Super 8⁄2

Circumstantially low-down and committedly dirty, LaBruce is a white-collar faggot's nightmare: an unrepentant queer who amuses himself by fictionalising episodes from his own sordid life and bringing them to the screen in the name of art. No Skin Off My Ass was bad enough, but Super 81⁄2 is much worse. For one thing, it's made with four times the technical skill and ten times the wit of the earlier movie, which makes it, to say the least, dangerously provocative. For another, as the indefensible title suggests, this time he casts himself as a major cine-auteur and gives himself the full Fellini 'blocked artist' treatment. To be specific, LaBruce appears as a burnt-out porno star, an alcoholic wreck supported by his ex-boyfriend (that punk skinhead again), who works as a hustler. Our man gets new hope for his career when avant-dyke film-maker Googie proposes to shoot a portrait-documentary of him, little suspecting that she's using her Canadian Film Board grant to finance her own pet project Submit to My Finger. In short, it's closer to scumbags like George Kuchar, John Waters and Andy Warhol than Fellini. Still, it's sexier than Forrest Gump and funnier than Priest. Me, I gurgled like a drain.