LGBTQ

CHASING CHASING AMY: origins of love, fictional and otherwise

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Photo caption: Sav Rodgers in CHASING CHASING AMY. Courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment and Kino.

In the irresistible documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, filmmaker Sav Rodgers tells his own highly personal story of finding sanctuary in a romantic comedy, a movie that ultimately spurs a both a filmmaking career and his transition to trans man. Rodgers weaves in parallel tracks, the origin story of the 1997 movie Chasing Amy, and thoughtful discussion of how that film, after 25 years of cultural evolution, has aged. Chasing Chasing Amy seamlessly braids together the fictional love story in Chasing Amy with the stories of real life relationships, including his own.

Chasing Chasing Amy‘s writer-director Savannah Rodgers grew up a bullied lesbian in small town Kansas, and found lesbian representation in an old DVD of Chasing Amy, which became a lifesaver. When Kevin Smith himself heard Rodgers’ TED Talk, he connected with Rodgers and supported her (and then his) filmmaking career. All this is contained in Chasing Chasing Amy along with some revelations.

The novelty of Chasing Amy is a straight man and a lesbian as inseparable soulmates, and we learn that Kevin Smith modeled this after his real life friends, his producer Scott Mosier and the screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Turner had written the lesbian coming of age film Go Fish, which was on the festival circuit along with Smith and Mosier’s Clerks; Turner later wrote the screenplays for American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.

But the core of Chasing Amy’s narrative is a love affair sabotaged by the guy’s insecurities, mirroring Smith’s own less-than-two-year relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, who plays Alyssa, the main female character.

Rodgers meets Smith himself, who becomes a mentor, and we get current on-camera interviews with Smith, Adams and other principals. There’s a shoulder-to-shoulder joint interview with Smith and Adams, followed by a sobering solo interview with Adams. Along the way, Rodgers matures from a gushing fan girl to a grownup who recognizes the personal flaws that complicate other people’s relationships. Smith comes off well here, and if Rodgers seems too adoring of Smith in most of the film, just wait until her final interview with Joey Lauren Adams.

Chasing Amy was director Kevin Smith’s 1997 masterpiece, with a groundbreaking lesbian/bi-sexual leading lady; but, after 25 years of cultural evolution, some elements now seem stale and even embarrassing. The leading male character is Holden, played by Ben Affleck. His buddy and wingman is Banky, played by Jason Lee, and Banky (to Lee’s off camera discomfort) is unspeakably vulgar and homophobic, a whirlpool of toxic masculinity. But of course, Banky is there to highlight Holden’s comparative evolved tolerance and openness. As an exasperated Kevin Smith says, ‘Banky is the idiot“. However, were Smith to make the same movie today, he would certainly still make Banky offensive, but not so over-the-top offensive.

Some viewers saw in Chasing Amy a toxic male fantasy of a “the right” straight male being able to “convert” a lesbian to heterosexuality. But Alyssa is a bisexual character, as is explicitly depicted in the movie when her lesbian friends react to her fling with Holden. She’s just a bisexual who is more than he is emotionally able to handle.

The story of Sav Rodgers winds from Kansas and the TedTalk, through her long relationship and now marriage, and final, the transitioning into a he/him trans man. Rodgers grows from a naïf into a grown ass man, albeit one that is still earnest, sweet and wears his emotions on his sleeve.

That Rodgers tells such a highly personal story along with the origin story of Chasing Amy and subsequent film and cultural criticism is impressive and ever watchable. I screened Chasing Chasing Amy for the San Luis Obispo Film Festival. It releases into theaters tomorrow.

Frameline is back, with two international gems and a groundbreaking classic

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Photo caption: GONDOLA Courtesy of Frameline.

Frameline, the oldest and longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in the world, opens tomorrow, June 19 and runs through June 29. The program includes over 120 screenings from around the globe, curated from over 1,600 submissions and invitations. Frameline films will be presented in San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, the Herbst Theatre and the Vogue Theatre, and Oakland’s The New Parkway Theater.

As always, Frameline’s program is very rich. I’ve selected three films to highlight – two highly inventive nuggets from international cinema and the restoration of a groundbreaker.

Gondola: This charming comedy is the work of a unique filmmaker, German writer-director Veit Helmer, who has been making dialogue-free films in Central Asian nations for a decade. A gondola links two mountainsides in rural Georgia, and the two female gondola operators fall in love as they pass each other over the valley. It’s remarkable how Helmer is able to pack so many story elements into a film without dialogue. (I also love Helmer’s The Bra, which I tagged as just your average silent Azerbaijani comedy.) Gondola is ever funny, sweet and imaginative.

Bruna Linzmeyer and Mirella Façanha in CIDADE; CAMPO. Courtesy of Frameline.

Cidade; Campo: Frameline hosts the North American premiere of this third feature by Brazilian auteur Juliana Rojas, which won her the Encounters Best Director prize at the Berlinale. There are two female-centered stories of relocation between city and countryside. One woman, forced from her rural home by a flood, moves to Sao Paolo with her sister and her vulnerable, floundering grandson; she takes an office cleaning job and joins her so-workers to push for better conditions. In the other story, a woman inherits her estranged father’s farm and moves to the sticks with her partner. She discovers that he was working with ayahuasca in an impossible business climate. The lengthy, robust sex scene will be talked about, both for its duration and its body positivity. Rojas anchors each story in in often harsh reality, but but explores grief by dotting them with the supernatural.

Guinevere Turner and V.S. Brodie in GO FISH. Courtesy of Frameline.

Go Fish: This pioneering lesbian classic by writer-director Rose Troche and writer-star Guinevere Turner exploded at the 1994 Sundance. Funded by Frameline’s Completion Fund Grant, a new 4K restoration will screen at the Palace of Fine Arts to celebrate its 30th anniversary. (BTW, if you get a chance to see the new doc Chasing Chasing Amy, not at Frameline, Guinevere Turner discusses the Go Fish experience at Sundance.) Both Troche and Turner are expected to appear at the Frameline screening.

There are over 100 other offerings in the Frameline48 program. Peruse the program and purchase tickets at Frameline48. Here’s the trailer for Gondola.

CHASING CHASING AMY: origins of love, fictional and otherwise

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In the irresistible documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, filmmaker Sav Rodgers tells his own highly personal story of finding sanctuary in a romantic comedy, a movie that ultimately spurs a both a filmmaking career and his transition to trans man. Rodgers weaves in parallel tracks, the origin story of the 1997 movie Chasing Amy, and thoughtful discussion of how that film, after 25 years of cultural evolution, has aged. Chasing Chasing Amy seamlessly braids together the fictional love story in Chasing Amy with the stories of real life relationships, including his own.

Chasing Chasing Amy‘s writer-director Savannah Rodgers, grew up a bullied lesbian in small town Kansas, and found lesbian representation in an old DVD of Chasing Amy, which became a lifesaver. When Kevin Smith himself heard Rodgers’ TED Talk, he connected with Rodgers and supported her (and then his) filmmaking career. All this is contained in Chasing Chasing Amy along with some revelations.

The novelty of Chasing Amy is a straight man and a lesbian as inseparable soulmates, and we learn that Kevin Smith modeled this after his real life friends, his producer Scott Mosier and the screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Turner had written the lesbian coming of age film Go Fish, which was on the festival circuit along with Smith and Mosier’s Clerks; Turner later wrote the screenplays for American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.

But the core of Chasing Amy’s narrative is a love affair sabotaged by the guy’s insecurities, mirroring Smith’s own less-than-two-year relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, who plays Alyssa, the main female character.

Rodgers meets Smith himself, who becomes a mentor, and we get current on-camera interviews with Smith, Adams and other principals. There’s a shoulder-to-shoulder joint interview with Smith and Adams, followed by a sobering solo interview with Adams. Along the way, Rodgers matures from a gushing fan girl to a grownup who recognizes the personal flaws that complicate other people’s relationships. Smith comes off well here, and if Rodgers seems too adoring of Smith in most of the film, just wait until her final interview with Joey Lauren Adams.

Chasing Amy was director Kevin Smith’s 1997 masterpiece, with a groundbreaking lesbian/bi-sexual leading lady; but, after 25 years of cultural evolution, some elements now seem stale and even embarrassing. The leading male character is Holden, played by Ben Affleck. His buddy and wingman is Banky, played by Jason Lee, and Banky (to Lee’s off camera discomfort) is unspeakably vulgar and homophobic, a whirlpool of toxic masculinity. But of course, Banky is there to highlight Holden’s comparative evolved tolerance and openness. As an exasperated Kevin Smith says, ‘Banky id the idiot“. But, were Smith to make the same movie today, he would certainly still make Banky offensive, but so much over-the-top offensive.

Some viewers saw in Chasing Amy a toxic male fantasy of a “the right” straight male being able to “convert” a lesbian to heterosexuality. But Alyssa is a bisexual character, as is explicitly depicted in the movie when her lesbian friends react to her fling with Holden. She’s just a bisexual who is more than he is emotionally able to handle.

The story of Sav Rodgers winds from Kansas and the TedTalk, through her long relationship and now marriage, and final, the transitioning into a he/him trans man. Rodgers grows from a naïf into a grown ass man, albeit one that is still earnest, sweet and wears his emotions on his sleeve.

That Rodgers tells such a highly personal story along with the origin story of Chasing Amy and subsequent film and cultural criticism is impressive and ever watchable. I screened Chasing Chasing Amy for the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival where it led my Best of the SLO Film Fest. I’ll let you know when it’s available to stream.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING: obsessions and impulses collide

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Photo caption: Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart in LOVE LIES BLEEDING. Courtesy of A24.

Love Lies Bleeding is a title that legendary film noir director Sam Fuller would have loved, and this highly original neo-noir is a knockout. Kristen Stewart plays Lou, the reluctant manager of a downscale fitness gym in a hardscrabble New Mexico town that is flat, arid and devoid of culture. Love Lies Bleeding may be set in and shot in New Mexico, but this town is not anybody’s Land of Enchantment.

Lou is wallowing through the drudgery of her job, when she eyes Jackie (Katy O’Brian), an aspiring bodybuilder who has just drifted into town. This moment evokes the one in which John Garfield first sees Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice. The two plunge into a passionate affair, and Jackie, who has snagged a job on her first day in town but is still homeless, moves in with Lou.

But soon, the two find out that Jackie has already become entangled with two folks who are important in Lou’s life – and not in a good way. There’s an impetuous homicide and a “perfect crime” cover-up. Unfortunately, an inconvenient witness, a steroid binge, and more impulsiveness threaten to unravel their lives. Love Lies Bleeding hurtles down an alley filled with robust sex, sudden violence and witty observation.

I will not spoil the ending except to say that, just as I was thinking, “this could go one of three ways”, it went in a totally unexpected direction. And, as I was thinking that writer-director Rose Glass was pivoting completely away from noir conventions, she ends the film with one of the most noirish lightings of a cigarette ever. This is only Glass’s second feature, co-written with Weronika Tofiska. Glass’ 2019 debut feature, St. Maud, earned some buzz.

Like many noirs, this is a tale of obsessions, and it’s a character-driven one, contrasting Lou and Jackie. Lous is measured and intentional, and we learn that her prioritization of loyalty has kept her in this place. Loyalty, and pretty much everything else, is situational for Jackie, whose unfocused wanderlust is another symptom of her captivity to her impulses. Lou is obsessed with Jackie. Jackie is obsessed with reinventing her life, through bodybuilding, through sex, through the next shiny thing.

Kristen Stewart is just so watchable, as she was when I first saw the 17-year-old Stewart in as Tracy in 2007’s Into the Wild. Stewart then bit her lower lip through the Twilight franchise, and, now about to turn 34, is at the top of her game. Stewart is fearless in her choice of scripts and likes to bet on interesting directors. She’s just perfect as Lou in Love Lies Bleeding.

This is the first time I’ve seen Katy O’Brian, and there’s just no getting around that she doesn’t look like most other movie actresses. She’s a martial arts instructor who doesn’t rely on her physicality alone, but uses it to great advantage. O’Brian captures Jackie’s supreme confidence (except when her family rejection bubbles to the surface, and how she is capable of one of the epic steroidal rages. She’s already amassed 27 IMDb credits, including a recurring role on The Mandalorian.

If you’re casting a villain with steely and contained determination, who better than four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris? Harris comes through as expected, and Glass wittily puts him in a bald-on-top stringy wig that evokes Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She also gives the character a disgusting interest in bugs.

The rest of the cast is very good, too, including Dave Franco, Jena Malone and Anna Barishnikov, who must be pretty intelligent to play such a profoundly dumb character with such intricacy.

Their obsessions drive Lou and Jackie together in Love Lies Bleeding, and it’s a volatile mix with a wowzer ending.

RUSTIN: greatness, overlooked

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Photo caption: Colman Domingo in RUSTIN. Courtesy of Netflix.

We all know of the March on Washington, culminating in Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before 250,000 people filling the National Mall. It’s one of the most iconic and important moments in American history. Rustin introduces many folks to the overlooked greatness of Bayard Rustin (Colan Domingo), the organizer of the event.

Bayard Rustin was an important civil rights leader who was relegated to the background of the movement, and sometimes even ostracized, because he was a gay man. In the 1950s and 1960s, being a former Communist didn’t help, either.

Rustin’s mentor A. Philip Randolph (played in Rustin by Glynn Turman) is the other most overlooked male civil rights leader. Randolph’s two greatest accomplishments, the integration of the military and of the defense industries, occurred before television (and were filtered by the white mainstream print media). A personal note from The Movie Gourmet: my decades-long career has been in politics, and one of my very first political day jobs was funded by the A. Philip Randolph Institute. Here is more on Randolph and Rustin from the APRI website.

Rustin takes us behind the scenes, and we see the strategic disagreements, petty jealousies and jockeying for status between civil rights leaders. It’s important that the leaders came from generational strata. In 1963, Randolph was 74. Rustin was 52. NAACP head Roy Wilkins was 61, and Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell was 55, both at the peaks of their careers. MLK was a rising superstar, but still only 34. John Lewis was still only 23.

In birthing the March on Washington, Rustin was fighting the overt attacks of J. Edgar Hoover and Strom Thurmond and the covert obstructionism of Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. Rustin also had the contend with the antagonism of Wilkins and Powell. But, Rustin had two cards to play – the respect demanded by Randolph and the rock star sizzle of MLK.

In a stellar, commanding performance, Colman Domingo is charismatic as Rustin. Domingo has been so good in everything I’ve seen him in: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Zola, Selma and Lincoln. Glynn Turman brings gravitas and moral authority to Randolph. In ingenious, against-type casting, Chris Rock is excellent as the funny-as-a-heart-attack Roy Wilkins. Jeffrey Wright PERFECTLY captures Adam Clayton Powell.

Ami Ameen has the challenge of satisfying audience expectation in portraying MLK. He gets the speech patterns and mannerisms right, while inhabiting a still-young MLK growing into the leader he was just becoming.

If you want to learn more of Bayard Rustin, I recommend Matt Wolf’s award-winning, but hard to find, short doc Bayard & Me, which features Rustin’s longtime partner Walter Neagle’s recollection of his life with Rustin; it’s an important insight into both Civil Rights and LGBTQ history.

Rustin was directed by George C. Wolfe, whose previous feature, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, was my #2 movie of 2021. We need to see more movies from this guy.

Rustin is now streaming on Netflix.

ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED: leading man in the closet

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Photo caption: Rock Hudson in ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED. Courtesy of HBO Max.

The insightful and often witty showbiz biodoc Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed has an unbeatable leading man – Rock Hudson. From Magnificent Obsession in 1954 through 1962 (Come September and Lover Come Back) Rock earned eight straight years on the list of America’s top ten most popular movie stars. The basis for his popularity was a series of melodramas and romantic comedies that showcased him as the nation’s to heterosexual sex symbol, while he was secretly gay.

Rock’s Hollywood story begins when, as a young Navy vet, he is discovered by the prominent (and sexually predatory) agent Henry Willson, who groomed over a dozen of the beefcake stars of the 50s, many of whom were also closeted gays (e.g., Tab Hunter). Willson gets Rock a contract with Universal and the studio went to to work on re-creating the raw Adonis into leading man material.

Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed unspools the story of Rock’s closeted but vibrant lifestyle, with his decades-long friendship with a Hollywood couple, George Nader (74 screen credits, including the lead in Robot Monster) and Mark Miller. We meet Lee Garlington, Rock’s companion in the early 60s. We hear from author Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City), who joined Rock’s social set in the 70s and kept urging him to come out. We also meet a smattering of Rock’s fellow actors and casual lovers. Rock’s poolside parties resembled a gay version of the Playboy Mansion.

Rock Hudson and Lee Garlington in ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED. Courtesy of HBO Max.

And then Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed takes us back to Rock’s sad finale, as he wasted away from AIDS, early in the epidemic, before there was any real hope from therapeutic medication. We cringe as we revisit Rock’s harrowing kiss of Linda Evans in Dynasty while AIDS-positive – and hear from Evans herself. And we hear of the cruel blow-off by First Lady Nancy Reagan. Isolated by his fear of the AIDS stigma, he still refused to come out of closet, while finally publicly acknowledging his AIDS diagnosis essentially on his deathbed.

While Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed is generally sympathetic to Rock and his closeted plight, it takes an unflinching look at his chain-smoking, heavy drinking, sometimes ruthless ambition and his stubborn refusal to come out.

While the arc of Rock’s life is ultimately tragic, director Stephen Kijak has made Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed very fun to watch by peppering it with clips from Rock’s films. Of course, juxtaposition with the revelations of Rock’s private lifestyle, many, many melodramatic and sexy lines have become hilarious double entendres. The effect of the snippets is poignant as Rock’s story becomes sadder.

Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed is streaming on HBO Max.

FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK: triple-threat trailblazers

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Photo caption: Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

Fanny: The Right to Rock documents the first all-female rock band to get signed by a major record label and churn out five albums. Fifty years ago, the band Fanny was breaking ground for women musicians – and for lesbians and Filipinas. Women rockers were a novelty in the early 1970; imagine layering on LGBTQ identity and Asian-American heritage.

Although you probably haven’t heard of them, this was no garage band. They had a major label record deal, European tours, and hung out with big name peers. Unlike many male bands of the period, Fanny didn’t crash and burn due to drug use or clashing egos. They just never caught on with record-buyers.

FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

It’s pretty clear that sexism in the music industry and media, combined with maybe being a little ahead of their time to deny Fanny stardom. Too bad – I would have loved to listen to them in their heyday.

Their music fits right into the stuff I was listening to in the 1970s. I’m guessing that the reason why I hadn’t heard of them is that they didn’t get played on FM radio in the Bay Area.

These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot. Tomorrow night, May 17, they’ll perform for one time at the Whisky A-Go-Go to commemorate the 50 year anniversary of their now infamous club performance at the Whisky.

Fanny in FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK. Courtesy of PBS.

Fanny: The Right to Rock is filled with colorful anecdotes from back in the day. Todd Rundgren, an important early associate of Fanny, and Bonnie Raitt appear as eyewitnesses. Cherie Curry of the Runaways, Cathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Kate Pierson of the B-52s testify to Fanny’s trailblazing status.

I screened Fanny: The Right to Rock last year at the Nashville Film Festival. On May 22, you can watch it on your very own television when It will be broadcast on PBS and begin streaming on on PBS.ORG and the PBS APP.

OUT IN THE RING: macho and flamboyant, wrestling is also queer

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Charlie Morgan in OUT IN THE RING. Courtesy of Ryan Bruce Levey.

Out in the Ring is Ryan Bruce Levey’s encyclopedic yet irresistible documentary history of LGBTQ professional wrestlers. There is no sports entertainment that is more macho than pro wrestling. Or more flamboyant. Or, as it turns out, more queer.

Out in the Ring takes us back to the 1940s, when the straight journeyman wrestler Gorgeous George became a star and transformed wrestling by affecting a gay pose as his gimmick. George was just the first to do so, and Out in the Ring traces the many straight wrestlers who have pretended to be gay.

At the same time, many of wrestling’s best performers were closeted, notably the great Pat Patterson. Out in the Ring focuses on Patterson’s career and personal life, and how he grew into an important executive in the business. Out in the Ring surveys a long list of LGBTQ wrestlers who were forced to stay in the closet, like Patterson and Susan Tex Green.

[Personal note: The Movie Gourmet is a Boomer who, as a child, was glued to the TV for KTVU’s Saturday pro wrestling broadcasts, announced by Walt Harris. (Harris also called also roller derby.) In that era, Pat Patterson was a dominant presence in Bay Area pro wrestling.]

Out in the Ring showcases the panoply of today’s Out wrestling stars, led by Charlie Morgan and Mike Parrow. The variety is astounding: gay men, lesbians, bisexual women and men, transsexual men and transsexual women, asexual and nonbinary. There are those who make their queerness a signature of their act and those that don’t. They tell us about the homophobia that they have faced and their relief and joy from coming out.

Ry Levey has brought many films to Cinequest as a publicist, especially Canadian indies. The exquisitely sourced Out in the Ring is his first feature as a director.

I screened Out in the Ring for its US premiere at Cinequest. Both unflinching and uplifting, it’s a documentary as fun to watch as pro wrestling.

BESTIES: confidence rocked

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Photo caption: Lina Al Arabi and Esther Esther Bernet-Rollande in BESTIES. Courtesy of Frameline.

The absorbing coming of age drama Besties is set among Algerian teen girls in a hardscrabble immigrant urban French neighborhood. They’re growing up on the streets with minimal supervision by their hard-working single moms, and even their modest aspiration of a day trip to the beach seems beyond their grasp.

Yet, despite her downtrodden circumstances, the spirited Nedjima (Lina Al Arabi) is especially comfortable in her own skin. Supremely confident, she leads her girl squad, athletically matches up with the boys, and can talk trash like an NBA player.

Lina Al Arabi in BESTIES. Courtesy of Frameline.

Nedjima is fascinated by Zina (Esther Bernet-Rollande), a new girl in the hood, with relatives in a rival crew. Although Nedjima and Zina are on different sides (as in Sharks/Jets, Montagues/Capulets), there are attracted to each other and begin a secret romance.

Suddenly, Nedjima’s own identity is rocked – she never imagined that she could be a lesbian. This may be France, but even the kids in this insular immigrant community are homophobic. Suddenly she’s lost her community status and her support group. She reveals to Zina what teens often feel and never say, “I’m afraid of everything.” How is Nedjima going to recover her own agency and navigate being lesbian in her family and neighborhood?

Esther Bernet-Rollande (center) in BESTIES. Courtesy of Frameline.

Besties’ two leads, Al Arabi and Bernet-Rollande are very charismatic. Al Arabi’s performance could be star-making. Her Nedjima registers strength and vulnerability, wilfulness and confusion, and the audience is on her side all the way.

Besties is the first feature for writer-director Marion Desseigne-Ravel, and it’s an impressive debut. The milieu seems absolutely authentic. Besties is briskly paced, and Desseigne-Ravel tells her story economically and powerfully, without a single false moment. The final shot captures the briefest of glances, the perfect culmination of Nedjima’s story.

Besties is a showcase for Al Arabi’s magnetism and Desseigne-Ravel’s storytelling. Besties screens at Frameline on June 19.

THE SIXTH REEL: endearing farce

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Photo caption: Charles Busch and Julie Halston in THE SIXTH REEL. Courtesy of Frameline.

The endearing madcap comedy The Sixth Reel is set in the insular world of classic movie geeks. I’m not talking about the average Turner Classic Movies devotees; these are folks who would sell their souls for the right lobby card and say things like, “William Powell is sexier with Kay Francis than he is with Myrna Loy.”

Jimmy (Charles Busch) is a down-on-his-luck collector and dealer of movie memorabilia. Jimmy has a history of becoming the companion of aging filmmakers and emerging with their memorabilia collections after their demise. Despite this unsavory business model, Jimmy is broke when stumbles upon a lead – the final reel of an iconic “lost film” is extant after all.

Jimmy and his peers, each shadier than the last, plunge ahead, competing with each other for their Holy Grail. Wackiness ensues.

Charles Busch and Julie Halston in THE SIXTH REEL. Courtesy of Frameline.

Busch co-wrote and co-directed The Sixth Reel with Carl Andress. This is my first Charles Busch film, but I understand that his movies, dappled with drag performances, constitute their own comedy sub-genre.

Busch’s committed performance is excellent. The rest of the cast, which includes Tim Daly and Margaret Cho, is fine, too, especially Julie Halston as an assertive widow and Patrick Page as an imperious mogul.

There should always be a place for well-crafted farce like this. The Sixth Reel screens at Frameline on June 25, and can be streamed from Frameline after June 24.