Rupaul

To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar

This clunky road movie about three drag queens (Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguziamo) who get stranded in a sleepy Nebraska town on their way to a beauty contest, is too uplifting for its own good. Released during drag's mid-'90s heyday when RuPaul and the Wigstock documentary were all the rage, To Wong Foo aimed straight for the mainstream with its inoffensive camp and "can't we all get along" moralism. While gay-activist groups howled about straights getting the lead roles in To Wong Foo, in the end the filmmakers really couldn't have done better than this trio of actors. John Leguziamo provides real sass and bite as a Latino (or should we saw Latina?) drag queen, and Wesley Snipes is surprisingly fierce as the imposing leader of the pack. Saddled with a cloying Southern accent and off-kilter wig, Patrick Swayze barely holds his own with his costars, though. To Wong Foo is best viewed as a cultural artifact of a time when it seemed as though drag could rule all tomorrow's parties. --Ethan Brown

But I'm a Cheerleader

A promising comedy that goes awry all too early, But I'm a Cheerleader concerns a misunderstood high school kid (Natasha Lyonne) whose parents send her to a harsh, homosexual-rehabilitation camp despite a lack of evidence that she's gay. Ruled with an iron fist by a fascist counselor (Cathy Moriarty), the clinic only drives Lyonne's character toward an attraction to a rebellious tomboy (Clea DuVall), though screenwriter Brian Wayne Peterson and director Jamie Babbit are curiously intent on keeping the two apart and depriving the audience of other comic possibilities. Meanwhile, hoary clichés abound: prancing boys, butch gays, lipstick lesbians. Despite a fine cast full of young talent, and cameo appearances by Julie Delpy and RuPaul Charles, this attempt to skewer a present-day trend in "curing" homosexuals of their sexual preferences is flattened by stereotypes and unimaginative thinking. --Tom Keogh

This candy-box colored comedy of sexual discovery chronicles the life of Megan (Natasha Lyonne) a typical teenager coming of age in anything but a typical fashion. Megan's super normal suburban existence is filled with friends pom-poms and rah-rah enthusiasm until her straight-laced parents (Mink Stole and Bud Cort) suspect that their "little poodle" may in fact be showing deviant tendencies. In a complete panic Megan's parents elicit the help of her friends and the guidance of a rehabilitation camp to mount an all-out intervention. Mike (an out-of-drag RuPaul Charles) a True Directions counselor leads the intervention and before Megan can pack her pom-poms she is whisked off to learn how to be a perfect woman.True Directions is run under the strict all-seeing eyes of the sadistic Mary (Cathy Moriarty). Megan dutifully gets with the deprogramming so she can quickly return to her life of boyfriends football games and her absolute favorite activity - cheerleading. Everything seems perfect but the fun begins when her hormones start to rage and her friends and family wonder where she'll find love!System Requirements:Starring: RuPaul Charles Clea DuVall Natasha Lyonne Cathy Moriarty Eddie Cibrian Melanie Lynskey Wesley Mann Richard Moll Douglas Spain Katharine Towne Directed BY: Jamie Babbit Running Time: 84 Min. Color Copyright Lion's Gate Entertainment 2003.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 031398834823 Manufacturer No: 71577

The Brady Bunch Movie / A Very Brady Sequel

The Brady Bunch Movie
The big-screen version of the hugely popular 1970s television sitcom takes an original angle: instead of simply re-creating the old series, the film spoofs it by presenting the merged family as blithely unaware that fashions and customs have changed in the '90s. Shelley Long and Gary Cole are hilarious as the ultra-square yet libidinous Mr. and Mrs. Brady, Christopher Daniel Barnes is an ideal Greg, and Christine Taylor seems practically cloned from the original Marcia. But director Betty Thomas (Private Parts) shifts the emphasis away from comparisons between old and new Bradys and concentrates on quasi-surreal parodies and set pieces featuring the Brady kids doing their spirited, singing thing for a disbelieving public. Smart, sharp, and happy to share its conspiratorial mood with an appreciative audience, The Brady Bunch Movie is a kick.

A Very Brady Sequel
This second ironic send-up of the old Sherwood Schwartz sitcom is even funnier than The Brady Bunch Movie. Shelley Long and Gary Cole return as the married heads of the merged family known as the Bradys, and Christopher Daniel Barnes and Christine Taylor reprise their roles as eldest stepsiblings Greg and Marcia. As with the first film, the clever premise finds the Brady clan caught in a kind of '70s time warp, while the rest of the world has moved well into the '90s. Greg is still looking for a "groovy girlfriend," Mr. Brady thinks the idea of a cable that sends 50 channels to one's TV set must be a joke, and Mrs. Brady spends hours at the beauty shop only to look exactly the same as she went in. There's a plot involving an imposter (Tim Matheson) who claims to be Carol's long-lost husband, but the real charge in this comedy comes from the way these pseudohip characters deal with sexual taboos (is there any real reason that Greg and Marcia shouldn't get it on?) and the incredulous reactions of other people. --Tom Keogh

The Truth About Jane

Wigstock - The Movie

Outrageous outlandish and totally out of the closet Wigstock: The Movie is a heavily mascaraed look at New York's most extravagant celebration of drag! "Colorful flamboyant [and] extremely funny" (Blockbuster Entertainment Guide) this uninhibited look at the annual Wigstock Festival takes you behind the scenes and into the dressing rooms for an uproarious play-by-play of the self-proclaimed "Super Bowl of drag"!A "glitzy lively lovingly made show" (The Hollywood Reporter) Wigstock: The Movie features inspired music daring performance art and a peek at the stars' endless quests to be fabulous wearing size 14 heels! With RuPaul Lypsinka Crystal Waters The "Lady" Bunny Deee-Lite Alexis Arquette Jackie Beat John Kelly Debbie Harry and the Dueling (Tallulah) Bankheads (!) Wigstock: The Movie is a dazzling musical celebration of life love and lipstick!System Requirements:Running Time: 83 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: R UPC: 027616886507 Manufacturer No: M103229

The king, or maybe that should be queen, of all drag shows, New York City's 10th annual Wigstock festival, provides the setting for this lively and frequently funny documentary. Some 30,000 fans showed up, many of them suitably adorned with impossibly huge wigs, and roving cameras did a fine job of capturing the celebratory atmosphere. It goes without saying that those who find men performing as women fascinating will revel in what the camera captured. Several drag performers prepping for their star turns on the Wigstock stage are profiled, and some of them speak about what possesses them to admittedly make spectacles of themselves. There are also quirky interviews with construction workers building the festival's stage, jaded neighbors in the East Village, and even some encounters with bemused New York City cops. The film features very professionally shot performance footage of such characters as RuPaul, Deee-Lite, Crystal Waters, and even a pair of dueling Tallulah Bankhead impersonators performing "Born to Be Wild," but the real star of the production is the hip sense of humor the filmmakers brought to the project. At times the interviews with people attending the shows and passersby in New York who simply shrug it all off come close to upstaging the guys in size 14 heels singing and dancing their hearts out onstage. --Robert J. McNamara

A Very Brady Sequel

This second ironic send-up of the old Sherwood Schwartz sitcom is even funnier than The Brady Bunch Movie. Shelley Long and Gary Cole return as the married heads of the merged family known as the Bradys, and Christopher Daniel Barnes and Christine Taylor reprise their roles as eldest stepsiblings Greg and Marcia. As with the first film, the clever premise finds the Brady clan caught in a kind of '70s time warp, while the rest of the world has moved well into the '90s. Greg is still looking for a "groovy girlfriend," Mr. Brady thinks the idea of a cable that sends 50 channels to one's TV set must be a joke, and Mrs. Brady spends hours at the beauty shop only to look exactly the same as she went in. There's a plot involving an imposter (Tim Matheson) who claims to be Carol's long-lost husband, but the real charge in this comedy comes from the way these pseudohip characters deal with sexual taboos (is there any real reason that Greg and Marcia shouldn't get it on?) and the incredulous reactions of other people. --Tom Keogh

Starrbooty

RuPaul (The Brady Bunch But I'm A Cheerleader) is Starrbooty a top secret ops agent who is plunged into chaos when her niece is kidnapped by long-time nemesis Annaka Manners (Candis Cayne).It seems that Miss Not-So-Nice Manners has a devious plot to snatch hookers off the street so that she can cut em up and sell em off one piece at a time. Starrbooty is forced to go "undercover ho" to rescue her niece and her own true identity. Directed by Mike Ruiz (Latin Boys Go to Hell) Starrbooty is stuffed with some of the most outrageously twisted set pieces you'll ever see. Filled with references to iconic films of the past fierce outfits wigs and makeup a wicked soundtrack and plenty of exposed he-man fleshrods Starrbooty is a fried dyed and laid to the side-splitting kick-ass good time. Genre: COMEDY UPC: 837101388443 Manufacturer No: 837101388443

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Tammy Faye Bakker, she of the layers of makeup that made her face into a living Halloween mask, will forever remain a camp icon of '80s culture for many of us. Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato aren't above needling Bakker for her more excessive accouterments, but The Eyes of Tammy Faye is ultimately a loving, sympathetic portrait of "the first lady of televangelism." The film charts her life from traveling evangelist to the mother of three religious cable networks, and her fall from grace when husband Jim Bakker was forced out of the PTL (Praise the Lord) ministry after a scandalous affair. Always entertaining (sock puppets introduce each section) and at times surprising (did you know that Jim and Tammy were the first television ministers to reach out to the gay community and people with AIDS?), it rarely strays from Tammy Faye's version of events. Jerry Falwell becomes the story's sole scapegoat, but even the film's best arguments don't quite make Jim Bakker an innocent victim. But then it's not his film, it's Tammy Faye's, and Bailey and Barbato seem to have fallen in love with their charismatic subject. If nothing else, they reveal the woman behind the cultural joke and celebrate a spiritual survival story. RuPaul Charles narrates, and clips from the 1990 TV movie Fall from Grace feature a young Kevin Spacey as the adulterous preacher. --Sean Axmaker

But I'm A Cheerleader

A promising comedy that goes awry all too early, But I'm a Cheerleader concerns a misunderstood high school kid (Natasha Lyonne) whose parents send her to a harsh, homosexual-rehabilitation camp despite a lack of evidence that she's gay. Ruled with an iron fist by a fascist counselor (Cathy Moriarty), the clinic only drives Lyonne's character toward an attraction to a rebellious tomboy (Clea DuVall), though screenwriter Brian Wayne Peterson and director Jamie Babbit are curiously intent on keeping the two apart and depriving the audience of other comic possibilities. Meanwhile, hoary clichés abound: prancing boys, butch gays, lipstick lesbians. Despite a fine cast full of young talent, and cameo appearances by Julie Delpy and RuPaul Charles, this attempt to skewer a present-day trend in "curing" homosexuals of their sexual preferences is flattened by stereotypes and unimaginative thinking. --Tom Keogh

Who Is Cletis Tout?

Who Is Cletis Tout? is about a crook (Christian Slater) who breaks out of one jail and then has to break back in to another; who gets a new identity, only to discover that his new identity is a man some dangerous people want dead; and who's describing his life to a hit man (Tim Allen) who's a sucker for old movies with satisfying stories. The plot of Who Is Cletis Tout? has too much cleverness and not enough smarts, with too many holes to make sense. Nonetheless, Slater, Allen, Richard Dreyfuss, Portia de Rossi, RuPaul, and Billy Connolly are all engaging enough to keep things pleasant. --Bret Fetzer