Word: horror
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Currently there are no less than three movies playing in the Square that address this time-honored and classic cinematic subject: that old standby, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and two new entries in the cross-dressing cavalcade, "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" and "Ed Wood...
...movies are a perfect place to show that dynamic. When the drag queens prance and dance in "Priscilla" or in "Rocky Horror," we are repulsed and amused at the same time. We can feel whatever we want in the protected silence and darkness of the theater; we don't have to worry about our neighbors or friends gauging our reactions. But at the same time, we are intensely aware of the way we are feeling--and it may not be a way that makes us proud of ourselves or that fits in with our stated beliefs. The movies' effects...
Alternatively, this social difference can be seen as something to be accepted and exulted in, as a mark of individuality. This latter approach is taken in "Priscilla" and even (I argue with a certain amount of hesitation) in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show...
...harm? It's just good clean fun, right? Wrong. Movies like Stone's latest take away part of our capacity to be shocked. They flood the viewer with the most graphic scenes possible, and nothing is left to the imagination. You walk out less able to muster up horror at the world around you. We need that ability, and badly...
Come on, now! Edward D. Wood Jr. is not nearly the world's worst director. Lots of people made movies that were even more desperately inept and ludicrous. It's true that Wood's cheap '50s exploitation films -- the heartfelt expose Glen or Glenda, the octopus-wrangling horror movie Bride of the Monster and the sci-fi anticlassic Plan 9 from Outer Space -- boasted floridly awful dialogue and actors who seemed terrified to be on camera. But Wood had passion, ambition and, as a heterosexual who enjoyed wearing women's clothes, a very chic identity crisis. His films were about...