1986: Straight Best Friends

Before each Smackdown, suggestions for alternates to Oscar's roster... 

Tilda Swinton in "Caravaggio"

1986 was, from the digging I've done, a fascinating year for queer cinema. Some of the films originated in '85 but belatedly hit the US  in 1986, disparate efforts such as Desert Hearts, My Beautiful Laundrette, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, and What Have I Done To Deserve This?!. Meanwhile, Working Girls premiered at that year’s Cannes but didn’t get a US release until February 1987. All of these films showed up in one form or another alongside pure-cut ‘86 releases like Parting Glances and Caravaggio, indicating a shifting tide of indie and mainstream cinema with vested, complex, even sympathetic interests in LGBT themes and characters, often made by queer filmmakers. Not only that, but the films themselves are risky and provocative. Save for the deeply unpleasant Mala Noche, all are worth real engagement, and you couldn’t go wrong checking out any of them.

Still, it must be asked - what about the straight people? What is their contribution here? What about the S.B.F.? Y’know, the Straight Best Friend?

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Queer critics on their fav queer films

by Nathaniel R

Pedro Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas on the set of "Law of Desire"

I didn't intend to point you to yet another "best LGBTQ films" list since we've been to that well twice with an overview of online lists and then my own personal list for Pride month. Nevertheless you'll surely want to check out this article at Paste Magazine called "50+ Queer Writers, 50+ Queer Films". Our friend Kyle Turner polled dozens of critics who identify as LGBTQ asking them to share a short thought about a cinematic favourite. We were only allowed one film, so I went with Law of Desire. We were also encouraged to think broadly about what "queer" meant so a lot of the choices you'll read are atypical rather than full on G-A-Y. Head to the Paste link above to read the whole exciting thing but after the jump I'm sharing three excerpts I particularly loved, two of them from trans critics since they don't get mentioned often...

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Posterized: Tilda Swinton's Greatest Hits

by Nathaniel R

Alien movie star Tilda Swinton is one of the true glories of modern cinema, and she's playing multiple creepy roles this weekend in her third Luca Guadagnino picture. After starring for the Italian director in I Am Love and A Bigger Splash she's the MVP of his new spin-off riff (it's hardly a 'remake') of Dario Argento's classic hallucinatory horror film Suspiria.

What's more this is not even the first time the actress has played mutiple roles sometimes of multiple genders in the same picture (see also Teknolust, Hail Caesar, Man to Man, and Orlando). Since Tilda Swinton works so often, her filmography is over 70 movies long. That means we can't do a comprehensive Posterized lest we be here for literally hours working in Photoshop, so instead we've opted for Swinton's largest and/or most essential roles.

How many of these 21 key Tildas have you seen? The posters are after the jump...

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On this day: Billie Holiday, Sandy Powell, Wham!, Coppola, and More

on this day in showbiz related history

1915 Billie Holiday born in Philadelphia. The iconic singer's voice is still heard in many films and tv shows as is her life story. The Billie biopic Lady Sings the Blues (1972) was nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Actress for Diana Ross. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, a stage play about Billie, was also an awards magnet with Audra McDonald winning the Tony...

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Sandy Powell's Glorious Bluntness "I won for the wrong film!"

We've revelled in Sandy Powell's uncensored quotes before - like her dismissive "I already have two of these" speech for Young Victoria.

She's at it again providing us with more choice Oscar quotes and I couldn't resist talking about this tonight since the blog had an unofficial Costume Design day today what with the Exodus video, and the debut of "Threads". 

See, recently at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Chicago, in a series related to David Bowie's legacy and his influence on the arts, the auteur Todd Haynes and his sometime collaborator Sandy Powell were invited to speak about their glam rock classic Velvet Goldmine (1998). You can listen to the complete talk here though be advised that the introductions take an incredible 14 minutes to get through. Longwinded much? 

One of the best bits a little before an hour in is when Sandy is asked about being an Oscar favorite, a very mainstream establishment thing, despite the fact that she came up into fame working with very anti-establishment artists like Derek Jarman. Because she is Sandy Powell and can't help herself and we love her for it, she doesn't leave it at "I'm happy to have Oscars"...

Sandy: I'm happy to receive the Oscars for the work I did because I work really hard...so for that reason I'm not going to say I'm not grateful. BUT. I would have loved to have gotten it for some of the other films instead. The year I won for "Shakespeare in Love," I was also nominated for "Velvet Goldmine". I had two nominations in one year and I won it for the wrong one. I think I did manage in my speech to thank Todd.

Todd: She managed to get up there and receive the Oscar for "Shakespeare in Love" without mentioning "Shakespeare in Love" and only mentioning "Velvet Goldmine".

They laugh and this leads to fun memories of the director and costumer going to the Oscars together. 

Haynes & Powell's next collaboration is the forthcoming Carol (2015) starring Cate Blanchett and they hint that it will arrive in the Spring though that seems unlikely to me. Given the pedigree we're assuming a Cannes premiere and then a fall bow in theaters, don't you think?

P.S. There's a little wonderful bonus for long time TFE fans in this podcast, too. Our friend and podcast mate Nick Davis is given the microphone at about the 34 minute mark and his ode to Todd & Sandy's collaboration is a thing of fan ardor beauty and he asks a great question too than one presumes Sandy has never been asked about Velvet Goldmine.

(Thanks to faithful reader Murtada for the heads up on this wonderful online find)