The Cockettes

Pearls Over Shanghai? Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma? Journey to the Center of Uranus? As musicals go, these titles do not spring to mind quite as readily as, say, Showboat, Oklahoma, or Hair­--although the San Francisco-based Cockettes, a multi-ethnic/gender/sexual orientation group of amateur thespians ("hippie acid freak queens," says indie filmmaker John Waters, admiringly), did perform Gone with the Showboat to Oklahoma as one of their weekly musical extravaganzas at S.F.'s The Palace during the high-water mark of the Age of Aquarius. In less than four years--from their gathering in 1969 around ersatz leader George Harris (a cross-dressing, would-be actor known as Hibiscus, who "looked like Jesus Christ…with lipstick," according to one of the former members), to an ill-fated three-week run on Broadway, to their final performance back home in S.F. in 1972--The Cockettes enjoyed a proverbial 15 minutes that might not have amounted to much in a musical sense, but certainly was colorful. And it's that flamboyant, let-it-all-hang-out (literally, since the Cockettes often ended up au naturel during the loosely scripted performances) joie de vivre that filmmakers David Weissman and Bill Weber have captured in this effervescent snapshot of a time, place, and state of mind where "people were allowed to live at the end of their imagination." Combining archival footage (so seamlessly interwoven throughout the film it almost seems contemporary), new interviews, and solid narration, The Cockettes suffers a bit from being overlong, but this Sundance Film Festival fave serves up an often funny, occasionally poignant, and overall engaging portrait. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include 10 minutes of extra scenes, a four-minute interview with the directors, and TV promo spots. Bottom line: a small but fun extras package for a small but fun film.] (R. Pitman)