Monday, September 09, 2013

Hand James His Leather

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That's James Franco and gay bondage porn star Christian Patrick at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on Saturday night, where Interior. Leather Bar, James' arty examination of the censored footage from William Friendkin's seminal homosexual experience Cruising, was screening for NewFest. I elt bad for Patrick - there he was all trussed up in his gear and still everybody's eyes were on Jim - I suppose when it comes to stockpiling the people's attention it's best to just get out of James Franco's way. He knows what he's doing.

I'm on the record as being generally pretty lenient when it comes to Franco's art-wank intentions - I really loved what he did with Gus Van Sant's extra footage from My Own Private Idaho, for instance. And at least he's got some energy, some personality, some spunk - he might have his head up his own ass, but at least it's his own ass, and not his publicist's ass.

So I ended up liking the self-conscious navel (and other orifice) gazing of Interior Leather Bar, sue me. It's a funny movie, and it's usually one side-eye ahead of our own side-eye while we're watching it - it sets up the dominoes for itself, and knocks them down just before we're figuring them out. Its game of self-awareness was light and clever enough that instead of being annoyed, I was up for playing along. It doesn't really offer a lot of insight into Friedkin's film, but it really only uses that work as an excuse to play out its own game with focusing in tight on a pushing of personal boundaries. And ultimately it's a pretty small exploration of it; Val Lauren, Franco's friend and the Pacino stand-in who's straight and finding himself thrust into this homosexual netherworld, doesn't really seem as mortified as the film wants him to be, and the ultimate lesson is rendered more in terms of millimeters than leaps - "Dick sucking is dick sucking is dick sucking," and we all live happily ever after. Can't argue with that.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remain curious to see this oddity, and have yet to be able to determine if it will play anywhere else in NYC. I had tried to get tickets but it sold out fast, so certainly there is an audience for it. Also curious as to how explicit the sex in the film actually is. Would love for you to comment on that having been lucky(?) enough to see it.

Jason Adams said...

There's some explicit cocksucking and jerking off, but I think that's it? I don't remember any fucking off the top of my head. But there's a lot less sex than you might be expecting, so don't go into it thinking it'll be sixty minutes of that.

par3182 said...

"But there's a lot less sex than you might be expecting, so don't go into it thinking it'll be sixty minutes of that."

good rule for life, really