Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema and more
Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema & more
Matthew Mishory’s movie, Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean, has been a big success on the film festival circuit. The movie looks at Dean when he was a young lad from Indiana on the cusp of stardom, exploring the opportunities and pressures that presents. It also doesn’t shy away from Dean’s sexuality, giving him the queer identity that many over the years have suggested he had.
We caught up with Mishory to talk about the film, ahead of its UK DVD release on May 13th. [Read more…]
Chris Pine is busy on the publicity trail for Star Trek Into Darkness, which includes being the cover star on this month’s Out Magazine, and in the interview inside he talks about his bromance with Zachary Quinto, respecting his co-star’s privacy and his first job, which involved spooning with Tom Everett Scott.
Talking about Quinto’s coming out, he says, “So happy for him, oh man, I thought it was rad. It was really, really cool. He did it on his own time, on his own schedule. And Jonathan [Groff], who he’s dating, is such a lovely man. He’s a good guy and a great actor, and they make a fantastic couple. I couldn’t have been happier for Zach.”
Of course, Pine knew about Quinto’s sexuality before the general public, but was happy to allow Zach to come out on his own terms. He’s says, “It was just who Zach was and that’s that. I’m sensitive, and I don’t ever want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. Knowing that for Zach it was more about a career thing and that he was not comfortable at the time coming out—it was fine. It was something that we kind of tiptoed around and I just took it was a given, because that’s what he wanted.”
Even before he met Quinto, he’d had experience of the gay world. “My first intimate scene [onscreen] was with Tom Everett Scott,” Pine says. “He’s an incredible spooner — very warm, very sensitive.”
The film in question was Surrender, Dorothy, which co-starred Diane Keaton. You can take a look at a clip of Pine in drag in that film at the bottom of this post.
He also wishes he could be part of Ryan Murphy’s LGBT-themed AIDS drama, The Normal Heart, but timings won’t permit it. “I would have done that in a fucking heartbeat,” Pine reveals. “Right now I just want to play good roles, and if the role happens to be a gay man, that’s not of any import other than is it a good story? Does it say something that’s interesting?”
The film already has has the likes of Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, Matt Bomer, Taylro Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Quinto’s boyfriend, Jonathan Groff, set to star, so Chris Pine would have been in starry company.
The full interview is in this month’s Out, and you can take a look at some of the accompanying pics, by Nino Munoz, below (click on them for larger versions). [Read more…]
Just when Pedro Almodovar earned himself a new audience with the brilliantly bonkers Skin I Live In, he follows it up with a film that at best can be described Almodovar-lite. It’s charming enough and at times well-acted, but ultimately too paper-thin to be remembered along with his great works.
If he is the high priest of camp then it was only a matter of time before he made a film set on a plane, with three stewards as his main characters. And very funny they are, although their constant bitching and fussing about who is bisexual and who has slept with who gets tiresome over the 90 long minutes. Even their singing of the title song by the Pointer Sisters wears a bit thin after 30 seconds. [Read more…]
Warner Bros and Guillermo Del Toro cut together a new Pacific Rim trailer for Wonder Con, and the original plan was to only show it there. But after a great response, they’ve decided we should all get a look. That would seem a good idea, as this takes the movie to a whole different level thatwhat we’ve seen before – it’s always looked huge, but this is massive!
There’s also plenty of info, such as a brief history of the fact Kaiju (monsters) are being sent through a portal in the Pacific and deliberately aimed at massive population centres. This results in the Jaeger programme, where massive robots are piloted by two humans to battle the creatures. However while it was initially a success, things have gone wrong.
It’s an impressive trailer, which should massive up the excitement for the film. It’s due July 12th in both the US and UK.
We’ve had a couple of teasers and trailers for Monsters University, but they’ve been rather light on plot. That’s been remedied with a brand new promo, which gives us a great feel for the film, with Mike and Sulley at university, but Mike having difficulty fitting in and convincing anybody that he should be a scarer.
On this evidence it looks like it’s going to be another winner from Pixar.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘Ever since college-bound Mike Wazowski (voice of Billy Crystal) was a little monster, he has dreamed of becoming a Scarer—and he knows better than anyone that the best scarers come from Monsters University (MU). But during his first semester at MU, Mike’s plans are derailed when he crosses paths with hotshot James P. Sullivan, “Sulley” (voice of John Goodman), a natural-born Scarer. The pair’s out-of-control competitive spirit gets them both kicked out of the University’s elite Scare Program. To make matters worse, they realize they will have to work together, along with an odd bunch of misfit monsters, if they ever hope to make things right.
‘Screaming with laughter and oozing with heart, Disney•Pixar’s “Monsters University” is directed by Dan Scanlon (“Cars,” “Mater and the Ghostlight,” “Tracy”), produced by Kori Rae (“Up,” “The Incredibles,” “Monsters, Inc.”) and features music from future Rock-and-Roll-Hall-of-Fame–inductee and award winning composer Randy Newman (“Monsters, Inc.,” “Toy Story 3”). The film opens in U.K. cinemas on July 12, 2013, and will be shown in Disney Digital 3D™ in select cinemas.’
With the release of Iron Man 3 in some parts of the world this week, Marvel is introducing us the next part of their Phase 2 onslaught – Thor: The Dark World. Interestingly, while some weren’t big fans of the Asgardian parts of the first Thor film, Marvel isn’t shying away from that part of Thor-lore. It seems the sequel will only be on Earth for a bit, so that Thor can pick up Natalie Portman and take her to Asgard.
Indeed, the sequel suggests they’re beefing up to sword and sorcery side of the superhero, with the whole thing feeling rather Arthurian. Many will also be pleased to see that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is back too, and as he’s become a bit of a fan favourite, it’ll be interesting to see if they try to make him a bit more of a hero this time around.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘Marvel’s “Thor: The Dark World” continues the big-screen adventures of Thor, the Mighty Avenger, as he battles to save Earth and all the Nine Realms from a shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. In the aftermath of Marvel’s “Thor” and “Marvel’s The Avengers,” Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos…but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.
‘Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano, and Jaimie Alexander with Rene Russo and Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Marvel’s “Thor: The Dark World” is directed by Alan Taylor, produced by Kevin Feige, from a story by Don Payne (credit not final) and screenplay by Christopher Yost and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (credit not final) and is based on Marvel’s classic Super Hero Thor, who first appeared in the comic book “Journey into Mystery “ #83 in August, 1962.’
The film will hit UK cinemas October 30th.
Normally Roland Emmerich only seems to like to make movies if he gets to blow everything up, but it appears he’s considering something a little smaller and more personal. It won’t involve the destruction of the whole of New York – as in Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and Godzilla – instead focussing on the civil disobedience of the Stonewall Riots in the city, which helped kick off the modern gay rights movement.
Empire recently spoke to Emmerich, who revealed that before launching himself into the Independence Day sequels ID Forever Parts 1 & 2, “I may want to do a little movie – about $12-14 million – about the Stonewall Riots in New York. It’s about these crazy kids in New York, and a country bumpkin who gets into their gang, and at the end they start this riot and change the world.”
If you’re not up on your gay history, before the 1970s police commonly raided gay bars, arrested the patrons and hauled them off to the police station – something that could result in those exposed having their entire lives destroyed. However on June 28th, 1969 (the day of Judy Garland’s funeral, no less), the police raided the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York. While the authorities were used to getting no resistance from the gay people whose lives they were potentially ruining, on that night the patrons, led by a group of angry drag queens and homeless gay people who were using the Inn as a shelter, fought back.
This led to several nights of rioting, the effect of which spread across the US and the world. By the following June, several cities held Christopher Street Day parades, which was essentially the birth of Pride and the modern gay rights movement.
Emmerich adds, “It’s one of these civil rights moments, like Rosa Parks,” he told Empire. “And very little is known about it. Even gay people don’t know much about it. There are only two books written about it.”
Playwright John Robin Bates is writing the script, about a homeless gay teen who ends up involved in Stonewall. “I’ve got more and more involved in the Gay & Lesbian Centre in Los Angeles,” says Emmerich, “and I learned that 40% of homeless kids are gay. So things haven’t changed very much. But I put this together and said, I should make a movie about that, so it starts with a kid who gets thrown out of his home and ends up on the streets of the village, and becomes friends with all these kids. In a weird way, it shows that it’s still something that happens today.
“I read a lot about it and was so surprised. It was the first time that gay people had shown the police that they should take them serious. And when the riot police came – this has always been fascinating for me – these kids formed a chorus line and sang ‘We are the village girls, we wear our hair in curls!’ It was such a cool thing.”
The story has been told on-screen before, such as in the 1995 film Stonewall, but the low budget movie never got much distribution so few people have seen it (even though it’s pretty good). It’ll be interesting to see Emmerich’s take on it.
Following successful screenings at the London Film Festival and BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, The Comedian is due to hit cinemas on May 21st. Sosogay got the first look at the trailer, which you can see above.
It takes on an interesting subject – what happens if a loving but asexual relationship between a man and woman is disrupted when he begins an affair with a man?
Here’s the synopsis: ‘Ed is a stand up comedian in his early thirties, he is handsome, charming, witty and lost.
‘Trying to make it on the London comedy circuit, he spends his nights performing in small rooms above pubs and his days making ends meet at a call centre. He lives with Elisa, a beautiful French singer, the two like brother and sister, inseparable, loving and asexual. Ed funny and playful, Elisa soulful and sensitive.
‘One day, on a night bus home, Ed meets Nathan, a young black artist, blunt, honest and free. They immediately connect and begin a passionate affair. Suddenly the intimate bond between Ed and Elisa is threatened and Ed is faced with a choice between his attraction to a man and his love for a woman. Set in the immediate and random background of today’s London. The Comedian is a fresh, dramatic and funny story about choices and how not to make them.’ [Read more…]
The received wisdom is that in the modern age, westerns don’t make huge amounts of money at the box office, but Disney is making a $200+ million bet on The Lone Ranger. It’s perhaps not as mad as it sounds, as people said the same thing about pirate movies until Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer came up with Pirates Of The Caribbean – and they’re the same people behind Lone Ranger.
Now an explosive new trailer has been released, which certainly make the film look like it could be a lot of fun, even if the tone is slightly uneven.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘From producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski, the filmmaking team behind the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, comes Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ “The Lone Ranger,” a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor, in which the famed masked hero is brought to life through new eyes. Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Armie Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justice—taking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.’
It’s out July 3rd in the US and August 9th in the UK. [Read more…]
R.I.P.D. was filmed over 18 months ago, but it’s only now that we’re getting the first trailer, ahead of its summer release. It certainly looks a bit nuts, but could be a lot of fun.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds headline the supernatural action-adventure R.I.P.D. as two undead cops dispatched by the otherworldly Rest In Peace Department to protect our world from an increasingly destructive array of creatures who refuse to move peacefully to the other side. R.I.P.D. is directed by Robert Schwentke (Red) and produced by Neal H. Moritz (the Fast and Furious series, I Am Legend), Michael Fottrell and Mike Richardson.’
It’s out July 19th in the US and August 30th in the UK. [Read more…]