Remake wastes its campy potential with too many undeveloped plots

	THE WOMEN
C	Director: Diane English Cast: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing and Bette Midler Opens: Sept. 12 in wide release. 1 hr., 30 min.      PG-13

2 trendy minorities IN ONE: Jada Pinkett Smith plays black lesbian Alex Fisher in “The Women.”

Diane English’s 2008 remake of George Cukor’s 1939 “The Women” is a missed opportunity, occupying a time warp between then and now. Clare Boothe Luce’s 1936 play made fun of wealthy women. But English makes them sympathetic.

Heavily influenced by “Sex and the City,” she has four of them as best friends, yet “The Women” is like a ’70s movie in which “women’s lib” had females confused about their place in the new social order.

Mixed messages about body image are compounded by a cast of actresses whose average weight is about 73 pounds, with Candice Bergen, 62, playing the 60-year-old mother of Meg Ryan, who’s 46.

Mary (Ryan) learns her husband is having an affair with Saks perfume seller Crystal (Eva Mendez), but not before her friends do. Magazine editor Sylvie (Annette Bening), baby factory Edie (Debra Messing) and black lesbian Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith) give her advice and support.

English has too many plot threads to develop them all. Alex gives a speech in the first scene about the advantages of dating women. After that — except for arranging for dinner in a lesbian restaurant — she might as well be straight, or asexual, or absent.

Bette Midler overacts shamelessly (but not amusingly), setting up a plot thread that goes nowhere. Best in the cast are Bergen, Cloris Leachman as Mary’s housekeeper and India Ennenga as Mary’s adolescent daughter.

Despite so much going for it “The Women” gives the term “broad comedy” a bad name.

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	DOG TAGS
B	Director: Damion Dietz Cast: Candy Clark, Bart Fletcher, Paul Preiss, Amy Lindsay, Hoyt Richards and Keythe Farley Q Cinema Screening: Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. at the Four Day Weekend Theater, 312 Houston St. Fort $10. 1 hr. 30 min.

The trouble with being part of a niche market is that they try to reach as much of the niche as possible by appealing to the lowest common denominator. It’s ironic — when gays are presumed to have so much taste in the other arts — that queer filmmakers and distributors hold us in such contempt.

The first few minutes of “Dog Tags” starts typically — with a lot of male flesh. But presumably having hooked his target audience, writer-director Damion Dietz (“Beverly Kills”) is free to lead you where he wants.

This unlikely mix of “Stop-Loss” and “Mamma Mia!” sneaks up on you and hits you upside the heart.

Don’t Ask? Do Tell! A pensive Marine (Paul Preiss) explores his same-sex desires in “Dog Tags,” which screens Wednesday in Fort Worth.

First, we meet Nate (Paul Preiss), who’s going off to Marine boot camp, leaving behind his girlfriend, Trish (Amy Lindsay), and his mother, Deb (Candy Clark), both of whom work at the same sports bar. Nate’s tempted to look up the father he’s never met, but the women talk him out of it. They can talk the guy into or out of anything — he’s doubly whipped.

Next, we meet Andy (Bart Fletcher), who’s still grieving over an affair he had with a Marine. A friend takes him to a party where he can meet some A-listers, cautioning him not to wear his usual eyeliner. But when the party turns into an orgy, Andy turns and runs.

Heading home after boot camp, Nate needs money to buy Trish a ring and is lured to the home studio of a pornographer. So is Andy, who needs money to follow his dream of being a drifter. (Get used to Andy’s raccoon eyes — he’ll have them for the rest of the picture.) They wind up fleeing together as “Dog Tags” turns into a road movie.

There are the usual plot schematics. Nate needs a ride home. Andy’s car won’t start. Nate can fix it temporarily but there’s a real mechanic at his house — Deb’s tenant, Gene (Hoyt Richards), a Vietnam vet suffering post-traumatic stress.

As the guys are forced to spend time together, even share a bed, their obvious differences begin to melt away — as does Nate’s heterosexuality, at least where Andy’s concerned. Once they actually sleep together, in the carnal sense, Nate, who’s never finished anything in his life, grows a pair of balls. Andy succeeds in making a man of him where even the Marines failed.

There’s still Nate’s daddy issue to deal with, and another surprise or two await him on that track. While he’s learning to be a son, Andy’s learning to be a father, and each provides such great support for the other that Nate is tempted to go AWOL instead of reporting for combat training en route to Iraq.

“Dog Tags” is an effective and affecting drama that gives you what you want in the first 15 minutes and what you need in the remaining 75.

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Luna’s ‘Fright Flick’ gets props in Windy City and NY

Richard Curtin

DALLAS BOYS SCARE CHICAGO AND NY: Israel Luna and Richard Curtin are horror festival darlings with the Texas-shot “Fright Flick.”

Israel Luna is busting out! The Dallas gay filmmaker’s latest feature, “Fright Flick,” recently got picked up at two festivals: the Chicago Horror Festival and B-Movie Fest in Syracuse, N.Y.

Shot last summer in the West Texas town Runaway Bay, “Fright Flick” is a “movie within a movie.” It’s a slasher-whodunnit about a film crew that’s shooting the third in a trilogy of cheesy horror flicks called — that’s right — “Fright Flick.”

Moureau Laurent, a faux-French, schmucky director (Richard Curtin — a.k.a. Edna Jean Robinson) can’t keep his slimy hands off his chesty leading lady, Ophelia Cumming (Valerie Nelson), who’s making advances at male lead Brock (Chad Allen), who’s dating supporting actress, Angela (Daphne Khoury).

“Fright Flick” got the hot-slot screening for the Chicago Horror Festival: Saturday, Sept. 27 at 8 p.m.

In Syracuse, festival noms have been announced. “Fright Flick” is up for best feature, and Curtin got a supporting actor nomination.



This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 12, 2008.