This year’s Inside Out Toronto LGBTQ+ Film Festival opened with Jump, Darling, the feature debut of writer/director Philip J. Connell. 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 this film, however... Continue Reading →
Back in June 2019, I reported on a wonderful new musical which premiered at the Hudson Theatre (remember theatre?) in Los Angeles called Shooting Star. With a book by Florian Klein (aka real life porn star Hans Berlin), and music and lyrics by Thomas Zaufke and Eric Ransom respectively, the show took a deep dive... Continue Reading →
Are we forever fated to become our parents or is there a chance to carve out our own identities? This, the central question of Miranda July’s wonderful new film, Kajillionaire, takes an original, engaging route towards such a discovery. July, best known for her first feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know, in which... Continue Reading →
As a Jew, I had grown tired of Holocaust narratives in film. Can anyone make anything better or more definitive than Schindler’s List? I’d always been dubious until Son Of Saul proved me wrong. So, with a more open mind, I approached Antebellum, the debut feature by directing partners (and partners in life) Gerard Bush... Continue Reading →
My parents considered themselves cinephiles, but by the time they reached their 40s, they claimed they had seen every story told ever told. When I begged my father to take me to see Alien, he applied that same argument. Due to my persistence, he relented, thanking me afterwards for dragging him to see what he... Continue Reading →
In 1978, Gene Mulvihill, a Wall Street penny stock scammer, created New Jersey’s infamous Action Park. Featuring insanely dangerous water slides, go-carts, boats and more, which skirted regulations and safety laws, the park added many injuries and some deaths to its roster before closing in 1996. Seth Porges and Chris Charles Scott’s documentary, Class Action... Continue Reading →
Like Boys Shorts, Outfest’s Girls Shorts program always sells out. I’ve often felt guilty slipping into the theater on a Press Pass, taking a seat from a young lesbian in the standby line who really wanted to see herself up on that screen. With the festival streaming online this year, goodbye guilt and hello girls!... Continue Reading →
According to the Institute on Disability, “If people with disabilities were a formally recognized minority group, at 19% of the population, they would be the largest minority group in the United States.” They would, in fact, be the largest minority group in the world, but in terms of representation, among many other issues, the world... Continue Reading →
“They always forget the ones who were first,” someone says in voiceover in Joe Castel’s remarkable documentary, Nelly Queen: The Life and Times of José Sarria. After watching this essential record of an important life in the LGBTQ+ community, I doubt anyone will forget him. Sarria’s list of accomplishments include establishing the Imperial Court System,... Continue Reading →
With Taiwan passing the first Marriage Equality Law in Asia in 2019, it’s exciting to delve into LGBTQ+ stories from a historically conservative society going through such immense changes. Ming-Lang Chen’s The Teacher (Wo De Ling Hun Shi Ai Zuo De) follows a young Civics teacher name Kevin (Oscar Chiu) who meets an older factory... Continue Reading →
