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Movie Review – Bad Education

Bad Education (2004)
Written & Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

Few directors working today seem to enjoy the richness of film images more than Pedro Almodovar. Every film he puts out is always full of bold color and intriguing framing & blocking. His stories are complex labyrinths where narratives are rarely linear, the past often haunting the present. Much of Bad Education is set around what the audience doesn’t know, putting us in the protagonist’s shoes. They are learning about the line between fiction and truth, letting the audience enter their imagination and then see how what they pictured matches with the people and events as they actually happened. I wouldn’t blame someone watching this for the first time for feeling confused; it takes at least a couple viewings to fully grasp what is happening in the picture.

Movie Review – Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Skin (2004)
Written by Scott Heim and Gregg Arakai
Directed by Gregg Araki

Growing up in the late 1980s/early 90s, I watched a lot of television. I have vivid memories of certain shows. Unsolved Mysteries, hosted by Robert Stack, was a frequent point of childhood terror that seems silly from the hindsight of an adult. America’s Most Wanted was not as consistently creepy, but a particular type of case terrified me as a child. When AWM would do a story on a child molester and/or murderer who was on the run, it scared the shit out of me. Being only 8/9 years old and homeschooled, I didn’t wholly understand what sex was, but I definitely understood that being touched inappropriately was bad. Pair this with the rampant homophobia in the culture, which was intensified even more through the lens of right-wing propaganda. I was served up in my homeschooling curriculum, and my view of gay men at this time was one of fear. I can’t say when it shifted, but by the time I was in college, I angrily defended gay people in arguments with some of my classmates at a private Christian college.

Movie Review – Happy Together

Happy Together (1997)
Written & Directed by Wong Kar-wai

Wong Kar-Wai has been named by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk) as one of his primary filmmaking influences. Both directors are less interested in intricately plotted narratives than powerfully atmospheric mood pieces. They like to focus their cameras on characters without any pressure for that character to grow or learn any lessons. It’s merely observing a person as they struggle with the challenges of their lives. Wong’s core theme in his work is longing, particularly how people long for each other or, in many cases, the idea of another person. Because this is ultimately a desire that cannot be satisfied, his characters often end up in some form of misery, haunted by what didn’t happen.

Movie Review – Beau Travail

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Beau Travail (1999)
Written by Claire Denis & Jean-Pol Fargeau
Directed by Claire Denis

Everything about Beau Travail is felt rather than intellectualized. It’s a movie spilling over with texture & an evocation of the senses. So much of the tension on screen is never acknowledged in words but through visual language. In some ways, it is close to a silent film in how much restraint is used in the dialogue. It is an erotic film in the classical definition of eros as the aspect of love we call desire. The main character wants another so badly, but due to the circumstances of their jobs & where they are, this isn’t going to happen. We know this is a tragedy, but like watching two cars about to collide, there is little you can do but bear witness. It is a movie born out of defiance on the part of the director, a challenge to heteronormative masculinity that never preaches its themes to you. Those emerge organically, and it’s the job of the audience to examine & contemplate them.

Movie Review – The Watermelon Woman

The Watermelon Woman (1996)
Written & Directed by Cheryl Dunye

The intersection of queerness and Blackness is where a lot of contemporary culture has emerged from. When watching Paris is Burning, I noticed how much of their slang is now part of American slang, particularly among Millennials and Zoomers. It’s nothing new. Elvis’s entire career was started by co-opting Black music and putting it with a white face. Rap/Hip hop has transcended its roots as a purely Black musical form. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with deriving inspiration from another culture to make art as long as the artist actively acknowledges the cultural roots and adheres to authenticity rather than appropriation.

Movie Review – But I’m A Cheerleader

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
Written by Jamie Babbit and Brian Wayne Peterson
Directed by Jamie Babbit

America is a land rife with pseudoscience. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how deep those roots are, with all sorts of unfounded remedies being churned out via reactionary social media. My mother apparently visits an herbalist regularly who runs magnets over her body to suss out any sneaky infections. And what do you know? The herbalist happens to sell the very remedy my mother needs for these infections. The same nonsensical thinking drove Christians to create conversion therapy camps where adolescent queer people or suspected queer people are sent to be “cured.” Over time, various cruel methods have been used to torture people for being attracted to those deemed “wrong.” These methods include but are not limited to brain surgery, surgical castration, electroshock, nausea-inducing drugs, and other dehumanizing reconditioning techniques that would make a Nazi proud. While the camp in this film may not be those extremes, it still displays the emotional cruelty intended to teach children that love from trusted adults comes with a cost, meaning a suppression of your Self to please them.

Movie Review – My Own Private Idaho

My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Written & Directed by Gus Van Sant

A person’s inner life can be such a vast, complex landscape. The way we process experiences & emotions may have some universality, but ultimately, the way you feel inside going through these things is something no one else can ever truly know. For the character of Mikey in My Own Private Idaho, almost his whole life is made up of this intimate inner world due to his chronic narcolepsy. He can never quite get anywhere or finish a conversation before passing out. Gus Van Sant tells his story from this character’s perspective, which means the audience sees the narrative in fragments. We’re in one place, then another, only to return to where we started. Did we really go anywhere at all? Or was this just the lovely dream of a lonely person with a very uncertain future ahead of them? Maybe it’s all these things. Perhaps the dream world is just as real as the tangible one for someone like Mikey.

Movie Review – Maurice

Maurice (1987)
Written by Kit Hesketh-Harvey and James Ivory
Directed by James Ivory

The English boys’ boarding school culture has long been an environment where homosexuality has been experimented with. It makes sense adolescent young men feel a surge of hormones and spend lots of time building intense friendships with each other. While not as prominent in the United States, we can look at the arena of high school sports as a similar venue. I’m never surprised when I learn a player on a football team develops feelings for a teammate. However, as much as these conditions are fertile for young men to come out as homosexual, they are more often than not met with toxic masculine brutality if they do. It’s one of the frustrating contradictions at the heart of male bonding in the West. Male camaraderie is supposed to be one of the most important things, yet it must never be romantic.

Movie Review – Paris Is Burning

Paris Is Burning (1990)
Directed by Jennie Livingston

Exclusion is a standard tool used by the institutions that make up the United States. The ones who get excluded are typically BIPOC, LGBTQ, economically destitute, and/or disabled in some fashion. By pushing these people to the fringes of society, often by reactionaries who ultimately gain nothing through the act of exclusion, they are forced to create subcultures. These subcultures respond to being told they are not beautiful or have value. The marginalized simply redefine the terms of what beauty & value can be.

Movie Review – Pink Flamingos

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Pink Flamingos (1972)
Written & Directed by John Waters

Well, Pride month is here, which means corporations & municipalities all around America will temporarily use rainbow avatars on social media and paint homeless deterrence rainbow colors to celebrate. Unless they are one of several states actively legislating against LGBTQ people, where Pride celebrations have either been banned by city leadership or heavily threatened with violence by reactionaries state & federal leaders feel no desire to do anything about. So I decided that I wanted to watch a bunch of queer cinema I’ve heard about for years as a way to see & write about these films and maybe provide solidarity for some readers out there.