So the Cannes Film Festival has decided to give an award for queer film: and Xavier Dolan, whose I Killed My Mother won more than 30 awards last year (and it will be at NewFest 2010 in NYC in June) has a new queer film at Canned this year. Yes, he's back and cuter than ever.
This heart-throb's new films is called Heartbeats, and it's a situation many of us recall from our youth: falling in love with a guy who is unattainable. The wrinkle here is that his friend, a young woman, is also in love with the unattainable guy. He's beautiful and beyond both their reach. It seems.
He's 21. And he's up against the old man in queer film. Gregg Araki. Never thought you'd see that sentence anywhere did you? Time is relentless, and there's always a new generation behind you. And there's also a film about Grace Slick, the lead singer for the Jefferson Airplane, that involves her in a lesbian relationship.
Who's going to win? I have no idea — but I certainly hope all three of these movies will be at NewFest, NYC's lgbt film festival next year. Meanwhile, there's more than 100 films from 20 countries that you can see from June 3rd to 13th. Like Dolan's much lauded film from last year at Cannes. It's at NewFest 2010. Get your tickets now.
NewFest, New York’s LGBT Film Festival has hooked up with
the Faigele Film Festival, New York’s Jewish LGBTQ Film Festival: presenting
Gay Days and The So-Called Movie.
A Movie About A Gay Hip Hop Cowboy Klezmer DJ Video Artist.
Say Nu?
The NewFest program describes Josh Dolgin, the subject of
the documentary "The So-Called Movie" as the love child of Woody Allen and Lil Wayne. Uh huh. Okay.
Well, What I can say is that Dolgin is one very interesting character whose
passion for music of all kinds is infectious, and whose beats just make me
happy. Makes me want to get up and dance.
Along with Gay Days, a documentary about the lgbt movement
in Israel, this NewFest trek uptown represents a move to recognize the fact
that the lgbt community is made up of many communities around the city. So on
June 8th, NewFest will be at the Jewish Community Center on the
Upper West Side.
The night before, on June 7th,
NewFest will be at Harlem Stages showing Children of God, a high-tension romance
that takes places in the midst of a homophobic crackdown in the Bahamas. Complete
with a right-wing preacher on the down-low, this film captures the
claustrophobia of life in a society where shame, secrecy and the threat of
violence are always present.
Gleeks Have Plenty to see at the LGBT Film Festival,
Starting With After The Storm
After The Storm: What happens to a real community when
natural disaster strikes and the local high school students are separated from
families? Not to sound glib, but they put on a show. In this stunning
documentary, After the Storm, the playwright and director of the Broadway
production of Once On This Island, went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
and helped the rebuild a community center and young lived by staging a local
production of the show with the teens. This is Glee for real.
Tickets are on sale now for members, and will go on sale for non-members on Monday, May 24th. You can get your tickets at NewFest.org And you can see trailers for many of the films at the NewFest YouTube channel.
Broadway Show Queen Alert: Put Gypsy in a blender with
Hairspray and you’ve got Leading Ladies.
Leading Ladies: An over the top backstage mother pushes her
daughter to be a star — on the ballroom dancing circuit. Her sister fades into
the background. The gay boy dance partner brings the “ugly duckling” sister to
a gay bar where he dances up a storm with his boyfriend and she discovers she’s
a lesbian. With a stage mom straight out of John Waters territory and hot dance
numbers, this is one fun movie. The boy is played by last year’s So You Think
You Can Dance winner, Benji Schwimmer. Cute, very cute. So this is a lesbian
love story with a gay male sidekick and is a movie that both lesbians and gay
men will enjoy.
Fruit Fly: From the people who made the indie hit, Colma,
Fruit Fly has 19 original songs in a story that follows Bethesda, a young Filipina woman, who like Rachel in Glee, is searching for her birth mother — in San Francisco while living with a house full of gay men. The opening number is also the title of
the film, about how she gets dubbed a fag hag and what it means for her.
Singing, Dancing, Waiting: There’s a shorts program that are
all musicals! I always love the shorts programs.
Prima Donna: A documentary about Rufus Wainwright putting on his opera. If you’re a fan, this is a must see.
The Topp Twins – Untouchable Girls: This is THE LESBIAN FILM EVERY GAY MAN WANTS TO SEE! Imagine if Dolly Parton had children with Lily
Tomlin, and those children would be the lesbian twin singing sister act from
New Zealand, the Topp Twins. They do drag king character sketch comedy. Country
singing. And yodeling. Yep, yodeling that you just have to hear. Trust me on
this. Oh, and after the film, the Topp Twins will be there in live performance.
This is an event. And you won’t want to miss it.
NewFest 2010, the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in New York (or more accurately New York’s LGBT Film Festival) has just posted their movie schedule.
There’s a great line up of gay movies with cute boys and hot men. Not to mention sizzling stories, provocative documentaries and men in sexy shorts (short films that is).
So with so many movies to choose from, how can you know what to see? My taste is entirely subjective, but here’s part 1 of my quick overview of the must-see movies for gay men (more will follow tomorrow).
I wanted to share my top picks with you now, since tickets go on sale exclusively to members on Monday, May 17th. If you want to buy your NewFest tickets this next week, you’ve got to be a member. And there are some really hot films this year, so if you can join rather than wait, I say go for it.
Must-see movies for gay men:
David’s Birthday: A hot Italian story about a jaw-droppingly sexy 18 year old boy whose hormones awaken suppressed desires on a family beach vacation — I you liked Call Me By Your Name, think of this as a similar story from the adult’s point of view.
I Killed My Mother: Lets start with the shallow — lead actor 20 year old Xavier Dolan is such a sexy boy with pouty lips it’s stunning to discover he is also the writer and director of this award winning film debut. Award winning? Over 30 awards internationally, including 3 at Cannes last year. It’s a great movie about the tension between a young man coming into his sexuality and the tension it creates in his close relationship with his mother. Intense. Funny. Moving. Go.
Is It Just Me? Cyrano de Bergerac for the modern online age, with gay men. Need I say more? Cute guys, sweet romantic story, go-go boys, muscles and true love. Go and feel good falling in love.
Release: What kind of release are we talking about here? Well, this is a prison movie. And for those of you who miss your Oz fantasies, this movie tackles a relationship between a prison guard and a jailed priest that other inmates suspect was guilty for molesting boys. A film both violent and spiritual, it’s going to be an intense experience.
Boys Will Be Boys: If you like cute boys in shorts, you’ll see them. But lets be serious for a moment. Some of these shorts explore important stories that don’t often get told, which is why I love NewFest and support lgbt film. One film, Billy and Aaron is about the African American jazz composer Billy Strayhorn and the consequences in his life of living openly as a gay man the 1940s. That’s a lot of drama to pack into ten minutes. And that’s why I love short film. When done right, it’s powerful. Powerfully moving, or funny, or provocative. And the shorts in this program run the full range. You can be sure I’ll be in the audience for these films.
By the way, you can see trailers for many of the films at the NewFest 2010 YouTube channel.
And check back here tomorrow for part 2 of my cheat sheet of top picks for gay men.
Cute boys. Hot lesbians. Together in one fun film. At NewFestt 2010 in June.
In the world of LGBT movies, there aren't many that attract both lesbian and gay audiences. Leading Ladies will. Imagine combining Gypsy with Hairspray and add a dash of So You Think You Can Dance and that's Leading Ladies: the story of a John Waters style crazed stage mother pushing one of her daughters to national competition. Her partner on the dance floor is played by the delightfully cute Benji Schwimmer (who in fact won first place in So You Think You can dance).
His character is a bit over the top fey (not that it isn't hilarious). And it doesn't hold a candle to the almost drag performance of the mother by Melanie LaPatin, who is so over the top she could well be in orbit. It's hard to know whether to laugh (because is funny) or to cringe (because she is a horrifying mother and the writing is just too much). Quibbles all.
The men's dance sequence between the two cute boys is hot and fun. And the supermarket production number with a wink to Busby Berkeley is just the kind of musical theater we need more of. Or at least this gay man thinks so.
The big China story this
week is Google blowing the whistle on cyberspying and censorship. This is of
personal interest to me because I chat online with a gay Chinese man in Chengdu
every week, and there are subjects he doesn’t know about, and things he doesn’t
have access to.
Once I found myself cutting and pasting the sentences from a
censored story into the chat window so he would know what I was writing about.
But of course, this was risky business and he made it clear he didn’t want me
to do that in the future — our conversation is simply about gay life in the US,
since in Chengdu it isn’t anywhere near as open as it seems to be in Beijing,
where this week, what is billed as an officially sanctioned male beauty pageant (you can see a video of these shirtless young men here). I suspect my friend in Chengdu can't get to this video link however.
Late Breaking Development That Should Be No Surprise: Police Shut Down The Pageant — Full Story Here.
That's a sea change from
just a few years back when homosexuality was a criminal offense. Bu then, in a
country where a one child policy and the preference for male children has led
to a male/female ratio that makes it hard for a straight guy to find a wife,
taking the pressure off gay men from marrying as cover just might help a
little. In fact, it also helps take some pressure off the regime, since a
country with several million frustrated young men has got to feel like a powder
keg no matter who is in power.
I have no idea what's
behind the ruling Communist Party easing up on things in Beijing, but it's
still not easy if you're in the provinces. And I’m not just talking Chengdu.
Mongolia for example. If
you're in NYC this month, stop by the LGBT Center on 13th Street — in the lobby
there is an amazing exhibit documenting the lives of LGBT Mongolians living in
the capital city of Ulaanbaatar.
Beyond the Blue Sky,
created and produced by Brandt Miller, includes amazing portrait photography by
Miller and Mareike Günsche and a film by Miller and Sean Devaney.
The photographs are
intense and dramatic. While some of the men in these photos are shirtless, each of the subjects’ faces covered by a khadag — a
ceremonial scarf made of a sacred blue cloth representing the eternal sky and
used at funerals to wrap the head of the deceased.
Each photo is accompanied
with an oral history — a life story of each subject, transcribed by Miller
— that captures the universal longing all lgbt people feel, that all
people feel: the need for love and intimacy that is not merely recognized, but
celebrated.
Miller, who was in
Mongolia on a Fulbright Fellowship, was a co-founder of the first LGBT Center
in Ulaanbaatar.
The exhibit will be on
view at the NYC LGBT Center on 13th Street through April. If you go
there regularly as I do, take some time to stop and see it all. If you don’t go
to the Center, consider stopping in. There are so many groups that meet there,
and social services provided, it can be easy to overlook the fact that the
Center is indeed a central arts resource for the community too.
Here is a video interview with Miller, followed by the video documentary made with Sean Devaney:
It took me almost two years to get my first job as a
copywriter — and I started in what were really the last throes of the Mad Men
days. There was a recession at the time, and after I finished classes at SVA in
putting together a portfolio, I sent cover letters with photocopies of 3 of my
ad samples to over 200 creative directors at agencies around NYC. Remember, I
was typing each of those letters individually — and because I had researched
the accounts they were responsible for, I did my best to make each pitch for an
interview relevant to their business.
Eventually I was hired at Ted Bates — one of the megalithic
firms of the day. I worked at 1515 Broadway, when Times Square was at its
seediest. And my first day on the job, I was given this assignment:Playtex, which was known for its “cross your heart” bra,
which “lifts and separates” was going to introduce a girdle that was meant to
have a similar effect on the butt. They wanted to name this new product — and
they were willing to be somewhat racy.
I thought to myself, they’re paying me for this! And I went
to work, with a yellow pad and pen jotting down names. My creative director was
happy with my suggestions. But of course, the client didn’t choose any of them
— and in fact, they went the conservative route with the name, despite
their original request.
I kept the list. And so here, 32 years later are just a few
of the silly things I wrote down that I was paid a salary for:
Honey Buns
Radical Cheek
Fanny Pants
Rear View
Hot Seat
Bunny Hot
Tush Tush
Lush Tush
Bun Huggers
Today, it’s a different business. But when done right, it
should still inspire laughter. I’m not a junior copywriter anymore. And while I’m
freelancing after 17 years as a Creative Director, I’m grateful for this
hilarious career that has enabled me to sharpen my strategic thinking, and get
paid for making things up.
When I came out in 1970, I started hanging out on Christopher Street, since I wasn’t really a drinker and didn’t like the bar scene. Most gay men cruising on Christopher Street at the time were guys who lived in the Village and they had a prop that helped them avoid being arrested for loitering or cruising. How did it work? Well, dogs being what they are, when they see each other, they want to nose each other out. And this would allow two men to stand on the street and talk to each other (please resist thinking that men are dogs!) and it would look perfectly natural. Because in fact it is perfectly natural, dog or no dog. Except when I would hang out on the street, dogless and not living in the village, the police in their cruisers would sometimes drive right up onto the sidewalk to intimidate me and my friends. I was never arrested.
However, amazingly, people are still being arrested by the police for cruising. Last Tuesday, Slate magazine reported that despite the fact that the NY Supreme Court ruled the “anti-cruising” laws unconstitutional in 1983, the police still target and arrest men for simply stopping to have a private conversation with another man (even if one of those men is a police officer loitering with the sole goal of entrapment). In fact, the article notes that since 1983 there have been between bail, fines and court fees, New York City has taken in over $300,000 from more than 15,000 cases.
Not many men have contested the charges, and no one has fought back far enough to make it a rights violation case where the city has to pay damages. Because you can be sure, once the city has to cough up $300,000 or more because they violated our rights the orders will come down to make this unconstitutional practice a relic of the 70s.
Meanwhile, let’s stop for a minute to remember the false arrests a few months back that were supposedly for soliciting at porn shops that garnered protest in the community and much ire vented at Speaker Christine Quinn (who after much noise did something about it). Clearly there is a pattern of harassment against individual gay men by the police. Now add into the mix the recent bias-attack in Hell’s Kitchen where the police did not arrest an attacker. This became a media issue because one of the men attacked is a radio host, WPLJ DJ Blake Hayes. We don’t know how many gay men get shut down by the NYPD and don’t press it because they don’t have a channel to make the right noise (and consider too how many of us are ashamed that we have been attacked and are just grateful we’re not in the hospital.)
Let’s review. The NYPD has been: 1. Arresting gay men for cruising 2. Arresting gay men on trumped up charges of soliciting 3. Dismissing bias attacks against gay men.
Pardon me, but while I am in favor of marriage equality, I’d like to know that my basic rights (and my physical safety) are being protected. And I think some gay rights groups in the city might need to focus some righteous anger in the direction of the NYPD. It's sounds like it's time for an old-style GAA Zap, bringing media attention to this whole sordid affair. And to call for some heads.
It’s U.N. Day this week, an international holiday observed for the most part only by schoolchildren and diplomats. And when I was a schoolchild in the 1960s, and optimism and idealism about the U.N. ran high, every October 24th, we’d sing the U.N. song:
United Nations on the march, with flags unfurled. Together fight for victory, a free new world.
Back in the day when I believed the U.N. could save the world, I collected stamps. And so in honor of U.N. day (and in fact, the 20th through the 24th is U.N. week) I’m posting photos of my favorite U.N. first day of issue commemorative stamps.
The first two, in fact, aren’t really U.N. stamps — they’re a post office mistake. Because at the same time the USPS was honoring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (thank you Eleanor Roosevelt!) they were also honoring John Muir (who well deserved the honor). However, my UN first day envelope has the John Muir stamp on it. Not worth much from a philately point of view, but interesting.
A couple of other favorites include two stamps, exactly the same, but different colors, for the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. There’s a different envelope for each color stamp. A fantasy boyfriend I spent several years with dedicated his life’s work to this cause, so when I see these stamps I think of him. For those of you who don't use the phrase fantasy boyfriend in this way, I mean it as someone I spent time with, fantasizing a relationship that was not there. Another word of that is self-delusion.
I remember when I was 4th grade and Dag Hammarskjold was killed in a plane crash (and clearly shot down). It was, as I say, an idealistic time, and Hammarskjold was much admired in the world. So he was beatified almost immediately (not by the church of course, I mean in the media). And there were stamps commemorating his life for several years in a row. It was only after I had come out in college that I learned Hammarskjold was gay. And I wondered how his sexuality influenced his pursuit of peace. And what he would have thought of the modern gay rights movement had he lived.
Then there are the stamps honoring the IMF and IBRD. The International Bank of Reconstruction and Development was founded during WWII as a way of financing the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after the war. It’s a division of the IMF, which was founded under the auspices of the U.N. during the war (when the U.N. was a nascent organization itself).
The mission of the IMF is to “foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty." Unfortunately, we all know the IMF has used its resources to support military dictatorships over democratically elected governments, and does so to this day in Sudan and Syria. Hammarskjold would be appalled I am sure. Nice stamps though. And they were issued as part of the ideals of another age. Not to totally dis the U.N. — I know much important work is done there, from HIV prevention education in SE Asia to UNICEF rescuing child soldiers (Ishmael Beah, adopted son of my friend and teacher Laura Simms is one of those former soldiers). So while I may not feel positively about many things that are happening over on 42nd Street at the East River, I am glad I live in a world where the U.N. exists.
Today I go to the USPS and there are stamps of the Simpsons. In a weird way, the Simpsons is a lot more honest than the IMF. So no arguments from me.
Over at Joe. My. God. today JJ quoted Dan Savage on the endless blathery speeches given at the National Equality March:
"People don't go to demonstrations or marches to be talked to death,
they don't go to be harangued, they don't go to listen—God forbid—to poetry. They show up because they want to do something, they want to do something themselves, they want to take symbolic action.
Part of what made ACT-UP so successful back before it was overrun by
the same sorts of fuckwits and yahoos who ran yesterday's rally and
march was that ACT-UP didn't waste your time."
Savages words have generated a very heated discussion in the comments section. But of course, the blathery speeches weren't only given on the Mall. There was Obama's speech, which actually referenced an activist who didn't go in much for speeches — Morty Manford. Obama talked about Morty in passing as part of the story of his mother co--founding PFLAG. In an article today in the L.A. Times, David Ehrenstein writes about Morty and his history in NYC in GAA, which was the spiritual father of Act-Up, and where the "zap" — a political action meant to generate publicity and public support by pushing the forces of bigotry to show themselves in all their ugliness — was first developed.
Ehrenstein writes of the GAA Media Committee, of which he was a member with Vito Russo, Morty and others:
"It was our job to make sure the local newspapers and pre-cable
television covered our protest demonstrations, which we called zaps.
Getting coverage was no easy task in an era when the New York Times,
under Abe Rosenthal, avoided homosexual issues like the plague.
Morty proved to be well-suited to fighting. In 1968, he had helped
found Gay People at Columbia University, one of the nation's first gay
campus groups. In 1972, he took on Michael Maye, president of New York
City's Uniformed Firefighters Assn., who was accused of beating Morty
during a GAA zap of the Inner Circle -- New York City big shots who got
together for homophobic skits and partying. Several city officials
testified that Maye threw Morty down an escalator, then kicked and
stomped him. Maye was acquitted, but the gay-rights law the GAA wanted
the muckety-mucks to pass was signed soon afterward."
Not everyone is willing to get stomped. That's the risk of taking non-violent and theatrical protest. But as Ghandi and King proved, it takes time, but it works. It takes the moral high ground. Ehrenstein's point is that had Morty been in the room he would have interrupted Obama with cries of "WHEN?" He would have demanded specific action, because the time for words is past. It's time for action.
GAA understood this. Act-Up understood this. The organizers of the Equality March? They understood neither the lessons of GAA and Act-Up or the lessons of Harvey Milk: Get attention for the cause in a way that exposes the hate and bigotry of the opposition, and organize at the grass roots level in communities to win elections. There was a lot of talk from NEM about going home to do just that — no one needed to go to DC for this, the groups are there. This was I believe truly wasted effort at a time when if just 10% of these people had gone to MAINE to defend marriage equality it would make a real difference.
And on that subject of organizing on the community level. In the last year I have seen the same young men on the street on the UWS soliciting funds for HRC. They've stopped soliciting me though because I let them know not only my opinions of HRC, but also of them asking people on the UWS for support. I mean, next to Berkeley, this is about as liberal as it gets in the United States. They should be on the street in Astoria. Or in the district of Ruben Diaz in the Bronx. This is preaching to the converted. And a waste of time. But that is HRC. And that's my Monday morning queer rights grumbling.
