Sunday Shorts: Seven Must-See Gay Films

by Nathaniel R

The Armoire (2009)

We thought it time to indulge in one of our least documented movie interests: short films. This new series might become anything or nothing but we love alliteration so Sundays it is. To kick things off let's discuss queer shorts for Pride Month. Short films don't tend to last the way features can, given that it's hard to be reminded of them, culturally, and they aren't "for sale" or advertised on streaming often in the way TV shows or movies are. Short films are no longer the primary calling cards they once were for up-and-coming directors given the prevalence of TV work and DIY webseries. Now, though, shorts are often direct sales pitches for features. Consider a recent popular movie like  Brazil's The Way He Looks (2014) which was first a short film named I Don't Want To Go Back Alone (2010). The American comedy Gayby (2012) and drama Pariah (2011) also started their lives as celebrated queer films of 12 and 20 minutes respectively before their feature expansions.

But the current in-flux state of the form aside, it's worth finding cinematic gems in whatever size or form they come in. See these famous and/or underseen gems, please. And we'd LOVE to hear recommendations of other short LGBT films that caught your eye in the comments.

7 GAY SHORTS WE'VE LOVED BEFORE
(in chronological order)

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Monte Hale Centennial

James Dean with Monte Hale on the set of "Giant"

Who? Listen we're not huge western devotees but nevertheless we tip our imaginary cowboy hats today to the bygone tradition of singing cowboys on film. (You know the kind if only from watching Alden Ehrenreich work such charismatic wonders as one of 'em in the Coen Bros Hail Caesar!). Monte Hale, born on this day 100 years ago in Oklahoma, was among the last of such stars...

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Links: Madonna, Ghostbusters, James Bond, Emmy Campaigns, etc...

• EW six different cover stars for Entertainment Weekly's "50 Years of Gay Pride" issue: Wilson Cruz, Anderson Cooper, Melissa Etheridge, Janet Mock, Neil Patrick Harris, and Ruby Rose
• Coming Soon Sigourney Weaver confirms that the original cast will return for a Ghostbusters 3
• Travel + Leisure a movie theater in Switzerland has beds instead of seats now for movies. Want

More after the jump including Emmy campaigning, Madonna's "Dark Ballet" and Brad Pitt's honorable cease & desist...

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Posterized: So many Godzilla movies

For this week's monster-themed Posterized, we're doing things a bit differently. In ye olden times, the Godzilla franchise was a mess, internationally speaking, with some films reedited, retitled, and rereleased or out of order. The original Godzilla (1954) actually has three separate versions: Japanese (1954), American (1956), and Italian (1976) and each one of them have different scenes and shapes (the Italian one is colorized) with only the American version adding in the Raymond Burr subplot. Even when the movies weren't chopped up and reconfigured they were sometimes called different things. For instance Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), which I loved on TV as a kid is also called Godzilla vs. The Thing and that "Thing" of the title ISN'T Mothra so it's all very confusing.

3 very different versions of the same movie for Japan, America, and Italy

Essentially there are 32 live-action Godzilla movies. So we've listed them and then collected some noteworthy Godzilla posters that we found online, whether or not they were official posters. How many of these 32 pictures have you seen?...

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