Love and Death on Long Island

"A puerile romp without a single redeeming feature."

That's what an imaginary Sight and Sound review gives the trashy teenage exploitation film Hotpants College 2. However, for "erstwhile fogey" and famous English writer Giles De'Ath (John Hurt) this Porky-esque flick, which he watches purely by accident (he meant to see an E.M Forster adaptation) has one very redeeming grace. It contains the love of Giles' life – Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley).

This witty and poignant film, which divides itself between London and Long Island, may have faltered badly if it had been left in lesser hands than John Hurt. However, Hurt is simply mesmerising. He is one of the few actors who never shies away from making the audience utterly ill at ease – watch 1984, the monster shooting out of his stomach in Alien or The Elephant Man for confirmation.

Self-exiled from the modern world in his stuffy flat, with a picture of his recently deceased wife by his writing desk, and a fussy maid (Sheila Hancock) tending to his every whim, Giles' emotions are thoroughly repressed. Until, that is, fate lends a hand and exposes Giles to, amongst other things, terrible American teenage movies, video stores, fax machines, One Man and His Dog, and, finally, to his own sexual desires.

Love and Death in Long Island is brimming with quirky cameos, including weirdo diner owner Irv (Maury Chaykin), a motel manager (Elizabeth Quinn) reminiscent of Shelley Winters in Lolita, and a surprisingly good Priestley (lampooning his "bimbo" soap background much like Maxwell Caulfield in The Real Blonde).

However, it is ultimately a "warts and all" performance from Hurt that holds our gaze. Dignified, perplexed and slightly tragic, Hurt makes Giles one of the most touching "stalkers" in film history. Much like James Mason's Humbert in Lolita, Giles is a man of culture finding beauty in youth, in coarseness - in "all that I myself have never been."

Ultimately, a slow, witty work with one outstanding feature.

What a wonderful piece of acting John Hurt gives us as Giles a naive English writer visiting Long Isalnd for the first time. Completely obsessed with the discovery of all the modern electronic gadgetry, he purchases TV and video equipment, shuts himself away and enters a new and exciting world.

He becomes besotted with the image of a handsome young actor Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley) a favourite among teen-age movie-goers. It's as if he is starting a completely new life with a new warmth he has never known before.

The urge to help Ronnie in his career so that he will always be close to him is the predominant theme of the film. John Hurt's performance as the older man restraining his true feelings for a handsome young man of another generation is faultless and truly absorbing. Conversations between the two men are the highlights of the film and the confession scene extremely moving.

Ronnie Bostock's girl friend Audrey ( Fiona Loewi) is both charming and beautiful and adds a sweet touch to the story. She is responsible for bringing the writer and actor together. The story is punctuated with little episodes of wry humour brought about by people who live entirely different lives.

Altogether a very satisfying film that shows how some of us live in a cocoon unaware of the extreme joy and subsequent disappointment that lies beyond.

After viewing this film I wished it was 20 years ago, back when you were allowed to just stay in your chair and see the show a second time.

John Hurt is astounding as an English author who discovers beauty the last place he'd expect to find it - in an American "B" movie actor's performances. Hurt's character, Dr. De'Ath, is a true original, totally out of step with the 20th century. He simply had no need nor interest in modernizing his ways. He stumbles upon the work of Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley, in a heckuva good, self-effacing performance) and sees in him talent and passion. That's about all I can say without going too far into plot - but if I were able to physically compel people to see it, I certainly would. It's a lovely piece of work.

"Do you own a word processor?"

"I WRITE. I do not PROCESS words."

Giles De'Ath is a frail man on the verge of suffocating on high 19th century culture: he is sheltered within cafes, cigars, E.M. Forster, and presentations of lectures like "The Death of the Future." As one radio commentator asks him, "Does the 20th century play ANY part in your life?"

Giles is utterly changed by witnessing truly LOW culture on the big screen, the film Hotpants College II that he mistakes for E.M. Forster's Eternal Moment. Upon going for a second viewing, Giles is ashamed of even saying the name of the movie at first. He is mesmerized by the image of one Ronnie Bostock, Mikey in the film, a waiter who gets pushed around and finally shoved onto a restaurant counter and covered with ketchup, making Mikey a Christlike martyr for the Porky's generation. When the movie fades to black and the end credits come up, the name RONNIE BOSTOCK literally shines through the eyes of Giles De'Ath. So begins Giles' reluctant but determined search for this Bostock. He's seen all Ronnie's films and is transfixed by his image (indeed, Ronnie's movies are the first thing he's ever seen on a TV or a film screen.)

The second act of the movie takes Mr. De'Ath to Chesterton, Long Island- the home of Ronnie Bostock. De'Ath learns little by little about the modern American culture as he amusingly stalks his way into Ronnie's home. He offers his devotion to the career of Ronnie Bostock, who has decided he wants to be taken seriously as an actor.

Giles introduces him to an idea for a movie: a deaf-mute who has never been outside in the real world, who in fantasy is surrounded only by white, empty space, has in his possession a television to look outwards. After enough images, this childlike deaf-mute wants to experience the real world and must do it through fulfilling the quest of falling in love.

Bostock loves the idea, but he just doesn't GET it about Giles. That's DE'ATH's story. (It's strange when seeing the vision of Priestley in that script. I found myself wondering the effect of Teletubbies upon children, who may be both deaf and mute in certain ways and learn how to reach out towards reality through surreal television images. It's both troubling and poignant...)

Giles De'Ath is in love with the image of Ronnie Bostock: regardless of how low his movies are, Ronnie has a "file of smiles" for different emotions, "a permanence" in his look. His martyred state on the counter resembles old paintings. His film work is what Shakespeare would have done as both his comedies and Hotpants College 2 were made "for the rabble in the pit."

However, Giles, somewhere along the way, realizes that he is ALSO "completely, desperately" in love with Ronnie Bostock.

I won't give away the ending. The film is low-budget, short, and it has basically only two developed characters. It doesn't have much of an effect afterwards, but it has real poetry to it, especially in Hurt's transformation from high culture shelter to low culture inspiration. I'm still not sure if this is a high-culture indie making fun of low culture, or a low culture movie trying to justify itself, as Giles tries to do for Ronnie. One reason I hated Boogie Nights, among many, is that it wanted us to sympathize with Mark Wahlberg's porn star but also allowed us to distance ourselves from him and laugh AT him anytime we wanted: that's cheating. This film gets it right- it's not sarcastic about Ronnie's work, though certainly we have reasons to laugh at it. We have to draw our own conclusions about these characters, about the LOVE we see that Giles has for the star. Is this REAL love, or is it even more than that?

I'm a lover of film, and there are images that I see that I will pause, and play in slow motion, especially now with quicktime clips on the Mac: the poetry of a certain face, like that of Jodhi May(Alice) in Last of the Mohicans right before she jumps off the cliff. There's a love there for her, for her image, that is indescribable for me, so I can appreciate and truly relish the story of a man enamored by an image.

I'm also always glad to see a film about a man who finds inspiration in modernity. We know by the end that Giles is entering a new kind of life: perhaps "The De'Ath of the Future" is somebody who accepts all culture. He sees the low in the high and the high in the low, and he makes no distinction between the "art" of images in the art gallery and those of your everyday teen flick.

Locked out of his apartment, old-fashioned writer Giles De'Ath (John Hurt) almost reluctantly decides to take in a movie. Accidentally wandering in to see Hot Pants College II instead of the E.M. Forster adaptation for which he bought a ticket, the lonely man becomes transfixed by the sight of a hunky actor (Jason Priestley) and begins an obsession that makes for a thoroughly satisfying and entertaining story. First-time director Kwietniowski expertly observes the wildly disparate natures of these two men while keeping both of them entirely credible and believable. I particularly enjoyed Giles' compilation of Ronnie Bostock clippings from teeny-bopper magazines, carefully arranged and titled "Bostockiana" before being securely locked away in a desk drawer.