this week's underrated gem

i can't really talk about this movie. i get a bit overwhelmed. and nostalgic and choked up. i first saw it with my BFF (BestFriendForevah) at the time, jimbob, in the flat in chelsea we shared with la snooze. he was a monastic non-practicing sodomite who starved himself on a diet of cocacola light and popcorn until he looked like a giant popsicle. we affectionately called each other `heft.'
how we loved this movie. the sing-a-longs had: his imposing tenor to my er...enthusiastic yet sadly lacking and err... cracked and tone-deaf er..mezzo soprano.
sure, on the surface, grace of my heart has all those elements to make it a staple for the friends of dorothy and their faghags (strong female lead, men who are cads, triumph over adversity) but in actual fact it's that very rare thing, an unpretentious indie film that inexplicably slipped through the cracks in spite of an outrageously impressive array of acting and musical talent, for being, well, not quirky at a time perhaps when odd was all that was required.



`` A lovely moment in Allison Anders' "Grace of My Heart" finds Denise Waverly (Illeana Douglas) and Howard Cazsatt (Eric Stoltz), her lover and songwriting partner, in the legendary Brill Building on Broadway, sitting at the piano discussing a number about teen-age romance.'' (New York Times)



``The career of Carole King is this film's unmistakable starting point, even if a mainstay of New York pop has been unaccountably transported to the Philadelphia Main Line. Edna Buxton (Douglas), a WASP heiress, has been brought up by her starchy mother to sing songs like "You'll Never Walk Alone," but she makes her break for independence in the film's evocative opening scene. Edna enters the singing contest that will start her on the road to success in the musicbusiness and Anders invites the audience to look right over her shoulder.'' (NYT cont.)