Wandering Eye

Kinky Boots, 2006. Directed by Julian Jarrold, written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth. Starring Joel Edgerton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sarah-Jane Potts, Ewan Hooper, Linda Bassett, Nick Frost and Jemima Rooper.

Now showing at the Uptown Theatre.

The Notorious Bettie Page, 2006. Directed by Mary Harron, written by Harron and Guinevere Turner. Starring Gretchen Mol, Chris Bauer, Jared Harris, Sarah Paulson, Lili Taylor, and David Straithairn.

Now showing at the Lagoon Cinema.

Mulholland Drive, 2001. Directed and written by David Lynch. Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring, Ann Miller (wonderful in “On the Town”), Dan Hedaya, Justin Theroux, and Lafayette Montgomery as the Cowboy.

Looping continuously through my brain in moments of weakness.

I love Mulholland Drive. There’s so few times when a movie will strap me down onto the electric chair and throw the switch with abandon. I can’t think of another flick that entertains on so many levels–it’s terrifying, funny, mysterious, creepy, and easily the sexiest picture I’ve ever seen. It’s the perfect movie.

Sexy? Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ on a Popsicle Stick it’s sexy. The muckity-mucks at the Hollywood Citadel haven’t been able to match its allure, not with all the lingerie in Chicago (boring), all the toplessness in Showgirls (like a spike in the brain), nor Secretary or any other movie. It’s the plot, I’m telling you, the characters and the story that on numerous occasions culminates in a beast popping out from behind a dumpster, a spine-tingling cowboy suggesting we be ‘good’ or some of the most intense girl-on-girl lovemaking you’ll ever see. In Lynch’s world there’s that feeling of being trapped in a sinister place, trying your damndest to get a grip on everything and then, suddenly, finding yourself in bed with Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring. I’m catching my breath even now.

There’s little connection between The Notorious Bettie Page, Kinky Boots and Mulholland Drive, other than I was thinking of the latter while being bored by the former pair. Comparing them would be like comparing a Playboy magazine to a dirty joke to that time you dropped two hits of acid and ended up with some woman with a poster from the Breeders Pod album above her bed and who interrupted everything to show you her ball python and who told you that you were like Iggy Pop except like a child with sideburns. In any case, one’s the real deal, the others are just pablum. Like those mystifying nights with a real human being, one movie haunts you for days. The others make you feel empty, if they make you feel at all.

A confession: I walked out of Bettie Page. It’s boring. Gretchen Mol bears a striking resemblance to Page, has a gorgeous body, yet is thoroughly without charisma and therefore, sex appeal, emotionally or physically. The film is lit on the cheap, looking as though the action were shot under Wal-Mart fluorescents. There’s no story to speak of, except that we see the rise of Bettie Page as an S&M starlet, in flashback, as she awaits questioning at the hands of Estes Kefauver, who may be one of the goofiest Senators in history, and nothing like David Straithairn. Anyway, the movie is filled with scenes of Bettie posing, of being surprised by the male response to her nudity, and of her trying to break into pictures. Which, I remember thinking, was nothing like that moment in Mulholland Drive where Naomi Watts auditions for a part with that drunken creep, some overtanned has-been and that disturbing director who almost looks like an elder Eraserhead goading them on. And Watts suddenly slips into character, whispering and drawing nearer to the creep, pretending to have a knife in her hand, and when she kisses him ever so softly and you’re just mesmerized, melting inside, and you wish to God you were the old creep and then the Eraserhead director yells ‘Cut!’ and you’re shaken from your reverie and… whew. In any case, Bettie Page had none of that.

For instance, there’s a scene where Bettie is gang raped, and it’s hollow, no fear, no tension, and Bettie seems to have rebounded nicely five minutes later. We know Page is a natural in front of the camera because everyone says so, not because we actually see it. For Mol is far from a natural, and hasn’t the warmth of a mannequin in a second hand clothing store.

Supposedly, the film switches into garish color, but I didn’t get that far, having walked out to enjoy the sunshine and ponder the philosophy of Naomi and Laura Elena in bed together. And I’m glad–the black and white cinematography in Page was cheap and lifeless to go along with the acting. My own memories of Mulholland Drive had much more color and intensity.

Kinky Boots also lacks sexiness, odd considering it’s ostensibly about, well, being kinky. The plot concerns a young guy whose father kicks the bucket, leaving the son with an old and respected shoe factory in a small blue collar English town. This is one of those bucolic factory burgs that seem to exist all over the British Isles, at least according to films like this and The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down A Mountain, The Full Monty, Waking Ned Devine, etc. This little town, with all its crazy old characters, needs the shoe factory. But the poor owner, played by Joel Edgerton (and looking like a fifty-cent Dennis Quaid) can’t make ends meet, so our hero shuffles into London–where he and his shrew of a wife really want to live–and meets Lola, nee Simon, (Chiwetel Ejiofor) a cross dresser who works at a gay bar. Lola has the solution: make kinky thigh-high boots strong enough for a bloke as large as Ejiofor to wear without the heels giving out. Hijinks are theoretically supposed to ensue.

Apparently, the effects of globalization in England has resulted in one economic boom in the guise of comedies like this–from Monty, a good film whose lessons went unheeded here, to Brassed Off, to this. Ejiofor seems to be following Philip Seymour Hoffman’s path to Oscar glory, taking on the requisite cross-dresser role and eating up scenes like he’s trying out for the school play. Joel Edgerton is lost in the main role and possesses no comic timing. As I said, the film lacks sexiness, but it also is malnourished in the humor department, and hasn’t even the sweetness of any story about people coming out of their shells. There’s just scene after scene of blue-collar innocents learning to love a jolly fellow like Ejiofor, who happens to wear a dress.

If this film had been the least bit daring, it would have made Edgerton’s character fall for Ejiofor, but of course no one’s out to make a good movie, just a bucketful of money off the back of The Full Monty.

Bored while watching Kinky Boots, I again flitted to Mulholland Drive, in part thinking how glad I was not to have seen either Watts or Harring in any of those boots. That’s just not sexy. This faux-Ealing comedy is nowhere in David Lynch’s interest range, and I should be glad for that–maybe he could have done something with a shoe factory, but it would probably involve pygmy chickens bubbling blood and midgets dribbling coffee down their shirts. And cowboys. Creepy, disturbing cowboys. All of which is endurable when Naomi Watts is coming down the line.

In short: there’s lots to see and do this weekend, some good stuff at the Mpls/St. Paul International Film Festival, and perhaps even simply renting Mulholland Drive late one night.