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 →
With so many queer spaces, bars, clubs, live venues, theatres, and cinemas closed for much of the year, and festivals cancelled or reimagined as virtual editions, we asked some of friends, including prominent culture makers and performers, to tell us their favourite LGBTQ+ art or events of 2020. Get in touch via social media using... Continue Reading →
Ron Howard, for me, has always been a journeyman director. He has navigated through a wide variety of genres, always putting the camera in the right place, getting good performances out of his actors, and producing slick, commercial Hollywood product. He hasn’t accomplished, however, a recognizable voice. Face it, we all can spot a Tarantino,... Continue Reading →
The late great film critic Roger Ebert famously said, “The movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” No other film I’ve seen this year has evoked such empathetic feelings in me than Nomadland. I knew within the first ten minutes of watching Chloé Zhao’s followup to her fantastic feature, The Rider, that I would... Continue Reading →
Most aspiring writers, at one point or another, receive the advice to “write what you know”. Clearly, filmmaker Lawrence Michael Levine has taken that to heart with his tricky, startling, engaging feature, Black Bear. Transposing himself, possibly onto more than one character, Levine has made a film about filmmaking, artistic control, identity, marital fidelity, feminism,... 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 →
Over the years, too many LGBTQ+ films have relied on tired tropes to tell our stories. Coming out angst, U-haul lesbians, and drugged out circuit queens have seemingly been done to death. Imagine my surprise while watching writer/director Caleb Johnson’s The Carnivores, which on the surface trots out the old chestnut of Lesbian Bed Death,... Continue Reading →
