If you have seen DUMB & DUMBER, which I have not, then you may imagine CONNIE & CARLA as DUMB & DUMBER through the pinkish, glittery, myopic lens of a pair of ELTON JOHN spectacles.
It has none of the nuance, subtlety or style of SOME LIKE IT HOT, VICTOR/VICTORIA or those other wonderful, venerated drag films whose names escape me. Not because they were forgettable, but because I just downed about 4 to 5 Vodka & Tonics to obliterate my memory of the OKLAHOMA-GODSPELL-YENTL-CATS medley performed by NIA VARDALOS and TONI COLLETTE in the opening sequence of the film. I caught a $14.50 gayla screening of CONNIE & CARLA at the overpricey ARCLIGHT in LOS ANGELES (known the world over for its lack of cabarets, dinner theatre, and culture), and confess that the film did manage to crack my BOTOX intermittently, particularly the costumes, makeup and wigs, which were uniformly vomitrocious.
The flabulous NIA VARDALOS, self-credited writer of this faux fag fable, and whom I have not seen in MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, nevertheless manages to bring something big, fat and Greek to the subject, even adding the suggestion of an imminent wedding on the tail end of her dragnum opus. In drag, VARDALOS evokes the never-ever-to-be-duplicated ZERO MOSTEL.
Not to be out-glared, TONI COLETTE cleans the floor with drag queen butt by singing, dancing, and mugging 'tits-out,' a talent first brandished in 1994's MURIEL'S WEDDING, the film that single-handedly reinvigorated the ABBA oeuvre, which never really appealed to me to begin with; but still, COLLETTE was phenomenous. Then, in 1998's VELVET GOLDMINE, a leering COLLETTE portrays a LIZA MINNELLI-like character with such tantalizing, lip-licking verve she became known -- among those who know -- as TONI with a "Z." In CONNIE & CARLA's outrageous musical numbers, COLLETTE fills out that zesty caricature, kicking and gesticulating all the way to the bank, THE BETTY FORD CLINIC, and beyond.
With DAVID DUCHOVNY, who acts, DEBBIE REYNOLDS (special effects), and a gaggle of stock drag queens proffering repetitively unoriginal gender issues as too-much-infotainment. Like a head-on collision on the lipstick-slick FREEWAY OF LOVE, involving the pink corvette of deranged LA diva ANGELYNE, and the lavender bus from PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, CONNIE & CARLA heralds the triumphant origin of a new genre: the Show Tune Splatterfest.
.
It has none of the nuance, subtlety or style of SOME LIKE IT HOT, VICTOR/VICTORIA or those other wonderful, venerated drag films whose names escape me. Not because they were forgettable, but because I just downed about 4 to 5 Vodka & Tonics to obliterate my memory of the OKLAHOMA-GODSPELL-YENTL-CATS medley performed by NIA VARDALOS and TONI COLLETTE in the opening sequence of the film. I caught a $14.50 gayla screening of CONNIE & CARLA at the overpricey ARCLIGHT in LOS ANGELES (known the world over for its lack of cabarets, dinner theatre, and culture), and confess that the film did manage to crack my BOTOX intermittently, particularly the costumes, makeup and wigs, which were uniformly vomitrocious.
The flabulous NIA VARDALOS, self-credited writer of this faux fag fable, and whom I have not seen in MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, nevertheless manages to bring something big, fat and Greek to the subject, even adding the suggestion of an imminent wedding on the tail end of her dragnum opus. In drag, VARDALOS evokes the never-ever-to-be-duplicated ZERO MOSTEL.
Not to be out-glared, TONI COLETTE cleans the floor with drag queen butt by singing, dancing, and mugging 'tits-out,' a talent first brandished in 1994's MURIEL'S WEDDING, the film that single-handedly reinvigorated the ABBA oeuvre, which never really appealed to me to begin with; but still, COLLETTE was phenomenous. Then, in 1998's VELVET GOLDMINE, a leering COLLETTE portrays a LIZA MINNELLI-like character with such tantalizing, lip-licking verve she became known -- among those who know -- as TONI with a "Z." In CONNIE & CARLA's outrageous musical numbers, COLLETTE fills out that zesty caricature, kicking and gesticulating all the way to the bank, THE BETTY FORD CLINIC, and beyond.
With DAVID DUCHOVNY, who acts, DEBBIE REYNOLDS (special effects), and a gaggle of stock drag queens proffering repetitively unoriginal gender issues as too-much-infotainment. Like a head-on collision on the lipstick-slick FREEWAY OF LOVE, involving the pink corvette of deranged LA diva ANGELYNE, and the lavender bus from PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, CONNIE & CARLA heralds the triumphant origin of a new genre: the Show Tune Splatterfest.
.