Die Mommy Die!
This might pass off as your average overacted 1960s soap opera if not for the gimmick of the lead female role of Angela Arden being played by male actor Charles Busch. He plays Angela in typical sassy drag-queen fashion, and the other characters in the film are none the wiser. Many of the lines that would otherwise be serious are drenched with irony because of this hook – for instance, Angela’s lover Tony Parker (played by Jason Priestley) insists he is no “fag” but passionately kisses the male actor in disguise.
As the story progresses, some of the plot twists take a turn for the whacky. Angela’s son Lance (Stark Sands) admits to his mother that he was kicked out of college after an accusation from the Dean that he is a sexual predator; apparently the boy was caught naked, on his back on a lazy-susan, being shared among the 8 professors of the math department. The boy has a close relationship with his mother, but his father is constantly ranting that there is something mentally wrong with him.
Angela’s husband Sol Sussman (Philip Baker Hall) gets compromising photos of Angela with one of her lovers, but refuses to divorce her – instead he vows to make her life hell. Angela tries to sneak poison into a glass of warm milk for her husband, but he refuses to drink it - he admits he cannot sleep because of his painful constipation, and hates warm milk to begin with. Angela offers to help him insert his doctor-prescribed suppository, stirring it into the poisoned milk before telling the man to bend over. As Arden begins to blanche about what she has done, Sol comments that she has a “queer look” on her face.
The death of her father makes Angela’s daughter Edith (Natasha Lyonne) very upset – the teenaged girl had an embarrassing borderline-incestuous relationship with her father, and this only magnifies her contempt for her mother. Luckily for Edith, Tony Parker is around to console her with some shenanigans in the swimming pool. No sooner he is done with her, he corners Lance in the garden shed – who had decided to play his guitar in the yard naked - to “pump” him for information.
It’s these sorts of seedy sexual innuendoes that make this film so drop-dead hilarious, and seeing a drag queen play the part of a rich bitch seems oddly...normal. There is no doubt that this movie is geared toward gay men with all the sass, drama, and naked male eye candy. But there are many more unexpected twists and over-the-top corny lines still to come, including a drag performance from Lance impersonating his own mother!
Movie rental courtesy of Zip.ca. Online DVD rentals carrying a huge selection of GLBT themed DVD’s as well as standard brand new releases, TV shows, classics and more. No Late Fees, No Due Dates, and 57,000 Titles.
http://www.zip.ca
