Movies
Holiday movie and TV preview
Lesbian romance, ‘Rent’ adaptation, and Lady Gaga make the season bright
It wasn’t all that long ago – barely one or two Decembers ago, really – that the holiday lineup of movies and TV shows offered very little in the way of LGBTQ inclusion. It may have been the time of year to don our gay apparel, but the closest thing to gay representation we were likely to get on our screens was an elven dentist and a few misfit toys.
This year, however, is a different story. The seasonal entertainment landscape of 2021 brings with it the usual crop of mainstream (read: straight) crowd-pleasers with queer appeal (Lady Gaga as scheming real-life social-climber and Gucci murderer Patrizia Reggiani? Yes, please!), but it also comes bearing a much heftier-than-usual bag of gifts in the form of actual queer content, with actual queer characters and stories, and with some of our favorite stars. Not all of them are holiday stories, of course, but that doesn’t mean they don’t all make the season brighter – and the Blade is here to help you sort through the bounty with our annual Holiday Preview, a roundup of titles our readers will want to check out. The list is below:
tick, tick…BOOM! (Netflix and in theaters 11/ 19): Perfect for Broadway lovers, this is the hotly anticipated film adaptation of the posthumously produced autobiographical musical by Jonathan Larson, who revolutionized musical theater as the creator of “Rent” but died suddenly of an aortic dissection at 35 before he could see it grow to a global phenomenon. The film follows the young theater composer – played by Andrew Garfield – as he struggles to write what he hopes will be the next great American musical while waiting tables in a NYC diner, dealing with pressures in his personal life, and watching the artistic community around him be ravaged by the ongoing AIDS crisis. Fittingly enough, this hotly anticipated film about a Broadway giant is the feature directorial debut of another Broadway giant – none other than “Hamilton” and “In the Heights” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, himself. Written by Tony-winner Steven Levenson (“Dear Evan Hansen”), it also stars Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús, Joshua Henry, Mj Rodriguez, Bradley Whitford, Tariq Trotter (aka Black Thought of The Roots), Judith Light, and Vanessa Hudgens.
House of Gucci (In theaters 11/24): As mentioned above, this tale of true crime and high fashion stars LGBTQ ally Lady Gaga, and it’s already been called “disappointing” by the real-life Gucci family – so you know it’s going to be juicy. Inspired by the shocking true story of Patrizia Reggiani (Gaga), whose marriage into the family behind the Italian fashion house takes center stage as the film chronicles three decades of love, betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultimately murder. Directed by multiple Oscar-nominee Ridley Scott, this sure-fire award season contender also stars Adam Driver, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, Al Pacino, Reeve Carney, and an unrecognizable Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci.
The Humans (Showtime and in theaters 11/24): Another import from the Broadway stage, this seasonally appropriate adaptation of Stephen Karam’s Tony-winning drama centers on a dysfunctional NYC family as they help their youngest daughter Brigid (Beanie Feldstein) move into her new apartment with her boyfriend (Steven Yuen) on Thanksgiving Day. This sets the scene for a relatable – if occasionally uncomfortable – holiday dinner in which personal issues become fodder for discussion and family conflicts start rearing their ugly heads. More than just another cutting domestic drama for the holidays, this one goes deep to offer a slice-of-life observational commentary on the state of family life in America today. Amy Schumer co-stars as Brigid’s older lesbian sister Aimee, and Jayne Houdyshell reprises her acclaimed Broadway performance as the girls’ mother, in an ensemble cast that also features Richard Jenkins and June Squibb. Playwright Karam not only wrote the adaptation himself, but also directed, making his debut behind the camera and ensuring that this one is sure to be a must-see for fans of theater and film alike.
Saved by the Bell, Season 2 (Peacock TV 11/24): Peacock’s reboot of the classic ‘90s sitcom returns for a second round, and besides the obvious appeal in the camp and nostalgia departments, it also features a trans leading character portrayed by a trans actress. Populating the halls of Bayside High is a cast that includes Elizabeth Berkley Lauren, Mario Lopez, John Michael Higgins, Haskiri Velazquez, Mitchell Hoog, Josie Totah, Alycia Pascual-Peña, Belmont Cameli, Dexter Darden, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Tiffani Thiessen, and Lark Voorhies (Lisa Turtle).
Single All the Way (Netflix 12/2): Yet another Tony-winner (Michael Mayer) directs this promising entry to the Holiday roster, Netflix’s first-ever gay-themed Yuletide romance starring Michael Urie (“Ugly Betty,” Broadway’s “Torch Song”) as a gay man who asks his best friend (Philemon Chambers) to pose as his boyfriend at his family’s Christmas dinner to avoid being questioned about his perpetually single status. Unbeknownst to him, his mom (Kathy Najimi) has already planned to set him up with her handsome personal trainer (Luke MacFarlane) – which obviously means that festive hijinks are sure to follow. This slice of seasonal sweetness also features Barry Bostwick (“The Rocky Horror Picture Show”) and Jennifer Robinson, and capping it off is the incomparable Jennifer Coolidge, rounding out her “White Lotus” year with what will undoubtedly be another mesmerizingly dotty performance in a supporting role.
The Bitch Who Stole Christmas (VH1 12/2): In the “why didn’t they do this sooner?” category is this holiday special from Emmy-winning TV icon and “Drag Race” legend RuPaul, who takes the screen as “a workaholic big-city fashion journalist” who (according to the show’s official description) goes on assignment to “a Christmas-obsessed small town” and “finds herself in the middle of cut-throat housewives, a high-stakes ‘Winter Ball’ competition, and a sinister plot that could destroy Christmas fore-evah!” Joining Mama Ru onscreen will be 20 “Drag Race” winners and a host of other celebrities. We’re there.
With Love (Amazon Prime 12/17): From Gloria Calderón Kellett, the critically acclaimed showrunner of the queer-inclusive reboot of “One Day at a Time,” comes Amazon Prime Video’s first holiday miniseries, complete with a heavily inclusive LGBTQ cast and queer storylines that feature a gay couple (played by Mark Indelicato and Vincent Rodriguez III) and one of the first transgender love stories ever to be found in a holiday rom-com. The series consists of five hour-long episodes tracking the Diaz family as they search for love and purpose across five different holidays during the year. Also starring are Emeraude Toubia, Desmond Chiam, Rome Flynn, Isis King, Todd Grinnell, Constance Marie, and Benito Martinez.
Under the Christmas Tree (Lifetime 12/19): Lifetime’s first-ever lesbian romance begins when “Christmas tree whisperer” Charlie Freemont (Tattiawna Jones) finds the perfect tree for the governor’s holiday celebration – in the backyard of marketing whiz Alma Beltran (Elise Bauman). The two women spar, naturally, but it’s not long before – with a little help from the tree and “some Christmas fairy dust” from the town’s resident pastry chef (Ricki Lake) – the romantic sparks begin to fly.
Movies
A writer finds his voice through sex work in ‘Sebastian’
An engaging, sexy, and thought-provoking ride
When Finnish-British filmmaker Mikko Mäkelä’s film “Sebastian” premiered at the 2024 Sundance Festival, he told Variety he wanted his movie to provide a “frank and honest portrayal of queer sexuality.” That’s surely enough to lure queer audiences – particularly gay male audiences, thanks to its gay male protagonist – with the promise of steamy onscreen sex, and his movie, now available on VOD platforms after a limited theatrical release, certainly delivers on it.
That, however, is only half (perhaps less) of what it’s all about, because, like its title character, it lives in two worlds at once.
In fact, “Sebastian” isn’t even his real name. He’s actually Max (Ruaridh Mollica), an aspiring writer who works a “survival job” at a literary magazine while working on his first novel – a “pseudo-memoir” chronicling a gay sex worker’s encounters with various clients. It’s not exactly “pseudo,” though; the experiences he writes about are real, gained by advertising himself on a website for gay escorts to obtain “research” for his book. The results are getting him noticed, and a publisher (Leanne Best) is interested in the completed manuscript – but he finds his focus being pulled away from his “real” life and deeper into the anonymous thrill of exploring his own sexuality in the safety of an assumed identity.
It’s not just his work that’s affected; among the other things that begin to suffer from his growing obsession are his relationships: with his co-worker and bestie, fellow aspiring writer Amna (Hiftu Quasem); with his conservative mother back in Edinburgh, who already disapproves of his lifestyle in faraway, hedonistic London; and to a much older client (Jonathan Hyde) with whom “Sebastian” has developed an unexpected emotional attachment. Most of all, it’s his own sense of identity that is caught in the conflict, as he tries to keep both sides of his double life together while preventing his whole world from falling apart.
It’s a story with a lot of irons on the fire – a quality it seems to share with the novel its protagonist is writing, much to the irritation of his would-be publisher. What begins as the saga of a fledgling male escort – we first meet Max during his first booking as “Sebastian,” after all, suggesting almost from the start that it is this persona that is our true protagonist – soon shifts into that of an ambitious-but-frustrated young author attempting to fuel his creativity through lived experience, laced with the ongoing thread of his own sexual awakening and self-acceptance. It even makes overtures toward an unexpected (and unorthodox) love story, before venturing down a darker path to become something of a cautionary tale, a warning against the dangers of leading a compartmentalized existence and allowing the gratification of one’s personal appetites to overshadow all the other facets of our lives. Along the way, it throws in some commentary about the tense dynamic between creative expression and commercialism in the arts, not to mention the reinforcement of stigma and negative attitudes around sex workers – and sex in general – through the perceptions and representations created by social traditions and popular culture.
This latter perspective might be the key to what is really at the heart of “Sebastian” all along, toward which Mäkelä’s screenplay hints with a description of Max’s work-in-progress as being about “the shame of being ashamed.” From the beginning, it is his own fear of being found out that becomes his greatest obstacle; far more than his reluctance to cross lines he’s been raised to respect, it’s the dread of having his reputation and his prospects shattered that causes him to waver in his path – and that feeling is not unfounded, which is in itself a telling indicator that the power of social judgment is a very real force when it comes to living our authentic lives. Indeed, his personal taboos are quick to fall away as he pursues his undercover “research”, but the guilt he feels about being caught in a social position perceived as “beneath” his own is something he cannot shrug off so easily. With so many generations of religious and societal dogma behind them, such imperatives are hard to ignore.
Yet, there’s yet another aspect of “Sebastian” to discuss, that, while it is self-evident in the very premise of Mäkelä’s movie, might be easy to overlook in the midst of all these other themes. A story about someone pretending to be someone else is inherently about deception, and Max, regardless of his motives, is a deceiver. He deceives his clients to obtain the material for his writing, and he deceives his employers and his publisher about where he gets it; he deceives the people closest to him, he deceives potential romantic partners – but more than anyone else, he deceives himself.
It’s only by becoming honest with oneself, of course, that one can truly find a way to reconcile the opposing sides of our own nature, and that is the challenge “Sebastian” sets up for its protagonist, no matter which name he is going by in the moment. Whether or not he meets it is something we won’t spoil, but we’ll go as far as saying that a breakthrough comes only when Max is forced by circumstance to follow his instincts and “get honest” with someone – though we won’t tell you who.
In the end, “Sebastian” satisfies as a character study, and as a journey of self-acceptance, largely thanks to a charismatic, layered, thoroughly authentic performance from Mollica, a Scots-Italian actor of tremendous range who convincingly captures both sides of Max’s persona and transcends them to create a character that incorporates each into a relatable – if not always entirely likable – whole. Mäkelä’s steady, clear-eyed direction helps, as does the equally dignified and vulnerable performance from veteran character actor Hyde, whose chemistry with Mollica is as surprising as the relationship they portray in the film.
Even so, “Sebastian” suffers from the many balls it attempts to keep in the air. Though it aims for sex-positive messaging and an empathetic view of sex work, it often devolves into the kind of dramatic tropes that perpetuate an opposite view, sending mixed messages about whether it’s trying to diffuse old stereotypes or simply reinvent them for a modern age of “digital hustlers.” Further, in its effort to offer an unfiltered presentation of queer sexuality, it spends perhaps a bit more screen time than necessary showing it to us as explicitly as possible while omitting all but a glimpse of full-frontal nudity, but just enough to conjure the word “gratuitous.”
Don’t get us wrong, though; Mäkelä’s movie – only his second feature film effort to date – is an engaging, sexy, and ultimately thought-provoking ride, even if its tangled ambitions sometimes get the better of its narrative thrust, and it comes with our recommendation.
It’s just that, one of these days, we’d really like to see a movie where sex work is honestly portrayed as a job, just like any other – but I guess we’ll have to wait until society is ready for it before we get that one.
Movies
A rising filmmaker triumphs with sassy and sublime ‘Anora’
It’s the best film of the year so far
When filmmaker Sean Baker chose to shoot an entire feature film – “Tangerine” (2015) – using only iPhones, he caught the attention of film enthusiasts and turned it into his breakthrough. For LGBTQ audiences, however, what felt much more groundbreaking was that Baker had made a film about trans sex workers on the “mean streets” of Hollywood, cast real trans women to play them, and depicted them with as much humanity as the cis/het protagonists in any mainstream movie.
It really wasn’t much of a bold leap for Baker, who had from the beginning centered his movies around people from marginalized, largely stigmatized or disregarded communities. A story about transgender sex workers was a logical next step, and the years since have seen him continue in the same vein; he has publicly advocated for decriminalization and respect for sex workers and repeatedly offered up compassionate treatment of their stories in his work – such as 2017’s “The Florida Project,” arguably his most visible success so far.
In his latest film – “Anora,” now in limited release after a premiere at Cannes 2024 and a win of the festival’s prestigious Palm d’Or prize – that undercurrent in his creative identity may have manifested its most fully realized bloom.
The title character, who goes by the more American-sounding “Ani” (Mikey Madison), is an in-demand erotic dancer at a popular Brooklyn club, and she’s the walking definition of a seasoned “pro.” Even so, when Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) – a wealthy Russian oligarch’s son in America on a student visa – shows up at the club, she finds herself in uncharted territory. Smitten, he whisks her into a world of endless parties and unthinkable wealth – and when he impetuously proposes to her during an impromptu trip to Las Vegas, she embraces the chance for a “Cinderella story” and accepts.
Their wedded bliss proves short-lived when the tabloid gossip reaches Ivan’s parents in Russia. No sooner has the couple returned to Brooklyn than a trio of family “operatives” (Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Yura Borisov) stages a clumsy home invasion to take control of the situation, with orders from the top to have the marriage annulled immediately. The young groom, fearing his father will pull the plug on his free-wheeling American lifestyle and force him to return to Russia, flees the scene – leaving Ani to fend for herself, and ultimately leading her into an unlikely (and volatile) alliance with her supposed “kidnappers” as they attempt to track him down in the wilds of Brooklyn.
According to press notes, “Anora” began as an effort by Baker to produce a vehicle for Karagulian, a respected indie actor of Russian-Armenian heritage who has appeared in every one of his movies to date. He developed the story with the idea of the “home invasion” sequence as a centerpiece that transforms the narrative from edgy romance to character-driven “chase” adventure – and after casting Madison (previously best known for her regular role in TV’s “Better Things”) as Ani, decided to craft the story around her emotional journey.
It was a fortuitous choice, supplemented by the filmmaker’s talent for making all his characters – even the antagonists – into relatable figures with whom we cannot help but empathize. No one is presented as a one-dimensional menace, but rather just another struggling human caught up in thankless circumstances and trying to rise to the occasion; this is hardly a surprising approach from Baker, oft-praised for the humanism reflected in his work, but in “Anora,” that egalitarian perspective makes for a dynamic that both heightens and undercuts the inherent tension. While the threat of violence may hover over the film’s second half like a patiently circling vulture, we recognize that none of the involved players desires such an outcome, and their resultant ineffectiveness adds a winning layer of comedic irony. It also helps his movie to deepen as it goes, and by the time he brings “Anora” home, it has transcended the genres from which it samples to leave us with a bittersweet satisfaction that feels infinitely more authentic than the “Pretty Woman” fantasy toward which it hints in the beginning.
It would be an affront to reveal much about how things play out, except to say that its final scene delivers a profoundly resonant impact which we understand without having to hear a word of dialogue; it’s the payoff earned by two hours of flawless performances from a cast palpably attuned to each other, guided by a cinematic master whose gift for bringing out the best in his collaborators has helped to make him one of the most unequivocally acclaimed American filmmakers of our era.
As seamless a group effort as it is, Madison’s Ani – fierce, determined, and unwilling to give up any agency over her life – is the lynch-pin, so much a force to be reckoned with that we somehow never doubt she will come out on top of this harrowing crisis, yet at the same time navigates around a layer of vulnerability that reminds us just how much like the rest of us she is. While neither she nor any of the film’s characters is queer, there is something about her – her refusal to be defined or stigmatized for who she is, perhaps, or her outsider status in a culture where conformity to traditional rules and class hierarchies is the prime directive – which makes her feel like “one of us,” an outcast thumbing her nose at those who would dismiss or decry her over how she lives her life. It’s a tour-de-force performance, and “Anora” hinges on its power.
She’s supported by a universally superb ensemble. Special mention goes to Eydelshteyn, whose Ivan has an irresistible charm that helps us believe Ani’s decision to trust him and keeps us from judging him too harshly for his inevitable callowness; Karagulian and Tovmasyan, as the chief and second banana (respectively) of the hapless henchmen who attempt to intimidate the young newlyweds into submission, both embody decidedly ordinary men trying to stay in control despite being hopelessly out of their depth, a source for both much-needed humor and unexpected empathy; but it’s Borisov”s Igor who becomes the film’ most compelling figure – the “muscle” of the home invasion crew whose outward thuggishness hides a much more thoughtful approach to life than anyone around him might be capable of seeing, and who establishes himself in the third act as the film’s grounding emotional force.
Of course, Baker’s knack for creating a “wild ride” of a film (populated by people we probably wouldn’t want to hang out with in real life) plays a big part in making this one a sexy (often explicitly) and entertaining movie as well as a deeply engaging, challenging piece of cinema, and the gritty, ‘70s-evocative cinematography from Drew Daniels only heightens the experience. It’s one of those rare films that, even though it is crafted with excellence from every contributor, somehow manages still to be greater than the sum of its parts.
It’s our pick for the best film of the year so far, and while it might be too soon for us to proclaim “Anora” as Sean Baker’s masterpiece, it’s certainly tempting to do so.
Movies
‘Beauty, beauty, look at you!”: 50 years of ‘Female Trouble’
Celebrating John Waters’s lovably grotesque black comedy
It’s funny – and by funny, we mean ironic – how things that were once on the fringes of our culture, experienced by few and appreciated by even fewer, become respectable after they’ve been around for half a century or more. The Blade herself can probably attest to that.
Cheap, self-deprecating one-liners aside, there’s something to celebrate about the ability to survive and thrive for decades despite being mostly ignored by the mainstream “tastemakers” of our society – which is why, in honor of the 50th anniversary of its release, we can’t help but take an appreciative look back at John Waters’s arguable masterpiece, “Female Trouble,” which debuted in movie theaters on Oct. 11, 1974 and was promptly dismissed and forgotten by most of American society.
Waters had already made his breakthrough with 1972’s “Pink Flamingos,” which more or less helped the “Midnight Movie” become a counterculture touchstone of the seventies and eighties while making his star (and muse) Glenn Milstead – aka Divine – into an underground sensation. Naturally, expectations for this follow-up were high among his already growing cult following, who were hungry for more of his gleefully transgressive anarchy. But while it certainly delivered what they craved, it would have been hard for any movie to surpass the sensation caused by the latter, which had already broken perhaps the ultimate onscreen taboo by ending with a scene of Divine’s character eating a freshly deposited dollop of dog feces. Though “Female Trouble” offered plenty of its own hilariously shocking (and occasionally revolting) thrills, it had no standout “WTF” moment of its own to “top” that one. Subsequently, the curious mainstream, who were never going to be Waters fans anyway, lost interest.
For his true audience, however, it was anything but a let-down. After all, it featured most of the same outrageous cast members and doubled down on the ferociously radical camp that had made “Flamingos” notorious even among the “straight” (as in “square”) crowd; and while it maintained the bargain basement “guerilla” style the director had perfected throughout his early years of DIY filmmaking in Baltimore, it nevertheless displayed a savvy for cinematic craft that allowed Waters to both subvert and pay homage to the old-school Hollywood movies his (mostly) queer fans had grown up loving – and making fun of – just like him. It was quickly embraced, joining “Flamingos” on art house double bills across the U.S. and helping the Waters cult to grow until he finally won the favor of the masses with his more socially palatable “Hairspray” in 1988.
Fifty years later, there is little doubt that “Female Trouble” has displaced “Flamingos” as Waters’s quintessential work. Riding high on the heels of the latter, the director had both a bolstered self-confidence and an assured audience awaiting his next movie, and he outdid himself by creating an ambitious and breathtakingly grotesque black comedy that frequently feels like we’re watching an actual crime being committed on film. Ostensibly framed as a “cautionary tale” of “juvenile delinquency,” it follows the life story of Dawn Davenport (Divine), who abandons social conformity once and for all when her parents fail to give her the black cha-cha heeled shoes she wanted for Christmas. Running away from home, she quickly becomes an unwed mother, leading her to a life of crime as she tries to support her unruly and ungrateful daughter Taffy (Hilary Taylor, later Waters stalwart Mink Stole). Things seem to turn around when she is accepted as a client at the exclusive “Le Lipstique” beauty salon, where owners Donald and Donna Dasher (David Lochery and Mary Vivian Pearce) take a particular interest in her, and she marries star hairdresser Gater (Michael Potter) despite the objections of his doting Aunt Ida (Edith Massey), who wants him to “turn Nelly” and avoid the “sick and boring life” of a heterosexual.
From there, Waters’s absurdly melodramatic saga enters the realm of pure lunacy. Dawn’s marriage inevitably fails, and she falls under the influence of the Dashers, who use her as an experiment to prove their theory that “Crime equals Beauty” and get her hooked on shooting up liquid eyeliner; Gater leaves for Detroit to pursue a career in the “auto in-DUS-try”, and his doting Aunt Ida (Edith Massey) disfigures Dawn’s face by dousing it with acid; Taffy goes on a quest to find her deadbeat dad and ends up stabbing him to death before joining the Hare Krishna movement; and things culminate in a murderous nightclub performance by the now-thoroughly deranged Dawn, which earns her a date with the electric chair for the film’s literally “shocking” finale.
It would be easy to rhapsodize over the many now-iconic highlights of “Female Trouble” – some of our favorites are its hilarious early scenes of Dawn’s life as a high school delinquent, the Christmas morning rampage in which she destroys her parents’ living room like Godzilla on a bender in Tokyo, “Bad Seed”-ish Taffy’s torment of her mother via jump rope rhymes and car crash re-enactments on the living room furniture, Aunt Ida’s persistent attempts to set up Gater on a “boy date,” and the master stroke of double-casting Divine as the low-life mechanic who fathers Taffy and thereby allows him to literally fuck himself onscreen – but every Waters fan has a list of their own.
Likewise, we could take a scholarly approach, and point out the “method” in the madness by highlighting themes or cultural commentaries that might be observed, such as the film’s way of ridiculing the straight world’s view of queer existence by presenting it to them in an over-the-top caricature of their own narrative tropes, or its seeming prescience in spoofing pop culture’s obsession with glamour, beauty, and toxic-behavior-as-entertainment decades before the advent and domination of “reality” TV – but those things have been said many times already, and none of them really have anything to do with why we love it so much.
What we love is the freakishness of it. Waters revealed years after the fact that Divine’s “look” as Dawn Davenport was inspired by a photo from Diane Arbus, whose work served as a testament to the anonymous fringe figures of American culture, but it could be said that all of his characters, in this and in all his early films, might also be drawn from one of her images. It’s that, perhaps, that is the key to its appeal: it’s a movie about “freaks,” made for freaks by someone who is a freak themself. It makes us laugh at all of its excesses simply because they are funny – and the fact that the NON-freaks don’t “get it” just makes them all the funnier.
As Aunt Ida says, “Queers are just better” – and in this case, we mean “queer” as in “different than the boring norm.”
In any case, queer or otherwise, celebrate your freakishness by watching “Female Trouble” in honor of its anniversary this weekend. Whether it’s your umpteenth time or your first, it will be 97 minutes you won’t regret.
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