Weekend, Andrew Haigh, 2011

The creation of gay culture, for as long as something called “gay culture” has existed, has had as its primary driving force the desire for a queer utopia. Constrained by politics, ostracization, and misunderstanding in society, queers turned to art as the one realm in which some utopic vision of their lives could be attained.

Thus everything from Sappho, performing poetic transformations of the island of Lesbos into a playground of female homosexual desire, to Jean Genet‘s Our Lady of the Flowers, with a canonized drag queen whose lovers perfuse the streets of Paris with adoration, to gay bathhouses, constructed social spaces where homosexual desire was not only permissible but suffuse. Thus also the gay predilection for Camp, a sensibility of exaggerated emotion and loud desire, a utopia where the only consequences are aesthetic ones. These utopic visions not only offered an escape from the realities of gay life, but thoroughly rejected any vision that impinged upon their gayness.

But one wonders if Oscar Wilde would have changed his mantra from “art for art’s sake” if any other sake for his art had been allowed. The recent film Weekend inhabits another, decidedly recent camp of gay culture: gay naturalism. In the film, it is not non-gayness that is rejected, but instead any illusion that such a rejection is possible. The characters capture something very real, almost painfully so, about modern gay life. After all of our progress in realizing some vision of gay utopia–after Harvey Milk , the AIDS crisis, gay marriage, the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, to name just some milestones–there remain some very basic problems that each gay person must sort out for him or herself.

For one, coming out, and the eternal recurrence of it. We see this dealt with here without the sheen of “fabulousness,” most touchingly in the interaction between Russell and his straight best friend as Russell breaches the awkwardness in talking about his gay lover with him. Another problem very basic to gay lives is finding and creating meaningful sexual/romantic relationships when the percentage of those compatible in the world is so small, and will probably always remain so. So, in the movie, we see Russell and Glen meet at a seedy gay club that neither really want to be at yet both want to be with the people it contains. Also, of course, the problem of gay sex–not any more a problem than straight sex–at times difficult to navigate, uncomfortable, indomitable (no pun…well, some pun intended). The director of Weekend, Andrew Haigh, depicts this with a frank, unflinching eye, so much as to raise serious wonders whether it’s simulated or not (it’s simulated).

Certainly, the conditions of modern gay life allow for a film as nuanced and internal as Weekend to exist. After all, it was not in a time of great social turmoil that naturalism first emerged in the literature of the late 19th century, but precisely because society at large had reached a stage of ease and comfort in its modernity. Writers, unoppressed by their own social standings, turned to tell the stories of those who were to remind the readerly public that problems like these still existed. Likewise, the outward social standing of gays in mainstream culture has now reached a point of some resolution, so instead of turning to others who are more oppressed, gay voices can turn inward to tell the parts of themselves that are still oppressed. This film is a reminder, to gay and straight audiences, that there are still problems to be resolved in gay lives.

Yet it offers no resolution. Without giving away too much, suffice to say there’s no marriage plot, and no magical salve to remedy the deep-set issues of internalized homophobia in each of the characters. There is, however, art. Glen wants to create an art piece from interviews with his hook-ups and lovers, and Russell keeps a diary recording each one of his sexual encounters (Glen’s like a sort of Sam Steward “Stud File” and Russell’s like John Maynard Keynes’s sex diaries). This art is presented as creation without resolution, which could be said to be a theme for the whole film. We never see Glen present his art piece, and Russell’s diary is kept very private, only shared with embarrassment when he reads it to Glen. Such are the principles of naturalism: artifices that reject artificiality, depictions of reality that don’t believe in the reality of utopias, even a sort of pessimism that accepts resolution as never fully attainable.

I’m very fond of my gay utopias, my own and those I admire in gay cultural history. I left Weekend frustrated that it offered no such vision. I went to the mountaintop, and when I looked down, it looked like the side of the mountain I’d just climbed. If art offers no resolution for these utopic visions, where can I turn? Perhaps that’s the point. Instead of sating my desire for a better world to live in as a gay man, it agitated it. I left desperately wanting the relationship of the characters to work out, wanting each to feel out and proud and comfortable with his sexuality, wanting the community that they were in to be accepting and nurturing and fulfilling. I wanted all of these things in the movie, of course, because I want them in my own life. If the movie had resolved these issues, I would’ve never made the turn inward, but since it didn’t, I was forced to look at the conditions of my own life and direct my utopic desire there.

Naturalism and romanticism–the latter of which, ultimately, is where anything in the utopic camp of gay culture lies–each do not necessarily exclude the other. “Natural” aspects of culture are, at times, romantic. The weekend the couple spends together in the film is undeniably so. Likewise, “romantic” aspects of culture can be naturalistic. Take, for instance, the idea of gay marriage, which for so long existed only as an idea, now becoming increasingly a part of law. That gay culture can allow naturalism at this cultural moment means that something romantic in gay lives has been achieved, which is amazing. Hopefully, from here, we will see more emerge from gay naturalism to continue bridging the gap between utopia and reality.

A little over a week ago, Gawker’s Bryan Moylan put up a post calling out Luke Evans and his PR team for straight-washing him when he had publicly identified as a big ‘ole mo in promotion of projects past. Evans had identified as a gay man to the Advocate, has discussed his substantial gay porn collection with GayDarNation, among having made other honest proclamations of his homosexuality. Recently, however, now that Evans is set to appear in several upcoming high-budget action flicks, his Wikipedia page has undergone a little…rearticulation. At the moment it reads under the personal life column:

During his early career Evans openly identified as gay. In a 2002 interview he said “[E]verybody knew me as a gay man, and in my life in London I never tried to hide it” and that by being open he wouldn’t have “that skeleton in the closet they can rattle out”. In 2004 he said that his acting career had not suffered by being out…In September 2010, Evans was romantically linked with a woman.

Hmmm. Is he, as Moylan suggests, taking a cue from Anderson Cooper (not to mention the other probably closeted Cooper)?:

Now, who knows, Evans may be bisexual or pansexual and he may have learned his lesson about opening up to crazy websites about his porn collection, but one thing is for sure: This guy is not straight. So, what’s the big fucking deal? There’s an ever-expanding list of actors who have been openly gay throughout their careers with a good deal of success, why not add Evans to that? While his orientation may turn off some audience members, we’re sure even more will be turned off by being lied to.

This last point of his, I’m not entirely convinced of. The question of Luke Evans reminded me of the infamous Ramin Setoodeh Newsweek piece, “Straight Jacket,” where Setoodeh claimed, citing Sean Hayes in the play Promises Promises as an example, that gay actors are inherently unconvincing as straight characters, particularly as love interests for straight characters.

What is with this repeated preoccupation with a performer’s sexuality when it is anything other than heterosexual? And in addition to this, why is the institution of the glass closet still one so evidently prevalent in a post-Ellen world? WHEN WILL JOHN TRAVOLTA LISTEN TO CARRIE FISHER?!

Having moved to North Carolina after college, I’ve had to forge my own way in a place very different from where I came and where I didn’t know anybody. I make friends pretty easily so it wasn’t catastrophically difficult in that sense, but I ended up befriending a lot of bros, as I have some weird tendency to do. Maybe it’s from having a dad who was a Marine and then a cop, I don’t know! But befriending bros gives me a unique insight into the way this subset of the American population interprets and then – from years of reinforced patriarchal values and thinking – comes to define what is thought to be American values and interpretations.

They all love and respect me, don’t get me wrong, and I like to think my presence in their lives has changed their thinking in some ways, but they’re bros nonetheless. I remember once having a conversation with a group of them where we were somehow on the topic of Neil Patrick Harris (I mean, why not?). Some didn’t realize he was gay. One particularly frat-tastic friend of mine made the comment that when he learned this he was disappointed because he used to look up to him before knowing that.

Come again? Do you mean you admired his performances in Doogie Howser and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and somehow those were tainted when you learned he liked dick? Barney Stinson will never be the same to you knowing that he is not, in fact, a vain womanizer with a semblance of a soft side ultimately overcome by the drive of his phallus? Maybe you can only admire characters whose decadence is matched and superseded by the actors that play them. I mean, Charlie Sheen’s a real role model!

I think that this exchange highlights a core problem in the case of Luke Evans. The action movie genre is one loaded with phallogocentrism and whose audiences are largely composed of men and the women they (generally) drag there. Of course there are vibrant exceptions within this genre but, for the most part, it is a boy’s club. And boys, evidently, are uncomfortable in the position of worship and admiration of a gay man, sentiments integral to the success of action movies. They’re also apparently uncomfortable in the position of worship and admiration of old ladies but not old men.

Does this posit comedy as a safe haven for queers on film? Sometimes! The pink fairy stereotype of FANTABULOUS gay men who love makeovers and are super fierce and LOVE Madonna (okay I’ve gone too far), has in some ways made more options available for gay representations on screen, just it’s usually limited to self-mockery and tokenization. And Portia DeRossi’s Lindsay Bluth is a convincing vixen, though I think it important to note that gay male actors’ lesbian counterparts face a very different set of issues (exoticization, straight male gaze) when manifesting their sexuality or heterosexuality on screen.

But I think that for too long Hollywood executives and PR agents have pushed for a maintenance of the status quo, and I think that the public has been too pathetically naïve about the Tom Cruises, Ryan Seacrests, Queen Latifahs, Kevin Spaceys and now Luke Evans(es) of the world, letting themselves be lied to, so as to not confront their prejudices about how they interpret representations and skew them when the reality is oftentimes that a queer person is playing a straight person on screen. This is in no small part because of straight men, in particular, feeling threatened by the idea of identifying with the queer experience, indulging in their gay male panic over queer men or manifesting their male gaze over queer women.

But my God, that music by Bernstein and that choreography by Robbins is unbeatable. The movie is worth viewing at any time: it won 10 Academy Awards in 1961, including Best Picture, for good reason. In November of this year, a special 50^th anniversary DVD of the film will be released.

But I’m here to tell you about the amazing Broadway revival of the musical that is currently on tour throughout the country. Laurents directed this revival that opened on Broadway in 2009 and closed earlier this year with reworking of some of the lyrics and dialogue to include Spanish in scenes between the Puerto Rican Sharks.

This revival is only the second time the show has been revived on Broadway since it burst onto the stage in 1957. It is hard to believe because since it has become so popular in society, it seems as if every high school, community and regional theater has put on a production. I’m sure many have been good, but I’m telling you this is a stellar production, the kind that you must see if you’re a fan of musical theater and especially if you’re a fan of the show. To hear a full orchestra perform the music, matched with the reproduction of Robbins’ choreography by professional dancers, is not to be missed.

This production moves like lightening, not a dull or dragging moment in it. Every performance is outstanding, every moment is exciting. I’m gushing – please go see it. To see when it is coming to your city, visit www.broadwaywestsidestory.com. Until then, check out this performance from the 2009 Tony Awards of the Dance at the Gym. Mambo!

c. Lisa Jackson Rocks

Emotionally speaking, changing genders is a nightmare. The wreck it renders one’s psyche is one I’ll never fully comprehend. And unless you do-it-yourself, you never will either. Sure, the scars inherent may seem self-evident to sympaticos. But just because we’re becoming more cognizant of the Trans-Atlantic plight, that does mean those scars don’t still mar. Again, as a heteronormative “cissy,” luckily, I’ll never have to know it myself. My biology is just not that cruel. Speaking of, often lost in the tumult of transitioning is the physical toil it exerts on the body. It’s like that emo nightmare made manifest. A white Saxon trapped only in the cage of his own Protestant body, I don’t do pain too well. (Actually, my threshold for it is pretty much non-existent.) In other words, I could not suffer what Lisa Jackson does here so bravely.

Particularly, I’m referencing her twice-weekly electrolysis appointments. I knew not of that kind of hurt. Teetering on the brink of pubescence, I wanted nothing more than to shave as Daddy did every morning. Now, I loathe the very thought of it. A morning person I’m certainly not, so shaving has become an inconvenient chore — waking up a half-hour early to scrape a cold blade ‘cross a groggy face. But compared to Lisa, Logan never had it so good. After all the salve-cum-Saran Wrap prep work, the main course of treatment for unwanted hair is apparently one-fucking-follicle, one-at-a-time. Watching Lisa trench her fingernails into her other hand every time a stub is plucked, well, I felt like a pitshetsh for my kvetching. I’m sorry Ms. Jackson; I am for real!

Of course, that pain resides in her songs of experience — a distortion pedal cloaking her damage in din. And in a way, they’re songs of innocence, too. To become a woman – born a man borne of woman – is as close to becoming born-again as any evangelical could possibly hope. Born first in the Atlanta suburbs of Fayetteville, Georgia, The Bible Belt’s bile ‘n brimstone was hot enough for Jackson to march on to the free state of New York City. And just as Jayne County blossomed there in the early ‘70s, it’s here that Lisa Jackson’s own Renaissance flowers. Again, similar to County’s first stage work with speed-away Jackie Curtis, Jackson lands a day job as a theatre tech at Julliard. Lest we think she’s forgotten her way ‘round a power tool though, Lisa fabricates herself a box in seconds flat. It’s a metaphor and euphemism all in one, tight…um…package.

If her visits to the beard doc are hard to swallow, then her homecoming down South is perhaps harder for my heart to stomach. Despite having lived as woman for eleven years at this point, Lisa’s parents still refuse to address their baby boy as “Lisa.” (Out of respect for the departed, I won’t print what they call her — Lisa’s birth name, that is.) Her elder brother, once her fiercest companion, is now forcefully estranged. It’s low tide for Lisa, no doubt, but when she gets back to her adopted home, she seems infinitely better off. Famous friends like Saturday Night Live mimic Darrell Hammond and Academy Award nominee Rosie Perez seem to have her back, as well. Along with her backing band Girl Friday, Jackson snags a stand at Arlene’s Grocery, the Puerto Rican bodega gone Lower East Side venue, but it’s just not the right fit.

Thus far, I’ve been silent on Lisa’s music. Honestly, that’s because it’s not too terribly good. Ironically enough, hers is a dated and amateurish kind of cock rock. It’s loud and boisterous, but like so many cowardly bigots in the breeze, the professed bark is bereft of any real bite. Jackson’s capable enough of a good lyric here, a decent rhyme there, but unfortunately, those moments are few and far between. At times, I get the feeling that even she doesn’t believe it. Without ceremony, she soon fires everyone in the band and traipses off under her own name. She gets a few more unplugged solo gigs, and it’s Lisa Jackson – trans troubadour – that ultimately sings brightest. It’s still not life-changing poetry, but at least she’s finally being true to her place in NYC’s lyric firmament. And then, just like that, the sky falls out.

Seriously, that’s it. The film ends abruptly with a brief aftergraph about Lisa going back to school in hopes of becoming some kind of environmental hero. I’ll be honest; I did not see this one coming. What happens next? Is she still performing? Are she and her brother talking again? Has her beard finally be vanquished? None of the many questions this documentary posits gets a proper denouement. And yet, I kind of dig that about it. The transgendered path is never straight, and The Lisa Jackson Narrative was hardly a linear one. To be quite frank, at times, it was a mess. Nevertheless, I’ve never been one to let a silly thing like protocol stand in the way of a good story. To wit, for its idiomatic telling of a unique tale, I give this doc two thumbs way up the ass of closure. And while I’ve convinced myself she’s since gotten better, like a lot of Jackson’s music heard in the film, that notion is probably a tad overrated anyways.

But until then, I’m going to hide inside and stop complaining. I’ll go back out when it gets below 90 degrees. Okay I’m done. But one thing I will say about this weather is that it does remind me of one of my favorite U.S. cities, Miami. I realize that Miami is in a tropical region and its heat is certainly different from other heat patterns, but no matter. Anyway, I digress…..

As the gateway to Latin America, Miami is unique because of the history that has made it a thriving multicultural metropolis. I try to go down for a vacation during the winter every few years, for a respite from the winter.

But until I return, I’ll hide inside and watch my favorite movies that are set in Miami. Of course, I have episodes of The Golden Girls I can happily watch, as well. Some of my favorites include Some Like It Hot, Miami Vice (I loved the TV show as a kid, and thought Michael Mann’s 2006 adaptation was great too), The Birdcage, and parts of the amazing The Godfather Part II.

So just like a cold winter night, I’ll curl up on the couch and watch a favorite heat-inspired movie. The rest of you can play outside, I’m stayin’ cool.

In anticipation of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Liz Feuerbach takes a look at the series’ leading lady and feminist, Hermione Granger, and the supporting women of JK Rowling’s wizarding world. Beware of spoilers.

Last November, fresh off a screening of the latest Harry Potter movie, I finally caved and cracked open my sister’s worn copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. A mere five weeks later, I closed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series, and placed it on my nightstand. Thus another Harry Potter fanatic was born.

The final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, opens this weekend, and will undoubtedly rake in millions, if not billions, at the box office. With more than 450 million copies sold worldwide, and six billion dollars more made at the box office over the past decade, Harry Potter is the highest grossing film and book series of all time. The reach of the series is unprecedented. Everyone loves the story of “The Boy Who Lived.”

And what’s not to love? JK Rowling provides a fully realized fantastical world bursting with magical creatures, wicked wizards, hundreds (seriously) of well-developed supporting characters and perhaps the most loveable teen trio ever written. One third of that golden trio is Hermione Granger, and I can’t think of better role model for young readers.

Hermione is the brightest witch of her age, courageous (she is in Gryffindor, after all) and principled. She is deeply empathetic. She is studious and serious, although she allows herself to revel in the humor of others, namely Ron Weasley. She fears failure (but little else). In her younger years, she is labeled a know-it-all. I’d argue the others are simply intimidated by her intellect, and she is right not to dumb herself down for their benefit. All in all, I wish Hermione were a real person so we could exchange BFF charm necklaces and brunch it every Sunday.

Rowling wrote Hermione to eschew stereotypes. She doesn’t end up with the hero; she is never there to function as Harry’s love interest. She prefers Arithmancy to Divination in school. Hermione is also a total badass, despite her prim and proper reputation. When Hermione discovers that a nasty reporter who spread lies about herself and Harry is an unregistered animagus (a wizard or witch who can morph oneself into an animal), she traps the reporter in Beetle form in a jar and blackmails her. The next year, she tricks the totalitarian, ministry-planted Headmaster of Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge, into a trap in the Forbidden Forest to escape unjust punishment. So often, female characters are allowed to be aggressive or rebellious, but in exchange are stripped of any traditionally feminine qualities and instead are forced to pick up traditionally masculine traits. However, Hermione is never made to do that. Most notably, she is written to be highly logical AND emotionally expressive, a combination not commonly afforded to most of today’s leading ladies.

Best of all, Hermione is a true feminist. At first glance, Hermione appears to stick strictly to the rules. However, the truth is Hermione is constantly challenging the system and pushing others to consider the deep-seeded inequality faced by the non-privileged members of the wizarding world. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hermione comes up with the idea to start a clandestine student resistance movement called Dumbledore’s Army. In Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, when Hermione learns of the existence of enslaved house elves, not only does she call out her best friend for defending their enslavement, she establishes a student organization dedicated to demanding freedom and fair pay for house elves. The movement isn’t popular, but hey – Hermione isn’t here to make friends.

Hermione is surrounded by dozens of complex female characters that inhabit the Harry Potter universe. These women fill all sorts of roles: mothers (Molly Weasley, Narcissa Malfoy, Lily Potter), professors (McGonagall, Pomona Sprout, Sybill Trelawney), highly trained aurors (Tonks, Alice Longbottom), Dumbledore’s Army members (Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, the Patil twins, Lavender Brown), nurses (Madam Pomfrey), Triwizard champion (Fleur Delacour), and Quidditch players (Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, Cho Chang).

Still, the Harry Potter universe isn’t some progressive utopia for women. Patriarchal pureblood families have a monopoly on wealth and influence at the ministry. Within the corrupt ministry and Voldemort’s Death Eaters, women find themselves outranked and outnumbered. Even those women with power, such as Voldemort’s #1 groupie Bellatrix Lestrange or Dolores Umbridge, are forced to work within a power structure that values first and foremost the needs of men. The only woman on the “dark” side who ultimately holds any power is Narcissa Malfoy, and this is because she defies Voldemort and the Death Eaters. In the safe spaces of Harry Potter’s world, however, women fair far better. Women in the Order of the Phoenix makes decisions and spearhead dangerous assignments. Professors, particularly McGonagall, hold substantial influence over the education of students at Hogwarts. In fact, Lord Voldemort is defeated twice because he underestimates the power of a mother’s love for her child. Ultimately, Voldemort’s defeat rests on Harry’s shoulders, but it is the choices the women in his life make that enable him to do so.

After this summer, when the magic ends, we will be left to wonder just how long it’ll be before we get another series quite like Harry Potter. Even our beloved Pixar movies lack the quality female characters found in Harry Potter. The series, free of the princesses, underdeveloped love interests and shallow attempts at girl power that plague most of today’s blockbuster franchises, feels like a mug of Butterbeer on a cold winter day; a treat that must be savored. Will Harry Potters’ success be deemed a fluke, or a sign that moviegoers have finally fallen prey to the powerful spells cast by fantastic female characters?

Midnight in Paris is the prolific Woody Allen’s 41^st film, and simply one of the loveliest films he has made. It is funny, sweet and sentimental (in a good way), while still maintaining those punctuations that are hallmarks of a Woody Allen film, particularly in the writing. It deals with a past that existed, but shows how waxing nostalgic for such times and places may only be creations of a past reality that exist in our own minds.

It tells the story of Gil (Owen Wilson), a successful Hollywood screenwriter, who yearns to leave a more lasting impression with his writing in the form of a novel of literary importance. He is engaged to the vain, spoiled, bossy Inez (Rachel McAdams) who cares little for his desires; her and her conservative family just want Gil to keep bringing in the bucks.

But, Gil is bored with this life. Paris excites him and fills him with meaning in a way that causes him to act like, well, an overly romantic American fool visiting Paris in a movie. He dreams of the Paris of the 1920s, when literary and artistic luminaries from around the world gathered in cafes, salons and taverns to discuss the world and have a great time.

He is obsessed with the Paris of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast (and here’s your homework, read this book if you haven’t), a wonderful book about Hemingway’s life in Paris during this time, with all of the soon-to-be world-renowned legends that Hemingway kept as his company.

One night, on a tipsy stroll through the streets of Paris, Gil gets lost. He finds himself alone sitting on the steps off of an unknown street, when the clock strikes midnight and a car out of the past pulls up, with guests beckoning him to get in and join them. And suddenly, Gil is transformed to Hemingway’s Paris of the 20s, with his literary and artistic idols all around him, right on the brink of fame. They’re all there: Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dalí, Picasso, Fitzgerald and, of course, Hemingway.

From that night forward, Gil goes back to those same steps, awaiting his car every midnight. He meets the people he’s only dreamed about, conversing with them, enjoying life with them. He meets a woman who understands him and his work and he is entranced. The only problem is that she longs for a Paris of the past in her own imagination — turn-of-the-century — Paris, and cannot see the paradise that Gil sees as he travels back in time.

The culmination of this is simply one of Woody Allen’s most enjoyable movies in years. It brings together his wit and great skill for comedic writing, with his love for the movies and ability to take a city and make it really be alive on-screen. He did it for years in New York, did it recently in Barcelona with the excellent Vicky Cristina Barcelona and has done it masterfully with Paris in this film. For any Woody Allen fan this is a must see, and for anyone with a love of entertaining, smart film and great literature, Midnight in Paris needs to be your next movie-going experience.

I have a query for you.
So let’s say you love your 9-5 job (which I do), and you really like all the people you work with (like I do) — not a bad apple on the team — but you find at times that your job is making you stressed beyond words. How do you manage?

I often wonder what it was like in an office before email and computers. I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes the pace of it all surmounts to something that becomes beyond overwhelming. Say like, you take a vacation day or week and the whole time you know that you’ll be coming back to hundreds of unanswered emails all in need of a response. Can you catch up? Do you just shut down? Sometimes I find not taking time off is less stressful than a vacation. And sick time? God, forget it.

There are some great workplace movies out there, and the opening of the new film Horrible Bosses has made me think about them. Luckily, I haven’t had a boss or job that’s been horrible.

Here are some of my recommendations for great workplace movies:

• Working Girl: Dear God this is a great movie.
• The Devil Wears Prada: Emily…. Emily….
• Norma Rae: UNION
• Office Space: duh, of course
• His Girl Friday: Cant beat the banter of a 1940s newsroom
• The Apartment: Possibly Billy Wilder’s best film
• Sweet Smell of Success: Publicists, gossip columnists, the gritty underbelly of New York City – this is a great one
• 9 to 5: Simply hilarious
• The Company: Altman’s lovely film about a dance company
• Wall Street: Michael Douglas’ iconic Gordon Gekkko rules this film

Enjoy!

Which brings me to a project that has come to the attention of The New Gay, and I think it’s worth you knowing about. The project is a documentary film called I am the Water, You are the Sea. It is the story of Alex, an American Peace Corps volunteer, and Ali, an Iranian Muslim, who met and fell in love in Iran in 1977, just before the fall of the Shah and the beginning of the Iranian revolution. As danger erupted across the country, Alex had to leave, and left his love behind.

It is the hope of the filmmaker to take Alex to Iran and reunite him with Ali, but without proper funding, it won’t happen and the film won’t get made. Such an idea ties together so many of the important issues facing our world today – what it means when same sex couples from different countries fall in love and try to stay together, the oppression of the LGBT community in many nations to the point where their lives are in extreme danger, and the unrest and protests in the parts of the world, like Iran, that have lived under oppressive rule for decades, where people are standing up and are ready for a new day.

But more importantly, it is a simply a story of love between two people who were torn apart by circumstances beyond their control. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Pride month that to lend your support to this project.

Visit the project’s Kickstarter page here.

When I was 15 years old, I couldn’t wait to attend a local community theater production of The Boys in the Band. I was intrigued by the play’s dark and mysterious reputation, and had heard that it included a lot of homosexuality (funny how that word isn’t used much anymore). It sounded like exactly what this budding young queer needed: some lessons about the yellow brick road ahead.

I didn’t like what I saw. The characters, a group of gay men celebrating a birthday, were mean and sad and angry with one another. And they were all presented like weird, exotic animals, bitching and crying for the lascivious thrill of a very shocked audience in Shreveport, Louisiana. I left the show feeling terribly disenchanted, fearing my life was destined to be drunken and pathetic.

It was the theatrical opposite of an It Gets Better video.

In the insightful and appropriately melancholy new documentary Making the Boys , the remarkable journey of the groundbreaking play and movie adaptation is discussed by playwright Mart Crowley and a host of gay cultural voices, old and new.

When The Boys in the Band opened off-Broadway in 1968, homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness. The play’s behind-the-scenes peek at gay men in their natural habitat was fascinating to audiences and greeted with enthusiasm from the gay community. Yes, they were maladjusted, self hating fags, but they were our maladjusted, self hating fags.

But in 1969, as the movie version was being filmed only blocks from the Stonewall bar, a riot occurred at the club in response to constant police harassment. The modern gay rights movement was born. Seemingly overnight, New York gays stood up for themselves and demanded some respect – from others and, more importantly, themselves. By the time the film version of The Boys in the Band opened in 1970, the story and its sad characters felt like a politically incorrect relic. We wanted nothing to do with these old, bitter friends anymore. They didn’t reflect our “pride.”

Opinions about the show vary wildly, as evidenced by the interviews in the documentary. Gay playwright Edward Albee (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?”) always hated the show and still does. The surviving actors (the theatrical cast all recreated their roles for the film) staunchly defend the humanity of their characters. And younger gays interviewed about the show have no idea what the hell we’re talking about. “I don’t really know about any boys in the band,” states perplexed fashion star Christian Siriano. “Honey, I’ve got dresses to make!”

The Boys in the Band has become a litmus test for how you view our ability to love ourselves. And those boys continue to reverberate and reflect our attitudes and tribulations as gay men, and that includes the AIDS crisis.

Watching the film today, I’m struck with an odd compulsion. I see these characters laughing and bitching, and I want to reach through the screen and shake them and warn them, to tell them about something coming, something too awful to describe, of a plague they can’t possibly comprehend that is coming to kill them all.

Indeed, at one point in Making the Boys, we are shown photos of the actors, of the men who played these iconic characters we loved and then hated and then, finally, simply accepted. And listed under each of the actors’ names is the year he died of AIDS. 1984. 1985. 1988. On and on it goes, through what appears to be a majority of the cast.

The moment brings about such emotional confusion, of regret and interrupted affections. It’s like hearing of a death of a long lost friend with whom you had a troubled relationship.

Our boys continue to live on through the film, performing their roles on that screen exactly the same way, defiant in their stereotypes, no matter how many times we revisit the movie.

What has changed, for better and for worse, is us

I love Sondheim, the man is tops in my musical theater book. No one writes lyrics like Sondheim and Company is one of his best. It won six Tony awards in 1970, including Best New Musical (it also won Best Revival of a Musical in 2006).

More than telling a linear story, the musical focuses on the character of Bobby on and around his 35^th birthday and his various married friends and the women he dates. It is mostly told through vignettes with the various characters as Bobby slowly comes to the realization that being an avowed bachelor may not be the life for him. It contains two of Sondheim’s most beloved songs, the knockouts The Ladies Who Lunch and Being Alive, and the hilarious Getting Married Today.

Stage icon Elaine Stritch has owned The Ladies Who Lunch since she originated the role of Joann. If you want to watch a great video, look up Elaine Stritch in studio recording the song, it’s crazy amazing.

Company is a musical for adults about adults, it’s about relationships and their complications, what it means to be with someone, what it means to be in love and what it means to be alone. It doesn’t paint the happy-go-lucky portrait of love that most musicals do, instead it shows the areas of grey that are the reality of life and relationships.

The Company on screen now stays true to the original, set in the late 60s/early 70s, and stars Neil Patrick Harris, Jon Cryer, Stephen Colbert, Patti LuPone and Christina Hendricks. LuPone and Hendricks shine the most in this lively concert version of the show.

While this version is certainly worth your time, even more, I recommend getting your hands on the PBS Great Performances taping of the 2006 Broadway revival. This is the Company you should see. It sets the show on a bare stage with the actors dressed in all black, in a timeless setting, and the orchestra being the actors themselves. It brings forth all of the underlying tones of the show by keeping it simple, stripped-down and intimate, while firmly grounding it in a place that does not seem dated, which the show (and the version at the movie theater now) often can slightly feel like.

But no matter if you rent this version or go see it at the movies now, see Company, and if you can get to a live production of it, don’t miss it.

Two of my favorite things in the summer:

1. A book on the beach on a sunny day.

2. A movie at home on a rainy day.

So here are my recommendations for each:

Books

1. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf – because Ms. Woolf had the ultimate in family vacations before you did.

2. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami – because it’s my current summer read of choice.

3. People Like Us by Dominick Dunne – because you need some high-quality trash in  your summer.

4. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin - because you’re gay and you should.

5. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – because there’s nothing like the beach and the crash of the waves for some peaceful contemplation.

Movies

1. The Color Purple directed by Steven Spielberg – because you need to be uplifted on a rainy day and because you already miss Oprah.

2. Bring It On directed by Peyton Reed – because of Big Red and Sparky Polastri.

3. Suddenly Last Summer directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz­ – because you need a classic.

4. Peyton Place directed by Mark Robson - because you need a trashy classic.

5. Breaking Away directed by Peter Yates - because even though you’re not a Hoosier like me, you love a good underdog story.

What are you reading and watching this summer?

This post submitted by James Davalos, TNG contributor

The synergy of fine art and fashion is making its way downtown with different romantic twist.  The IFC Center and the Paris Theatre have debuted a documentary entitled L’Amour Fou about the fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent and his longtime partner, Pierre Bergé.  The film documents the couple’s love both for each other and for beautiful things – namely a museum quality collection of art which includes works from Picassos and Matisses as well ancient Egyptian and Chinese sculptures.  Pierr’s momentous action of these works after YSL’s death marks the end of an opulent era which in a way that is both emotional and on some levels, sensible.  We venture to guess that many who have seen their own life changing relationships come to end will likely relate.

Venue: IFC Center

Location: 323 6^th Avenue at West 3^rd Street

Subway: A, B, C, D, E, F or M to West 4th Street/Washington Square

Tickets: http://www.ifccenter.com/films/lamour-fou/

Venue: City Cinemas Paris Theatre

Location: 4 West 58th Street

Subway: N, Q, or R to 5 Av/59 St

Tickets: http://www.fandango.com/citycinemasparistheatre_aaefm/theaterpage

Trailer: http://youtu.be/g65Qyau1078

The cast of Bridesmaids

What happens when you mix raunch comedy with a chick-flick? Bridesmaids.

The new Judd Apatow-produced, Kristen Wiig-starring (and co-written) film, Bridesmaids, is, however, due much more respect than the simple high-concept Hollywood idea of mashing up two successful genres. It is in fact, a hilarious, well-written, genuinely acted, sometimes sweet, great time at the movies.

Above all else, the most important thing that a movie can do for an audience is deliver. And when I say deliver, I mean to treat its audience with respect through all those components that makes a good movie, like acting, direction, production value, and so on. Not every movie needs to be some sweeping epic like Out of Africa to be a great, nor does it have to be a thought-provoking, contemplative art house film either. When I judge a film, I do so on its own merits, and not against others, and dare I say, that Bridesmaids is pretty damn close to a great movie.

Fine, you may not find vomit and diarrhea be funny. In fact, you may even find it to be childish and uncreative. But try this: using it as a comedic centerpiece to reveal about our heroine that she will not back down in the face of certain humiliation, that she’ll hold her head high in the face of an adversary, and prove to all ends to be the most loyal of friends, while all at the same time plainly exposing her deep insecurities. My friends, that’s a well-written and played poop-and-puke scene. And just try not to laugh.

Kristin Wiig plays Annie, the recently down-on-her-luck pastry chef, whose bakery has recently gone belly-up and who just desperately continues to hook-up with the same hot asshole guy to make herself feel better, while only feeling worse by his rejection. Maya Rudolph plays her life-long best friend Lillian, who has just recently gotten engaged and asks Annie to be her maid of honor. The pressure of being in the position mixed with her life going down the tubes has Annie in over her head, and when she meets the other bridesmaids (Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper), including her soon-to-be nemesis, the perfect Helen (Rose Byrne), all hell breaks loose.

All of these women deliver their laugh-out-lines to perfection, with the most scene-stealing moments belonging to the film’s breakout star, Melissa McCarthy as Megan. But the real credit needs to go to Kristin Wiig, who along co-writer Annie Mumolo (who makes a very funny cameo in a scene on an airplane), has written a great comedy, and has the chops to act it out too. This is one to see in a packed theater. The laughs will have you leaving with a smile on your face.

c. Wikimedia Commons

I make a point of not watching Westerns sober. The genre just makes more sense with a thin warm film of alcohol – watching people, by and large bastards, flaunt their pettiness, by and large itself drunken, calls for something that makes bile flow a little more easily and a clenched jaw hurt a little less. It’s like going to gay bars in DC, in that way, but in Westerns the men tend to be healthier-looking and the antagonism more honest.

This by way of saying: if you watch Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter on anything less than four shots and a beer, you’re missing a lot of depth. A bleary, swimming austerity sets off the cinematography, acting, and narrative, the kind best appreciated with a fair dose of phenomenological lubricant. The setting has a lot to do with it. Drifter is set against the kind of stark geology that makes the moral landscape that much more vertiginous:  a few hundred feet of pine planks between a lake and mountains, a dirt road, not much else. The town itself a smattering of shops, houses, a church, a hotel: all credibly simple enough to spare the set design crew undue heartbreak when, in the course of the story, the buildings are variously disassembled, repainted, dynamited, or torched.

Mono Lake, setting. Someday we'll be able to afford movie stills with actual buildings in them. c. Wikimedia Commons

The titular Stranger – Clint Eastwood young and overgrown and good-looking  in a way that seems profane to lust after, like thinking King David was hot in Sunday School but not being able to say anything about it – opens the movie by riding into town to the strain of harsh, otherworldly synth chords and ambles down Main Street looking for a drink and a shave. He is met, as is wont to happen at the beginning of a Western, by the hateful, fearful stares of pretty much everyone in town, relentlessly, reflexively, parochially jealous of his hard, cold Sartrean gaze that makes bad faith rise in the craw like a Whole Foods fruit salad after a glass of good whiskey.  The only thing I can compare it to is walking down 17^th street after writing unkind things about gay yuppies.

A group of asshole gunmen welcome the Stranger with the kind of literal, unimaginative threats that underschooled provincials always make (seriously, every time I get a fist in my face back home in a Missouri it’s always backed by some tired riff on “You better watch yer mouth, prettyboy“ – have these people no sense of the wounding power of figurative speech? Don’t tell me it’s something in the groundwater of my home state, because Twain was fucking great at it.) They interrupt him in a barbershop, lather occluding his face bathetically, in a scene that can only end in a triple homicide. Eastwood looks so fucking cool here, shooting down goons from a barber’s chair, exactly because he’s so vulnerable – he could have put himself in a duster and stubble and perfect sunlight every scene, like my hipster friends who scrub their facebook profiles of Iphone photos not taken at just the right angle, but the Stranger is so powerfully self-possessed that he can afford to look silly. Later in the movie he holds counsel with an armed city Sheriff and survives another pistol barrage while smoking naked in a bathtub. The few times I’ve tried even just to Manroulette from a bathtub have ended in a slow-burn embarrassment and performance anxiety issues. The Stranger would not have that problem.

The first thing to really catch me off guard in the plot is when the Stranger, suddenly accosted by a young woman positively glistening with small-town underfuckedness, negotiates an abrupt, retaliatory lovemaking session.  Well, he rapes her, is the way most of you would put it, I guess. In a fit of hysterics, on a pile of hay in a horse stable, with a grim slogging that seems altogether more therapeutic than prurient, the Stranger unzips and empties his six-shooter into the pale, yielding Freudianly-knotted desert flower whose histrionics knocked a perfectly good cigarillo out of his mouth just moments before. The thing wasn’t solicited flat-out, with sealed paperwork from the Lago Municipal Fornication Department, no – but in some weird, elliptical, probably inaccessibly heterosexual way, it seemed like a good, rough, democratically reciprocal fuck by the end of it. At any rate the scene really turned me on -coursing loins and swimming head and everything, not an uncomplicated response to have as a gay man and a leftist, but there you are. Rugged, salty, agrarian sexuality always brings Whitman to mind for me, and the kind of egalitarian grace the right kind of eroticism can bring – like Jesus healing the blind, if blindness were a desperately fraying middle-class sham of sexual propriety, and Jesus were a steely-eyed cowboy sex demon who could somehow detect consent even when it wasn’t spoken outright. Maybe I’m way off-base here, but god please don’t dump on the comments section until you’ve (TRIGGER WARNING) seen it.

The Stranger has sex at least twice in the movie – the first roll in the hay with blonde libidinal landmine Callie Travers, a second more conventionally  bedded episode with an older, wiser, brunette-er Sarah Belding – with a warm, friendly, noncommital kind of intimacy likely to resonate with gay men.  Makes you think hard about the rough-and-tumble libertinism of the Old West, the men and women fucking vigorously out at the edge of 19^th century civilization, pioneering a way of relating to their bodies even we queer cityfolk have to tip our hats to.

But it’s not the sex I liked most about High Plains Drifter; it’s the politics and the morality, or more specifically the way those things are spun together in the way Westerns are good at, and leftist politics today aren’t. The migrants, the freaks, the natives, the menial service economy folks- the people who have put up with the constant, grinding stupidity and self-importance of the professional class in Lago – are vindicated by the Stranger who, empowered by a certain Faustian bargain with the town’s propertied men, is given a “free hand” in all matters commercial, social, and political. The sheriff and mayor get a little too high on the petit-bourgeois horse, and before you know it Mordecai the manual-laboring midget is given both offices. No sooner does the General Store owner derogate a family of stolid Apaches than the Indian children are walking out of the place with big jars of free candy. The Stranger effects a wonderfully medieval kind of Feast of Fools, where the last are made first and the first are made to paint their whole community with red paint under the command of a gleeful four-foot Lord of Misrule.

Vengeance, the good old-fashioned kind, before Christianity made it all weird and anorexic. c. Wikimedia Commons

The rest of the plot is worth seeing the movie for, and I don’t want to give much more away – sufficed to say the thing ends burnt-out, apocalyptic, and righteous, everyone getting their due in the terms of the hardy frontier deontology that makes so many Westerns so good. The little fools get scared, with luck into something close to courage and autonomy, and the big ones get killed – Nice! Inauthenticity is punished as strictly and spectacularly as formal crime – Better! All violently – Great!

Good, full-throated, animal, Old Testament kinds of violence that doesn’t apologize for itself, is what this movie has. Not in a weird, fetishistic, Italian way, but one that takes seriously how our bodies and their pain are bound up with our ideas about justice. Marshal Duncan (whose role you’re just going to have to watch the thing to appreciate – sorry ,deadlines and word count limits mean as much as synoptical discretion at this point) is bull-whipped to death under the complicit eyes of the respectable townspeople who arranged for his death in a series of dark flashbacks that call to mind all the crass bloodlust of a gay bashing. The crime swelters to heaven, deforming things around it in ripples like hot desert air, and the only thing that can cool it is blood, the kind that is drawn in artful, careful, poetic ways.

The Stranger is an old-school pre-Christian Fury, the kind for whom the polite middle-class hypocrisy of “turning the other cheek” is one more way to show the high and mighty how mean and stupid they are. He’s out for blood, but not in a white-hot ascetic John Brown sort of way. He drinks and smokes and fucks his way through the hour and forty-five minutes, having his grim fun with the stinking magnetism of embodied life – a freewheeling, squinting Western djinn maybe, but no wild-eyed Angel of Death. Even in his preternaturalism the Stranger teaches us mortals something important about violence: it doesn’t have to be holy to be justice, and we’re better off resting content to break bodies, to whip and hack and shoot at burn the chance-fired clay of humanity, than to try to break spirits too. The worrisome ones are the ones like Robespierre and bin Laden, the warrior-priests who think they’re spilling something more precious or lasting than blood.

To be humbler, more local about our violence : one lesson you’re likely to pick up on after a fifth unmetered shot on a Sunday night. Another one: to think a little bit harder about this dignity stuff. One of the deep, resonant messages of High Plains Drifter and the genre generally: that free people ought to carry themselves a certain way, ought to show a kind of poise and reserve not because they’re holding back or pulling off some heroically masculine feat of self-repression, but because they are living authentically. I’m telling y’all: we can’t afford to forfeit things like “integrity” and “grit” to the political right – not for cynical culture war reasons, but because those fuckers don’t know the first thing about character. They know how to dress up and play cowboy to get crass, mean, stupid people to vote for them, but at brass tacks they’re  shitty human beings, existential weaklings happy to pettily tyrannize a small business or a family or a congregation but cowardly in the face of real responsibility, terrified by the prospect of what happens when people get together and decide that they’re really going to take their lives into their own hands – which is, of course, socialism.

Come to think of it: anyone in DC up for a regular whiskey-‘n-Western night? The cosmos and catfights of the bar circuit just don’t glitter like they used to. I’ll give a special favor to anyone who brings a bale of hay.

Uncle Boonmee film poster

Last month, I wrote a review of Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s beautiful 2004 film Tropical Malady. I recently had the opportunity to see his latest film, the winner of last year’s prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. It is another strange and hauntingly triumphant work from this unique director.

Weerasethakul, who has adopted the nickname Joe, creates films that share much with the magical realism genre of fiction in which dream-like situations co-mingle with the seemingly normal. Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is the granddaddy of the genre and “Joe’s” films are a cinematic descendent. They are at times bizarre, but always in a manner which never betrays his intention of creating a cinematic universe that allows the viewer to let his films wash over them completely, ensconcing them fully into his world. And once he grabs you, he doesn’t let go.

Uncle Boonmee requires a patient audience; one that requires the viewer to go with it. Its beauty lies in the simplistic tale it tells while intricately weaving in the dream-like apparitions and happenings that highlight the film from start to finish. It need not be confusing because we are dealing with a world that is not our own, no matter how much it may seem to be. Or more accurately, just as is done in myths, legends, and other forms of storytelling, we are given a fantasy-like story that speaks volumes about the world that we all walk in.

A non-human apparition in Uncle Boonmee

As Uncle Boonmee is approaching the end of his life, his sister-in-law and nephew return to his rural farm for a visit. Upon their visit all sort of strange happenings begin to occur: Boonmee’s dead wife appears to care for him, his dead son returns in a non-human form, just to begin with. To the characters though, none of this seems strange, and they interact with the dead and the increasingly out-of-the-ordinary as if all is not that unusual.

This film, like his others, speaks to a sense of connectedness between nature and humanity, and a universal view where the lines between life and death, and the past, present, and future, exist together. It’s just that in his films, we can see the connection, in our own lives it’s not so easy. And at the end, this is where the power lies in Uncle Boonmee. It’s reflection on this world that we all inhabit patiently makes for a more thought-provoking and inspiring movie-going experience than most other films could only dream to offer.

I think this is part of the reason we go to the movies: pure escapism and fantasy. I love film for its artistic merits and its place in the cultural and entertainment spectrum, but sometimes I just want to get away. We all have characters in favorite movies that we’d just live to slip into and live out the rest of our days. With that in mind, this week we’ve asked the staff:

“We’ve all daydreamed about being a character in a movie we’ve seen. If you could jump into the screen and live out your life as any character in a movie you’ve seen, who would it be and why?”

He's baaaaccckkk...

Last week I went on a brief rant about my love of the Scream movies and my anticipation of Scream 4, or as they write it, Scre4m. So this week, I would like to continue that rant this week, with a review of the film…

First, all cards on the table: this was going to have to be a disaster for me not to like this movie. Certainly I could have been terribly disappointed, but it’s not like this was going to be The Godfather III for me. All I asked for was for it to deliver with the wits, scares, and surprises of the first three. And I can report, yes, delivered!

It is the fifteenth anniversary of the Woodsboro murders of the first film, and Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has returned to her hometown on the last stop of her book tour. Sidney has written a bestselling self-help book about overcoming all of her horrific experiences. She certainly seems at peace too, as she is unfazed by all of the prank Ghostface masks put up all over town to mark the anniversary; just kids having fun she says.

Soon though, the masked killer makes his reappearance and starts slicing and dicing his or her way back through Sidney’s life.

Making reappearances are also Deputy – now Sheriff – Dewey Riley (David Arquette) and his wife, Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox). Having married since the last film, Dewey and Gale seem to be losing the spark in their lives, and a return to their Ghostface-battling ways is just the thing to bring them back together.

While in Woodsboro, Sidney stays with her Aunt Kate (Mary McDonnell) and cousin Jill (Emma Roberts), who reminds Sidney of herself as a teenager, creepy boyfriend and all. As monsters in most slasher films do, Ghostface has a particular taste for teenagers, and is soon going after Jill’s friends and classmates with a vengeance.

Listen, this is not Oscar material, and I’m not giving this film a pass simply because it is a slasher film sequel, it is legitimately another cleverly crafted installment in an entertaining franchise. It toes the line of its genres conventions, while continuing to scare us, make us laugh, and entertain. More than anything, it’s a breath of fresh air from all of the nasty Saw-esque torture porn films.

Once again, what you’ll get is a good time at the movies, a plot-twisting mystery (always part of the fun), and lots of great one-liners. Wes Craven has still got it, and what he gives is a jump-out-of-your-seat ride that will keep you laughing along the way.

Filmmaker & Hip-Hop performer Kalil Cohen, also known as Metahuman, c. Liz Acosta, Happyland Photography

Submission by Ofelia Del Corazon

Crossposted from http://mommyfiercest.com with permission.

LA-based hip-hop artist, Metahuman, is a master at blending old-school rap metaphors with radical queer politics. Known for his politically conscious, often risque lyrics at Southern California Pride festivals, he makes his living as a writer, film maker, educator and doing the college touring circuit, where he has become known as a one-stop shop  for queer and trans entertainment & education. We met six years ago after running in the same circles for years and never bumping into each other. At that time I knew him only as “Kalil Cohen:” Zinester, poet, community organizer, and amateur documentary filmmaker. I’ve had the privilege of watching this talented artist grow into new roles and I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to collaborate on many productions with him. One of his most fantastic qualities is his commitment to engage the community around him in all his projects and his willingness to mentor other emerging artists.

After spending years performing at open mikes at cafes and queer spaces all over California he began composing his own beats and collaborating with artists like DJ Nova Jade (who can often be heard singing back up vocals on many of Metahuman’s tracks) and Devin Tait. Last year he released the single “You Don’t Really Know Me” followed by an EP in March 2010.

c. Liz Acosta, Happyland Photography

After being frustrated, hurt, and often angry at the depictions of trans and gender variant folks at gay and lesbian film festival he founded the TG Film Fest: Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival, which brings world-class transgender films to audiences in southern California. His award-winning short film “Queerer Than Thou” (2008) has screened at LGBT film festivals around the world, including London, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Brussels, Jakarta, and Mumbai. His documentaries on gender have screened at academic conferences throughout the US and have been included in college curricula.

Here he shares a little bit with me about his history and current projects.

Mommy Fiercest (MF): How long have you been writing? When did you begin sharing your work with others as a performer?

Metahuman: I have been a writer since I was five years old and started my first journal. I used to write long illustrated stories as a child, which I continue to do as a filmmaker today. I began writing poetry in my teens, which later expanded to include song lyrics as well. It took me a long time to share my work with others; even as a child I refused to let anyone read my short stories. The first time I shared my work was with my first serious girlfriend. Her response inspired me to compile some poems together in a chapbook, which I then started reading at a few poetry events. I remember the first time I read my poetry out loud to an audience at Circle of Books, as awesome queer bookstore in West Hollywood. It was completely terrifying but a great place to start because the audience was very encouraging and warm. My first time performing hip hop was at a Trans/Giving show, before I became an organizer of the arts collective. It was even more terrifying than reading poetry, but it was also a great supportive crowd that encouraged me to develop my craft further as a performer.

MF: What has been your greatest challenge in moving from using traditional narrative to tell your stories to film?

Metahuman: Film making involves bringing together a lot of different artists who will create different parts of the final film including the lighting, sound, music, set design etc. Learning how to gather all the artists, communicate effectively with each other, and create a cohesive film with my collaborators has been the greatest challenge, but also the most exciting part of making films. It is exciting because when you are making independent films as a labor of love, the process is very intense and creates a small community out of the collaborators.

Metahuman performing at a Gender Justice LA Fundraiser, c. Liz Acosta, Happyland Photography

MF: Why did you choose to use film as a medium to share your stories with people?

Metahuman: I love film as a medium because of the ability to reach large and diverse audiences, and the strong impact films have on the viewer. For independent filmmakers there are incredible alternative structures in place that allow you to reach audiences without large marketing and advertising budgets. There are thousands of independent film festivals worldwide, which provide amazing opportunities for filmmakers to share their work. Online streaming is also a really effective way to get your films seen. Another reason I like to share my stories through film is that people will watch short films from many different genres, whereas people are often more genre-segregated with music. For instance, as a hip hop artist I have a certain audience that is interested in my music, but with films people are more open to watching all kinds, not only films from one genre.

How was the process of creating your first narrative film, “Queerer Than Thou”, different from creating your “So PoMo” music video?

Metahuman: On “Queerer Than Thou” I knew a lot less about the process of film making, which was more challenging technically, but also easier because of my naivete at how long and time-consuming the process would be. “Queerer Than Thou” came about through a collaboration with my frequent creative partner Nova Jade. Many people helped shape the film, which was co-written by the cast. This gave the whole project an ‘arts collective’ type feel which I really enjoyed, and which helped me to grow a lot as an artist. “So Pomo” is my first music video, which are often shot and cut very differently than other short films, so this is a new experience for me. “So Pomo” is also a collaboration, I wrote the lyrics while Devin Tait (of Devin Tait and the Traitors, formerly of Shitting Glitter) wrote the music. In addition, I am working mostly with a new production team who bring a lot of experience to the project. This is an amazing opportunity for me to learn from them and continue to grow as a filmmaker.

MF: What do you think the future of trans people in the media will look like?

Metahuman: We are living in very exciting times for transgender people in the media. Although there are still many negative depictions of us being created and seen all the time, we are also living in a time when positive, accurate, compassionate images of transgender people are starting to appear in the media as well. As far as transgender filmmakers, there are a lot of amazing artists telling compelling transgender stories whose work reaches wide audiences including Silas Howard, Gwen Haworth, Chris Vargas, and Andrea James. In addition there has also been a huge shift in how we are reported about in the news. The official Associated Press guidelines which most journalists follow now include using the pronouns that corresponds to a person’s gender identity, and the name a person uses rather than their birth name. This hard-won progress by the transgender community is truly significant for how we are regarded in society.

MF: What projects are you working on?

Metahuman: My main project is TG Film Fest: The Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival, which I founded in 2009. We have an annual film festival, and then screen selections from the festival throughout the year, primarily at colleges and universities, but also at community centers, high schools, and conferences. The festival screens short and feature length films from around the world. This has afforded me the opportunity to meet many talented filmmakers from around the world. We have rolling submissions for the festival, and people can find out how to submit at www.tgfilmfest.com

MF: When did you start organizing the TG Film Festival? Why is it important to have something like this?

Metahuman: I founded the TG Film Fest as a way to promote films by trans filmmakers. There are many amazing transgender and genderqueer filmmakers out there telling interesting stories, but whose work is not seen as widely as it should be. When my films began screening at LGBT film festival, I would often see short films with transphobic content (tired gags about ‘men in dresses’, accusations of our misogyny, and one-dimensional trans hookers or murder victims). This propelled me to create a transgender film festival, to help expand the way people view the lives of trans or genderqueer people. By hearing from so many unique voices, the audience is able to experience a wide breadth of creative trans stories in a single screening. This is important to me because although the mainstream media has been changing, it still is not telling most trans and genderqueer stories accurately. For meaningful change to occur in our society, it is important that we tell our stories, and that a large audience sees this work. With TG Film Fest we are filling a gap between how the mainstream media depicts us and the images we should be seeing on screen.

MF: When did you start rapping?  Who are your greatest influences?

Metahuman: I started rapping in my early 20s, when my poetry started morphing into hip hop lyrics. Although I grew up listening to hip hop, I wasn’t a huge fan until I discovered politically conscious hip hop artists in my teens. At that point I got really immersed in some of the more political content. Through hip hop I began my education about radical black history from some of my favorite artists including Dead Prez and Tupac. Dead Prez is by far my greatest influence because of the way they combine radical political ideology with amazing beats and hooks that keep you entertained and enlightened. I aspire to write songs as enjoyable yet deep as they do. Tupac had the same ability, but it’s more of a mixed bag with him because some of his songs are so heartfelt and transformative while others just aren’t my style. Currently I am also influenced by Feloni, an amazing rapper from Detroit, and the now-defunct Deep Dickollective who helped start the “Homo Hop” genre.

MF: What is the most challenging thing about being a multi media artist?

Metahuman: The most challenging thing for me is balancing my time between my different projects. I am really passionate about my music and filmmaking and running the film festival, but it can be hard to find time for relaxing or rejuvenating when I am all my time and energy into these projects.

MF: Who were your role models when you were coming into your queer identity? How have they influenced your work?

Metahuman: Kate Bornstein was a huge role model as I was coming out because she is genderqueer and trans and queer and outspoken and brilliant! She has influenced me because she is proof that you do not have to give in and conform in order to reach a wide audience or be respected as an artist. As a filmmaker, Silas Howard has been a huge inspiration. His 2001 feature By Hook or By Crook, is a brilliant story about two genderqueer people (Silas and Harry Dodge) made for very little money. It premiered at Sundance, found distribution, and was widely seen. That helped me know that it is possible for our stories to appeal to a wider audience, and that it can be made on a shoestring budget.

MF: Who would you love to work with?

Metahuman: I would love to collaborate with the rapper Feloni and my dream would be to have her produce my album! Making a film with Silas Howard would also be a dream come true. They are both so talented and it would be such a joy to work with them!

MF: Do you have an “It Gets Better Message” for all the folks that might be reading this and feeling bad right now?

Metahuman: I think the reason there are so many talented trans artists is because of the challenges we have had to face, and the ways we have had to grow in order to cope with the world. Although it sounds cheesy, adversity really will make you stronger in the long-run.

MF: Why is it important that we support our LGBTQ youth?

Metahuman: There have been incredible strides in the movement for LGBTQ rights, and many LGBTQ youth are able to be out, however many more continue to struggle. LGBTQ youth today are experiencing a level of harassment in schools that is totally unacceptable. At the same time, there are several successful models for how to create an open and accepting school climate, which can be implemented at any school, urban or rural, in any part of the country. It has been done in unexpected places, so I know that it can be done. Creating change for youth will cause a lasting shift in our culture that will help ensure that the human rights of LGBTQ people are upheld and affirmed in our society.

MF: Where do you find your inspiration?

Metahuman: This is somewhat related to my “It Gets Better Message” because I don’t know what my art would be about if it weren’t for the challenges I’ve faced. I am often inspired by negative situations I’ve experienced or things I’ve read about in the news. For instance, when I went to a protest and witnessed police brutality against demonstrators it inspired the song May Day in LA, while The Bling Ring is based on a news story involving five wealthy teens robbing celebrities of millions in clothes, jewelry, and cash. I often spoof these experiences or turn them into jokes in order to heal myself, or to build strength to resist these situations. Although this sounds really serious, the actual art that comes out of it is often lighthearted and funny. It is very powerful to combat negativity with humor. When I am performing for majority-straight audiences, or people who don’t identify with radical politics, humor helps opens people up to hearing about unfamiliar experiences or ways of thinking.

MF: You’re raising funds for your new project via kickstarter. Why do you think this is a project that people should open up their wallets for? It’s your music video. Why should people give you money to make your own music video.

Metahuman: We’ve already reached our goal but since Kickstarter is all or nothing (if you don’t meet your goal we don’t get any of the dollars pledged), we set our initial goal at the bare minimum we need to make this film.  However, the more money we raise the better it will look.  We already have the most important thing, which is the story, but extra funds will definitely have a significant impact on the success of this film, especially the increased costume budget! am raising money for the project from the community, because I think the message is one that we need to see. “So Pomo” is a response to the homophobic phrase “No Homo”, and the negativity that so many queer people face on a daily basis. ‘Pomo’ stands for Post-Modern, and Pomosexual is someone who identifies as beyond the labels gay, straight, or LGBT. Using camp, surrealism and fantasy, “So Pomo” celebrates queer desire and subverts the notion of fixed sexual and gender identities. I believe that this is an important message for queers to tell and to see, and therefore worth supporting as a community. Many people have to hear the phrase “No Homo” regularly, and “So Pomo” can serve to replace that negative experience with funny, sexy thoughts about PoMoSexuality and self-acceptance.

MF: Where can folks see your film festival and more of your work?

Metahuman: I have been touring for the last couple of years on and off and will be touring East Coast colleges in the fall. I love touring because you get to see each local queer/trans community and become a part of that world for a brief while. Usually I stay with who ever is organizing the show, so I get to plug in to the queer community in each town right away, which is really exciting. The film festival is currently traveling extensively in southern California, and we’d love to bring it to other places as well! Folks can find out tour dates for the film festival at www.tgfilmfest.com and contact us to schedule a screening. To hear “So Pomo” and purchase the Metahuman EP, go to www.metahumanmusic.com

It takes a lot of time to make music and films, so if you like what you hear, please buy a CD or check out http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1690619144/queer-music-video?ref=users to learn more about Metahumans latest project the “So PoMo” video or watch the 8 minute short “Queer Than Thou” here!

For me, each of the Scream films holds up, even the third installment‚ where many others have a problem. But, come on, Parker Posey is hilarious in it, and it is just as fun as the first two. The opening scene of the first installment with Drew Barrymore is iconic and stands alone as a great mini-film in itself.  I can’t wait to see what Wes Craven and the rest of his crew do with the series to bring it into 2011. Scream 4 is in theaters today. If you see it, let me know your thoughts.

It is not just Scream 4 that has me all excited these days in the realm of entertainment. While certainly not of the horror genre, there is a new television show also dealing with murder, AMC’s The Killing, and it is simply spectacular.

AMC is on a roll: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and now The Killing. It is a slow-burning, intelligent, patient tale of the murder of a teenage girl in Seattle. It carefully follows the investigation of the crime by focusing on the police and the suspects with each episode covering about a day. We see the pain caused to the family, the fear of the dead girl’s friends, and the anguish of the lead investigator. This is a much more nuanced crime show than most, and it is spellbinding.

So this weekend, after you go see Scream 4, spend your Sunday night taking in the engrossing The Killing.

Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce

Last Sunday, HBO premiered the first two installments of its five part miniseries, Mildred Pierce, to great interest both for its revisitation of a classic Hollywood film of the same name, and for its lead actress Kate Winslet, who seems to impress both critics and audiences more and more as her career continues forward. The next three installments will happen over these subsequent Sundays, and you can bet it won’t be long before the mini-series is out on DVD.

It is based on the 1941 novel Mildred Pierce by James Cain, whose books have also been turned into the classic film noirs The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. When his novel was turned into a film the first time in 1945, director Michael Curtiz made it following the conventions of the classic film noir, playing up the violent and darker aspects of the story. The movie is, of course, also famous for its Academy Award-winning performance by Joan Crawford, proving that she was much more than the queen of camp. If you’ve never seen it, its one of the great film noirs, with the interesting spin of both the antagonist and protagonist being female.

Flash forward to 2011, and the team of director Todd Haynes and producer Christine Vachon (both important figures in the history of queer filmmaking and in filmmaking period) have brought a more faithful adaptation of Cain’s novel to the the small screen. This mini-series focuses more closely in on Mildred Pierce’s struggles as a woman trying to stay afloat and keep her pride during the Depression, especially against a nasty little daughter.

This is a much more contemplative and quiet film than the 1945 version, with Kate Winslet giving another nuanced and impressive performance. As a fan of the original, it’s great to see a new version that tells the story in such a different manner and not simply miming what originally made it famous. If you have HBO this is one not to miss.

Elizabeth Taylor at the American Film Festival of Deauville (Normandy, France) in September 1985, by Roland Godefroy.

This week, we lost one of the great classic Hollywood actresses and a constant champion of HIV/AIDS advocacy, Elizabeth Taylor. Battling health problems for many years, she died on Wednesday of congestive heart failure. Her life was filled with ups-and-downs, controversies, and of course, all of those husbands. In so many ways, she was the perfect Hollywood starlet- a vision on screen, a strong actress, a great beauty who became a brand on her own, and the fountain from which endless gossip fodder spewed into the tabloids.

Her storied film career began in the early 1940s and reached its pinnacle throughout the mid-50s through the 1960s. It was her move into adult roles that solidified her as a real actress with great performances in Giant (1956), Raintree County (1957), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).

Before these, start your Elizabeth Taylor film festival with A Place in the Sun (1949), which stands on my list as one of the great Hollywood classics. I think this is the film that really showed her acting chops, as she matched knockout performances by Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters. Also along the stop, spend a lazy Sunday afternoon watching the over-the-top spectacle that is Cleopatra. Clocking in at 192 minutes, this film became notorious for nearly bankrupting 20th Century Fox, Taylor’s near death from illness during the shoot, and her affair with Richard Burton. It is beautiful to look at, but it is worth a watch simply for the famed history of its production.

But if you must see one of her films above all others, rent Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), where Taylor plays the crazed, alcoholic Martha in the film adaptation of Edward Albee’s monumental play of the same name. She called this her proudest film. For this movie, she won her second Academy Award, the first being for BUtterfield 8 (1960), also worth a viewing. Shedding every bit of her starlet image, Taylor tears across the screen in a powerhouse, unforgettable performance, gnashing her teeth and spewing all manner of vile at her husband, played by Burton. This is a film not to be missed, one that stands up still as a monument to great writing and brilliant acting.

As great an icon of the silver screen she was, her work as an AIDS activist from an early point in the crisis in the 1980s perhaps will have the greatest and most lasting affects of any film work that she did in her life. As I was reading different reports on her death, I found a mention from one of her last interviews, with US Weekly. In it she recounts “25 Things” that people don’t know about her. Number 25 was “My family and people with HIV/AIDS are my life.”

She was a tireless fundraiser and advocate for those effected by HIV/AIDs, having been profoundly effected not only as a human being by what she was seeing around her, but also by the death of her friend Rock Hudson. Her outrage at the complacency and silence from the government and the public at large helped give birth to amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundations.

She stood out front courageously at a time when no one else was, and remained there her whole life.

Tropical Malady, courtesy of the Environmental Film Festival © Strand Releasing

As I’ve touched on before in this column, there are countless film festivals taking place all over the United States and throughout the world. In just about any major city and many of the smaller ones, as well, you can find a film festival that has the courage to show films that are often left out of the mainstream and likely wouldn’t be shown at your local multiplex. From festivals celebrating the art of film in total to those that seek to expose the creative work happening within niche categories based on demographic or interest, the recognition of the art and craft of film is alive and well.

This week in Washington opened one of these festivals. From March 15 – 27 runs the 19th Annual Environmental Film Festival, dedicated to “further the public’s understanding of environmental issues – and solutions – through the power of film and thought-provoking discussion with environmental experts and filmmakers.” Exhibiting over 150 films, attending the festival is a great way to not only learn about issues important to the world, but to also take in some great art and entertainment at the same time. There are films for every interest, including the LGBT community.

On March 26 at 7:30 pm at the AFI Silver Theatre, the Festival screens Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s hauntingly exquisite 2004 triumph Tropical Malady (Sud Pralad). As the first Thai film to be in main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, it won the Special Jury Prize in 2004.

Tropical Malady is a film split into two sections, telling seemingly different stories, with both seeking to provide a greater understanding of human interaction and our interplay with the world around us, seen and unseen. It is about loneliness and desire, and an attempt to contact on a deeper level with that which is beyond the confines of our own bodies. It strives to tell us that such connections take place between people on all levels, boundless of sexual and gender identity, and further penetrates through the idea that nature and our environment holds a deep sway over our relation to ourselves and others.

The first half of the film is the story of Keng, a soldier, and Tong, who lives in the rural city that Keng has been assigned. The connection between the two deepens into a romance of innocence and flirtation, deeper than merely a sexual attraction. What develops is not bounded by sexuality, but instead by the limitless nature of meaningful human interaction.

Tong exits into the night and the film shifts dramatically to a different story of a soldier, played by the same actor who portrays Keng who enters the jungle surrounding the rural village to find a young man gone missing. Interweaved into this storyline is the fable of a tiger shaman, and this shaman (portrayed by the same actor who plays Tong) begins to challenge the soldier in his struggle to find the villager as he gets lost deeper into himself and the jungle.

Tropical Malady is a challenging film that is patient in its storytelling and asks for a deep engagement and thoughtfulness from its audience. The connection between the two sections of the film may not seem apparent upon initial viewing and is often disorienting and confusing. But this disorientation is exactly the point, and what is accomplished is a thought-provoking, beautifully-filmed work that asks us to ponder our existence in this world and the one beyond, where the main character may not be us, but the world itself.

For more information on this film and the rest of the Environmental Film Festival, please visit www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org.

So what I want to know is when we’re going to get a gay epic. Brokeback Mountain? Great movie, not an epic. I think Angels in America is pretty close to an epic, it is without a doubt a beautiful representation of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, but what I mean is more of a straightforward Hollywood epic without the amount of theatricality of the HBO adaptation of that great play.

Now I know what you’re thinking, Spartacus, right? No, a pseudo-homosexual epic doesn’t count, even with the insertion of the famous bath scene.

I want a damn big, balls-out, over-the-top gay Hollywood epic. I feel like every gay movie I see is either a cutesy romantic comedy, a ridiculous attempt at comedic farce, or a poorly acted dip into a traditional movie genre. This is not to say that there isn’t truly original and creative filmmaking happening in gay cinema. In particular, there are many experimental films, shorts, and especially documentaries that I think are making a splash.

But let me tell you what I’m thinking. A few weeks back in the Friday Staff Survey, we were asked what time period in history we could go back to and experience. I said that I would love to go back to New York at the turn of the last century to see what gay New York was like. I know that there is an epic movie in there somewhere. Can’t you just see it now? The drag balls, the dandies, the hidden affairs, and the out and open luminaries– I’m telling you there is a great movie in there. Maybe I should write it and stop whining? Maybe… What gay epic would you love to see made?

Gypsy Rose Lee

In the opinion of many (including myself) in theatre circles, Gypsy is one of the great American musicals, if not the single greatest American musical. It is the story of how the famous burlesque star, Gypsy Rose Lee became one of the most famous women in the world. With music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents, the musical was based on Gypsy’s memoirs.

For the unfamiliar, Gypsy is the supporting character in the musical, going by her real name Louise for almost the entirety of the show. It is her mother, Rose, the stage mother to beat all stage mothers who is the lead character, and one of the most sought-after roles on the stage. And Rose is quite the character; she is demanding, brash, and borderline abusive to both the young Louise and her sister June as they tour the country as children of the Vaudeville stage.

There have been two film adaptations, neither very good in my opinion. The first was in 1962 starring Roasalind Russell and Natalie Wood and the second was made for television with Bette Midler in 1993. It was reported last month that Barbra Streisand is currently in negotiations to star in a new film version. I hope for the best, as Gypsy finally deserves a stellar film treatment.

Now that the story of Gypsy Rose Lee has been told from stage to screen, America’s most famous stripper has been given a new biographical treatment in Karen Abbott’s new book American Rose. Subtitled A Nation Laid Bare, The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee the book not only tells the story of Gypsy, but offers a fascinating look at the Depression-era America that allowed for such a star to rise.

Abbott’s last book was the rousing Sin in the Second City, about Chicago’s famous Everleigh Club in turn of the century Chicago. In that book, she deftly told the story of the country’s most famous and glamorous brothel and the Everleigh sisters who ran it. In that book, she was able to weave into the story the changing tide in American society, to not only explain why such a place was able to thrive in the first place, but also the forces that ultimately led to its downfall.

Similarly accomplished, American Rose drops its reader firmly into the time and places that allowed for a stripper to become a star.

Even more intriguing, however, is the relationship between Gypsy and her sister June and their mother Rose. Rose is far worse than the demanding mother in the musical, teetering somewhere between sociopath and psychopath in the book. And that’s on a good day.

The book is meticulously researched, and like Sin in the Second City, reads more like an engaging, page-turning piece of fiction than a work of history or biography. And this is Abbott’s greatest accomplishment. Her skill as a writer masks her mastery as a researcher, as every detail is meticulously documented. She also was able to gain access to June, not long before her death at age 97, and from those conversations are given even more fascinating details into the life of Gypsy and the family.

For any fan of the musical, or anyone interested in historical fiction, American Rose will keep you turning the pages faster than Gypsy pulled off her gloves.