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.[…]
The future’s no future, but that’s okay – your spaceship is almost ready! Science fiction is, inevitably, an American genre, its narratives – literary and cinematic – fueled by the[…]
Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
The world’s biggest lesbian and gay filmfest shows the pleasures and pitfalls of gay auteurs caught between assimilation and opposition. Watch out for the “Stepford” homosexual! Gay culture is at[…]
Noon isn’t the only thing that’s purple in this continental ode to Alain Delon’s crotch. Some “classics” earn that status from innovative mise en scene, others from memorable performances, still[…]
Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Queer activism circa 1978 showed a diverse optimistic community moving ever closer to unity — before the body blow of AIDS. Porn directors aren’t usually known for their political consciousness;[…]
In a cinema crowded with self-conscious transgressions, Kim offers the real article when she strips to show her straight boyfriend the thrilling secrets of the altered body. Transsexual imagery has typically[…]
The theme of the latest edition of the acclaimed PBS queer newsmagazine is the queer body and the queer body politic under assault. The body as battleground is the tacit[…]
Asian · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Hong Kong’s gender-benders are the stuff of legend; director Patrick Chan adds two key works to the canon in these 1996 bookend satires of fame, pop music, and forbidden kisses.[…]
“America consistently countered the growing concepts of black pride and power with a virtual army of self-sacrificing mammy figures (both male and female), pimps, whores, ‘great black hopes,’ and the[…]
“His Finzi-Continis, set in the years 1938 to 1943, is an autumnal work in two senses – the subject is the last golden flash of freedom before one of history’s major tragedies,[…]
“What is most disturbing about all of this is the straight, uninflected manner in which Walsh visualizes the story.” Writers on film rarely discuss the combat genre and, when they do, they[…]
“The Blade is the director’s paean to the muscular, exposed male body and a virtual catalog of ways to assault it – pummeling, whipping, biting, beating, and hacking . . .” Tsui Hark’s[…]
“Her mechanistic thinking precludes her from pursuing the noodle vendor in the usual ways; she can only see him after she has killed, and her sudden appearances and disappearances in[…]
African American · Historical & Epic · Reviews
“America consistently countered the growing concepts of black pride and power with a virtual army of self-sacrificing mammy figures (both male and female), pimps, whores, ‘great black hopes,’ and the[…]
Experimental & Underground · Reviews
After seeing this film that features everything from body and mind modifications to cryogenics to the fresh hell of cyberspace, you may want to go eat some dirt. At the[…]
Every religion needs a church, and camp followers have worshipped regularly at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre for two decades. John Lennon’s famous quote that the Beatles were more popular than[…]
