Fri. December 19, 2014
By Gregg Shapiro
Based on the wildly popular memoir by Cheryl Strayed, Wild (Fox Searchlight) is as much a star vehicle for actress Reese Witherspoon (who portray Strayed) as it is for director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club and the gay-themed C.R.A.Z.Y.).
One of the more unlikable characters in recent memory, Cheryl (Witherspoon) hasn't had an easy time of it. Her childhood was dysfunctional to say the least, with an alcoholic and physically abusive father who regularly beat her free-spirited mother Bobbie (Laura Dern). After starting a new life without the father, Bobbie starts taking college courses at the same time and school where Cheryl is enrolled. Cheryl is alternately proud of and embarrassed by (she ignores Bobbie in the halls at school) her mother.
Cheryl also has issues around men (let's call her promiscuous) and later substance abuse (she goes from snorting to smoking to shooting heroin). By the time she meets and then marries Paul (Thomas Sadoski), her personality disorders are too far gone and she essentially sabotages her marriage with infidelity and drugs. The death of Bobbie, who is only in her mid-40s, and an unexpected pregnancy, finally pushes Cheryl over the edge.
How does Cheryl intend to her proverbial shit together? By hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, from California to Oregon, alone. While on her trek, she has an abundance of time to look back over her life, tally up the people she hurt, while also avoiding the potential for trouble that might come from being a woman alone hiking across mountains and through wilderness (such as rattlesnakes, weather, pervy hunters with crossbows, and so on).
Vallée does an effective job of bringing Strayed's patchwork quilt of a life to the big screen. The interwoven flashbacks give the audience a strong sense of how Strayed got to where she is. Witherspoon holds her own in what appears to be a physically and emotionally demanding role.
Intended to be a sitcom parody, T.S. Slaughter's The Gays (BTB) is so offensive and tasteless you might think it was written and directed by Jim Bob Duggar. The Gays goes for John Waters shock but instead serves up Tyler Perry schlock.
Set in WeHo in 1997, where Alex (Mike Russnak) strikes up a conversation with a bar patron and proceeds to tell him about what it was like for him and his brother Tommy (Flip Jorgensen) to be raised by their gay father Rod Gay (Frank Holliday) and drag queen mother Bob Gay-Paris (Chris Tanner) in Pasadena.
Supposedly the product of Bob's "ectopic anal pregnancy" (don't ask!), the boys are raised in an entirely queer environment. For example, when young, they are taught how to take advantage of other boys who sleep over at the house. At Christmas, one of their carols is "O Little Towns of Sodom and Gomorrah" and one of the boys is given a rim-chair as a gift.
A series of lukewarm one-liners about sex in search of a script, there is not a single redeeming facet to be found. The Gays has the distinction of bumping Scrooge & Marley out of the number one slot as worst gay Christmas movie ever. If you have nothing better to do with your time or money, the DVD can be purchased at thegaysmovie.com.
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