About Ray and Jenny
Hollywood likes to do things in twos—competing disaster pictures, for example ( Armageddon and Deep Impact, anyone? ). How about two movies about Truman Capote within one year? Or a double dose of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue being destroyed ( Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down ). There are multiple post-apocalyptic teen films, nearly identical vampire scare fests and too many other examples to cite.
Now there's another movie duo: the recent Grandma and About Ray ( which opens this Friday )—two movies about three generations of women—grandmother, daughter and granddaughter. Lily Tomlin is sensational in Grandma, I don't mind repeating again, as an aging lesbian hippie poet determined to help her granddaughter find the money for the abortion she wants and empower her at the same time. Marcia Gay Harden and Julia Garner—as, respectively, the uptight mother and weak-willed granddaughter—are also pretty great.
In About Ray, Susan Sarandon plays a lesbian grandmother, too. Naomi Watts is her daughter and Elle Fanning is a female transitioning to male as the movie progresses, making the character Sarandon's grandson. The drama apparently springs from the family's various reactions to the transition. I don't know how good the performances are or how the film is, as it has yet to be screened for press. But if it's half as good as the three-generation film that preceded it then it's worth seeing.
I'm old enough to remember when a movie that included an openly gay character ( let alone a transgender one ) was little more than a fantasy. Now there have been so many queer-themed films that the typical coming-out scenario seems almost old-fashioned. But if you still crave that kind of story, Jenny's Wedding was made for you.
Katherine Heigl plays the favorite daughter of an uptight, controlling mother and doting but conservative father ( Linda Emond and Tom Wilkinson, showing his age ). Mom and dad want Jenny married and busy birthing babies—just like her younger sister ( Grace Gummer ), who lords it over Jenny. But Jenny's a lesbian and she wants to marry the woman her family thinks is her best friend ( Alexis Bledel ). She takes the plunge and comes out to one and all. Naturally all hell breaks loose—for a while.
The film's writer-director, Mary Agnes Donoghue, wrote the script for the 1988 Bette Midler-Barbara Hershey melodrama Beaches but Jenny's Wedding hasn't a smidgen of the entertaining kitsch that made that a beloved icon of sisterhood cinema. It does, however, seem to have been made around the same time. It opens Friday, Sept. 18 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/jennyswedding
About Nathan
My favorite film of late is the British coming-of-age drama A Brilliant Young Mind, from director Morgan Matthews, the story of yet another outsider—a budding teenage math genius named Nathan Ellis ( played with artful finesse by Hugo's Asa Butterfield ) and his struggle to come to terms with the death of his father when he was a child and to find his way socially—and perhaps romantically—in the world at large. Sally Hawkins is wondrous as Nathan's ever-patient mother, and the supporting performances of Rafe Spall and Eddie Marsan are equally fine. The movie—which has shades of Jodie Foster's debut feature, Little Man Tate—is one of those small miracles that restores your faith in indie cinema. It opens Friday, Sept. 25, at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St., and the Landmark Renaissance in Highland Park. http://www.landmarktheatres.com/a-brilliant-young-mind-filmmaker-letter
About Eugene
Out writer, film critic and professor Eugene Levy ( not to be confused with the actor ) has written nine books, including Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer, about the bisexual director ( and father of Liza ). Minnelli, Levy's book pointed out, doesn't have nearly the enduring critical acclaim or devoted following that other classic Hollywood directors retain like Hitchcock, Ford, and even Orson Welles. Unlike that list of well-regarded directors, Minnelli's versatility was singular among his fellow film geniuses. Levy suggests in his excellent book that the director's versatility and his movie's genres—musicals and light comedies mostly vs. westerns and the war pictures his more "manly" compatriots helmed, along with the director's purported bisexuality, have plenty to do with Minnelli's lower reputation among the greats.
Now Levy has published another book—Gay Directors, Gay Films?—that focuses exclusively on gay male directors and how their films have helped to reshape the attitudes of the mainstream movie-going audience. Levy's book delves into the careers of Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, John Waters, Terance Davis and Pedro Almodovar, and ruminates on the impact the queer subject matters of the movies of these film artists has had. If Levy's previous books are any indication, Gay Directors, Gay Films promises to be a fascinating and insightful read. http://cup.columbia.edu/book/gay-directors-gay-films/9780231152778
Upcoming movie calendar
Highlights from films opening in Chicago, Sept. 18 and 25 ( or available digitally ):
—Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival ( 9/17—9/24 )—Nearly 40 feature films, over 60 shorts, the Chicago premiere of Freeheld, Stonewall, the world premiere of Kiss Me, Kill Me, lots of notable filmmakers and actors, plus plenty of after parties are all hallmarks of the 33rd edition of this long running annual festival. Eight days and nights of queer movies?! Where do I sign up? Oh wait, I did ( I'm the festival's co-programming director ). For my fellow queer movie fans this is the festival we wait for all year. Complete information on the lineup, show times and advance tickets at www.reelingfilmfestival.org .
About Ray ( 9/18 )—See details above.
Jenny's Wedding ( 9/18 )—See details above.
Black Mass ( 9/18 )—After a series of financial and critical flops, Johnny Depp attempts to reignite his film career with this true-life crime drama about the infamous Irish mob moss Whitey Bulger. Benedict Cumberbatch and Joel Edgerton co-star.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials ( 9/18 )—Yet another entry in the young-adult post-apocalyptic craze, this second part focuses on a tenacious group of teens ( aren't they always? ) who, after conquering the maze in part one, are now given a new set of challenges. I rather liked the first part ( which featured gay audience fave Patricia Clarkson ) and I'm psyched to see this next installment and more of its brooding young he-man star, Dylan O'Brien ( TV's Teen Wolf ).
Nashville ( 9/19 )—After seeing Lily Tomlin's transformative performance in Grandma, take in her Oscar-nominated turn in Nashville, Robert Altman's 1975 masterpiece about the country-music scene. The movie is having a 40th-anniversary screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center. http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/nashville
A Brilliant Young Mind ( 9/25 )—See details above.
Stonewall ( 9/25 )—Disaster picture specialist Roland Emmerich ( who is openly gay ) gets personal with this look at the burgeoning gay rights movement that was sparked by the riots that ensued in June 1969, when a group of LGBTQ patrons in a New York bar fought back against police harassment. Jeremy Irvine, Jonny Beauchamp, Ron Perlman and Jonathan Rhys Meyers co-star in the fall's most buzzed-about movie.
The Intern ( 9/25 )—Anne Hathaway is a fashion editor and Robert DeNiro is a retired widower who goes to work for her in this latest relationship dramedy with a twist from Something's Gotta Give/The Holiday/It's Complicated writer-director Nancy Meyers.
