As Thompson, a former horse breeder, tells filmmaker Michele Ohayon in the
fascinating and distinctly politically incorrect documentary "Cowboy del
Amor,'' the horse business and the woman business are a lot alike. If you can
peddle one, you can peddle the other.
His clients are lonely Americans in the market for Mexican wives, whom the
men hope will be more docile than their compatriots. Thompson, who bills
himself as the Cowboy Cupid, is the go-to guy, who's paid $3,000 to make the
introductions. His Spanish is passable; but more important, he knows the
territory.
When he was in the market to marry, he placed an ad in a Juarez newspaper
and was deluged with responses. Thompson's marital history — he twice
married and divorced the same woman he met this way — doesn't exactly
inspire others to emulate him. But he's a born entrepreneur who used the
experience to develop contacts up and down Mexico's border towns.
There aren't very many documentary subjects who can hold the screen simply
by nattering on. Robert McNamara is one. Thompson is no McNamara, and "Cowboy
del Amor'' is no "Fog of War.'' But there is something hypnotic about this
self-styled romance expert expounding on the fog of love. His commonsense
approach resonates more than the gobbledygook to be found in most self-help
books. And since "Cowboy del Amor'' ends with two weddings, he seems
particularly worth hearing out.
His modus operandi is to bring a client to a Mexican town and help him
place a "Wife Wanted'' ad. A truck driver, Rick, puts a lot of importance on a
woman's build, specifying that she weigh no more than 130 pounds. Thompson sits
in on the first interview. Afterward, he berates Rick for mentioning that he
dumped his previous wife when she started going through the change of life. It
is bad form to bring up your ex to begin with, Thompson tells him, and
something is bound to be lost in translation when you start talking about
menopause.
Thompson insists on no sex at these introductory meetings. "I've never run
a whorehouse, and I don't want to insult the women,'' he explains, looking
earnestly into the camera.
American husbands are considered a catch in Mexico if for no other reason
than they provide entree into a country with a higher standard of living.
Accomplished professional women respond to the ads and don't make a beeline for
the door even when it's obvious that they have a lot more going for them than
the stranger across the table.
Ohayon, an Academy Award nominee for her documentary "Colors Straight
Up,'' stays very much in the background, keeping the camera on her subjects. In
a few instances, you can see the chemistry brewing almost immediately.
"Cowboy del Amor'' works best when Thompson is the conduit instead of the
main focus. Too much of the film is devoted to his failed love life. While it's
reassuring to know he's stayed friends with his former wife, shots of them
together are irrelevant to the film's ostensible subject matter. More
information about his track record, such as how many of the marriages he
arranged have stuck, is needed to evaluate his credentials. You're left
wondering at the end about what becomes of the women after they say their "I
do's."
It doesn't bode well when one of Thompson's satisfied customers insists
that he's not going to learn Spanish and his wife isn't going to learn English,
so they won't fight. That they also won't be able to talk to each other is an
unsettling thought.
– Ruthe Stein
'Shut Yer Dirty Little Mouth!'
Directed by Robert Taicher. With Glenn Shadix, Gill Gayle, Robert Musgrave.
(Not rated. 75 minutes. At the Roxie in San Francisco and Elmwood in Berkeley.)
Real-life San Franciscans Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman, who both died
in the '90s, have become underground heroes thanks to neighbors' recordings of
their howling, drunken rants; endless verbal abuse; threats; and occasional
knockdown brawls at their digs in the lower Haight.
CDs of their "discussions" gained an international following and became a
play, "Shut Up! Little Man," which served as the basis for this movie.
Fittingly, it's an unpolished, shoestring production, an amazing flow of
vodka-fueled invective and obscenity. It's a real wallow in the urban depths,
but highly repetitious and grindingly petty. We're a far cry here from "Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
As to the ethics of secretly recording these guys, the movie makes it
clear that eventually they became aware of the microphones (which also raises
the question of how much of what we hear was truly spontaneous). Even so, the
viewer may wind up feeling queasy about eavesdropping.
I imagine we're supposed to marvel at the incredible absurdity of what we
hear, then see the underlying humanity of it — but in the end it's just
depressing. Still, there appears to be a market for this stuff: Various Pete
and Ray CDs, T-shirts, comics, etc., are available on the Internet.
For the record, Pete and Ray are played by Glenn Shadix ("Beetlejuice")
and Gill Gayle, and Robert Musgrave portrays a drinking buddy who drops by
occasionally. Robert Taicher directed.
– Advisory: Contains raw language, plus depictions of sexual situations
and physical violence.
– Walter Addiego
'Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea'
Documentary. Directed by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer. (Not rated.
70 minutes. At the Red Vic and Tuesday and Wednesday at the Rafael Film Center
in San Rafael.)
Beaches crowded with rotting fish. Abandoned nightclubs. Empty trailer
parks baking in the 120-degree heat.
Sound like an idyllic vacation spot?
Depends on whom you ask.
The Salton Sea, a vast, stagnant lake — the largest in California —
is worlds away from the tony resort town of Palm Springs, which is only 50
miles to the north. Although the lake may be slowly dying, it is still beloved
by a motley bunch of eccentrics who are profiled in the highly entertaining
documentary "Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea."
Narrated by John Waters, the film focuses on characters who wouldn't be
out of place in one of the cult director's trashier movies. One old man who has
found his bliss by the lake spends his days waving to motorists while holding a
"love peace" sign. The only thing protecting him against the blazing sun is his
white tennies. The unofficial mayor of Bombay Beach, a Hungarian emigrant named
Hunky Daddy, rambles unintelligibly about his "beautiful life" while swigging
beer and dropping his pants for passers-by.
To their credit, directors Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer, both of San
Francisco, poke gentle fun at the locals without ridiculing them. The film's
playful spirit is underscored by catchy steel-guitar melodies (courtesy of the
Friends of Dean Martinez) that perfectly suit the bone-dry setting.
The Salton Sea was once a popular resort destination for vacationers and
celebrity guests, rivaling Palm Springs. Footage from the good old days (the
1950s and '60s) shows beaches packed with giddy swimmers, boaters, fishers and
water-skiers. That was long before, as Waters wryly observes, the lake became
"a beautifully awful paradise."
The sea began as a mistake. As archival images and creative graphics in
the documentary show, flooding of the diverted Colorado River caused the
below-sea level Salton Sink to fill in 1905. Runoff from irrigation has
sustained a water supply ever since. Over time, however, that runoff has
increased salinity levels enough to kill fish — on one summer day in the
1990s, 7.6 million of them went belly up, creating a stench that must have
chased away even the most famished alley cats.
All that saline solution may have something to do with the salty
individualists who populate the sea's shores and are resistant to proposed
changes that would cause the lake to shrink. "It's the greatest sewer the world
has ever seen," says one die-hard denizen. "Leave it that way."
– John McMurtrie