Weekend Movies: Behind the Candelabra

 
Michael Douglas and Matt Damon share a bed and the story of Liberace and Scott Thorson

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS 

"Too much of a good thing is wonderful"

That was a signature catchphrase of Liberace, the classical pianist who became a household name as a flamboyant nightclub entertainer. Liberace was born Vladziu Valentino Liberace but known by "Walter" or "Lee" to his intimates -- even the names were too many… too much! He didn't just popularize the catchphrase but lived it maintaining his most unlikely monster career for roughly four decades -- which is, what, a century in showbiz years?

The new biopic BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, premiering Sunday on HBO, is smart enough to adopt it as tagline. But is it too much? Is it wonderful? Hollywood studios thought so, at least in regards to the first question. Director Steven Soderbergh hasn't been shy about telling the press that the story was too gay for the movie studios and while we can't know the ins and outs of how true this is or to what extent he tried to make it happen as a theatrical feature before going to television, it sounds trueish. Hollywood has been curiously reluctant to relive the mainstream success of Brokeback Mountain (a major hit grossing nearly $100 million in domestic release) even though they're usually downright shameless about cashing in on any success with quick imitation.

But bless Soderbergh for pushing it forward, even if he's a weird fit for the material. As a director he's never been exactly "flamboyant" visually, preferring subtle formal experimentation to Liberace's rhinestone-slathered "look at me" effort.

CONTINUE, AFTER THE JUMP....

Weekend Movies: The Great Gatsby

 
Leonardo DiCaprio welcomes you to the summer's most lavish party

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS 

"Gatsby. What Gatsby?"

Daisy asks with a rush of girlish 'it can't be!' alarm, her nerves far overpowering the tiny glimmer of hope you think you hear in her voice. Which is as sensible a reaction as anyone could have when hearing about the arrival of another Jay Gatsby in movie theaters. You don't mean THE GREAT GATSBY, do you?

The F Scott Fitzgerald classic is a tough book to crack for filmmakers, its power so tied to its gorgeous (slim) prose, its subtle and cynical evocations and condemnations of American wealth and unspoken caste system. Further complicating adaptations is that the story is subjectively narrated. It's all told by Nick Carraway and his is, despite blood ties to the wealthy, an outsider's point of view. It's an easy book to love but a difficult one to adapt. But Hollywood keeps trying once every thirty years or so. 

The story, if you are unfamiliar (though you won't want to admit that out loud) follows the attempts of the elusive mysterious extremely wealthy Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) to win back his lost love Daisy (Carey Mulligan) who he abandoned many years earlier while penniless to seek his fortune. That sounds like something out of a fairy tale, but to the novel's credit Fitzgerald doesn't exactly take it at face value as a hero's journey; what's so heroic about vast sums of money used only for personal gain?

Gatsby buys up an estate in West Egg Long Island where he has a direct eyeline across the water to a similarly palatial home in East Egg where Daisy lives with her rich and shady husband Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton) who is carrying on an affair with low class Myrtle (Isla Fisher) who lives above a gas station in "The Valley of Ashes" which director Baz Luhrmann stages like it's the 10th circle of hell. Gatsby throws decadent flashy parties hoping to lure Daisy in and seduces her cousin Nick (Tobey Maguire, our narrator) into helping him facilitate the reunion.

Which gets this party (aka movie) started AFTER THE JUMP...

Weekend Movies: Iron Man 3

 
Don't believe everything you see. Tony Stark is tops this time around.

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS 

When last we saw Tony Stark he was eating shawarma in New York City with his fellow superheroes in the stinger of Marvel's The Avengers (reviewed). When we last saw Iron Man, minutes before that, he was plummeting from a cosmic wormhole to his near-death having just saved the world from an alien apocalypse. (S.H.I.E.L.D's workman's comp insurance must be pricey.) I mention Tony Stark and Iron Man separately because the franchise's new writer/director Shane Black, who previously worked with Robert Downey Jr on the underappreciated comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, seems more interested in Stark than Iron Man. This is a good sign, especially for a third picture. Time to flip this tin can around.

IRON MAN 3 takes great pains to make a distinction between the impenetrable suit and the man inside it. Tony Stark's first attempt to suit up is a comic misfire since he's engineered an Iron Man suit that comes right to him when he calls. He hasn't quite worked out the speed of his flying wardrobe -imagine a metal codpiece flying 60 mph right at your Andrew Christians. The second time we see Iron Man, if I'm remembering the sequence of events correctly, Tony Stark isn't in the suit at all. He's engaging in some prankster remote control business for girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, wonderful in this role but haters gonna hate). 

The film even opens with a flashback to Tony's pre-Iron Man days, further separating the man from his iron mask.

More Spoiler-Free Stuff AFTER THE JUMP...

Interview: Yen Tan on His New Film 'Pit Stop', Gay Panic, and Realistic Sex Scenes

Marcus DeAnda and Bill Heck star in the new gay drama "Pit Stop"

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS 

With Outfest and other LGBT film festivals right around the corner I thought I'd point your eyes at PIT STOP, a fine new romantic drama from writer/director Yen Tan (Ciao). I've just returned from serving on the narrative jury of the Nashville International Film Festival and we handed this "vitally resonant LGBT romance" the screenplay prize for its complicated road map of broken hearts and missed connections. Though the film follows a handful of everyday people in a small Texas town, the key and parallel figures at its heart are Ernesto (Marcus DeAnda) and Gabe (Bill Heck), two gay men who are both grieving failed relationships while still practically living with their exes.

The film is quite moving with an enormously satisfying payoff so I sat down with writer/director Yen Tan, a Malaysian filmmaker who lives in Austin to talk about his process and the road map to getting Pit Stop made.

TOWLEROAD: Pit Stop is not a "coming out" story, the most typical type of gay movie, and it revolves around the lives of rural gay men. So right away it seems to be occupying a rare niche right now in terms of queer cinema. How did you and David Lowery develop this?

YEN TAN: The idea came about when I was making road trips in Texas to work on an earlier film, and while making pit stops at the gas stations in the small towns between the cities, I wondered if there were gays who lived there, and what kind of lives they had. I looked into this by entering the chat rooms of gay.com back it its heyday. Over time, I found a handful who would tell me their stories. They had a lot of common traits: being married or having being married before was a big one, and so was the way they danced around the lines of visibility and invisibility. I thought it was very fascinating, being someone who is gay in the city, where I've almost forgotten what it was like to be in the closet in a really significant way.

I tried to assemble a story that would resonate with me personally, while avoiding certain pitfalls of the genre. When I'd done all I could with the script, I needed David to make everything sound more organic since it was crucial that Pit Stop feel authentic. I was born and raised in Malaysia, and English is my second language. David polished the dialogue quite a bit, and in the process, we also came up with some new scenes and subplots. 

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

Movies: How Do You Like Your Hercules?

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Kellan Lutz will both play Hercules

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS 

In lieu of a review -- this weekend is all about the return of the now twenty-year-old Jurassic Park (in 3D) anyway -- how about some hyper-masculine movie news? 

Have you heard that there are not one but two HERCULES movies in the works? If it's not quite true that Hollywood is always out of ideas, it is definitely true that Hollywood only likes a few of them at a tine. Was it the success of brawny god/superhero Thor (2010) that convinced them? Was it TV's fleshy Spartacus? Whatever it was, Hollywood would like you to pay to see two sandle-clad Pec-tacular heroes next year. Unfortunately not in the same film so The Rock and The Lutz won't be wrestling around in the sand together in tiny skirts but each headlining their own Hercules pictures. 

MORE, plus some movie news AFTER THE JUMP...

Movies: 'The Place Beyond the Pines' in Theaters, 'Les Miz' on DVD

Ryan Gosling cashes in

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS 

The opening shot from THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, is a stunner. And not only because it starts with a view of a well-muscled and inked masculine torso. The camera follows the man (we don't see his face) as he paces back and forth, plays with a knife and then walks through a fairground where he turns heads and prompts amateur snapshots. Finally the camera catches his face. It's "Handsome Luke" (Ryan Gosling), a daredevil motorcylist about to defy death and gravity in a round metal cage. As soon as we've seen 'Handsome Gosling,' though, Luke throws a motorcyle helmet on depriving us of his Movie Star mug and enters the cage to perform miraculous stunts. As I recall there aren't any edits in this shot and I have no idea how it was filmed unless Ryan Gosling moonlights as a stuntman in addition to his many many other talents (like naming his body parts, and inspiring hilarious fandom and popular internet memes).

This lengthy continuous shot with its 'now you see him, now you don't' movie-star tease is a pretty apt description of the movie to come which is something of a bait-and-switch with a prominent throughline. See, it's not a Ryan Gosling movie so much as an ambitious triptych which passes the baton fluidly each time it's becoming a new movie.

I'm positive that most reviews will spoil surprises so I'm only offering up a few words on its three parts AFTER THE JUMP...