By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week has a bit of a theme- it was about time I caught up on the two most famous long-titled drag queen dramedies out there.
381. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
This may well be the drag queen drama, and it doesn’t take long into this Australian film to understand why. Terrence Stamp, Guy Pearce, and especially Hugo Weaving embody their striving, dreaming, and absolutely fabulous (and each quite different) characters with verve on stage and tender humanity off it. The costumes and colors (of the acts and the stunning Outback landscapes alike) are just icing on the cake. Two Beers.
382. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
This film might have been a bit of a Hollywood response to the success of Priscilla, as it also stars three big names (Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo) as drag queens who end up stranded in a small town due to less than reliable newly purchased wheels. They also befriend the locals and zazz up their lives a bit, but in a more stereotypically Hollywoo kind of way. That said, they play those familiar story beats well- not nearly as deep as Priscilla, but also plenty of fun. Three Beers.
383. T-Blockers
This low-budget horror also hies from Australia, and is focused on a group of transsexual friends who uncover a plot by some kind of alien bodysnatcher-type force to take over the minds of all the possibly trans-curious white boys in town, transforming them essentially into black goo-spewing zombies. It feels in conversation with the B-movie-adoring trans classics Jane Schoenbrun is making, but at probably 1/100th the budget. To me it features more moxie than actual execution, but for fans of Schoenbrun or Vera Drew, I think it’ll hit. Three Beers.
384. The Ballad of Wallis Island
I had to double check this wasn’t directed by John Carney, but nope this British paean to music was instead adapted by James Griffiths from his own short film. You’ll have to forgive me, because it’s also story of how nice but ultimately not terribly memorable original tunes bring together a group of individuals, this time shot through with nostalgia and longing because those two individuals are a former famous duo being unwittingly reunited by a lottery winner intent on seeing them perform one last time. It’s all very nice and funny (much funnier if you’ve managed to avoid all the trailers, I’d suspect), but played very much in minor key. Three Beers.
385. The Luckiest Man in America
Paul Walker Hauser gets a starring role as Michael Larson, who in real life did memorize the board of the popular game show Press Your Luck (which the longer-lasting exclamation “No Whammies’ came from, it turns out) and proceeded to go on a record-breaking winning streak that had CBS’s knickers in a twist and actively searching out how to stop it. I liked the mix of behind the scenes scheming and Larson’s on-screen domination, and the sad familial dynamics that are gradually revealed just add another layer. Three Beers.
386. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
Yes, it fairly boggles the mind that this anime prequel to a multibillion dollar franchise got a theatrical release- it’s very existence screams streaming. Now that it’s there, though, there are certainly reasons to give it a look for fans of the books or the movies. Brian Cox playing an absolute unit of a skull-cracking King certainly qualifies, as does another epic battle at the yet-to-be named Helm’s Deep. The animation grows on you over the course of the film, and the mythic approach may not make for the most well-rounded characters, but that feels a bit beside the point. Three Beers.
387. The Universal Theory
This Swiss/German/Austrian curiosity melds a film noir setting and aesthetics with a multiverse story that feels intriguingly contemporary (with a dash of Guy Maddin-style production techniques). A young physics student joins his mentor at a mountain resort where a mysterious scientist is supposed to reveal his groundbreaking theory. The student has the seeds of a paradigm-shifting idea himself, if the increasingly arcane webs being spun by all around him don’t spell the end of him. Two Beers.
