THE ART OF BEING STRAIGHT Misunderstood, reviled and even doubted to really exist, bisexuals throw a wrench in binary thinking about sexuality; they befuddle as many queer folk as they do straight. In The Art of Being Straight, writer-director Jesse Rosen attempts to illuminate the bisexual experience from the inside out, with “straight” boy Jon (played by Rosen) broadening his sexual horizons in the film’s main plot, and acerbic young dyke Maddy (Rachel Castillo, excellent) flirting with a woman-on-man affair as the subplot. College friends, the two are transplants to L.A., grappling with career complications as they wrestle with newfound desires. Rosen’s script is competently crafted, and his cast is talented. The film is undermined, though, by his simplistic — even scarily retro — ideas about queer sexuality. Jon is introduced to man-sex by his creepy, stalkerlike boss, and their big sex scene is not just uncomfortable but joyless, lacking heat. And while Rosen shows playfulness and real sexual ardor in his boy-girl sex scenes, the homo couplings are all drunken and tortured. The psychologically flat script isn’t nearly up to the task of depicting the pleasure within confusion/despair (or vice versa); neither are Rosen’s acting chops. (Music Hall) (Ernest Hardy)
The Taking of Pelham 123: Stop or my subway dispatcher will shoot!
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DIM SUM FUNERAL Director Anna Chi’s Chinese-American family drama, from a screenplay by Donald Martin, is ambitious in scope and banal in execution. When the Xiao family matriarch (nicknamed Dragon Lady by her kin) dies unexpectedly, her four estranged adult children are forced by their nanny (Talia Shire) to honor their late mother’s wishes for a traditional Chinese funeral — a request that baffles them, as they’ve been pointedly raised with no connection to Chinese culture. So the warring siblings come together to sort through Mom’s estate, as well as the family’s “secrets and lies.” (Yes, someone utters that phrase.) In addition to the slow peeling back of the dead woman’s own history, the script throws in a sassy lesbian daughter and her edgy girlfriend; a biracial grandchild whose embittered mother was forbidden to marry his father; a haughty former beauty queen sister-in-law; and a sister grieving the death of her young son. It’s a lot to take in, but Chi’s pedestrian direction never pushes beyond the script’s trite psychological and sociocultural insights, or its forced feel-good resolutions. What pleasure is to be found in Dim Sum lies in the chance to see such underutilized actors as Russell Wong and Kelly Hu on the big screen, though both have been better in past performances, and you wish they had material worthy of them here. (Sunset 5;Playhouse 7) (Ernest Hardy)
GO FOOD, INC. Anyone who has read The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Fast Food Nation will experience a strong sense of déjà vu as the film Food, Inc. unfolds. That’s because many of the case studies used in this dark look at food production came from those books. Indeed, authors Michael Pollen and Eric Schlosser appear throughout the film as talking heads, their placid and jovial manner sometimes undercutting the shocking nature of the material presented. There’s nothing jovial about the mother whose 2-year-old child dies just days after eating an E. coli-tainted burger. Other tragedies are not as explicit. We meet an Indiana gleaner pursuing the age-old career of scavenging seeds from agricultural detritus, so the farmers can plant them the next year. And then we see chemical giant Monsanto hectoring him until his business goes bust, claiming that his activities challenge the so-called intellectual-property rights for their genetically engineered seeds, which have contaminated fields all over the state. In between are aerial shots of fields and feed lots, giving the film a pastoral feel, even though one of director Robert Kenner’s central points is that our romanticization of farming prevents us from seeing how it has become a malevolent corporate venture. Despite occasional spiritual uplift, the film cultivates a feeling of paranoia as it progresses, so that none of the printed nostrums flashed over the final credits (“You can change the world with every bite”) can dispel the notion that we and the Earth are irretrievably fucked. (Nuart) (Robert Sietsema)
IMAGINE THAT Eddie Murphy is Denver investment consultant Evan, with a workaholic schedule that leaves little space for 7-year-old daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi). Adding to his pressures is the meteoric rise of a co-worker, shtick Native American “Whitefeather,” (played by Thomas Haden Church, fitfully amusing, with characterization and makeup owing much to Phil Hartman’s SNL Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer), whose financial consultations come couched in pseudomysticism and PowerPoint razzle-dazzle. Evan’s interest in parent-child bonding spikes when Olivia becomes a medium for clairvoyant insights into international business trends via her imaginary friends. On the surface, the idea of combining Bloomberg Terminals, market jargon and childish fancy seems counterintuitive. That’s because it is. But Imagine That does manage to get a crowd tearing up on cue for its emotional climax; as much as it works, it’s through the personal charm of Murphy and Shahidi. Strikes against include God-awful Beatles covers, overreliance on the hilarity of grown-ups in suits saying “poop,” and obtrusive Red Bull product placement — the beverage company may as well start producing films itself after this and Yes Man. If memory serves, kiddies like whatever movie you drop them at but, for the record, Drop Dead Fred remains the vastly superior film. (Citywide) (Nick Pinkerton)
