NAKED AS WE CAME

NAKED AS WE CAME
Written and Directed by Richard LeMay
Starring Ryan Vigilant, Benjamin Weaver, Karmine Alers and S. Lue McWilliams

If you’re the type of person who likes your movies melancholic and melodramatic, than NAKED AS WE CAME is the movie for you. This is not to say that the film doesn’t satisfy on these levels, but rather that you have to be prepared to dive into a particular mood for the entirety of the film. If you are properly armed to handle the onslaught of yelling and screaming in this family drama, then you may actually leave in tears. With films like this one, that is the point.

Elliot and Laura (Ryan Vigilant and Karmine Alers) are hardly model children. They run the family laundry business in New York City like dutiful offspring, but they bear so much resentment toward their deceased father for saddling them with this responsibility (let alone destroying their family) and their still living mother for, well, just being a bad mother to them while they were growing up. When they return home for the first time in over a year to insist that their aging mother (played with great fervor by S. Lue McWilliams) return with them to live out the rest of her years, they find that she barely has days left to live. To further aggravate the situation, which is truly unnecessary with these three high strung characters, the mother has a live-in houseguest that no one can quite figure out (Benjamin Weaver).

I often did not understand why everyone in NAKED AS WE CAME felt the need to yell all the time. Sometimes I laughed out loud at how ridiculous they were all being but other times, I was unexpectedly punched in the stomach by how honest they were being. And while it may feel claustrophobic at times to be trapped with this much drama, I came out the other side feeling a little less burdened and little more learned.

Black Sheep was also fortunate enough to interview the film's director during the festival and that goes a little something like this ...

LET'S GET NAKED

An interview with NAKED AS WE CAME writer/director, Richard LeMay

Richard LeMay wears many a hat, from producer to writer and director, depending on the day. This weekend he is in Toronto for the Inside Out LGBT 2012 Film Festival and wearing all his hats at once to present his latest film, NAKED AS WE CAME. Given how much responsibility that has to come with, LeMay is as cool as can be when we chat just hours before his film screens.

“I really didn’t know what I was doing at first,” LeMay explains when I ask how he managed to begin building his impressive independent resume. “I didn’t go to film school. I just started making movies.” This does not always bode well for the finished product but LeMay credits the LGBT audience for providing him with the chance to develop his craft. “When it comes to this market, there is always a need for content. This is not necessarily a good thing because my first couple of movies weren’t very good.”

LeMay himself

His latest, NAKED AS WE CAME, is quite good. It still reads like an independent feature made by an untrained filmmaker but the emotion is quite palpable and effective, proving LeMay’s strength with character and story. This particular story finds a brother and sister (Ryan Vigilant and Karmine Alers) returning home to find out about and subsequently deal with their mother’s (S. Lue McWilliams) imminent death. I found it to be quite depressing but LeMay sees it quite differently.

“I’ve always thought of it as a funny movie,” he begins. “When you see it alone in your living room, its a very different experience from seeing it with a crowd of people.” He’s probably right considering alone in my living room is exactly how I saw it.

LeMay drew from experiences with his friends for the inspiration behind NAKED AS WE CAME. In one year, seven of his closer friends lost loved one’s and one in particular, actually had the chance to say goodbye before it happened. “It is one of the most painful things one can go through but it is also an incredible gift because not everyone gets the opportunity.” It is not directly about any one experience but LeMay still tried to be as honest as he could be. “I just tried to be as truthful to where I thought it could go.”

LeMay, second from right, on Naked as We Came set

LeMay and I chat a bit about the present and future state of gay cinema before I let him go to experience the glorious Toronto weather. Something he says about a question he had a recent screening though I think best captures where the genre is heading. “This one guy commented that the film has a very European ending and that he wishes it could have been a happy one instead. For me, it is a happy ending though. These characters are not succumbing to their patterns; they’re breaking them.”

MORGAN

MORGAN
Written by Michael D. Akers and Sandon Berg
Directed by Michael D. Akers
Starring Leo Minaya and Jack Kesy

For a movie about how no obstacle can stand in the way of true love, MORGAN is awfully depressing. When we first meet the title character in Michael D. Akers’ latest gay-themed love story, he is getting out of bed to what seems like a pretty meaningless existence. He is recently handicapped and, after wheeling himself to the fridge for a beer, he plops himself on the couch and just starts piling them back and watching television. The man just got up and the movie just got started. I miss the days when gay meant happy.

Structurally, MORGAN is extremely straight forward. In fact, at first, it is almost unbearably so. Morgan, played by sweet-faced, Leo Minaya, used to be a basketball and cyclist trophy winner before his accident. His mother (Madalyn McKay) dotes on him but sees him as a burden; his best friend is a sassy, black girl (Darra Boyd), who incidentally has about as much sass as a door stop; and he can’t seem to get his, uh, equipment to work. Basically, everything is set up so that by the time Morgan meets Dean (Jack Kesy) in a park one night, the audience is ready to let love overcome all of Morgan’s misfortune. They have no other choice really.

My being a sucker for a pretty face and a naive champion of love conquering all, I fell for the journey these two boys took to find love, despite the corny dialogue and sometimes forced delivery. Some of the harder questions, like how they can be intimate with each other or how they both wish he could still walk, are touched on in some of the film’s more engaging moments. The trouble is they find love way too soon, which leaves Akers with way too much time to fill after the fact. Subsequently, MORGAN amounts to a reasonably effective, somewhat endearing but mostly missed opportunity to celebrate how any one can find love if they’re open to seeing it.

MORGAN screens as part of the Toronto Inside Out LGBT film festival on Sunday, May 20, at 2:00 PM. Visit the festival website for details and tickets.

MY BROTHER THE DEVIL

MY BROTHER THE DEVIL
Written and Directed by Sally El Hosaini
Starring James Floyd, Fady Elsayed and Said Taghmaoui

Rashid and Mo (James Floyd and Fady Elsayed) are, on the one hand, the kinds of brothers parents dream of having. Rashid, being the older of the two, looks after his little brother in the tough East London neighborhood they call home. He tries to keep him in school and away from trouble with the local gangs. But when you are surrounded by drugs, guns and violence every day, it isn’t easy to avoid it altogether. This is especially difficult when the very brother that you idolize and that is trying to protect you, is also running with those same gangs.

In MY BROTHER THE DEVIL, one incident triggers these brothers’ unravelling. When Rashid’s best mate, Izzy (Anthony Welsh) is shot and killed in a gang fight that Rashid is involved in, and that Mo witnesses, the reality of life sets in immediately. Rashid realizes that life isn’t a game, that when you’re dead, you’re dead. Mo meanwhile has a different reaction. The killing disturbs him but he still fights for a place in his brother’s gang just as his brother is trying to get out. While Mo struggles to find himself and emulate his brother, Rashid deals with the same internal conflict to know who he is now that he has lost his friend. He eventually finds comfort in the arms of Sayyid (Said Taghmaoui), a mutual friend of Izzy’s, and then neither brother knows who they are anymore.

MY BROTHER THE DEVIL is Sally El Hosaini’s first feature film as a writer and director. Her biggest success before this one would be as assistant director on Paul Greengrass’s GREEN ZONE, which I despised. Fortunately, she did not take on Greengrass’s infamously shaky camera aesthetic. She demonstrates a strong sense of sensitivity toward her characters but doesn’t sacrifice any of the reality needed to make a story like this believable. And while it doesn’t bring anything necessarily new to the table, the brothers themselves are a convincing pair. Their once internal struggles become an amalgamated problem that threatens to ruin their relationship. To watch them fight to save it is moving.

MY BROTHER THE DEVIL was the opening night selection for the 2012 INSIDE OUT LGBT film festival. It runs until May 27 in Toronto.

THE DICTATOR

THE DICTATOR
Written by Sasha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schafer
Directed by Larry Charles
Starring Sasha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris and Ben Kingsley


Nadal: When the thought of decapitating someone’s head doesn’t make you feel good, that’s love.

When a movie opens with a proclamation that is dedicated to the honour of the now deceased, former dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, you know that what is about to follow is certainly going to be some of the most outrageous footage you’ve ever seen. THE DICTATOR, the latest Sasha Baron Cohen comedy vehicle, delivers this without flinching and the laughs, assuming you’re willing to go to all of these horrendously offensive and borderline racist places, follow in side splitting droves. I’m not sure what this says about me exactly but I had no problems going there and I was having such a good time, I didn’t want to leave.

Hailing from the fictional Republic of Wadiya, a Middle Eastern country where it is sunny year round according to their weather forecast, the Supreme Leader, Admiral General Aladeen (Baron Cohen), rules without any question or concern for how he treat his people. As he has people executed left and right, he is also plotting to trick the United Nations into thinking his nuclear capacity will be used to better the world instead of destroying it. Upon visiting the UN in New York City to continue his long con, he is replaced by a lookalike Aladeen and an attempt his made on his life, by the order of his right hand man (Ben Kingsley). While he tries to get back to his position of power, so that he can stop Wadiya from (gasp) becoming a democracy, he falls unexpectedly for Zoe (Anna Faris), who is of course the nicest person in the history of humanity.

Still under the direction of BORAT helmer, Larry Charles, THE DICTATOR marks Baron Cohen’s transition from mockumentary to scripted comedy. It’s a fairly smooth one and most certainly a marked improvement after his last similar outing, BRUNO. While the laugher and shock factor remain in tact though, the bite is a little less severe. This is because THE DICTATOR does not capture the visceral immediacy that BORAT did when it exposed people’s dark and dirty souls without them realizing. Instead, the underbelly of humanity is brought to light here in an oversimplified and often cliched manner, preying on the audience’s more inherently ignorant points of view on Middle Eastern culture, including my own apparently. In the end, THE DICTATOR provides the big laughs but it does so so easily that it eliminates any need for real thought on the subject, making it an excellent comedy but only a so-so satire.

RAMPART

RAMPART
Written by James Ellroy and Oren Moverman
Directed by Oren Moverman
Starring Woody Harrelson, Ned Beatty and Ben Foster


Dave Brown: Bear in mined, I’m not a racist. Fact is, I hate all people equally.

There is only one reason RAMPART, Oren Moverman’s second directorial effort works as well as it does and that is Woody Harrelson. As a corrupt cop whose 24 years of questionable service in the Los Angeles Police Department are finally catching up with him and we are there to witness him spiral out of control. The beauty of Harrelson’s performance is that his particular fall from grace is executed with nothing but the most brilliant of technical control.

Moverman’s first film as a feature director is THE MESSENGER, another film that features a powerhouse performance by Harrelson. Moverman even received an Academy Award nomination for his work on the screenplay. With RAMPART though, he seems to have lost some of the confidence one would have expected would have just grown exponentially from his first success. His work with the actors continues to shine (including bleak but brave performances from Ben Foster and Robin Wright) but his visual approach here is amateurish. You can feel the constant need to be edgy or try new things, which only serves to take us out of the moment instead of draw us in deeper. Still, Harrelson is there to anchor everything.

RAMPART also boasts a screenwriting credit from L.A. crime writing expert, James Ellroy. His work with Moverman here is at times a bit ambitious in terms of the unwieldy web they try to weave but the character of Dave Brown himself is the best of their collaboration. As the audience, we are privy to so many of his darker moments and Harrelson, whom we know can lose his temper without notice in the part, exhibits so much restraint and internal struggle that by the time some of his walls begin to crumble, we can feel both the weight of the pain and the relief of the release. The film may not stay with you but the performance will.

DARK SHADOWS

DARK SHADOWS
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Eva Green


Barnabas Collins: Of all the servants I could have spurned, I got the witch.

The original soap opera television series, DARK SHADOWS, is before my time, I’m afraid. I’ve never seen the show but from what I understand, it was a bizarre endeavor that, about six months into its roughly 5-year and 1225 episode run, introduced ghosts and other supernatural elements into its world, a first for daytime television for sure. About a year in, the show reached its height of popularity with the introduction of a vampire character by the name of Barnabas Collins. Boys everywhere wanted to be this debonair creature, who is both heroic and flawed. One of those boys was Johnny Depp.

Depp’s boyhood dream of being Barnabas has finally come true. These kind of dreams can do that when you have enough money and clout to resurrect a cult classic such as DARK SHADOWS by convincing Hollywood that you can sell it to the masses. And not surprisingly, Depp brought on his long time director buddy, Tim Burton, to helm the project, a seemingly natural choice. After all, Burton is the director of BEETLEJUICE and EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. If there is any director out there that can capture that kooky, yet sometimes scary, but still human deep down, tone needed to pull this film off, it’s this guy, right? Unfortunately, as of late, Burton is more often than not the director Hollywood goes to when you need a vividly colorful and imaginative film that plays so broad it loses all its actual character. DARK SHADOWS falls somewhere in between the two Burton’s.

Burton does his best to keep these particular shadows pretty darn dark. Barnabas loses his parents at a young age, at the hand of a scorned lover, Angelique (Eva Green), and then watched his girlfriend plummet to her death off a cliff while under the influence of a magic spell (also administered by Angelique). When he reemerges in 1972, nearly 200 years after he was buried alive - well, more like buried undead - he rejoins his family, now led by a lovely Michelle Pfeiffer, and insists that they work together to reclaim the power and glory the Collins name once commanded. Any steam Burton musters in the setup though is lost once Barnabas is distracted by things like lava lamps and televisions. And then this epic, century-spanning, cursed feud is reduced to a corporate competition between fishing companies. Depp is delightful as Barnabas, which salvages DARK SHADOWS from disaster, but it would be nice to see Burton’s once unbound vision become boundless again, rather than see it consistently watered down for mass consumption. The worst part is that Burton is doing this all to himself.

THE VOW

THE VOW
Written by Abby Kohn, Mark Silverstein and Jason Katims
Directed by Michael Sucsy
Starring Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams and Scott Speedman


Leo: I vow to fiercely love you in all your forms, now and forever. I promise to never forget that this is a once in a lifetime love. 

I had immediately dismissed THE VOW from the moment I first saw the trailer. It seemed insipid to me and disturbingly manipulative. The charming and beautiful, Rachel McAdams, who incidentally starred in the mecca of romantic weepers such as this one, THE NOTEBOOK, gets into a car accident with her handsome husband (Channing Tatum) and forgets she ever knew the man, let alone loved him. It reeked of the dreaded, “Based on the beloved Nichols Sparks novel” to fall below the title, which I usually take to mean I should stay away. So what happened to change my mind and finally see THE VOW? I developed a mad crush on Channing Tatum; that’s what happened. (Thanks a lot, Steven Soderbergh!) Well, now that I’ve seen it, I’m both pleased and surprised to say that THE VOW is not only not based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, but that is was actually pretty compelling too.

Now, I didn’t realize this before, not that it would have done anything more to get me to see this in theatres, but THE VOW is based on a true story. Somewhere out there, there are two people who actually went through this. I doubt their lives were as well lit but this grounding in reality does a lot to anchor THE VOW, saving it from romantic improbability. I’m not sure whether the real Leo & Paige were quite as pretty as these two either but if they went through half of the turmoil this pair went through, their story will go down as one of the greats. Sure on film, it plays out as dramatic and overly romanticized but a good deal of credit is due Tatum and McAdams for bringing the characters’ most vulnerable fears to the surface. They each bravely give into this all consuming love and all devastating circumstance and their commitment sells the movie.

Michael Sucsy, a director who previously drew impressive performances from Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange in GREY GARDENS, seems to have a knack for making unique situations understandable and almost relatable. He can draw great sympathy from the viewer without having to lay it on too thick. It’s just thick enough, if you will. Somehow, despite all the gooeyness, I was able to see right through to the substance at the center of the film and feel their pain. What you’re left with in THE VOW is a man whose great love is always just outside his reach and a woman who knows she’s supposed to feel something monumental but can’t. I found myself not only rooting for them to find each other again but rather just for the kind of love these two felt for each other, the kind of love that admittedly seems to only exist in the movies, to live on as well. If it did, then maybe it can also survive off screen as well.