John Waters @ 75: Hairspray (1988)

by Cláudio Alves

As Oscar fever dies down, we return, here at The Film Experience, to the John Waters retrospective in celebration of the director's 75th birthday. I'm immensely grateful for Nathaniel, who invited us each to choose a movie, since it gave me a grand opportunity to dive deep into the filmography of this auteur. Before this month, I had only seen three of Waters' movies, but now I've watched most of his features, including five of the projects he did with legendary drag queen Divine. The picture I'm here to explore is fundamental in the legacy of both artists. Hairspray was to be Divine's last movie before a tragic death at the age of 42…

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Gay Best Friends: Toddy & Squash in "Victor/Victoria"

In this series by Christopher James we investigate the 'Gay Best Friend' trope in movies.

More movies should end with a gay best friend performing drag, like Robert Preston in Victor/Victoria.Many of the gay best friends in movies we've discussed to date have been supporting characters to give color to the protagonists, act as a sounding board, or fill out the world of the story. Rarely are they actual plot drivers who get to carry their own subplot. In only one film that we've discussed to date, My Best Friend’s Wedding, do they also get to be the ultimate hero of the story.

Blake Edwards 1982 musical comedy Victor/Victoria, like most gender-flipping movies, relies a bit too much on the gender binary. However, it uses its queer characters to help the straights find their own unique shading on the sexuality spectrum. This was my first time watching Victor/Victoria and it made for a delightful and hilarious Saturday afternoon romp...

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Have you seen "Legendary" on HBOMax? Let's celebrate its best contestants

And now for something completely random. Word of mouth is everything in streaming culture since we're all on different timetables. Please welcome guest contributor Allen Nguyen (of the beautiful Oscar site Statuesque) to discuss a show we meant to watch this summer but didn't get around to. Now just might be the time!

by Allen Nguyen

In case you haven’t already heard, HBO Max’s glorious ballroom competition show Legendary is now casting for its second season. I was turned on to Legendary a few months after its debut, my interest piqued partly by way of its ecstatic word of mouth and partly because I was in desperate need of queer quarantine content after enduring the five month bender that was RuPaul’s Drag Race, Secret Celebrity Drag Race, and All Stars 5. What I wasn’t expecting with Legendary was the return of that same enthralling high I felt when I first watched Drag Race a decade ago. Think of Legendary as the show Drag Race fans didn’t know we’ve been waiting for — the natural next step in the venn-diagram that intersects these two queer worlds... 

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Halloween Obsessiveness: Uma's "Poison Ivy"

We thought it might be fun if Team Experience shared a few of our favourite Halloween memories with you.

by Nathaniel R

Some years ago I quit Halloween. It wasn't for lack of loving the holiday (have pumpkin patch sized love for it!) but for personal sanity. Favourite costumes over the years included Pinnochio, Peter Pan, Glinda the Good Witch (with my ex as The Wicked Witch and my best friend as The Tin Man, pictured left), Medusa (with an elaborate snake wig), and Mr Green in a group Clue costume. Letting Halloween go wasn't quite a cold turkey move but I knew I had a problem.

To surely every therapist's delight, the problem came from childhood...

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Doc Corner: Tribeca Film Festival x4

By Glenn Dunks

The Tribeca Film Festival is sadly a no-go for 2020, but the teams behind some of the festival’s documentary selections have made their films available for press so we’re going to take a look at a few and hope that one day they make their way to screens for you in the future.

Let us start with a delight of a drag kiki in P.S. Burn This Letter Please, tracing an underground circuit of drag queens, female impersonators and gender illusionists in 1950s pre-Stonewall New York City. Prompted by the discovery of a box of letters all addressed to a mysterious man named Reno -- I won’t spoil the fun, but the recipient has ties to Michelle Pfeiffer! -- who kept them secret, and in doing so has kept alive a part of queer history that is too fabulous to stay hidden away. Through these letters and interviews with some of the surviving queens, directors Jennifer Tiexiera (an excellent editor of works such as Dragonslayer, one of my top documentaries of the decade, and 17 Blocks) and Michael Seligman (a producer on RuPaul’s Drag Race) untangle the insignificant dramas and life-changing moments of Daphne, Adrian, Claudia, Rita George and the rest of the gang.

Before Paris is Burning and even before The Queen, P.S. Burn This Letter Please offers insight where there has historically been so little. As one talking head explains, this is real gay history in black and white.

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