The 25th Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2015 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Stirring Noam Gonick Documentary on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics - TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE ****

Let Gorgeous Johnny Weir guide you through the highs, lows, hatred, love, heartache and triumphs of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Totalitarian Russia.

To Russia With Love (2015)
Dir. Noam Gonick

Review By Greg Klymkiw

To Russia With Love (recently honoured as a nominee in the prestigious GLAAD Media Awards in New York) is a gripping feature documentary which casts an indelible eye upon both LGBT participation in sports and the repressive dictatorship of Vladimir Putin. In fact, it's not surprising at all that filmmaker Noam Gonick would be the one to fashion of one of the best, if not, frankly, the best of all documentaries dealing with human rights issues affecting the LGBT community in Russia during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. First and foremost, Gonick is one of the more stellar leading lights of the Prairie-Post-Modernist Wave of cinema in Winnipeg; one that includes the likes of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Deco Dawson and Matthew Rankin.

He brings his unique outsider perspective to anything he puts his mitts on; especially such seminal (as it were) works as 1919 (the brilliant re-imagining of the famed Winnipeg General Strike with a fantasia upon the late-lamented Wong's Steam Bath and Bill Sciak's legendary barber shop in Winnipeg's Chinatown), his intensely diverse feature films Hey Happy! and Stryker, plus his astonishing post-modern documentary Hirsch on the late, great pioneer of regional theatre as well as the saviour of the Stratford Theatre Festival and CBC Drama.

What's thrilling about Gonick's helmsmanship in this new film is just how skilfully he juggles several vital narrative threads revolving around Sochi and how he deftly creates several sub-arcs within the overall arc of the film's compelling narrative (and vitally important political, social and cultural issues). This is not mere "journalism" documentary, but genuine storytelling with a voice (one which he shares so much with his more "out-there" works as well as his more "straight"-up television work and his brilliant doc on Guy Maddin, Waiting For Twilight).

The film follows several Canadian LGBT athletes during the buildup, then participation and finally, the aftermath of the 2014 Sochi Olympics. He weaves these stories (which include insights into the openness and acceptance of the athletes' families) with three central narratives.

RUSSIA's LGBT community under ATTACK!

Perhaps the central non-fiction tale involves the stunningly beautiful and handsome former Olympic skater Johnny Weir who will be covering the proceedings for broadcast television. Weir in not only charming, funny and erudite, but he's delectably flamboyant and a lifelong Russophile (which makes the country's "legal" castigation of the LGBT community especially painful for him).

Weir uses his position as a behind-the-scenes activist and spokesperson whilst brilliantly adhering to the Olympic Committee's moronic demands that all Sochi participants (athletes, broadcasters, administrators, etc.) maintain complete silence about "political" issues. Christ, since when have the Olympics not been political (as Gonick superbly touches upon)?

Weir's narrative melds with two important story strands; one involving an all-LGBT sporting competition to occur in Sochi just after the Olympics and the other, perhaps the most moving of all the stories, Vladislav Slavskiya, a teenage gay man who lives in Sochi and who has experienced the most horrendous verbal, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of homophobic students and teachers in his high school and longs for an opportunity to find a place in the world where he can be proud and accepted for whom and what he is. (There's even an unbelievably moving development which occurs during his plight with the famously-out Billie Jean King.)

Overall, Gonick wrenches us this way and that, as all great filmmakers should. He makes superb use of the many ups, downs, happiness and melancholy that the entire Sochi experience is infused with to deliver a film that's entertaining, informative and finally, must-see viewing for all audiences, gay or straight, all over the free (and not-so-free) world.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

To Russia With Love is playing at the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

Full Disclosure: During the early 90s in Winnipeg, my film production office shared the same floor as the artist apartment in the old Plug-Inn Gallery space above U.N. Luggage. Noam Gonick lived there for a time and we'd often catch occasional (mostly attired) glimpses of each other. I only shared Noam's bed when I was visiting as it was the most comfortable place to sit. I also never shared a bubble bath with him as filmmaker Deco Dawson (above left) clearly did. Noam has, however, fed me brisket, for which I am eternally grateful.

The 25th Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2015 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - An Absolute Must-See of the Festival: LIMITED PARTNERSHIP ****

Limited Partnership (2014)
Dir. Thomas G. Miller

Review By Greg Klymkiw

For a married couple to live in fear of being torn apart by fascist government officials, 24 hours a day, everyday, for over 40 years is absolutely unfathomable to me, but Limited Partnership, Thomas G. Miller's powerful, gut-wrenching portrait of love under attack comes about as close as any film could to putting one in the shoes of those innocents who experienced prejudice, hatred and cold, calculated castigation.

This is not some Third World country (though these days, that's open to debate) or blood-thirsty dictatorship (though these days, that's open to debate) or, say, Russia (never open to debate). What we experience in this film happened within a democracy (though these days, that's open to debate), the leading world power (though these days, that's open to debate), the land of the free (though these days, that's open to debate), the home of the brave (though these days, that's open to debate), the United States of America (never open to debate, but the country hides its hatreds a teensy-weensy bit better than Russia).

It's a beautifully crafted documentary with a superbly edited narrative arc. If it were a drama, screenwriting gurus like Syd Field and Robert McKee would be slavering over it. Ultimately though, it happily wanders enough off the beaten path that one never feels the picture is, in any way, shape or form a run-of-the-mill exercise. In fact, the movie slowly takes you surprise with its tone and structure. At first, you're following along, feeling like you're watching a decent "journalistic" style TV doc about an interesting subject, but all that dissipates as director Miller plunges you into the thick of his deftness and artistry as a filmmaker and soon enough, you're torn apart and dazzled - in equal parts - by his eventually "silent" filmmaking which leads you on the journey of its subjects to the point where you're so involved that you feel their emotional roller coaster ride to the very end.

Most people will have a cursory knowledge of the tale; two men, one American, one Australian, meet in the early 70s within a happening L.A. gay bar, fall madly in love and later, hightail it to the glorious "Centennial State" of Colorado (with the coolest flag in all America).

A forward-thinking clerk in Boulder, is issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and our couple, the quiet, gorgeous, smoothly textured Filipino-born, American-raised Richard Adams and hunky, square-jawed, flamboyantly erudite Australian Tony Sullivan (Adams reminds me of 90s HK superstar Simon Yan whilst Sullivan seems a perfect cross between Russ-Meyer-Roger-Corman stalwart Charles Napier with healthy dashes of Richard Harris) get hitched - legally.

Like, Hello! This is over 40 years ago.

However, when the couple applies to make Aussie Sullivan a naturalized U.S. citizen, they are denied - OFFICIALLY - on the grounds that they "have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots."

So in spite of being legally married, the federal government refuses to recognize it and thus begins a harrowing 40+ years battle which, under the helmsmanship of director Miller, plays out as both a tremendously moving love story and an edge-of-the-seat political thriller.

This is an important film and an absolute must-see for its subject matter as well as its filmmaking prowess. It's also worth noting that films like this would not exist without the very brave support of American public television genuinely independent voice [ITVS] and its [i]ndependent lens series. A few things in America are good.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

Limited Partnership is playing at the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

The 25th Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2015 - Two Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - WHAT WE HAVE (Ce qu'on a) ****, FOURTH MAN OUT ***

Visiting and/ or living away from major cosmopolitan centres and seeking out or simply being born and existing within small towns or even mid-sized cities is so often a great combination of escape, solitude, natural beauty and the kind of simplicity of pace which offers considerable solace, allowing for growth and exploration that might not be possible in places like New York, Toronto, Paris, London and/or other similarly sized metropolises.

On the flip side, however, such seemingly bucolic environs can also be rife with small-mindedness, repression, ignorance and mind-numbing boredom. Two films playing during the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival have such worlds as their backdrops. Here are two reviews of gay-themed pictures set against backdrops of the smaller kind.

What We Have aka Ce qu'on a (2015)
Dir. Maxime Desmons
Starring: Maxime Desmons, Alex Ozerov, Jean-Michel Le Gal,
Roberta Maxwell, Kristen Thomson, Marie-Eve Perron, Johnathan Sousa

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Talk about a change of pace. Maurice (played by writer-director Maxime Desmons) has left Paris to live the expatriate life in, uh, North Bay, Ontario. There's some gorgeous bush up there, but the town itself is a major shit hole. Canadians will know it as the hometown constituency of Mike Harris, one of the country's biggest right-wing scum buckets, a former ski instructor and golf course manager turned politician who, with his fascist "Common Sense Revolution" did a fine job dismantling much of the social welfare, education, health and cultural life of the country's biggest province and in particular, due to a forced amalgamation, the city of Toronto. Harris's constituents comprised some of his most avid supporters. Great place to live, eh.

Plopping the character of a gay man with a mysterious past and an undetermined future into this miasma of pettiness and intolerance would almost be enough to let rip in a dramatic paint-by-numbers fashion. Luckily for us, though, the film succeeds well beyond those trappings. This deeply moving, compelling and complex movie places the thematic concerns of identity in isolation - one which is self-imposed on an emotional level and yet another within the realm of physically being isolated in a world lacking most of the comforts and conveniences of a cosmopolitan existence.

Maurice decides to offer his services as a personal French-language teacher/tutor and one of his first customers is the mother (Kristen Thomson) of the sensitive teenage boy Alain (Alex Ozerov). This older man and young lad hit it off as friends almost immediately. Alain's britches are obviously going to be too big for the popcorn stand of North Bay and Maurice has clearly been around the block a few times. It's a relationship which offers both of them what they need. Maurice discovers someone who needs him, while at the same time, allows him to exercise his natural (though submerged) proclivity towards helping those who need it the most.

There's a strong sense that Maurice sees himself in Alain while the boy sees a gifted teacher, friend, father-figure and just the right kind of individual to crack his shell of potential. There is a problem, here. Teacher and student begin to develop an admiration for each other which could possibly veer into dangerous territory, especially since Alain is on the cusp of discovering his burgeoning sexuality. Maurice, of course, attempts to engage in sexual relations with the few closeted members of North Bay's gay community, but they want more, they want love. Maurice has a lot of love to give, but he's clearly suppressing it and of course, where he needs to keep it in check is in his relationship with Alain.

There are clearly very kind and intelligent people who live in this community of repression, but a community bound in constraint already carries serious baggage. Maurice himself already has his own "baggage" to deal with. At one point, Maurice gets involved with the local community theatre company and he wins the title role of Harpagon in Molière's immortal satire "The Miser". Given the complex relationship in the play twixt a father and son as well as the obsessive nature of both (though to completely opposite ends), writer-director Desmons subtly parallels the play with his relationship with Alain. In so doing, he fashions a labyrinthine series of layers below the simple outward shell of the story which yields a deeply rewarding experience.

He also elicits tremendous performances from his cast (including himself in a gorgeously restrained turn). Alex Ozerov handles his role as the young man with sensitivity and maturity, but is most of all blessed with the considerable talent to allow an audience to connect with his character while also displaying natural gifts as a screen actor. The camera loves him and with the sure hand of director Desmons, Ozerov is clearly well on his way to commanding the sort of attention reserved for only the very best.

Jean-Michel Le Gal as the theatre company's stage manager produces a healthy balance between yearning and the capacity for deep love. Kristen Thomson is especially piquant as Alain's mother - she manages to capture that perverse small town blend of naiveté, repression and openness. As someone who's lived in his fair share of small towns and big old small towns masquerading as cities, I'd say I found her performance so spot-on that it bordered on scary. In this small, but vital role, Thomson exudes the qualities of every doyenne of small town mediocrity that I've ever had the personal displeasure to encounter.

This is all as much an attribute of the film and filmmaker's powers of observation as anything. He carefully places his subjects on slides, clips them within an inch of their lives to the mount and sharpens his lens so that we not only see and experience what he does, but are given enough opportunity to formulate our own perspective. At least he lets us believe that which, of course, is what great filmmaking is really all about.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

What We Have (Ce qu'on a) is playing at the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

Fourth Man Out (2015)
Dir. Andrew Nackman
Scr. Aaron Dancik
Starring: Parker Young, Evan Todd, Jon Gabrus,
Chord Overstreet, Kate Flannery, Jennifer Damiano, Jordan Lane Price

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Shot in and around Albany, though set in a somewhat more generic version of a small burgh in upstate New York, Fourth Man Out proves to be a solid bromantic comedy about four longtime twenty-something pals of the working class persuasion who've spent their many years together doing what bros do: watching ballgames on TV, playing poker and hitting the local watering holes to nail babes.

They're all on the cusp of potentially needing to grow up, but there's the pull of why grow up when there's way too much fun to be had? Then again, they might even realize that growing up doesn't mean giving up their manly fun and games. Like most straight buds in small towns or big-old-small-towns-pretending-to-be-cities, these guys would, in more enlightened ancient cultures be fucking each other, but closets these days are deep in these contemporary environs and like the Chester See song says: "Brrrrrroooooooooo-mance, nothing really gay about it."

So what happens when one of the buds has been hiding his gay lifestyle from both his family and his buds? Furthermore, what's going to happen if he comes out? Well, as it turns out, nothing too serious, really. All the usual stuff in comedies like this make their familiar, comfortable appearance: the buds seem cool, make loads of ass-fuck-dick-suck jokes, until the time comes when they need to learn everything possible about being gay so they can accept their bud and grow up in the meantime. The straight pals actually become walking, talking, living, breathing expounders of all that's gay, albeit from their well meaning, but still stereotypical standpoint.

Yup, this is basically a situation comedy in feature length form and though it's rife with cliches, the whole thing is damn well played, often extremely gosh-darn-low-brow funny and even has a major sweet tooth going on. The movie doesn't have a sophisticated bone in its body (though its indie veneer suggests it has plenty), but its heart is in the right place and in spite of the picture's slightly machine-tooled quality, most audiences will enjoy a pretty fun and sparkling night at the movies.

Besides, I've not seen sausage fellatio in a movie in sometime. All the more reason to recommend it.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3 Stars

Fourth Man Out is playing at the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO: 25th Anniversary Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2015 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Greenaway dallies with biopic like some Ken Russell wannabe.

Eisenstein in Guanajuato (2015)
Dir. Peter Greenaway
Starring: Elmer Bäck, Luis Alberti

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This cellar-dwelling Ken Russell wannabe biopic of Sergei Eisenstein, the famed Soviet filmmaking genius and chief cinematic propagandist for Communist and Stalinist totalitarianism is replete with a wide variety of stunning visuals, but really does nothing to cast a light upon either its subject's work, career and sexuality.

How much of this dull, overwrought Greenaway nonsense you can take will mostly be determined by just how much Peter Greenaway you can hack. All others can stay at home and rent some Ken Russell movies instead.

No matter how outrageously rife with historical deviations (and nutty visuals) Russell's biopics were, I always loved how he plunged to the very roots of his subjects' artistry and not only captured the spirit of the work, but did so by presenting how the said work inspired him. Russell's films were as personal as they were cheekily respectful, not as oxymoronic as you might think, since his delightfully perverse sense of humour added the necessary frissons to reinterpret and/or re-imagine the artists' work.

It was a delicate balance and one Russell didn't always successfully achieve, but his best films were genuinely insightful, thought-provoking and yes, outrageous. For example, I always loved Russell's interpretation of Gustav Mahler's conversion from Judaism to Christianity in Mahler when he created the astonishing set piece of the title character leaping through flaming hoops adorned with the Star of David as Cosima Wagner in pseudo Nazi regalia, complete with what appear to be chrome hot pants, cracks a circus whip like some Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Valkyrie.

A close second to this pantheon of Russell's loving insanity is, for me, the sequence in The Music Lovers when Richard (Dr. Kildare) Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky, explodes the heads off everyone in his life with cannon balls with the 1812 Overture raging on the soundtrack.

I will accept all this heartily.

Alas, Greenaway delivers the equivalent of a few wet farts in this tradition.

Nothing so inspired occurs in Eisenstein in Guanajuato. Greenaway chooses to focus on the time Eisenstein spent in Mexico and essentially squandered his opportunity to make an epic feature film which Stalin himself gave his blessings to. Most of the film is devoted to Elmer Bäck's mildly entertaining nutty performance as he spouts endless bits of florid dialogue, discovers the joys of shoeshines, the heavenly experience of showering (as he cocks his buttocks saucily and swings his dinky about with abandon) and, of course, sodomy.

Yes, Greenaway does not disappoint here. Sergei's anal deflowering is genuinely worth the price of admission. Alas this delicious set piece is buffeted by far too much flouncing about, presented with triple-paned homages to both Eisenstein and Abel Gance until our mad hero is tossed out of Mexico, but not before donning a death masque and racing into the infinite behind the wheel of a roadster.

Heavy, man.

I'm not sure what I was supposed to take away from any of this movie in terms of what made Eisenstein tick nor, frankly, what Greenaway himself admires about one of the true masters of film art. All I really know is that Greenaway continues to make "purty pitchers" and has it in him to craft one lollapalooza of a sodomy scene.

Well, maybe that's enough.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** 2 Stars for the movie, **** for the sodomy

Eisenstein in Guanajuato is playing at the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL: 25th Anniversary Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2015 - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)
Dir. Jeffrey Schwarz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Jeffrey Schwarz is one of America's stellar documentary filmmakers. He's contributed an important body of work on cinema as well as gay pop culture. With a solid career generating superb specialty product for television and added value materials for home entertainment releases, he's become especially notable for his slickly produced feature documentaries Vito (a profoundly moving portrait of gay cinema historian Vito Russo) and I Am Divine (the lovely, entertaining biographical portrait of everyone's favourite 300 lb. transvestite and John Waters muse).

Based on the hugely successful and insightful autobiographical book Tab Hunter Confidential, Schwarz has another winner to add to his canon of essential work.

Tab Hunter was one of the biggest movie heartthrobs of the 50s, a huge music recording star and a damn fine actor to boot who was groomed by Warner Bros. to make them a lot of money, but seldom allowing him the opportunity to grow as an actor. Gorgeous, blonde, kind-hearted and affable in real life as he appeared on screen, Hunter was, like so many gay actors, forced to keep his sexuality deep in the closet in order to maintain his spot at the top of the box-office.

When he eventually changed agents to assist him with getting more challenging roles, his first talent rep released information to the scandal press about Hunter's brief brush with the law (which had been repressed quite ably) wherein he'd been found in the (gasp!) company of homosexuals. Hunter was so beloved by his studio - Jack Warner in particular - because of the oodles of substantial grosses he pulled in, that even this was reasonably covered over by the powerful studio so he could keep making them money.

Unfortunately, Hunter extricated himself from his Warner's contract to become independent so he could more ably dictate better roles for himself. Without the protection and regular cheques from the studio, he quickly became persona non grata in the industry and was relegated to working in even more slight product than ever before. He eventually stopped working altogether in the movies and became a stalwart on the dinner theatre circuit. It brought in steady money, but was also drudgery in terms of both the travel and non-stop demand of daily live performance in front of thousands of audiences slurping back globs of grotesque comestibles at the all-you-can-eat troughs of this horrendous circuit used to capitalize on actors who were "past their prime".

Eventually, Hunter was back on top as a film cult personality thanks to his great work in John Waters's Polyester and the gay-tinged spaghetti western spoof Lust in the Dust. Again though, he faced obscurity after this brief resurgence and Hunter turned to his first love, horses, and became a master of equestrian competition - something he continues with to this very day.

It's a great story and Schwarz juggles all the balls (as it were) at his disposal to create a significant document of the studio period in Hollywood and the burgeoning years of independent cinema. Perhaps even more meaningful is the frank look at what it meant to be gay in America and Hollywood when homosexuality was not merely frowned upon, but considered criminal deviant activity.

Using a star studded cast of interviewees and the best selection of film clips and archival materials money can buy, Schwarz is also granted unfettered access to Hunter himself. In a series of penetrating interviews, we learn about Hunter's abusive father, loving mother, his devotion to God and the Church, his heartbreaking experience with the nasty repression of Catholicism and, of course, his often scintillating, but secret love life.

On the surface, he was paired up by the studio with the gorgeous Natalie Wood and the two of them were "lovers" in the eyes of the world, accompanying each other to a myriad of events, parties, premieres and pretty much anywhere paparazzi were present to grab fodder for fan magazines. Hunter's recollection of these dates with Wood and other female stars provide deeply loving relationships, albeit of the purely platonic kind (though there is one "straight" story that offers us much in the way of genuine tears).

As for the fellas, we're privy to Hunter's secret relationships with other gay men in the industry, most notably Anthony Perkins; as intense and deep a love relationship one could imagine twixt anyone and yet one which crashed and burned when Hunter was betrayed professionally by Perkins.

Tab Hunter Confidential has anything any movie lover could want, but at the end of the day, it also offers an extremely crucial history of gay life from the 1950s and beyond. It's also worth noting that all the interviews with the celebrity experts are beautifully rendered by Schwarz and deliver a lineup of people who are both entertaining and magnanimous.

The one exception, however, is an interview with Clint Eastwood. I've always admired him as an actor and director, but frankly, he comes across as a complete asshole - at least that was my feeling. Schwarz only keeps this one bit with Eastwood in the film which, suggests to me that Eastwood must have been an even bigger asshole in material that found its way to the cutting room floor.

Then again, some might find Eastwood's remarks funny and the real reason he's represented as such. I don't know. You can be the judge. The movie was so moving, that Eastwood's bit just stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

Tab Hunter Confidential is playing at the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

PORTRAIT OF JASON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Stellar Milestone Film and Video Blu-Ray of the legendary Shirley Clarke Doc focusing on early 60s Gay African-American Raconteur

In anticipation of the upcoming 2015 Toronto Hot Docs International Festival of Documentary Cinema, herewith is a review of the Milestone Film and Video Blu-Ray of their Shirley Clarke restoration series featuring one of the greatest documentaries ever made: Portrait of Jason (screened during the 2013 Hot Docs festival) and now available to own. See this important work NOW and possess it FOREVER.

Ingmar Bergman proclaimed Portrait of Jason as being “the most extraordinary film I’ve ever seen in my life.” Its first screening in 1967 included an audience of Tennessee Williams, Norman Mailer, Andy Warhol, Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Terry Southern.

In spite of this, decades passed, yielding little more than a film that disappeared - so cast away that the original elements were thought to be lost, thoroughly and utterly untraceable. The prints that existed, crude 35mm blow-ups to begin with, were so worn and scratched, they were beyond salvation.

After a painstaking search that took years, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, God's Gifts to saving what was thought to be unsalvageable, eventually found and identified mislabeled “outtakes” as the original 16mm inter-positive negative of Portrait of Jason.

For this, we must all feel beholden to these efforts.

Portrait of Jason is with us now and here to stay.

Forever.

Portrait of Jason (1967)
Dir. Shirley Clarke
Starring: Jason Holliday (aka Aaron Payne)

Review By Greg Klymkiw

To be gay in America right now shouldn't be so fraught with hate and invective, but attitudes and legislation in many pockets of the Red, White and Blue still seem so frustrating and backward. As such, gay bashing and murder are still a real threat.

To be Black in America right now is to also be a target of hate-filled repressive castigation, often ending in murder at the hands of racist police.

To be Black and Gay in America in 2015 - well, let's not even go there - especially not states like Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi or, say, Arkansas, to name but a few. Stay away. Stay far away. Don't believe for a moment that any useless amendments (or lack thereof) made to their boneheadedly hate-filled legislation will do anything to stem the tide of hatred.

Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason, a stunning, groundbreaking feature documentary has always held a place of importance in both cinema and, most notably, in its power and insight into what it must have been to be Black and Gay in American during the 1960s. First released almost fifty years ago, it's a window into racial and sexual politics as presented by one of the most fascinating subjects one will find in that period of documentary film. Clarke's picture will indeed have equal resonance in today's era of intolerance; maybe even more so, in light of the aforementioned current conditions plaguing much of America, land of the not-so Free.

Restored and released by the visionary Milestone Films and Video, the film's importance to the art of film and gay history can't be stressed enough. Current attitudes towards both the gay and of-colour communities that still exist in so-called "progressive" societies means, due to Milestone's commitment to saving, preserving and showcasing forgotten and/or lost works, that this vital film can now be experienced by whole new generations of audiences all over the world and, no doubt, for generations to come.

Portrait of Jason is the essential cinéma vérité doc that focuses upon the irreverent gay American houseboy, hustler and wannabe cabaret perfomer, Jason Holiday. Shot over the course of one very long night in Clarke's home in the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York, the picture is essentially a monologue performed by her old friend as he tells the story of his extraordinary life with equal parts humour and sadness.

Captured in glorious standard-frame black and white 16mm film stock, the camera never leaves the realm of Jason save for cuts or fades to black and occasionally, to sound with no picture when the camera needs to change film rolls. This real exigency of production led to a superb, imaginative editing approach to the picture. Clarke uses the blacks as breathtaking exclamatory bridges between the various segments, which provide an indelible series of transition points in the "narrative" flow of the work itself.

Stylish, dapper and adorned in his trademark heavy-black-framed coke-bottle lenses, often armed with a fortifying drink in one hand and cigarette in the other, Jason recounts both his philosophies of life and extraordinary life story. For good measure, he tosses in plenty of hilarious impersonations and jokes. These are the bountiful maraschino cherries on the - ahem - ever-so delectable Chocolate Holliday Sundae.

His tales begin entertainingly and amusingly enough, but as the film progresses, Jason adds copious reefer ingestion and booze swilling by the bucketful, until the whole affair slowly unravels into a veritable Walpurgisnacht.

What we learn during the 105-minute confession seems mostly truthful, albeit tempered by Jason's abilities as a born raconteur. He gives us snippets of his childhood, his relationship with parents and other family, in addition to friends, employers and lovers, life on the streets, in the baths, in the bars and in the homes of those whom he worked for as a houseboy" (and the various permutations - mostly implied - of what that entailed). He shares his secrets in the arts of hustling, cajoling, stealing, "borrowing" and making his way through life with as little effort as possible.

"I'm lazy," he declares, "I've always really wanted to jump into it, but I kept avoiding it somehow. I always made an excuse for accepting other people's problems and putting down my own. I always became this one or that one's flunky - anything to keep from facing what I really wanted to do and now, I want to do it."

Doing it won't be as easy as he thinks.

His first order of business is a moniker makeover. Jason's given name not only brought back "unpleasant memories", but led to states of deep "despression." Changing his given name of Aaron Payne to the decidedly flamboyant "Jason Holliday" not only helped to erase (or at least suppress) the past, but ultimately gave him the strength to pursue his dreams.

"If the name rings a bell to you, makes you feel well, then take the name," he states emphatically when describing his epiphanies in San Francisco's famed Gay Mecca of Castro Street, a magical place where he met way too many cool "cats" with "hip" names, that he decided his own rebirth was in order.

Hence, a new name.

"I was created in San Francisco," he says with pride, then, with a smile, "and San Francisco is the place to be created in. Believe me!"

By the time Jason is in front of Clarke's camera, he's left San Francisco to be back in his beloved hometown of New York. Here, Jason hopes to rekindle his dream of being a nightclub performer. As Clarke's film proves, he's imbued with more than enough talent to do so and most notably, he's certainly not without material. However, he has one hurdle to overcome - not wanting to work. He relays an anecdote about a close friend who works as a teacher in the public school system; she's so devoted to teaching that after work, she goes from house to house in her neighbourhood teaching kids who either don't go to school or need the kind of additional tutelage and attention they don't get in school. What she says to Jason is as inspiring to him as it is a tool in which to morph his notion of hard work into doing as little as possible.

"One day she said something to me that was really hip. 'Jason', she said, 'everyone in New York has a gimmick. Mine is teaching school.' And from her I learned that mine was hustling."

Jason, of course, prides himself on the diverse nature of his skill. "I have more than one hustle. I'll come on as a maid or a butler; anything to keep from punching the clock from 9-to-5, because every time I've punched that clock it's been a job that's such a drag it makes you sick, and what I really wanna do is what I'm doing now [in front of the camera] and that is to perform."

In the same breath, he subtly drops the aforementioned subject of "performing" and brilliantly segues into a whole new patter. Well, it's an old patter, really, but Jason's crafty enough to know that everything old becomes new again. "I'm scared of responsibility," he continues. "I'm scared of myself, because I'm a pretty frightening cat, as people who know me will tell you." He's quick to elaborate: "I don't mean any harm, but the harm is done. A friend of mine keeps telling me that I'm always going to find a way of fouling it up, but I'm always trying to get in there and pitch." Then, just as smoothly and brilliantly, like he's been doing standup comedy for decades, he segues into a very telling, but funny story about seeing a psychiatrist:

"These head shrinkers are very interesting cats. Sometimes they let you talk. They keep wanting to know who you sleep with. Someone asked me, 'What do you do? ...Do you please them?' I say, "If I don't please them, it's because I'm not trying."

THEN, he uses this to leap into a riff on sex:

"I've spent so much of my life being sexy, as you can see!" he cheekily exclaims with the flourish of a runway model's twirl of the head, until, with his ever-impeccable timing, the requisite self-deprecation and a winning smile, he returns to the theme of his sloth: "Lord knows, I haven't gotten anything else done."

Jason is clearly gifted and it's to Clarke's credit that she's made this film if only to capture Holliday's crazy genius and by extension, fashioning a macrocosmic view of a life and lifestyle which feels at once, locked in time and yet, replete with resonance to our modern world.

He describes one of his employers as "a tall, lanky, sad looking blonde from Alabama." With giddy delivery he recalls, "She'd say 'Jason, fix me some of that chicken.' They always want chicken, cuz, of course, all coloured folks know how to fix chicken, so I'd be in the kitchen, frying the ass off this chicken, 'Yas'm, I'd say.'" He then takes a deeply racist slur and turns it into a joke: "One time she says, 'You know Jason, I never really much liked niggers, but you're the first one I ever really cared for.' And I said, 'Well that's very sweet of you, I guess that means I should have this job for a very long time."

As masterful as Jason's delivery is, it's tempered with seep sadness: "I think as a house boy I really suffered" he admits with genuine sadness before flipping it around with: "But this hasn't all been a waste. They think you're just a dumb, stupid little coloured boy who's trying to get a few dollars. They think they're gonna use you as a joke, but the real joke is this: who's using who?"

By expressing deep pain over the prejudicial views assailing him at every turn, he's clearly able to turn the tables on his oppressors. Though it doesn't seem like mere rationalization, one gets the sense that the tit-for-tat is probably more one-sided; that the notion of empowerment is imbued with a high degree of self-delusion. This surely speaks to anyone and everyone who has been the target of deep-seeded hatred and sought to fight back, only to find that they're using a shield to repel the blows that in fact, have virtually no genuine resonance upon the attacker.

Clarke deftly takes hours upon hours of footage and recreates a powerful dramatic arc in which Jason, by his words and actions, eventually takes his shield and transforms it into an ostrich hole of drug and alcohol abuse, and in so doing, Clarke captures an encapsulation of generations upon generations of prejudicial abuse and its effects upon even the most accomplished and intelligent human beings who were, and frankly, continue to be targets of ignorance.

This has got to stop. One hopes a fifty-year-old film will have the requisite power to do so.

As important as the film itself, is its restoration. Milestone Film and Video's work earned the company's founders Amy Heller and Dennis Doros a Special Award from the 2012 New York Film Critics Circle for preserving "the work of pioneering indie filmmaker Shirley Clarke." The greatness of Clarke's Portrait of Jason cannot be underestimated, nor, frankly, can the painstaking work of Heller and Doros.

The film must be seen by as wide an audience as possible and the Milestone Film and Video Blu-ray should be in every home of anyone committed to great cinema as well as work that stands as a testament to those who fought, lost and won in the battle for dignity and the most basic human rights.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars (for both the film and the stunning Milestone Film and Video Blu-Ray)

The Milestone Film and Video Blu-Ray of Portrait of Jason includes: Where's Shirley? (25 mins) a lovely, heartfelt documentary from Milestone's original crowd funding plea to have the film restored and detailing a bevy of important information about the painstaking efforts to bring the film back into the public eye, The Lost Confrontation (7 mins), Jason in Color! (2:30 mins), Trailer (2 mins), Jason: Before and After (1:30 mins), Butterfly (1967, 3:34 mins) Shirley Clarke in Underground New York (1967, 9:37 mins), Jason Unleashed (Audio outtakes. 35 mins), Pacifica Radio Interview with Shirley Clarke (1967, 53 mins), The Jason Holiday Comedy Album (1967, 54:00 mins, audio) and SDH Subtitles

Read the original Film Corner crowd funding plea for the film's restoration in 2012 HERE

Feel free to read my RAVE reviews of other great Milestone Film and Video releases: ON THE BOWERY HERE. My Review of THE DRAGON PAINTER can be read HERE. And be on the lookout for my full-length Film Corner reviews of RAGS AND RICHES: THE MARY PICKFORD COLLECTION HERE, CUT TO THE CHASE!: THE CHARLIE CHASE COLLECTION HERE and ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S "BON VOYAGE" & "ADVENTURE MALGACHE" HERE.


Don't forget you can order PORTRAIT OF JASON from the Amazon links below and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of the Film Corner:


In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Portrait of Jason - HERE!

In Canada - BUY Portrait of Jason HERE, eh!

In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY Portrait of Jason - HERE!

VALENTINE ROAD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICKS

Valentine Road (2013) ****
Dir. Marta Cunningham

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Two boys. One 15, the other 14. Their home: Oxnord, California - a tiny town amidst bucolic orange groves and smack dab along the Pacific Ocean. Some would call it a paradise, but for Lawrence "Larry" King and Brandon McInerney, Hell in Sun-Dappled Clothing might be a better name for this repressed, racist, homophobic, intolerant backwater. There are, at least on the surface, many positives when weighing the attributes of the Country over the Town, but in many cases, solitude, fresh air and natural beauty - for those who can, uh, think (at least for themselves) - must take a back seat to the numbing negativity of narrow-minded hatred of anything viewed as outside of the perceived norms.

I know this all too well. I've had one toe in the Town and the other toe in the Country for most of my life and the virtues of the latter, while vital on many levels for me, are equally stifling on the other.

There were, while watching Marta Cunningham's finely etched documentary portrait of tragic events in Oxnord, similar dichotomous feelings on emotional levels (though aesthetically I was all for this). Valentine Road is, without question, thrilling filmmaking that crackles with the power of a great procedural thriller, but the effect overall extends well beyond that as we're forced to face the genuine reality of the tragedy that unfolds. One moment we're tantalized by the sheer virtuosity of the filmmaking and the next, Cunningham steers us into territory that's heart wrenching to the point where one is moved to tears - perhaps even stifled sobs.

The facts, you see, are these:

One boy is flamboyantly gay, the other is a potentially burgeoning white supremacist. One is now dead, the other is spending 21 years in prison where, given his age and good looks, is no doubt "enjoying the benefits" of sexual abuse and eventually seeking the protection of being another con's "bitch." And these, are just the surface facts. Cunningham draws us into the true story by painting a portrait - an extremely graphic and horrifying one at that - of a young gay man's flirtatious action leading to his murder before shocked classmates and teacher while at school.

Using a blend of actual security video from the school, crime scene photos, police interrogation room footage, short bursts of animation, tv news and current affairs clips and powerful new interviews with students, parents, cops, lawyers and teachers, Cunningham manages the near impossible - we're sucked into the tale with certain perspectives then subtly drawn into completely different ones. One might say there's ultimately a balanced approach to the tale, but thankfully it doesn't take the form of the (for me) dreaded journalistic approach, but comes closer to that of the rich ambiguities one finds in the work of many great filmmakers - whether it be Antonioni, Resnais, Peckinpah, Haneke, Lynch or, among others, Aronofsky.

What's extraordinary is Cunningham's perfect balance of manipulation (great cinema MUST do this, it's only a problem when we notice it to the point where we're taken out of the drama) and the kind of ambiguity that holds onto the central conflict with the strength of a pitbull's jaws - shaking it up, but never letting go. This feels, of course, as much a triumph of direction as it is the dazzlingly brilliant editing by Tchavdar Georgiev and Yana Gorskaya.

Valentine Road is ultimately an essential film. First of all, for its exemplary use of cinema as one of the great art forms of all time, but perhaps most vitally, its use in reaching those who will most benefit from it - children. The film achieves its attributes that it will have no problem preaching to the converted, but Cunnigham's approach is so dazzling and intelligent that the movie has the potential to go far beyond the rarity of film festival audiences, art houses and HBO viewers. This movie must be seen as widely as possible - especially in schools, especially in the "country".

The intolerance displayed in the school where poor little Larry was gunned down and where his killer suffered years of physical abuse (ignored by those who should know better) is, as seen in the film, appalling. The lack of attention paid to the students after the killing, the lack of counselling and, I think, most egregiously, the horrendous treatment of the warm, brilliant, open-minded teacher who held Larry in her arms after the shooting and continues to suffer post traumatic stress disorder, are all important reasons why America (sadly, in particular) must embrace this film. It must be shown to every educator, every member of the education system, every child, every parent, every bureaucrat, every politician - everyone.

On one hand, I'd normally say there's a snowball's chance in Hell of that happening, but if enough Americans who see this film lobby all their school boards, their politicians and frankly, President Obama himself - lobby constantly and vociferously - this is truly a film that is imbued with the power to change.

Do it!

"Valentine Road" is playing at the Hot Docs 2013 Film Festival. For tickets and showtimes, visits the festival website HERE.

CONTINENTAL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICKS

Continental (2013) ****
Dir. Malcolm Ingram
Starring: Steve Ostrow, Sarah Dash, Holly Woodlawn, Edmund White, Frankie Knuckles

Review By Greg Klymkiw

You're a businessman. You're looking for a business. Something new. Something exciting. Something challenging. Something needed. Really needed. Now, if you're a great Big Apple businessman like Steve Ostrow was in 1968, you identify the hole and you fill it.

The hole Ostrow identified was deep, dank and dirty. It not only required filling, but demanded to be packed good and hard.

Ostrow was not only a great businessman, he was a flamboyant, forward-thinking visionary - an artist, if you will - so much so, that his true passion was not necessarily the free and open marketplace, but opera. More specifically, Ostrow was a gifted singer and he desperately wanted to project his gorgeous voice on an international stage - to sing in the great opera houses of the world. This, sadly, just wasn't in the cards. He was a husband, a father and he had mouths to feed and bills to pay. In those days - in fact, in most days - a mensch, a real mensch did not shirk away from his responsibilities.

At this time, the free and open marketplace was not quite free and open for his grand idea - especially not for the prospective clientele since their place in the world was not a matter of choice, but hardwired into their very being. In spite of this, homosexuality was illegal and a whole generation of men were ostracized, vilified and hunted down like common criminals for just being who they were - gay.

Many of these men were in the closet. Coming out at that time meant risking everything, so they stayed burrowed in their secret society and surreptitiously sought places off the well-trodden paths to exercise their God-Given right to be who they really were. This forced them into clandestine bars and clubs, but the risk here was even too great, so instead they sought anonymity and sexual solace in steambaths.

Ostrow changed everything. He wanted to run a steambath that wasn't some horrific, unkempt and dingy hovel - he wanted a clean class act for gay men to frolic in.

And so he bore - at least up to that point in his life, his true masterpiece - the Cadillac of gay steambaths, the immortal Continental. Here his clientele were treated as human beings, with respect. Ostrow gave them a class act to pursue their sexual expression. Once he erected his glistening Crown Jewel of steambaths, he didn't rest on his laurels and merely count his shekels - Steve Ostrow always kept several steps forward of the game and his game.

In so doing, The Continental Baths became more than a mere bathhouse - Ostrow created one of the major landmarks in Gay Rights and one of the hottest, most cutting edge launch pads for a myriad of performing artists. Yes, live entertainment, ladies and gentleman. If the action got too steamy in the baths and you sought more, shall we say, restful heat, you could wrap a towel over your genitals, retire to the performing space and watch the likes of Bette Midler (backed up on piano by Barry Manilow, no less).

For a steam bath, the Continental was red-hot and COOL - double your pleasure and double your fun!

It's a great story made even greater by Malcolm Ingram's first-rate feature documentary Continental.

This is one terrific picture. Ingram pulls out all the stops to tell a story that's brash, bold, funny, inspiring and ultimately deeply moving. He does so in such a way that the movie is full of surprises (many happy ones) and always, much like Ostrow's life, a rollercoaster - with all the requisite ups and downs. (Mostly "ups" - "downs" are downers, but they're necessary for those "ups" to be higher and harder.)

Ingram has always been a take-no-prisoners filmmaker and someone I've admired from the beginning of his career. He wanted to make movies - in Canada. Did he initially go knocking on the doors of government agencies. No. He knew his brand of filmmaking would have doors slammed upon it. He made his first film, the insanely odball Drawing Flies which made a virtue of its no-dough status - ON FILM YOU WHINING FILM BRATS!!! ON FILM!!! He made it initially with chicken scratchings and then, with a huge helping hand from Kevin Smith and his View Askew productions, Ingram delivered the picture which, in my humble opinion, has some of the funniest, weirdest writing in Canadian cinema - and that, my friends, is saying something. Smith, of course, was the original graduate of the If-You-Want-To-Make-a-Movie-Quit-Fucking-Whining-About-It-And-Just-Make-The-Fucking-Thing School. Ingram comes from the same stock and by any means necessary, he kept making movies including the all-star cast youth comedy Tail Lights Fade in which he partnered with Canadian Über Producer Christine Haebler and then he went to ground zero and cobbled together enough dough to make two of the best and seminal gay-themed docs of the new century - Small Town Gay Bar and (my personal favourite) Bear Nation.

Well, he's blown all of them away. With Continental, Ingram has hit the stratosphere and delivered Ostrow's tale with clarity, a wonderful sense of celebration and good old fashioned solid filmmaking. He delivers a sense of time, place and history and by the end of the film, he generates a work that is chock-full of elation and yes, one that is genuinely, deeply and profoundly moving.

Ingram aimed for the stratosphere with this one and damned if he doesn't blast right through the celestial fucker.

"Continental" is playing at the Hot Docs 2013 Film Festival. For showtimes and ticket info, visit the Hot Docs website HERE.

INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR. Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICKS

Interior. Leather Bar. (2013) ****
Dir. James Franco, Travis Mathews
Starring: James Franco, Val Lauren, Travis Mathews

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is one sloppy tossed salad of a movie. Adorned with thick runny lumps of yummy dressing that spew from a long-necked bottle, held and shaken with manly vigour over the wide awaiting receptacle, never mixed or smeared into the veins of fleshy arugula, lying in wait for a fork to prong into it to greedily ingest the globules that stick upon their resting place, this magnificent Salade de cinéma is an utterly pretentious, self-indulgent wank-fest of the highest (or lowest order, depending on how you view these things).

And Damn! It's a lot of fun.

James Franco, one of the great actors of the 21st century, teamed up with acclaimed queer filmmaker Travis Mathews to co-direct this exploration of gay male sexuality within the context of re-imagining 40 minutes of excised lost footage from Cruising, William Friedkin's MPAA-butchered masterpiece from 1980. A lack of time and money, however, forced the filmmakers of Interior. Leather Bar. to re-imagine their re-imagining, so what we're treated to is a documentary about the making of a re-imagining as re-imagined by Franco and Mathews before, during and after they re-imagine it.

Fine by me.

Franco, who seems particularly obsessed with what he might discover for (and about) himself (and, by extension, society as a whole), hires a straight actor (Val Lauren) to play the Al Pacino role from Cruising and film the entire process. Lauren and Franco engage in a series of conversations that feel very real (but conversely seem, perhaps, to be scripted) and deal with straight attitudes to gay sex in the world at large, but also within the macrocosmic context of the film-shoot itself. Lauren is constantly on edge and always questioning Franco's motives while Franco often retorts with the notion of how sexuality in the cinema (and in particular, gay sexuality) is repressed, while violence is celebrated. (Indeed, the MPAA ratings board were happy to allow all the graphic butchery to remain in the film over the explicit gay sex.)

Furthermore, Franco laments his upbringing (and that of straight society) which ignores, represses and/or vilifies gay sexuality. He uses toothpaste commercials to illustrate this. I mean, really, what's not to love about James Franco?

Cruising is the perfect launch pad for this exploration. The film was, and continues to be alternately vilified and celebrated by members of the gay community. Even during its making, hordes of angry gay men protested at the filming locations and the studio hired over 300 off-duty NYC officers to keep the peace. Mistakenly perceived as an anti-gay anthem on celluloid, Cruising is a relentless and unnerving mystery thriller about a "homo killer" on the loose in New York and a straight, doe-eyed rookie cop (played by Al Pacino) who matches the physical attributes of the victims and is sent to live undercover within the Big Apple's sect of leather bar S&M aficionados. Pacino becomes a sort of Dorothy in the Land of Oz - introduced to genuine friendship with a gay neighbour (Don Scardino) and most importantly, the joys of leather-clad gentlemen openly fellating, sodomizing and fist-fucking each other in gay leather bars whilst one of the best soundtracks in movie history grinds out the ever-so cool and malevolent sounds of John Hiatt, Rough Trade, Willy DeVille, Madelynn von Ritz, Lump and a bevy of others.

Friedkin's film is a masterpiece - albeit a flawed masterpiece. When submitting the film to the MPAA to get a rating, he was forced to make cuts totalling 40 minutes. This does wreak some havoc with the film's narrative, but what remains is a nightmarish vision of how homophobia (and closeted self-hatred) manifest themselves into the ultimate assault upon homosexuality - a serial killer who butchers beautiful young men he's attracted to during and/or after he's had sex with them runs rampant amongst the leather bar community clearly has considerable metaphoric value. Some might argue that Friedkin creates an inferno of evil when his camera "cruises" the streets and bars, but frankly, it's not this world of leather-clad Hershey Highway Lovers that ever seemed evil to me. It's all so stylishly, lovingly rendered that I always found it unbelievably sexy and cool. The men, all shapes and sizes, are simply mouth watering and the endless array of sexual activity is tantalizing.

At one point in Franco's film, he talks about his re-imagining by stating that he wants to render the evil images from Friedkin's film into something fresh and beautiful. This is not the first, nor last time Franco contradicts himself in the movie (since he also extols the virtues of Cruising). I suspect these odd contradictions are part of the overall design and if not, they at least feel like it and add to the film's wonky charm.

And while this might sound weird, charm is what this movie has in spades. Franco and Mathews are a charming team and whether we see them in action during the prep or production, it's always a blast hearing Franco waxing eloquent while Mathews is a rock solid filmmaker attacking everything with both art and craft. Val Lauren is completely and utterly charming as the young actor chosen to recreate the Al Pacino role. What's always cool is that the film is capturing a genuine actor who must play the thing he is - a straight man who needs to cruise a bar. He's a bundle of trepidation and excitement. Watching the lad ruminate during prep, slowly get into character until he fits in the leather bar scenes perfectly and gaze on with Franco, agog, yet delighted with a sex act performed in front of them, it's so obvious why Franco loves working with him and how, if the heavens are properly aligned, this could be a star-making performance for Lauren.

The bottom line is this: I love James Franco, I love Cruising, I love Friedkin, I love charming, naked men and I love seeing stuff on screen that I can genuinely walk out of the cinema and declare I've never seen before. If you feel likewise, you'll probably love the movie as much as I do.

"Interior. Leather Bar." is playing at the Hot Docs Film Festival 2013. For tickets and showtimes, contact the Hot Docs website HERE."

Take a look at this sequence from CRUISING and THEN try to tell me that William Friedkin is NOT one of the world's greatest living film directors.What you'll see here are a series of montages with Al Pacino cruising bar after bar after bar. Includes, my fave, "Precinct Night" and some fab Crisco action.

Enjoy!

And here's a taste of INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR.