Shelley Winters @ 100: Pete's Dragon (1977)

Concluding our Shelley Winter's Centennial party, here's new contributor Baby Clyde...

My film obsession started around the age of 12 when I somehow acquired my first "Encyclopedia of Movie Stars". It changed my life. I spent literally hours pouring over it, utterly entranced by the legends of the Golden Age of Hollywood. I remember it introduced me to the likes of Luise Rainier and John Garfield who I had never heard of before, but mostly I remember being totally confused by the entry on Shelley Winters.

Who was the glamourous woman who had been a sex bomb and serious actress before going on to win two Oscars and how was she in any way related to the harridan who had been the stuff of my childhood nightmares? Whilst I understood that actors played different roles, I don’t think I’d quite grasped at that point just how different they could be and how the same woman could go from this...

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2005: When Tilda Swinton went full Hollywood

Please welcome back former contributor Sean Donovan who returns to the fold...

With the 2005 Supporting Actress Smackdown quickly approaching TFE, let’s take a moment to think about a future Best Supporting Actress winner who was just then gathering her strength, summoning her powers of fierce alien glamour, and dipping a toe into Hollywood. 2005 was a pivotal year for Tilda Swinton in that it was her first engagement with big budget genre filmmaking. Tilda had found her way onto some Hollywood projects prior to this -- The Beach (2000) with Leonardo DiCaprio, Vanilla Sky (2001) with Tom Cruise, Jonze and Kaufman’s contemporary classic Adaptation (where she briefly shares the screen with Meryl Streep and my little gay heart explodes) -- but 2005 brought bombast, costuming, and blockbuster genre storytelling to her body of work...

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Streaming YA Randomnees: Locke & Key and Ragnarok

What entirely random thing have you found yourself watching lately? With every streaming service showing content from all over the world, it's increasingly rare for everyone to be on the same viewing journey...

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Yes, No, Maybe So: Two new fantasies "His Dark Materials" and "The Witcher"

by new contributor Maggy Torres-Rodriguez

A few days ago, the earth went a little quieter as nerds all around the world paused their latest video game obsession to turn their attention over to the new Netflix trailer for The Witcher. The Polish novel series-turned-video-game-turned-Netflix show has raised all kinds of inquisitive eyebrows, especially at the notion of Henry Cavill taking on the role of Geralt de Rivia.  But HELLO, we welcome it. 

The Witcher brings forth all kinds of magic and lore and monsters, from wraiths to vampires to elves, in this deeply sophisticated world where beasts and humans are trying (or not trying) to coexist. And as per ugee, the most beastly monsters of all tend to be human...

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Sunday Shorts: Seven Must-See Gay Films

by Nathaniel R

The Armoire (2009)

We thought it time to indulge in one of our least documented movie interests: short films. This new series might become anything or nothing but we love alliteration so Sundays it is. To kick things off let's discuss queer shorts for Pride Month. Short films don't tend to last the way features can, given that it's hard to be reminded of them, culturally, and they aren't "for sale" or advertised on streaming often in the way TV shows or movies are. Short films are no longer the primary calling cards they once were for up-and-coming directors given the prevalence of TV work and DIY webseries. Now, though, shorts are often direct sales pitches for features. Consider a recent popular movie like  Brazil's The Way He Looks (2014) which was first a short film named I Don't Want To Go Back Alone (2010). The American comedy Gayby (2012) and drama Pariah (2011) also started their lives as celebrated queer films of 12 and 20 minutes respectively before their feature expansions.

But the current in-flux state of the form aside, it's worth finding cinematic gems in whatever size or form they come in. See these famous and/or underseen gems, please. And we'd LOVE to hear recommendations of other short LGBT films that caught your eye in the comments.

7 GAY SHORTS WE'VE LOVED BEFORE
(in chronological order)

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