John Cameron Mitchell
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Directed by Jim Sharman
influenced Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Visuals Themes
( The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an obvious influence.)
Ultimately, the movie is what you expect it to be -- a colorful, high-energy rock show which will remind a lot of people of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
This is a tale of the few ups and many downs of a conflicted rock star, kind of like Pink Floyd's "The Wall" (made into a movie by Alan Parker), with some of the campiness and sexual flamboyance of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and when the Angry Inch are playing on the 9th stage of a Lilith Fair-style festival or at a buffet restaurant in front of bemused senior citizens, you can't help but think of "This is Spinal Tap!".
John Cameron Mitchell's off-Broadway camp smash "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" translates to the screen in a way that recalls "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (the audience is even invited to sing along at one point, and transsexuality is an ongoing theme), except with better acting and more depth.
I own both the original stage recording and the movie soundtrack, and the music works beautifully on its own, like the songs in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (by the way, just because both films have stage origins, rock music and a guy in drag doesn�t mean we need to compare Hedwig with Rocky Horror at every opportunity; aside from those superficial likenesses, and the fact that Hedwig the live show has spawned �Hed-Heads� at least as enthusiastic as the Rocky Horror fans, the movies couldn�t be more different in terms of story and tone).
A cross between "Velvet Goldmine" and " The Rocky Horror Picture Show ", "Hedwig" is simultaneously brash and crude, mythical, and touching as it parallels the division of Eastern Europe with the tribulations of its be-wigged protagonist and her search for identity.
It's a gleefully randy romantic roundelay, in the tradition of Max Ophuls' serially sexual French comedy "La Ronde" (1950).
Another Earth’s plot suggests the recent Rabbit Hole (another fatal accident and sympathetic perp), and exploits to ingenious effect physicist Brian Greene's rather thrilling theory of multiple universes.
The buzz: The notion of an unusual relationship between the perpetrator and victim of an accidental tragedy has certainly been done before, most recently in last year’s “Rabbit Hole.”
The simplicity is refreshing, and though the at-times theatrical two-hander structure mines a similar vein of grief exploration as last year's Rabbit Hole , it makes no attempt at mastery over the subject.
The simple story has overtones of the recent Rabbit Hole.
(Think " Reservation Road " and " Rabbit Hole .")
Mitchell isn't going for the end-of-an-affair melancholy of Michael Winterbottom's "9 Songs," or the cherry-bomb bravado of Catherine Breillat's "Romance."
The brief but stormy history of hardcore sex in mainstream movies is littered with earnest attempts at making real-life screwing work in the service of a story: take Catherine Breillat's decidedly unerotic Romance, Michael Winterbottom's cooly observed 9 Songs, or Vince Gallo's ridiculously arty Brown Bunny.
Catherine Breillat’s lugubrious Romance, costarring porn star Rocco Siffredi; Bruno Dumont’s dour Life of Jesus; and Marco Bellocchio’s psychological and political diatribe Devil in the Flesh also included some graphic sex.
Murphy expresses a desire to replicate "sentimental sexuality onscreen," a feat already accomplished in more ambitious projects ranging from John Cameron Mitchell’s "Shortbus" to Catherine Breillat’s "Anatomy of Hell," both of which explore the prospects of intercourse to communicate real ideas.
Other directors (Michael Winterbottom in 9 Songs, John Cameron Mitchell in Shortbus) have dragged real sex away from the realm of porn, though never at quite this . . .
In recent memory, films as diverse as Lars von Trier’s Idioterne (1998), Catherine Breillat’s Romance (1999), Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi’s Baise-moi (2000), Patrice Chéreau’s Intimacy (2001), Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs (2004), John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (2006) and Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2013 Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Colour have all variously attempted to bridge the divide between art and pornography (or, as it is more quaintly known, “erotica”).
Dawson, who got his inspiration for hustling from My Own Private Idaho, tries comforting a vague but potent unhappiness with his lookalike beau (Paul DeBoy) by bringing a third party (Jay Brannan) into the relationship; Chinese-Canadian therapist Lee has never had an orgasm; and Beamish, for all the clomping boots and shaved-eyebrow snark, just "wanna, like, have a house... and a cat."
Altering a phrase from John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus (2006), it reminds me of La Dolce Vita but with less hope.
Ever since Woody Allen came along with his Annie Hall and his Manhattan, his Hannah and Her Sisters and his Husbands and Wives, New York has become THE American city of the ensemble romantic dramedy, where different characters come together to discuss love, life and politics.
Ever since Woody Allen came along with his Annie Hall and his Manhattan, his Hannah and Her Sisters and his Husbands and Wives, New York has become THE American city of the ensemble romantic dramedy, where different characters come together to discuss love, life and politics.
Witness Edward Burns' The Brothers McMullen, She's the One and The Sidewalks of New York, Jill Sprecher's 13 Conversations About One Thing, Charles Herman-Wurmfeld's Kissing Jessica Stein, or just about anything directed by the unofficial chronicler of black Yonkers, Spike Lee.
Ever since Woody Allen came along with his Annie Hall and his Manhattan, his Hannah and Her Sisters and his Husbands and Wives, New York has become THE American city of the ensemble romantic dramedy, where different characters come together to discuss love, life and politics.
Mitchell isn't going for the end-of-an-affair melancholy of Michael Winterbottom's "9 Songs," or the cherry-bomb bravado of Catherine Breillat's "Romance."
The brief but stormy history of hardcore sex in mainstream movies is littered with earnest attempts at making real-life screwing work in the service of a story: take Catherine Breillat's decidedly unerotic Romance, Michael Winterbottom's cooly observed 9 Songs, or Vince Gallo's ridiculously arty Brown Bunny.
In 9 Songs, Michael Winterbottom filmed the arc of a young couple’s brief relationship, which included much more explicit sex than Shortbus, but minimal character development or interaction.
(See also: “The Origin of Love,” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch .)
With its slightly nerdy, play-on-wordy title, “The Half of It” alludes to the ancient Greek belief that two-faced humans were separated by the gods, devoting their lives to finding their lost soulmates (if you like the idea, read Plato’s “Symposium,” or check out “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”).
Like many teen movies, “The Half of It” begins with an animated illustration of the origins of love from Plato’s Symposium, much like that other queer cinema classic, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”
“A Good Person” isn’t an easy ride but, like such disparate, if similarly themed, movies as “Rabbit Hole,” “Waves” and “Four Good Days,” it’s a haunting slice of real life that will make you think, feel and maybe even want to reach out to your loved ones.
Ever since Woody Allen came along with his Annie Hall and his Manhattan, his Hannah and Her Sisters and his Husbands and Wives, New York has become THE American city of the ensemble romantic dramedy, where different characters come together to discuss love, life and politics.
Even the legendary sex scenes in “An Officer and a Gentleman” are calculated and stuffy.
Bruce LaBruce's The Raspberry Reich (2004) crossed this non-existent line by mixing hardcore sex with political satire of western terrorist cells.
But various non-porn titles, from the American indie Shortbus (one of 2006's 10 Best) to the French import Blue Is the Warmest Color (one of 2013's 10 Best), are readily available to show that von Trier is hardly blazing new territory (besides, what American hasn't at least glimpsed Internet porn?).
Shortbus: John Cameron, the maker of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, has crafted a pan-sexual romp designed to make that other fever dream of a film look downright tame.
As Kuze, Michael Carmen Pitt gives a truly haunted performance that grabs back at some of his early promise in films like Hedwig and the Angry Inch and The Dreamers.