poets-1

BROTHER TO BROTHER will be added to the list of films I show my university class. THere has yet to be a film that so perfectly captures both the longing and the anger that informs gay American cultural history and specifically African American gay cultural history. Director Rodney Evans has managed to communicate the excitement and risk of the Harlem Renaissance and use it as a back drop for the challenges of talented gay African American artists now. This is imaginative, deeply felt, and lonely film making. For such a collaborative art form, this film has a wistful solitariness that hurts and heals.

The cast is uniformly excellent, and the story is haunting. What a contribution Mr. Evans has made, what humane art he's given us. Eliot told us to "risk enchantment" in our lives, our art. This is just that successful risk.

Don't miss it!

I have rarely seen a film this bad. The cover of the DVD quoted a critic as saying the film was "A gay GHOST." The producers of GHOST ought to sue him for libel. Jorge Ameer ought to change his name since I would NEVER see anything that had his name attached to it again.

And then the acting! Could one even call what these folks were doing acting? One can only hope that the actors were improvising their scenes, otherwise that means someone actually wrote the film script.

How can that be? Who paid for and who actually distributed this film? Oh, and, by the way, the "Short" films included with the feature were no better.

Avoid this movie!

Who knew that Sandusky was another Oz? Not since Sherwood Anderson made Winesburg, Ohio THE place to be FROM, has Ohio seemed such an exotic backdrop! Todd Stephens once again shows us that being different in Sandusky may be the crucible out of which our most solid character values are forged. Sara Rue and Kett Turton--with a little help from Karen Black, John Doe, and Anson Scoville ( as the sexiest Amish man since Harrison Ford)--make being different ( Goth, fat, gay, whatever)seem like redemption.

A little road picture becomes, with good writing, direction, and superb performances, a modern-day Canterbury Tales, where the "Night of a 1000 Stevies" is as important a destination as St Thomas Becket's grave.

The journey is itself the important part of the story, and each character that Gypsy ( Rue) and Clive (Turton) meet helps to change them as they, in turn, alter the lives of those they meet.

Do not expect true love and happy endings because like all journeys of self discovery, nothing is perfect and believing, opposite from the adage, is finally seeing.

Rent this DVD; see this movie. Todd Stephens gets better and better. EDGE OF SEVENTEEN was far from being just another teen movie, just another GAY teen movie; so GYPSY 83, too, is far from being another coming of age film. I think it says that we are all essential: frat boys, rednecks, broken-down karaoke singers, Stevie Nicks impersonators, fat girls, hunky Amish farmers, Mary Kay sales queens, and Foto Hut booth girls.

Sandusky, Ohio IS Oz. Todd Stephens knows it.

Oh, and don't miss Karen Black's incredible sultry jazz singing. Why the hell isn't she on Broadway?