Camille Paglia Movies

Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato follow up Party Monster by returning to the documentary form of their most popular film The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Rather than examining evangelists-cum-gay icons, this time the duo takes aim at the cultural phenomenon that is and was Deep Throat, the hardcore porn film that cost 25,000 dollars to make and grossed over 600-million-dollars world-wide, making it the most successful independent film of all time. The impact of the film on the public's perception of pornography is discussed, as is the unlikely relationship the film had to the Watergate scandal. Actress Linda Lovelace who later denounced Deep Throat, claiming she'd been forced to make it at gunpoint, appears in interviews that were shot just before her fatal 2002 car accident. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

The first film by and about an African-American lesbian, writer-director Cheryl Dunye's fantasy is a "mockumentary," focusing on recapturing the life and times of a fictionalized 1930s Hollywood actress. Dunye plays herself as a video store employee who yearns to be a director. She decides to make a documentary about Fae Richards (Lisa Marie Bronson), a forgotten African-American actress from the 1930s. Dunye discovers the woman, who often played degrading roles as a "mammy" in Hollywood films, was the secret lover of a white director, Martha Paige. Dunye interviews feminist historian Camille Paglia (playing herself), who explains Richards' career and its importance. While researching the project, Dunye falls in love with Diana (Guinevere Turner), a white customer. But her unceasing work on the film project interferes with her relationships with Diana and also with her friend and fellow video store employee Tamara (Valarie Walker). ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Arguably the least successful of the many feature film spin-offs of Saturday Night Live television sketch characters, this comedy barely won a quick theatrical release. Julia Sweeney stars as the titular Pat Riley, an obnoxious, drooling nerd of mind-boggling androgyny. Pat is also a bit of a klutz, which leads to his/her dismissal from a range of workplaces, including a sushi bar and the United States Postal Service. As a next door neighbor, Kyle (Charles Rocket), becomes obsessed with distinguishing Pat's gender, even to the point of seducing Pat and stealing his/her diary, things begin looking up for the plucky hero/heroine. Pat meets a significant other, the equally sexless "Chris" (Dave Foley), gets engaged, and wins fame and success as a frank radio talk-show host. The real-life rock band Ween also plays a significant role in Pat's misadventures, casting him/her in a rock video after catching Pat's cringe-inducing musical performance on the TV show "America's Creepiest People." Despite a rumored rewrite of the script by Sweeney's hip longtime friend Quentin Tarantino, the film was considered one of the year's biggest turkeys. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Over the course of the '80s and into the early '90s, avant-garde film director Monica Truet shot four twenty-minute documentaries without any direct link to one another save a thematic connection: each studies a woman who defines and commits her own form of "transgressive" sexuality. Truet then compiled the four shorts into her 1992 shockumentary Female Misbehavior. All told, the film focuses on acts that, in the eyes of many, would be considered wantonly perverse, but have been rethought, morally, by the film's subjects, and incorporated into their lives as 'normal.' In the first short, "Bondage," an S&M performance artist named Carol describes in detail the warm and welcoming sensations she receives from severe breast torture; she then pins the alligator clip of her microphone to one of her nipples, as a live demonstration. The second short, "Annie," focuses on former hardcore porn mainstay-cum-female activist Annie Sprinkle (star of the 1982 Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle and of Truet's own My Father is Coming), who engages in performance art by offering viewers from the audience (and Truet's camera) a glimpse into her cervix, via speculum. The third short, "Dr. Paglia," concerns the controversial spokeswoman Dr. Camille Paglia, a celibate "lesbian bisexual" whose rapid-fire, über-confrontational delivery has imparted to her a wealth of notoriety; she delivers an extended on-camera dissertation on why she has such difficulty attracting other women. And the film's fourth segment, "Max," constitutes an extended interview with Max Molerio, born Anita Molerio, a tough-as-nails lesbian biker from Germany who, at the time of the film, is living round the clock as a man and waiting on a sex change operation. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide