This blog will present news items about the motion picture business, with emphasis on lower budget, independent film in most cases. Some reviews or commentaries on specific films, with emphasis on significance (artistic or political) or comparison, are presented. Note: No one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"! Starting in May 2016, many of the reviews for new feature films have been done on a hosted Wordpress site, and this blog now mostly does shorts and older films.
Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!
Make your own LGBT film festival on YouTube -- some interesting new stuff (short films)
Here are three short “gay” films on YouTube, reviewed.
The main attraction is “Teens Like Phil” (2012), 20 minutes,
directed by Dominic Haxton and David Rosler, from ASPD films (linkon YouTube; official site ) . A gay teen, Phil (Adam Donovan)
faces bullying in high school, which seems to be located in Brooklyn, NY, near
Fort Hamilton. One of the bullies is a
former friend, Adam (Rosler), who, according to a backstory, became angry when
Phil made a pass while they were observing Phil’s obese, stoned uncle sleeping
in the woods. It seems that Phil also
watches films of Adam working out on a computer.
The narrative gets complicated, with Phil’s parents, and a
teacher who, after an essay Phil turned in on personal experiences related to “Janus”,
has arranged counseling. Phil attempts
to hang himself but the film implies that Adam finds him in time. So the story is rather specific and
nuanced. One can imagine making a
documentary about Tyler Clementi.
The style of the film resembles that of a Terrence Malick retrospect and meditation, with certain choppy flashbacks and contemplative music. There is a speaker talking about entropy and decay and how reproduction is nature's only answer. As for looks. Phil is as perfect as one can get.
The next film was "Hearts and Hotel Rooms" (2007), 13 minutes,
by Justin Nicholas James, distributed by HBO, which charges $1.49 to watch the
film on YouTube (link; official sitehere ) . Brian (Wes Tyler) meets Jimmy (Aaron
Harp) in a bar and they have an encounter in a Beverly Hills hotel. The film presents the story out sequence, and
even rolls the film action backwards, as if there were a time machine. The characters seem overdressed for
California climate. Brian loses his wedding ring (is it heterosexual? – given the
time the film was shot, pre Prop-8) and has to get it back. Jimmy may lose something more subtle. I think the choppy narrative drains the film
of potential suspense.
In "Eden" (2014, 15 minutes), by Sean Willis (Youtube link) two young men are locked in a mental hospital named after the film in 2042 in a fascistic state. They come up with a clever scheme to escape "the cure".
Then there is “Gay Over” (2014, 8 min, directed Mitchell
Bonen, from LA Outfest and Sony Shorts, link), Austin MacKinnon plays a gay teen who meets a disapproving father and again
ponders suicide. But video games let him
enter an alternate universe where he is accepted.
"The Language of Love" (2013, 9 min), from the Voices Project, produced by Ellen DeGeneres, directed by Laura Scrivano, presents Kim Ho in a classroom, talking about his best friend in a soliloquy, almost as if from "Carousel".
“Audition” (2014, by Adam Tyree, 6 min). A young actor (Brett Green) reads some kinky
lines to the director before a green screen.
Is there a connection between the part and his real life? Then the director asks him to strip so his
body (“thmooth”) can be inspected for permanent perfection.
The opening of my own script “Make the A-List” has an
audition with somewhat parallel cirucimstances, writeup on Wordpress here.
I auditioned for one part myself in 2002 while living in
Minneapolis, that of a Nazi ghost in the film “The Retreat” by Darin Heinis,
set in 1944 in the Hurtgen Forest, with American troops during the Battle of
the Bulge. I almost got the part.
No comments:
Post a Comment