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...Zeppelin and Genesis turned songs into epics stretching for seven, eight, nine minutes. But for the past several years--in part influenced by Nirvana, whose visceral songs got much of their power from their brutal succinctness--many rockers have opted for brevity. Hot bands like Green Day and Foo Fighters turn out short, single-minded songs whose melodies, like newly announced presidential candidates, strive for instant likability. That's not necessarily a bad thing: blasting Weezer on your Walkman after a hard 9-to-5 or the Cranberries on your home stereo after a romantic breakup may be just what...
...REAL--OR RATHER, GET UNREAL. TO Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar is a movie [CINEMA, Sept. 18]. Remember what that means? Fantasy. Make-believe. Fairy tale. A genre that is not always designed to inspire moral judgments or politically conscious statements. It aims to entertain, which To Wong Foo does delightfully. What if the story line is predictable? Name a fairy-tale fantasy in which it isn't. What if three drag queens drive into a small, dreary heartland town and add style, brighten lives and create miracles? We believe because we want to think miracles can still...
...shameless rip-off of "Priscilla," the story of two drag queens and a transsexual on a road trip through the Australian outback in fantabulous togs, "To Wong Foo" is the story of three drag queens on a road trip from New York to Los Angeles in lackluster ensembles. In "Priscilla," they are on their way to put on a drag show at a hotel in the middle of nowhere; in To Wong Foo, they are going to compete in a national drag queen pageant in L.A. "Priscilla" had a matron, a misanthrope and a young upstart. What a shock...
Both movies explore what can be learned from exposing "normal" people to the Other and vice versa. The social experiment in "To Wong Foo" occurs in Snydersville, where our heroes stay while waiting for their ancient Cadillac to be repaired. Expectedly, the town is a backwater, the hotel is run-down and the townspeople are suspicious, ignorant and/or misogynistic, Of course there is conflict--it is dealt with; the whole town befriends the visitors, and the queens wave a tearful good-bye. Everyone, except the homophobic cop and the wife-beater, is a better person, and they all live happily...
...John Waters had manhandled this trite premise, "To Wong Foo" could have been at least funny. In Beeban Kidron's directorial thumbs, it becomes schlock. In the spirit of drag and "gay humor," Kidron tried to camp up the movie, and instead made it forced and silly. Catering to straight middle America, Kidron turns drag queens into freaks and drag shows into freak shows. The Webster Hall drag contest at the beginning of the movie was reminiscent of Jabba the Hut's palace from "Return of the Jedi...