Movies
SPRING ARTS 2017: movies — Festivals, series and a ‘Beast’ remake
Live-action Disney reboot features gays galore


Out actor Luke Evans as Gaston in ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ a live-action remake of the Disney classic. (Photo courtesy Walt Disney Studios)
The biggest and queerest release of the 2017 spring movie season is Disney’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast.” Based on the classic 1991 animated movie, this version uses CGI to bring the enchanted objects to captivating life. Dan Stevens (“Downtown Abbey”) and Emma Watson (all those Harry Potter movies) play the title couple; Emma Thompson sings the title song.
Besides a substantial LGBT fanbase, the new release has a significant gay pedigree. The late Howard Ashman (“Little Shop of Horrors”) wrote the lyrics for the songs in the animated movie. (Alan Menken composed the score and Tim Rice wrote the additional lyrics.) The film is helmed by Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls” and “Gods and Monsters”), who’s openly gay as are actors Luke Evans as Gaston and Ian McKellen as Cogsworth.
No word yet on a D.C. screening, but “The Freedom to Marry,” a documentary from Eddie Rosenstein that features Evan Wolfson (long-time marriage activist) and attorney Mary Bonauto is in theaters now in New York and slated to open next weekend in Los Angeles. Details at freedomtomarrymovie.com.
Also on the marriage front is “Love v. Kentucky,” released in February and streaming now on Amazon, iTunes and others. It’s billed as an “intimate account of how two Kentucky attorneys with no background in vivil rights navigate their passionate opponenets and wrangle their reluctant allies” to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alex Schuman directs. Details at lovevkentucky.com.
The D.C. Shorts Film Festival & Screenplay Competition returns in September, but the team has two events coming up this spring. In March, the MENTORS Series will offer workshops for filmmakers. In April, the D.C. Shorts LAUGHS program will pair local comedians with funny films from past festivals. One of the funniest matches will be between Matty Litwack and “The Bench Project: Lost and Found,” a film with a delightful gay twist. Details pending. Check back later at laughs.dcshorts.com for details.
This spring, Reel Affirmations offers an exciting slate of films through XTRA, its monthly LGBT Film Series. Friday, March 24 offers the newly released “BWOY” and the 20th anniversary screening of “Watermelon Woman.” Directed by Sundance sensation John G. Young and starring Anthony Rapp, “BWOY” tells the story of a man rebuilding his life after the death of his son. In “Watermelon Woman,” writer/director/star Cheryl Dunye creates a fascinating fictional documentary about the (nonexistent) history of African-American women on film.
On Friday, April 21, XTRA tells the story of Ugandan transgender activist Cleopatra Kambugu in “The Pearl of Africa.” “The First Girl I Loved” (Friday, May 12) is a remarkable lesbian coming-of-age story that won the “Best of Next!” Award at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. And on Friday, June 16, the screening room turns into a ballroom for “Kiki,” the new documentary described as a sequel to “Paris Is Burning” that captures the youth-led expansion of New York City’s ballroom scene.
In addition, Reel Affirmations will host the Reel Trans Film Festival on Saturday, May 20 at the Studio Theatre. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy will be on hand to discuss a documentary about her revolutionary life.
Several other regional film festivals will also bloom this spring. While they haven’t announced their 2017 schedules as of press time, they have all been included rich LGBT fare in recent years. The Annapolis Film Festival runs March 30-April 2 and the Washington Jewish Film Festival runs from May 17-28.
Filmfest D.C. runs April 20-30 and will include “Play the Devil,” a thrilling coming-of-age story set in Trinidad. Organizers promise more information soon.
Legendary filmmaker and Baltimore native John Waters, recently presented with the Timeless Star Dorian Award by the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, is staying mum about the film he will be hosting for the 2017 Maryland Film Festival which runs in Baltimore May 3-7. He and a slate of exciting films will be on hand to welcome guests to the revitalized SNF Parkway Film Center (5 W. North Ave., Baltimore).
AFI Silver in downtown Silver Spring, Md., continues to present the latest indie films from around the world, along with curated explorations of classic films from Hollywood and international cinema. A highlight of their spring schedule is All About Almodóvar which runs March 4-April 27. The tribute to the legendary queer Spanish director includes a wide sampling of his films from his early anarchic films released in the heady days after the fall of Franco (“Labyrinth of Passion”) to his delicious delirious farces (“I’m So Excited”) to his more recent melodramas (“Volver”).
A special evening for dedicated Almodóvar fans will be the double bill of “Matador” (1986) and “Law of Desire” (1987) on Tuesday, March 21. Both films feature outstanding performances by a young Antonio Banderas and Almodóvar muse Carmen Maura.
For the whole family, AFI offer series on the Muppets (March 4-April 23) and the Marx Brothers (March 24-April 20). There’s also a centennial tribute to actor Kirk Douglas who founded a Hollywood dynasty while helping to break the Hollywood Blacklist in the 1950s.
Also at the AFI, “Little Men,” the moving story about a budding bromance between two Brooklyn teens by openly gay director Ira Sachs (“Keep the Lights On”), will screen March 6-9. Also look for the director’s cut of the dystopic “Blade Runner” (March 31-April 2), John Hurt and Richard Burton in “1984” (April 20) and Angela Lansbury’s terrifying performance in “The Manchurian Candidate” (April 23 and 26). Lighter fare includes the steamy “Ramen Western” “Tampopo” (April 2) and Mel Brooks’ comic masterpiece “Blazing Saddles” from April 7-9.
One of the few studio releases with queer content this spring is “Raw” which opens on Friday, March 24. Some audience members at Cannes and the Toronto Film Festival fled the theater during the screening, but others hailed the first feature film by French director Julie Ducournau for its confidence and decadent style. The plot centers on a college freshman (Garance Marillier) whose life changes when a bizarre hazing ritual awakens sexual and culinary appetites in the former vegetarian.
On Friday, April 7, Landmark E Street Cinema is host to bad boy French director François Ozon. In a departure for the openly gay director, “Frantz” offers a somber tale about the aftermath of World War I set in the quiet German countryside and shot in black and white.
From April 21-23, Dan Savage’s HUMP! Film Festival comes to the Black Cat (1811 14th St., N.W.). HUMP! is a celebration of sexual expression that includes an amazingly diverse array of short amateur porn videos.
Some mainstream releases of note include:
• “The Last Word” (March 10) with Shirley MacLaine as a retired businesswoman who hires Amanda Seyfried to write her life story.
• “T2 Trainspotting” (March 24), reunites the original stars in a sequel to the classic 1996 movie.
• “Song to Song” (March 24) stars Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman’s as two entangled couples in Terence Malick’s tale of seduction and betrayal set against the backdrop of Austin’s contemporary music scene.
• “Unforgettable” (April 21) stars Katherine Heigl in a dramatic turn as Tessa Connover, a woman who becomes obsessed with her ex-husband’s new wife (Rosario Dawson).
Just in time for Mother’s Day, the cinematic mother-daughter team of Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn romp their way through “Snatched” (May 12). The comedy is scripted by Katie Dippold, who wrote last year’s “Ghostbusters” remake, and features lesbian comic Wanda Sykes.

Goldie Hawn, left, makes a welcome return to the big screen with ’SNATCHED,’ with Amy Schumer. It’s her first major role since 2002. (Photo courtesy Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.)
And on the superhero front, there are some major entrances and exits coming this spring. On Friday, March 3, longtime LGBT ally Hugh Jackman steps away from the Wolverine franchise in “Logan.” On Friday, June 2, Gal Gadot grabs the golden lasso for her first solo feature film as “Wonder Woman.” And on a lighter note, Groot and the gang return in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” on May 5.
And for those who don’t have regular access to theaters that screen LGBT-affirming works or if you just want to someone else to curate a series for you, check out Frameline, a San Francisco-based media arts non-profit that releases LGBT-affirming films monthly on its YouTube channel. Search “Frameline” on YouTube to find out more. About 50 films hosted over the last five years are available for viewing there.
The fifth annual D.C. Web Fest is Saturday, April 1 from 4-11 p.m. featuring web series, online short films, apps and online games.
Movies
‘Pink Narcissus’ reasserts queer identity in the face of repression
Gorgeously restored film a surreal fantasia on gay obsessions

Back in 1963, there really wasn’t such a thing as “Queer Cinema.”
Of course there had been plenty of movies made by queer people, even inside Hollywood’s tightly regulated studio system; artists like George Cukor and Vincente Minnelli brought a queer eye and sensibility to their work, even if they couldn’t come right out and say so, and became fluent in a “coded” language of filmmaking that could be deciphered by audience members “in the know,” while everyone else – including the censors – 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, you’d 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 – 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 film’s 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 – “Pink Narcissus,” 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 Manhattan’s Newfest – didn’t exactly take the world by storm. When it finally premiered on “arthouse” theater screens in 1971, it was slammed by mainstream critics (like Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who compared it to “a homemade Mardi Gras drag outfit” 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 1984’s “Gay Film Festival” 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 – 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, it’s not the kind of movie that can be described in terms of a cohesive linear plot. “Official” synopsis efforts have typically framed it as the story of a young male hustler who, while waiting for a call from a favorite “trick,” 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, it’s difficult to place a definitive construct upon it. What’s certainly true is that it presents a series of daydreamed episodes in which its protagonist – played by sultry lipped Bobby Kendall, a teen runaway who had become a model for Bidgood’s “physique” photography as well as his roommate and (probably) on-and-off lover – 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 man’s 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 “innocent” nymph in the woods (perhaps the human embodiment of the film’s 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 “twink” to “trick” 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 “Pink Narcissus” apart from so many early examples of queer cinema is that, despite its reliance on “rough trade” trappings and the performative “tragedy” of its overall arc from youth and beauty to age and corruption, it exudes an unmistakable attitude of joy.
We’re 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 “normality” which would have us deny ourselves such pleasures; in short, the joy of being alive – 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 today’s, when joy itself seems as much under attack as sexuality, it becomes an almost radical act – a declaration of independence asserting our natural right to be who we are and like what we like.
That’s why “Pink Narcissus” looms so large in the landscape of queer filmmaking. It’s the irrefutable evidence of queer joy singing out to us from a time when it could only exist in our most private of moments; it’s 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 Bidgood’s movie unequivocally does.
Restored to the vivid (and luridly colorful) splendor of its original 8mm format, “Pink Narcissus” 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 ‘Lavender Men’
Exploring one of Abe Lincoln’s most intense male relationships

For someone who’s been dead for 160 years, Abraham Lincoln is still hot.
No, we don’t mean it that way, though if we were talking about the Lincoln of “Lavender Men” – a new movie starring and co-written by queer playwright Roger Q. Mason, who also wrote the acclaimed play from which it is adapted – we certainly could be. We’re really just making the observation that the 16th POTUS continues to occupy a central place in America’s 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, it’s impossible not to compare the ideals he has come to stand for with the ones currently holding sway over the country’s 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 Lincoln’s “Great Emancipator” reputation and the romanticized pedestal upon which he has been placed; and if he looms large as an influence over American identity, it’s as much for his enigmatic nature as for the values he represents. Was he a true believer in the principals of “liberty and justice for all” or a political pragmatist who recognized that preserving the nation – and its growing power in the larger arena of world affairs – 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 “American Identity” aligns most closely with your own.
It’s also a question that’s further complicated in the context of Lincoln’s 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 “friendship” with various companions throughout his life but plentiful evidence that the romantic nature of these relationships was something of an “open secret” in his lifetime, as explored in last year’s brash but scrupulously documented “Lover of Men.” If Lincoln was himself an “other,” 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?
That’s the crux of the premise behind “Lavender Men,” which builds a “fantasia” around one of Lincoln’s most intense male relationships – with Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, a young family friend who helped him carry out his 1860 campaign for president and would later become the first “notable” 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, doesn’t take place in a period setting; instead, it happens in an empty modern-day theater – an apropos allusion to the location of Lincoln’s ultimate fate – 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 – as a queer, plus-sized, Black Filipinx TGNC person trying to find connection and community in a world where they feel invisible – through an imagined retelling of Lincoln’s 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 Angeles’s Skylight Theater Company, the film was in his own words “shot over 10 days on a shoestring budget” – 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 – and resentments – are reflected through the rumored romance of a president and his “little” 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, it’s 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, it’s refreshingly unpretentious, acknowledging its own campiness without undercutting the authenticity of the voice which drives it – which is, of course, Mason’s.
Delivering an entirely charismatic, commandingly fabulous, and palpably honest tour de force, the playwright/actor is at the center of “Lavender Men” 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 “fitting in” – and illuminate this hidden chapter of queer history along the way. Indeed, capturing their performance – which Mason reprises, along with fellow original co-stars Ploszek and Esola, from the stage production – is arguably the film’s most significant accomplishment. It’s 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: “I 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.”
“Lavender Men” is showing in limited theaters now. Watch for information on streaming/VOD availability.
Movies
Jacob Elordi rides high in ‘On Swift Horses’
Sony Pictures’ promotions avoid referencing queer sexuality of main characters

You might not know it from the publicity campaign, but the latest big-screen project for breakout “Euphoria” actor and sex symbol Jacob Elordi is 100% a gay love story.
Alright, perhaps that’s not entirely accurate. “On Swift Horses” – adapted from the novel by Shannon Pufahl and directed by Daniel Minahan from a screenplay by Bryce Kass – actually splits its focus between two characters, the other of which is played by “Normal People” star Daisy Edgar-Jones; but since that story arc is centered around her own journey toward lesbian self-acceptance, it’s unequivocally a “Queer Movie” anyway.
Set in 1950s America, at the end of the Korean War, it’s an unmistakably allegorical saga that stems from the marriage between Muriel (Edgar-Jones) and Lee (Will Poulter), a newly discharged serviceman with dreams of building a new life in California. His plans for the future include his brother Julius (Elordi), a fellow war vet whose restlessly adventurous spirit sparks a kindred connection and friendship with his sister-in-law despite a nebulously strained dynamic with Lee. Though the newlyweds follow through with the plan, Julius opts out in favor of the thrill of a hustler’s life in Las Vegas, where his skills as a card shark gain him employment in a casino. Nevertheless, he and Muriel maintain their friendship through correspondence, as he meets and falls in love with co-worker Henry (Diego Calva) and struggles to embrace the sexual identity he has long kept secret. Meanwhile, Muriel embarks on a secret life of her own, amassing a secret fortune by gambling on horse races and exploring a parallel path of self-acceptance with her boldly butch new neighbor, Sandra (Sasha Calle), as Lee clings obliviously to his dreams of building a suburban family life in the golden era of all-American post-war prosperity.
Leisurely, pensive, and deeply infused with a sense of impossible yearning, it’s the kind of movie that might easily, on the surface, be viewed as a nostalgia-tinged romantic triangle – albeit one with a distinctively queer twist. While it certainly functions on that level, one can’t help but be aware of a larger scope, a metaphoric conceit in which its three central characters serve as representatives of three conflicting experiences of the mid-century “American Dream” that still looms large in our national identity. With steadfast, good-hearted Lee as an anchor, sold on a vision of creating a better life for himself and his family than the one he grew up with, and the divergent threads of unfulfilled longing that thwart his fantasy with their irresistible pull on the wife and brother with whom he hoped to share it, it becomes a clear commentary on the bitter reality behind a past that doesn’t quite gel with the rose-colored memories still fetishized in the imagination of so many Americans.
Fortunately, it counterbalances that candidly expressed disharmony with an empathetic perspective in which none of its characters is framed as an antagonist; rather, each of them are presented in a way with which we can readily identify, each following a still-unsatisfied longing that draws them all inexorably apart despite the bonds – tenuous but emotionally genuine – they have formed with each other. To put it in a more politically-centered way, the staunch-but-naive conformity of Lee, in all his patriarchal tunnel vision, does not make him a villainous oppressor any more than the repressed queerness of Muriel and Julius make them idealized champions of freedom; all of them are simply following an inner call, and each can be forgiven – if not entirely excused – for the missteps they take in response to it
That’s not to say that Minahan’s movie doesn’t play into a tried-and-true formula; there’s a kind of “stock character” familiarity around those in the orbit of the three main players, leading to an inevitably trope-ish feel to their involvement – despite the finely layered performances of Calva and Calle, which elevate their roles as lovers to the film’s two queer explorers and allow them both to contribute their own emotional textures – and occasionally pulls the movie into the territory of melodrama.
Yet that larger-than-life treatment, far from cheapening “On Swift Horses,” is a big part of its stylish appeal. Unapologetically lush in its gloriously photographed recreation of saturated 1950s cinema (courtesy of Director of Photography Luc Montpellier), it takes us willingly into its dream landscape of mid-century America – be it through the golden suburbs of still-uncrowded Southern California or the neon-lit flash of high-rolling Las Vegas, or even the macabre (but historically accurate) depiction of nuclear-age thrill-seekers convening for a party in the Nevada desert to watch an atom bomb detonate just a few short miles away. It’s a world remembered by most of us now only through the memories and artifacts of a former generation, rendered with an artful blend of romance and irony, and inhabited by people in whom we can see ourselves reflected while marveling at their beauty and charisma.
As lovely as the movie is to look at, and as effective as it is in evoking the mix of idealism and disillusionment that defines the America of our grandparents for many of us at the start of the second quarter of the 21st century, it’s that last factor that gives Minahan’s film the true “Hollywood” touch. His camera lovingly embraces the beauty of his stars. Edgar-Jones burns with an intelligence and self-determination that underscores the feminist struggle of the era, and the director makes sure to capture the journey she charts with full commitment; Poulter, who could have come off as something of a dumb brute, is allowed to emphasize the character’s nobility over his emotional cluelessness; Calle is a fiery presence, and Minahan lets her burn in a way that feels radical even today; Calva is both alluring and compelling, providing an unexpected depth of emotion that the film embraces as a chord of hope.
But it is Elordi who emerges to truly light up the screen. Handsome, charismatic, and palpably self-confident, he’s an actor who frankly needs to do little more than walk into the scene to grab our attention – but here he is given, perhaps for the first time, the chance to reveal an even greater depth of sensitivity and truth, making his Julius into the film’s beating heart and undisputed star. It’s an authenticity he brings into his much-touted love scenes with Calva, lighting up a chemistry that is ultimately as joyously queer-affirming as they are steamy.
Which is why Sony Pictures’ promotions for the film – which avoid directly referencing the sexuality of its two main characters, instead hinting at “secret desires” and implying a romantic connection between Elordi and Edgar-Jones – feels not just like a miscalculation, but a slap in the face. Though it’s an eloquent, quietly insightful look back at American cultural history, it incorporates those observations into a wistful, bittersweet, but somehow impossibly hopeful story that emphasizes the validity of queer love.
That’s something to be celebrated, not buried – which makes “On Swift Horses” a sure bet for your must-see movie list.