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Review

The Puerto Rican poet/playwright Miguel Piñero's (Short Eyes) life was a mess - he started writing as a way out of Sing-Sing prison where he was serving time for robbery and drug possession. He was a life-long junkie, a petty thief, a street hustler and a brilliant writer. Unlike Jean Genet, Piñero didn't clean up after success, he just had more money to buy more drugs with - "writing is half inspiration, half inhalation" is a famous line.

Leon Ichaso's (Crossover Dreams) new film bio of Piñero's story is like his life, a fractured free-form jazz poem that wandered all over the place. There are scenes of Piñero's childhood, his intense friendship with Miguel Algarin (Esposito), his thieving and drugging exploits, his love life with prostitute Sugar (Soto), his stormy relationship with Joe Papp (Patinkin) of the Public Theater, his loving relationship with his mother (Moreno) who encouraged his writing - but what's missing are his sexual relationships with men. Piñero was open in his bisexuality, he had an affair with a young playwright Reinaldo Povod, whose play "Cuba and his Teddy Bear" was a major hit with Robert DeNiro in the lead. Piñero's big hit "Short Eyes" (made into a terrific film starring Bruce Davison) is rather blatant with it's homoerotic overtones and there is powerful evidence of homoeroticism in Piñero's poetry. While Piñero is shown putting his hand on his friend Reinaldo's thigh, he is shown in bed with Sugar. We found this disjointed film to be oddly satisfying and quite fascinating even with it's obvious shortcomings.