grew up in New Jersey and has been living in New York since 1988. "I never admitted to having grown up in New Jersey," DeCaro jokes, "until I saw the show Sopranos." He lives in the city these days with his partner of four-and-a-half years, Jim, an aspiring sitcom actress. They both live with their dog Herman, who has made appearances on DeCaro's Oscar specials. DeCaro has a degree in journalism from Northwestern University and today combines his expertise in that area with comedy.

Amy Ray

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the process that would lead to Stag.

"The songs with the Butchies were a few of the first songs done and I didn't expect them to be as diverse and as strong in terms of branching out into different styles," Ray says. "[They played] a song like 'Laramie' that's not normally in their style, and also 'Lucystoners,' which is a little more their style. When they had such great performances, it raised the bar of what I was expecting."

Fans may have imagined that Ray's solo album would pick up where the Indigo Girls' latest studio album Come On Now Social left off, particularly building on Ray's rock-oriented songs like “Go” and “Compromise." However, Stag has a much more raw sound, owing more to a punk aesthetic than anything else. Ray says that working with a smaller budget impacted the album's vibe, but that regardless of money issues, she still wanted a stripped-down rock feel.

"Most of it is stylistically my choice, what I want it to be-a punk approach, the rawness," she says. "A lot of the stuff was recorded live, with us playing together in one room-that has a raw sound, it's very hard to control sonically. So I made choices to do things that way that I thought would lend themselves to the song."

"I was specific about each song about how I recorded it, within some financial perimeters. Like my choice of microphones. I used certain mics for certain songs and was very calculated about my choice of mics and recording format and things like that. That kind of thing doesn't cost me extra because I have mics and can bring them in. Or I would record the bass through an amplifier in a big room with mics. I did different tricks. Some of it came out really well and some of it you can't tell the difference that I did it."

Ray says there were key moments when she felt the absence of Emily Saliers. She says that Saliers typically handles lead guitar for the Indigo Girls, so the solo project required that Ray take on that role-she

DeCaro also writes for the New York Times, and one assignment for that paper brought him to Columbus to cover the closing of the famous Kahiki Restaurant. "I am quite an Ohiophile," DeCaro confesses.

DeCaro seems to really enjoy his work with The Daily Show and has high praise for Jon Stewart. "He a very big star and he doesn't act like it at all."

"I think that hosting the Grammys is just a start," explains DeCaro, "he's got megastardom written all over him!”

After his event in Cleveland, DeCaro will return to New York where he is scheduled to host a benefit Oscar party for the In the Life televisions series.

"Normally I just like to sit at home with my wonderful one, eating Chinese, watching the Oscars. This year I will actually be working, so I will have to tape the broadcast and watch it again to see who was wearing what.”

Spoken like a true film critic.

also missed Saliers' input on harmonies. Finally she adds, "When I was driving long drives to Atlanta or Birmingham to record, it was very alone and different, making decisions about mixes, those things I'm used to going to Emily with."

Whether working solo or with Saliers, Ray continues to explore her musical process. She says she has a tendency to overthink, but has also learned to trust her intuition. She looks no further than songs on Stag to prove her point. "When I started

I work on my songs for a long time. Sometimes they take that much work and sometimes I miss the boat and don't realize I should have stopped.

'Measure of Me' a long time ago, it was just

what it is," she says. "It was in that form with those lyrics. I kept thinking I needed to make something more out of it. So I wrote several different choruses and went through all these acrobatics with it-so did the Butchies-they were learning all those versions, and we ended up doing it the way it was, and that's what it's meant to be, nothing more than that."

"A song like 'Late Bloom' came very fast to me, was recorded fast and I mixed it myself. Things that don't usually bode well for a song, and it turned out to be one of my favorite tracks. I think there's a difference between over-thinking and really working on something. I work on my songs for a long time. Sometimes they take that much work and sometimes I miss the boat and don't realize I should have stopped. Sometimes I'll go back to an original version of a song, maybe technically it isn't as good, but it has something emotional that I can relate to."

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Friends

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with. She's diverse and inventive. Al [Martlew] is a great bass player and has a beautiful voice."

Kelly Hogan —“She lives in Chicago now. She was originally part of the scene in Atlanta, the punk scene. She did mostly torch songs, like Dusty Springfield. She's brilliant."

Rock a Teens "They are a band I've

been infatuated with for years. The lead singer who writes for them is one of the top five songwriters for me. He's influenced me a lot. They remind me of a cross between old Spanish movies and that drama you feel in life sometimes. They're very melodramatic and I love that about them. They have that conquistador vibe. It's like Neil Young with some punk band all mixed together."

Danielle Howle "Her voice is classic. She's a great songwriter too. She's got this deep southern voice that is full of soul. She has some records out and people should check her out."