Luis Camacho

The Birdcage

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(USA 1996)

“It’s aspirin with the ‘A’ and the ‘S’ scraped off.”

— Agador

Mark Caro’s latest presentation in his “Is It Still Funny?” series, The Birdcage, is director Mike Nichols’s 1996 Americanized remake of Jean Poiret’s classic 1979 French farce La Cage aux Folles. I’m not sure it was intentional, but this presentation coincides with National Drag Day, something I didn’t know existed.

I left the theater with three impressions: one, things have changed quite a bit in two decades; two, The Birdcage is still funny even if it is silly and dated; and three, Robin Williams could do anything well.

Armand Goldman (Williams) owns and operates a drag nightclub, the Birdcage, in South Beach. His flamboyant husband, Albert (Nathan Lane), is the club’s star attraction. Armand’s son, Val (Dan Futterman), announces his engagement to Barbara Keeley (Calista Flockhart), the daughter of right wing Republican senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman). The kids want to — and should — introduce their parents to each other, but the problem is Barbara’s father, who no doubt will not approve.

Val has a solution: Armand can fake being straight — and married to his biological mother, Katherine Archer (Christine Baranski), who didn’t have much to do with him growing up but maybe will do him this one solid. And the Keeleys will be no worse not knowing the truth.

Albert, who’s a gay giveaway, can’t be part of it. He can’t even be around. This puts Armand — and the entire household — in a tricky situation. Albert is delicate at the moment, and this will hurt him. Little does anyone know how important he’ll prove to be in pulling off the ruse.

It’s easy to dismiss The Birdcage as fluff. The whole thing — plot, setting, characters, that dinner — is really, really silly. The humor relies heavily on stereotypes — histrionic Albert, house “boy” Agador (Hank Azaria), and conservative Kevin are the most obvious examples. Madonna dancers Luis Camacho and Kevin Stea have bit parts as…dancers, big shock. There’s a lot of camp and physical humor here, which doesn’t make for sophisticated comedy.

Nonetheless, the actors bring it, particularly Lane, who imbues his role with unexpected tenderness. Elaine May updates and punches up the screenplay with political jabs and cultural witticisms. At the center of the insanity is Williams, who despite a few glimmers of his wacky old self (“You do Fosse, Fosse, Fosse! You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Martha Graham! Or Twyla, Twyla, Twyla! Or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd! Or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna!”), plays the Straight Man — that might sound contradictory considering his character here, but I’m not referring to his orientation. And he does it well. The result is a guilty pleasure.

With Dianne Wiest, Tom McGowan, Grant Heslov, James Lally, Luca Tommassini, André Fuentes, Tony Gonzalez, Dante Lamar Henderson, Scott Kaske, Tim Kelleher, Ann Cusack, Stanley DeSantis, J. Roy Helland, Anthony Giaimo, Lee Delano, David Sage, Michael Kinsley, Tony Snow, Dorothy Constantine

Production: United Artists Pictures

Distribution: United Artists (USA), United International Pictures (UIP), Filmes Lusomundo (Portugal)

117 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) B-

http://www.mgm.com/#/our-titles/187/The-Birdcage/

Strike a Pose

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(Belgium/Netherlands 2016)

It’s no secret that Madonna’s Truth or Dare occupies a special place in my heart (https://moviebloke.wordpress.com/2016/08/26/truth-or-dare-in-bed-with-madonna/ ). As ladies with an attitude or fellas that were in the mood, the dancers are a big reason why; all seven young guys proved to be more than incidental eye candy, each adding considerable spirit not just to the film but to the tour—and arguably Madonna’s persona. Strike a Pose shows where they are now, which isn’t necessarily pretty but certainly isn’t all that bad.

Directors Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan get into the past and even dig up a little dirt, like the lawsuits some of the dancers filed after Truth or Dare came out. Thankfully, they don’t spend a lot of time on either. Instead, they focus on what exactly working with Madonna during such a pivotal time in her career brought to each of their lives, for better or for worse. What each dancer ultimately ended up doing isn’t as interesting as the subtext, which suggests that it was all an illusion.

As one might expect, some of the dancers at least on the surface have done better than others. Salim “Slam” Gauwloos, Luis Camacho, and Kevin Stea are working choreographers (Stea also got into deejaying and recently even recorded an album). Carlton Wilborn, the only one who toured with Madonna again after Blond Ambition, published a biography and is now a life coach. Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza lives with his mother in her apartment in New York. Oliver Crumes is married and possibly disabled—it’s not entirely clear, but that’s what I deduced. Sadly, Gabriel Trupin died in 1995 (which I already knew). His mother, Sue, has a lot to say about his role in Truth or Dare.

As a huge Madonna fan, Strike a Pose did not reveal much that I didn’t already know. That said, one thing that blew me away was that three of the dancers knew they were HIV-positive during the tour, yet none of them said anything about it. I’m not judging—anyone who made it through the “crisis years” of AIDS understands why. Still, it’s sad that not even someone as big and unfazed as Madonna, who gave a poignant speech about Keith Haring and featured a gay kiss in her tour documentary, was capable of creating a safe space then. Things have changed.

It’s easy to write off Strike a Pose as a lame attempt by minor players to milk their 15 minutes of fame, but I didn’t find them to come off that way. Not at all. Each seems sincerely okay with where he is, which is great. None of them plug any current projects. If anything, the focus is on what one does after the lights dim. Each of them has faced demons—drugs, disease, career obstacles. In fact, Camacho suggests that they are all responsible in one way or another for forcing Madonna to back away from them.

None of the dancers are as fierce as they were 25 years ago; this didn’t bother me because frankly I’m not, either. Watching Strike a Pose feels like meeting up with some friends you haven’t seen in a long time. If there’s one thing I learned from this documentary, it’s that Truth or Dare touched a lot more people than I thought. The one thing that would’ve been nice: Madonna showing up.

Screening followed by a live Q and A with Carlton Wilborn.

83 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B-

Chicago International Film Festival

http://www.strikeaposefilm.com