Sundance Gay Film Dispatch 2: Pretty Bird, Up With Dead People, and Gallows Humor

Bruce LaBruce (R) and his Otto star, Jey Crisfar 

Come early afternoon, Heath Ledger’s death was on everyone’s tongue and phone text display. I was interviewed by a TIME reporter, working on a story that would address the gay response to the loss of Brokeback Mountain’s star. Elsewhere, reactions ran the gamut from shock to gallows humor. “Does this mean he’s not doing press for Batman?” asked one journalist, while another puzzled over how train crash Britney is out surviving her Hollywood peers.

I attended part of the Queer Lounge’s panel, The Advocate Presents Gay Filmmakers and Sexual Provocation, moderated by my The Advocate colleague/film critic, Kyle Buchanan. I sat down with panelist Bruce LaBruce afterwards, to discuss his Sundance feature, Otto: Or, Up With Dead People. The timing was perhaps off, but I asked him which Hollywood star could do with a zombification. “Zac Efron,” he replied. “He already wears enough eyeliner.”

Meanwhile, a few stars paraded through the QL en route to the Corbis Photo booth, including Anjelica Huston and Michael & Virginia Madsen.

A small bit of celebration was called for by the Oscar nomination announcements: one went to Freeheld, a Sundance 2007 short about a cancer-stricken lesbian’s fight to secure survivor benefits for her partner, for Short Documentary.

While Park City isn’t quite a gourmand’s paradise, the annual Stella Artois dinner for media and filmmakers is a coveted event and one of the best meals in town. The four courses, each paired with a Stella beer, were superb (especially the Monkfish with Lobster Risotto).

Film-wise, I caught Pretty Bird, a bizarre, not entirely likable film about an inventor, a schmooze, and an investor who join forces, and implode, while creating a jet pack. One of the three is revealed as gay in the final act, and meets a somewhat stereotypical old Hollywood ending for a gay character. A fact, as I remarked to the TIME reporter, made Ledger’s demise all the more ironic – his Brokeback character managed to avoid an early, tragic death, the norm for gays in cinema of old, but Ledger himself did not.