FILM REVIEW: I Am Divine

When Baltimore filmmaker John Waters bestowed the name "Divine" on his friend Glenn Milstead during their first cinematic collaboration, the 1966 short Roman Candles, it was never meant to stick, but with a brash drag alter ego to escape into, the shy, bullied Milstead found a whole new path as a performer, one that would blaze colorfully, but all too briefly, through the worlds of film, theatre and music. Divine's was a remarkably unique life, full of dualities, redemption and unapologetically trashy behavior, making him an all but irresistible documentary subject, and while director Jeffrey Schwarz latest effort, I Am Divine, is a snappy, affectionate portrait, it mostly succeeds by staying out of its protagonist's way.

Producer-director Schwarz has built something of a cottage industry chronicling interesting gay lives (Vito, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon) and there's an experienced efficiency to the way he packs 42 years of anecdotes and identity crises into 90 minutes, from Milstead's lonely childhood to his falling in with Waters and the drugged-out coterie of Dreamlanders freaks, and on to his incandescent stardom and untimely demise. There are plenty of engaging original interviews from friends and co-conspirators, particularly Waters, who always makes for an entertaining talking head, but Schwarz also leans rather heavily on clips from Divine's films and talk show appearances, though considering his flair in front of a camera, that's not exactly a drawback.

The documentary isn't all surface, delving into his sexuality, the struggle to live down the Pink Flamingos-inspired image as a dog shit-eating maniac and get the respect he deserved as an actor or his distant relationship with his family, but there are times when you wish the offstage Divine, the quiet, generous man his friends knew, got a little more screen time. While it could be more intimate, the film has fun with the high points, the international infamy and glamorous celebrity hobnobbing, while keeping things grounded in the ultimately very human story of a repressed young man who found a way to escape, and did so spectacularly. There's a reason the name stuck.

FEATURE: The A.V. Club's Guide to the 2013 Milwaukee LGBT Film/Video Festival

I turn to programmer Carl Bogner for help narrowing down the 2013 Milwaukee LGBT Film/Video Festival's jam-packed schedule to just a handful of must-see movies.

Read the full piece here.

FILM REVIEW: Computer Chess

Though it's a landmark moment that's now long since passed, before Garry Kasparov was defeated by Deep Blue in 1997, developing a computer that could best a human chess Grandmaster was one of the loftiest goals for generations of programmers and artificial intelligence researchers. The philosophical question at the heart of their quest was whether raw number-crunching power could ever compete with the uniquely human lateral thinking and creativity the game was believed to require and, if so, what kind of future could humanity have. These heady themes are omnipresent in writer-director Andrew Bujalski's new Computer Chess, permeating every conversation, but they ultimately serve more as a backdrop for his peculiar brand of offbeat comedy than the subject of any substantive exploration.

The film takes you back to an unspecified time in the early 1980s, as an oddball assortment of scientists and academics converge on a drab hotel for a weekend-long tournament pitting their chess-playing programs against one another. Though Bujalski has an eye for accuracy in regards to his retro setting, from the dorky clothes to the charmingly clunky computers, the film departs from reality fairly quickly, following the surreal goings-on between matches, including run-ins with paranoid drug peddlers, the kooky couples therapy retreat also utilizing the conference room, and a sentient, suicidal machine. None of these subplots are pursued with any real zeal, the hotel's mysterious cat infestation or the Pentagon's interest in the competition leaving a lot of intentionally unanswered questions.

Computer Chess won't appeal to every taste, the humor being of the supremely awkward, stuttering sort that earned Bujalski, director of Funny Ha Ha and Beeswax, recognition as the father of mumblecore, and its look, a grainy (mostly) black-and-white video appropriate to the era it's depicting without going full-on mockumentary, is purposefully cheap and sometimes feels more like an aesthetic exercise than a movie, but it's not without its own goofy appeal, which lies mostly in the convincing performances from perfectly cast unknown actors and the light, dreamlike feel. It's quirky strangeness, its technophile nostalgia and, at 90 minutes, its relative brevity, should serve it well once it hits Netflix, but as theatre fare, it's probably not worth leaving the house for. 

FEATURE: What to See at the 34th Annual Latin American Film Series

For the 34th year in a row, UWM's Latin American Film Series brings a week of the region's best to Milwaukee audiences, all 100% free of charge. Though all the films are certainly worth a look, we've highlighted three that are not to be missed, including Cuba's first zombie film Juan of the Dead.

Read the full piece here.

CONCERT REVIEW: Jean Grae & Element Everest (The UWM Gasthaus, Milwaukee)

I always feel bad for artists forced to contend with uncooperative (or just plain shitty) sound systems, but when they can pull off something impressive regardless, as Jean Grae did here, you've got to respect them even more.

Read my full review here.

FEATURE: Milwaukee LGBT Film/Video Festival Puts Things in Perspective

In advance of the 24th annual Milwaukee LGBT Film/Video Festival (Starting tonight at the Oriental Theatre!), the AV Club Milwaukee asked me to sit down with long-time festival programmer Carl Bogner to talk about media representations of LGBT characters and, of course, the festivals impressively diverse lineup of films.

Read the full piece here.

FEATURE: An Interview with UWM Union Theatre programmer Brian McGuire

I recently sat down with Brian McGuire, newly-minted film programmer for the UWM Union Theatre, to talk about, among other things, the upcoming fall schedule and the state of the city's film scene. The theatre, which has been bringing under-seen independent films, forgotten classics, experimental cinema and much more to Milwaukee audiences for decades now, never gets it's due as the treasure that it is. In the interest of full disclosure, I did used to work there, but that shouldn't be taken to mean my enthusiasm is in any way disingenuous (anyway, don't people usually gripe about they're old jobs?).

Read the full piece here.