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

Groove ( Sony Pictures Classics ) : A group of friends, acquaintances and perfect strangers gather together in an abandoned warehouse in San Francisco to share the highs and lows of several hours at a rave. Colin ( Denny Kirkwood ) and his girlfriend Harmony ( Mackenzie Firgens ) convince Colin's conservative brother David ( Hamish Linklater ) to accompany them to the grungy warehouse district. Once there, David meets Leyla ( Lola Glaudini ) and his attitude changes ( of course, the drugs helped too ) . Colin surprises Harmony with an engagement ring, so the tone has been set for romance and celebration. In that same spirit, a gay male couple Aaron ( Bradley Ross ) and Neil ( Jeff Witzke ) plan to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the night they met by going to the rave. Unfortunately, a "disco nap" causes them to be late and the race is on for them to find the site before legendary DJ John Digweed steps up to the turntables. In the meantime, sexy and tattooed masseuse Anthony ( Vince Riverside ) massages Colin's lips and tongue with his own bringing about the movie's pivotal moment of conflict. Loud and throbbing, funny and flaky, chatty and vaguely psychedelic, Groove will most likely do for the rave scene what Thank God It's Friday did for disco. On a scale of 1 to 10: 6.5

Shadow Hours ( CanWest/5150 ) : Michael ( Charlie Sheen look-alike Balthazar Getty ) is a recovering addict working the graveyard shift at a Los Angeles gas station owned by Roland ( the perpetually bizarre Brad Dourif ) so that he can provide a home for his pregnant wife Chloe ( Rebecca Gayheart ) and their soon-to-be-born son. Michael's sobriety is threatened by the presence of an exotic and mysterious man named Stuart ( the perpetually creepy Peter Weller ) , who claims to be a writer. Recognizing that Michael needs a little extra money ( and excitement ) , Stuart offers to pay Michael if he will accompany him while he does research for a book. Poor Michael is in such a weakened state that he doesn't realize that a man who drives a Porsche, smokes Gitanes, dresses in expensive European suits and spouts tripe such as "Night descends on the city and a miraculous transformation occurs," is someone to be avoided. Instead, Michael's descent, which includes an end to his sobriety, is portrayed unsympathetically, and is as predictable as it is unpleasant to watch. Shadow Hours wants to titillate viewers with its seamy, late-night tour of night clubs, fight clubs and fright clubs, but like Weller's Stuart, it should also be avoided. On a scale of 1 to 10: 4

Sunshine ( Paramount Classics ) : At three hours in length, this fictional family saga, which incorporates the last 100 years of Hungarian history, is not for the squirmy or the squeamish. As narrated by Ivan Sonnenschein ( Ralph Fiennes ) , the three generations of this remarkable family, whose fortune was built on the secret recipe for an herbal tonic, unfolds with all the drama of a Shakespearean tragedy. Fiennes, who also plays both his grandfather ( Ignatz ) and his father ( Adam ) , gives an extremely satisfying performance as all three men. Jennifer Ehle, as Valerie, the orphaned cousin who is raised as Ignatz and his brother Gustav's ( James Frain ) sister, and eventually becomes Ignatz's wife, gives an unforgettable performance that will remind many people of a young Meryl Streep. Ehle's real-life mother, Rosemary Harris, plays Valerie in later life, and reminds viewers of what a great actress she is. The gloomy Sunshine touches on an incredible variety of subjects ( including anti-Semitism, assimilation, nationalism, adultery, conspiracy, religion, loyalty, prejudice and competitiveness ) , and would have been more enjoyable if it was one-third shorter. By the end, nothing about this family, that barely survives more than their share 20th century misadventures, will surprise the viewer. On a scale of 1 to 10: 7

Trixie ( Sony Pictures Classics ) : There are a few moments in Trixie, Alan Rudolph's confusing, but well-intentioned new comedy, that one can see flashes of Rudolph's Robert Altman-influenced genius. The way he keeps the camera on an actor's face while they are listening to another actor speak, for example, capturing the reactions and facial expressions that say far more than the ridiculous dialogue. Unfortunately, those few moments are too few and far between, in this goofy and flawed flick. The title character ( played by a horribly miscast Emily Watson ) , is an incompetent, Chicago-born private detective, who has risen through the ranks of the ineptitude department. The multiple malapropisms and nonsensical nonsequitors that spew forth from Watson's gum-chomping and soda-sipping mouth, in a Chicago-accent which sounds more Polish or Czech, would have been easier to accept had the character been born in a foreign country ( contrary to popular belief, Chicago is not a foreign country ) . Openly gay Nathan Lane plays a lounge singer at the casino where Trixie is on assignment, and looks as if he'd rather be somewhere else. A haggard-looking Dermot Mulroney ( Longtime Companion ) , as ladykiller Dex, is still kind of sexy, while Nick Nolte, as a corrupt politician appears to have moved from playing leading men to playing aging caricatures. On a scale of 1 to 10: 3

Limited

release

Sunset Blvd. ( Paramount Pictures ) : To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the original release of Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd., the movie is being re-released for viewing on the big screen.

The big screen ( and not a Broadway theater ) is the place to see this movie about the movies narrated by dead screenwriter Joe Gillis ( a handsome William Holden ) . Gillis, on the verge of chucking it all and returning to Ohio as a Hollywood failure, has an odd run of luck. While being chased through the streets of Hollywood by the repo-men who have come to repossess his car, Gillis has a flat tire and pulls into the "interesting" driveway of an enormous, run-down mansion—"a great, big white elephant of a place" with an "unhappy look."

Once inside, he meets former silent-film star Norma Desmond ( the glorious Gloria Swanson ) , a woman who has been "sleepwalking along the giddy heights of her lost career," and her devoted manservant ( and former husband ) Max ( Erich Von Stroheim ) .

Desperate for money and a place to hide out, Gillis moves into a room above Desmond's garage ( and eventually into the main house ) , and accepts a gig doing a "patch-up job" on the script Desmond has been working on for her return to the big screen.

I don't want to give too much away, especially for anyone who hasn't already seen this masterpiece ( or the ridiculous Andrew Lloyd Weber stage musical ) , so I'll just recommend that you make it a point to take a trip to Sunset Boulevard.

On a scale of 1 to 10: 9

Opening July 14 at The Music Box.

Guest Corner

How to Stop Hate Crime

in Lakeview in 3 Hours

by the Halsted Safety Patrol

In an effort to implement a tangible and durable response to the problem of hate crime in the Lakeview community, the Halsted Safety Patrol formed in the Fall of 1998 in the aftermath of the Matthew Shepard murder and locally the violent assault at the Shell station at Halsted and Addison.

Our method is a quite simple one in which we focus on PREVENTION. Our volunteers patrol the neighborhood inconspicuously; when we observe hostile or simply suspicious individuals, we contact police via the 911 system ( www.suba.com/~chicago/halstedsafety ) .

We believe that if 911 is worthy of a call related to the sighting of suspicious persons who may be 'casing' a building in preparation for burglary, how much more precious is human life where murder, battery and hate crime are the object?

Just as the city exists in the world, the world's diversity exists in the cosmopolitan city and it is within our time and corner in this city that we find no greater or less worthy people than did Athens, Rome, Paris and London in the spring of their years. Just as in those places, the spirit of hate has been a curse and a disease with both cause and cure. Hate's thirst for violence or discrimination is stifled by the caution of its targets and the education or apprehension of its first victims, the haters. Education is the first line of defense; we are a part of the second and nearer line and as such are the necessary cart placed before the horse by virtue of a degree of failure on the part of those leaders, parents or educators responsible for the first line, those who permit or even encourage discrimination, hate language, hatred or violence. Our safety patrol then must deal with the mechanisms of hatred and discrimination in the absence of the more effective ounce of prevention!

One brutal mechanism is apparent in the quite startling statistics for the period 1990 to 1998. ( www.lakeviewaction.org ) The highest incidence of hate crime in the entire city of Chicago in the 1990s is found in our own backyard in Lakeview. The data enlighten us to the fact that 179 reported incidents occurred primarily along the very segments of Halsted and Broadway where gay people have found one of the few truly hospitable and peaceful communities in the Midwest. We are also told that Horizons' data suggest perhaps some 400 incidents were unreported or mis-classified.

Fortunately we've been joined in our efforts in the past year by a remarkable coalition of local community organizations known as the Lakeview Action Coalition. This fine group of dedicated people, largely non-gay people belonging to local churches and synagogues, have seen a need for an active community effort to reach out to the local gay community and other affected groups such as the Jewish community and African Americans by initiating a process conceived to ensure that diversity, tolerance and goodwill continue to become more completely a daily and living reality for both residents and visitors to our pleasant community with its very unique cross-section of humanity.

We have had the opportunity to work with so many LAC people who have devoted numerous hours over the last year towards investigating the incidence of hate crime in Lakeview as well as devising and proposing local solutions to the hate crime problem.

We would also like to express our support and gratitude to the Chicago Police Department for its effort to immediately implement, to a limited degree, LAC's recommended bicycle patrol solution. We are well aware that officers set out on the streets of Chicago daily knowing that they may, unlike most, put their lives on the line on the job. It is through their dedication that we 91,000 residents and occasionally 250,000 guests live in relative safety. But keeping in mind that each single hate-crime incident is often a traumatic and life-altering experience for the survivors and that even the physically and mentally strongest among us often suffer the lasting effects of post-traumatic stress, now is the time for those members of the glbt community who cherish our rare enclave to magnify the local contributions of the CPD and LAC by volunteering merely one evening each month for the coming summer and fall with the community-based Halsted Safety Patrol. You will find it both an easy burden and even a pleasure.

One realizes the magnitude of the solution on the map of the area encompassed by the Halsted Safety Patrol in which some 51 street intersections are apparent between Grace, Wellington, Clark and Broadway, 72 if we extend the area eastward to Sheridan. Incidents occur and offenders flee quite rapidly. Even five minutes' delay between incident, a call to 911 and police response is often too great unless a license plate is recorded. And if an attack has occurred, as opposed to assault ( verbal threat ) , for the victim, the time for action, aside from medical rescue or the undertaker, has passed. Rarely are police themselves witnesses and so able to respond immediately.

Although the Safety Patrol has had limited volunteers and financial resources, last year between June and November we maintained at least one weekend patrol each week. With the help of perhaps an additional 50-100 volunteers, we believe that we, the LAC and the CPD can end hate crime in East Lakeview NOW.

Our focus has been an extremely safe and conservative one in which we have devoted ourselves to relatively safe PREVENTATIVE OBSERVATION, usually in plain cloths; we simply report both hate-crime candidates ( verbally hostile individuals of any kind or suspicious vehicles ) as well as incidents or crimes in progress, via cellular phone. Prevention is the key and therefore we do not wait until assault ( a verbal or physical threat to do harm ) , battery ( an actual physical attack ) or murder have been committed. By virtue of our patrol volunteer numbers, preparedness and sobriety, we believe our level of safety to be far greater than that of the average late-night pedestrian.

We also strongly encourage all pedestrians themselves to be prepared at all times with a small pencil, blank wallet-size card and cellular phones to record and report license plates. Download our safety map on which late-night safe sites are indicated. When possible, avoid walking alone and avoid dark streets. But occasionally, please join our coordinated team effort—join with a friend, family member, parishioner or lover and patrol as a group or permit us to help you initiate a patrol in your own neighborhood.

Though we would prefer to see the ideal of universal peace and goodwill, to see the lion lie down with the lamb, until that day comes we call on you, young, old, Black, white, straight, gay, mothers, daughters, strong, frail, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, construction workers, clerks, students, teachers, doctors, waitresses, lawyers, ministers, reporters, businesspeople, professors and all good people to help us make it so.

"Whoever you are come forth, or men or women, come forth out of the dark confinement, you must not stay there dallying in your house, ... take your [ friends and ] lovers on the road with you, ... to see the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls, all parts way for the progress of souls along the grand roads of the universe!" — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

James Fitzgerald McDermott,

Rev. James M. Cwan,

Michael Arthur Blair,

Halsted Safety Patrol 2000

( 312 ) 409-1690