Summer Break

No, not from Strand Releasing or Falcon International. This blog is going to take a summer break. During that time, you will be able to see existing comments, but you will not be able to add new comments. I'll be back around the end of summer.

My second-ever fan letter

About 8 years ago, I wrote my first fan letter, to Matthew Ferguson, star of such festival favorites as Eclipse, Un©ut, and Lilies, as well as such mainstream fare as the TV series La Femme Nikita.

Tonight, I wrote my second fan letter, this one to Peter Paige, Emmett Honeycutt on Showtime's Queer As Folk. QAF is in its final season, so I figured I'd better write while the front office is still forwarding fan mail. With a little luck, he might actually get it by Easter. Or maybe a little faerie magic will work its way across the web, and he'll find out about this blog entry.

When QAF was first announced, the ads rather prominently featured Randy Harrison, the young blond actor who plays "the twink." Randy is both highly photogenic and a pretty good actor besides, and it was Randy's name in my TiVo that brought the movie Bang Bang You're Dead to my attention, but it was a beautiful moment for me when I realized that I would rather run off to a faerie gathering with Emmett than go for a back-room tryst with Justin.

But Emmett's really old, like almost as old as I am! I'm in my 40s, so I'm supposed to make a fool of myself over men half my age, right? If not a dirty old man, I'm supposed to be at least the kindly older man who takes the garçon stupide under my wing, right? I know far more about Emmett Honeycutt than I do about Peter Paige, but I do believe that at least some of the inner light that comes sizzling out of Emmett is from the real Peter Paige underneath the script and costumes.

I also told Peter that one of my fantasies is to see him in person at the Q&A after his film (in any capacity he participates) screens at the Castro as part of the Frameline festival, with 1,400 screaming queens giving him a 10-minute standing ovation. Peter Paige is someone on whom I wish I could shower that kind of appreciation in person.

Bang Bang You're Dead

The movie Bang Bang You're Dead is based on the play of the same title, by William Mastrosimone. (You can download the play from the web site.)

The play is about a high-school aged boy who confronts the ghosts of the people (his parents and classmates) that he killed earlier that day, exploring the question of what drove him to such a horrible killing spree. The movie centers on a high school production of the play, with the lead role played by a student (played by Ben Foster of Six Feet Under) who was expelled the previous year for threatening to blow up the football team. There's only one passing reference to homosexuality, so this really isn't a queer film per se, even though it has Randy Harrison (Justin on Queer As Folk [US]) in a major supporting rôle. Still, the underlying theme of being driven to violence by relentless bullying will undoubtedly speak to many people's experience of growing up queer or otherwise "different."

There are a couple of other amusing cameos: the lunch lady is Dolores Herbig from Dead Like Me (do I sense a trend, Ms. Willes?), and one of the teachers is Janel Moloney (Donna Moss on The West Wing). The chief bully, played by David Paetkau, will be a familiar face to anyone who watched Final Destination 2.

Go Grizzlies! (thump, thump, thump) Go Grizzlies!

Long live the Trogs.

My favorite line: "Can we talk? Outside? Outside. Outside! Go. Go, go, go, go, go!"

Seriously, this movie is on my lifetime top-ten list. It also won 4 daytime Emmys, one Directors Guild of America award, a Peabody award, and the audience award for Best Feature at the 2002 Nantucket Film Festival.

BANG BANG YOU'RE DEAD, dir. Guy Ferland, 2002 USA/Canada, 87 min. video, distribution: Showtime/Viacom. (runs occasionally on the Showtime cable channel, and is also available on VHS and DVD in several countries, including Argentina, Brazil, and Japan) (IMDB entry)