The A-Z of IDAHO

Today is IDAHO - International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, don't ask me why they changed T and O in the acronym, okay? - and it's such a valuable day that will sadly no unrecognised in mainstream media. Tell that gay man or woman in your life, or the transgendered friend or family member, that they're important and valued.

Living in Australia right now can be quite sad for GLBT people since we have a Prime Minister and an opposition leader who seem to be battling each other to make the most homophobic statements possible. Hell, our PM is an athiest who "lives in sin" with her boyfriend, and yet she comes out saying that she doesn't believe in gay marriage because Australia has deep Christian roots. To Prime Minister Gillard I say "fuck off!"

I don't really have much to say on the matter because, well, I talk about gay issues quite a lot. Instead of making you read a whole lot of blather about what it means to be gay, I have collected a bunch of film trailers for films that deal with GLBT issues and that have personally affected me in some way. Some of these movies are tough and tragic, others are sweet and magic. So, just like the real world, I suppose. I recommend all of them and if you haven't sought out much in the way of gay cinema then I suggest you avoid the lame comedies that fill the "specialty interest" section of your local DVD retailer (Another Gay Movie, The Fluffer, Eating Out 7), but instead look at some of the daring, groundbreaking, thrilling, funny, touching and wonderfully made movies that have been made by some fabulous talent. The films below aren't necessarily my favourites, but they are great films, some of which don't get discussed enough in this world where A Single Man is the new go-to movie for gay cinema watchers.


The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert | Bear Cub


The Celluloid Closet | The Deep End


The Edge of Seventeen | Far from Heaven


Gypsy '83 | Heartbeats


I'm the One that I Want | Just a Question of Love


Kaboom! | Last Exit to Brooklyn


My Beautiful Laundrette | Newcastle


Orlando | Paris is Burning


Querelle | The Rocky Horror Picture Show


Shortbus | The Times of Harvey Milk


Urbania | Velvet Goldmine


Welcome to the Dollhouse | X2


Yossi & Jagger | Zus & Zo

Review: Kaboom

Kaboom
Dir. Gregg Araki
Year: 2011
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 86mins

If one had to put Gregg Araki’s latest film into a finite box then it would be fair to call it a queer apocalyptic stoner religious cult horror comedy. Not content to just make a movie about the end of the world, or the bisexual frolics of American collegegoers, or masked cult devotees murdering students on campus, Araki has gone and merged them all together in the form of Kaboom. Whether the title is a direct reference to the sound the world would make if it was suddenly blown apart or if it’s the metaphoric noise a young person makes upon entering the sexually confusing world of post-high school education, either way Araki has crafted an entertaining, violently funny movie that’s amongst his best work yet.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine
Did you hear today that Kaboom star Juno Temple - she of the film's best performance, I might add - has been cast in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises?

Wait - why am I asking that? Of course you've read it since it has been pasted on every single "entertainment" website known to mankind. Never mind that it hasn't been announced exactly who she's been cast as. Nothing more than "street smart Gotham Girl" according to websites like Cinema Blend, which for all we know could be little more than a walk on role with one or two moderately sassy lines about how "the streets work" or some such. I'd recommend seeing Kaboom before Nolan remembers he can't write or direct women very well at all and sticks this formidable rising talent into a do-nothing role. Oh sure, Marion Cotillard was quite good in Inception, but the character was problematic. The less said about Ellen Page, Katie Holmes, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hilary Swank the better.

Perhaps, in fact, the mere casting of Juno Temple is a sign that things are changing in the brain of Nolan.


I can actually see her fitting in amongst the Joker's menagerie of minions. Or, actually, wouldn't she have made a far more interesting choice for Selina Kyle than Anne Hathaway? Far less obvious and she looks like she could do brittle quite well.

Anyway, amongst all the "Juno Temple Officially in Dark Knight Rises" links that filled up my Twitter feed this morning, I was also bombarded with every website this side of Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza Blog telling me about the latest casting rumour of Superman: Man of Steel. Yesterday is was Carlos Ramirez, today it's Michael Shannon. And what's the bet that a new name pops up within a day or two? It's all such lazy film writing, don't you think? One website posts a rumour from an anonymous source and everyone else just copies it (with or without citation) and tada an easy thousand (or tens of thousands? I can't begin to imagine how many hits those sites - you know the ones - get) blog hits! It's truly depressing.

1. Write article about project being announced before anybody has been attached.
2. Write article about specific actors being considered for various roles of various sizes in project that still may or may not exist.
3. Write article about the perceived “frontrunner”.
4. Write article about a rumour that an actor has been hired, but not confirmed.
5. Write another article as we wait to find out if the rumour was true. Come up with magical reasons for and against chosen actor’s non-selection.
6. Write article about movie studio announcing they haven’t made an announcement. Copy press release verbatim.
7. Write article about how a different actor altogether has been cast, negating everything that was written earlier, and yet conveniently not wiping away your website’s unique hits and advertising dollar!
8.-10. Write several articles about the life and career of the chosen actor, judging them before a single frame has been filmed.
11.-4379. Write articles about every single minute detail including what the extras had catered for them to how many takes it took a notoriously fussy director to film one scene as if it’s news. Announce an entry on Twitter “WOW! NEW PHOTOS FROM SET OF [insert movie]” that are of someone having a cigarette away from the set. Somehow turn paparazzi pictures of a cast night out into a story about a “troubled set. Have site “reporter” visit the set and report about how harmonous and perfectly run the set is as if they completely unaware of the impending visit. Announce everything as “EXCLUSIVE!” or “FIRST LOOK!” even if all you mean is “first look on my own website, but you’ve probably seen it elsewhere already.”
4380.-4412. Report on the test screenings from people who saw the movie without completed visual effects, music, editing and detail how the screenings were “disastrous”. Include spoilers, just ‘cause.
4413. Report on studio “tinkering” with the film, even if said “tinkering” included, ya know, finishing it like they had planned.
4414. Write review.
4415. Write article about box office takings despite having no real knowledge of how box office/budgets/money even works.
4416. Promptly forget the film ever existed because ew, gross, it’s old. Unless it’s good, in which case
a) Start new website feature named “Under-Appreciated Movie of the Week” discussing the film, even though it made over $300 million at the box office,
b) Write article asking “Will Oscar Embrace [movie in genre they rarely ever embrace]?”
c) Write article about how the Oscars “snubbed” said movie and how the Oscar’s “don’t mean anything but omg we’re gonna keep talking about them anyway!”
4417. Repeat for next movie.

It's depressing.

All the more reason to go see a movie like Kaboom I suppose. Those of us here in Melbourne are lucky to have a place like Cinema Nova who are exclusively screening it as well as several other amazing titles like I Love You Phillip Morris. I believe it's getting a similar Brisbane release at the Tribal Cinema, but that's second hand Twitter knowledge so don't take my word for it. It's in Sydney too, but I don't know where. Movies like Kaboom don't come along too often - of, if they do, it's not on a cinema screen - so please see it.

Burlesque and Some Other Movies are Nominated for Awards etc

The GLAAD Media Awards are hardly on most people's radars and yet here they are throwing up a slate of nominees that seems like an oddly inclusive representation of the year 2010. There is the token breakout indie (The Kids are All Right, the all-but-signed-sealed winner), the token blockbuster (Scott Pilgrim vs The World), the token comedy (Easy A), the token foreign-language hit (The Girl Who Played with Fire) and the token movie people are surprised to discover others actually like (Burlesque).

OUTSTANDING FILM - WIDE RELEASE
Burlesque (Screen Gems)
Easy A (Screen Gems)
The Girl Who Played with Fire (Music Box Films)
The Kids are All Right (Focus Features)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Universal Pictures)

In case you've been under a rock for the past week, I very much liked Burlesque, and it's heartening to see a corporation as iffy as GLAAD recognise a movie that - *gasp* - we're not to meant like because it reinforces stereotypes of superficiality, camp and bad taste. Sometimes it feels like GLAAD should enforce a subtitle in their organisation title - GLAAD: We're Just Like You, Please Love Us!

While I haven't seen Girl and Easy A, both of which unfortunately slipped me by at cinemas, their inclusions at least don't sound embarrassing. And as much as I found annoying about Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim adaptation, the gay character of "Wallace Wells" was not one of them. The Kids are All Right is an obvious inclusion, but I do find it interesting that they didn't throw a bone to Tyler Perry whose For Colored Girls was surprisingly high (or should that be "down low") on gay content. This list of nominees isn't exactly hurting for white candidates, is it? Of course, they could have been really daring and nominated Jackass 3D! Let's just be thankful they didn't nominate Kick-Ass for that film's offensive weird, creepy fake-gay subplot. Yikes, what was that about, anyway?

OUTSTANDING FILM - LIMITED RELEASE
Howl (Oscilloscope Pictures)
I Love You Phillip Morris (Roadside Attractions)
La Mission (Screen Media Ventures)
Patrik, Age 1.5 (Regent Releasing)
Undertow (Wolfe Releasing)

I have Howl sitting here waiting to be watched, but from almost every source I have spoken to it is not a good movie, which is a damned shame. I Love You Phillip Morris, on the other hand is very good and a hilarious, daring take on the prickly subject matter. GLAAD probably felt they had to nominate it since it's one of the few films that wears its gay badge with pride, thrusts it in your face and then has sex with it in a public toilet as George Michael looks on. La Mission, a father-must-deal-with-sons-homosexuality-in-culture-that-won't-accept-it drama starring Benjamin Bratt, has a lot wrong with its screenplay (namely the character of Lena, played by Erica Alexander), but it has some interesting things to say on gay relationships between races and generations so I'm happy to see its inclusion here. Undertow and Patrik Age 1.5 I have not seen, but I've heard nothing but good things about the former. I think it will be playing at the upcoming Melbourne Queer Film Festival and I anticipate checking it out.


Speaking of MQFF, they will also be screening Gregg Araki's Kaboom, which recently released an amazing new poster (above), Xavier Dolan's Les amours imaginaires, Prima Donna: The Story of Rufus Wainwright's Debut Opera and the aforementioned La Mission.

OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY
8: The Mormon Proposition (Red Flag Releasing)
Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement (Sundance Channel)
Prodigal Sons (First Run Features)
Sylvester, UnSung (TV One)
Out: The Glenn Burke Story (Comcast SportsNet Bay Area)

The only of these that I have seen is Kimberly Reed's Prodigal Sons and it's probably the best film from the entire GLAAD roster. I highly recommend everyone seeking that one out. Even if you're not too interested in the life of a transgender woman, it's got a fascinating old Hollywood hook that should reel you in. It's a doozy!

That's all they have for the film categories, which is a shame. Oh what I'd give for a serious selection of nominees for "Best Performance by a Straight-Playing-Gay" or "Best Gay Film about an All-Boys Choir". I'm sure there are dozens of those released on the gay arthouse/festival circuit every year, right? To read the rest of nominees you can do so at The Hollywood Reporter.

Cleansing the Poster Palate

After the disaster that was the poster for Unstoppable I thought it best to cleanse and look at a few posters I've seen recently that I actually like.


I am really drawn to this poster, I must admit. It doesn't tell us anything about the movie, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for a small film such as arthouse audiences, and it appears to be rather simple, but I like that they've done something different and haven't simply fallen back on good ol' indie traps like big empty white space. My eyes have been glued to it for far longer than, say, this horrible poster, and that's a good thing. I'm not sure if it's a good poster, but I think I like it nonetheless.


Ya know, if I hadn't already seen the trailer for this Aussie horror flick then simply looking at the poster would have me instantly enthused. Unfortunately I have seen the trailer and so no amount of awesome Jeremy Saunders designs can make me excited for this movie. It looks terrible. The movie, not the poster. The poster is great. Yes, it's using the Grindhouse aesthetic (which is odd since the movie itself looks to be very clean, crisp and digital, not at all like a Grindhouse movie), but when a design is this fun to look at and imagine hanging up in a cinema I don't think it's worth complaining.


Not exactly a good poster, but I thought it was worth mentioning because it's not every day you see a movie poster with an erection on it. Great use of colour though.