Teetering Teens: From the Edge of the City (1998)
Couldn’t they have just sent us a postcard? Following in the footsteps of those overrated paeans to teenage male angst, Hate and Trainspotting (with a dash of My Own Private[…]
Category: Reviews
Ozon Meets Fassbinder: Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000)
A stylized look at one of the colder corners of gay petit bourgeois life Water Drops on Burning Rocks was Fassbinder’s first play, written at age 19. Shelved and apparently[…]
Documentaries · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
A Tired Bag of Tricks: Nick Broomfield’s Fetishes
Literal commodity fetishism in the far fringes of New York’s S&M scene In the mid-’70s, I spent some time in Los Angeles in the hetero s&m subculture. My best friend[…]
Experimental & Underground · Music & Musicals · Reviews
Anarchy in the UK: Derek Jarman’s Jubilee (1978) Revisited
Punks hail Britannia in their own peculiar way in this little-seen gem by the late queer auteur Jubilee (1978), Britain’s only decent punk film, still isn’t respected at home as[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Reviews
Truth and Consequences: Long Night’s Journey into Day (2000)
Post-apartheid South Africa’s rituals of admission and absolution Civilized societies, an oxymoronic phrase to some observers, choose to deal with the aftermath of large-scale violence in different ways. Sometimes there[…]
Asian · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
When Worlds Collide: Damien O’Donnell’s East Is East (1999)
Stereotypes and social critique spar in this culture-clash dramedy East Is East, based on Ayub Khan-Din’s play and directed by Damien O’Donnell, is a huge hit in England but has[…]
Asian · Music & Musicals · Reviews
Dis-Orientation: Japan from a Western Viewpoint: Topsy Turvy and The Mikado
If “Asian face” isn’t bad enough, how about names like Nanki-Poo and Yum Yum? Mike Leigh’s 1999 film Topsy-Turvy reenacts Gilbert and Sullivan’s staging of The Mikado, the 1885 comic[…]
Fall 2000’s Queer Films: From Paragraph 175 to Urbania
Gay werewolves, the Marquis De Sade, and a mean one-legged nun: The tortured queens and killer dykes of yesteryear make way for more rarified queer types this season. Queer and[…]
Historical & Epic · Reviews · SF & Fantasy · Writers & Critics
Robinson Crusoe and the Ethnic Sidekick
Who knew that Crusoe and Friday would be resurrected daily for service to western culture’s nefarious needs? While we are waiting for Dreamworks’ The Legend of Bagger Vance (starring Matt[…]
Documentaries · Music & Musicals · Reviews
The Sex Pistols Wallow in The Filth and the Fury
Rock’s aging bad boys finally give it up The 25-year hissy fit between Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols continues to rage in Julian Temple’s engaging documentary about everybody’s favorite[…]
“Do You Speak Christian?” Dubbing and the Manipulation of the Cinematic Experience
European dubbing gives Hong Kong subtitling a run for its money in the Utter Weirdness department, according to this insider report Among the true lovers of cinema these days, there[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals · Reviews
Fred and Ginger Smoke the Competition in Roberta
“Heaven rest us, I’m not asbestos” Roberta is one of the least known,1 and one of the very best, of the films that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers did together. It features some of[…]
Activist & Political · Reviews
Some Mother’s Son: Postcolonial, Postnational . . . Posthistorical?
A crash course in Anglo/Irish politics and America/Hollywood’s transformation of “the Troubles” for its own dubious purposes Part One The last decade has witnessed the emergence in Ireland of what[…]
Noir · Reviews · Uncategorized
High Gallows: Revisiting Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past
Jacques Tourneur’s riveting 1947 film noir, usually ranked as one of the best of the genre, was adapted from Daniel Mainwaring’s evocatively titled novel Build My Gallows High (published under the name Geoffrey[…]
Fritz Lang’s M on DVD
A textbook classic restored to perfection courtesy of Criterion The roots of noir go back to German Expressionism, and there’s no movie that’s more German, Expressionist, or noir than Fritz Lang’s masterful –[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Erin Brockovich: Easy on the Eyes, Brutal on the Brain
Julia Roberts has tits! It’s a well-known fact that Julia Roberts can turn the world on with her smile. When she puts her whole bod into it, the very heavens start to[…]
Experimental & Underground · Reviews
The Depths Described: Lawrence Brose’s De Profundis
Wilde’s infamous letter from prison becomes a springboard for a surreal queer experience De Profundis was the closest Oscar Wilde ever came to a queer apologia and defense, written as a[…]
LGBT & Queer · Reviews · Uncategorized
Second Chances: The Remake of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour
The 1960s brought back Hellman’s lesbian who vanished three decades earlier. But why does she die? “She found the lie with the ounce of truth.” – The Children’s Hour, film[…]
Carl Dreyer: Day of Wrath, Ordet, Gertrud on VHS
The later masterworks of one of cinema’s titans in fine VHS transfers Film has always been considered something of a mongrel art form, inherently populist and therefore of dubious aesthetic[…]
Actors & Personalities · Documentaries · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
Sex: The Annabel Chong Story: A Documentary
Liberated porn queen or psychological wreck? You be the judge. In a demimonde as duplicitous as the porn world, it shouldn’t be too surprising to find that some of its players[…]
Links + BSA
