La Dolce Musto
by Michael Musto
November 22nd, 2005 12:38 PM
The Woman in White proves you should never wear that color
after Labor Day. The sleekly designed show gains power as it goes along,
but it's still basically a glorified Harlequin musical with too many
moon/June lyrics, rape songs, and unwitting melodic homages to stuff
from "Can't Help Falling in Love" to "Macarena." While awash in the
plot's arsenal of revelations, I shamefully started wondering if one of
the characters' names—Lady Glyde—doesn't sound like some kind of
feminine-hygiene product.
The Great American Trailer Park Musical seems more up my dank
alley, so when the producers asked me to judge a promotional
trailer-trash contest, I said ho, I mean yes, and became privy to all
sorts of faux pregnant ladies belching the alphabet while doing a
headstand and eating Spam. As the trash piled up, the event's host,
JERRY SPRINGER—who's no stranger to raucous mobile-home
escapees—surveyed the room and cracked, "This is a new career low."
But I know he couldn't possibly have meant it, since he said the very
same thing when he hosted my birthday party at a drag bar a few years
ago!
Trailer trash made good is the subject of Walk the Line,
which takes a womanizing singing legend through childhood, marriage,
cheating, success, dressing-room destruction, more cheating, a
comeback, and redemption. No, wait, that was Ray. Walk the
Line—or Joaq the Line, as it were—takes a sighted
womanizing singing legend through childhood, marriage, cheating,
etc., etc. It's a more than decent piece of work, though almost
every imaginable biopic cliché is in there, and spunky REESE
WITHERSPOON brings a little too much Beverly Hills to her
hillbilly honey. In the premiere's audience, Hills dweller
JESSICA ALBA was asked by a photographer to pose, and she
complied, laughingly saying, "Sure, take a picture of me eating
popcorn and gaining five pounds!" (That would probably double her
weight. Spam would quadruple it.) At the after-party, more habits
were challenged when someone asked Phoenix if they could help him
stop smoking through acupuncture. "I don't want to stop smoking," he
replied, simply—though acupuncture could probably help with that
too.
But needles are out and pills are all the way in again, thanks to
the fact that—hold on to your Lady Glyde— Valley of the Dolls
is finally coming out on DVD in the states next year! The tawdrily
glamorous 1967 classic—the kind of gorgeous backstage musical that
forces Walk the Line to the back of the line—is being
sumptuously repackaged, and there will even be special features,
like a documentary I've been interviewed for, hallelujah, hoo-ha,
praise Jesus. I am plotzing from joy. I'm planting my own tree of
pure heaven. I can barely go on.
But I'll try: Even racier cinema will get the once-over with
porn industry chronicler BENJAMIN SCUGLIA's book in
progress called It Just Happened, a behind-the-scenes
tell-all of the gay adult-film jizz biz. "I was going to call it
an oral history," Scuglia tells me, "but people kept giggling.
It's about how the Falcon aesthetic has infiltrated the
mainstream via advertising and popular culture. Look at any
fashion magazine and you see those naked, hairless, androgynous
male models—and where does the aesthetic come from? Falcon
movies! If you want to predict the next trend, just look at gay
porn." OK, then I guess the next mainstream trend is going to be
light ramming followed by simultaneous felching (and gaining
five pounds).
And airbrushing primates. Everyone knows that fans didn't
cotton to King Kong's snaggletooth in early footage shown
(though I felt it gave him a sort of country-singer charm).
Well, in the newest promo image I saw, it seems to have been
photo-shopped right out of there, his mouth streamlined as if
it were that of a supermodel (and it is, it is). His other
appendage, I hope, is still hanging.
I'D RATHER HAVE A BOTTLE IN FRONT OF ME . . .
Barbaric Photoshopping of the brain, as it were, is
spotlighted in the radio documentary My Lobotomy,
whose premiere at Bellevue I gleefully went to, mainly
to act all superior to the live guests who'd no doubt be
screaming, slobbering, and belching the alphabet. But
these survivors—who once had ice picks rammed into their
heads for various un-chic reasons—were touching and
well-spoken about the ramifications of their horror,
though I was most attracted to the lady who said the
lobotomy actually helped her resolve her schizophrenia.
I hope she got two for the price of one.
At the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, comics were
strapping on extra brain cells to do an elaborate
deconstruction of R. KELLY's Trapped in the
Closet, the insane r&b opera in which Kelly
monotonously sings every character's dialogue, leading
up to the closet-busting revelation, "The man is a
midget!" (When the midget literally shits himself, you
want to put him back in the closet.) In between
showings of Kelly's mind-boggling video, a panel of
fake experts fielded audience questions like "Is the
policeman holding the chicken a metaphor for himself?"
The reply was that this work might not hold up under
quite that much scrutiny.
Trapped in Canada, nightclub kingpin PETER GATIEN—who
was convicted of tax evasion—might try to get back
into the States via some kooky loophole, with the
help of his daughter Jennifer. I hear he's
supposedly part Native American, which they're
hoping will mean he can't be thrown out of the
U.S.A., the land he helped create (or destroy,
depending on your point of view).
BRIDGET OVER TROUBLED WATER
MADONNA may want to stay in the U.K.
when she hears MURRAY HILL's been
telling the crowd at Mo Pitkin's, "She's 85! I
don't want to see her cameltoe anymore!" (Nah,
bring it on; Madonna's still got it big-time,
even with King Kong–like airbrushing.) But we
do want to see every inch of Murray's guest
star that night, BRIDGET EVERETT, who
mesmerizingly flailed into the audience while
wailing songs about her wide vagina and
stalkery behavior. The big girl is a large
talent—picture WYNONNA JUDD meets
MELISSA ETHERIDGE via the local bar
floozy, on a rocket ship out of Twin Peaks.
In other outsize news, now that the fabulous
JENNIFER HUDSON of American Idol
fame has nabbed the role of Effie in the
Dreamgirls film, I vaguely remember that
a year ago she already had designs on the
part, telling me she was desperate to star
in a stage production. "But you're too
skinny for Effie. You've got to play Deena,"
I assured her, flattering her only a little.
(She's not Jessica Alba, but she's not
Godzilla either.) "No other role but Effie!"
insisted Hudson, who ended up getting all
she wanted and then some. Either she'll be
the least voluminous Effie in history or
she's sucking in the fudge as we speak.
Finally, White Trash Debutantes dream girl
GINGER COYOTE came to town to
promote Tweek City, which she told
me is "wholesome fare for the entire
family." What film about the downward
spiral of a small-time speed dealer isn't?
And it became peek city when she
got to see the star's exposed penis—a
lot—seeing as he freely flaunted it
on-screen and off. Apparently it's so huge
it could play Effie.
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