Bryan Singer will probably be breathing a little easier today, as the charges in one of the two sex abuse lawsuits he’s facing have been dropped. His accuser dropped the suit and the charges have now been ‘dismissed with prejudice’ by the courts (meaning no other case can be filed against Singer based around these accusations)), according to THR.
The suit revolved around writer/producer Gary Goddard’s interactions with an anonymous young British man. Goddard is said to have first got to know the accuser via social media in 2003 when he was 14. Singer was brought into the suit as it’s alleged that thanks to Goddard, he ‘had sex with the plaintiff at a Superman after afterparty in a London hotel room when the plaintiff was 17… The boy resisted, the suit continues, but Goddard brought in a “large, musclebound man” who smacked the teenager around, holding him while Singer grabbed him and Goddard, naked on the bed, watched. Singer then allegedly attempted to rape the plaintiff.’
The X-Men director always strenuously denied the claims, and also argued that it shouldn’t be heard in a US court anyway, as all the events alleged against him are said to have taken place in the UK. However the lawsuit says that ‘the California age of consent, 18, should apply because Singer and Goddard allegedly formulated their sexual plans regarding the teen while in California. In addition, the federal age, also 18, assertedly applies to travel from the U.S. for sexual purposes.’
Singer still faces another lawsuit brought by Michael Egan, who alleges Singer tried to rape him in Hawaii in the late 90s, amongst other underage sexual abuse accusation. However while Egan originally sued three other men – including Goddard – he has since dropped the suits against the others. The Singer suit remains, although many feel it has little chance of success.
Winner of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival’s Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent, Dear White People is a sly, provocative satire of race relations in the age of Obama. Openly gay writer/director Justin Simien follows a group of African American students as they navigate campus life and racial politics at a predominantly white college in a sharp and funny feature film debut that earned him a spot on Variety’s annual “10 Directors to Watch.” When Dear White People screened at MOMA’s prestigious New Directors/New Films, the New York Times’ A.O. Scott wrote, “Seeming to draw equal measures of inspiration from Whit Stillman and Spike Lee, but with his own tart, elegant sensibility very much in control, Mr. Simien evokes familiar campus stereotypes only to smash them and rearrange the pieces.”
The sci-fi comedy 
It often seems that capitalism has no time for history, and that’s the case for the bar profiled in We Came to Sweat. Founded in 1962, The Starlite was Brooklyn’s oldest black owned and operated gay bar. Over the decades it had been a refuge for people of colour who didn’t just face prejudice because of their sexuality, but also from other gay people because of their race.
One of the things I think can be most beneficial about LGBT cinema is giving us an insight into gay life in other parts of the world. However there are some places where making films about gay people isn’t just difficult is could be life threatening – that includes Iran.
Mad Max Fury Road is finally set to arrive in cinemas May 2015 after a ridiculously long time in development and almost three years after it was actually filmed. To help get the excitement building the film has made it presence felt at Comic Con, and that includes releasing the rather cool posters you can see above and below.
When Legendary Pictures had their shingle at Warner Brothers, they got involved in all manner of the studios properties, such as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies. Now they’ve moved to Universal and are looking into that studio’s back catalogue. Perhaps unsurprisingly they have come up with King Kong.
Horns certainly shows a different side of Daniel Radcliffe – although you have to wait until the very end to properly see what’s really changed about him for this role, as he literally has horns growing out of his forehead.
Ever since it was announced, Tusk sounded like a strange film, and the trailer does nothing to disabuse us of that idea.
Various names have been rumoured for the title role in Marvel’s Doctor Strange, such as Benedict Cumberbatch. However the man who’s likely to take the job has slightly come out of left field, as