Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 1:00PM Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.
Last week we looked at Bernard and Doris, which gave us a chance to wax on about two underrated actors, Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes. This week, we look abroad as we pause to think about Tanaz Eshaghian’s documentary Be Like Others (also known as Transsexual in Iran). More...
Monday, September 28, 2015 at 9:30AM 
Manuel here continuing our NYFF coverage with a documentary about the late great Nora Ephron, Everything is Copy. An HBO documentary, it played to quite the packed house last week with nary a dry eye in the house by its end.
Nora was…
Kind. Open. Generous. Witty. Interesting. Funny.
Ambitious. Mean. Tough. Malevolent. Judgmental.
You’d expect the first half of those adjectives to make an appearance in the touching portrait of Ephron by her son, Jacob Bernstein. That Everything is Copy includes the latter half is what makes it a pricklier and much more fascinating exploration of the late writer and director.
Quotes from Spielberg, Streep and more after the jump...
Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 12:31PM Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.
Last week we looked at the provocatively titled but rather limp documentary Middle Sexes - Redefining He and She. This week, we turn our attention to Bernard and Doris, a rather enjoyable little film about billionairess Doris Duke and her gay butler Bernard Lafferty. It’s an otherwise lightweight exercise for actors and director alike but it does allow us to talk about that ubiquitous “gay guy/straight gal” pairing we’re all too familiar with.
Bernard and Doris (DVD)
Directed by: Bob Balaban
Written by: Hugh Costello
Starring: Susan Sarandon, Ralph Fiennes, James Rebhorn.
At one point in Bob Balaban’s HBO film, Doris Duke, “the richest girl in the world” as she was known ever since her father left his entire fortune to her, demands that Bernard - the increasingly flamboyant Irish butler she’s grown quite fond of - step aside from driving and let her take the wheel. She’s much too drunk to bear his slow pace and much too bossy to let herself be convinced otherwise. Inevitably, the unlikely couple are stopped by a cop and Doris is asked to step outside the car and told she’ll have to be breathalized. More...
Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 12:16PM Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.
Last week we looked at the surprisingly touching, inclusive and politically relevant Rosie O’Donnell documentary All Aboard! (it seems not a lot of you were as enthused as I was). This week we change gears by looking at perhaps the most boring HBO LGBT entry yet, Middle Sexes - Redefining He and She, a documentary on gender variance that is as entertaining as those educational tapes you’d be forced to watch in high school when your teacher couldn’t be bothered lecturing.
It’s disappointing given its exhaustive approach to the material and the many opportunities it offers in engaging narratives and insightful conversations about those living outside of the gender binary.
Middle Sexes - Redefining He and She (2005) (YouTube)
Directed by: Antony Thomas
If sexual diversity is natural, why is it so threatening?”
Oh that the doc could have taken up this question with the inquisitiveness of most of its talking heads. [More...]
Friday, September 11, 2015 at 12:02PM Here's Murtada with just released pictures of 3 upcoming projects.
Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth Madoff
Quick turnaround from the casting announcement, they have already started filming The Wizard of Lies and released the first picture. New cast members have been added to the HBO project including Nathan Darrow (famous for House of Cards' menage a trois with Robin Wright and Kevin Spacey) who will play the Madoff’s younger son Andrew.
Pfeiffer is completely transformed as Ruth Madoff. More...
