Kirby Dick's new documentary Outrage is about "the politics of the closet"--specifically, the plight, and the damage done to gay rights legislation, by closeted politicians who align themselves with the religious right and the "family values" set to deflect suspicions about their own sexual orientation. In its hard line against hypocrisy, the movie is on the side of those, such as blogger Michael Rogers, who are working to "out" closeted politicians. It's a position that's designed to antagonize those who regard outing itself strictly as an unjustifiable intrusion into others' personal lives--including those in the media, which Dick specifically takes to task for what he sees as its eagerness to avoid dealing with gay issues. (In our own interview with the director, Dick describes a run-in with a reporter who told him that he couldn't write about the movie because it would violate his paper's policy against outing. ""Do you mean to say," Dick replied, "that your company's policy on outing trumps your company's policy on reporting!?" That kind of compartmentalized thinking has begun to affect the kind of coverage the movie is getting. Last Friday, the NPR website ran a review of the movie by Nathan Lee that, because of NPR's policy on outing, was subsequently "edited" to remove the names of former Senator Larry Craig, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, and Florida governor Charlie Crist. The movie itself makes an elaborate case that Crist is living a strategically dishonest life that includes a recent marriage and support for his an anti-gay marriage amendment that voters have added to the state constitution. Lee subsequently asked that his name be removed from the review and added a comment to the site, lest anyone think that it was his idea to reject using Crist's name in favor of the pithy phrase "one major swing-state governor ... with aspirations to be the 2012 Republican presidential candidate."

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The great date rape debate over Observe and Report rages on. Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule weighs in. “As I have stated here more than often, the subject of rape is one that I don’t take particularly lightly, so I stands to reason that if the scene were something on the order of revolting exploitation in simple service of pushing the comedy envelope, my moral compass not yet having been totally demagnetized, it would not be a scene which would naturally cause me to leap to its defense. The scene is, in fact, a twisted riff on DeNiro’s delusional date with Cybill Shepherd, in which he takes her to a porn movie and she runs out on him, disgusted. The difference is, of course, that Faris’ character not only doesn’t run out, but actively encourages this oafish psychosexual time bomb in his increasingly dangerous delusions largely because her own moral compass, aided by drink and drugs, is carelessly spinning out of control. Jody Hill’s satiric portrait of the deadened denizens of mall culture, of which Faris’ Brandi and Rogen’s Ronnie are but two extreme examples, have been called heartless exaggerations, but to this hayseed they looked pretty familiar.”

Spoutblog has the scoop on the relaunched Movieline.

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