By Gregg Shapiro

Contributing writer

“Looking for Langston” (Strand Releasing)—Isaac Julien’s “meditation on Langston Hughes (1902-67) and the Harlem Renaissance,” is an accomplished piece of work that holds up 20 years after its release.

Including the poetry of Essex Hemphill and Bruce Nugent along with that of Hughes, it is obvious that Julien understands poetry’s economy of language, as there is far more music in the film than dialogue. Shot in black and white and incorporating period footage, “Looking for Langston” is a highly stylized film, even on an independent film budget. At turns dreamy and erotic and gritty and moody, this beautifully photographed and visually enthralling movie spends most of its time in the past. It addresses the reasons why homosexuality had to be kept a secret, particularly in the black community. But it also includes flashes of late 20th century gay culture, as if holding up to the mirror of the past. Ultimately, if Julien’s film leads viewers to seek out Hughes’ words, he has truly accomplished something special. Included in the DVD bonus features is Julien’s 1992 erotically charged short “The Attendant.”

 

“Boy Culture” (TLA Releasing)—Q. Allen Brocka, the gay filmmaker best known for his irreverent comedic creations “Eating Out” and “Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World,” gets downright serious with his film adaptation of Matthew Rettenmund’s novel “Boy Culture.

The voiceover-propelled drama about a hustler, X (Derek Magyar) with morals is essentially a confession, which X describes as “the hottest of all stories.” A year earlier, when “the drama started,” X, a by-referral-only hustler with a stable of 12 clients (or disciples, as he calls them) was on his way to meet with Gregory (Patrick Bauchau), a wealthy older man and potential client (to replace a recently deceased one). Gregory, as it turns out, is as much of an operator as X, and he requires that they hold off on having sex until X desires him as much as he desires X. At home in the apartment X shares with Andrew (Darryl Stephens, butching it up more than he did on “Noah’s Arc”) and Joey (Jonathon Trent), the action takes a different course. The sexual tension is so thick you could cut it with a chainsaw. Jobless 18-year-old Joey is in love with X. There is a futile attraction between Andrew and X, but, naturally X’s line of work poses a threat. Jill (Peyton Hinson), Andrew’s ex-fiancée is getting married and Andrew invites X to accompany him home for the wedding, as a sort of “trial run” to see if they have potential as a couple. You didn’t think it would go smoothly, did you?

Nevertheless, it is actually the brief sequence when Andrew brings X home to meet his folks that is one of the primary reasons for watching “Boy Culture” (and you thought it was all the hot bodies, didn’t you?). Recalling similar scenes in “Eating Out,” both Andrew and X’s interactions with Andrew’s family (and later, at the wedding), are some of the funniest and most touching parts of the movie. Like the book on which it is based, “Boy Culture” is, in the end, unfulfilling, but it is an admirable effort. Special features on the DVD include a pair of deleted scenes and interviews with Brocka and the cast members.