Movies
Sacrificing self
New documentary profiles gay Naval Academy alumniĀ

‘Out of Annapolis’
Oct. 22 at 9:30 p.m.
U.S. Naval Memorial Theatre
701 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
$15

Director Steve Clark Hall during his service days in 1982 off the coast of Connecticut. (Photo courtesy of the filmmaker)
Baltimore resident Frank McNeil remembers with a chuckle some of the tricks of the trade he and his Marine Corps buddies ā the few who were out to each other ā used to keep handy during their years at North Carolina’s Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune where he was stationed in the ’80s.
There was a gay bar in nearby Jacksonville, N.C., ironically dubbed Secrets. But partying there was too dangerous because military police would routinely troll the Secrets parking lot for cars with military stickers, trace the owners and confront them.
McNeil wormed his way out of getting busted a few times ā enough to learn Secrets was too close to home to patronize.
“‘So, Corp. McNeil, why was your car parked at a gay bar?'” McNeil remembers the conversation unfolding. “‘Uhhh, I loaned it to a friend.’ You just learned not to go out in Jacksonville, most of us went out in Wilmington, which was like an hour away. So you could go out and have fun but your guard was up, or at least mine was.”
McNeil left the military in 1991, before “Don’t’ Ask, Don’t Tell” was enacted. His story and 10 others are told in the new film “Out of Annapolis,” a documentary that will be screened as half of a double bill at the U.S. Naval Memorial Theatre in Washington Oct. 22. It’s one of three films being screened this month as a mini Reel Affirmations festival as the LGBT film marathon has moved its usual lineup from October to April.
Director Steve Clark Hall, a San Francisco Navy vet whose own story is shared in the film, says he was inspired to make the documentary because he was tired of seeing gays misrepresented.
“I’m just trying to put a real face on who we are,” Hall says. “Everything we see so misrepresents us, so we started with a website three-and-a-half years ago. Who are these people? You know, gays are always assumed to be these other people. Not people we know. Not who we are, but then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Oh, gays are my good friends or my neighbors.'”
Hall, who spent 20 years in the Navy, says he was “about as out as one could be without having gay tattooed on my forehead. I didn’t raise my hand and say, ‘I’m gay, kick me out.’ I think it wasn’t much of a problem for me because I was always a team player. Always an asset.”
McNeil had an especially rough time keeping his personal and professional life in balance. In those pre-“Don’t Ask” years, he only confided in a “very select” group of friends about his sexual orientation. His late partner, Chris Duncan, was battling AIDS, a factor in McNeil’s eventual resignation.
“It brought a lot of mixed feelings because I really loved what I was doing, but you just couldn’t share completely,” he says. “You couldn’t have your partner’s picture out. You had to change your pronouns. ⦠There was a sense of dismay that you couldn’t quite be honest with the people you were serving.”
“Out of Annapolis” started in the summer of 2008 as an undertaking of the United States Naval Academy OUT ā a group of LGBT U.S. Naval Academy alumni and their supporters. Hall, a novice filmmaker, says the project, which included a study of the experiences of gay alumni, aims to educate the public about the experiences of gay service members before and during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Participants were selected to give a good cross-representation of experiences. About 300 participated in the study, 75 were interviewed and 11 were chosen for the film.
“It was tough to pare it down,” Hall says. “We had some great stories we had to turn away because it would have over-represented a certain group.”
The movie debuted in New York in June and has been making the rounds of LGBT film festivals since. Hall and five others, including McNeil, will be at the D.C. screening, its local premiere.
“It’s very powerful,” says Larry Guillemette, Reel Affirmations festival chair. “I think it will resonate a great deal given the defeat our community just experienced on the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ legislation. I think it will hopefully galvanize people to get more involved.”
Perhaps ironically, Hall didn’t conceive the project as an anti-“Don’t Ask” manifesto. The policy is hardly mentioned in the film.
“Some of it is just chronology,” he says. “Some of the people we profiled served before the policy began. But the film interestingly doesn’t sit there and try to make an argument, but in some ways just hearing the stories makes it the greatest argument against ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ because people can see what it was really like trying to live under the law. We were forced to be two different people and you just can’t be.”
PHOTO: Frank McNeil at his home in Baltimore (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Movies
āThings Like Thisā embraces formula and plus-size visibility
Enjoyable queer romcom challenges conventions of the genre

Thereās a strange feeling of irony about a spring movie season stacked with queer romcoms ā a genre that has felt conspicuously absent on the big screen since the disappointing reception met by the much-hyped āBrosā in 2022 ā at a time when pushback against LGBTQ visibility is stronger than itās been for 40 years.
Sure, part of the reason is the extended timeline required for filmmaking, which tells us, logically, that the numerous queer love stories hitting theaters this year ā including the latest, the Manhattan-set indie āThings Like This,ā which opened in limited theaters last weekend ā began production long before the rapid cultural shift that has taken place in America since a certain convicted fraudsterās return to the White House.
That does not, however, make them any less welcome; on the contrary, theyāre a refreshing assertion of queer existence that serves to counter-balance the hateful, politicized rhetoric that continues to bombard our community every day. In fact, the word ārefreshingā is an apt description of āThings Like This,ā which not only celebrates the validity ā and joy ā of queer love but does so in a story that disregards āHollywoodā convention in favor of a more authentic form of inclusion than weāre ever likely to see in a mainstream film
Written, starring, and directed by Max Talisman and set against the vibrant backdrop of New York City, itās the story of two gay men named Zack ā Zack #1 (Talisman) is a plus-sized hopeful fantasy author with a plus-sized personality and a promising-but-unpublished first novel, and Zack #2 (Joey Pollari) an aspiring talent agent dead-ended as an assistant to his exploitative āqueen-beeā boss (Cara Buono) ā who meet at an event and are immediately attracted to each other. Though Zack #2 is resigned to his unsatisfying relationship with longtime partner Eric (Taylor Trensch), he impulsively agrees to a date the following night, beginning an on-again/off-again entanglement that causes both Zacks to re-examine the trajectories of their respective lives ā and a lot of other heavy baggage ā even as their tentative and unlikely romance feels more and more like the workings of fate.
Like most romcoms, it relies heavily on familiar tropes ā adjusted for queerness, of course ā and tends to balance its witty banter and starry-eyed sentiment with heart-tugging setbacks and crossed-wire conflicts, just to raise the stakes. The Zacksā attempts at getting together are a series of āmeet-cutesā that could almost be described as fractal, yet each of them seems to go painfully awry ā mostly due to the very insecurities and self-doubts which make them perfect for each other. The main obstacle to their couplehood, however, doesnāt spring from these mishaps; itās their own struggles with self-worth that stand in the way, somehow making theirs more of a quintessentially queer love story than the fact that both of them are men.
All that introspection ā relatable as it may be ā can be a downer without active energy to stir things up, but fortunately for āThings Like This,ā there are the inevitable BFFs and extended circle of friends and family that can help to get the fun back on track. Each Zack has his own support team backing him up, from a feisty āwork wifeā (Jackie Cruz, āOrange is the New Blackā) to a straight best friend (Charlie Tahan, āOzarkā) to a wise and loving grandma (veteran scene-stealer Barbara Barrie, āBreaking Awayā and countless vintage TV shows) ā that fuels the story throughout, providing the necessary catalysts to prod its two neurotic protagonists into taking action when they canāt quite get there themselves.
To be sure, Talismanās movie ā his feature film debut as a writer and director ā doesnāt escape the usual pitfalls of the romcom genre. Thereās an overall sense of āwish fulfillment fantasyā that makes some of its biggest moments seem a bit too good to be true, and there are probably two or three complications too many as it approaches its presumed happy ending; in addition, while it helps to drive the inner conflict for Zack #2ās character arc, throwing a homophobic and unsupportive dad (Eric Roberts) into the mix feels a bit tired, though itās hard to deny that such family relationships continue to create dysfunction for queer people no matter how many times theyāre called out in the movies ā which means that itās still necessary, regrettably, to include them in our stories.
And in truth, ācalling outā toxic tropes ā the ones that reflect societyās negative assumptions and perpetuate them through imitation ā is part of Talismanās agenda in āThings Like This,ā which devotes its very first scene to shutting down any objections from āfat shamersā who might decry the movieās āopposites attractā scenario as unbelievable. Indeed, he has revealed in interviews that he developed the movie for himself because of the scarcity of meaningful roles for plus-sized actors, and his desire to erase such conventional prejudices extends in every direction within his big-hearted final product.
Even so, thereās no chip-on-the-shoulder attitude to sour the movieās spirit; what helps us get over its sometimes excessive flourishes of idealized positivity is that itās genuinely funny. The dialogue is loaded with zingers that keep the mood light, and even the tensest scenes are laced with humor, none of which feels forced. For this, kudos go to Talismanās screenplay, of course, but also to the acting ā including his own. Heās eminently likable onscreen, with wisecracks that land every time and an underlying good cheer that makes his appeal even more visible; crucially, his chemistry with Pollari ā who also manages to maintain a lightness of being at his core no matter how far his Zack descends into uncertainty ā isnāt just convincing; itās enviable.
Cruz is the movieās āace in the holeā MVP as Zack #2ās under-appreciated but fiercely loyal bestie, and Buonoās hilariously icy turn as his āboss from hellā makes for some of the filmās most memorable scenes. Likewise, Tahan, along with Margaret Berkowitz and Danny Chavarriaga, flesh out Zack #1ās friend group with a real sense of camaraderie that should be recognizable to anyone whoās ever been part of an eclectic crew of misfits. Trenschās comedic āickinessā as Zack #2ās soon-to-be-ex makes his scenes a standout; and besides bigger-name āringersā Roberts and Barrie (whose single scene is the emotional climax of the movie), thereās also a spotlight-grabbing turn by Diane Salinger (iconic as Francophile dreamer Simone in āPee-Weeās Big Adventureā) as the owner of a queer bar where the Zacks go on one of their dates.
With all that enthusiasm and a momentum driven by a sense of DIY empowerment, it’s hard to be anything but appreciative of āThings Like This,ā no matter how much some of us might cringe at its more unbelievable romcom devices. After all, itās as much a āfeel-goodā movie as it is a love story, and the fact that we actually do feel good when the final credits role is more than enough to earn it our hearty recommendation.
Movies
āPink Narcissusā reasserts queer identity in the face of repression
Gorgeously restored film a surreal fantasia on gay obsessions

Back in 1963, there really wasnāt such a thing as āQueer Cinema.ā
Of course there had been plenty of movies made by queer people, even inside Hollywoodās tightly regulated studio system; artists like George Cukor and Vincente Minnelli brought a queer eye and sensibility to their work, even if they couldnāt come right out and say so, and became fluent in a ācodedā language of filmmaking that could be deciphered by audience members āin the know,ā while everyone else ā including the censors ā remained mostly oblivious.
Yes, the movie industry was adapting to the demands of a generation that had grown increasingly countercultural in its priorities, and topics that had once been taboo on the big screen, including the more or less open depiction of queerness, were suddenly fair game. But even so, youād be hard-pressed to find examples of movies where being queer was not tied to shame, stigma, and a certain social ostracization that remained, for the most part, a fact of life. Hollywood may have been ready to openly put queer people on the screen, but the existence it portrayed for them could hardly have been described as happy.
Yet this was the setting in which a Manhattan artist named James Bidgood began a filmmaking project that would dominate his life for the next several years and eventually become a seminal influence on queer cinema and queer iconography in general ā all executed, with the exception of an ambitious climactic sequence, in a cramped New York apartment utilizing elaborate handmade sets and costumes, which would define an entire queer aesthetic for decades to come. Though disputes with the filmās financiers would eventually cause him to remove his name from the project, resulting in years of anonymity before finally being credited with his work, he has now taken his rightful place as one of the architects of modern queer sensibility.
The movie he made ā āPink Narcissus,ā which has been newly restored in glistening 4K glory and is currently being screened in theaters across the U.S. after an April premiere at Manhattanās Newfest ā didnāt exactly take the world by storm. When it finally premiered on āarthouseā theater screens in 1971, it was slammed by mainstream critics (like Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who compared it to āa homemade Mardi Gras drag outfitā as if that were a bad thing) and largely ignored, even as a new spirit of creative freedom was bringing more and more visibility to openly queer content. A screening at 1984ās āGay Film Festivalā reintroduced it to an audience that was finally ready to embrace its feverishly stylized, near-surreal fantasia on gay obsessions, and since then it has loomed large in the queer cultural imagination, providing clear and directly attributable influence over the entire queer visual lexicon that has developed in its wake ā even if it has remained widely unseen among all but the most dedicated queer cinema buffs.
With a running time of little more than an hour, itās not the kind of movie that can be described in terms of a cohesive linear plot. āOfficialā synopsis efforts have typically framed it as the story of a young male hustler who, while waiting for a call from a favorite ātrick,ā fantasizes about various erotic scenarios in his spangled and bejeweled apartment. But since it is a film with no spoken dialogue that takes place largely in the imagination of its central character, itās difficult to place a definitive construct upon it. Whatās certainly true is that it presents a series of daydreamed episodes in which its protagonist ā played by sultry lipped Bobby Kendall, a teen runaway who had become a model for Bidgoodās āphysiqueā photography as well as his roommate and (probably) on-and-off lover ā imagines himself in various scenarios, including as a matador facing a bull (who is really a leather-clad motorcyclist in a public restroom), a Roman slave thrown to the mercy and pleasure of his emperor, and both a Sheik and a harem boy obsessed with a well-endowed exotic male belly dancer. Eventually, the young manās thoughts venture into the streets outside, where he is immersed in a seedy, sordid world of sexual mania and degradation, before facing a final fantasy in which, as an āinnocentā nymph in the woods (perhaps the human embodiment of the filmās titular butterfly), he is engulfed and consumed by his own sexual impulses, only to be reborn in his apartment to face the inevitable transformation from ātwinkā to ātrickā that presumably awaits all gay men who dedicate their lives to the transgressive desires that drive them.
All of that, to modern sensibilities, might seem like a series of stereotypical and vaguely demeaning tropes intended to warn us against the slippery slope of a hedonistic lifestyle, composed into a moralistic avant garde parable in which pleasure and punishment are intertwined with all the surety of fate; but what sets āPink Narcissusā apart from so many early examples of queer cinema is that, despite its reliance on “rough trade” trappings and the performative ātragedyā of its overall arc from youth and beauty to age and corruption, it exudes an unmistakable attitude of joy.
Weāre talking about the joy of sensuality, the joy of self-love, the joy of partaking in a life that calls to us despite the restrictions of societal ānormalityā which would have us deny ourselves such pleasures; in short, the joy of being alive ā something to which every living being theoretically has the right, but for queer people is all-too-often quashed under the mountain of disapproval and shame imposed upon them by a heteronormative society and its judgments. Considering that it was made in a time when the queer presence in film was mostly limited to victimhood or ridicule, it feels as much an act of resistance as it does a celebration of homoeroticism; seen in a cultural climate like todayās, when joy itself seems as much under attack as sexuality, it becomes an almost radical act ā a declaration of independence asserting our natural right to be who we are and like what we like.
Thatās why āPink Narcissusā looms so large in the landscape of queer filmmaking. Itās the irrefutable evidence of queer joy singing out to us from a time when it could only exist in our most private of moments; itās unapologetically campy, over the top in its theatricality, and almost comically blatant in its prurient obsession with the anatomy of the anonymous male models who make up most of its cast (and Kendall, who seems to dress himself in various outfits only to undress for the next erotic daydream), but it feels like a thumb on the nose to anyone who might shame us for for celebrating our sexual nature, which Bidgoodās movie unequivocally does.
Restored to the vivid (and luridly colorful) splendor of its original 8mm format, āPink Narcissusā is currently touring the country on a series of limited screenings; VOD streaming will be available soon, check the Strand Releasing website for more information.
Movies
Queer history, identity interweave in theatrical āLavender Menā
Exploring one of Abe Lincolnās most intense male relationships

For someone whoās been dead for 160 years, Abraham Lincoln is still hot.
No, we donāt mean it that way, though if we were talking about the Lincoln of āLavender Menā ā a new movie starring and co-written by queer playwright Roger Q. Mason, who also wrote the acclaimed play from which it is adapted ā we certainly could be. Weāre really just making the observation that the 16th POTUS continues to occupy a central place in Americaās national imagination. And in an age when our America is torn by nearly as much division (over many of the same core values) as the one he presided over, itās impossible not to compare the ideals he has come to stand for with the ones currently holding sway over the countryās political identity, and wonder at how short we have fallen from the mark.
Yet there has always been a gap between the historical reality of Lincolnās āGreat Emancipatorā reputation and the romanticized pedestal upon which he has been placed; and if he looms large as an influence over American identity, itās as much for his enigmatic nature as for the values he represents. Was he a true believer in the principals of āliberty and justice for allā or a political pragmatist who recognized that preserving the nation ā and its growing power in the larger arena of world affairs ā required the abolition of an increasingly unsustainable system that had divided it? Your answer to that rhetorical question will likely depend on which version of āAmerican Identityā aligns most closely with your own.
Itās also a question thatās further complicated in the context of Lincolnās private life, something that has itself been the subject of debate as modern historians and scholars consider the questions about his sexuality unavoidably implied in his well-documented biographical record, which reveals not only a pattern of closely bonded male āfriendshipā with various companions throughout his life but plentiful evidence that the romantic nature of these relationships was something of an āopen secretā in his lifetime, as explored in last yearās brash but scrupulously documented āLover of Men.ā If Lincoln was himself an āother,ā a queer man who had risen to position and power in a world that despised and shunned people like him, what new light would that cast on his legacy?
Thatās the crux of the premise behind āLavender Men,ā which builds a āfantasiaā around one of Lincolnās most intense male relationships ā with Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, a young family friend who helped him carry out his 1860 campaign for president and would later become the first ānotableā casualty of the Civil War when he was shot while removing a Confederate flag from the window of an inn facing the White House. The film, however, doesnāt take place in a period setting; instead, it happens in an empty modern-day theater ā an apropos allusion to the location of Lincolnās ultimate fate ā where the overworked and underappreciated Taffeta (Mason) oversees the production of a play about the romance between Lincoln and Ellsworth (Pete Ploszek and Alex Esola). After a particularly demoralizing performance, the put-upon stage manager ponders alone about their own life ā as a queer, plus-sized, Black Filipinx TGNC person trying to find connection and community in a world where they feel invisible ā through an imagined retelling of Lincolnās doomed love story in which the narrative is projected through the lens of their own struggle to be seen, loved, and accepted,
Expanded from the play and directed by co-screenwriter Lovell Holder, a lifelong friend of Mason who helped develop the project and oversaw the original 2022 stage production at Los Angelesās Skylight Theater Company, the film was in his own words āshot over 10 days on a shoestring budgetā ā and it admittedly shows. However, it leans into its limitations, letting the spare, isolated atmosphere of the empty theater exert its own influence over the material. In this framing, Taffeta becomes something like a reverse ghost, a spirit from the present haunting a past in which their own unfulfilled longings ā and resentments ā are reflected through the rumored romance of a president and his ālittleā man, and their exploration of the narrative, with all its inherent observations about the dynamics of power, gender, status, and physical attraction, ultimately becomes a meditation on the importance of redefining personal identity free from the shaping influence of other people’s experience or expectations.
Needless to say, itās not the kind of movie that will appeal to every taste; highly conceptual in nature, with a nonlinear storytelling pattern that frequently calls attention to its own artificiality, it might prove perplexing to audiences used to a more traditional approach. Even so, itās refreshingly unpretentious, acknowledging its own campiness without undercutting the authenticity of the voice which drives it ā which is, of course, Masonās.
Delivering an entirely charismatic, commandingly fabulous, and palpably honest tour de force, the playwright/actor is at the center of āLavender Menā at every level, evoking our delight, laughter, tears, discomfort, and myriad other shades of response as they take us on their historically themed tour of queer identity, which involves its own collection of repressive and/or demeaning social expectations about āfitting inā ā and illuminate this hidden chapter of queer history along the way. Indeed, capturing their performance ā which Mason reprises, along with fellow original co-stars Ploszek and Esola, from the stage production ā is arguably the filmās most significant accomplishment. Itās a powerful example of the kind of fierce, spirited expression that is rarely seen outside the half-empty houses of underground theaters, well worthy of several repeated viewings.
For Mason, however, the thing that matters most is not their performance, nor even their brilliantly conceived script. Discussing the movie, he describes it as something much bigger than that: āI hope this film serves as a rally cry, a fountain of joy and a grounding of purpose for the LGBTQIA+ movement in the U.S. and abroad at a time when we need stories which affirm, empower and embolden us more than ever.ā
āLavender Menā is showing in limited theaters now. Watch for information on streaming/VOD availability.
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