Drag Race RuCap: “Squirrel Games”

Like in the last couple of years, Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are following and recapping the new RuPaul’s Drag Race season…

Are you ready for this new crop of queens?

NICK TAYLOR: How do you measure a year? Do you base it on a fixed temporal quantity, like daylights or sunsets? Or do you go by something more nebulous, more personal, like cups of coffee? Hugs given? Lives lived? How about a secret third option: basing all existence on the schedule of an increasingly productive, internationally-minded media franchise like RuPaul’s Drag Race? 2025 has barely begun and here we are, Cláudio, ready to once again offer our unprecedented and unrequested takes on the latest US season of Drag Race. It’s season 17, baybeee!! With a new twist on the split-premiere structure of seasons past and an opening mini-challenge arguably more culturally relevant than the show it’s spoofing, I say this season gets off on the right foot.

I certainly had a lot of fun with it. Did you, diva?

CLÁUDIO ALVES: I did, Mr. Larson, I really did…

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NYFF '24: "Viêt and Nam" finds heaven underground

by Cláudio Alves

In the darkness of the movie theater, filmmakers can conjure images the audience has never dreamed of. Sometimes, they reveal the impossible, dreams that only exist on the silver screen, that looking glass in endless molten metamorphosis. They can reflect the audience back to themselves and the world, too. Sometimes, they're the sweet secrets within your heart or fears you never even knew you had. The power of image-making cannot nor should it be underestimated. Watching Trương Minh Quý's Viêt and Nam, I felt such power, the wonder and awe. 

And it all starts underground, at the bottom of a mine. It starts somewhere where death waits, yet freedom blossoms. It's a trip down to hell that leads to paradise, temporary as it may be…

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TIFF '24: "Misericordia" interrogates the meaning of mercy

by Cláudio Alves

When talking about the four French Oscar finalists, one point of the quartet felt perpetually overlooked. Much was said about Emilia Pérez, the eventual selection, and plenty of discussion on All We Imagine as Light, its international provenance and potential as an unlikely Indian or Luxembourgian submission. Then, of course, there was the big-budget wannabee blockbuster of the lot, a new Count of Monte Cristo adaptation that secured US distribution and announced a fortuitous late-year release date hours before Audiard's musical stole its thunder. In the middle of all this commotion, Alain Guiraudie's Misericordia slipped by unnoticed. A shame, since it's one of the year's most beguiling films…

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TIFF '24: Contrarian takes on "Anora" and "Emilia Perez"

by Cláudio Alves

Sometimes, you find yourself going with the flow, becoming another among a million other voices with the same stated opinion. Such fate can be frustrating, but so can the reverse. When consensus consolidates, being on the other side looking in is just as irritating as picturing oneself as the metaphorical sheep following the flock. Contrarianism isn't fun in and of itself, especially when it manifests as a hostile take against a barrage of love. This TIFF, I've found myself in the minority regarding two Cannes prize-winners already praised to high heaven by our beloved Elisa Giudici. Indeed, one of them is so adored it's already considered a contender for the festival's Audience Award cum Oscar barometer. It's time to explain why neither Anora nor Emilia Pérez convinced me of their merits…

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Venice 2024: Luca Guadagnino's "Queer"

by Elisa Giudici

Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey in QUEER (photo: Yannis Drakoulidis)

Luca Guadagnino's 2024 double feature, early release Challengers and the new premiere Queer, explore the intricate and slow process of calibrating love. In both,love is a delicate balancing act where one person loves intensely, perhaps even desperately, while the other remains more passive, content to be loved without being deeply invested in the relationship. The fundamental difference between the two lies in how they resolve this imbalance...

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