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DARKLY, from p.24
row snake their way toward karmic comeuppances straight out of an Aesop fable or a “Twilight Zone” shocker. Everybody gets what they deserve, and nobody emerges unscathed — except in rare instances: unlike the victims stalked by Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger, it’s a lack of sexual activity that puts his characters in harm’s way. Excess is rewarded — that is as long as it’s in the service of staying true to your nature. That’s one of the hard-earned lessons in Darkly’s current show. “Trigger Happy!” is a four-story collection cut with winks and nods that only slightly dilute the potency of outrage directed at America’s weakness for violence, excess, and complacency. Time-honored boogeymen like werewolves and ghosts spread fear and mayhem alongside more recent horrors like mass shootings and reality television. Throughout, Darkly recites long observation-
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MILITARY SOAP, from p.26
by the military than soldiers themselves. Most of them are women, which helps subvert clichés about the army. This isn’t a Tom of Finland drawing come to life. It’s not even similar to Claire Denis’ homoerotic take on military life, “Beau Travail.” “Fort Buchanan” plays the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of a series called “ Friends with Benefits: An Anthology of Four New American Filmmakers.” It includes
al and narrative passages at a breakneck pace, gliding with ease through the alliteration-heavy text — an acquired skill that owes as much to the actor’s work ethic as it does to Ian Bjorklund’s corset-tight direction. “Their disco dancing became a bloody ballet, a spray of crimson confetti and tracer fire the color of claret,” he says in the opening story “Silver Dollar” (in which a self-loathing ex-military man’s PTSD figures into a tale of “lycanthropy, anxiety, and southern fried sodomy”). Elsewhere in the show, “Final Girl” begins with the discovery of a once-vivacious starlet in her final role (as a headline-making corpse), then provides the backstory — a cannibalistic tale in which Hollywood and the insatiable viewing public feed on one of their own. The plucky heroine of “American Apparel” is a drag queen rat named Bidet, who temporarily reclaims an iconic gay bar that’s fallen victim to changing times. “Craigslist, Manhunt, and Scruff,” notes Darkly, “took cruising off the
shorts by Alexander Carver, Daniel Schmidt, Crotty and Gabriel Abrantes, as well as Schmidt and Carver’s 2013 feature “The Unity of All Things.” One can see the roots of “Fort Buchanan” in Abrantes and Crotty’s very first short, “Visionary Iraq,” in which the white male directors play all the roles (including an Angolan girl). There’s a love there for politically incorrect play with gender and race that got smoothed out by the time Crotty made “Fort Buchanan” and was able to cast actual women and
barstool and on to the Internet and abruptly, unexpectedly, the Poppycock was padlocked.” When the titular retail behemoth moves in, it does so as a “corporate cancer” growing “inside the hollowed husks of hallowed LGBT hostelry.” The real terror comes when former bar patrons return, as gentrified zombies marching “one by one, to a massive meat grinder where rag dolls chewed them into commercial chum.” Destined to walk the earth with a sweet tooth for underdogs and a short fuse for ambivalence, Darkly uses these blood-soaked tales of horror and revenge as a vehicle for social, political, and sexual activism. With a singsongy voice that chugs its way toward the falsetto range and dissipates into a breathy vapor once it reaches that peak, we’re invited to laugh at his fey nature, even mock it on occasion — an effective ruse that comes back to haunt, when sudden bursts of violent imagery transport the audience into an unsettling realm where nervous laughter is the only sane response.
people of color. Still, Abrantes and Crotty’s drag show offers up the same fascination with the military, along with a more overt skepticism about its supposed benevolence. Abrantes and Crotty’s follow-up short, “Liberdade,” shows an engagement with real Angolans and adopts a more sober, melancholy tone than either “Visionary Iraq” or “Fort Buchanan.” An element of childlike playfulness, drawn from ‘60s American avant-garde directors like Jack Smith and the Kuchar brothers,
remains in “Fort Buchanan,” particularly in its first 20 minutes. But “Fort Buchanan” is more mature: it begins with love and ends with disillusionment and death. As Crotty’s work evolves, I hope it retains the same playful quality and gentle iconoclasm. Benjamin Crotty appears at the Feb. 6, 7 p.m. and Feb. 7, 6 p.m. screenings of “Fort Buchanan,” and, with Gabriel Abrantes, at the Feb. 6, 4:30 p.m. screening of “Visionary Iraq.”
BAD HURT Directed by Mark Kemble Screen Media Films Opens Feb. 12 Cinema Village 22 E. 12th St. cinemavillage.com
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BAD HURT, from p.26
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SCREEN MEDIA FILMS
lenging material. Allen is a standout as Elaine. Watching DeeDee head off to work at the box factory, her expression shifts from happy to depressed in mere seconds, beautifully conveying the brave face Elaine must constantly put on for her daughter. Elaine is never pathetic; Allen makes her sympathetic in her tenacious handling of every crisis. During Elaine’s few brief moments of joy, as when she is dancing, Allen puts across the radiance of this resilient and loving woman. It is a bravura performance that is a reminder of how great an actress Allen is.
Theo Rossi, Michael Harney, and Karen Allen in Mark Kemble’s “Bad Hurt.”
The rest of the ensemble cast is uniformly strong. Neither Gilad nor Dutton makes their pivotal characters, holy fools that they may be, cloying — and there is never a hint of overacting. Scenes of DeeDee getting a bath or being calmed down for bedtime show not just the difficulties of
caring for a developmentally disabled adult child but also some of its happiness as well. As Ed, Harney underplays nicely and is especially moving in a scene where he cares for Kent. “Bad Hurt” is equal parts tender and tough, and is a very rewarding film. February 04 - 17, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc