  “Cowboys &
Angels” (TLA
Releasing, 2005). Written and directed by David Gleeson.Wolfe Video keeps tabs of the top ten best-selling lesbian and gay films in DVD format. Two of Wolfe’s current list of the top ten most successful gay DVD films are “Cowboys & Angels” and “Touch of Pink”; both are well worth viewing by wide audiences. Both movies represent the debut feature films of their respective writer-directors. “Cowboys & Angels” was filmed in Ireland while “Touch of Pink” has a London setting. Both movies tell engrossing stories of twenty-something young men, but there ends the similarities of these two new DVDs. Gleeson’s “Cowboys & Angels” is a superior film in almost every way despite the fact that it is a gay-straight buddy film contrasted to the totally gay love story at the heart of “Touch of Pink.” David Gleeson is a third-generation member of his family to come to the movie industry, but he took a long time to arrive. His grandfather opened an early motion picture theatre in Ireland in the early 1940s and his father expanded the family business to film houses throughout rural Ireland. Precocious David Gleeson began his career as a playwright and had already received a drama award by the age of 19. He studied drama and film in Ireland, Scotland, and New York City and took a turn at creating short films before making a radical change in his work. He entered North Sea oil business to raise money to make films and ended up spending seven years in that industry, including being a crew member of the first oil-seeking ship to explore deep inside the Arctic Circle. Gleeson is masterful in laying the groundwork for the gay-straight friendship that is genuine, heartfelt, and endearing. Although the transformation of Shane (Michael Legge) from country boy naiveté to big city (Limerick is Ireland’s fourth largest city) urbanity is the key element of the film, his gay roommate and ultimate best friend Vincent (Allen Leech) is indispensable to the story and equally at home within the core of this very fine film. “Cowboys & Angels” is not only a characteristic “buddy” film with a gay-straight twist, it is equally a wonderful coming-of-age film for both heroes who are situated right on the cusp of late adolescence and ready to burst into the full bloom of manhood. Two of the best features of “Cowboys & Angels” are its projection of both total authenticity of the characters and the story line and the faithful gay-straight comfort level as portrayed in the bonding between two equally good men. There is no tough-guy posturing in Shane who instantly recognizes Vincent to be gay. Without words, Gleeson humorously conveys Vincent’s penchant for the latest in grooming and cosmetics. When Shane and his mother arrive with all the country boy’s worldly belongings contained in three black trash bags, they discover that Vincent has already moved in and filled every vacant inch of space with all manner of avant-garde modern art artifacts, easily enough possessions to completely fill a Pop Art museum. He has even placed an artfully dressed manikin standing outside the apartment entrance door. Shane and his mother simply stare in stupefied amazement. Later, in still another bit of cinematic wonder, after Vincent has left for an evening of Limerick dance clubs, Shane quietly carries his meager supply of toiletries to the bathroom only to discover that Vincent has taken up all possible compartments with his supplies of cosmetics and hair care products that might make a movie studio makeup department jealous. In a singular yet bold and humorous nonverbal statement, Shane simply dumps his tooth paste, shaving cream, razor and any other modest body hygiene need in the only available space Vincent has left…the bathroom sink. One of the genuine charms of “Cowboys & Angels” is that there is no jockeying for the upper hand or even the slightest bit of discomfort between the gay and straight roommates from the very beginning. After Vincent has artfully decorated their flat’s living room with colorful yet funky good taste, Shane enters his room and thanks him for making the apartment look so nice. The compliment and graceful acceptance becomes Shane’s cue that it is time to cut to the chase and he finally gets to the heart of the gay-straight issue. “You’re gay, aren’t you?” Shane asks matter-of-factly and without rancor or false notes of superiority. Vincent, of the punk-art school hair fashion (presumably one of the reasons for his many cosmetics and hair creams), responds, “Yes. I am. It’s the hair, isn’t it?” meaning that his hair couture has given away his natural sexuality. Somewhat bemused and affable, but unruffled and in a kindly, good-humored tone, Shane responds, “It’s Everything. (Pause) . “I am straight” he adds unnecessarily. Vincent quickly replies, “I know.” “It’s the hair, isn’t it?” Shane says, exactly repeating Vincent, well aware that his traditional short hair is a hallmark of Irish masculinity and heterosexuality. Cleverly, but in no way mean-spirited or bitchy, Vincent instantly repeats Shane’s own line right back to him, with a charming smile, “It’s everything.” One of the great joys of “Cowboys & Angels” is that there is not even a trace of any mean-spiritedness or lack of respect to be found in either the gay or straight main characters, Vincent and Shane. They truly accept and respect each other as equals and their differing sexual preferences are accepted from the very beginning of the film as being perfectly normal. There is none of the fake bravado or gay cultural superiority that manifests itself early on and is all too present in the somewhat similar USA-buddy picture, “Kiss Me Guido” (Paramount, 1997) between Frankie (Nick Scotti), the straight Italian-American Robert De Niro wanna-be from the Bronx when he learns that if he moves to Manhattan to pursue his acting career dreams he will have a gay roommate, Warren (Anthony Barrile) who is all too smug with his gay superior sense of style. Envy pops up coincidentally when Shane, the shy country boy discovers himself in the process of rapidly maturing and becoming a man who falls in love with Vincent’s best friend and art school chum, Gemma, who is both luminously beautiful and charmingly portrayed by Amy Shields. Indeed, although the lead male actors are both pleasant to look at, Shields must easily be one of the most beautiful actresses in the world today. Indeed, one of the very best qualities of “Cowboys & Angels” is the superb casting and seemingly natural acting method of all the actors, including the two male leads. Both Michael Legge (Shane) and Allen Leech as (Vincent) are pleasant to look at, but neither is so drop-dead gorgeous that they seem out-of-place in the story. Legge is somewhat short of stature but very muscular and with a killer dimple. With great eyes and charming freckles, he looks as if he could be the triplet brother of the Olympic gymnastic twins, the Hamm twins. Vincent is more slight of build, taller, and blond, yet his pleasant good looks are not so overwhelming as to sidetrack the plot or characterization, nor take anything away from their superb acting in the film. Even the villains in “Cowboys & Angels” are highly credible actors. Unfortunately, a part of the film revolves around Shane’s naiveté and his falling in with a crowd of drug smugglers who are evil yet sufficiently amateurish that they do not even realize themselves that the Irish police are trailing them and watching their every move in order to make the biggest drug bust possible. The drug characters are portrayed with a frightening, but very real intensity. Regrettably, Shane’s brief but very unwise time spent in the world of drug dealers not only leads to a cruel scene between he, Vincent, and Gemma at a dance club, but ultimately ends up with a police raid of their apartment where Shane is unlucky enough to be experimenting with pot for the very first time in his otherwise clean-cut life of 22-24 years. How the roommates gets out of jail and free of criminal charges appear unrealistic and a bit too fortuitous, but it is funny and engaging enough to be gladly embraced by viewers. The plot of the story primarily revolves around the daily lives of Vincent attempting to finish his final year at art school as a designer and mount a required major show featuring his own original fashion designs, and Shane’s attempts to free himself from a dead-end Civil Service position in the Department of Agriculture and his current feelings of claustrophobia. (A talented artist himself, Shane also dreamed of going to art school, but his father’s sudden death a year earlier sealed his fate of having insufficient resources to attend college.) These two plot features, not to mention Shane’s ever-growing love for Gemma is more than enough to complete the scenario of a fine coming-of-age buddy film. But Gleeson also adds a secondary plot line that is touching and reveals even more about Shane’s character, most especially his basic goodness, decency, and sweetness. The young Shane’s office mate at the Department of Agriculture is Jerry, an elderly, soon-to-be-retired civil servant who becomes an altogether different kind of mentor for Shane than Vincent. Whereas Vincent, with good intentions, transforms Shane physically, Jerry quite unintentionally touches Shane’s very soul. The added story of Shane’s brief encounter with the aging Jerry is singularly poignant and wonderfully written, acted, filmed and deftly edited into the film. Even though Shane’s relationship with Jerry was brief, it becomes life altering. One of the delights of the film is listening to the lilting Irish voices of the lead characters. For North American audiences, unused to hearing the English language spoken with Irish accents, the film is an audio charmer. The unusual setting for “Cowboys & Angels” is Limerick, Ireland. Forget Dublin; check out Limerick. The exterior shots of Limerick’s ancient bridges and city center castle (King John’s) as well as a hustling, bustling modern city are gorgeously filmed. Limerick is situated on the west Atlantic coast of Ireland on the great River Shannon, the longest river in all of Ireland and Great Britain. Indeed, there is little about David Gleeson’s first feature film that is not first rate. The cinematography, music, acting, writing and directing are all first class. Moreover, the story has a far more believable storyline and ultimate outcome than its somewhat similar American predecessor, “Kiss Me Guido” (Paramount, 1997). In too many disappointing LGBT films, it is the homosexual who must, in the end, sacrifice his or her goals in order for the straight character to succeed. The real joy of “Cowboys & Angels” is that Vincent has to sacrifice nothing to be loved and treasured by Shane and there are no losers among the lead characters. Indeed, each man has given the other the riches of friendship and Shane makes it possible for Vincent to truly realize his ambitions and dreams. Moreover, the final scene (that almost appears to be an epilogue) provides the evidence that Shane is also realizing his dreams thanks to both Vincent and Gemma. One can easily count on one hand the number of gay-straight films with such an affirming denouement. —Jerry
Flack,
Denver, Colorado
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 “Touch
of Pink.” Columbia Tristar, 2003, Sony Pictures Home Video,
2005.A “Touch of Pink” is a Valentine from start to finish. First, it is a bouquet of roses to gay love stories and the acceptance of one particular gay love match from a most unexpected source, and secondly, the film’s clever writer-director Ian Iqbal Rashid devotes his debut feature film as a loving tribute to Cary Grant in particular and to classic films in general. Although Hollywood screwball comedy romances went out of fashion in the late 1930s, Rashid evokes them again with lots of fun some seventy years later. In The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), noted film historian David Thomson, summing up the long and glorious career of film idol Cary Grant, makes this bold and unequivocal statement: “…he was the best and most important film actor in the history of the cinema." (p.351). “Touch of Pink” is proof positive that London writer-director Rashid is in total agreement with Thompson’s assessment of Grant’s genius. Movie cameras loved the suave yet masculine presence of Cary Grant. For more than 35 years and through an amazing seventy-two films, Grant was the undisputed king of Hollywood cinema and it is obvious that although he has been dead for more than two decades, he remains a hero to Rashid who ingeniously utilizes him as the blithe spirit and ghostly advisor to Alim (Jimi Mistry), the hero of his own “Touch of Pink.” In “Touch of Pink,” the latest romp in ghostly romantic films, it is Cary Grant himself (Kyle MacLachlan) who becomes the spectral love life advisor to Alim who lives a happy and uncomplicated love life in London with his British-born lover Giles (Kristen Holden-Reid) in a blissful cross-cultural “gay marriage.” Giles, unlike Alim, appears to be totally out to all his family and friends, most especially his delightful sister Delia (Lisa Repo-Martell). Although Alim is both South Asian and Muslim in background, he seems to have been on an around-the-world journey since he took his first breath. Born in Kenya, he was raised in Toronto, but now lives contentedly in London, has a great job as a still photographer for a movie company, and is one half of a sweet and seemingly safe gay couple living happily in their love nest thousands of miles away from and free of the interference of his Canadian-based affluent Muslim family enclave, most especially his religiously conservative widowed mother Nuru (Suleka Matthew) who is not only unaware that her son is gay but also grieves that Alim appears destined never to marry and present her with the grandchildren for whom she so desperately yearns. The Toronto-born and London-based writer-director borrows from a legion of both gay and straight films to fashion the story line of “Touch of Pink.” In particular, his major plot line owes a considerable debt to Ang Lee’s “The Wedding Banquet”(1991) and the lesser-known but witty supernatural straight film, “Curtain Calls” (Unipix, 1998) starring Michael Caine and Maggie Smith as long-dead Broadway actors who refuse to give up the their home to the very much alive but confused young publisher played by James Spader. They constantly bicker except for the times when they proffer ghostly love and career advice as blithe spirits to the startled and confused young Stevenson Lowe who has just moved into the home they once inhabited while alive. There are really two films going on in these “Pink” proceedings. Beyond the film’s real story is a second delightful seek-and-find game of tracking the current actors’ dialogue and behavior back to such Grant classics as “The Philadelphia Story" (MGM, 1940), “Suspicion” (RKO, 1941), “An Affair to Remember” (20th Century Fox, 1957), “That Touch of Mink” (Republic, 1962) and “Charade” (Universal, 1963) and other Grant touchstone films. Shot chiefly in London, Toronto-born director Ian Rashid’s current home, the movie may well evoke memories of still another ghostly comedy, the British farce, “Blithe Spirit” (Rank/Two Cities, 1946) written by playwright Noel Coward and filmed by director David Lean in which the mystery writer Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison) inadvertently summons back the ghostly presence of his first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond) with the aide of Madame Arcati, a spiritualist, deliciously played to comic effect by Margaret Rutherford. In “Blithe Spirit” Coward and Lean fashioned one of the great British comedies of all time. The ghost of Cary Grant is everywhere in “Touch of Pink” including both conversations and behaviors (that no one else can hear or observe) with Alim. Indeed, for classic movie fans, a great deal of the fun of watching “Touch of Pink” is spying all the allusions to Grant’s greatest films and listening for the inclusion of bits of dialogue first heard between the man from Dream City and his beautiful co-stars, all legends themselves, from Mae West to Irene Dunne, Kathryn Hepburn, Joan Fontaine, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Deborah Kerr, Ingrid Bergman, Eva Marie Saint, and Doris Day. Rashid seamlessly weaves great lines verbatim from Grant masterpieces into his witty screenplay. Even though Grant defined Hollywood “charisma” and “personal magnetism,” his own life was filled with turmoil that included five marriages and a sexually ambiguous lifestyle that most biographers (e.g., Marc Eliot’s Cary Grant: A Biography. Harmony Books, 2004) agree involved a long-term gay love affair with Hollywood “B” movie cowboy star, Randolph Scott. Scott made a present to Grant of an ocean front Malibu beach house that the two men shared for nearly a decade. Alim is a handsome young gay man, but Rashid acknowledges the persistent rumors of Grant’s complex sexuality and he exploits such gossip by occasionally playing Alim in a nearly feminine role opposite Grant’s ghost. Alim curls up on the couch, his head tenderly resting on Cary’s manly chest as they watch such Grant classics as “The Philadelphia Story” (MGM. 1940) and “Suspicion” (RKO, 1941). In still another scene, the ethereal Cary Grant presents Alim with a sail boat that he instantly recognizes as the wedding gift Grant presented to Kathrine Hepburn in their 1940 MGM masterpiece “The Philadelphia Story.” The two repeat exactly the same Philip Barry-Donald Ogden Stewart dialogue as spoken by Grant, Hepburn, and Hepburn’s soon-to-be screen husband, actor John Howard. The incorporation of famous lines from some of Cary Grant’s best works such as “That Touch of Mink,” “Charade,” and “The Philadelphia Story” pop up frequently and in unlikely places. An allusion to both Grant’s greatness as well as his uncertain sexuality is found in a love scene between Alim and Giles. Alim is a handsome man, but he has the same doe-eyed, unisex innocence of one of Grant’s greatest leading ladies, Audrey Hepburn. When Akim is making love to Giles, he says, “Do you know what’s wrong with you?” (Pause) “Absolutely nothing!” Romantic, yes. Original, no. Alim is using verbatim the same lines the innocent beauty Audrey Hepburn spoke to Cary Grant in Stanley Donan’s wonderful mystery romance, “Charade” (Universal, 1963). Grant film devotees will almost swear Alim and Hepburn’s Regina Lampert character have merged into one. Cary Grant aficionados will love the multiple references and “coincidences” Rashid has woven into “Touch of Pink.” To begin with, the title obviously suggests one of Grant’s last great comedies, “That Touch of Mink” (Republic, 1962) in which he co-starred with Doris Day. Alim’s mother who is the whirlwind Southern Asian tiger-of-a-mother went to London from her home in Toronto at virtually the same time as “That Touch of Mink” was released with her own dreams of becoming the silver screen’s Muslim Doris Day, but the world was not ready for her and she still has never forgiven London or the film industry for the slight. But writer-director Ian Iqbal Rashid does not stop with the title borrowing, he continues his humorous literary conceit by going all the way back to the original MGM ghostly caper “Topper” (1937), in which the real-life Cary Grant along with his onscreen wife, Constance Bennett, portrayed the ghosts of George and Marian Kirby giving over-the-top advice to the stuffy and henpecked banker, Cosmo Topper (portrayed brilliantly by Oscar-nominated Roland Young). In “Touch of Pink” the ghost of Grant similarly proffers advice and tries his best to give the living hero Alim a bit more backbone and boldness. Kyle MacLachlan’s role model for the part of Grant’s ghost almost certainly must owe a debt to Grant’s 1937 turn at being a ghostly apparition. One note about the writing, casting and acting. Although MacLachlan bears a passing resemblance to the great original as Grant’s ghostly spirit in “Touch of Pink,” in truth it is Alim’s lover Giles who more nearly captures the smooth, debonair charm and suave style of the real movie idol Cary Grant when he takes Alim’s mother on a tour of modern-day London and treats her like a princess or the Indian Doris Day she always longed to be. Indeed, he is so much more Grant-like in his refined deference to Nuru, indulging her every pleasure (fashion, English High Tea) and treating her as a beautiful woman who is truly a lady, that she finds it impossible to mistrust and dislike him as much as she would like to. It is also on this brief but glamorous day on the town that the few exterior scenes of the film are shown and reveal not only the mighty Thames, but the grandeur and glory of post-Millennium London from St. Paul’s to Parliament. Anglophiles will love these scenes. Not the least of the problems of both “Touch of Pink” and “The Wedding Banquet” from the LGBT perspective is that the interfering parents of gay Asian men in both films seem to be infinitely more concerned that they become grandparents than they are concerned about extending love for their closeted gay sons. Grandparenthood rates higher than parenthood. In both films, the desperate need for grandchildren appears to eclipse the parents’ love and acceptance of their own children’s hopes, dreams, loves, and futures. The Asian gay men in both films engage in elaborate ruses to hide their sexuality, acts that carry with them heavy doses of guilt for men who already feel frustrated and harassed as closeted gay sons. Worse, the Caucasian lovers of the Asian gay sons are relegated to second-class status and are forced to live out lives made up of tissues of lies that they abhor but which they endure because of their love for their partners. In “The Wedding Banquet” it is the gay American boyfriend Simon (played to perfection by Mitchell Lichtenstein, the real-life son of famed 20th century “Pop Artist” Roy Lichtenstein) who finally throws in the towel and tells his Chinese lover, Wai-Tung (Winston Chao) that he has had enough of the pretense and announces his intentions to end their relationship. In “Touch of Pink” when Alim learns of his Muslim mother’s impending visit, and he is ably abetted by the ghost of Grant in stripping their London flat of everything that signals that they are gay, his lover Giles warns him that such deceptive behavior was never a part of their agreement to love and live together. He is pushed even farther away when Alim—still in fear of his mother—suddenly announces that he is, in fact, engaged and his bride to be is Giles’s sister Delia. Even though “Touch of Pink” may not have the high production values or the quality of writing, acting and directing found in “A Wedding Banquet,” at least its finale has a far more positive, albeit surprising, gay-affirming resolution and is not a sell out to mainstream straight audiences. With almost teddy bear-like comfort, Alim’s fantasy with “Cary Grant” as his elder and wiser advisor, is given a final good-bye not unlike the finale of Grant’s own famous Christmas classic, “The Bishop’s Wife” (RKO, 1947) co-starring Loretta Young with David Niven. Alim’s mother has realized that the love of her son and Giles is not only real but destined for a long run and she accepts her son’s sexuality and his lover with equal amounts of composure and love. A “Touch of Pink” may not be a great movie by any measure, but for movie fans it provides a great deal of innocent cinematic pleasure, and for gay love story fans it is an equal delight. —Jerry
Flack,Denver, Colorado
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