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"Homo Heights" and "Divine Trash"
Are Film Fest Hits

By Variety
Contributed by Jodie Miller

Homo Heights

Sydney
April 13, 1998

Camp humor worthy of John Waters meets "Dick Tracy"-style comic-book direction, peppered with an "Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" kind of irreverence in this surreal, soapy and amusingly offbeat picture.

While its witty narrative clowning creates a few structural problems for debutante director-scribe Sara Moore, the picture's almost continuous laughs and many brilliant performances should see "Homo Heights" secure theatrical release in gay-friendly markets, not to mention a busy schedule of gay fest dates.

Aged icon and resident gay guru Malcolm (Quentin Crisp) feels like the "Greta Garbo of Queerdom" and is ready for "a surprise, or to die" rather than remain a prisoner of the stifling Maria Callous (Stephen Sorrentino), a heavyweight drag queen and leader of the gay mafia in Homo Heights. Callous controls local media and bugs entire apartment blocks.

No longer appeased by an ever-increasing array of goods, procured for him by Callous, that once belonged to the leading ladies of cinema -- Gloria Swanson's false teeth, Greta Garbo's slipper, Nancy Sinatra's go-go boot trinkets and Vivien Leigh's pill box ("the only friend she ever had") -- Malcolm turns to his friend Clementine (Lea DeLaria), the lesbian driver of a lavender taxi, to hatch an escape plan.

With a mixture of panic and fury, Callous decides she needs to get "an icon for an icon," which she believes will make Malcolm happy once more. In an amusing consultation among gay ghetto leaders, the icon picked is Carol Channing (who briefly appears in a witty cameo) after Grace Jones and Hayley and Juliet Mills are rejected.

Meanwhile, Clementine, who lives a dissolute life of wine, women and song, is trying to win back the love of her life, Stella (Lynn Sain), who is now with the alcoholic Blanche (Michelle Hutchison). Cruise (Tim Tucker) impregnates Stella, while his boyfriend, Tootsie (Grant Richey), an investigative reporter, risks Callous' wrath by exposing Malcolm's frustrated escape attempts. Two fantastically trashy drag queens, Paprika (Daniel Alexander Jones) and Queenie (Emil Herrera), anchor yet another bizarre subplot.

While "Homo Heights" is essentially a love story, or three, it will interest gay audiences with its affectionate, tongue-in-cheek jab at the sometimes claustrophobic, often bitchy and frequently dramatic nature of queer culture.

Crisp, the octogenarian activist and author who turned heads in his cameo role as Queen Elizabeth in "Orlando," does a competent, suitably frail job as the fading Malcolm. But he is eclipsed by screen newcomer Sorrentino, who plays Callous with hilarious, show-stealing gusto.

The picture also features a great original score, ranging from whimsically classical to pumping club numbers.

Divine Trash

Park City, Utah

Part biopic of Baltimore's enfant terrible/shockmeister John Waters, part chronicle of the making of the notorious "Pink Flamingos," which catapulted drag queen Divine to the limelight, "Divine Trash" also manages to survey three decades of non- mainstream and avant-garde cinema.

Commercially, Steve Yeager's documentary, which won the 1998 Filmmakers Trophy at Sundance, could get a PR boost from the release of Waters' new comedy, "Pecker," later this year, but the main audience still rests with his loyal fans, who might even learn a fact or two about the iconoclastic filmmaker.

A loving grandmother gave Waters his first camera when he was a teenager growing up in Baltimore. At the age of 12, he began voraciously reading Jonas Mekas' Village Voice column and Variety. Water's film education consisted of foreign-language classics, horror flicks, the underground cinema of Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger and the Kuchar brothers. He showed early proclivity for the weird and the macabre, always identifying with the villain rather than the hero.

The documentary's structure is a bit diffuse: there's no point of view or analytic center, just a collection of interviews, some more illuminating than others. Nonetheless, viewers will get a view of Divine's life, along with useful background about the making of "Pink Flamingos." For Waters, Divine (Glenn Milstead) was a combo of Jayne Mansfield and Clarabell the clown, "a lowbrow version of '50s glamour." He perceived Divine as "the Godzilla of drag queens, a drag terrorist, designed to shock both gays and straights," but Divine considered himself an actor first and foremost, not a drag queen.

In interviews with helmer Yeager, Waters' and Divine's parents indicate that they have never seen "Pink Flamingos," and have no intention of doing so. On the other hand, former Warhol director Paul Morrissey observes that "Pink Flamingos" "makes jokes out of every societal taboo."

Waters emphasizes that he was not trying to send messages or "say anything, just give people shock value for their money's worth." By his, and others', admission, he's a control freak. Waters meticulously rehearsed and shot his films; contrary to popular notion, he has avoided improvisational methods in his work. From the beginning, Waters proved a master of marketing, taking active part in designing posters and promoting "Flamingos," which went on to become a cult classic and watershed in the history of alternative cinema.

Among the film's most interesting aspects is a consideration of the context in which Waters worked and flourished. His outrageous films coincided with, and arguably benefited from, several '70s trends: classic European art films, porno chic and exploitation fare. Later, a whole generation of filmmakers was influenced by Waters' sensibility -- Jim Jarmusch, for one, who claims he learned from Waters' example "that it was OK to make films my own way."

After watching "Divine Trash," Waters' reaction, reflecting his idiosyncratic humor, was allegedly, "It would be a great film to show at my funeral."



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