The Detective (1968)

Frank Sinatra is a seen-it-all NYC detective on the verge of seeing far more than he ever bargained for when he starts investigating the case of a –- to use James Ellroy’s cruel terms –- homo-cide. The crime starts in a high-end flat with a corpse minus a pecker, but Sinatra’s Joe Leland don’t blink. Yet. The man also has off-job problems, dealing with the collapse of his marriage to a new ager Karen (Lee Remick). These latter scenes are a dud, especially the flashbacks as Joe meets Karen, each sequence intro’d by a twirly camera and goofy “You are getting sleepy!” music that would play better in a Marx Brothers spoof. Scenes involving the gay “lifestyle” are unintentionally hilarious-slash-insulting. Sinatra gives the roll his all, and the mystery is aces, but director (Gordon Douglas) drops balls. Speaking of, dig that perfectly placed fern. Too funny. Film geek alert: Based on a book, Leland got a new name and title in his next novel-to-screen adaptation, “Die Hard.” Yes, John McClane. B

The Imitation Game (2014)

“The Imitation Game” wants to be a liberal rage against the evil that was British law for a century: The criminalization of homosexuality, and the body-and-mind destruction – execution, really -- of WWII hero Alan Turing, because he was born gay. But it’s really an (sorry) ultra-straight drama that’s played so safe and virginal, my church-going parents would not blink. Benedict Cumberbatch is mesmerizing and coolly brilliant as Turing, the mathematician who is called on by Her Majesty to help break the seemingly impossible cryptic Enigma code used by the Nazis during World War II. Mr. Sherlock nails the part of the misfit thrown into the Army, where failure to fit in can get you shot or jailed. But Turing’s sexuality? Cumberbatch has nothing to work with. All sex is off screen, hidden like one of those impossible codes. Now I get Turing couldn’t act on desires during war, living under Army rule. fact. But here there is no desire. No anger. No frustration. Why? By the time onscreen Turing is forced to undergo chemical castration, one has to ask, why fret? This man, as written for the Oscar votes, seems to have been a unich all along.  B-

Ginger and Rosa (2013)

In 1962 London BFF girls “Ginger and Rosa” (Elle Fanning of “Super 8” and newcomer Alice Englert) do that teen thing that many teens do: Piss on chores and curfew, dabble in romances, and smoke. They also strain under paranoia from the Cuban Missile Crisis and a far closer atomic bomb of the emotional kind involving Ginger’s anarchist dad and fragile mom (Alessandro Nivola and Christina Hendricks). Despite the obvious turn, I won’t spill details, but director/writer Sally Potter (“Orlando”) lights the fuse early. Porter has a beautiful-looking film here, picture-wise, and perfects the myriad details of teens from clothes to petty jealousies. But it’s also top heavy with too many Jiminy Crickets for Ginger. Annette Bening plays a leftist with no purpose in life but to dispel advise to our gal, and the same is true of Ginger’s gay godparents (Timothy Spall and Oliver Platt). More so, the only time a radio plays, it bears only doom and gloom like some Orsen Welles production. (TV, movies, nor newspapers figure at all.) All that said, Fanning is spectacular, a Yank going Brit on screen, and as flawlessly as Streep did Thatcher. B

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

The Australian-made “Priscilla” shoves the alpha-male road–trip flick formula in a glittering dress, high heel shoes, and caked-on eyeliner, shimmying ass to Abba every mile of the way. There be drag queens, folks, and the leads of this comedy-drama-farce have the keys and wheel. No back of the bus for them. Our queens are played by Hugo Weaving (pre-“Matrix”) and Guy Pearce (pre-“Memento”) and – in a career-high performance -- Terence Stamp. Yes. Priscilla is the bus, btw. Weaving and Pearce play gay men who cross dress, the former direly sensitive, the latter flaming to supernova. Stamp is a “tranny,” a man who only found herself post-surgery, and he digs miles under the earth, showing still-visible pain and now wire-thin contentment. The plot has trio on their way from Sidney to a rural resort to perform a glam show at a hotel owned by Hugo’s long-separated wife, and along the way they meet prejudice and acceptance. “Priscilla,” bus and movie, hits ditches and blows its engine, especially in stereotyping Asian women and country folk, but the majority of film is dressed in love and acceptance that crushes hates and judgments. The soundtrack really is royally genius. A-

Bernie (2012)

The greatest indicator the rhythm is off in “Bernie,” a dark comedy about a real-life murder that rocked a Texas town 15 years ago, comes when a playground set is seized during a criminal investigation. The audience, in unison, let out a heartfelt, “awww” as two young girls watched their backyard kingdom be torn down by police. Outside of laughter at the people and hijinks on screen, it was the only other sign of human emotion I heard or felt. 

That’s how thin “Bernie” is. The film. Not the man. Bernie Tiede, is quite thick in the belly, as played by Jack Black, and as seen in real-life photos and video during the closing credits. 

Tiede was an assistant funeral home director during the 1990s in tiny Carthage, Texas, (even the name is ironic). Clearly gay in his every manner, Tiede became a local celebrity, a mascot if you will, to the good ol’ GOP-voting Christian folk there. Not just for his artistry of making the dead look good, but in his endless dedication to church, the local theater, baseball clubs, and his undying loyalty to the town’s widows. He even came to befriend the town’s one Ms. Scrooge (Shirley MacLaine), a vile control freak badger, set off her leash after the death of her wealthy husband. This is where the thrust of the film kicks in. She became Tiede’s Sugar Momma, he her Errand Boy. Things got ugly, and Tiede shot her. Four times. The town stood strong: Behind Bernie. Old lady? Fuggedaboudit.

Shocking? Yes. But Richard Linklater, directing and co-writing, would rather laugh at the wild audacity of it all, and edits in interviews with real-life locals to the mix, showing the town as mentally lost as Tiede is in the “movie” portion. The tone is so broadly farcical nothing sticks. With Black’s eternal wink-wink personality and mincing gay lisp, I never grasped whether or not trapped-in the-closet Tiede was sincere and full of love, or playing people, full of rage, or some place between. Wearing a mask if you will, to go all Batman here. 

Person after person in those interviews dismiss Tiede as “queer,” or insists “he can’t be gay,” he’s too nice and decent. Surely he heard that awful talk, surely it hurt, and made him mad. Or did it? Did he bury his pain. We don’t know. As portrayed, Tiede has all the depth of Ziggy, to bring up another roundish guy. 

More so, there’s a strong, unpleasant whiff that Linklater, a Texan himself, is pulling a nasty fast-one on those interviewees, inviting them friendly-like to talk on camera and then editing their words to appear as rubes and hicks, or borderline senile. Were these people misled? I'd sure as hell would think, “Yes.”

“Fargo,” a far more dark comic tale of murder, had infinitely more emotion, and it’s fictional. The comparison is silly, that film is so sickly brilliant, and brilliant, but I shall not digress. In this tale, an old lady died, for real, and we get nothing. There’s no sense of loss here, mixed in with the comedy. Any sense of irony is lost. MacLaine, dropping a racist tirade as the old lady, makes it all too easy. Too neat. Ehhh.

Matthew McConaughey -- God bless him, is he becoming a character actor now, no more rom-coms? -- lifts the film as high as he can as a self-righteous, but right nonetheless, ADA who is dismayed at the turn of events. Yes, he’s also spinning comedy gold, but he’s also the only one asking, how would you react? Bernie, or the lady? C+

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) – A Second Look

I reviewed Thomas Alfredson’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” in January, calling it a good film, moody, with an overly complicated plot. Not worthy of a Top 10 for 2011. I just saw it again, and fell spellbound by how Alfredson frames his characters within windows, library stacks, doorways, and gates, every character boxed in, objects cut off, by the life they lead: Serving queen and country as spies. It’s the smartest, most intense spy film I’ve seen in years, taking away every thrill we expect in a spy flick. It’s a marvelous move from Alfredson, who has taken the classic novel – I’m re-reading it right now – and reworked into a drama about men not just battling the enemy, but each other for “treasure.” Absolutely perfect is Benedict Cumberbatch’s soul-crushed homosexual, dispatching his live-in boyfriend for career and country. That wasn’t in the book. Gary Oldman, as the fired spy tasked with finding a mole, marveled me all over, as a man who has spent so long repressing his own life and wife, he is left horrified at his loneliness. Give the man an Oscar. Absolutely one of 2011’s best. A