The roots of artistry are often sought in autobiography, and for filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi, this seems an especially appropriate place to start. Mizoguchi, with Ozu and Kurosawa one of the three undisputed masters from[…]
As if radically rethinking the Hollywood cartoon weren’t enough, our boy Tex can also be thanked for inventing or perfecting Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and perhaps the greatest character in[…]
The ultimate in queenly revenge as an obese ugly duckling becomes a sleek, sophisticated homo The fairy tale about the ugly duckling who turns into a swan gets the gay[…]
Again Hollywood cheats on the issue of two men kissing – when are they going to get it right? In the past few years, two distinct trends have dominated gay[…]
Nobody suffers like Oharu The first time I went to see Mizoguchi’s The Life of Oharu, I asked a friend who was familiar with the film to come with me. Although[…]
Animation · Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
“Ooh, Batman, it hurts!” Cartoons have always been a rich repository of queer subtext. How else to explain all those too-close buddies and their serious lack of female companionship? (The[…]
Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
“Just as in real life, many of the characters in these works – fictional, real, or reconstructed – don’t fit a precise, undeviating profile.” There are encouraging signs in this[…]
Music & Musicals · Pre-Code · Reviews
“All Singing! All Dancing! All Color! All Racist!” Whoopee is a find, a treasure, a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Most of all it is a chunk of Flo[…]
Three of Kurosawa’s scathing critiques of Japanese society past and present – in beautiful new video transfers. Akira Kurosawa has been seen as one of the three components of a[…]
Experimental & Underground · Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
In James Broughton’s Hermes Bird, a seven-minute close-up of a penis in various stages of arousal, the filmmaker reads a line from one of his poems: “This is the secret[…]
A bittersweet look at the daily lives of the tranny whores of a legendary red-light district of 1960s Singapore – with free make-up tips! This sweet, sad sketch of a[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · LGBT & Queer
The master of Euro-erotica is starting to get his due in recent revivals The “golden age” of porn during the ’60s and ’70s was more fool’s gold than real for[…]
Asian · Books · Exploitation & Erotica · Horror
VideoHound’s Vampires on Video, by J. Gordon Melton (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997). Trade paper, $17.95, 335pp. ISBN 1-57859-002-7. Vampires continue to be an important fixture on the cultural landscape,[…]
Animation · Experimental & Underground · Reviews
Noodles up the nose, murdered dolls, toe-sucking fish – these are the hallmarks of Prague’s zaniest surrealist! Forget magic realism; this is magic surrealism, of the highest order. Czech filmmaker[…]
Thrill as the withered opera hags revisit their vital past! Scream as the mock-incestuous-lesbian sisters kiss and waltz! Shudder as hunky baritone Sergei Larin makes goo-goo eyes at a twink![…]
This sweet, sad queer ensemble piece from Britain surpasses its more pompous American counterparts. The bitchy, bittersweet gay ensemble movie of the pre-2000 era, e.g., The Boys in the Band or[…]
A bottle of “Black & Beautiful” hair dye gives Harrison Ford his ticket to the demimonde When I saw The Fugitive, I watched it with a particularly critical eye. Earlier,[…]
What is it about the sight of two men kissing that drives Americans insane? Frank Oz’s In and Out can be read on one level as an attempt to relocate[…]
“I refuse to fever in the lousy ballroom of Mongkok!” Hong Kong cinema is in clear disarray with the transfer to China, a star system in virtual collapse, talent dispersing[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Producers & Studios · Reviews
Can one man’s brain contain Written on the Wind, The Incredible Shrinking Man, LSD, I Hate You!, and Confessions of an Opium Eater? If the man is Albert Zugsmith it could.[…]
