Getting the Shakes at Sundance

January 24, 2007

Greetings, OUTzoners from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah! I’m here doing interviews for Hollywood Life magazine but I’m also managing to catch a few flicks. On Friday night, I was able to score a ticket for the premier of An American Crime, out director Tommy O’Haver’s film about the real-life torture and murder of teenage girl by the woman who was supposed be caring for her in suburban Indiana in 1965. I had never heard of this much-talked about case before seeing the film so I was riveted to its every twist and turn. It’s a disturbing, intense, thought-provoking and well-made film with a powerhouse performance by Catherine Keener as the sadistic supposed caretaker Gertrude Baniszewski.

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Carried Away

January 19, 2007

I’ve been writing celebrity profiles for magazines for about 15 years and in that time, I’ve often been asked who’s been my favorite interview. Though I’ve really liked almost everyone I’ve profiled — Shannen Doherty, notwithstanding — I have no trouble coming up with a number one; Princess Leia turned Postcards author Carrie Fisher. I first interviewed her for Detour in 1993 about her novel Delusions of Grandma. (http://www.dennishensley.com/CarrieFisher93.htm)

I had been a fan of her writing for years and pitched the idea of doing a piece on her to my editor and he went for it. Going in, I had a fantasy of how the interview would go and the reality surpassed it. For starters, when I arrived at her house and asked where she wanted to do the interview, she said, “In bed,” so we did. Then, at one point, her fab mother, Debbie Reynolds, showed up for an unplanned cameo. Before sending me on my way, Carrie presented me with an expired ‘Today’ sponge as a souvenir. I cherish it till this day. I got to interview Carrie again a few years ago for The Advocate for her latest novel The Best Awful. (http://www.dennishensley.com/CarrieFisher2003.htm)

She was as thoughtful, funny and interesting an interview subject as I encountered the first time—and she’d been through a lot in the years between.

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Good Golly, It's Molly!

January 12, 2007

Between Christmas and New Years, my generous friend Steve Silverman invited me to be part of a group of friends hanging out in a cozy cabin in Big Bear, CA. Our first night there, after a hearty dinner of my friend Danny’s spaghetti, we discussed our various options for the evening. I suggested we watch a movie I just picked up called Molly.

See, back in 2002, when my book “Screening Party” came out, I remember talking with a woman at a reading who said that Molly was her favorite movie to watch with a roomful of mouthy friends. I had meant to check Molly out ever since but I just never got around to it. Then a few weeks ago at Video West in Studio City, I saw that they had a used VHS copy on sale for $1 marked down from $3.

I have to say it was the best dollar I ever spent. The movie was over an hour and a half long and I have to say, it felt like twenty minutes.

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2006: Was It Good For You Too?

January 04, 2007

I’d like to take this opportunity to big a fond farewell to 2006. To me, 2006 was the year that the jig was up. From George W. Bush to Star Jones to Ted Haggart to Mark Foley to Mel Gibson to O.J. to the Republicans in Congress, if you were full of shit, you went down … big time.

To me, two of the big heroes of the year were Mike Jones and Lane Hudson, the conscientious techno-savvy gays who blew the whistle on Ted Haggard and Mark Foley respectively.

I was happy to see these guys featured in The Advocate under the headline “The Whistleblowers” but I would have liked it more if they were on the cover, perhaps recreating the Barbra Streisand / Donna Summer pose from “Enough is Enough”. These guys didn’t just expose a pair of dangerous hypocrites but they allowed those of us who were so inclined, to enjoy a little vengeance. Like many GLBT people, they had had it with being demonized by the powers that be and they weren’t going to take it any more.

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