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[A Word from Brickfilms.com]
Playing with LEGOS
might be more fun than watching "The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me." If
you loved the stop
motion animation in "Chicken Run" or "The Nightmare Before
Christmas," than you would love watching
films starring your favorite lego characters. Imagine seeing
a LEGO
playing your favorite character's role in Star
Wars!
One-man
shows come a dime-a-dozen in the world of theater, but they're an even rarer
breed in cinema. I can think of only two interesting movies based on one-person
shows, Julia Sweeney's God Said, 'Ha!' (1998) and Spalding Gray's
Swimming to Cambodia (1987, directed by Jonathan Demme). Now comes David
Drake's The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, directed by Tim Kirkman. And I
now understand why.
The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me is based on Drake's successful play
which opened in New York and won an Obie award. I can only assume it won this
award because it's a passionate play full of messages. I suspect it might have
played well with Drake right there in the room with you. But as an image on the
movie screen, Drake becomes a detached figure, a nobody who needs to start from
scratch to draw us in.
He fails within minutes. Director Kirkman begins by ripping off Demme's visual
ideas from Swimming to Cambodia. Drake is a mediocre writer at best and
his language and poetry is second-rate. He yells everything out, speaking slowly
and enunciating, underlining the mediocrity (the movie was filmed during live
performances). As if that weren't enough, Drake insists upon repeating words and
phrases over and over and over again. I suppose he thinks he's driving the point
home, but instead he's insulting us. The only thing he really accomplishes with
this endless repetition is to extend a thimble-full of material to a
feature-length movie.
There's more. Drake demonstrates his monstrous ego to us with stories about
meeting people in a gym. He strips in front of us, showing off his underwear, and
lifts a barbell (sans weights) for several minutes. He does virtually the same
routine in a dance club, but this time he dances for us for about 20 minutes,
repeating the same little chant over and over and over again.
When Spalding Gray speaks to us in he does so in a way that makes us see
pictures. He speaks visually. Julia Sweeney tells the story of her brother's
cancer, but does so in a remarkably funny and piercingly honest way. Drake fails
to do either of these things. His would-be poetry is so flaccid that we don't see
anything but his typewriter going, and his personality is so abrasive that we
can't identify with him.
Drake fails miserably in making his material travel past the edge of the
stage. The only way you'd identify with this material is if you'd lived a
distinctly similar life, gay in New York in the 1980s. If you haven't, forget
it.
Starring: David Drake Written by: David Drake Directed by: Tim Kirkman MPAA Rating: Unrated Running Time: 81 minutes Date: March 30, 2001
One-man
shows come a dime-a-dozen in the world of theater, but they're an even rarer
breed in cinema. I can think of only two interesting movies based on one-person
shows, Julia Sweeney's God Said, 'Ha!' (1998) and Spalding Gray's
Swimming to Cambodia (1987, directed by Jonathan Demme). Now comes David
Drake's The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, directed by Tim Kirkman. And I
now understand why.
