Perhaps a better name for Bruce LaBruce's "Super 8 1/2" would be "The 16th Minute." The film, his first after the phenomenally successful indie hit "No Skin Off My Ass," is nothing more than a flimsy and rather drab mediatation on the fame LaBruce had thus far recieved, seemingly after his Warholian "15 minutes of fame."

LaBruce plays "Bruce," a former porno star and director who has become a has-been in his own mind. The film rambles around between his past cinematic life and his current project, filming an avant-gaurd documentary about himself for a lesbian filmmaker named Googie (Liza LaMonica). Meanwhile, the fictional Bruce's life is complicated by Pierce, his former boyfriend, played by his real life former boyfriend, and star of his first film, Klaus von Buecker. KVB remains almost unheard in "No Skin" and seems all the more sexy for it. Here, he opens his mouth and ruins the illusion. He comes across as sort of a Morrissey rip-off wannabee for the indie film set. The disillusionment of these moments only furthers to make "Super 8 1/2" a rather bitter pill to swallow.

There are other cuties along for the ride, Mikey Mike (no one seems to use a real name here) plays Johnny Eczema, and there's some cute long-haired guy in a scene where he fucks Bruce on a deserted highway. There's even a rather interesting scene where LaBruce is made sex slave to a tattoed machismo. But overall, there is none of the sexual electricity and eroticism that made "No Skin" so wonderful. Perhaps it's because there is no emotional connections between the characters. Even the "bondage" scene reeks of phoniness and detatchment! (he he) Everyone, as in pornography, seems to be just going along with the scene in every single freaking scene. And then there are all those lesbians and allusion to heterosexual sex that are just so boring. LaBruce, seemingly unhappy with it all, just sits and whines. It's all rather drab. and the sex gets more overt. There is even anal sex in this one. It's all so static and lame. Never once do we care about anyone or anything going on here.

Still, one imagines that this is, yet again, a pretty accurate and decisive imitation of LaBruce's real life. The whole pieces skates that line between art and porno that Bruce made work to his advantage in the first film. Even with his bitching, he seems like a pretty interesting guy here, but he doesn't seem to engage us on an emotional level. Caught up in the Warhol ideal, moving, as Andy did, from artist to celebrity, LaBruce does his hair like Warhol, designs his room ala The Factory, wears Warhol's trademark leather jacket and sits around and doesn't say much. Unlike Warhol, LaBruce's sidekicks don't carry the weight for him. There are no "superstars" here. They are, in actuality, a rather dismal lot. Even KVB is no fun!

Scott Thompson, of "Kids in the Hall" acts as a producer and plays his flitty "Buddy Cole" character for a segment in the film. Another underground filmmaker, Richard Kern, plays himself in a pornographic scene as well. Kern, it seems, may be an inspiration here too. I don't know anything of him, but LaBruce's narration mentions the fact that Kern's films are considered sexually derogatory to women (much as his own are considered derogatory to gays, I suspect). Kern even made a film called "Submit to Me Now" and LaBruce rips this off for a funnier title, "Submit to My Finger." Also, though it means nothing to me, there is an appearance by someone who is apparently a rather famous drag queen with the horrid name of Vaginal Creme Davis.

LaBruce just seems bored and corrupted and irritable and lame here. Much, I imagine, as an immediate celebrity might.

Like the viewer at it's finish, "Super 8 1/2" is a confused, frustrated mess.

Note: The Internet Movie Database list von Buecker as Nicholas Davies.

The film references "Butterfield 8" in much the way that "No Skin Off My Ass" references "That Cold Day in the Park."

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