I whiled away a Sunday afternoon with this movie (it was playing as I did other things)
From the casting list, I was expecting greatness as I watched the RuPaul Royalty strut their stuff on the screen, after all, the cast list includes Latrice Royale, Tempest DuJour and Bob the Drag Queen to name just a few, these are Drag Queens that I know are very funny and tremendously talented.
So what's wrong with it? Well, dry script, a protagonist that I personally found hard to like - I think the viewer is supposed to sympathise with his dream of being a performer/singer. And a few toilet humour jokes - one queen actually throws up on stage during a song where she's lip-syncing about what she does when she *ahem* soils herself. Actually, can I ask who wrote these songs and how old they were to think the songs were funny? The other songs (all sung by the same voice actress, by the way) include "I can't have this baby right now", "I hate you, white bitch". They pretty much go on in that sort of vein, until the Protagonist does his solo of a straightforward, traditional 'Ave Maria'
That said, it had it's entertaining moments. The one that sticks out at the moment is Tempest Dujour as the aging, headlining act of the club, Lady Zaza who, having lost her partner a few months before the film takes place, and so having "lost the will to tuck", spends her time locked away in her dressing room, playing sad music whilst melodramatically looking in to the mirror, loudly bemoaning her loss to her reflection (and the audience) before writing a suicide letter that's 8+ pages long, stating in it that that she doesn't like long goodbyes.
The film is 79 minutes long and during that time I was expecting to see some character development, other films have managed it in that time, but instead it just sort of trailed off and didn't seem to have a real ending, unless you count more of the protagonist's dispassionate narration about what everyone got up to after his night at the club was over. Maybe if it'd taken place over several nights, made as a series rather than a film, we could have got to know the characters a bit more, as it was, everything felt squashed in.
It's honestly not the worst film I've ever seen but it could have been amazing.
From the casting list, I was expecting greatness as I watched the RuPaul Royalty strut their stuff on the screen, after all, the cast list includes Latrice Royale, Tempest DuJour and Bob the Drag Queen to name just a few, these are Drag Queens that I know are very funny and tremendously talented.
So what's wrong with it? Well, dry script, a protagonist that I personally found hard to like - I think the viewer is supposed to sympathise with his dream of being a performer/singer. And a few toilet humour jokes - one queen actually throws up on stage during a song where she's lip-syncing about what she does when she *ahem* soils herself. Actually, can I ask who wrote these songs and how old they were to think the songs were funny? The other songs (all sung by the same voice actress, by the way) include "I can't have this baby right now", "I hate you, white bitch". They pretty much go on in that sort of vein, until the Protagonist does his solo of a straightforward, traditional 'Ave Maria'
That said, it had it's entertaining moments. The one that sticks out at the moment is Tempest Dujour as the aging, headlining act of the club, Lady Zaza who, having lost her partner a few months before the film takes place, and so having "lost the will to tuck", spends her time locked away in her dressing room, playing sad music whilst melodramatically looking in to the mirror, loudly bemoaning her loss to her reflection (and the audience) before writing a suicide letter that's 8+ pages long, stating in it that that she doesn't like long goodbyes.
The film is 79 minutes long and during that time I was expecting to see some character development, other films have managed it in that time, but instead it just sort of trailed off and didn't seem to have a real ending, unless you count more of the protagonist's dispassionate narration about what everyone got up to after his night at the club was over. Maybe if it'd taken place over several nights, made as a series rather than a film, we could have got to know the characters a bit more, as it was, everything felt squashed in.
It's honestly not the worst film I've ever seen but it could have been amazing.