THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

It's Thanksgiving Day in the Mao household and things are a bit tense. Ethan, 18, after having been kicked out a few months earlier for being gay, has broken into the family manse thinking they'll be out visiting relatives for the holiday. He wants his late mother's necklace but it's stored in a safe deposit box at the bank, not at home. And so, when he and his accomplice, Remigio, are surprised in the house by the family, there's nothing else to do but hold them hostage at gun point until his vain step-mother can go retrieve the necklace when the bank reopens in the morning.

That's the highly melodramatic set up for the messy but earnest gay drama Ethan Mao , which has has been described as a 'gay Asian thriller.' The film is having its Chicago premiere this Saturday, April 9 as part of the 10th Annual Asian American Showcase at the Gene Siskel Film Center and will have an encore performance there April 14. This is the second feature from Canadian writer/director Quentin Lee ( who will attend the April 9 screening ) . It isn't much of a thriller or treatise on Asian culture ( though one character does show another how to use chop sticks ) , but it certainly qualifies as a story of teenage angst. That Ethan is one disaffected youth.

Though Ethan's gay sexuality is the reason he's kicked out of the house, he's forced to work as a hustler, and share a flophouse hotel room with Remigio, a Hispanic drug dealer, what seems to be bothering him during the long drawn-out hostage drama ( it's what he keeps shouting anyway ) is that his father worships money and nothing else. Actually, like Remigio, we know that Ethan's tough bravado and sour demeanor are a cover up. Remigio acts as Ethan's guardian angel and doesn't think twice about abetting the hostage situation, perhaps because he recognizes a kindred spirit underneath the bitterness—a boy crying for his lost mother love. He also has a big unrequited crush on Ethan and wants to kiss him so bad.

This is cinematic turf that was beautifully explored in My Own Private Idaho and other pictures, both gay and straight. The addition of the hostage plot device, however, ( and Ethan and Remigio are perhaps the most inept criminals one could imagine ) seems a reach toward something else—a sort of gay death wish fulfillment fantasy that ratchets up as the conclusion approaches. Not far from Gus Van Sant's recent Elephant or Greg Araki's The Living End, but this tantalizing idea isn't developed. If we'd seen Ethan experience gay bashing within the family or at school instead of the usual 'they don't care about me at home' stuff, there'd be more reason to invest in his outcome. And is it me or has every mixed up gay teen in movies suddenly become a jaded street hustler?

Teenage angst has been great cinematic fodder from the moment Brando was asked, 'What are you rebelling against?' in 1953's The Wild One and answered, 'What have you got?' It found its icon a year later with James Dean's portrait of mixed-up teen supreme Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Closeted gay audience members were represented, too, albeit in the subtext, with the character of Plato, played by the dewy-eyed Sal Mineo. But Mineo's character, with his discreet photo of Alan Ladd taped inside his locker, his frank lust for Dean overtly shown throughout the movie, his request to keep Dean's red windbreaker as a talisman after wearing it, had very different reasons for feeling the misunderstood martyr and gay audiences recognized it.

The rise of queer cinema has, naturally, seen the release of many overt gay versions of these martyred teen pictures and with acceptance of gay teens still a long way from being a given, they're to be applauded. But maybe Lee suspected that audiences might not sit still for yet another movie with this tried and true formula and needed to jazz things up. Not so. Well written, well acted teen angst, straight—and especially gay—is certainly good cinematic fodder. I love melodrama but give me characters to care about before you put them and their fate in jeopardy. Ethan Mao fails to do that, though I suspect that a longer, alternate cut might fill in the blanks—or make for a more satisfying revenge fantasy. Complete festival listings at www.siskelfilmcenter.org .

_____

Warner Bros. has become the best friend a lover of classic cinema could wish for. As guardians of much of the vintage MGM catalogue ( along with their own ) , they've lovingly restored DVD releases of Singin' In The Rain, Meet Me In St. Louis, Gone With The Wind in their 'Ultra-Resolution' process. These are joined at last by another of my all-time favorites, the funny, romantic, supremely sophisticated The Band Wagon . This 1953 Fred Astaire-Cyd Charisse backstage story gem about the mounting of a Broadway show is rightfully the crown jewel of Warners' DVD boxed set, The Classic Musicals Collection , and it's never looked more beautiful—or colorful—than it does here. The set also includes the sunny Astaire-Garland Easter Parade , the gloomy Brigadoon , and two musical entries from the 1960s, Bells Are Ringing and Finian's Rainbow .

Though I wouldn't tag all these as classics, each has their high points and the DVD extras alone make this set a 'must have' for showtune queens and cinema buffs alike. Both The Band Wagon and 1948's Easter Parade have a second disc chock full of terrific extra material ( the former has director Vincente Minnelli's fascinating episode of the PBS series Men Who Made the Movies while the latter includes the feature-length Emmy winning American Masters profile of Judy Garland ) . Both include new 'making-of' documentaries and commentaries ( with participation from Liza Minnelli and Astaire's daughter among others ) . These two are the stellar titles, but the others have their respective charms. 1954's Brigadoon is the height of studio artifice with Irene Sharaff's costumes and the set design trumping story and score. Bells Are Ringing , though slowly paced—even for 1960—offers a last loving performance from Judy Holiday ( and the outtakes include her hilarious 'Is It A Crime?' number ) . And the Petula Clark and Don Francks version of 'Old Devil Moon' in 1968's Finian's Rainbow is still the sexiest arrangement the standard has ever had, while then nascent director Francis Ford Coppola offers a respectful and somewhat playful commentary ( he even sings a bit ) .