The Endless Possibility Of Sky (Water Bearer DVD)/Face 2 Face (Wolfe DVD, both 2012)

 

Picture: C/C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Main Programs: C+/B-

 

 

Now for two different looks at crisis that happen to be very different takes from the gay community.

 

 

First we have the latest project from the hit and miss Todd Verow.  The Endless Possibility Of Sky deals with a the small town gay man who narrates named Drew and his misadventures with drugs, unsafe sex, thoughts on the state of the gay male today and the need to be an outlaw.  In this case, being married, having kids or having an integrated life is fake “petty bourgeoisie” living and has nothing to do with being a free, happy, sexually active gay man.

 

Unfortunately, the alternative is poverty, drug addition, loneliness and if you become HIV positive, hey, it happens?  Verow has been this pessimistic before, but this time, animation segments constantly show up to interrupt (though enhancement is intended, it is not him animation, so it does not work, even with it’s sometimes Andy Warhol style) and tries for surrealism that sometimes looks like a Kubrick film and more often Fassbinder, especially Querelle.  Unfortunately, a mish-mash is not a full length narrative, no matter the few moments that work or the nudity and somewhat graphic sex (a hard R-rating at least).  I just wish the script was more coherent or the writerly approach had more to say for its 85 minutes.

 

Extras include two extended scenes and two trailers.

 

 

On the other hand, the commercially successful director Katherine Brooks decides to take on her life and the world around her in Face 2 Face in which she is so frustrated with her so-called friends (none visited when they knew she was ill) that she takes to Facebook and tells the first 50 people who sign up that she’ll visit them and put them in a documentary.  This is the result.

 

She drives all over the country to meet these people and just about every meeting is interesting and we meet some nice people, many of whom are in pain of their own.  Miss Brooks is a lesbian and so are many of those she meets.  Sher also meets up with old friends, acquaintances, family and has to deal with her depression drug addiction, among other personal issues.

 

This works best when she is reporting on the others and sometimes when she deals with her own private life boldly, but there are too many moments we did not need to see of her being upset about her life and health condition in what turns out to be repetition that undermines some good work here.  She is talented and has something to say.  Also, too many music interludes backfire.

 

Extras include a trailer and several long additional segments amounting to 30 minutes, many of which should have been in the main feature over some of the material she kept.  When you see those extras after watching the final cut, you’ll see a possible classic was lost.

 

 

Both DVDs offer anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image transfers, but Sky has far too much digititis and digital blocking despite the often good color.  Face is soft at times, but more consistent throughout.  The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Face is very thinly better than Sky, but both have location audio issues and are often dialogue-based, so don’t expect much sonically here even with Sky offering music segments.  Sky has lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 sound only which is simple stereo at best.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo