GAYLETTER

Nowhere (1997).

‘Queer ‘90s,’ A Snapshot of the Watershed Decade in Cinema

by Abi Benitez

I heard from a few people that I must check out the newish Cinema Metrograph in the Lower East Side. My friend Charlie Kuder is always like “I’m heading to Metrograph, are you coming? It’s a great place.” Their ‘About’ page says that “Metrograph is a unique experience of seeing prestigious films; of stepping into a special, curated world of cinema, a world of hospitality harkening back to the great New York movie theaters of the 1920s…” You can have a proper cocktail, have a bite, they even have a bookstore — it’s the perfect excuse to wear something cute for the theater.

This week they are opening their ‘Queer ‘90s’ series, which features over 30 films that they’ll be showing until October 30th. “The 1990s was a watershed decade for the visibility of queer bodies in independent, documentary, experimental, and studio films. The emergence of “New Queer Cinema,” a movement of filmmakers reacting to the rightward shift in culture and the specter of the AIDS plague, produced formally radical and political works about and specifically for LGBT audiences…” This sounds absolutely marvelous, I can’t think of a better fit for GAYLETTER. We’ll be going there a lot for the rest of the month.