From the description in the press release and on the web site, exist reminded me of The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein, an anti-jingoism independent indie unfairly maligned by The New York Times' A.0. Scott in what I can only describe as a stupid review. (Scott's the kind of reviewer with so little self-awareness that he'll build a critique of a film not based on his own reactions, which he's apparently incapable of examining closely, but on his formidable skills as a writer: his reviews are more rhetorical than just about any major reviewer I can think of right now.) Bell's movie also deals with activists and activism, in this case, anti-globalization activists. I won't go into detail here because I'd still like to write a piece I might actually get paid to write; however, I will say that I was fairly ambivalent toward exist as I watched it, despite the groovy and cute male leads, that I grew progressively more irritated as I thought about it later, especially after I'd watched Jason Massot's politically-engaged and thoughtful documentary Seafarers, also in my little CUFF pile. Unfortunately, Scott's ideological criticisms of Hussein could be applied verbatim to the characters in Bell's film: "Their words are thoughtful, well meaning and maddeningly abstract, and the film shares their aloof, morally complacent detachment from the complexities of real politics." Bell embraces her characters so unequivocally, and her camera seems to have a bit of crush on one of the main characters, Top, that it's hard not to attribute the same aloofness and naiveté to the film itself. Top it off with a plot twist involving a not-so-updated version of White Man's Guilt… well, let's just say I was disappointed.

I've only watched about 30 minutes of the third tape I snagged, Todd Verow's Anonymous, and I can already say I like it much better than any other Verow film I've seen except for his hilarious Once and Future Queen. Although the video has its share of preening narcissism, which gay underground filmmakers just can't seem to get away from — just once I'd like for one of them to resist showing his cock — this is the first flick that shows Verow has something else on his mind besides trying to "shock" with "bad taste," a tactic that usually bores the hell out of me, as in his dull, fatuously literal filming of Dennis Cooper's novel Frisk or in Take Away. It's solidly acted, so far, and astutely framed and composed, with none of the show-offy guerilla DV fuss and muss that mars some parts of Bell's video and has definitely been used too often in Verow's movies. It's nice to see him put his camera on a fucking tripod. We'll see how it holds up once I finish it.