Bay Windows - March 11, 2004
Steve Warren

WOLFE VIDEO

With campy characters, superhero references and a soap opera plot about a married man torn between his wife and a male lover, "Leaving Metropolis" should have had a fun, over-the-top aspect. Instead the drama, written and directed by Brad Fraser, aims for a serious intensity that makes it unduly heavy. The secondary plot about an AIDS-stricken transsexual weighs it down further, and there's little attempt at comic relief in the second half.

Fraser, executive story editor for the 2003 season of "Queer as Folk," adapted the script from "Poor Superman," a play he wrote before the previously-filmed (and far superior) "Love and Human Remains." He couldn't ask for better performances from his cast, but they could ask for better direction.

Troy Ruptash stars as David, a well-known painter ("It's not that hard to be famous in Winnipeg," he says self-effacingly) who's run out of inspiration. He decides he needs to get out in the world so he takes a job as a waiter in a mom-and-pop diner run by the childless Matt (Vincent Corazzo) and Violet (Cherilee Taylor).

"Don't fuck with my kitchen!" Violet warns David his first night on the job, but she forgets to tell him not to fuck with her husband.

Before you know it David's painting again-nude portraits of Matt, initially from his imagination-and Matt is like, "I'm not gay, but..."

David's best friends are women, one of them biological. That's Kryla (Lynda Boyd, who also sings behind the closing credits), an alcoholic newspaper columnist whose plugs make the diner successful. Shannon (Thom Allison) is ready for gender reassignment but can't get approved for surgery because of her HIV status.

I'm not sure whether the point of the film is that people who seem superficial can actually be quite complicated, or vice versa. During one of the off-again phases of their relationship David muses about Matt, "How did I ever drown in someone so shallow?"

There's a lot of sex, all involving Matt. His scenes with Violet are graphic while his scenes with David are more artistic, which means the actors don't have to do much more than kiss-and that they do quite steamily.

There's also a lot of talk about Superman, to whom David relates in little ways that make little sense.

"Leaving Metropolis" makes the valid point that the fight against AIDS isn't over but does so in a preachy manner. The film just doesn't earn the seriousness with which it demands to be taken. **1/2

GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS

MGM DVD

Part of the joke of John Waters' films with Divine was hey, that's a guy in a dress! But what really made them work was that there was a level on which you could forget you were watching a guy in a dress and get caught up in the outrageous adventures of the characters he was portraying.

Richard Day has succeeded in that sense with his first feature, "Girls Will Be Girls"; and he's got three male stars to contend with. We can accept Jack Plotnick as Evie Harris, Clinton Leupp as Coco Peru and Jeffery Roberson as Varla Simonds and, in flashbacks, her mother, Marla. Does that make "Girls Will Be Girls" three times as good as "Female Trouble" or "Hairspray"? Sorry, no. It's not even as good as "Pink Flamingos" or "Polyester."

First of all the script, written by Day, isn't strong enough. Most of it sounds like "B" material that was left over after the good stuff went somewhere else (If you've seen the short, "Evie Harris: Shining Star," you know where some of it went. There were more and bigger laughs in that short than this whole feature, including one line that's encored, Evie's comment on abortion: "I've had more children pulled out of me than a burning orphanage.").

The other problem with "Girls Will Be Girls" is that what should be a non-stop bitchfight is instead an exercise in niceness. Even though their characters don't get along, even try to kill each other, the actors all pull back to let each other have the spotlight. When they should be trying to top each other they're underplaying instead. I never thought I'd complain about drag queens playing it too straight, but at times I suspected Day was substituting real women for the female impersonators.

The setting is a pastel Hollywood that looks right for this glamour-on-a-budget endeavor. Evie, a cross between Phyllis Diller and Elaine Stritch, has had a career as an actress (surely you saw her in "Asteroid") but lately can't get booked for shoplifting. She lives with Coco, who is sometimes referred to as her maid but acts more like a roommate.

They take in a third, full-figured Varla, who's fresh from Arkansas with dreams of stardom, of taking up her mother's career, which was cut short by suicide after Marla lost the role in "Asteroid" to Evie. Despite a certain hostility between them Varla tries to be nice, suggesting Evie make a comeback by doing an infomercial for herself.

Varla also falls in love with Evie's son the lawyer, Stevie (Ron Mathews), even though Evie makes it perfectly clear that he's seriously underendowed. Coco gets romantically involved too, with a doctor who drugs and rapes her in the hospital. Evie just jumps any man who stands still long enough.

It's not quite Valley of the Dulls but "Girls Will Be Girls" seldom gets much momentum going. The stars might do better in sketch comedy, although they could shine in a feature that's better written and directed. They needed someone to push them over the top and they didn't get it. **

Km. 0

TLA Releasing

Judging from "Km. 0" people in Madrid think of nothing but sex. What time's the next flight?

But I digress. "Km. 0" is an ensemble piece involving some 14 Spaniards of varying, in some cases possibly fluid, orientation. They're all looking for love, sex, marriage or some combination. In the course of an August evening they come together in different ways at the same place, Kilometer Zero in the Puerta del Sol in the center of the city, and through coincidences and other twists of fate many of them find what they're looking for.

Pedro (Carlos Fuentes), a 21-year-old film student, has just arrived in town where he's supposed to stay with Silvia (Merce Pons), a friend of his sister's and an aspiring actress. Pedro mistakenly goes home with Tatiana (Elisa Matilla), a cheap hooker who is there to meet Sergio (Alberto San Juan), a virgin who wants some experience before his wedding. Left alone, Sergio goes for a drink with Maximo (Armando del Rio), a gay man. Silvia spies Gerardo (Georges Corraface), a theater director who could make her career.

Marga (Concha Velasco), a bored, wealthy housewife, answers an ad for an escort and hooks up with Miguel (Jesus Cabrero), whose gay roommate Benjamin (Miguel Garcia) is mistaken by Bruno (Victor Ullate Jr.), a dancer, for the man he made a date with on the Internet. Many of them wind up in a bar, waited on by Mario (Tristan Ulloa), who is being pressured to marry by Amor (Silke), whose sister Roma (Cora Tiedra) is also in love with Mario. A police officer (Roberto Alamo) enters the story late but catches up fast.

It sounds like a case of so many characters, so little time, but we actually get to know them all pretty well and to share in their happiness when they find it. Chief among the film's many distinguishing characteristics is the best reason I've ever heard for a mother to be glad to learn her son is gay.

Written and directed by Yolanda Garcia Serrano and openly gay Juan Luis Iborra, "Km. 0" is a big improvement over their "Amor de Hombre," which was popular on the festival circuit a few years ago. Despite the rocky road that leads there the film's ultimate happiness may be too much for fashionably cynical viewers, but screw 'em: there's enough misery in real life. ***

CAMP

MGM DVD

Here's an idea for the next season of "American Idol": Instead of a nationwide search, take all the finalists from the cast of "Camp," a feelgood movie about a performing arts camp (Think "Fame" on summer vacation.). Not only can they sing and dance, but their acting is way above the level of "From Justin to Kelly."

Actor-turned-filmmaker Todd Graff has chosen a good group of talented youngsters and given them a serviceable script based on his own teenage experiences. It's full of romances and other personal problems as well as enough musical showcasing to make the film a little longer than it should be. Still it should please crowds of all persuasions.

This is a world where it's normal for boys to be gay and the straight guy is odd man out - or in-and-out, depending how the summer goes. When Vlad (Daniel Letterle), a real head-turner, shows up for an audition a female director exclaims, "A boy! An honest-to-God straight boy!"

Vlad rooms with three honest-to-God gay boys: Shaun (Steven Cutts), Spitzer (Vince Rimoldi) and the flirtatious Michael (Robin deJesus), who was introduced getting beaten up for going to his prom in drag. The hag to these three fags is Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat), who would have gone to her prom alone if she hadn't paid her brother $60 to go with her.

Other characters include Jenna (Tiffany Taylor), whose father had her jaw wired shut as a compromise because he wanted her to go to Weight Watchers camp; rich bitch Jill (Alana Allen), who turns doting Fritzi (Anna Kendrick) into her servant after initially claiming not to recognize her, even though they'd appeared together the previous summer in "'Night, Mother," a two-character play.

The campers put on a show, usually a full-scale Broadway musical, every two weeks, and a benefit show at the end of the summer. The superstar of the staff is Bert Hanley (Don Dixon), a songwriter who had a hit show in 1989 and has been going steadily and drunkenly downhill ever since.

A complicated romance develops between Ellen and Vlad, who seems to give everyone what they want. Well, maybe not everyone, although we're never sure if the strong bond he forms with Michael will remain platonic. The scene where Vlad reveals his dark secret to Michael is a classic.

It's not clear what Vlad is doing with these people who would be considered misfits in any other milieu ("We have a sports counselor?" a boy exclaims on the bus to camp while his fellow campers continue singing "Losing My Mind"), except that every teenager, however mainstream, feels like a misfit.

We see some auditions and at least one number from each of the camp musicals: "Follies," "Promises, Promises" and "Company"; but late in the film there's a shift toward original songs, supposedly written by Hanley. Mediocre at best, they sound like rejects from "Fame" (Two were written by "Fame" composer Michael Gore and Broadway lyricist Lynn Ahrens.) I was relieved when none of them was nominated for an Oscar so I don't have to eat these words - or even count the letters (You'll understand that after you see "Camp.").

"Camp" is dedicated to gay playwright Arthur Laurents and features a cameo by a gay composer other critics may identify but I prefer to leave as a pleasant surprise. The original score is by another gay composer, Stephen Trask ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch").

Depending on his degree of drunkenness Bert offers advice that may or may not be helpful and positive. On a bad day he delivers a tirade, including, "The foundation that's being laid here is not going to help you in the real world," and negative comments about fag hags and gay boys who hope to convert straights. On a better day Bert counsels Fritzi, "It's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done."

Todd Graff and the others who have done "Camp" should have no regrets.

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