LGQBT

Homosexuals in Love . . . And Then Some (NewFest)

Brandon Judell — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 09:35:02 +0000

Homosexuals in Love . . . And Then Some (NewFest) Brandon Judell November 4, 2026 - 04:35

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Growing up, at bedtime, some of our parents read us “Rapunzel.” Others, with far more time on their hands, awed our youthful minds with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone along with its twenty sequels.

However, writer/director Gary Jaffe, while his Pampers were being changed, was apparently exposed to the carryings-on of the boys in Mart Crowley’s band. Certainly, Jaffe’s new film, Before I Do, makes it seem that way.

In both works, a group of externally happy homosexuals attend a party, scream with joy a lot, bitch, dance, eat, and play the Truth Game. Both also cast Robin de Jesús, the at-times effeminate queen (“like a butterfly in heat”) with a heart of gold, pursed lips, and a vocal range that seems at times stuck in fortissimo. (Mr. de Jesús, thrice nominated for a Tony Award, starred in both The Boys in the Band on Broadway and in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix adaptation.)

The film opens with a moping Alex (Michael Hsu Rosen) on a pier in the Berkshires. Wearing his heart on his sleeve, he’s getting ready to host a “bachelor/bachelorette” party for his soon-to-be-wed ex, John Michael (Cole Dosman), who will arrive shortly in a car packed with several of their college buddies.

But at that early moment, Alex is a bit in pain as he throws his unused wedding ring into the lake. You see, he was until recently situated in L.A., where he was going to marry an attractive, abusive alcoholic wall-puncher. John Michael, sick of hearing him cry on the phone, flew to the Coast and rescued him.

Cut to a shot of John Michael in his own apartment fingering his wedding ring in bed beside his apparently wonderful, bare-assed betrothed, David, who’s asleep on his stomach. (This is the fiancé’s lone screen appearance, probably not enough time to merit a SAG-AFTRA card.)

Please note that John Michael is a dedicated lawyer, and Alex had left him years earlier for an ornery music producer. You see, the vocally gifted Alex once dreamt of being a singer, and he yearned for excitement. A comely, sweet, stick-in-the-mud lawyer didn’t sate his needs. Yes, if there were an Excitement category at the Olympics, John Michael might be lucky to score a 2.

Moving on, the gang of five is soon reunited in the Berkshires.

The crew includes the endearing, lithely muscular, mustachioed gym bunny, Simon (Jared Reinfeldt), who, if he ever took a Valium, might be on many a chap’s wish list, and nearby there’s his much shorter sidekick, Luis (de Jesús), whom Simon wants to get screwed by.

Best of all there’s John Michael’s childhood friend Kit (the slyly charismatic Nico Greetham) who has decided to reveal his newly acquired bisexuality. “I like dick, too,” he shares to everyone’s surprise. Kit’s also the only one here who reads books, has adult thoughts, and is blessed with a moral compass.

If you like surprises, Before I Do might not be for you. If you’ve ever seen a rom-com or a rom-dram, you’ll know from the first five minutes here that the two leads will wind up copulating before the party’s over. Consequently, the “suspense” is all post-coital. Will John Michael ditch his David and reunite with the annoying moper who supplied him with so many lovely memories until he didn’t? Or, please God, let David, who’s probably still snoozing bare-assed to the wind on his Saatva mattress, remain the bride.

But what might satisfy many cinephiles, who are for some reason bypassing such brilliant new LGBTQI offerings as La Bola Negra, Elsinore, and Coward, is Jaffe’s heartfelt script and fine direction, plus the cast’s solid performances. It’s not easy to be in your thirties and convincingly act like a 12-year-old.

Additionally, there are those moments when the characters do fess up to wrestling with their queerness… resisting the erasure of their sexuality by both kin and the guardians at the gate.

Reinfeldt’s Simon says it best as he raises his glass and spouts his bachelor-party toast: “To being here, to being queer and never getting used to it. We wake up as weirdos, and I think that’s great. We’re born with this wild desire to fuck ourselves into genetic oblivion. . . . If Darwin is right, we shouldn’t exist, but we do! It’s like God says, ‘I don’t know. Make it up!’ So it’s kind of funny to get [together] like this, to be with people who understand what it’s like to be us,” he ends.

At this point, you might look around the theater at your fellow queer filmgoers and nod your head.

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A Cam Boy, A Pedophile, Plus God and Critical Raves

Brandon Judell — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 14:43:15 +0000

A Cam Boy, A Pedophile, Plus God and Critical Raves Brandon Judell October 24, 2026 - 10:43

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Today, Aaron Eagle, a Los Angeles camboy, is ready to rake in some cash after a demanding gym workout. Walking about his barren room, his hairy chest, mussed-up tresses, tattooed limbs, and musky armpits are all on display to seduce us, his online clientele, whom he addresses as “Faggots.”

After seating himself, he instructs us to inhale our poppers before he ascends so all we can now view is his lower chest and crotch.

Grabbing his member through some well-worn cotton while spouting some believably dominant hustler lingo, the cocksure Mr. Eagle sneers: “I know you fuckers want to see what’s under these fucken tighty whities.”

When his online tip jar fills up, we’ll see more, the master seductor promises with the skill of a backstreet Casanova.

However, after some more delicious put-downs, knowing we are groveling for further degradation, Master Eagle upends our expectations by apprising us that one of his fans is paying him $50,000 that very night for some face-to-crotch action.

(Jump cut)

Knock! Knock! The $50,000 john opens his door wearing a three-holed ski mask. Unperturbed, Eagle walks in and asks an inconsequential question but receives no reply.

“Not going to talk,” the john insists after handing over half the cash. The rest will be received in the morning.

Not a bad way to start up one of the year’s more unsettling films, one that Vanity Fair exclaimed was a “genuinely shocking queer drama” while Variety deemed it “a provocative chamber piece.”

Take two superb actors: the not-yet-thirty Kieron Moore (Vampire Academy; Boots) and the Broadway veteran Reed Birney (The Humans; Casa Valentina). Add rather superb direction and a harrowing screenplay by Elliot Tuttle, throw in a sprinkling of salt on some open wounds, stir the pot over a low heat, and just stand back a little as the components begin to boil.

In the living room, seated across from each other, the still sky-masked john starts questioning the hustler about his past. Just what transforms a lad into a camboy, and does he like his career choice?

Eagle: “There are thousands of people who just want me to sneak into their house and fuck them up.” He adores that adulation until . . . .

Blue Film is a seductive two-hander where two liars unmask each other both physically and emotionally, but what’s their connection?

Aaron isn’t Aaron, and the disguised john, Hank Grant, turns out to be his former middle-school English teacher who had been sentenced to seven years for inappropriate behavior with another of his students. Now released, Hank’s bagging in a grocery store and seeking spiritual guidance with a local priest when not ogling online his truly favorite student, the love of his life, camboy Aaron, whose real moniker is Alex McConnell.

Well, without his priest’s complete disapproval, Hank has flown to the West Coast to “chat” with the former teen who had constantly been assigned to detention under his watchful eye. Ah, the good old days!

“I was attracted to more than your physicality. . . . Every class was an act of self-flagellation. . . . I imagined us all being together all of these years. . . . I stopped drinking when I went back to the church. . . . I wonder if there is purity in perversion. If it makes me enlightened in some way?” Hank ponders.

“Why are you in love with me? . . . How often did you think of raping me? . . . My sex is not worthless,” Alex retorts to the perv’s utterances. Hank counters that he prefers being labeled a sodomite, which carries with it a rather pleasant historical context.

What starts out as a transaction and then drifts into an Edward Albee-style verbal battle ultimately becomes one of the great award-worthy character transformations in modern queer cinema. With the aid of a razor, Alex’s hirsute manhood is scraped away into an unnerving boyhood. A young man’s taunting eyes become innocent orbs ready to be preyed upon. Kieron Moore is unforgettable here, as is Blue Movie, a celluloid provocation that has been rejected by many a film festival no doubt for its dicey subject matter and explicitness.

More important, with the addition of home footage of tots running to and fro scattered throughout the film, Tuttle never allows the victimizer to become the victim. When Birney’s finely nuanced Hank intones: “I’m tempted to think of my perversity as spiritual, spiritual because I can’t comprehend any other reason why God would have created me this way,” you just might want to lock him up for another seven years. Make that eight.

(BLUE FILM is now available to rent/buy on digital platforms such as Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.)

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Counting Laughs Coming Out

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 01:18:00 +0000

Counting Laughs Coming Out Chet Kozlowski October 20, 2025 - 21:18

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Everett Blunck as Griffin in Griffin in Summer

Two new teen comedies with LGBTQ+ themes are available on digital platforms. They are both breezy, witty, and both feature a strong character actor as its anchor.

Griffin in Summer

Directed by Nicolas Colia

2024. Runtime 90 minutes

Fourteen-year-old Griffin is precocious, mature beyond his years, and testy with those who aren’t. We first meet him at his high school talent show where he introduces the play he’s written, a cross between Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff and American Beauty. He performs both parts in a domestic scene — “They weren’t miscarriages, Walter. They were abortions. They were abortions!!” — to the stunned silence of his middle school peers.

Griffin is home for the summer with his mom. Dad’s away and we learn that’s the basis for Griffin’s new play “Regrets of Autumn.” He’s disgruntled to be rehearsing with kids who would rather be at the beach, until he meets the new handyman, and falls in love. The guy’s a delinquent who uses Griffin to get at the family booze but has artistic aspirations of his own. Griffin casts him in the play and he utterly Brandoes the kids in the cast, to hilarious effect.

Everett Blunck as Griffin is a real find. He’s small and slight but uses that for great comic effect — imagine a medicated Pee Wee Herman — though much more debonair. Everett’s comic delivery and timing are sharp beyond his years. You’ll recognize Owen Teague, who plays Brad the handyman, from his work in Netflix’s Bloodline, HBO’s Task, as well as films like You Hurt My Feelings. The film’s secret weapon is Melanie Lynskey of TV’s Yellowjackets and Candy, and I suspect whose participation helped get the film made. She’s heartbreaking and endearing as Griffin’s unmoored mother Helen.

Griffin in Summer is conventionally structured and takes for granted its subtexts. It’s director Nicolas Colia’s first feature. He goes for simple setups, lets his stars shine, and has a great way with a reaction shot. His script is smart and funny and even poignant when it’s made clear the vitriol in Griffin’s plays is from tirades he’s heard at home.

She’s the He

Directed by Siobhan McCarthy

2025. Runtime 81 minutes

Compared to Griffin in Summer, She’s the He is pure chaos. And that’s the way writer/director Siobhan McCarthy likes it. Feather boas, attitudes and (gulp) tampons are flying. Lifelong pals Ethan and Alex pretend to be trans women to get into the girl’s locker. It’s all in fun and foolery until Ethan realizes he really is trans. Will their friendship survive or are new feelings awakened?

Nico Carney as Alex has a wide-eyed, scrappy charm; he’s a comedian whose standup has appeared on Netflix. Misha Osherovich is an engaging foil who as Ethan is conflicted about her own leanings; she’s been in The Goldfinch and the TV series The Girl in the Woods. Both actors are fun to watch and play off the complications of gender confusion in unexpected ways.

She’s the He is fun, conceived in disorder and awash in laughs. It’s pure punk, a glorious mess: smash cuts, truncated scenes, cringey situations, and rampant hand-drawn captions that burst in on the action. It’s coded to youth and the better for it, by and for Gen Z (you know, for kids…) and introduces an array of young talent, Malia Pyles, Tatiana Ringsby, and Emmett Preciado among them. Familiar character actor Suzanne Cryer of the Silicon Valley, Seinfeld, and Lucky Hank TV series gets to show her stuff as Ethan’s single mother, sexy and maternal at the same time.

Director Siobhan McCarthy is known for shorts and music videos. This is her first feature.

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Is The Binding one of the most Daring Israeli Gay Films Ever Made?

Brandon Judell — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 18:56:37 +0000

Is The Binding one of the most Daring Israeli Gay Films Ever Made? Brandon Judell March 5, 2025 - 13:56

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Yes, indeedy! At least that's what The Tel Aviv International LGBTQ+ Film Festival is swearing, and who are we to disagree? The Fest also notes with steadfast certainty that The Binding's director, Eyal Kantor, is "without a doubt the most prolific queer independent filmmaker in Israel at the moment" with six shorts and three features listed on IMDB alone.

The still active Eytan Fox, the Israeli director of such daring worldwide hits as Yossi (2012), Walk on Water (2006) and The Bubble (2007), might tut, tut, tut at that. The latter a Romeo-and-Romeo romance between an Israeli reservist assigned to a checkpoint and a closeted young Palestinian, might be considered even more triggering nowadays than upon its initial release. However, The Binding is also quite timely, way more graphic, and "electrically" perverse.

The film opens with its blindfolded hero, Binyamin (Yoav Keren), handcuffed to a wall while being body-slapped upon a scarlet-sheeted mattress. It takes a few seconds to realize this is a consensual S&M exchange. After some choking, a bit of on-screen penile manipulation, and tummy kissing, the top unlocks Binyamin and moves in for some Frenching, from which our hero immediately sways away.

Jump shot to Binyamin smoking at a kitchen table. Still nude, he watches a news report on the sighting of a shivering baby seal on an Israeli beach. The bearded top, still unclothed, strides over.

Top: Did you enjoy that?

Binyamin: Yeah, I think so. How about you?

Top: I was afraid I’d break your bones or something. I went easy on you. (Playfully punches Binyamin on the shoulder.) I can go harder next time.

Binyamin (smiling): It was totally fine.

The top then admits he’s new to the BDSM scene as he fondles and smooches with Binyamin. Then the slightly rough stuff begins once again.

(Please note both are wearing beaded jewelry, accessories that might not work so well in the States-side leather scene.)

At about 8 minutes, 30 seconds, into The Binding, we finally see Binyamin in clothing. He's working as a bartender at a bar owned by an Orthodox Israeli settler, Avinoam (Shimon Mimran), who teaches Bible classes to young men on the side.

The 49-year-old, eyeglassed, slightly stocky, yarmulked Avinoam at first appears to be the most delightful of bosses. Putting a God-centric spin on life, he seems to be protective of his young employee who’s out to be screwed by every gay man in Tel Aviv, especially those willing to hurt him a little. Binyamin, a proclaimed atheist, is even getting spanked in doorways.

But as Binyamin learns, some spankers might get carried away. Don't worry. Breathe easy, dear reader. The weaponized Avinoam, a settler who's served in the military, is always prepared for what might saunter around the corner: "If there's anything I've learned from my service, it's that a gun and a first aid kit are like pants. You can't leave your home without them."

But what’s really going on here? Is the Boss just friendly and caring or trying to bring his faithless employee back into the Sabbath mold? Maybe he's trying to bed Binyamin? Or is there a third goal that might be a lot more discomforting? Really discomforting!

You might also wonder at this point who's walking Binyamin's dog named Putin throughout all this, a mutt that elicits one of the finer lines of dialogue of the past year: "Roll over, Putin!"

Whatever you guess, The Binding will surprise you. Possibly even "electrify" you.

The screenplay delves into self-hatred, sex addiction, damning dads, animated camel accidents, nipple play, closet cases, and even a new method of conversion therapy that hopefully won't gain in popularity.

Yes, Binyamin's gay spirit is shown at times being hammered down by life forces, misshaped by the kosher prejudices he was born into, and drowning in the guilt he's thrust upon himself. That he's still orgasming several times daily might make him forget he’s cemented to a woeful soul. Then there's all the photos of himself narcissistically hanging on his living-room wall. Probably, we should no doubt call Binyamin up to remind him he's miserable.

Billed as a thriller, with its two highly committed leads and a finale that a very young Hitchcock might have appreciated, The Binding is a solid reminder that although LGBT rights in Israel "are considered the most developed in the Middle East," anti-LGBT incidents are still on a steep rise over there as there are in so many countries.

No matter, The Binding argues quite persuasively that queer love can still survive.

(The Binding is available on Amazon.com for both rental and DVD purchase and on AppleTV.)

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The Short-Lived Lives of TV Lesbians Plus "Juicy" Vegan Baking at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival

Brandon Judell — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 15:07:47 +0000

The Short-Lived Lives of TV Lesbians Plus "Juicy" Vegan Baking at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival Brandon Judell October 17, 2024 - 11:07

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Bulletproof Documentary

"How many LGBTQ Film Festivals are currently screening queer carryings-on on Planet Earth?" you ask. According to Wikipedia's listings, which I deem quite thorough yet incomplete, there are 179.

For example, the East Village Queer Film Festival is nowhere to be found on the list. That event should be nestled between South Africa's Durban Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and Japan's Ehime LGBT Film Festival.

Anyways, this here is an amazing development, especially for those of us who've grown up when the closest to queer representation was watching Paul Lynde center-spaced on Hollywood Squares.

Host Peter Marshall: "Paul, what is a good reason for pounding meat?"
Paul Lynde: "Loneliness."

Those were the days when we gays didn't really have a language to define ourselves. Now, we have too many choices to keep track of. "Heteroflexibility," for example, sounds more like a contortionist act than . . . . Well, you look it up.

All of this leads us to the 36^th edition of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival (September 11-22, 2024). With 97 films from 25 countries, you can bet that every LGBTQQIP2SAA conceivability is represented in many a tongue with many a tongue.

One of the more consequential offerings, one that should be scheduled in every college course dealing with gender, is Regan Latimer's endlessly droll, always astute work of media scholarship, Bulletproof: A Lesbian's Guide to Surviving the Plot. Beware, this doc comes with an on-screen warning: "The following contains scenes of graphic violence and coarse language. Viewer discretion is advised. Also, this film does not claim to be the definitive authority on every queer experience known to humanity. It's just a single, sparkly drop in a vast ocean of queer stories." But what a drop!

With seemingly hundreds of clips dating from the 1950s onward, Latimer maps boob-tube and celluloid lesbian invisibility, stereotyping, and murder all the way to the recent decades' life-affirming depictions. Yes, you'll travel back to your memories of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (1969-1978); Little House on the Prairie (1974-1983); Fried Green Tomatoes (1991); Bound (1996); Glee (2009-2015); and, of course, Orange is the New Black (2013-2019).

Indeed, there was a time, Blanche, when the majority of lesbianic love stories wedging their way into teleplays would all end on a tragic note. Just visualize sweetly saying goodbye to your "gal pal" and then, within seconds, watching her being fatally struck by a car with a smile still on her lips. Hundreds of other lesbian characters have been offed by Hollywood since.

But it took the blotting out of three popular lesbian TV characters in 2016 within just several months for Bulletproof to be born. "Hey, what the hell!" As one interviewee suggested here to the director: "They should get all the dead lesbians together and put them in one movie." Instead of a cemetery, call it a "Sapphotery."

Employing animation, a first-rate narration, plus tête-à-têtes with actors, showrunners, academics, and your everyday lesbian TV viewer, Latimer has created an at-times surprisingly laugh-out-loud exploration of the devastating effects that an insensitive depiction of minorities can have on how society treats the same. Best of all, she details how the current cure (e.g., Gentleman Jack) was achieved and must still be nurtured.

But with the ACLU now tracking 530 anti-LGBTQ bills in the States, this doc's hope is stated thusly: "You know, now we find ourselves in mainstream culture, but in real life, it's just pretty scary. What I hope is that straight people who are watching queer media will say, 'Oh, that is a shared human experience. I can appreciate that,' and then get to the point where 'Hey, this isn't, you know, a person who's so different than I am.'"

The Proof of the Pudding film still

On the other hand, writer/director Suçon's 16-minute short "The Proof Is in the Pudding" ("La Cerise sure le Gâteau") might convince the very same folks that queer femmes are quite a bit different at times.

Financed with aid from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (a group of San Franciscan activist-drag-nun-satirists), plus donations from dozens of others including Betty La Pisseuse and Lulu Moustache, "Pudding" is the perfect repast for those hungry for Sex on Wry.

The storyline is quite simple. Two friends are invited to a party. Their one chore is to bake a vegan birthday cake.

Now let’s meet the leads: Milly (Faye Darling) is a Brit dating someone named Arthur. Her pal Lise (Mia Nitrile) is French, delightfully tattooed, and quite hard to definitively label from the footage we’re supplied with. No matter. She, however, does "lesbian" quite well.

Puzzled by their assignment, the duo wonders just what goes into a vegan birthday cake. Immediately, they google and discover Simon Cusine (the glorious Théo), who has created a video for just such an occasion. You’ll need icing, sugar, coconut, and a bunch of dry ingredients, plus he insists, "JUICE."

Now the gals are ready to bake, especially because they have all they need for a tasty batter except for the "JUICE," which, for some reason, they assume means vaginal juices. Now, how do you get a cup or two of that specific liquid? Simple: you get horny, and the rivers will eventually flow.

But how do you get horny?

First, these determined lasses try individual masturbation, then paired masturbation, and finally, energetic smooching, oral sex, scissoring, and some thumping maneuvers. Clearly, nothing you’ve witnessed on The Great British Baking Show.

But it all works out. Yes, the cake is baked, the gals get clothed, and they go merrily on the way for a night of partying.

Having never personally experienced 14 minutes of continual fooling around and not being a voyeur, I found I had time midway to toast and butter an English muffin in the kitchen without losing the plotline.

Clearly, the talented, witty Suçon, who's an audacious member of the Parisian porn collective La Branlée, has created a sex-positive offering that will serve as a learning tool for lesbians-in-training, fodder for Julia Childs fans and as a refresher course for the already initiated.

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The Horrors of “Ganymede” Plus Queer Daisies & Lesbian-Attacking Grocery Bags

Brandon Judell — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 17:59:00 +0000

The Horrors of “Ganymede” Plus Queer Daisies & Lesbian-Attacking Grocery Bags Brandon Judell September 6, 2024 - 13:59

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If Roger Corman (e.g. Attack of the Fifty Foot Cheerleader (2012) had produced a film about the complexities of coming out or if Bruce La Bruce (e.g. Hustler White (1996)) had directed a seemingly straightforward narrative about homophobia in a small town, Ganymede might have been the result.

Yes, this often-heartfelt exploration of a young wrestler from an EXTREMELY religious household, one who's seeking his first same-sex kiss, is in the end a hoot and a half. Coming to that realization, though, might take you through two or three Twizzlers and a handful of popcorn. Indeed, all the vicissitudes of confronting one’s queerdom in a family that starts praying against Satan at breakfast over pancakes are achingly chronicled here with a touch of the horrific.

The opening: It's 1989 and an unknown gent with a heavy brick tied to each of his arms, jumps into a lake. Very Virginia Woolf.

Skip to the present day: an attractive, bare-chested high schooler, Lee Fletcher (Jordan Doww), is darting through town under a starry night as any athlete might. He, however, decides to also to jump into a lake where almost instantly he beholds a blurry vision. Underwater he silently screams.

That won’t be the last of his shrieks.

You see, Lee is the only son of the town’s county commissioner—a homophobic, head-thumping, Bible-verse-quoting zealot. The young man's high-strung mother who has a meltdown at the thought of an LGBTQI-soul breathing within 20 feet of her yard isn’t much more comforting. No wonder that as Lee falls into love and desire for an openly queer schoolmate, Kyle Culper (the seductive Pablo Castelblanco), he starts hallucinating that monsters are closing in on him and bathroom sinks are gurgling up blood.

Could it get worse? Of course. When Lee's caught nuzzling with Klye, Dad sends him to the local rabid pastor (David Korchner) who isn't much of a help. He's just rubbing salt into the lad’s already festering mental wounds.

Pastor: Lee, do you have feelings for that boy?

Lee: (Silence)

Pastor: I believe we are dealing with a Ganymede.

Lee: What is a Ganymede?

Pastor: A Ganymede is an unrepentant homosexual, usually a man or boy who is uncommonly beautiful, and they're so deeply entwined with demonic forces that their homosexuality begins to take over and attract others with uncontrollable same-sex urges . . . demonic disturbances.

Add a few electroshock treatments, a bit of midnight toilet-stall cruising, plus Kyle's inability to wear a shirt for more than five minutes at a time, and you have a feature that might resonate with you for days and days. It has for me.

What's odd here, though, is that if you edit out about 22 minutes of Ganymede, you could wind up with a highly persuasive ad for conversion therapy groups. Ah, but those 22 minutes make a whole world of difference. Instead of burning the RuPaul poster over your bed, co-directors Colby Holt and Sam Probst's highly entertaining Ganymede might just have you running out the door in search of a same-sex hand to hold whether you are queer or not.

Covering similar ground at this year's East Village Queer Film Festival, but without the monsters, was Nicholas Hansell's highly effective short, "Flowers." Here another winsome high-school youth, Josh (Rocco Roberts), a soccer player, is yearning to connect with an openly gay peer. How does we know the object of his desire, Eddie (Henry Leith), is openly queer? Well, he's reading a book daily while sitting with his back against a tree. That sort makes you wonder if any heterosexual has a library card.

With time ticking away—the film's only 20 minutes long—Josh has to go to a party and kiss a girl in a bathroom without causing himself or anyone else to barf. Why? He's trying to prove to his sports-mate (Blake Weise), a hunky homophobe, that he's not that way. Can true boy-on-boy love win the day before the end credits roll? Well, with the aid a whole lot of daisies, a happy ending blooms forth and a nice career ahead for the director, who's currently working on a feature, seems assured.

Hansell, formerly a location scout for several features, noted at the talkback after the screening that Brokeback Mountain was a major cinematic turning point in his young life. He didn't, however, reveal if he identified more with Ennnis Del Mar or Jack Twist.

Also screened that night was writer/director Nicolle Marquez's 5-minute "Thank You," possibly only the second eco-friendly, explicitly lesbian offering I’ve ever viewed.

The first was Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkles' documentary, Water Makes Me Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure (2019). Besides shining a light on how bottled water companies are destroying the environment and where California waste matter goes after being flushed, the directors of Wet, for our benefit no doubt, supplied highly detailed examples of how women can have sex in a lake without disturbing aquatic life.

Back to Marquez, who grew up in Puerto Rico and has her second Master's Degree In Gender studies.

In "Thank you," she avoids all mentions of H2O. Instead, she plays a gal awaiting in her apartment for her date, portrayed by the truly stunning lass Andrea Reyes, who arrives with wine and some other goodies in plastic bags.

IN PLASTIC BAGS? OH NO! HOW COULD SHE?

Marquez's distraught character runs into the bathroom, slams the door, and starts smoking. Meanwhile, Reyes' charmer, not sure of what just occurred, meanders into the bedroom, lies down, and feels up the coverlet without being aware that her plastic bags are coming to life. Before you can scan your organic plums at Whole Foods, both gals are suffocated to death, a fitting reminder that the world’s population utilizes 5 trillion plastic bags a year. That's a 160,000 a second, dental dams not included.

By the way, the audience laughed hysterically throughout these five minutes. I though hid in fear under my seat due to my severely underdiagnosed plastophobia.

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Ganymede is currently available on Cable and Digital VOD, including Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and Prime Video. Thank You can be sought out at numerous upcoming film festivals, including The New York Latino Film Festival; PrideFull Film Festival; and Reel Q: Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ Film Festival.)

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Portrait of the Artist as a Work of Art

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 18:45:14 +0000

Portrait of the Artist as a Work of Art Chet Kozlowski June 17, 2024 - 14:45

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Director Agniia Galdanova's new documentary Queendom profiles Jennadiy (Jenna) Marvin, who is young, queer, and suppressed in her native Russia. Films about drag have become a burgeoning genre, but in this case, the notion of "drag" isn't big enough. We need a new category. Jenna Marvin's work transcends drag into performance art.

Her staged public performances are meant to mock, shock, and provoke. She herself is impossibly tall and impossibly thin. Her costumes are intricate constructions, combining forms of nature, science, and pantomime. Elongated extremities. Arachnid movements. Hair a nuclear explosion. Jenna descends from ceilings, crawls from holes, glides down escalators, slithers through subway cars. "I'm an anomaly," she says, a strange visitor from another planet.

"When I go out in character, I'm on top of the world," she proclaims. One would expect, then, a certain joie de vivre. Through much of Queendom, however, her demeanor is dour, even despondent.

It might be because she's living with her grandparents. Grandpa wants her to spend less time on her costumes and more on her studies, and she freaks out when Jenna is expelled. Grandma just wants peace. She calls Jenna "my little oddball."

It might be that she lives in Magadan, a soulless, snowbound industrial port town that used to be surrounded by prisons.

It might be the disdain. “You’re in the boonies now,” says her companion. “You’re obviously going to be met with aggression.” Men smirk as she walks by in full regalia. Jenna is berated and abused, at one point punched in the mouth by a random passerby. A neighbor yells down as she walks past her apartment window. “You’re a man. Act like one.”

It might be the isolation. The film spends much time with Jenna by herself, and her loneliness is palpable.

It might be Russia itself. Even in this modern day, it is illegal to be queer there (one of the fascinating aspects of the film is how much license Jenna is afforded in daily and night life, and for how long).

It definitely is politics. The film’s action happens under the shadow of Putin's regime. As a companion tells him, “Aggression is on the rise here. We have fear and subservience in our DNA.” Jenna attends (towers over) demonstrations such as for the release of dissident Alexei Navalny, navigating past lines of police, her costume in stark contrast to riot gear.

Ms. Galdanova has said in interviews that the film is timed to Jenna's "public coming out." It's not an easy process. She's booted from a supermarket (the cops say because children are present), threatened, insulted, even assaulted. In Moscow, Jenna receives validation. Auditioning for a runway show, she elicits a gasp from the fashion designer Alexandr Rogov. "A real-life monster!" he exclaims, excited that she'll represent his brand.

Jenna's plight is meant to be disturbing. When Queendom turns to a protest against the war in Ukraine, it becomes more than that. Her costume is special, an expression of truth to power. Preparing, assistants wrap her near-naked body in lengths of industrial fence wire, a body-crown of thorns. Tines stab her. "Does it hurt?" the accomplice asks. "Just do it," Jenna snaps. At the rally, Jenna is arrested. The courts will decide her fate.

Agniia Galdanova has directed other features about escape: Out of Place (2017) and One Step Forward, One Step Back (2020), about a family's dream to live far from civilization in the Altai Mountains. Queendom was conceived as part of a docuseries on drag queens but became a freestanding feature. She shot for two years, off and on, intrigued that a location like Magadan, so remote and haunted by the "historical weight" of Stalin-era prisons, could produce such an artist. It's to Ms. Galdanova's credit that she had started filming Jenna Marvin before her self-exile.

Queendom can be viewed as a plea for LGBTQ+ rights and for the freedom of the artist. It exists as a snapshot of resilience in an era of uncertainty that comes with change. In the end, Jenna is emblematic. Her final “costume” will stun you.

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Queendom. Directed by Agniia Galdanova. From Greenwich Entertainment. 2023. In select theaters and on VOD. 98 minutes.

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Queer Love in a Fish-Processing Factory

Brandon Judell — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 21:39:50 +0000

Queer Love in a Fish-Processing Factory Brandon Judell March 23, 2024 - 17:39

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As the closing credits of Norwegian Dream roll up the screen, the singer Girl in Red lets loose in a gently loving voice:

“I’ll never get

Bored of lookin’ at you

‘Cause every time, I see something new

Like the scar on your spine

You fell off the roof when you were nine

You lived a life before me.”

If that doesn’t strum your romantic inner chords, there’s a postscript missive from the director exclaiming Norwegian Dream is “[d]edicated to those who fight for the right to love,” which seems vastly preferable to a similarly worded message connected to the Beastie Boys.

All of this portends that the white lead character, a highly attractive, 19-year-old closeted Pole named Robert (Hubert Milkjowski), will wind up having a satisfying, life-long relationship with Ivar (Karl Bekele Steinland), the black, adopted son of the white owner of the fish processing factory where everyone we meet basically works. Did I mention Ivar has an affinity for drag?

Now, I only mention skin color here because there appears to be at least an iota of racism and homophobia in Norway, according to this movie, and a whole lot of brutal anti-queer feelings back in Bialystock, Poland.

Well, documentarian Leiv Igor Devold begins his engrossing narrative feature debut with Robert in his hoodie on a boat headed for Oslo. The young man arrives successfully and is soon wheeling his baggage along barren roads to the fishworks, where he strips in the locker room with his fellow workers. Before you can spell “S-O-C-K-E-Y-E,” he’s cutting up large slabs of salmon.

If love weren’t enough, there’s a secondary plot involving the exploited factory workers preparing for a strike, which will place their livelihoods in jeopardy. If this all seems a bit bewildering, and I’m not sure why it would, but you never know, just watch the trailer.

Anyway, while knifing the fish and during breaks, Robert, who has an affinity for Robert Downey’s Iron Man, thus adopting the star’s first name, becomes more and more aware of Ivar. This awareness is mutual, and a “friendship” grows.

Eventually, Robert asks, “Why are you doing drag?”

Ivar: Didn’t you ever want to be somebody else?”

As noted, Robert wanted to be Iron Man . . . and also have his own gas station in Oslo, while Ivar wants to be a star.

No wonder the duo winds up kissing each other, but can their lips compete with workers’ rights?

Mr. Milkjowski, who can be quite charismatic at times, is also a fine actor. You’ll be significantly concerned for his Robert’s happiness throughout.

As for this being another “coming-out film,” there seems to be more need for such plotlines. As Armistead Maupin noted, “The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives.” Norwegian Dream will be an incentive for many more to do so.

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(Norwegian Dream, for a mere pittance, can now be viewed on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies, and Apple TV.)

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Princes, "Bottoms" and I Married A Dead Homosexual

Brandon Judell — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 21:24:43 +0000

Princes, "Bottoms" and I Married A Dead Homosexual Brandon Judell September 18, 2023 - 17:24

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Scene from Bottoms

A few weeks back, I was chatting away with my well-off, ardently Republican, impenetrably heterosexual nephew in his souped-up Land Rover. (Let's call him Chad.) After picking me up at the Croton Falls train station and blathering on about the state of our kin, Chad changed topic and began insisting that nowadays gays had everything they had ever wanted.

Trying to lay out the reality in an even-tempered tone, I noted this sentiment was not exactly true. There were hundreds of laws just been passed or were about to be passed in numerous legislatures across our Great Land with the single-minded goal of making every member of the LGBTQI community into a third-class citizen. Would he like me to email him some articles?

"No! I don't need articles," Chad exclaimed. "I see The Gays on all the TV shows and commercials."

Well, who needs legitimate news sources when you have Botox ads and Modern Family reruns? And Chad does supplement his LGBTQI education by watching Fox so he can get deliciously freaked out about trans folk. For my nephew, hearing the likes of Greg Gutfeld trash a trans athlete supplies the same immeasurable joy he gets from multiple viewings of Saw V.

But Chad has a point, limited as is most of his points. One of the only shows I binged on recently that was decidedly queerless was Season 1 of The Bear. Though to be honest, that series moves so briskly there might actually have been some nonbinaries hiding behind the brisket.

Even on Broadway this past year, you seldom could throw a CD of Judy at Carnegie Hall without hitting an actor currently portraying a bisexual, a gender-expansive, or an old-fashioned lesbian: Bad Cinderella, Once Upon a One More Time, Fat Ham, & Juliet, Some Like It Hot. The list is longer than the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Indeed, I'd bet you all the smoked lox in Zabar's that if you tallied up each and every queer character appearing just this week alone on cable, on regular TV, on New York City stages, and Netflix, they'd outnumber all of the LGBTQI fictional mortals that sauntered through the 1970s, 1980s, and half of the 1990s combined. Yes, even with Richard Simons and Pee-wee Herman included.

Also, it should be noted that back then most of the queer characters depicted were white and male, closeted, had AIDS, or were closeted and had AIDS. There were some exceptions though to these heartfelt and necessary offerings. Among those broadening the landscape were the likes of John Waters, Greg Araki, Donna Deitch, Chantal Akerman, Paul Morrisey, Cheryl Dunye, and Isaac Julien.

A true example of how far we have come, and which some may consider as an example of coming too far, is Wei-Hao Cheng's Marry My Dead Body (2022), a Taiwanese highlight of the recent New York Asian Film Festival and now on the aforementioned Netflix.

Before we go on, please note there is a Chinese tradition called "ghost marriage" where at least one or both of those being wed are deceased. It's sounds ideal. No more hurt feelings over forgotten anniversaries. No blanket-tugging or fortissimo snoring at night. No one yelling at you about your inability to be sexually intimate before breakfast.

One of the main reasons this procedure came about is that it solves the embarrassment for a family of having an unwed daughter or a way for a lineage to continue if one's son is pushing up daisies. Yes, the wife of a defunct spouse could now adopt a child to carry on dead chap's name. (Wikipedia will explain it to you in more detail.)

Anyway, Marry My Dead Body begins with a wolf howling on a full-moon night. Soon after we meet a cute homophobic cop, Min-Han (Greg Hsu), who immediately roughs up a flirty drug dealer in a gym locker room for which the officer gets severely reprimanded. Clearly, it's no longer woke in Taiwan to bash gays in gym locker rooms especially if their dads are influential politicians.

Demoted, Min-Han winds up patrolling a mostly deserted street when he spots a red envelope on the sidewalk. Don't pick it up, Min-Han! Uh-oh, he doesn't listen. Instantly, he discovers he's now the fiancé of an equally cute, slightly flamboyant queer spirit named Mao Mao (Austin Lin), who was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. You see, in that red envelope, Mao Mao's grandmother had placed the nail clippings and locks of hair she had snipped off her beloved grandson's corpse. She had always promised him true love

Is this woman crazy? What about when she insists Min-Han was Mao Mao's pet dog in a previous life? This can't be true, right?

But after Min-Han returns home and while he showers, a visible version of Mao Mao appears to him and pleasurably smiles at the size of his new spouse’s crotch.

"Get away from me, gay guy!" Min-han screams.

Call me "hubby," Mao Mao insists.

"Hubby?" Min-Hasn questions. Why can't he be the hubby?

You see, in a same-sex relationship with a ghost, the spirit has the power to decide who’s the femme and who's the butch. The ghost, by the way, can also enter human bodies and make them do want they want them to do, even to saunter about like RuPaul.

Hey, Min-Han asks, isn't there a way to get a divorce from an unfeasible mate who likes to pop his head through walls? Well, yes, there is now that you ask. First find out who ran over Mao Mao and secondly find someone to love him eternally.

What follows are drug dealings, fisticuffs, grumpy gangsters, grandmas who insist you come over for dinner, and a few shoot-outs that lead to quite a sweet, moving, satisfying finale proving once and for all that sometimes we all a good dose of romantic silliness.

How about two or three doses.

You'll certain receive a dollop or two of the absurd from Amazon Prime's Red, White and Royal Blue directed and co-written by Matthew Lopez, a Best-Play-Tony-Award winner for the marvelous The Inheritance. That work spotlighted the tragedy of AIDS with the insights of E.M. Foster and gay men eating dinner and so on. RWARB is a bit more lowbrow with its intentions. This international hit that a few weeks ago was crowned the streamer’s third most-watched romantic comedy of all time is based on the hit novel that chronicles the affaire de coeur of the bisexual son (Taylor Zakhar Perez) of a female President of the United States and the closeted Prince of Great Britain (Nicholas Galitzine). Imagine the Hallmark Channel making soft-core porn and you have much of the offering. The acting varies in believability as does the script, but the two leads are beautiful, especially when dancing together among nude museum statuary, reminding me of how Melissa Marr described a character in her Wickedly Lovely: "He looked good, like sin in a suit."

But to be honest, tears were gushing forth from my orbs just before the end credits rolled. No one was more shocked than me. I didn't even weep during Sophie's Choice. Thankfully, I go nowhere without a Kleenex.

Mr. Galitzine, by the way, also has a supporting role as Jeff, a self-absorbed football jock suffering from satyriasis in director/co-writer Emma Siligman's Bottoms, a title which refers to societal positionings, not sexual ones. The nearly universally praised comedy is a rip-roaring, lesbianic takeover of the high-school, "I-want-to-lose-my-virginity" high-jinks genre.

Here Seligman reunites with the star of her directorial debut Shiva Baby, Rachel Sennott. Sennott serves double-duty here as co-writer while playing the loudmouthed, obnoxious PJ, who along with her highly insecure pal Josie (The Bear's Ayo Edebiri), moon over the in-girls of their senior class.

So how does one survive high school with raging hormones and a complete lack of savoir faire? Throw not getting expelled after possibly hitting the Jeff with your auto which might cause your classmates to lose a long-pined-for football championship won’t help your cause.

How about starting a female fight club with fraudulent premise that it's a feminist venture. The principal sort of falls for the pitch.

What follow are bruised females with some clever banter, a belle hooks joke plus a huge amount of dunderheadedness that these sort of comedies call for.

Can Bottoms become the huge hit Bros wanted to be and that the lesbian-themed,Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once was? Having beaten EEAAO's opening week take and with a continued solid box-office, Bottoms won't win any Oscars but the film just might prove to the powers that be that sapphic cinema is a money-making proposition.

(By the way, Bottoms received the Good Housekeeping Seal of Same-Sex-Comedy Approval from Helen Eisenbach, the author of Lesbianism Made Easy. That should be good for a few more hundred thousand admissions, no?)

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Mother Nature's Anus

Brandon Judell — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 15:42:44 +0000

Mother Nature's Anus Brandon Judell September 3, 2022 - 11:42

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The Dutch horror film The Human Centipede (2009) and the current season of The Boys on Amazon Prime have put the spotlight on that body part that most of us are more comfortable keeping hidden. Yes, the Anus has been gaining more and more screentime in recent years, and now it earns even more respect in Erica's First Holy Shit, a gleefully hallucinogenic mockumentary that has to be seen to be believed, and even then you just might not.

Here, Mother Nature's sphincter is utilized as the gateway to Satan's office where the Evil One (Andie Flores) fashions deals. For example, a former client, RuPaul, sold his soul for fame in this very rectum. "How else would a drag queen get an Emmy?" Beezlebub gloats.

The lead character here is one Erica Nix, who's portrayed by one Erica Nix, a seductive presence with Ann-Margret tresses and an oversized libido. This causes one to wonder whether the real-life version of Ms. Nix is a whole lot like her film persona, a compulsively masturbating lesbian who goes around in bathing suits that leave very little to the imagination. That's when she's even wearing swimwear.

This feature, by the way, was shot during the highly nerve-wracking beginnings of the Covid era (June 2020) in Austin, Texas, by three directors collectively known as THIS IS NOT A CULT (Jessica Garner, Sawyer Stoltz and Jeremy Von Stilb). Two of the three are also responsible for the spicy leftist screenplay. Consequently, many of the scenes were shot against a bluescreen.

Holy Shit begins with a Zoom group-therapy sex session that lasts for a rather frenetic seven minutes. In each of the screen's nine little cubicles, determined women are aiming to bring the "universal elemental force of pleasure" into their beings employing paddles, vibrators, and feathers among other artifacts. (I think I spotted an eggplant and a pickle also in use, but don't hold me to it.)

After this orgasmic opening, her online compatriots seem sated, but not Ms. Nix, who has an itch that demands more:

"Here I am with tons of people happy to see me running around in my Spandex thong, but at the end of the day, what do I have? What am I doing?"

Well, at this moment, she is loudly plopping out her tampon and placing it into a glass of water being held by one of her twin male slaves, or so they seem.

Frustrated, Erica decides to quit her shrink, whom she feels has been holding her back. Now the peverse Wizard of Oz adventure begins in her bathtub after she squirts on a facial mask with the ingredients that include vodka, psilocybin, and methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Wouldn't you like to be Erica's pores? No wonder she's tripping.

Well, before you say, "Lindsey Graham" twice, our ultra-feminist heroine is schmoozing with a ditsy Gwyneth Paltrow (Lynn MetCalf), Mother Nature (Christeene), God (Nikki DaVaughn), and Ms. Nix's teenage self (p1nkstar) who also seems to be suffering from chronic masturbatory needs. The real Richard Simmons pops in now and then, too. No wonder Erica decides to run for mayor of Austin, promising free abortions for all and more shade at bus stops. And no wonder the population of Austin comes out for wildly inane and almost Hello, Dolly!-esque finale.

Whether you’ll be charmed by this offering, as I admittedly I was at times, or whether Big Shit will cause you to switch your political affiliation to something more rightwing, depends a whole lot on whether you are a fan of early John Waters and Jack Smith films, have a crush on Annie Sprinkle, or have a supply of Alice B. Toklas brownies on hand.

Rating: Five Pepto Bismols

(Erica's Big Shit premiered to sold-out screenings at PRISM 35: GLIFF's 35th Annual LGBTQ+ Film Festival in Austin the end of August. It will now be flushing out at festivals across the country.)