QUEER

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"Queer" searches for a story, but never finds one.

There's good reason that the producers left  William S. Burroughs' name off its title, considering that nothing lines up regarding Daniel Craig's rendering of Burroughs' character from his 1985 novella.

Daniel Craig's "William Lee" ("Bull Lee" in Kerouac's "On The Road") is so obsessed with screwing a handsome young man with all the personality of a mildewed hand towel, that Lee never once sits down to write.

A more boring sex addict/junkie you'll not find on the big screen.

David Cronenberg's filmic adaptation of "Naked Lunch" remains the best cinema adaptation of any Burroughs novel to date.

Most lacking is any chemistry (sexual or otherwise) between Daniel Craig and Drew Starky's Eugene character. Drew Allerton is a poker-faced ex-G.I. ex-pat with nothing but time on his hands.

"Queer" is an open-handed insult to its audience and to William S. Burroughs in particular.

By the time the movie gets around to its big fuck scene, it's too little too late. Not to mention Mr. Lee taking the top position.

Anyway, Jason Schwartzman steals the movie as Joe Guidry, an old Jewish queen who's part of Will Lee's '50s era social circle in Mexico City.

Will Lee's heroin addiction takes over his lost sex addition and all roads lead to a deeply unsatisfying audience experience.

It's cool that Daniel Craig goes full queer Queen but so what? It's just not that interesting to watch when there isn't a cogent storyline to hang the movie on.

Everything about "Queer" screams failed experiment. Luca Guadagnino has no natural instinct for narrative structure.

Guadagnino's cinema is a fake formal style without any foundation whatsoever, save for whatever depth Daniel Craig brings with a brave but limited performance.

Luca Guadagnino is a phony wannabe queer; is there anything worse?

Even Donald Trump sucks fake microphone cock — another phony wannabe queer.

Good sucking vs. bad sucking?

John Waters come back!

Rated R. 136 mins.

ZERO STARS

WORKING GIRLS — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

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Lizzie Borden's third film, behind "Regrouping" (1979) and "Born In Flames" (1983), is a perfect chamber-piece of neo-realist social satire.

The film's feminist trappings of an '80s era Manhattan brothel provides the frame for a piercing commentary on the effects of American capitalism on women.

"Working Girls" could easily be adapted to be a modernday Broadway play.

It would be a sensation for its timeless qualities of social, sexual, and economic truth.

Molly (Louise Smith), a professional photographer, lives with her lesbian girlfriend when she isn't working as a sex worker in a Manhattan brothel run by a domineering madam.

"Have you ever heard of surplus value?"

That theme line shoots like a sharp political dart when a character speaks it.

“All workers create more value at work than they receive in wages. The extra surplus value goes into the boss’s pocket as profit.”

Surplus value is "the surplus produced over and above what is required to survive, which is translated into profit in capitalism. Since the capitalist pays a laborer for his/her labor, the capitalist claims to own the means of production, the worker's labor-power, and even the product that is thus produced."

Female hands hold cups of coffee, count money, and remove cum-filled condoms.

Everyone chisels; there is no place to hide.

Not Rated. 93 mins.

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW — SHOCKTOBER!

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LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST)

London-based actor CHRISTOPHER SHERWOOD brings THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW with TRAILBLAZER IPA for us to imbibe. It doesn't hurt that Christopher was in town to brush up on his Tango technique for his performance in THE PEREGRINE, a play by BIG FEAST regular PHIL HOLT, opening at London's Stockwell Playhouse later this month.

Bon appétit!

Like the hugely successful B-Movie that inspired it — Harry Novak's 1965 sexploitation classic "Kiss Me Quick!" — "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is an exploitation musical that draws on a grab bag of social identifiers to expand on conventional hypocrisies with more than just a nudge and a wink.

For all of its outre sense of sexual liberation, "Rocky Horror" pays sincere homage to sci-fi movies of the '50s.

Writer/composer/actor Richard O'Brien's 1973 British stage play became a hit, and the play's director Jim Sharman wisely insisted on using its original cast — with the exception of American newcomers Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick, when time came to direct the film version in 1975.

Famous as more of a social phenomenon than as a great piece of cinema, I would argue that "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is both, thanks to its witty dialogue, inspired musical score, and unforgettable camp performances. The cast is having so much fun that you can’t help but be swept up in the spirit of their joy.

As part of the '70s midnight movie craze that coincided with the advent of punk music, "Rocky Horror" attracted a playful young audience that was more than prepared to interact with the film's innuendo-riddled dialogue. Inventing sarcastic dialogue on the spot proved a fun thing to do for those imaginative audiences willing to play the game.

The film’s giddy narrative is a fetish-based story about an alien transvestite from the galaxy of Transylvania — called Dr. Frank N. Furter (played with Mick Jagger-swagger by Tim Curry) — who seduces two stranded newlywed visitors to his castle where the oversexed doctor is busy creating life in the form of a chiseled male named Rocky Horror.

Tim Curry rocks out the role with so much smirking confidence that his strangely erotic character is transfixing. In Curry's steady persona, Dr. Frank N. Furter becomes an LGBT icon for all time. Who wouldn’t want to party with Tim Curry’s scantily clad Frank N. Furter?

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is a retro movie of crazy excitement that you have to see with an audience skilled in the many retorts to be shouted back at the characters on-screen.

"Smells like fish, tastes like chicken, plug your nose and keep on lickin'."

You’ll be throwing rice at the wedding and spraying water during the rain sequence.

Fun, fun, fun!

Rated R. 100 mins.