Thursday 04.07.16
Film: Mapplethorpe: Look at The Pictures
You all must watch this documentary about artist Robert Mapplethorpe now screening on HBO. If you are new to the artist, then shame on you queen, learn your gay history! But for realz here’s some background. “In 1989, on the floor of Congress, Senator Jesse Helms implored America to ‘Look at the pictures,’ while denouncing the controversial art of Robert Mapplethorpe, whose photographs pushed social boundaries with their frank depictions of nudity, sexuality and fetishism — and ignited a culture war that rages to this day.” Robert was besties with singer Patti Smith. She wrote about their glorious friendship in her award-winning book Just Kids. This doco digs deeper into the life and work of Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989. Even his most “controversial” works (ie. lots of dick and bondage) are shown uncensored in this fascinating film that takes you back to the New York of yesterday. It’s more than a history lesson it’s an important document of one of the most exciting artists of the last 50 years.
Monday 02.22.16
Cans Film Festival
A new queer film series at Macri Park, Brooklyn
Tuesdays generally suck. It’s no Wednesday, nor does it have the new week glow of a Monday. But now there is a big ol’ rainbow as a reward for all the hustling you’ve been doing! The Cans Film Festival launches this Tuesday at Macri Park for a night of cinematic campness. Brooklyn gays Dan Kessel and Ben Miller came up with the idea to contribute to and build queer community in a fun environment and they have decided to kick the monthly series off with the classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? You know the one, with dead rats, crazy facial expressions and eyebrows.
While fun is the prime motive, the guys also had this to say about why the Cans Film Festival is something to get behind, “we believe in a queer volksgeist — a unique cultural and social approach, a rainbow lens through which [queer people] see the world and that it is shaped by our sense of outsider-ness, our gender non-conformity, our insistence on questioning…this questioning, and its attendant cultural stance, is our most valuable survival skill and contribution to human affairs.”
So if you want to kick back this Tuesday and just be overtly you then get over to Macri Park. Entry is free and you can hoot and holler (and YASSS) at Joan and Bette as much as your heart desires! ALSO don’t worry if you have trouble being YOU so early on in the week because they have a shit ton of $2 Tecate to limber you up! …
Friday 02.19.16
Film: See it Big! – Pina
We wrote about this movie a couple of years ago. As far as I’m concerned it’s only worth seeing on the big screen. This Friday, February 19, you can do just that as it airs as part of the See It Big! series which is all about celebrating movies shown large. This month they are focusing on the best of nonfiction filmmaking. Pina is an immersive 3D documentary by Win Winders about the legendary (people, especially gays, like to throw that word around but she was the real deal) choreographer Pina Bausch. Pina, who died in 2009, was one of the most innovative modern dancers and choreographers, whose work has influenced generations of performers. This film is a beautiful tribute to her talent, featuring many of her students dancing through stunning indoor/outdoor spaces. Pina is an example of 3D being used to enhance a movie experience rather than just to make more money. The only downside about this screening is that it’s in Astoria, which is a bit of a hassle to get to if you don’t live close by, but well worth the effort. Anything for Pina!
Monday 02.08.16
Little Rickey
The entertainer serves the elderly good tunes and great joy
I come from a pretty stereotypically homosexual background. I have no problem admitting I was in choir in high school. Why would I deny that? Performing and making people smile is cunt. Every Christmas season we would bus out to a center for the elderly and sing them Christmas tunes. I remember in two instances the same woman in the back of the room spent the entirety of our performances sobbing tears of joy (We checked to make sure we hadn’t triggered something awful). Were we that good? Probably not. But I think music and youth evoked something in her that only made itself apparent once in a while. Nevertheless, watching her cry while we sang “Holly Jolly Christmas” was unusual, to say the least. But each year all of us left the performance feeling uplifted — like maybe what we were doing mattered.
This is why people like Little Rickey are so refreshing to see. Rickey Josey, or Little Rickey, is a singer, dancer and all around performer based out of the greater Atlanta, Georgia area who is known for entertaining the elderly. For Rickey, performing is more than just aesthetics. “I don’t get hung up on if, you know, I mess up, or I didn’t get that quite right. That’s not all I am! I am doing all of it. The look, the dancing, the singing, and being nice to people — which don’t cost you nothing! This lady told me once when I was singing at the Underground — ‘Rickey, Rickey, Rickey. …
Sunday 01.31.16
Film: Truth
This film stars the kind of lead character that we all need at the moment to inspire us and shake us out of our snowed-in-winter-ruts. Her name is Mary Maples and she is one of the best journalists out there, she broke the Abu Ghraib story and a few years back was unceremoniously fired, along with CBS anchor Dan Rather, for some stupid bullshit reason. Basically she worked on a 60 Minutes story alleging that George W. Bush had not only skipped out on the Vietnam war by having his daddy’s friend get him into the National Guard, but he even skipped out on the National Guard for a whole year. The White House basically said Mary and her team had presented faked documents to support their story and, surprise, surprise the media went along with it. But she hadn’t!! It was all true. They were telling the truth and big biz, special interests, lobbyists, and shady people threw them under the bus. Cate Blanchett plays Mary and is in top form. She’s all fiery and unblinking and not afraid to stand up to the bullies. There’s moments where even glimpses of Blue Jasmine come out to play (she loves her white wine and Xanax). This film is very much in the vein of Erin Brockovich. It’s fast paced and fun to watch and the fact that they made a film out of this story is satisfying, because even if Mary and Dan lost their jobs back then, at least the whole world now knows who was telling the TRUTH!
Wednesday 01.20.16
Film: ANOMALISA
Charlie Kaufman is the writer of two of my absolute favorite films: Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Both films had a profound impact on me, their surrealist and beautiful stories literally changing my understanding of what a movie could be. Kaufman’s latest film, which he wrote, and co-directs with Duke Johnson, is a stop motion animation featuring a British customer service expert named Michael Stone, (the author of “How May I Help You Help Them?”) who is completely bored with his life and everyone in it. This is brought to life in a very Kaufman-esq way by having every character in the movie, besides Michael (David Thewlis), voiced by the actor Tom Noonan. That is until he meets a dowdy woman named Lisa in his hotel, voiced brilliantly by Jennifer Jason Leigh. Michael is drunk and can’t get enough of this woman with a voice as unique as his. In one of the movie’s best scenes she softly sings Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” first in English, then in Italian. They fuck. He is enraptured. This is what it means to have someone wake you up. But like many spells cast while intoxicated, it doesn’t last. Anomalisa is a grim look at modern life, middle age and finding love, but it’s also weird and funny and thought provoking. Go see it and tell us what you think.
Tuesday 12.15.15
Out & Bad
A peep into England's dancehall scene
“Friends are the family you choose” is a common cliche used by all sorts of people. For some, however, choosing this family is a vital part of survival. Out & Bad, presented by Vice’s Noisey follows some of England’s dancehall community, giving us an intimate glimpse into their found mode of survival through dancing, partying, and camaraderie. This probably sounds like a relatable tale and it is but you soon realize that these boys can dance much better than you. They found each other nearly a decade ago when England experienced a mass influx of Jamaican immigrants fleeing anti-gay laws during the early 2000s. The dancehall scene served (and still does) as a friend based family, which for some, were all they had.
Out & Bad rattles off the statistics that have become all too familiar. We are reminded once again just how many black LGBTQ teens are forced out of their homes and left to navigate the most difficult parts of their youth alone. “We all had a common bond, which was black and gay. When we would come together, for a short moment, nobody could touch us. We were untouchable,” says one of the documentary’s main subjects, Marc.
The film is worth a watch. Marc and all of his friends are vibrant, feel-good people who make every group scene feel like you’ve missed out completely, which, unless you frequented bashment parties like Caribana and Bootylicious, you most certainly did. (Highlights include Deejay educating the viewers on how to stand, watch your liquor and give face at bashment parties.) …
Wednesday 12.09.15
Film: Soaked in Bleach
I watched this film at 3am, drunk, in a bunk bed, and I still loved it, which should tell you something about how good it is. Based detailed research into Kurt Cobain’s death, filmmaker Benjamin Statler, and detective Tom Grant, who was hired by Courtney Love to find Kurt days before his death (he was in rehab getting ready to divorce her and about to take her out of his will) pretty straight out assert that Courtney had Kurt killed. There’s a lot of interesting evidence, but the most fascinating is probably the fact that Kurt, at the time of his death, had an amount of heroin in him that would kill a large elephant, 10 times the dose needed to incapacitate an average user. How, experts ask, was he able to shoot himself in the head with that amount of heroin in him? Also, he wasn’t suicidal according to his close friends, and why did the handwriting in the suicide note match a writing test sheet found in Courtney’s bag? This is a really well made doco — required viewing for all Nirvana and early 90’s conspiracy theorists!
Saturday 11.28.15
Film: Carol
We had a chance to go to an early screening of the film Carol, Todd Haynes’ romantic period film starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. The film has dominated the Film Independent Spirit Award nominations announced Tuesday, earning six major nominations and is likely to earn Blanchett an Oscar nomination. It’s a lesbian love story, based on the 1952 book called The Price of Salt, which was trailblazing in that it gave the gay characters a relatively happy ending, something that was unheard of in the 50s (gays normally ended up dead or in jail — thanks for that straight people!). The plot of Carol begins when “Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) spots the beautiful, elegant Carol (Cate Blanchett) perusing the doll displays in a 1950s Manhattan department store. The two women develop a fast bond that becomes a love with complicated consequences.” When we left the room, we realized it was too early in the day to see this film — we got sort of sad and confused whether the film was invigorating or depressing. At 2pm we went to have a few glasses of red wine to process how we really felt about this film. It was a straightforward story, filled with real emotions, elegantly shot, subtlety touching, a tad long but Miss Carol turned us out.
Friday 11.20.15
City of Lost Souls
Screening and Talk with Juliet Jacques
In Rosa Von Praunheim’s 1983 trans musical spectacular “City of Lost Souls,” iconic Jayne County says, “I don’t want to move to Australia and sell my diamond rings. I’m going to move in with a Reagan and go out with a bang!” (I imagine this is something our beloved Tom said too, when he left Australia for Manhattan, but more on this later).
County’s brush upon Reagan is just one stand out moment of a monologue that is quotable from beginning to end. The culminating line is, “I want to be the one to push the button!” If you haven’t felt like that at some point in your life then you’re basic! County gives a sermon and it’s best you sit up straight and listen up. But anyway, in all seriousness, tonight, Union Docs is screening Praunheim’s film that “captures a unique position within the development of transgender theory.” Juliet Jacques, author of Trans: A Memoir “will discuss how City of Lost Souls has inspired her writing and her process of creating trans art that faithfully documents the messiness of her experience, subverting the transition genre designed for the cis-gaze.”
“At the time it was released, City of Lost Souls was criticized for its messy storyline. Jacques argues that the film has aged remarkably well; in fact it’s flawed or Warholian insistence on character and improvisation forever preserved a nuanced exploration of the alienation that comes with being a gender or sexual minority. It’s fascinating to see the debates in which they worked out their gender identities staged before online communities, transgender-specific fanzines or Queer/Transgender Studies courses — all crucial to the development of organized transgender politics,” Jacques wrote in her review of the film.” …
Wednesday 11.04.15
The Maya Angelou Documentary
The first ever bio-pic of the late artist needs your support!
While it silently pains me to admit I am widely unfamiliar with the majority of Maya Angelou’s work, I do remember the first time I was introduced to her in high school. My religion teacher played a video of Angelou reciting her poem, “Still I Rise.” Needless to say it was a religious experience. Angelou’s articulation of thought and commanding composure was something I had never heard or seen before, and throughout her fruitful career she told her own story, boldly, brilliantly and proudly.
“Maya Angelou: author, actress, singer, poet, director, activist. Winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, multiple Grammy awards, a National Book Award finalist, and a Presidential Inaugural poet, but remarkably, she has never been the subject of her own biographical film, until now.” The documentary is asking for your help to make sure her story — which features commentators such as Common and Oprah — is aired on PBS in 2016. “This is a documentary for those who miss Dr. Angelou’s voice, and for future generations who need to hear her impactful words. Help us memorialize Dr. Angelou — her work, her life, her legacy.”
The world is rarely gifted a person who is able to span and master multiple mediums. Angelou was most certainly one of them. Let’s make sure her story gets told and back the project! …
Tuesday 10.27.15
We Three, a short film in remembrance of David Armstrong published by Nowness.com
I first laid eyes on the work of David Armstrong when I was 14. His book, The Silver Cord, which is filled with portraits of beautiful young guys, quickly became one of my favorites. Armstrong rose to fame in the 1970’s and went on to become an influential force in the world of photography. A year has gone by since his passing and in remembrance Nowness.com has released a short film created by Armstrong himself, GAYLETTER contributor Jack Pierson and Ryan McGinley. Entitled We Three, the film reveals an up close and personal look at a weekend in 2008 when McGinley and Pierson visited Armstrong at his home in upstate New York.
All three artists are shown creating together, their laughter and smiles suggest they are enjoyed every second of it. One of the best scenes is of a shirtless Ryan McGinley treading through the snow in heels and a pink tutu. But, what is most eye-catching is a snippet of what appears to be a moving photograph on the wall of Pierson drawing McGinley. The film is accompanied by a voice over by McGinley talking about the weekend and several other memories he had of his time with Armstrong. Spontaneous and intimate, We Three, is a sweet recollection of not just the artistic talent of David Armstrong, but also his kind character. May he rest in peace.
Click here to watch the video.
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