I Am Chris Farley
Written by Steve Burgess
Directed by Brent Hodge & Derik Murray
Canada, 2015
For those who came of age in the ‘90s, Chris Farley is the closest thing to John Belushi that they will ever experience. He was a live wire; an entertainment phenomenon that exploded and flamed out before our very eyes. Brent Hodge and Derik Murray’s new documentary, I Am Chris Farley, tries to illuminate his meteoric rise and fall, as well as to understand his delicate psyche. Mostly, it’s another chance to re-live some of Farley’s best bits, which is just enough to recommend this otherwise disappointing chat-fest.
Chris Farley was born craving the spotlight. Friends and family recount tales of a young Wisconsinite who was determined to entertain everyone around him. Photos and archival footage of his early performances reveal a fearless artist who was willing to do anything to make people laugh,...
Written by Steve Burgess
Directed by Brent Hodge & Derik Murray
Canada, 2015
For those who came of age in the ‘90s, Chris Farley is the closest thing to John Belushi that they will ever experience. He was a live wire; an entertainment phenomenon that exploded and flamed out before our very eyes. Brent Hodge and Derik Murray’s new documentary, I Am Chris Farley, tries to illuminate his meteoric rise and fall, as well as to understand his delicate psyche. Mostly, it’s another chance to re-live some of Farley’s best bits, which is just enough to recommend this otherwise disappointing chat-fest.
Chris Farley was born craving the spotlight. Friends and family recount tales of a young Wisconsinite who was determined to entertain everyone around him. Photos and archival footage of his early performances reveal a fearless artist who was willing to do anything to make people laugh,...
- 7/31/2015
- by J.R. Kinnard
- SoundOnSight
Film review: 'Trick'
PARK CITY, Utah -- Jim Fall's "Trick" marks a striking shift from the searing and angry works that made up the New Queer Cinema ("Poison", "The Living End", "The Hours and Times") that dramatically shook up American movies at the start of the decade. Significantly, it also lacks the formal ambition of those films.
Exuberant but slight, this Fine Line Features acquisition is a work of limited ambition and modest pleasures that never quite attains the level of a fully thought-out work of art. The film should strike a chord with gay audiences eager to deconstruct the negative presuppositions about their lives. But upon deeper reflection, the movie seems unusually conservative and restrained, as if it were afraid to fully explore the distinct separation of gay and straight sensibilities.
To a large extent, the highly personal "Trick" functions as a gay "After Hours", its narrative detailing the epic, absurd experiences of its two radically different men trying to consummate an unlikely, albeit deeply felt attraction. Ambitious musical theater writer and composer Gabriel (Christian Campbell) crosses paths with the dreamy object of his desire, Mark John Paul Pitoc), a handsome, well-built "go-go boy" he fantasized about at a local strip club.
The conflict arises out of the increasingly absurd and sometimes funny succession of events that preclude them from carrying out their impulses. In their pursuit of carnal bliss, they pass through a gay Greenwich Village milieu of drag queens, muscle boys, piano singers and loners searching for their ideal mate. Neither stereotyped nor pathologized, the cultural definition is etched in painterly strokes with verve and insight.
Fall and screenwriter Jason Schafer incorporate deft reversals into the narrative, in particular their ability to suggest unforeseen nuances and depth in their characters (especially Pitoc, who appears at the start as vacant, though he turns out to be surprisingly complex). It's a film of excellent moments (such as a fantastic sequence in a bathroom bar involving Gabriel and a forbidding drag queen) that unfortunately never coalesces into the work the movie occasionally promises.
The film is conventionally put together. Fall can't break out of the script's circular, repetitive structure in which the pattern of attraction, estrangement and reconciliation is excessively deployed. Worst of all, Tori Spelling has a featured part as a desperately narcissistic actress rather unconvincingly put forth as Gabriel's muse and best friend.
Spelling has been used to ironic effect before ("The House of Yes"), but her shrill, hyper, one-note performance here becomes the stuff of nightmares. She needs to calm down. The other key performers -- Lorri Bagley as an aggressively straight and uninhibited woman, Steve Hayes as a bar singer and Clinton Leupp in drag -- are moving and exact.
TRICK
Fine Line Features
A Roadside Attractions and Good Machine production
Producers: Eric d'Arbeloff, Jim Fall, Ross Katz
Director: Jim Fall
Executive producers: Anthony Bregman, Mary Jane Skalski
Co-producer: Robert Hawk
Screenwriter: Jason Schafer
Director of photography: Terry Stacey
Production designer: Jody Asnes
Editor: Brian A. Kates
Composer: David Friedman
Costume designer: Tracy McKnight
Choreographer: Robin Carrigan
Casting director: Susan Shopmaker
Color/stereo
Cast:
Gabriel: Christian Campbell
Mark: John Paul Pitoc
Katherine: Tori Spelling
Judy: Lorri Bagley
Perry: Steve Hayes
Rich: Brad Beyer
Miss Coco Peru: Clinton Leupp
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Exuberant but slight, this Fine Line Features acquisition is a work of limited ambition and modest pleasures that never quite attains the level of a fully thought-out work of art. The film should strike a chord with gay audiences eager to deconstruct the negative presuppositions about their lives. But upon deeper reflection, the movie seems unusually conservative and restrained, as if it were afraid to fully explore the distinct separation of gay and straight sensibilities.
To a large extent, the highly personal "Trick" functions as a gay "After Hours", its narrative detailing the epic, absurd experiences of its two radically different men trying to consummate an unlikely, albeit deeply felt attraction. Ambitious musical theater writer and composer Gabriel (Christian Campbell) crosses paths with the dreamy object of his desire, Mark John Paul Pitoc), a handsome, well-built "go-go boy" he fantasized about at a local strip club.
The conflict arises out of the increasingly absurd and sometimes funny succession of events that preclude them from carrying out their impulses. In their pursuit of carnal bliss, they pass through a gay Greenwich Village milieu of drag queens, muscle boys, piano singers and loners searching for their ideal mate. Neither stereotyped nor pathologized, the cultural definition is etched in painterly strokes with verve and insight.
Fall and screenwriter Jason Schafer incorporate deft reversals into the narrative, in particular their ability to suggest unforeseen nuances and depth in their characters (especially Pitoc, who appears at the start as vacant, though he turns out to be surprisingly complex). It's a film of excellent moments (such as a fantastic sequence in a bathroom bar involving Gabriel and a forbidding drag queen) that unfortunately never coalesces into the work the movie occasionally promises.
The film is conventionally put together. Fall can't break out of the script's circular, repetitive structure in which the pattern of attraction, estrangement and reconciliation is excessively deployed. Worst of all, Tori Spelling has a featured part as a desperately narcissistic actress rather unconvincingly put forth as Gabriel's muse and best friend.
Spelling has been used to ironic effect before ("The House of Yes"), but her shrill, hyper, one-note performance here becomes the stuff of nightmares. She needs to calm down. The other key performers -- Lorri Bagley as an aggressively straight and uninhibited woman, Steve Hayes as a bar singer and Clinton Leupp in drag -- are moving and exact.
TRICK
Fine Line Features
A Roadside Attractions and Good Machine production
Producers: Eric d'Arbeloff, Jim Fall, Ross Katz
Director: Jim Fall
Executive producers: Anthony Bregman, Mary Jane Skalski
Co-producer: Robert Hawk
Screenwriter: Jason Schafer
Director of photography: Terry Stacey
Production designer: Jody Asnes
Editor: Brian A. Kates
Composer: David Friedman
Costume designer: Tracy McKnight
Choreographer: Robin Carrigan
Casting director: Susan Shopmaker
Color/stereo
Cast:
Gabriel: Christian Campbell
Mark: John Paul Pitoc
Katherine: Tori Spelling
Judy: Lorri Bagley
Perry: Steve Hayes
Rich: Brad Beyer
Miss Coco Peru: Clinton Leupp
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/4/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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