In perhaps the best crop of documentaries at the Frameline fest in years, the subjects range from lesbian moms to at-risk kids to Indian eunuchs to tranny choruses. I wish I could have seen them all.
Lulu Gets a Facelift I have a relative who's had three nose jobs and a peel, and the example has kept me from running through that door. Those lacking a biological cautionary tale will find Lulu Gets a Facelift a scary/funny infomercial. Having reached that stage in life where neither finances nor age are fit topics of discussion, Lulu (the drag performer Louis Biedak) faces a stark choice: a fate worse than Garbo, or the knife. One tough choice leads to another: surgeons. Some are pricey and offer the wrong options. Please, no implants! Guard against excessive expectations. This is a facelift, not a head transplant. Be forewarned: the healing process is slow and painful. At first, you'll look and feel like you've just gone 13 rounds with Sugar Ray Robinson. Finally, have an army of friends to person the ice bucket, and to remind you why you did this terrible thing to yourself.
In Lulu's case, the surgery would fulfill a long-deferred dream to headline at Trannyshack. Director and life buddy Marc Huestis keeps us watching Lulu in stitches by mixing bitchy banter, brutal candor, sex tips (bottoms have less to fear from the ravages of gravity) and shots from the Lulu clip reel, including the priceless Lucy-and-Ricky Frameline trailer. In the end, for 13,000 clams and a lot of pain, the girl stays in the picture. (Victoria, 6/16)
Meth The fest has two terrific films on a profoundly depressing subject: the horrendous link between our insatiable libidos and an insidious partner named "Tina." Todd Ahlberg's Meth is the more seductive of the two. Featuring a half-dozen hyper-attractive men who claim to have been married to their drug habits from anywhere from three to 30 years, Meth's heartbreaking message is that once you're hooked on having sex on crystal methamphetamine, you can stop, but you can probably never recover. Filmed in that hypnotic, saturated-color video style that HBO and Showtime employ for their late-night sex shows, Meth so takes you into the heads of its subjects that you feel like you're in the room as a few of them shoot up. A monkey-face, cute ex-Tina junkie exclaims how boring coke and booze were by comparison.
What's Tina like? It depends on what you mix it with, or whether you snort or inject it. These men have developed the knack for blocking out every real-world distraction that might spoil the link between their high and the next orgasm. Tina's most paradoxical attribute may be its help in postponing ejaculation for 10 to 12 hours. The boys of Meth shatter myths about the road to crystal addiction. For some, it developed along the circuit-party networks, originally started, as one ex-DJ notes ironically, to raise money to fight AIDS. Ahlberg gives us the West Coast version of the Tina party, with subjects surveyed along a trip through the Sunbelt's most livable cities from California to Florida. There's a glimmer of light at the end of this one, but it may just be the glow from another crystal pipe. Should prompt an interesting filmmaker Q&A. (Castro, 6/16)
Rock Bottom: Gay Men & Meth Jay Corcoran gives us the Big Apple version of boys lost in the crystal palace. Corcoran tops Ahlberg's cast of hunks in recovery with a full deck of "experts," crusaders (Larry Kramer, hectoring), lover-come-back-to-me confessionals (one bear admits to beating up his boyish squeeze while on crystal) and one beautiful corpse. A personal note: in the break between these films, I learned that an ex was busted for crystal possession at a leatherman's confab, and that federal agents raided the house of a major league baseball player. An awesome harmonic convergence: athletes and gay boys busted by the feds for abusing the same drugs: steroids and meth. (Victoria, 6/17)
Saving Marriage The most upbeat of the docs I viewed, Mike Roth and John Henning's exploration of the Massachusetts marriage battle zeros in on a two-year chapter involving a titanic grass-roots campaign to block an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state's Constitution. It's a follow-up to last year's excellent if more personal Same Sex America. Roth and Henning focus on the efforts of five activists to reverse centuries of encrusted feelings in the place where they once burned witches. Veteran lobbyist Arline Isaacson brings herself to tears recalling her childhood hero, a teacher who survived the Holocaust; Becky and Kat are social-worker partners whose road to marriage includes a momentous exchange of rings; Marc Solomon is a former conservative staff aide who spearheads the attempt to defeat anti-marriage House members; and Carl Sciortino is a 25-year-old health-care worker who makes himself the poster boy for change in a legislative campaign that gets viciously personal. Combines suspense with an inspirational portrait of a new generation, for whom marriage becomes a surprising vehicle for empowerment and self-respect. (Victoria, 6/18)
For the Love of Dolly How does one survive one's most enthusiastic fans? One comes away from Tai Uhlmann's absorbing if disturbing account of celebrity worship with an increased respect for the subject of the ardor, country singer Dolly Parton. Uhlmann's cameras capture David, a developmentally challenged young man who has made his Dolly fandom a reason for interacting with the real world; a gay couple turn their Dolly collectibles into a business and almost the sole purpose for their relationship; and two young women purchase the late-model car once owned by Dolly's personal assistant so that one of them can lick the seatbelts. Ultimately, Dolly herself has to dissolve a fan club that threatens to torpedo some of her charitable concert work.
Camp Michael Jackson Only the fact that Dolly was not facing prison at the time makes her story take a backseat to the truly astonishing phenomenon of the packs of devotees who formed Camp Michael Jackson at the time of the singer's child molestation trial. Eating Out/Boy Culture director Q. Allan Brocka (with Glenn Gaylord) takes a passionate if nonjudgmental view of a band of Michael fans who suspended their normal lives to hang out near the courthouse or gather by the gates of Neverland for a glimpse of the great one. The saddest story is of a woman who almost abandons her family and school-age child; the oddest and most poignant is the tale of the rail-thin British graduate student who has put himself thousands of pounds in debt for a five-second handshake. (Both: Victoria, 6/17)
George Michael: A Different Story The ex-Wham! star's personally commissioned examination of his saga, from silly boy-band to the AIDS death of a lover, to an embarrassing Hollywood tearoom bust, to a surprising bout of political commitment. It should satisfy anyone's celebrity cravings. (Castro, 6/16)