This is THAT rare release. And exactly what we need right now. A lightning-in-a-bottle-powered glitter ball just waiting to quicken a lonely dance lover’s pulse. This is a conceptual disco diva album that grabs you immediately by the brain, the feet and some popular parts in between. Spotlight sets the stage with a slinky dip into... Continue Reading →
To contextualise the release of Hamilton at a time when people can't gather for live performances, and many consider what it means to be an American this Independence Day, there's a brief introduction. We hear from the director of the original stage production, and this filmed version, Thomas Kail, along with Lin-Manuel Miranda, the originator... Continue Reading →
Second Stage Theater’s planned production of Richard Greenberg’s Tony Award-winning play about a gay baseball player and the reaction to him coming out, Take Me Out, which had been postponed due to the current Broadway suspension, will come to Broadway next year with performances beginning the week of March 22nd 2021 at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater (240 West 44th Street,... Continue Reading →
GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics marked the end of Pride month today by announcing the nominees for the first Dorian TV Awards. The final season of Schitt’s Creek leads with seven nominations including Best TV Comedy and Best LGBTQ TV Show, followed by Ryan Murphy's Hollywood with six nods. “With a global pandemic, severe... Continue Reading →
Legacy Recordings and digital studio Cut.com have partnered to release Love In Transition, a touching video interview montage celebrating the beauty of love set to Elvis Presley’s classic Can’t Help Falling In Love. https://youtu.be/NgVHr5jf5t4 Falling in Love with My Trans Partner Love In Transition shares the stories of six couples who describe falling in love while a trans... Continue Reading →
Netflix will mark the final day of Pride month with a virtual celebration on their Youtube Channel starting at 7pm ET / 4pm PT. Netflix Pride presented by The Most will bring together queer performers, creators, and leaders as well as celebrity allies to mark Pride 2020 and in support three LGBTQ+ organisations: OutRight Action... Continue Reading →
Oscar-nominated filmmaker and journalist David France follows his searing AIDS activism documentary, How to Survive a Plague, and the poignant The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, with a deeply unsettling look at Chechnya’s anti-LGBTQ purge. Inspired by Masha Gessen's The New Yorker article Forbidden Letters: The Gay Men Who Fled Chechnya’s Purge, Welcome... Continue Reading →
With their feature film debut, director Andrew Patterson and his co-writer Craig W. Sanger have made an idiosyncratic splash with the micro budget yet winning sci-fi mystery, The Vast Of Night. Set in 1950s small town New Mexico, the film begins with a Twilight Zone style introduction as we push in on an old fashioned... Continue Reading →
Dawn Porter’s feature length documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble is both an up close and personal biographical study of the activist and longstanding public servant, as well as a compelling examination of the history of the Civil Rights movement, through Lewis’ vital role in it. What results is a fascinating and inspiring chronicle of an extraordinary life... Continue Reading →
Last week it was announced that four leading North American LGBTQ film festivals, San Francisco's Frameline, Toronto's Inside Out, New York's NewFest, and Los Angeles' Outfest had joined forces to form NAQFA: the North American Queer Festival Alliance. NAQFA's first collaborative event, taking place tonight Wednesday June 24th 6pm PST/9pm EST, is a live-streamed celebration... Continue Reading →
Let the Eurovision Song Contest begin! The global health crisis might have put a stop to those immortal words being enthusiastically declared this year, with the 65th Eurovision Song Contest postponed until 2021, but fans and newcomers alike will nevertheless get to experience a version of the musical campfest vicariously through this genuinely feel-good comedy... Continue Reading →
When HBO Max launched on May 27th, part of its opening day lineup was the first two episodes of the nine-part Max Original dance competition Legendary. Inspired by the world of ballroom, the show pits eight Houses against one another in weekly vogue battles in the search for a Legendary House. With a different theme... Continue Reading →
In the spirit of the landmark documentaries The Celluloid Closet and Ethnic Notions, Sam Feder’s ambitious, ground-breaking and nuanced Disclosure, which launches globally on Netflix on Friday June 19th, examines over a hundred years of trans screen representation. Covering an impressive range of frequently damaging trans portrayals and storylines, Disclosure takes in Oscar-winning movies like... Continue Reading →
Yesterday’s landmark Supreme Court decision on LGBTQ protections in the workplace is reason for us to breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate. It also reminds us of the need for more mainstream LGBTQ+ representation as we continue the fight for full equality and societal acceptance. As Sam Feder’s Netflix documentary Disclosure released this Friday... Continue Reading →
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic — boy, am I tired of starting articles with those words — film festivals around the world are finding new methods of distributing movies to fans. An unexpected benefit of the situation is that festivals, which are by their very nature dependent on geography, open themselves up to film fans... Continue Reading →
This Wednesday June 17th sees the mid-Pride month release of all ten episodes of the new Hulu Original series Love, Victor. Set in the world of the 2018 GLAAD award-winning movie Love, Simon, which was inspired by Becky Albertalli’s much-loved YA novel Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the series stars Michael Cimino as Victor, a... Continue Reading →
A number of individuals and organisations have responded swiftly, eloquently and comprehensively to J.K. Rowling's recent 'essay' in which she detailed her reasons for speaking out about sex and gender issues. I won't pretend that I have anything unique to add. However, I am also aware that in moments like these, the trans community shoulder... Continue Reading →
Selected to play at Mexico's cancelled Guadalajara Film Festival in March, queer director, cinematographer and co-editor Bruno Santamaría's hauntingly beautiful Things We Dare Not Do/Cosas que no hacemos finally premiered in the World Showcase section at the 2020 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, which ran online from May 28th until June 6th. Following his... Continue Reading →
Global Pride leaders announced today that they will acknowledge the international response to the death of George Floyd and the demand for racial justice by working with founders of the Black Lives Matter movement to amplify black voices in the June 27th streaming event. Co-Chair of the Global Pride organising committee, Natalie Thompson, said: “As... Continue Reading →
Director Sam Feder’s Disclosure, which world premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is an ambitious, ground-breaking and nuanced examination of over one hundred years of trans representation on screen. Iconic and lesser known scenes from film and television are placed in context by a line-up of trans trailblazers including the iconic Laverne Cox, who... Continue Reading →
Spike Lee's most recent feature film, BlacKkKlansman, which finally won the filmmaker an overdue competitive Oscar, was set in the 1970s but had a biting, traumatizing epilogue that brought the film into the present day, with Trump's 'very fine people on both sides' speech and footage of Heather Heyer's murder in Charlottesville. Reminding us that... Continue Reading →
This Friday June 12th, in observance of Pride Month, PBS will air Prideland, an hourlong special about the lives of LGBTQ+ people who live south of the Mason-Dixon line. The special is a companion to their ongoing Youtube series of the same name; some of the interviews in the special have already aired in a... Continue Reading →
If you're a regular reader of The Queer Review you'll already know that we are big fans of HBO's We're Here, which has been helping to uplift us and give us some comfort and hope during self-isolation. And, without fail, making us cry! We've already spoken exclusively to We're Here's drag mothers, Drag Race alum,... Continue Reading →
Can I get a Hallelloo up in here? Shangela Laquifa Wadley aka D.J. Pierce burst on to our television screens a decade ago competing in the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race. She might've been first to sashay away that year, but you can't keep a fierce queen down and she was back for the... Continue Reading →
"How many Black people have to die before anti-Black violence is taken seriously? Our thoughts are with George Floyd’s loved ones for their untenable loss. And we support the ongoing protests underway in Minneapolis and St. Paul demanding that the four officers who were involved in this fatality be arrested and charged with murder. Today, Hennepin... Continue Reading →
She may not have made it to tomorrow night's RuPaul's Drag Race season 12 grand finale, but she has undoubtedly won an indelible place in viewers' hearts, and is likely to snatch this year's Miss Congeniality title. Hailing from the small country town of Ramseur, North Carolina, Heidi added some new phrases to the Drag... Continue Reading →
N.B. Contains potential season 5 spoilers.I’ve just spent the past few days binging all ten episodes of the upcoming fifth season of Queer Eye, which lands on Netflix right on time for Pride month on June 5th, and I am feeling pretty amazing actually; upbeat and optimistic. It's the kind of afterglow you get when... Continue Reading →
“I cannot sanction your buffoonery." That’s what Tommy Lee Jones reportedly said to Jim Carrey as they were about to make a Batman film together. It also neatly sums up the critical reaction to Joel Schumacher’s two Batman movies, Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997). Subversive, camp, kinky - Joel Schumacher queered the... Continue Reading →
A drag queen and their LGBTQ+ friends hit the streets to fight homophobia in this queer grindhouse, glitter noir revenge fantasy. That’s the set-up of Glitter Vipers, a new queer graphic novel that's nearing its funding goal on Kickstarter. Written by Joe Glass, best known as writer of LGBTQ+ superhero series The Pride and for... Continue Reading →
Fancy a hit of sub/dom-light romance blending emotionally withholding Daddy-figures and some borderline cultural clichés thrown in? Grab hold of your speedos and dive into Cole McCade’s new book Just Like That. Summer Hemlock returns home (to Omen, Massachusetts) to take up the position of Teacher’s Assistant at his old boarding school, Albin Academy, directly... Continue Reading →
