Sometimes a movie comes along and meets its moment, transcending its innate flaws to feel more important, more powerful than it may have been perceived otherwise. In The Heights, the long-awaited film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton Tony Award-winner, initially had a Summer 2020 release date, but now lands at a time where we’ve suffered... Continue Reading →
Based on his semi-autobiographical and groundbreaking play, filmmaker Rodrigo Bellott’s Tu Me Manques became Bolivia’s official International Feature Film Oscar entry. Roughly translating to “I miss you in me”, the film tells the story of Jorge (Oscar Martínez), who travels to New York following his gay son Gabriel’s suicide to atone for how he treated... Continue Reading →
While everyone else has picked apart the differences between the Snyder and Whedon cuts of the Justice League films, this film nerd spent 5 1/2 hours poring over the two versions of a little seen film from 2005 which went from fascinating 2 1/2 hour mess to out and out masterpiece on its journey to... Continue Reading →
Some filmmakers start out small and dream of hitting the big time with a major studio contract. Once they’ve reached that pinnacle, which would no doubt have included great compromise and a whittling away of their authentic voices, some dream of scaling back and making a little indie. Take the Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony,... Continue Reading →
Jump, Darling, the feature debut of writer-director Philip J. Connell, receives its international premiere at the 35th BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival. On the surface, the tale of a young gay man escaping the big city to live with his grandmother in the countryside, reeks of every fish-out-of-water story ever conceived. The beauty of... Continue Reading →
Los Angeles is littered with aspiring filmmakers, some talented, while others maybe not so much. One can imagine a big fish in a little pond moving out West to discover the pond got a whole lot bigger. The resentment, especially for those whose ambition far outweighs their creativity, spreads until it sucks all of the... Continue Reading →
In the early 1990s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, I was an active member of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a grassroots group who helped to improve the lives of people living with the virus in ways gentle and compassionate and in other ways loud and dotted with instances of civil... Continue Reading →
With such films as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and One Night In Miami, 2020 has given us some expert adaptations of plays. Add The Father alongside these titles as a case study in making something so stage-bound feel so beautifully cinematic. It also rises to the top of the heap of another trend, the dementia... Continue Reading →
I’ve always loved what the movies have brought to my life. The communal feeling of sitting in the dark with a group of strangers and laughing, screaming, or just dreaming together became my “church”. A long-discontinued but influential annual column called “Moments Out Of Time” from Film Comment magazine became my “Bible” and one of... Continue Reading →
When you think about a Canadian sitcom set in a small rural town with a surprisingly welcoming attitude towards its queer citizens, your mind might automatically zero in on a certain Emmy-winning juggernaut. While true, you’d be overlooking Letterkenny, which I consider a far more accepting and outrageous haven for so many queer characters across... Continue Reading →
