Hebrew/French with English subtitles

I’ve put off reviewing this movie because of how much the ending bothered me. It’s easier if I either love or hate a movie, or feel completely indifferent, but this movie drew me in, engaged me, and then I felt dropped from the sky by the turn of events.

This movie follows Noemi, a young Israeli woman engaged to be married who has just lost her mother. She’s clearly very intelligent and introspective and has soaked up every last one of her rabbi father’s teachings.

The sexism in the movie becomes apparent right away, as Michael, the fiance, dismisses Noemi’s conversation with her sister as “idle women’s chatter”.  While he is in yeshiva, apparently she’s supposed to be cleaning house and darning socks. Instead, she postpones the wedding and goes to a “women’s yeshiva” which is somewhat controversial.

Her roommates are all there for different reasons. Sheine, is looking for a husband, and apparently the headmaster of the school is also somewhat of a matchmaker. Sigi, is new to orthodoxy, so does not know the correct words/texts, but is zealously trying to learn. Lastly, Michel, is a smoking, swearing hotty, sent to the yeshiva against her will from her home in France, to “reform” her.

Noemi and Michel are paired up in visiting the home of a prisioner- a French woman named Anouk who had been jailed for murder. Whereas Noemi is a play by the rules, shut down emotion kind of girl, Michel (who is the only one who can speak French to Anouk) wants to hear the women’s story and help her out. Turns out the woman is dying of cancer, and wants to atone in some way for her sin.

The girls begin to bond when they decide to do secret rights or “tikuns” to cleanse Anouk. These are derived from the kabbalah, and Anouk has already been told by the rabbis in the area that she cannot perform then- she may not be cleansed of so great a stain- AND on top of it, she’s not even Jewish. Technically only rabbis (ie, men), can perform these rituals, but the girls decide to try. You can see Noemi salivating at the challenge to use her great knowledge in a practical sense.

In the process of helping Anouk, the girls befriend Yanki, a pharmacist assistant/klezmer musician with a light touch and a gentle soul. To help her friend, Michel decides to ask Yanki out on a date so that she can double with Noemi and her fiance. This does not go well. Michael, besides not taking women seriously, doesn’t believe in laughing, or the worth of non Yeshiva attending males.

Noemi takes Michel home for the holidays with her and it only takes one slumber party to find the two all over each other, in a bizarre “scratch my back”/dry hump sort of faux sex scene. They wake in each others arms and contrary to what I thought would happen, Michel is the one who freaks out and runs away.

Back at school the women are drawn back together by Anouk. Noemi sites scripture as not having anything to say about what they had done/felt as a sin- so it’s back on. After drawing their roommates into the rituals with Anouk, things start going terribly wrong. I won’t tell you what happens, but this is where I started not liking the way the story was going. I can’t say I hated it, but I think I felt really drawn to Noemi’s plight, to her sadness and intensity, to how she held on to her religion and her rituals, even as she was being shunned by her family. She is trying to step outside the confines of her neat, little box and no one but her thinks it’s a good idea.

This movie effected me and drew me in, so in that sense, it was definitely worth watching. It does not tie everything up neatly in a bow, which I like, especially in lesbian movies. I want girl meets girl on dyke campus and live happily ever after, but I know this movie is probably in some ways a truer picture.

3 stars- “Garfield, meet Sylvester”

I really like the hot scholarly type.

I would have felt better about this movie if it was set in an earlier period, which it appeared to be at first. Small village, people with names like Lady Unwin and Cladagh, and interesting apparel choices made me think it took place anywhere from 1920’s-1960’s. Until the main character starts reading  A Prayer for Owen Meany in bed and I realized it was at least 1989.

Alice is in what everyone keeps calling a “postnatal depression”. She doesn’t want to paint anymore, doensn’t want to make love to her husband, or talk to her mother-in-law, who is a rich busy body gardener. She has just moved with her three young children to this little village.

Around the same time the rich and royal Unwins welcome back their prodigal daughter Clodagh from America. She’s the only one who looks dressed for 1989- short dyke haircut, nehru jackets, and too much blue eyeshadow. How anyone thought she was straight is beyond me. She’s also kind of a bitch- pushy, abrasive, and egotistical. She knows what she likes in women, though, and sets her sight on the pretty, femme-y,  Alice.

The only plausible way it seems possible these two end up together (and they do) is that Clodagh is so pushy. Some of her actions are endearing- she takes an interest in the children, helps around the house, etc, but it always seems like its a means to an end. Also, she’s a spoiled rich girl with no responsibilities, following her every whim and fancy, which is annoying (if a believable element).

To add some intrigue, in comes Alice’s brother-in-law, Anthony, who is also clearly smitten with her, and also a major boozey, live off his relatives asshole. Her husband is looking awful appealing right now- and I’m a lesbian for goodness sake. Anthony, of course, puts two and two together and announces that Alice and Clodagh are dykes to the village, thus causing a stir (but not before trying to get Alice to run away with him). Alice is shunned by many and her husband goes crazy.

 Alice stays remarkably calm. You get the sense that she does feel she’s a lesbian and there is some relief to the knowledge of her affair coming out. The incident also gives Clodagh an opportunity to come out to her parents, which goes over like a lead balloon. It seems clear her mother had an inkling and was trying to protect her father, but he gets angry and storms out of the room.

There is no real happy ending for anyone, unless you count Alice’s realization as a happy consequence of a messy affair. There are a few stolen kisses and one naked swimming makeout session that’s a little steamy throughout the movie. I guess I kept waiting for something more to happen. I wasn’t bored for the length of the film, I just wasn’t drawn into the story. Oh, and you can glimpse a young Keira Knightley as Alice’s daughter in the film.

2 stars-  no second date

In college, my best friend commented that some of my adolescent breakdowns just made me look like a bad actor, faking my way through an after school special (you know, where the girl a. gets pregnant b. develops a drug problem or c. becomes a lesbian). If I think of this movie in that light, maybe it was a good movie. The fact is, it’s just not as interesting to watch other people be bad actors, as it is to be in the middle of your own personal drama.

Meet Maya- she has just graduated from high school,but can’t make the ceremony because her drunk mother’s passed out on the couch. She loves basketball,and is in a delusional state to think she will get a basketball scholarship even though her high school had no basketball team for her to play on. She practices (for most of the movie) with her best friend Mars (Lamar), a guy who pushes her to play better and feeds her basketball scholarship delusion. Just to mess with your head, the movie then introduces a rich girl named Sam, who shows up on the court one day and “confuses” Maya, leading to her questioning her mom about “inappropriate crushes” while unclogging the toilet for the umpteenth time. (There were many unclogging scenes-some with tears, others with encouraging self-talk)

There was also endless basketball footage- and not quality, entertaining footage, but bouncy, off balance, grainy footage that I found yawn inducing (I’ll admit, I’m no sports fan to begin with, but I still didn’t feel this bored in Personal Best).

The only potential lesbian content involved Sam blowing Maya off for a party then coming over to apologize and them gonig on a drive that ended in a hotel room and too chaste kisses. Maya wakes to find Sam vanished and we never see her again. There is minimal resolution of this storyline (you do hear about Sam) but none about what this might mean for Maya who also ends up sucking face with Mars in a much less chaste embrace.

The movie ends abruptly and crazily unrealistically without another nod to Maya’s potential lesbianism or bisexuality. Of course, by the end of the movie, I didn’t really care.

One star- and that’s pushing it          p.s. this poster is such a misrepresentation of the movie, I can’t believe they can live with themselves, tricking poor, unsuspecting lesbians into watching this.

This hilarious movie follows Allegra (played with studied nonchalance by Elizabeth Reaser, pre Twilight) as she gets broken up with (“I hate opera, I have to look up half the words you use and I am NOT a lesbian.) and then ends up unwittingly in a love triangle with a straight couple.

Hoarding food at a party in dark sunglasses , she meets a nerdy professor named Phillip (a preWeeds Justin Kirk)  who has read her book AND knows a lot of big words- AND he loves opera. She flirts with him whilst proclaiming her lesbianism. She pukes on him before any more can happen.

The next day, at the movies she runs into Grace (Gretchen Mol, preLife on Mars doomed time warp drama), sobbing uncontrollably. She asks her to go out for a drink and Grace seems surprised and interested when she finds out Allegra’s a lesbian. 

Phillip leaves Grace, and Allegra starts sleeping (and dating) both of them. Both sex scenes are amusing and light- no nudity (both feature a ridiculously robotic looking vibrator). There’s lots of funny asides as Allegra tries to juggle the two, rather needy individuals, all while she really just wants to be with Sam, her ex. Random people (waitresses, a disembodied voice on the subway) talk to Allegra about her personal life at random intervals. The sushi chefs at the restaurant they all frequent, discuss in depth the relationship ups and downs in Japanese. These random bits and a lot of witty dialog really make the movie more than just an idiotic romantic comedy.

Allegra also spends a ton of energy saying how much better lesbian relationships are, to Phillip, how women are so much more feeling,even as she can’t commit or express her emotions and ends up having similar problems as Grace and Phillip (Love and awkwardness, such unifiers).

The ending (which you see a glimpse of at the beginning of the movie) places Allegra, Phillip, Grace, and Samantha (her ex) together at Sam’s bridal shower. It’s a major clusterf*ck, and a great movie ending.

4 stars- call in the U-haul

Favorite lines

“I was really close to getting close to her.”

“I knew when I met you something sparkly was going to happen.”

I had low expectations for this movie. Yes, I think Julie Goldman is funny, I loved her song “Commitment ceremony” and her turn as Liza on The Big Gay Sketch Show, but a movie? I wasn’t so sure.

I was pleasantly surprised. This was no D.E.B.S., but it was funny (I did actually laugh out loud) and I never once contemplated not finishing watching it in favor of going to sleep.

The movie starts with Kelly, an ultra straight looking skinny blond packing for a trip. Her unlikely travel companion is Linda (Julie Goldman) a sloppy, butch lesbian, who likes to ask questions like “If you were on death row what would your last meal be?” or “If you were a boy, what would your name be?” This, of course, is annoying to Kelly, a real Type A, keep your eye on the prize type of girl.  They work for a low budget ad agency who gets information about products from “real people” involving in home interviews. They are off to some tiny suburb of New York City called Little Hope to do just that.

By some (surprise!) gaff, the hotel they thought they booked does not have their reservation and their forced to share bunk beds in a youth hostel.  Their bedmates are two horny lesbians who keep having not so quiet sex with them in the room at night, processing aforementioned sex, and quoting Ani Difranco.

Out of the conservative residents in the town (sample quote, “there’s not too many black people here… you don’t need to lock your doors.”) Linda finds an ex girlfriend who she sneaks out to meet. They have sex (funny, just kissing)  leading to multiple hickeys and cover up involving an ace wrap around her neck and multiple random excuses to the people they interview the next day.

Kelly is desperately trying to get a better job and keeps losing calls to bad reception. She eventually finds out she didn’t get hired and gets rip roaring drunk. (in a random aside, Linda is a “friend of Bill’s”). Kelly comes back to hostel and cries to Linda about being a “loser” and never having a best day. Linda comforts her without it turning sexual (my big fear for this movie).

To try to make Kelly’s dreams come true Linda decides they should stay and cover the town’s big chili cook off for Kelly to submit to major networks.  This involves chili cheerleaders and a song that goes “I love chili, it makes me silly.”  Linda f*cks up majorly and the end of the movie involves dealing with her mistake and then rapidly resolving it.

This movie was funnier than anticipated just in the funny dialog, Kelly’s flat affect, in response to Linda’s over the top facial expressions, and random side characters. It didn’t dig too deep, but it also didn’t have the main characters fall madly in love (which was probably statistically impossible) but they did come to understand and appreciate each other. It also didn’t make the ending so neat that you felt like barfing. You can tell it’s low budget, but was better than a lot of lesbian movies by not trying too hard.

3 stars- alright, you can meet the cats

favorite lines

“If I had a racehorse  I’d name it “this racehorse was expensive”".

“I am open can.”

“I look like Fred from Scooby Doo.”

This comedy from Spain is actually about a straight woman who manages to f*ck up every good thing in her life. It just so happens that this all revolves around her mother coming out as a lesbian- a lesbian with a young, cute, Czech girlfriend.

We then follow Elvira, the daughter, from therapy, where she frets about being a dyke and having a nervous breakdown, to a lousy job for a publisher, where she completely goes nuts in front of a new (handsome) male client, Miguel. Elvira is amusing and attractive, even as she endlessly obsesses about the impact her mother’s coming out is having on her.

There are two other daughters who are also followed. Sol, is a pink haired rocker, who does an offensive, funny, and extremely catchy song about her mother being a lesbian (sample lyrics: “I thought I would commit suicide when she told me she had a woman licking her belly- na na na na na.).

The third sister’s name escapes me but her story line involves a kid, a bad marriage and endless antics to get Eliska (the mom’s girlfriend to cheat on her, and thus get her out of the picture. This involves the token “go to a dyke bar to meet a lesbian” scene where we are exposed to the “exotic” night life of the sapphically inclined.

But back to Elvira. As she ruins her relationship with Miguel (the new author) in her attempts to “prove” she’s not a lesbian, she ends up getting drunk with her mother’s girlfriend and kissing her. Although Eliska quickly rebuffs her and professes her love to her mother, she is too drunk to get home and passes out at Elvira’s. Elvira lies, implying that Eliska has been out with some other woman, breaking her mother’s heart and tearing the two women apart.  Here the movie takes an unnecessarily dramatic turn involving a trip to Prague before ending up exactly where you thought it would- with everyone happy and in love.

This movie was wacky (in a good way) in many places, but too long and dramatic in others. It should have stuck with being a comedy and not tried to complicate things so much. When they all go to Prague it just seems a bit over the top.  The acting was admirable, especially Elvira. The lesbian couple were affectionate, although I would have thought they would have kissed at least once, when they reunited. Overall, an enjoyable movie worth watching that probably won’t live long in my memory.

2 and a half stars- maybe I’ll call, maybe I won’t

Scene 1- July 10, 1969- Sacha is having a very serious discussion with her mother, explaining how she has quit medical school and is now living happily with a woman- until you realize she is not talking to her mother at all, but to a roomful of friends, who think it uproariously funny when she has her mother drop dead from the news- all except her girlfriend, who feels strongly that she is sick of being a secret. She leaves, giving Sacha an ultimatum to come out to her parents before man lands on the moon.

When Sacha arrives home in Belgium it’s like we have arrived on another planet. Her mother has staged a surprise party for her in honor of her medical degree AND gotten her a job at the local hospital (connections apparently go far in Belgium). In an aside, her mother also lets her know she has a lump in her breast. Her father, it turns out, is hiding all the letters from creditors so as not to upset his wife (who, of course, isn’t telling him she’s sick for the same reason). Her sister Elisa, who happens to be a dwarf, carries around Jimmy, her pet goldfish, in his bowl wherever she goes. To top it all off, her grandmother gets dolled up everyday and waits for the bus to arrive from Paris, looking expectantly for someone who never shows up.

To her credit, Sacha keeps trying to tell her family the truth, but they make it nearly impossible, refusing to listen, especially her mother, who ignores her sister, pinning all her hopes and dreams on Sacha. While watching the news one night she anounces her lesbianism and lack of medical degree in the style of a news report ending with “the moral of the story is- please pass the salt!” They then proceed to go on and on about how salt is bad for you, not hearing (or ignoring) the first part of the message.

She tells her mom again on a day out together where she proceeds to pass out, and then pretends she knows nothing, even as she finds the pictures of the girlfriend under Sacha’s pillow.

This movie was very funny. Everyone had a secret to hide and protected it with quirky sincerity. The resentment and bubbling anger between family members led to some comic scenes. Still, it was moving to realize how marginalized Elisa was, living in Sacha’s shadow, never living up to expectations, feeling less than. Then realizing that their mother also felt she didn’t measure up to her own mother’s ideals. Oh mothers and their lesbian daughters, when will they ever get along?

In the end, Sacha’s friends show up just as Neil Armstrong is ready to walk on the moon, leading to multiple cases of mistaken identity that are hilarious and poignant all at the same time. The ending is happy and light, now that everyone’s secrets are out on the table.

4 stars- call in the U-haul!

“Don’t leave me because of a rocket.”

“should I look like a sundae?”

Why, oh why, do I enjoy watching this movie? It’s rating will hardly reflect the fact that I’ve seen it at least three times.

It takes place in a made up town in Texas, where cars sport bumper stickers like “Rush is right” and “Gun control means using both hands.” Then we see legs- feminine legs, sexy legs, leggy legs. What is it about those legs that I keep watching this movie?

The “legs” belong to Alex, a rich society lady married to a lawyer belonging to a do-gooder rich association only called “the league”. Their new project is to volunteer to help  in an AIDS hospice center. This is where the outrageous homophobic and ignorant comments start up- and continue for the rest of the movie. The women are appalled, insist on wearing gloves and not touching anybody. All, except Alex, who is friends with one of the residents at the hospice and his boyfriend- much to the dismay of her mother and husband. While there she runs into her best friend from high school, Grace, who had left town after high school knocked up and married a drunk who beat the sh*t out of her.

Alex’s mother overacts to the point where it strains credulity. She says things like “her brother is a homosexual, he probably has AIDS too.” Maybe in my New England bubble I’m missing out on all the dumb f*cks who still associate homosexuality and AIDS, but it seems so 1980’s.

Anyhoo, moving on, there’s a big ball where Spencer tells an old woman that he’s gay from the drinking water. This puts the podunk town in a frenzy buying bottled water by the case. (Why do I like this movie?) Every single gay male represented, except for the two main stars (not Spencer and his boyfriend) are so flamingly and effeminately betrayed as to be wholly unbelievable. Yes, some gay men are like that- but all but two? Hard to believe. Oh, and the servants are largely portrayed by black people, saying things like “Yes maam, how ’bout I fix you a BLT?” Really? This movie was made in the 90’s, come on.

There’s a secondary story about Mark, a journalist in the town, who struggles with being gay. He attends the churches “Homo No Mo” group to degay. He meets a sober alcoholic who mistakenly stumbled into the meeting but is out and proud and they start dating. He stops being ashamed of who he is and starts letting others know there’s nothing wrong with it either. Welcome to the 21st century, Mark.

Meanwhile, across town, Grace is explaining to Alex that her husband didn’t put her in the ICU just because he was drunk, but because he found out she was having an affair- with a woman. This trips up Alex, leading to an amusing scene where she rents some classic lesbian movies (Clare of the moon, anyone?) and stays up all night watching them. This leads to a shared kiss, that (I won’t ruin the suspense) somehow gets conveyed to the whole town. Her husband disowns her, taking all their stuff (she didn’t think to put her name on important things like mortgages or cars). Crestfallen, our girl Alex goes out dancing with Grace and makes mad, passionate love to her (Ok, so we only see them kissing in a bed, but you can guess the rest).

Everyone but the main “gay” characters in this movie are so bigotted it seems mind boggling. Alex’s husband forbids her to work at Hope House. Her mother demands to know if she’s “the man” in the relationship because of the tie with her outfit- and no one comes around to acceptance, accept the closeted homos.

Still, something about the main characters Alex and Mark are very believable to me. For some reason in the face of such ignorance they seem like they believe it and think differently. While most of the cast appears to be reading off cue cards, they both seem genuine. Or maybe I just like her legs, I’m not sure.

2 stars- but I’d still watch it if I were you, just so I can hear your comments

The director of this movie describes it as “tender, absurd, and sensual” and I agree with her on all fronts. It’s also quirky and uneven. It follows a teacher at a Christian college, Camille, as she meets and is changed by her encounter with a circus performer named Petra.

I like the opening scene- Camille, naked, underwater swimming with a beautiful woman, only to find out she is trapped under the ice, unable to get up for air. Then, we meet every day Camille, teaching mythology and walking her dog- until, that is, her dog drops dead. Hence she is off balance and vulnerable when she first meets Petra, giving Petra a chance to set up another meeting with her.

We also meet Camille’s boyfriend, a nice guy named Martin, who teaches theology and adores her. He has to go away for a few days to a conference, leaving Camille with some free time on her hands for her new friend.

Petra is anything but subtle- “Camille, I’d love to see you in the moonlight with your head thrown back and your body on fire.” Can you imagine that as your initial pickup line in a bar? Camille initially rebuffs her, then tries to be friends, because people “like us” have friends, don’t we? 

Just to be clear, Camille is no innocent virgin. The film’s first sex scene is between herself and Martin, a scene I could have done without.  She and Martin are being interviewed to become the chaplains of the college and Camille is totally screwing up the questions- even I could get these right. God hates homos and abortion, nuf said. She just starts blathering about multiplicity in God’s kingdom.

As in any lesbian movie worth its salt, the actresses end up hooking up. They have two fairly graphic sex scenes- breasts are exposed AND fondled and there’s even some snatches of, well, snatches. It is very sensual and tender and the actresses have great chemistry.

Camille’s transformation sometimes seems hard to believe. Petra is so different from her, would she really go to such lengths to see her? Or is she testing herself, and her own feelings by pursuing them, to see if it’s really possible to “love the sinner, hate the sin”. When Petra tries to dance with Camille at the circus in front of others, she gets upset, saying it’s “crass, vulgar, and tasteless”. Petra’s response- what could be vulgar about dancing with the woman I adore. She also reminded her that circus freaks were up there on the acceptance meter, and comments, “what are you going to do when the really mean f*ckers come after you?”

I enjoyed the circus ambience, too. There were some great scenes of trapeze artists, a choreographed dance involving combat boots and hot irons, and, of course, the spotlight silhoutte juggling that Petra does highlighting her sexiness even in shadow. I liked the side story of  Tori and Timothy who run the Sirkus of Sorts. Even Martin, is not painted as a villain, we’re not let off the hook in dismissing him, and neither is Camille. She has to deal with the fact that she’s hurting him by being true to herself.

I was somewhat annoyed at the “exoticism” of the lesbian- as if we all wear black leather and berets all the time and do magic or voodoo or something like that, instead of the lesbian who goes to work as a nurse,  pays her bills, and plays Kung Fu Panda on Wii for excitement. Not a great movie starter?

2.5 stars maybe call me, but I’m keeping the cats at home

Favorite lines

“These things pass.”  “What things?” “These passing things.”

“In heterospect…”

These are the two opening scenes of Four Minutes:

In one, a prisoner awakes, to find her roommate has hung herself. Unfazed, she takes her cigarettes out of the dead girl’s pocket, lights one, then signals the guards. In the other a wizened old lady is asleep with her head leaning against the window of a pickup truck with rock music blaring in the backround. She’s accompanied by two burly, tatooed ex cons hauling a piano. She wakes up and changes the channel to classical music.

That was enough to draw me in to this fascinating German movie about the relationship between a piano teacher, Mrs. Kruger, who has been working at the prison since World War II, and Jenny von Loeben, a prisoner in for murder by decapitation and dismemberment of a man.

It’s even more impressive how I was drawn in, because they are rather both unlikable.  Mrs. Kruger is completely unemotional, refusing Jenny lessons because she smells. Jenny follows this up by beating a guard to a pulp and swearing like a sailor, but getting to the piano long enough to show her talent.

There is to be a contest for pianists under 21 and Mrs. Kruger wants to work with Jenny to compete. This is where both women’s pasts come in. Jenny was a competitive pianist until her adoptive father started raping her and she gave it up in pursuit of unsavory characters of her own choosing. Mrs. Kruger keeps having flashbacks of her youth with a beautiful young women, who it soon becomes clear was a communist arrested by the nazis, that she was forced to deny to maintain her freedom and her life. These events have left both women emotional shells of their former selves, and they struggle to be civil to each other.

As Mrs. Kruger learns more of Jenny’s crime, it’s association to the loss of her lover leads her to stop lessons. Enter the wealthy adoptive (and alcoholic appearing) father, who apparently is following Jenny from afar, getting information from various guards by bribery. He succeeds in also bribing Mrs. Kruger by digging up her file from 1945, clearly relating her lesbian relationship with a communist.

The wry wit of the entire cast surprised me, and made the movie about a serious subject quite funny.  For example, when Jenny shows up for the first round of the competition, master’s trained pianists are fretting over their credentials. When the organizer asks her for her credentials, she says, “I’m a killer.” The woman just carries right on, “Put it down, dear, you never know what they might find useful.”

In learning both women’s back stories (and each one learning the other’s) you develop real empathy for their detachment and struggle to connect with others. The ending gets a bit surreal but by that point you don’t care, you’re just happy the characters are striving for personal expression and connection. I highly recommend this movie. It was different, funny, and engaging.                                                         4 stars- call in the U-haul

Favorite lines:

“What will rule #2 make me eat?”

“Rule #3: you smell”

“If Beethoven wrote an opera for Cinderella it would result in what cheese? Mozzarella.

“I know you’re a stupid whore.”

                                                                                                                                     “No, I’m a stupid lesbian.”