Movie Log: Career Opportunities, Volunteers, and TO WONG FOO
In a few days, I ship out to serve in the Peace Corps. Soon, you can expect to see more posts about my travels and culture. It will be largely about Viet Nam, obviously, for the next 2 years, although I have started a few stories about my trip to Morocco.
The Movie Log should continue, at least for a few weeks, although any images will likely be taken from tmdb.org, as they are below, in order to simplify my workflow.
Hideous Kinky
1998, UK, d. Gillies MacKinnon, 1h38m, ***1/2
Who's In It: Kate Winslet, Saïd Taghmaoui, Michelle Fairley
Reason to Watch: A story about living abroad
Winslet's character - a child of the '60s - is seeking spiritual enlightenment to fill her incompleteness. Inspired by romanticized portraits of Sufism, she has left her poet husband and brought her daughters with her to live in Marrakesh. The title's two words are simply the random words that young kids like to repeat often because of the way they sound. This is not a movie with a movie plot, but is based on an autobiographical novel, and is well-observed, especially in its treatment of the young girls. They don't understand their mother's journey, but they sense a lot of things that she is blind to. Winslet's character has good intentions, but the movie lays bare her selfishness endangering her children, and her journey for enlightenment being a privileged fantasy of exoticizing this "other" culture. It's a brave role for her, and she's really good in it. (Saïd Taghmaoui is even better!)
Entirely shot on location in Morocco; everything about the movie looks fantastic. I think the filmmakers are being sensitive enough to know their limitations. This is firmly a westerner's gaze on Morocco, which is all the book claims to be. There is quite a bit of Moroccan music, but an equal dose of Jefferson Airplane and Crosby, Stills & Nash, otherwise only Winslet's dresses would give a hint that this is a period piece. You wouldn't know the difference with Morocco. Another 25 years later, and it still looks exactly like this (other than the train station), and that's why it remains a draw for Western tourists looking for an accessible taste of Middle Eastern culture and a bygone simpler way of life.
Career Opportunities
1991, USA, d. Bryan Gordon, 1h23m, ***
Who's In It: Frank Whaley, Jennifer Connelly, John Candy (cameo)
Reason to Watch: John Hughes script, Jennifer Connelly
This is a classic John Hughes premise: Frank Whaley is a high school grad who thinks a lot of himself and lies and bullshits about how he's moving to the city for an incredible job, while in reality he barely lasts a day at any job he works. He gets a new job as the overnight janitor at a Target, and on his first day he discovers Jennifer Connelly - the rich girl in town, and a notable tease - is hiding out in the store after hours to drive her dad crazy.
There is an interesting theory that the main character is the closest John Hughes came to writing himself. The character is a lot like Ferris Bueller, but without the fantasy aspect of Bueller being incredibly smart and competent to back up his arrogance. So, it's unfortunate that this movie doesn't really work. I don't know why John Hughes gave up directing - maybe because his scripts were making gold and he wanted to spend more time at home - but this doesn't get his sensibility right somehow, and he actually wanted to disown the resulting film.
This movie gave us one really INCREDIBLE scene with John Candy, and that gif of Connelly sexily riding the coin-operated pony ride. But I can't recommend it, unless you've exhausted the deep well of John Hughes greats.
Volunteers
1985, USA, d. Nicholas Meyer, 1h47m, *1/2
Who's In It: Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, John Candy
Reason to Watch: The Peace Corps hates this movie
You're telling me there's a comedy about the Peace Corps, from the director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, with Tom Hanks and John Candy in it? Sounds great!
It's not. It's very unfunny.
Tom Hanks is a rich kid who graduates from Yale with 6 figures of gambling debt and is about to have his legs broken by his bookie, so he joins the Peace Corps for a free ticket out of town... to Thailand. He expects his father to pull strings with Congress to rescue him, but his entire family says: "Nope. You need this, you spoiled brat."
Ironically, the Thai villagers his cohort encounter enjoy Hanks teaching them new ways to gamble and con people, while John Candy and Rita Wilson get no respect for their impractical, book-learned knowledge. John Candy gets kidnapped by Communist rebels and is easily brainwashed to hate America (they starve him and he collapses within hours).
Making a comedy at the expense of Peace Corps Volunteers is hitting a weak target, even if there is some truth to young volunteers' outsized expectations of their ability to change villagers' lives. Volunteers need to be open-minded and respect their host country's culture; they can expect to learn as much, if not more, than they teach.
More troubling is how little this movie cares about Thailand. This movie was filmed IN MEXICO, and the only speaking role for a Thai villager is played by a Utah-born Japanese-American. The culture on display here is "generic primitive" and wildly problematic. Looking past the inauthenticity, Gedde Watanabe is fantastic and easily the best part of the movie, which is an utter waste of John Candy. The only other thing of note about this movie is that it marks when Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson started dating.
If Volunteers does not portray the Peace Corps well, is there a movie that does portray how to be a good ambassador from another culture? My somewhat silly - but not at all flippant - answer to this is:
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
USA, 1995, d. Beeban Kidron, 1h49m, ****1/2
Who's In It: Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, John Leguizamo, Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner, Chris Penn, and RuPaul
I avoided this movie for years because I couldn't imagine a Hollywood movie from the '90s portraying drag in a way that would date well, but I was completely wrong. First of all, the script came "out of nowhere" in the Hollywood sense; it was written by a playwright with first-hand knowledge and affection for the New York drag scene. The script made its way to Steven Spielberg, who loved it but let Robin Williams read it to confirm its potential; Williams ended up reading and acting the entire script out on the spot.
My own knowledge of drag is mostly limited to RuPaul's Drag Race and the brilliant documentary Paris is Burning (1990), which I feel must have been a visual reference for the opening scenes of To Wong Foo. Once the queens get on the road, you have to remember that this movie becomes a "drag fantasy", because they are always in their drag personas. This is not intended to be drag queens' reality. Their car breaks down in Small Town USA, and no one even realizes that they are men in drag. But they transform the town by embodying the guiding value of drag, which is to be yourself and love yourself for who you are. They don't inherently change anyone in the town, but they bring them a lot of inner peace and joy by giving them the confidence to be the best version of their selves.
What a miracle this movie is! That Spielberg let a relatively unknown woman director take the reins, maintained fidelity to the script, and got three straight actors - in a time when being outed could still ruin a career - who were unafraid to do this and take it seriously and become these characters. Yes, it would have been nice to have at least one gay man in a lead role - as the contemporaneous The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert had - but Swayze, Snipes and (especially) Leguizamo bring star power to the movie. When Chi-Chi finally uses a natural makeup color at the end... it's one of the nice little details that confirms this was made with love.