ON SCREEN

Boarding Gate

Asia Argento, Michael Madsen, Carl Ng
R, 93 mins, Magnolia

French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep, Demonlover) brings us this snobby, dull international “thriller” about an ex-prostitute who reunites with her ex-boyfriend/pimp (Michael Madsen), shoots him, becomes entangled with a Chinese couple and drug deal, and runs to Hong Kong for more trouble. While occasionally pretty to look at, especially Hong Kong's skyline come the final half hour, this is a pretentious, soporific mess. The female Norman Reedus, Argento is becoming synonymous with merde, and her scenes with Madsen—laborious pauses between their lifeless self-important dialogue, which is about as important as what you'd overhear from a couple of 18-year-old French film students at an indie coffee shop drinking Chai—will likely inspire you to make an early departure from the theater (full disclosure: I bailed about seventy-five minutes in). When even shootings and chases (not to mention sex scenes) leave you checking your watch, it's time to ground the filmmaker. —LAWRENCE FERBER

Irina Palm

Marianne Faithfull, Kevin Bishop, Jenny Agutter
R, 94 minutes, Strand Releasing
***

The plot of Irina Palm sounds ludicrous (and it is): Maggie (Faithfull), a “middle-aged frump,” jerks off guys at a SoHo sex club to pay for her grandson's life-saving operation. But despite montages involving a glory hole, bottles of lubricant, and wads of Kleenex, this, ahem, gripping character study is never salacious or particularly saccharine. Among this gritty film's many pleasures is Faithfull's sensational performance; the husky-voiced actress makes Maggie's transformation miraculous. She may be wary about doing “hostess” work-watch her furtively dart into Sexy World, the club where she plies her trade. But after she makes a deal with sleazy club owner Miki (Miki Manojlovic), she becomes empowered. Naturally, Maggie's work-separating sex from love-takes its tolls. She develops “penis elbow,” and jeopardizes her relationship with her son (Bishop) and her best friend (Agutter). But Irina Palm adroitly illustrates why she sacrifices herself—and why she perseveres. —GARY M. KRAMER

LIMITED RUN

Cleopatra

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton star as the sexy, star-crossed lovers of antiquity. Presented in 70 mm. UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theatre. March 29. 2 p.m. www.cinema.ucla.edu.

The Funhouse

This ‘80s slasher flick is sure to scare you senseless. The New Beverly Cinema. Sat., March 29. Midnight. www.newbevcinema.com.

Finn's Girl

A doctor is forced to care for both her deceased lover's teenage daughter and abortion clinic amidst pro-life violence. Egyptian Theatre. Wed., April 2. 7:30 p.m. www.americancinematheque.com or www.fandango.com.

All About Eve

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a very bumpy night as Bette Davis and Anne Baxter battle it out in this balls-to-the-walls classic cat fight! AFI’s Silver Theatre. Fri., April 4 at 7 p.m., Sat., April 5 at 3:30 p.m., Sun., April 6 at 1 p.m., and Tue., April 8 at 7 p.m. www.afi.com.

Homo Must

Cruising

Los Angeles Leather Coalition presents William Friedkin's controversial leather-bound tale of a cop going deep under cover into the bondage world. Egyptian Theatre. Wed., March 26. 7:30 p.m. www.americancinematheque.com or www.fandango.com.

ON DVD

Socket

Bill Matthews and Craig Murphy
**

An initially intriguing premise goes awry in this sci-fi skin flick that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. If you’re willing to go for the ride about a group of accident survivors who “shoot up” electricity to reach euphoria (they use electrical currents like others use drugs or alcohol), this sci-fi hybrid may just be your thing. (They even have their own kind of circuit party—replete with shirtless-in-the-bathroom “drugging”). But the bottom line is this fright flick relies too much on plot contrivances to get its two hot and heavy leads naked—repeatedly and gratuitously (not that I’m complaining)—to be taken seriously. Plus, this low-budget thriller stretches what little credibility it has (even within the sci-fi genre) when its premise and their socket obsession goes one step-to-silly too far. —WALLY KING

Eleven Men Out

Björn Hlynur Haraldsson and Helgi Björnsson
**

A handsome soccer star outs himself to his teammates and his coach/dad mere moments after a practice (and the opening credits)…and nobody takes the revelation very well, including his estranged wife (a boozed-out former Icelandic beauty queen) and their teenage son (an angsty emo-kid with at least three bags of Ruffles on his shoulder). So what’s a gay soccer stud to do? Why, start his very own gay soccer team, of course! There is surprisingly little soccer action in the fótbolti flick (that’s “soccer” in Icleandic), but there are well-drawn characters and more than a few interesting scenes. Unfortunately, however, much of the comedy gets lost in translation, and the commentary about homophobia is not something that we haven’t seen 100 hundred times before. (Sports are homophobic in Iceland, too!) Most will be sold on the promise of several shower scenes, but be forewarned the headlining hottie never shows the goods, just his less-cute co-stars do. —WK.

DVD Throwdown

PAST VS. PRESENT

The south is chock-full of buildings with notorious pasts. Everything from housing General Sherman to housing brothels—been there, done that. And mostly we own it, slave auction houses and all (although you're probably not going to find any brass plaques memorializing the birthplace of the KKK). Oh the pride.

So it was no surprise that I, a history loving Southerner, was very excited to review The Yacoubian Building from Strand Releasing. Filmed in Cairo, this film tells the stories of a handful of occupants of the Yacoubian Building, once the grandest of all apartment buildings in the city. Now a faded shell of it's former self instead of housing diplomats and pashas it is now home to prostitutes, drug dealers, religious extremists, and (gasp!) homosexuals. Beautifully told and deliciously foreign, this film drops you in the heart of the bustling Egyptian city and leaves you there to sink or swim.

And then there's Driftwood. This low budget horror/suspense film from Image Entertainment centers on troubled teen David who is sent to an attitude adjustment camp (Driftwood) by his parents (apparently for wearing black nail polish) and there brutally treated by Diamond Dallas Page of World Wrestling Foundation fame. To escape this hell-on-earth David must discover the dark secret of Driftwood's past and unlock the earthbound spirit of a murdered inmate. Yeah, yeah, yeah—let's cut to the chase. Why this film was sent to our magazine I can only guess. The only hint of gay was the liberal use of the word “faggot” and minor character Noah, the teen inmate sent to Driftwood for his “deviant” sexual orientation. Lady, please—this film is a tragic mess and I got no love for it.

So the past—it always ends up biting us in the ass. Mine has certainly come back to haunt me more times than I care to remember (“How does that guy know you?”) as I'm sure everyone's has. Of course, mine doesn't involve murdering my nephew or becoming a religious extremist and training for my first jihad. Southerners would never send their young to a remote camp to learn to shoot guns, sleep on boards, and pray for hours on end. Oh wait—yes they do. We just call it Vacation Bible School. See what I mean about the past?

—GEORGE SKINNER