By Hook or by Crook (2001 film)

Last updated

By Hook or by Crook
By Hook or by Crook (2001 film).jpg
Directed by Harry Dodge
Silas Howard
Written byHarry Dodge
Silas Howard
Stanya Kahn [1]
Produced byHarry Dodge
Silas Howard
Steak House
StarringHarry Dodge
Silas Howard
Stanya Kahn
CinematographyAnn T. Rossetti
Edited byHarry Dodge
Music by Carla Bozulich
Production
companies
Steakhaus Productions
NGB Productions
Distributed byArtistic License
Release dates
  • October 25, 2002 (2002-10-25)(United States)
Running time
95 minutes [2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

By Hook or by Crook is a 2001 buddy drama film written, directed by, and starring Harry Dodge [2] and Silas Howard. [3] The story follows two unlikely friends as they commit petty crimes and figure out their places in the world.

Contents

The film premiered at the 2001 Frameline Film Festival and went on to screen at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. [4] It won multiple awards on the film festival circuit, including the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2002 SXSW Film Festival.

Plot

Shy, a transgender man, leaves his small town in Kansas for San Francisco after the death of his father. Along the way, he encounters Valentine, a quirky adoptee in search of his birth mother. An immediate kinship is sparked between the two men and they become partners in crime with Val’s lover Billie to stay financially afloat. The duo faces money troubles, emotional problems, and physical confrontations as they learn to trust and support each other in pursuit of their goals.

Cast

Production

The film is the directorial debut of both Howard and Dodge [5] and was shot on mini DV. [6]

It was produced by Howard, Dodge, and Steak House of Steakhaus Productions.

Carla Bozulich of the Geraldine Fibbers wrote the score for the film. [7] The soundtrack also features a song that Carla Bozulich co-wrote with the Geraldine Fibbers, "Lilybelle", that was later covered by Kiki and Herb.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on June 17, 2001. In addition, it screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. [8] It was given a limited theatrical release on October 25, 2002. [9]

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, By Hook or by Crook has an approval rating of 64% based on 14 reviews. [10]

Dave Kehr of The New York Times wrote the film "is, like its principal characters, a bit messy and maladroit but not without a certain charm", and "the humanity of the characters shines through, giving face and form to a subculture the movies have largely neglected". [11] TV Guide described the film as "An appealing, if decidedly unconventional, buddy picture that seems to channel Midnight Cowboy (1969) while going its own quirky way." [12]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<i>Dear Jesse</i> American film

Dear Jesse is a 1998 American documentary film by Tim Kirkman that was released theatrically by Cowboy Pictures in 1998.

<i>Big Eden</i> 2001 film by Thomas Bezucha

Big Eden is a 2000 romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. Arye Gross stars as Henry Hart, a successful gay artist from New York City who returns to his rural hometown in Montana to care for his ailing grandfather. Henry is welcomed back by the townsfolk, all of whom are aware of his sexuality and are highly accepting and even supportive towards him. During the months he stays in the town, Henry is forced to confront his unresolved feelings for his high school friend Dean Stewart, while simultaneously being oblivious to the feelings of Pike Dexter, the shy Native American owner of the town's general store.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenni Olson</span> American filmmaker (born 1962)

Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.

Duncan Tucker is an American film director and screenwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carla Bozulich</span> Musical artist

Carla Ragin Bozulich is an American musician based in Los Angeles, known as the lead singer, lyricist and founder of The Geraldine Fibbers and Evangelista as well as a founding member of Ethyl Meatplow and Scarnella. The Geraldine Fibbers recorded two albums for Virgin Records. Their first album was described as "...a Country Feedback Masterpiece" by Vice.

<i>Rise Above: The Tribe 8 Documentary</i> 2004 American film

Rise Above: The Tribe 8 Documentary is a feature film about the all women queercore punk band Tribe 8 directed and produced by Tracy Flannigan.

<i>Teddy Bears Picnic</i> (film) 2002 American comedy film

Teddy Bears' Picnic is a 2002 American comedy film written and directed by Harry Shearer. It was released in May 2002 to limited audiences. Shearer has a small role in the film. It is also Kenneth Mars' last film before his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheryl Dunye</span> Liberian-American actress and director

Cheryl Dunye is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known as the first out black lesbian to ever direct a feature film with her 1996 film The Watermelon Woman. She runs the production company Jingletown Films based in Oakland, California.

Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frameline Film Festival</span>

The Frameline Film Festival began as a storefront event in 1976. The first film festival, named the Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was held in 1977. The festival is organized by Frameline, a nonprofit media arts organization whose mission statement is "to change the world through the power of queer cinema". It is the oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world.

Catherine Crouch is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, and actor. She has been active in independent film-making for over two decades. Most of her work explores gender, race, and class in lesbian and queer lives. She is known for Stranger Inside (2001), Stray Dogs (2002), and The Gendercator (2007).

Todd Stephens is an American film director, writer, and producer. He was raised in Sandusky, Ohio, which has served as the setting for several of his films, many of which are gay-themed. He both wrote and produced the autobiographical coming out film Edge of Seventeen, which was released in 1998. He has directed the 2001 film Gypsy 83 as well as Another Gay Movie, which was released in 2006, and the follow-up Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild!, which premiered at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on June 28, 2008.

"By hook or by crook" is an English phrase meaning "by any means necessary", suggesting that any means possible should be taken to accomplish a goal. The phrase was first recorded in the Middle English Controversial Tracts of John Wyclif in 1380.

<i>Were the World Mine</i> 2008 American film

Were the World Mine is a 2008 romantic musical fantasy film directed by Tom Gustafson, written by Gustafson and Cory James Krueckeberg, and starring Tanner Cohen, Wendy Robie, Judy McLane, Zelda Williams, Jill Larson, Ricky Goldman, Nathaniel David Becker, Christian Stolte, and David Darlow.

<i>Cloudburst</i> (2011 film) Canadian-American comedy-drama film

Cloudburst is a 2011 Canadian-American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald and starring Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker. The film is an adaptation of Fitzgerald's 2010 play of the same name. Cloudburst premiered at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia on September 16, 2011. It opened in a limited release in Canada on December 7, 2012.

<i>Pageant</i> (film) 2008 film

Pageant is a 2008 documentary film directed and produced together by Ron Davis and Stewart Halpern. The film explored the behind-the-scenes dramas and realities of the 34th Miss Gay America Contest held in 2004. The film's central theme was the universal desire to be beautiful, noticed and chosen. The film garnered 10 film festival awards before airing on the Sundance Channel in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Dodge</span> American artist (born 1966)

Harry Dodge is an American sculptor, performer, video artist, professor, and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silas Howard</span> American director, writer, and actor

Silas Howard is an American film and television director, writer, and actor. His first feature film By Hook or by Crook (2001) co-directed with Harry Dodge is a seminal trans masc feature. Howard earned an MFA in directing at UCLA and is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow. He began directing episodes during the second season of Transparent, making him the show's first trans director.

<i>Ahead of the Curve</i> (film) 2020 biographical documentary

Ahead of the Curve is a 2020 American biographical documentary film co-produced and co-directed by Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow, with music composed by Meshell Ndegeocello. The film is based on the true story of Franco Stevens, one of the most influential women in lesbian history, and the founding publisher of Curve Magazine, a leading international lesbian lifestyle magazine. Portraying themselves in the film are, Franco Stevens, Kim Katrin, Denice Frohman, Amber Hikes, Andrea Pino-Silva, Melissa Etheridge and Jewelle Gomez. The documentary premiered in June 2020 at the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival.

<i>The Mattachine Family</i> 2023 American drama film

The Mattachine Family is an American comedy-drama film directed by Andy Vallentine and released in 2023. The film stars Nico Tortorella and Juan Pablo Di Pace as Thomas and Oscar, a gay couple who have spent a year as foster parent to a six year old boy whose mother was in jail; however, when she is released and regains custody of her son, Thomas and Oscar are forced to confront their very different visions for what they want out of life when they find themselves in disagreement on whether to pursue true parenthood.

References

  1. Koehler, Robert (August 5, 2001). "By Hook or Crook". Variety.
  2. 1 2 "By Hook or by Crook (2001) | harry dodge". harrydodge.com. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
  3. McDonnell, Evelyn (October 5, 2016). "Transparent's First Trans Director, Silas Howard, Explains How the Game Has Changed". LA Weekly .
  4. 1 2 Dry, Jude (June 30, 2017). "How Silas Howard Became the Best Trans Director Working Today". IndieWire .
  5. "A Codependent Independent: 'By Hook or By Crook'". Austin Chronicle . March 8, 2002. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  6. Keogan, Natalia (July 19, 2022). "Our Plan for Financial Security is, We'll Become Famous Hollywood Filmmakers": Silas Howard and Harry Dodge on By Hook or by Crook". Filmmaker . Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  7. "Interview: Carla Bozulich". Silent Frame. May 21, 2018. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  8. 1 2 "By Hook or by Crook". Curve . June 1, 2003. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  9. "By Hook or by Crook". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  10. "By Hook or by Crook". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  11. Kehr, Dave (October 25, 2002). "FILM IN REVIEW; 'By Hook or by Crook". The New York Times . Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  12. "By Hook or by Crook". TV Guide. Retrieved February 21, 2023.