As far as opening credits statements go, the on-screen words that begin Departures are pretty hard to beat: "This film is inspired by all the dickheads that fucked us over. You know who you are." Setting the tone for this raw, wry and confrontingly honest look at the pleasures and pains of contemporary British gay... Continue Reading →
When I heard that D'Arcy Drollinger had followed up his instant classic, Shit & Champagne, with Lady Champagne, I didn’t just jump at the chance to watch it, I hacked my way through dense jungles, leapt over deep crevasses, and walked barefoot across hot coals. It’s the least one should be required to do to... Continue Reading →
When I meet someone new and they start quoting The Comeback, I know we’re destined to get along. For me, it’s a perfect barometer of taste. Like many fans of the cult comedy series I've been craving more episodes. Thankfully, twenty years after the original season landed on HBO, The Comeback is making one helleva... Continue Reading →
As much as I’m drawn to true crime documentaries, they often let me down with their ambiguity and unresolved endings. Wait! Everything is speculative? We don’t find out who did it? Life’s complicated enough. I need closure! So consider my surprise when I watched My Brother’s Killer, which premiered at SXSW 2026. Rachel Mason’s jaw-dropping,... Continue Reading →
If you’re a fan of overly theatrical, archly campy cinema, then sit down (pun very much intended). I’ve got a film for you! Filmmaker Amanda Kramer first came to my attention with her 2022 feature, Please Baby Please, which showcased her distinctive voice as a cinematic absurdist. Combining John Waters-esque emphatic, over the top performances... Continue Reading →
Watching the promotional campaign for Harry Lighton's debut feature Pillion play out, since its award-winning world premiere at Cannes last year and its UK opening in late November, has—appropriately enough—felt like an extended edging session. Thankfully, the climax was worth all the teasing and anticipation that came with the perfectly orchestrated slow drip of tantalizing... Continue Reading →
It’s funny how the catchphrase “Stop the insanity!” means something so different now than when anyone of age in the 90s first heard it. Now it feels like my mantra in response to the horror show of the daily news cycle, whereas during the grunge/dot-com decade, the phrase only referred to a ubiquitous infomercial exercise... Continue Reading →
Remember those nights, before most of us cut our cables, spent flipping through endless channels without ever settling on one show or movie? Appropriately enough, that is the sensation I had watching David Shadrack Smith's kinetic feature debut Public Access which world premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Documentary Competition. This... Continue Reading →
There’s something inherently destabilizing about a room full of naked men. Trust me, I know—as a trans man who frequents a clothing-forbidden Korean spa (for the spa water, not the schlongs)—a room of naked men is enough to disrupt the monolithic idea of what it is to be a man. Not because of sex, exactly,... Continue Reading →
Brydie O'Connor's tenderly-crated feature debut Barbara Forever, world premiering in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, is as sensual, intimate and uninhibited as much of the work of its prolific subject, pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer. Immediately drawing us into Hammer's world, where the personal and artistic are interwoven, we hear... Continue Reading →
