movies: kinky boots

Ma and I took ourselves off to see the preview screening of Kinky Boots tonight, thanks to the free tickets I won... and I made sure I remembered the tickets this time by leaving about 10 post-it's all over my apartment.

It was actually interesting to see how many people there were in the line for the movie, all clutching their email printouts and their Cinebuzz Club cards, and how many people ended up in the theatre... who knew!

There is such a total difference between American produced movies and their English cousins... American movies are slick and pretty and clean and full of either attractive or at least average looking supporting actors, whereas English movies, other than the Jane Eyre/Bronte Sister type period pieces, are quite gritty and real and full of the most extraordinary looking people... but REAL people.

Kinky Boots is one of those gritty types of movies... think The Full Monty, but with a man in a frock instead of "average" strippers.

It's also a "feel good, based on a true story" story... man has problem, man thinks of solution, man seems successful, man has setback, man overcomes it, man seems successful again, man has major screwup, man seems to have failed, man is triumphant, usually with a little help from his friends/employees/team/family/etc. One of those... but within that formula, Kinky Boots actually works well.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (it's "Chew-it-tell Edge-oh-for" for the record), last seen, by me anyway, doing a turn as the villain in Serenity, does beautifully as drag queen Lola. I think mostly its the big pumped up lips...

Although I have to say, putting on my Queer Pride hat for a second, it's another "safe" gay performance... Lola is essentially sexless, and unlike just about every single drag queen I've ever met, wears her drag for things other than her performances. That, ladies and gentlemen, isn't a drag queen, that is something more like a transvestite or a transexual.

Having said that, it's not exactly in the order of a movie like To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar... where you wonder why the drag queens just don't defrock... Lola, or rather, Simon, does appear sans drag.

And there are some genuinely amusing moments in there... like Lola's entrance into the factory and the beginning of the runway show in Milan.

Oh, and I really, really want to get hold of Lola's Boots Medley: These Boots Were Made for Walkin' / In These Shoes / Cha Cha Heels / Going Back to My Roots / Yes Sir I Can Boogie...

yani's rating: 3 feet of tubular sex out of 5