The gay romantic melodrama Latter Days draws on an unconscionable number of conventions, but works in the end because of its commitment to its characters and a handful of fine performances.
Christian, played by the former soap opera star Wes Ramsey, is that stock figure of gay drama, the hopelessly handsome party boy whose life is devoted to casual sex. A waiter in a Los Angeles restaurant owned and operated by the radiantly maternal Lila (the always welcome Jacqueline Bisset), Christian accepts a US$50 wager from his co-workers that he will be able to seduce Aaron (Steve Sandvoss), an apparently straight Mormon missionary who has moved into the apartment opposite his.
Following one of Hollywood's favorite cliches, what begins as a cynical bet develops into a deep romance. After some initial resistance, Aaron surrenders to Christian's charms, discovering his homosexuality in the process. At the same time Christian discovers, in Aaron's sincerity and innocence, the deeper values that have been missing from his own life.
Latter Days was written and directed by C. Jay Cox, who wrote the screenplay for the 2002 Reese Witherspoon vehicle Sweet Home Alabama. Cox knows his formulas a bit too well for his own good, and the reliance of Latter Days on coincidence and contrivance, particularly in its forced final third, gets in the way of his low-key, naturalistic direction.
When Aaron's missionary roommates walk in on his first, tentative embrace with Christian, the resulting scandal sends Aaron back to his extremely conservative hometown in Idaho.
Aaron is excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and pitched, by his uncomprehending mother (Mary Kay Place, excellent and uncondescending as usual in a role that cries out for caricature), into a psychiatric hospital to be "straightened out" by electroshock therapy and ice baths. This gets to be a bit too much, and the picture loses a good bit of its credibility just as it is cruising into its grandly romantic finale.
Whereas the bulk of gay films from the 1980s and 90s were concerned with the issues of coming out -- and then consumed by the issues surrounding AIDS -- a new generation of gay drama seems to be emerging with movies like Latter Days.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located