Review of The Celluloid Closet (1996) by Elephant S — 13 Jun 2005

[b]Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Liman, 2005): B+.

[/b]When it turns out that Brad doesn't take his shirt off nearly enough, we're forced to look to other things to engage us. And so, part of the fun we find is in seeing Angelina Jolie try and be domestic by cooking with peas. That's really what this film is all about: watching two irresistably edible stars banter and sling dry wit at each other in a blended concoction of Ocean's 11 charm, Friends metaphorical punning, and the War of the Prizzi's Roses. Liman knows he's got something good here, and he lets Angelina's great breasts and Brad's porkchop forearms swagger and sway through a fairly thin plot, all the while winking at how cool his movie is. It's a good thing the movie actually.

*is*, but the fourth wall irony (see the interrogation scene or the Custer's last stand bit as examples) overreaches its appropriateness at times, distracting us from the fun, balletic sexiness we should be - and want to be - focusing on.

[b]Swimming Upstream (Mulcahy, 2005): B.

[/b]There really just aren't enough movies about Australian swimmers who no matter what they accomplish will ever satisfy their fathers.

[b]Team America: World Police (Parker, 2004): D.

[/b]What made South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut so brilliant was its surprisingly intelligence - intentional or not - and its penetrating depth. As a political allegory or a Broadway farce or as a simple raunchfest, there was always humor and there was always a stiff point. A song as offensive as Uncle Fucka made us cringe while simultaneously playing to our basest wild child hopes of Touretting our own frustrations on screen with flip-top heads. Team America fails like a Twinkie mascot who just can't squirt anymore cream. In no way did its script speak to a political stance coherent enough to even try and rebut. In no way did its use of marionettes exhibit the same flippant regard for humanity that simple paper cut-outs could (I mean, a Matrix parody? Really?). And in no way did the attack on celebu-pundits have the sense of absurdity necessary for us to agree or disagree with whatever it was Matt and Trey were trying to vomit at us. At the end of the day, I didn't laugh, and without that ticket, there was no way I was going to board the train to their little fucked up town of merriment that I had such a blast in five years ago to try the South Park humorists' new Political Satire Roller Coaster. And that's not just pitiful - it's [i]American Dad[/i] pitiful.

[b]The Celluloid Closet (Epstein and Friedman, 1995): B+.

[/b]In virtually every way, I felt like this was the depiction of a sixth grader's book report on homosexuality in film pre-Ellen. That last little bit is key, because the datedness of the subject material is particularly glaring in these post-Will and Grace and post-Massagaysetts times. How a documentary like this one could avoid such temporal irrelevance is by focusing its thesis and making a prediction or an offer in which to proceed. If you've seen my reviews for documentaries, you'll see a trend in my disappointment with some (like Born into Brothels or Super Size Me) in favor of others (like Spellbound and Bowling for Columbine) because the latter outruns the former in having pertinence to some social future. I don't have to agree with the argument or the manner in which that topic is argued, but by asserting some clear stance, people like Michael Moore and Jeffrey Blitz makes it possible for others to step in and take their discrete pieces of accomplishment and tie them into new paths for change. That's important, and The Celluloid Closet, as entertaining as its survey might be, fails to do that.