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.
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development — private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts. The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend
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