The real life horror of young African American men being killed without any justice is given a supernatural twist in director Malik Vitthal’s effective if uneven cop thriller. Oscar-nominee Mary J. Blige stars as dedicated LA patrol officer Renee Lomito-Smith. Still grieving for the death of son, we join Renee on her first day back... Continue Reading →
Due to world premiere at last month’s Tribeca, Anna Kerrigan’s contemporary western Cowboys went on to win two jury awards in the festival's U.S. narrative competition, with Steve Zahn taking best actor and Kerrigan winning for her screenplay. As the film opens we take in some breathtaking vistas of rural Montana, beautifully captured by cinematographer John... Continue Reading →
If you’re looking for a queer film that’ll totally take your mind off the modern world, we may have found the perfect one: Sebastiano Mauri’s Fairytale (Favola). This Italian surreal comedy, starring Filippo Timi based on his stage play, throws you into a skewed vision of 1950s America as Mrs Fairytale plays the perfect (and... Continue Reading →
Director Mark Schwab's LGBTQ thriller Crisis Hotline (now streaming on Amazon Prime) tells the story of Simon (Corey Jackson), a man new to his job at the titular location. He expected to be talking people through the worst times of their lives, but after a week on the phones, he's bored because for the most... Continue Reading →
Life Like is what you get when you take a sexy, sci-fi, erotic thriller and remove the thrills and most of the sex and dumb down the sci-fi. What plods along for most of the 90min running time is a muted exploration of humanity before it completely loses the plot with an utterly ridiculous twist... Continue Reading →
Mark Blane's semi-autobiographical New York fantasia Cubby toured film festivals this summer, playing at events like OutFest in LA, Frameline in San Francisco, New York's NewFest and Reeling Film Festival in Chicago, among others. It's a film that seems tailor-made for festivals -- quirky, strange, shot on 16mm film, a bit clunky, with subject matter that was never... Continue Reading →
One defining, central fact of most queer lives is some measure of repression and/or trauma during adolescence, some essential hiding of the self that leaves many us grappling for much of the rest of our lives with when, how, to whom, and for what purpose we choose to disclose our various identities to the people... Continue Reading →
What do you call a rom-com without the com? Technically From Zero to I Love You isn’t a comedy. It’s a gay romance through and through, but it has all the tropes of a rom-com. From the meet-cute, the therapist, the art-gallery job, the zippy title, the improbable scenarios, the side-kicks whose only function is... Continue Reading →
The first thing you see in Lulu Wang’s touching, entertaining The Farewell is a card that reads, “Based On An Actual Lie”. Some of my favorite films and shows have explored the cost of lies, including All The President’s Men, Election, and the recent HBO miniseries Chernobyl. Wang’s film, while firmly in the popular entertainment... Continue Reading →
