Movie Review - Eleven Minutes

Philadelphia Film Festival is happening for the past two weeks and I usually ignore it because the film comes from all around the world and there's no concrete guarantee that they will be good. I much prefer the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival that happens in July, at least the topic is much more relevant to my life. Since they are held by the same organization, gay films are reserved for the gay and lesbian film festival, hence the regular film festival are guaranteed to be gay free.

This year to much of my surprise, they have a semi-gay flick and what's more interesting is that it had to do with my favorite reality show - Project Runway. Jay McCarroll, the first winner of Project Runway stars in a film called "Eleven Minutes", a documentary about what it takes to produce in the fashion industry from design to producing samples to show in Bryant Park to getting buyers. The whole she-bang. It's intersting to watch Jay, he is truly a charismatic person. Being the bitchy queen that he is, we get to see his interaction and dialogues with different people in the industry and get lots of laughs from them.

Jay didn't accept the $100,000 prize money from the show because back then there was a clause in the contract saying that 10% of his revenue during his lifetime will have to go to the network and now it seems that heis business is not taking flight as he thought it would and he's rethinking how the $100,000 will help his career. He has to resort to the help of neighbors and do the collection in a very grassroot way. With his lack of industry experience, he managed to produce a brilliant collection but has difficulty selling them because normally nobody is willing to buy the first collection without knowing where his direction would lead. Although discouraging, we all hope he will take flight.

Since Philly is now Jay's homebase and it is a film about him, Jay attended the festival, introduced the film and had a Q&A session with two film-makers. Project RunGay bloggers Tom and Lorenzo also attended the premiere, but they distanced themselves from the crowd, is that fame? Someone asked whether Jay will open up a store in Philadelphia, and he said it's possible. Lately there had been news that Project Runway has been sold to Lifetime and one of the judges Nina Garcia, Fashion Director of Elle has been rumored to be fired from her post. That might change the face of Project Runway completely. I hope my favorite show will stay on air for the coming years.



I recommend this movie for the ones who are interested to learn about the fashion world. The little meanie is coming tonight, I better go get some beef jerky and maybe line my carpet with some newspaper. B+