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Entries in LGBT (702)

Sunday
Sep272015

Podcast: Sicario & Stonewall

Katey, Joe, Nathaniel and Nick, all returned from TIFF (where the four of us were actually in the same place at the same time for the very first time ever!), return to "Now Playing" cinema to catch shrapnel coming off of Sicario & throw bricks at Stonewall

43 minutes 
00:01 TIFF postscript & Room
03:30 Sicario dark, haunting, superbly crafted, POV politics
21:00 Stonewall (2015) what were they thinking?
33:00 Stonewall (1995), Stonewall Uprising (2010), and other final thoughts 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Related reading: Katey on Room, Nathaniel on Stonewall, Nick on Sicario, Noah Tsika's negative reaction to Sicario, Jeffrey Wells's super-weird war on fans of Room.

And in case you missed it, here's the photo of the podcast team at TIFF.

Sicario and Stonewall

Saturday
Sep262015

NYFF: Shorts (Animated & International)

Part of the joy of film festivals (I’m told) is discovery, and so, this being Manuel's first full New York Film Festival, he figured he’d give its various Shorts Programs a chance.

It’s not a form I watch often though you’d think it’d be growing in popularity given our ever-shrinking attention spans. And with that in mind, rather than review all thirteen shorts I watched, I’ve singled out highlights from the programs screening at the festival, which include Pixar’s latest and a dazzling black and white queer short from Argentina. More...

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Friday
Sep252015

Review: Stonewall (2015)

First screened at TIFF. This article was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad


This one's for Judy!"

… so went a legendary scream (along with brick throwing) as the Stonewall riots began. We can’t know exactly what happened that night, but as the famous saying goes, “when legend becomes fact… print the legend.” Judy Garland, The World’s Greatest Entertainer, had died a week earlier on June 22nd, 1969. Her remains were brought to New York City on June 26th where tens of thousands of people lined up to pay respects, and her funeral, which barred the public, took place on June 27th. The theory goes that the gay community, which had always idolized her (as any sentient human with taste should, then or now) was even more on-edge than usual when the police came to raid Stonewall on the night of June 28th, 1969.

Fact: All hell broke loose. The rest is (much argued about) ‘history’...

Judy grief as combustive fuel is one of the legends at any rate. And one that I heard a lot as a baby-gay whenever people brought up Stonewall. Stonewall was not the true beginning of gay liberation (political groups had been forming since the 1940s to pursue our future rights), but it remains a super handy symbolic one. 

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Thursday
Sep242015

Interview: 'Stonewall' Star Jeremy Irvine on LGBT Youth, Method Acting and That Infamous Trailer

Jose here. When I show up at the Stonewall Inn to speak to Jeremy Irvine I see him hanging from the scaffolding outside the historical locale with his co-star Jonny Beauchamp, they’re all smiles and jokes, their camaraderie is evident and I’m slightly surprised they’re not acting more solemnly given they’re carrying the weight of representing one of the most-talked about movies of the year. I expected to find them seated Congressmen-style, preparing grandiose statements about social issues. Expectations are indeed the operative concept at hand when discussing a film that has generated so much controversy even before opening, so I’m glad Irvine is able to find some levity. When I meet him again inside, he’s devouring a scone, “it’s a muffin actually”, he explains, as we sit in one of the booths of the legendary tavern. “That’s what you do in New York isn’t it? You drink coffee and eat muffins” he says with a smile.

Irvine became an overnight star with his leading role in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, and went on to appear in adaptations of famed novels Great Expectations and The Railway Man, I was surprised to see him land the lead in Roland Emmerich’s period piece, but it’s evident that he has an extremely likable quality, that leads filmmakers to think of him as a perfect audience surrogate, who they use to traverse through oft dense plots. Despite his succession of leading roles, Irvine has kept a very low profile and has confessed to prefer spending time in a pub with his mates, than attending big Hollywood premieres. Perhaps that’s why he seems so at ease at the Stonewall, where he proves to be quite candid and open about touchy subjects like the film’s infamous trailer and how he approaches people’s expectations.

JOSE: War Horse, The Woman in Black: Angel of Death and now Stonewall. What’s your fascination with period pieces?

JEREMY IRVINE: I don’t know! Apparently I like costumes (laughs). I don’t go after specific genres really, if I read a script and I’m still thinking about it a few weeks later, then that’s a pretty good sign. When there’s something that connects with you, you just know. Actually when I got the script for Stonewall, I’d just done three movies back to back. I had just finished shooting a movie in Budapest and I said to my agent “I need a break”, and then a couple of days later they sent me the script and said “you have to read this”.

[More...]

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Sunday
Sep202015

TIFF: An LGBT Winner "Closet Monster" 

Portions of this piece were originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

The Toronto International Film Festival closes shop on its 40th year tonight (imagine the stops they'll pull out for the 2025 festival!) and I'm probably on a plane as you're reading this. Given the breakneck pace of seeing so many movies there are more reviews to come from both Amir and Nathaniel (c'est moi). In other words TIFF will have something of a half life here at the blog and the Oscar charts must be updated Monday/Tuesday and so on. With the end of the big three fall fests tonight (Telluride, Venice, TIFF) it's officially on for Awards Season. Cue: marks, gunshot, running campaigning. The first prizes won't roll around until late November / early December of course.

And for many 2015 festival films winning distribution is the only thing worth campaigning for at this moment. If you're into LGBT cinema you should also check out the reviews of Desde Allá and Girls Lost. My favorite LGBT picture of the festival was Canada's own Closet Monster. More after the jump...

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