Marion M. Merritt

It has been 53 years since the former Marine, George Jorgensen Jr. underwent his very public sex reassignment surgery, becoming the infamous Christine Jorgensen, one of the first MTF transsexuals to openly discuss her life. Although sexual reassignment surgery has been performed since the 30s, it had always been an underground topic. The whole idea of the psycho-sexual aspects of the person involved and the psychological need to physically change one’s gender in order to feel whole is still as much of an enigma today as then, even in the Gay and Lesbian community.

In Transamerica we are introduced to a MTF pre-op transsexual, Bree. Will she, within the framework of a road trip, family drama,  help shed some light on a transgender person’s struggles and triumphs and entertain us?

Transamerica
4 Stars

In the bustling world of Los Angeles, the extremely uptight, Bree Osbourne (played with perfection by Felicity Huffman) has a lot on her plate. Between her elocution lessons, to perfect the female speech tone, she is working two jobs as a dishwasher/waitress in a family-run Mexican restaurant and the humiliating job of a telephone solicitor.

But, Bree knows all of the angry hang-ups and having her hands in suds and hot water have been worth it. In an office visit with her New Age therapist, Margaret (Elizabeth Pena), who is all at once warm, yet tough with her demands of total honesty from Bree, we learn that in a week Bree will have her final operation to complete her male to female transformation. She has been through all the required therapy, has lived 24/7 as a woman, takes her hormones and is more than ready. All she needs is for Margaret to sign the final consent forms and she is set.

A phone call from a New York City jail asking for Stanley Osbourne, the former Bree, notifying her that his son is in need of bail, throws a curve into her plans. She knows it is possible that her one time sexual encounter with a college friend could have produced this son. When Bree informs Margaret of her dilemma and her solution to forget about this call for help, Margaret refuses to sign her final papers until Bree faces, explores and hopefully solve this question of who this boy is in New York.
Bree’s plans are to fly to New York, bail the kid out, escape and go on with her life. When the street hustler, Toby (Kevin Zeger) is released to her custody, he just assumes, from her mannerism and her matronly dress that she is from one of the many Christian rescue organizations that has helps street kids and the frightened Bree never corrects him.

She needs to dump him but he says he has no family (a shocked Bree finds out what happened his mother and her former friend) and will make his way to Hollywood with or without her help. She reluctantly buys an old station wagon from one of Toby’s hustler friends and the they start an adventure that seems to be the one of the time tested ways that two people can really get to know one another: The Road Trip.

Bree has extracted enough information from Toby to know about a possible family member in Kentucky and makes plans to detour to his hometown and dump him. As in all road trip movies and in real life, we find out all about our traveling companions in so many ways that we would rather not. In Kentucky, we find out why Toby has become a male prostitute and a hustler and Bree and Toby, by talking, by being as open as two people with so much to hide can, come to care about each other.

There are many ups and downs on this trip to Los Angeles and an interruption of plans and circumstances lands the pair at a transsexual support group meeting, where Bree is even more uptight than normal. She is not one of these flamboyant types that are represented, she is a lady.

In the most important, unexpected stop the pair are forced to make is in Phoenix, where Bree’s family lives. This is where all masks are removed and Bree has to be honest with Toby and face her former life as Stanley and her new responsibilities as mother. But, there is so much healing that needs to be done, that this wonderful story does not necessary have a happy ending, but a realistic one.

The day comes when Bree realizes her lifelong dream of becoming a woman and this is a day that should be one of the happiest in her life, but has turned out to be one of the saddest. Now, she won’t be whole until she is can connect, on a maternal level with Toby. Stanley may be dead but, Bree has yet to emerge as a whole woman she has yearned to be, but she is determined to keep moving forward, proud, now filled with post-op confidence and maybe that is as happy of an ending any of us can expect.

Forget the Felicity Huffman that you have seen on Desperate Housewives the past two seasons. Her portrayal of Bree, as a transsexual, is dead on. Bree’s struggles to feminize her once male body is very realistic. Director, Duncan Tucker, lights and frames Bree’s face so we are always aware of the heavy makeup that she uses to cover up what was once a very male face. As in real life, to me at least, there always seems to be something a little off or askew about most of the trans I have met, whether it is the heavy makeup, the unnatural female gait, their body shape (even extremely thin women have the curve of hips) and bone structure. There is a great scene, among many in this movie, where Bree is in a roadside restaurant and a little girl is staring at her and like most honest children, she asks if Bree is a boy or a girl. This shocks Bree because she is convinced that all she has done, up to this point, has made her almost indistinguishable from a woman.

But that is just it, Bree has to try too hard at her femininity, which does not come natural and for Felicity Huffman to do this Victor/Victoria-like switch throughout this movie is a true test of her greatness as an actress. I truly believed Huffman as a pre-op trans. The choices that Bree made are some that no woman would, for example, driving across the country in skirts, frilly blouses and jackets, with scarves always draped around her neck and four-inch wedges. Only someone out to prove their femininity would. At first I thought the constant wearing of scarves and turtlenecks by Bree, was to cover up an Adam’s apple that had not been shaved down yet, but, there were times when Bree’s scarf was gone and there was no sign of an Adam’s apple, so I couldn‘t tell if that was an editing mistake or not.

In a touching segment of the road trip, involving Calvin (Graham Greene) who the duo meet in a truck stop when they are down on their luck, gives us hope that despite her reserve, Bree has a sexual charm that can come through and maybe she won’t have to spend her life without love. Calvin, as the wise soul, who has made his share of mistakes, seems just like the kind of man that would be able to get through Bree’s past and see her for the woman she has become.

Although how Bree and Toby end up in Phoenix, broke and having to rely on her estranged family for help, seemed to me contrived and unbelievable and a lazy way to move the plot to this point, we need to understand more of Stanley/Bree’s past and there is no better way to bring out all of our psychological messes than an unexpected family reunion. British actress, Finonnula Flanagan as Bree’s sun-soaked, sometimes hysterical, sometimes rational mother, Elizabeth, performance is nothing short of brilliant, where it could have been the most irritating. As much as I was in Bree’s corner and understood her need for acceptance, I could have nothing but empathy for a mother who felt as if she lost her beloved son.

Burt Young, as Bree’s mostly silent father, Murray, facial expressions and body language helps us realize what it has been like to live and to love the high strung Elizabeth. The fact that Bree’s younger sister, Sidney (Carrie Dreston) is just out of rehab, completes this family’s dysfunctional portrait. And even though Stanley is dead, at least Bree has given her mother something to live for and possibly another life to ruin, a grandson.

This is a movie that could have been dripping in mush and sentimentality, but writer and director Tucker, keeps us grounded in reality. Bree’s life is not the happy one she expected after her surgery because of the hole in her heart that needs to be healed. Toby’s Hollywood dreams of being a Gay porn star is not all that he dreamed of either. They need each other to really start to be whole humans, but, as we see in the last scene with Toby making an hesitant but necessary connection with Bree, his mother, I had the uneasy feeling that the life-long hustler in Toby, may not know how to stop pulling the hustle.

 

Despite all the terms and comedic monologues that have been associated with the film Brokeback Mountain, as a “gay cowboy” movie, one of the many terms I find missing most are introspective and reflective. This is a film that stays with you, long after the final credits. This film has sparked long, intense discussions with friends, casual acquaintances, even strangers. These discussions usually occur hours or even days after the initial viewing because most find themselves in a state of stunned silence, looking inward for answers, then feeling the need to share.

Brokeback Mountain
4 & 1/2 Stars

At the start of the summer of 1963, two itinerate cowhands, the uber-quiet Ennis Del Mar (a surprising, excellent Heath Ledger) and a more animated Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal)sign up to herd sheep in the high country of Montana.  Ennis’s situation is made clear when he departs from a bus and by the fact that his possessions fit into a small paper bag.

Surrounded by the scenic beauty of the mountain range, with its pristine waters and possible danger of a coyote or two, the pokes perform their duties. Herd boss, Joe Aquirre (played by a crusty Randy Quaid), insist that they have no illegal camp fires to keep warm and what should have been a routine herding job, turns for both men on a freezing night when they are forced to share a small tent, for warmth and possibly survival. During a strange dance of what seemed to be a form of rough and tumble boy’s play, the two become intimate.

Ennis, a man who has a hard time stringing more than three words together, declares this encounter a one time thing cause, “he ain’t no queer.” Throughout this almost, fairytale time, of herding, playing, the two men grow as close as Ennis allows them to. One feels as if this was the happiest period of their lives.

With their sheep gig over, the men disappear into their own worlds only to promise to return the next year, but boss man, Joe, refuses to hire them again.

Jack decides to go back to his life as an also-ran bull rider on the rodeo circuit, landing in Texas where he meets and marries, Lureen (Anne Hathaway), a rich, spitfire. Jack settles into his new life, working for his father-in-law’s combine dealership.

Ennis ends up in a small Wyoming town and marries Alma (Michelle Williams) and fathers two girls. 

But, what fuels both of these men’s lives are their “fishing” trips to Brokeback Mountain, once, maybe twice a year. There, they can relive their first summer on the mountain, over and over.

As 1963 turns into 1973 and beyond, the two keep up the illusions of a family life. Jack, always restless, wants to stop the trips and try to live some idealized life on a ranch somewhere. But, Ennis, who is the loneliest soul in the world, does have a deep love for this daughters, especially Alma Jr., who he can not abandon.

Most of all, Ennis is unwilling to believe in Jack’s fantasy of a life together for them. He can not face what is truly in his heart. The rest of their lives is one of heartbreak, dangers and most of all a loneliness that can not be filled by anyone.

While the great director, George Stevens, was filming a pivotal scene in his 1951 classic, A Place in the Sun, an assistant informed him that Shelley Winters socks did not match a prior scene, whereas Stevens replied (and I am paraphrasing) that if the audience notices her socks, then he had failed and his perfect take stayed.

As I rode the emotional, mountain rollercoaster, I could not help but be distracted by small, but, significant choices director, Ang Lee, made. In other words, is there no way for all the makeup geniuses to age someone where it isn’t so obvious (Ledger’s body language was a more accurate guide to his aging) or better yet, when the script calls for a character to have a mustache, try and not let the audience be so aware that it is a phony, glued job.

That criticism aside, any film that can enter my head, my dreams and continues to stay with me, provoking internal dialogues about love, life, loves lost, never found, is a powerful film. All the alchemy that is required for a good film are there, from Larry McMurtry’s screenplay to the choices of the casting director, even the soundtrack.

It is a shame that so many people find the fact that Jack and Ennis would remain in the closet, suffering and sacrificing a life of love and possible happiness unbelievable . The fact is that Jack and Ennis’s story is still being lived today. In the future, maybe the social scientist will be able to explain the “closet” phenomenon. The complicated formula that is love and the pursuit of that loves takes courage and that is what our cowboys lacked.

Some may feel, at over two hours, this is a slow-moving film, but, viewers, pay attention or you will miss many subtle signs that Lee uses to further tell this story.

When distroying a Porshe is not enough

Underclassman
2 Stars

When Bob and Harvey Weinstein and their Miramax Films joined The Disney Studio family, there were gasps all around from independent film fans. Now that the companies have parted ways, with Disney owning the Miramax catalog (some 500 or more films) and the Weinstein brothers walking away with 100 million dollars (40 million less than ex-Mouse, ex-uber agent, Michael Ovitz ). With about 60 or so Miramax films in the can or in post-production, Disney has begun to dump this sometimes, un-Miramax-like product on to the screens and possibly an unsuspecting public, at a furious pace. This helps explain why the action/ comedy -light Underclassman is hitting your neighborhood Cineplex in September, instead of the height of the Summer action season.

Baby-faced (and Wayan brother look-a-like/ sound-a-like/mug-a-like), bike cop Tracy “Tre” Stokes (Nick Cannon, Drumline, Shall We Dance) can not and will not follow any of the LAPD’s rules of procedure in order to catch a criminal. His busts will no doubt wreck havoc on the force, the civil rights of the accused and innocent bystanders caught up in the chaos of this overzealous rookie.

Threats and admonishments from his father-figure, Captain Victor Delgado (Cheech Marin) goes on deaf ears. You see, Capt. Delgado worked with Tre’s deceased father, a great LAPD detective and promised to look after his boy.

Out to prove he can be an even better cop than his father, Tre accepts an undercover assignment at Westbury High, an exclusive, O.C. type of institution, to help bust up a car-theft ring and just maybe clear up a Westbury teen’s accidental death that may have been murder.

Through sheer force of will and his great athletic gifts, Tre is able to be cautiously accepted by the top tier of the school’s elite crowd, headed by cute Rob (Shawn Ashmore, X-Men 2), by helping the rich white boys win a round of the big basketball game against their arch rivals.

Tre is above his head in all his assigned classes, but, luckily, his honors Spanish teacher, Karen Lopez ( a very wooden, but gorgeous Roselyn Sanchez) is willing to spend extra time tutoring him.

Meanwhile, during each O.C., I mean Westbury High party, a bad ass ride is stolen. It takes Tre two parties to figure out who the crooks are, but, he just can’t follow procedure and blows the car-theft bust and is booted off the force by the Captain.

Not being an official member of the force does not stop Tre. With some sloppy detecting and too obvious clues, Tre solves a murder, breaks up the theft ring, busts some big bad drug dealers, helps his new friends in need and finds himself in a budding romance. Only after all of this good detecting and the breaking of many traffic and gun (and logic) laws, while technically a civilian, is Tre finally on the path of being as good of a cop as his father and making Capt. Delgado proud.

Nick Cannon is a very likeable comedian and the Disney/Miramax folks must have felt that they have the next Will Smith and had enough confidence in him and Underclassman to make him the executive producer. The natural charisma and charm of say, a young Eddie Murphy, is probably what is missing in his potential comedic superstar future. Cannon’s Tre can throw out amusing one-liners, but, so far he has demonstrated abilities that will take him as far as any Wayan brother or Chris Tucker. With more Cannon films slated for release in the next 18 months, maybe his game will show superstar improvement.

Director Marcos Siega’s television ( Veronica Mars ) and music video (Blink 182, 311) background shows. Any modern action film, by the nature of the genre, must have an exciting chase or two, be it car, plane, train or foot. Siega chose to film his climatic car chase, at night, balancing the speed and agility of a Porsche against the size of 18-wheelers and L.A. freeway traffic. Using the cover of darkness to hide flaws, we really never get to see the chase, only a series of quick-cuts, sparks and close calls. The sense of fear and danger is lost in the murk. You can’t expect Siega to re-create Popeye Doyle’s (The French Connection) or Frank Bullitt’s (Bullitt) classic car chases, but at least, let us see the chase and feel a sense of excitement and danger.

Johnny K. Lewis’s portrayal of Alexander, as the stale, stereotypical goofy white boy, wanna be, gets old fast. Rap, Hip-Hop and it’s attitude, vernacular and verbiage has now touched every spectrum of the young adult experience. It is hard to believe any male teen, no matter what the socio-economic scale, doesn’t know his Hip-Hop-speak, if he is going to use it. The delivery of such speak may be goofy and embarrassing, but that teen would at least know the meaning of the culture’s words.

With a few script changes, Underclassman could have been shown as any UPN or WB movie of the week or better yet, clean up the talk and light violence and Miramax could have given us the next generation of The After School Special.

A likeable Nick Cannon executive produces himself through a Summer blah-buster.

When Bob and Harvey Weinstein and their Miramax Films joined The Disney Studio family, there were gasps all around from independent film fans. Now that the companies have parted ways, with Disney owning the Miramax catalog (some 500 or more films) and the Weinstein brothers walking away with 100 million dollars (40 million less than ex-Mouse, ex-uber agent, Michael Ovitz ). With about 60 or so Miramax films in the can or in post-production, Disney has begun to dump this sometimes, un-Miramax-like product on to the screens and possibly an unsuspecting public, at a furious pace. This helps explain why the action/ comedy -light Underclassman is hitting your neighborhood Cineplex in September, instead of the height of the Summer action season.
Baby-faced (and Wayan brother look-a-like/ sound-a-like/mug-a-like), bike cop Tracy “Tre” Stokes (Nick Cannon, Drumline, Shall We Dance) can not and will not follow any of the LAPD’s rules of procedure in order to catch a criminal. His busts will no doubt wreck havoc on the force, the civil rights of the accused and innocent bystanders caught up in the chaos of this overzealous rookie.
Threats and admonishments from his father-figure, Captain Victor Delgado (Cheech Marin) goes on deaf ears. You see, Capt. Delgado worked with Tre’s deceased father, a great LAPD detective and promised to look after his boy.
Out to prove he can be an even better cop than his father, Tre accepts an undercover assignment at Westbury High, an exclusive, O.C. type of institution, to help bust up a car-theft ring and just maybe clear up a Westbury teen’s accidental death that may have been murder.
Through sheer force of will and his great athletic gifts, Tre is able to be cautiously accepted by the top tier of the school’s elite crowd, headed by cute Rob (Shawn Ashmore, X-Men 2), by helping the rich white boys win a round of the big basketball game against their arch rivals.
Tre is above his head in all his assigned classes, but, luckily, his honors Spanish teacher, Karen Lopez ( a very wooden, but gorgeous Roselyn Sanchez) is willing to spend extra time tutoring him.
Meanwhile, during each O.C., I mean Westbury High party, a bad ass ride is stolen. It takes Tre two parties to figure out who the crooks are, but, he just can’t follow procedure and blows the car-theft bust and is booted off the force by the Captain.
Not being an official member of the force does not stop Tre. With some sloppy detecting and too obvious clues, Tre solves a murder, breaks up the theft ring, busts some big bad drug dealers, helps his new friends in need and finds himself in a budding romance. Only after all of this good detecting and the breaking of many traffic and gun (and logic) laws, while technically a civilian, is Tre finally on the path of being as good of a cop as his father and making Capt. Delgado proud.

…

Underperforming UnderclassmanRead More »

Last Days
4 Stars

It is usually a bad sign when, in a movie, the protagonist seems to be dead and an audience member shouts, “I hope he is finally dead, so this film can be over.” I overhead phrases like, “it was the worst movie I have seen all year,” to “a pretentious mess.”

The pretentious mess quote was my own, then something happened. Once the ideas, sounds, atmosphere and music of Last Days filtered through my brain and I stopped challenging director and writer, Gus Van Sant, and I opened my mind to his unique vision.

Even though we know the film is fictionalized take on the last days of a grunge rock start, as seen by Van Sant, the diehard Nirvana and Cobain fans can relax. What made Cobain a rock god to so many will remain intact because none of us knows what happened and it is the music, always the music that remains important.

Last Days visualizes the story of the struggles of a Kurt Cobain-like musical artist in the final 36 hours or so of his life.

We first meet Blake (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Dreamers, Dawson’s Creek) running through the lush woods, underdressed in silk pajama bottoms, a dirty t-shirt, still sporting his hospital identification bracelet. He dives into what must be a freezing river stream for a cleansing, therapeutic swim, followed by some reflective time in front of an inviting campfire.

Blake is next seen as a man on a mission. We follow him tumbling and stumbling through the woods into a decaying mansion with shabby chic furniture, mumbling, groaning, incomprehensible. He finds his buried treasure and mumbles some of his first comprehensible words, “spoon, spoon.”

In an unsatisfying drug haze, he hides from the world, hides from friends, tries to hide from the a woman who may be the mother of his little girl, the wheelers and dealers of the music world, but, dressed in a black silk slip and coat, Blake greets and talks to, not mumbles, a determined Yellow Pages sales rep. He can talk to a strangers.

Blake enjoys little, but, he seems to be having fun, playing his own version of hide and seek throughout the mansion, in the woods and pretending to be both the hunter and the hunted with what may be a loaded rifle. He cradles and caresses it,  making it a twisted form of foreplay for him and for the audience because we know what is coming, but not when.

Then there is the music. Usually in a shuffling, mumbling, numbing drug-state, Blake only comes alive when making music. He is coherent, clear, passionate, intense, electric. Now we can understand his pain, through his lyrics and some primal screaming that could wake the dead. Outside the music, he is a dead soul, afraid of the world which no drug can help him overcome.

Although Blake rarely interacts with them, other members of his band are also roaming around the mansion. Luke (Lukas Haas, hiding behind coke-bottled glasses) mainly wants Blake to help him with a song. Scott ( Scott Green), is there to help deflect unwanted visitors. Asia ( Asia Argento, Michael Pitt‘s real life girlfriend at the time) is the girlfriend, maybe, of Luke. These are members of his troop, protectors, maybe, but, not real friends. They all seem to have their own agendas for Blake, but, caring about helping him save his life and their careers is not one of them.

Everyone sitting in the audience knows what is coming. We watch and wait and when the end does come, there is a sense of relief for us and for Blake because for him, after repeated failures in rehab, he is tired, he has shared his heart and soul with the world, through his music, now it is time for his big sleep.

Last Days is the third in a trilogy of death films, following Gerry (2002) and Elephant (2003). How could I go from thinking Last Days was a pretentious mess to thinking it is a film of beauty and poignancy? Gus Van Sant.

When I let go, stepped back and reviewed his whole approach to the film,  I then began to understand the inarticulate ramblings of a man, a boy, a put-on-a-pedestal, insecure rock god reciting his long suicide note to us, to himself. Irritating long shots of the meditative woods became visual postcards of the beauty that surrounded Blake but, he could not see. Looping and looping of scenes, some with subtle perspective changes, some not, was a view of the Blake’s world through the haze of his drugged-out, depressed mind. Van Sant teases us throughout the film, creating tension, by having Blake play with his rifle.

Michael Pitt plays guitar and sings and fronts for the band Pagoda. He has portrayed and sang as the glam, rock star, Tommy Gnosis, in Hedwig. For some strange reason, director, Bernardo Bertolucci uses Pitt’s cover of “Hey Joe” in the movie Dreamers, whose soundtrack covered the greatest musicians of the late sixties: Hendrix, Joplin, The Dead, The Doors. Pitt’s cover of a song that even Hendrix never felt he was worthy to sing, was distracting. But, in Last Days, Van Sant (he and Pitt have been good friends for years) lets Pitt cut loose in two powerful music scenes. We get to watch Blake, (with Pitt singing and playing all the instruments) tell the world his truths through the music. He is tired of all the crap that is his environment. Watching Blake create music from what was his ramblings is brilliant and electrifying.

There is an almost homoerotic scene between Luke and Scott, which is one of the many looped scenes, that even on reflection, seems out of place. I will have to continue to ponder that one, because there has to be some deeper meaning beyond the obvious.

Gus Van Sant is usually ahead of the curve in his story telling methods. He will make you work in order to “get” his story, understand his unique vision. When we are angry and frustrated with Blake, the film itself, we are suppose to be. After you have left Last Days feeling like Van Sant has made a bomb, wait, think, reflect and you will began to visualize, smell, feel and understand the small sparks and then the whole mental picture of a great auteur who refuses to tell his stories the easy way.