I felt a little guilty about spending most of my recent movie-going time at the multiplex, so I decided to visit one of our local arthouse cinemas and see a movie called
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which was supposed to have gone over really well at the WFF. Similar to Woody Allen's first foray into feature film,
What's Up, Tiger Lilly?,
Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a redubbed, recut (with some additional scenes added) Z-grade science-fiction film from the 1950s, one that starred a young Peter Graves (I think it was originally called
Killers from Outer Space), turning it into a satire of homophobia. Graves "plays" Dr. Fartan, leader of Project Manhole, which is a US Government conspiracy to eliminate homosexuals by luring them into the desert with the promise of a free Barbara Streisand concert and then dropping an A-Bomb on them. Unfortunately, the Enola Gaybasher misses it's target and drops the bomb on Inbred, Texas (yes, this is the level of wit on display here), which really has nothing to do with the story, but whatever, however, Fartan is captured by some hilariously bad aliens who turn the former uber-heterosexual into a gay man. Then there is a plot by the Homosexual Aliens from Uranus to turn everyone gay, with Dr. Fartan's help. The film is witless and juvenile, which wouldn't have been a bad thing, if it was funny, let's just say that the concept sounds a lot better on paper. However, I did think of the way they used the word "Fabulous," was pretty funny. I would call this movie the worst I've seen all year, if it wasn't for the fact that
Storytelling is hateful and pretentious.
Well, I'm going to assuage my multiplex guilt by going to see
Baran and
Lovely and Amazing today, and some early Hou Hsiao-hsien films on Thursday. I can only hope they are better than this last stinker I watched.
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