Queering the Oscars: "Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt" for Best Documentary Feature

Team Experience has been looking at LGBTQ+ related Oscar nominations. 

by Nick Taylor

Over the course of June, one of my big cinematic missions was to watch as many queer documentaries as I could. A broader understanding and recognition of lived queer experiences, either through art or lived interaction, is something I’m finding increasingly valuable and incredibly grateful for. Past or present lives, always reflecting so many potential futures - cherish that shit! Cinema allows for a unique view on long-gone lives I would never have met. A lot of my dive has been focused on the Criterion Channel’s various LGBTQ+ playlists. If you haven’t already seen Dressed in Blue, Tongues Untied, and Shakedown, watch them all now and learn from their authors, the multitude of voices in front of and behind the camera bravely willing to show us who they are and what they know. 

Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, was also a recent discovery, equally inspired by this series and by its renewed spotlight on Criterion. To those who want to see it but don’t have this particular streaming service, it is also free on YouTube). The film is one of two Oscar-winning documentaries directed by Rob Epstein in Criterion’s playlist, each representing worlds of grassroots activism on behalf of a queer America grappling with very different realities from each other. The Times of Harvey Milk is as committed to being a joyous celebration of solidarity and advancement as well as a hollowing eulogy for everything violently, permissibly stolen from queer America as Common Threads is, with its own fierce editing and poignant, unabashed political agenda...

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First & Last 015

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?

scroll down for the answer...

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Doc Corner: 'Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music'

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

It’s rather fitting to have watched Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music at the tail end of pride month as LGBTQ+ rights are yet again being politicised and stripped while its community are demonised. Queer people of various sorts have existed for more than 24 decades, obviously. But in his massive theatrical undertaking, playwright and performance artist Taylor Mac integrates his own queer sense of self into American history.

Through song, spoken word, and flamboyant theatricality, he tells the sort of the United States of America, using music to celebrate all kinds of humanity and asking us as an audience to see ourselves and our struggles across time...

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Emmy Predictions: Drama Categories

The White Lotus, now competing as a drama this year

By Abe Friedtanzer 

This is a very competitive year for drama at the Emmys. Last year, Succession and The White Lotus scored fourteen and eight acting nominations, respectively, and The Handmaid’s Tale, which wasn’t eligible last year, picked up ten the year before that. If they show up in similar numbers this year, that accounts for thirty-two spots, and there are only forty acting nominees in total! Changes in voting rules mean that it’s unlikely shows will dominate quite so much, but the first two of those are still extremely popular. And while other awards bodies have largely abandoned The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s worth noting that Emmy voters sometimes stick by shows longer (see Killing Eve).  

Exactly three of last year’s nominees for Best Drama Series are back in contention, and they’re all expected to show up in many places: Succession, Better Call Saul, and Yellowjackets...

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First & Last 014

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?

The answer is after the jump...

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