The Los Angeles
Times
Hustler White
Upbeat 'Hustler' Walks on L.A.'s Wild Side
By KEVIN THOMAS, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Friday September 20, 1996
With "Hustler White," the notorious underground
gay actor-filmmaker Bruce LaBruce has hardly gone mainstream,
but this time teeters on the brink of pornography rather than
slipping over into it. Graduating from Super 8, LaBruce has
had enough money to shoot "Hustler White" like a
regular movie--in color yet--but a bigger budget hasn't corrupted
him, so to speak. He's just as outrageous and hilarious as
ever.
LaBruce spins the slightest of romantic comedies as he casts
himself as a pretentious, bitchy German writer Jurgen Anger,
who's come to Hollywood to research the gay scene. He spots
a spectacularly well-built hustler, Montgomery Ward (model-actor
Tony Ward), while cruising Santa Monica Boulevard. It's lust
at first sight, and Jurgen's pursuit of Monti becomes a pretext
for LaBruce and his co-writer-director Rick Castro, noted
photographer and video maker, to follow Monti through some
of Los Angeles' kinkier scenes, featuring fearless performance
artist Ron Athey, other local counterculture celebrities and
several actual porn stars.
Much of what is intimated rather than actually depicted defies
description in a family newspaper, but it is not hard-core.
"Hustler White" is a delirious satirical fantasy.
LaBruce and Castro have fun with the absurdities of bizarre
sex and quote scenes from old movies--e.g., the opening sequence
of "Sunset Blvd." and the beach sequence from "Whatever
Happened to Baby Jane?"--only to give them an upbeat
twist. "Hustler White" is ultimately upbeat itself,
but even so it's strictly for open-minded adult audiences.
Hustler White, 1996. Unrated. A Strand Releasing presentation.
Co-writers/directors Bruce LaBruce & Rick Castro. Producers
Jurgen Bruning & LaBruce. Executive producers Marcus Hu,
Jon Garrens, Dangerous to Know and Swell. Cinematographer James
Carman. Editor Rider Siphron. Art director/prop master Steve
Hall. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes. Tony Ward as Montgomery
"Monti" Ward. Bruce LaBruce as Jurgen Anger. Ron Athey
as Seymour Kasabian. Glen Meadmore as Stew Blake.
The
Austin
Cronical
Austin Texas 11/15/1996
Hustler White
Directed By: Bruce Labruce, Rick Castro
Starring: Bruce Labruce, Tony Ward, Ron Athey, Kevin P. Scott,
Ivar Johnson,
Kevin Kramer, Alex Austin, Vaginal Davis, Graham David Smith
(NR, 80 min.)
It starts off with the image of a body floating face-down in
a Jacuzzi while a voiceover begins the explanation of how the
story's hero landed in such a sorry predicament. Shades of Sunset
Blvd., except that Hustler White points its radar toward a different
Hollywood strip: the contemporary hustler's promenade of Santa
Monica Boulevard.
While the movie focuses on the extreme appetites that lucratively
sustain the prostitution and pornography industries, Hustler White,
with its graphic depictions of said peccadilloes, aspires to become
something more than another piece of film pornography.
And, here, the viewer should be informed that the fetishistic
images include such things as amputee stump-humping, a razor-hungry
masochist who coos Cut my buttocks, dear boy, a mortician kinkster
(blackballed NEA artist Ron Athey) who mummifies his rent-boy
in a swaddling of duct tape -- and many more detailed scenarios
off the well-beaten path.
Yet, filmmaker Bruce LaBruce seems to be trying for more of a
streetwise, Andy Warhol-type aesthetic (á la Flesh), than
any type of pornographic pay-off.
The 16mm Hustler White is LaBruce's third feature film (his earlier
titles include No Skin Off My Ass and Super 8 1/2) and this time
he teams up with co-director Rick Castro, a Los Angeles photographer
well-known for his photo essays of Santa Monica Boulevard hustlers.
As a narrative feature, Hustler White is much more ambitious than
LaBruce's previous efforts. As with his other projects, LaBruce
again appears in a starring role. Here he plays an effete writer,
Jürgen Anger, who comes to L.A. to pen his memoirs. He takes
a quick shine to hustler Monti Ward, played by fashion model and
former Madonna boy-toy Tony Ward (who has appeared in her Justify
My Love and Cherish videos). In his acting debut, Ward commands
the screen with style and swagger, made all the more noticeable
by the film's bevy of non-pro talent. All throughout, references
abound to other films such as Sunset Blvd. and What Ever Happened
to Baby Jane?, Jürgen Anger is constantly asked if he is
related to Kenneth, a porn movie director's name is Roger V. Deem,
etc. Hustler White layers its seamy walk on the wild side with
a vivid
portrait of a day in the life.
Marjorie Baumgarten [1996-11-15]
The Spanish News
The scene it begins with a parody of Tree-lined avenue of the
sunset one centers them "omaggio/furto from Flesh "
and that final turn on the same beach of That fine it has made
Baby Jane, Hustler White , directed from the champion of the queercore
cinema Bruce LaBruce together to photographer S/M Rick Castro
is a diamond, spudorato and sweeping action of love for Tony Ward
(former of Madonna, appeared in Justify My Love and Sex and model
for Versace and Dolce & Gabbana). For Ward draft of the cinematographic
debut, in which it interprets the Mount role, prostituto that
chip ax to point out from guide writer Jürgen Anger (the
last name-homage to the author of Hollywood Babylon ) in the "scene"
of Los Angeles, described in one series of episodes between grotesque
and chilling (between the interpreters also frightening performer
the Ron Athey).
Japanese Noise from connoisseurs in sonorous column ( UFO Or
Die , etc). Boy George has defined the film "pornografia"
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