Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      A Queer-Film Historian Discusses Movies That Provoke

      by

      Elizabeth Purchell, who has programmed a series on the documentaries of Rosa von Praunheim, sees Pride Month as a chance to discover, and uncover, the past.Elizabeth Purchell isn’t afraid of “Transexual Menace,” even though she is a transgender woman and the film sounds like the kind of hateful propaganda you’d find for sale at a convention of conspiracy nuts.But “Transexual Menace” is a cornerstone of documentary filmmaking about transgender people — a 1996 time capsule made by the maverick and prolific queer German director Rosa von Praunheim. And Purchell, 32, is a historian of queer film who has a soft spot for movies that provoke, arouse, tickle and otherwise stir the queer cinema pot.“It’s great that we have queer rom-coms, but I want to be challenged,” said Purchell during a phone interview from her home in Austin, Texas. “I don’t want to see the 200th coming out film.”“Transexual Menace” is one of six documentaries in “Revolt of the Perverts,” a new von Praunheim retrospective that Purchell put together for Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater, where the series continues through June 27. Purchell will be in town at the end of the month to introduce some of the films in person.The series is one of the latest queer movie endeavors from Purchell. Her work as an archivist, historian and curator includes a podcast, Instagram account and experimental documentary about gay adult cinema history — all named Ask Any Buddy. She also recently recorded audio commentaries on new restorations of films by the gay adult film directors Fred Halsted and Arthur J. Bressan Jr.On Being Transgender in AmericaGenerational Shift: The number of young people who identify as transgender in the United States has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a new report.Phalloplasty: The surgery, used to construct a penis, has grown more popular among transgender men. But with a steep rate of complications, it remains a controversial procedure.Elite Sports: The case of the transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has stirred a debate about the nature of athleticism in women’s sports.Corporate World: What is it like to transition while working for Wall Street? A Goldman Sachs’ employee shares her experience.For custodians of queer film history, Purchell is a standard-bearer.“Elizabeth is doing amazing curatorial work in identifying significant and lesser-known things that deserve to be elevated,” said Jenni Olson, a queer film historian and archivist. “Sometimes I’m not sure how she finds things.”Purchell, who came out as a transgender woman just last November, recently talked about the state of queer cinema and what under-the-radar movie she’d recommend watching for Pride. The interview has been edited and condensed.What’s your goal as a queer-film historian?To get people excited about history and look beyond the surface of queer cinema. I think people want to see more queer films, not just the same five movies over and over. They want to see performances, actors and personalities they’ve maybe never seen before, like Holly Woodlawn and Taylor Mead.In what shape is queer cinema now?It’s remarkable that queer cinema has grown into this gigantic ecosystem of filmmaking. But I want more. I want trans filmmakers to make the films they want to make. I want to see filmmakers push boundaries. Queer cinema should be more than just X film but make it gay — thriller but make it gay or horror film but make it gay. I want to see what’s next.Anna Cobb in “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.”UtopiaIs there a queer film out now that does that?“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” It’s about trans issues, but other people might not pick up on that. It’s undoubtedly a queer film that isn’t textually queer. I find that exciting.How did you first become interested in gay pornography?A few years ago, my partner and I went to a screening of “Bijou,” and Wakefield Poole, the director, was there to introduce it. It opened my eyes to this entire world I didn’t know about. I thought, if this one film exists, what else is out there? So I watched “Thundercrack!” and “L.A. Plays Itself” and it made me want to see more.What did you learn about the connection between pornography and mainstream gay cinema?I don’t think people realize there’s this hidden history of queer filmmaking contained in adult films. People tend to think queer cinema began with New Queer Cinema, but adult films laid the groundwork. The films were made for very little money, but the theaters they played at were safe social spaces for people to watch movies, cruise and meet other people.The other thing that struck me was how connected these films and filmmakers were to mainstream gay culture. If you look at old issues of The Advocate from the ’70s, you see stills from gay porn and reviews of the films. The genre was a crucial vehicle for gay ideas and imagery to make their way across the country.You came out as transgender pretty recently. How has that experience been?People have been very kind to me personally. Growing up in Tampa in the ’90s, there was no way for me to know what trans people were or what it was like to be trans or who could be trans. I settled on I’m a gay man and did that for about a decade. I was working on the Fred Halsted Blu-ray, and I slowly started to realize I was trans. “Sextool” is a Halsted film with a trans woman in it. She’s not in the sex scenes, but her presence got me researching all these trans people and trans history. It just suddenly began to click.Gerald Grant and Claire Wilbur in the Radley Metzger film “Score.”Audubon FilmsIs there an under-the-radar movie you’d recommend people watch during Pride?Radley Metzger’s “Score.” It’s an adaptation of the play by the great Jerry Douglas, a pioneering gay playwright, filmmaker and incredibly important historian. Jerry passed away last year. It’s one of my favorite movies. It’s about this swinging couple who have this game to see who can make it first with someone of the same sex from another couple. It’s a wonderful example of how sex and cinema can combine to create something honest.What is it like to be a transgender person working in queer cinema in Texas these days?You think of Austin as this big liberal bastion, but you’re still in Texas. You drive a mile outside the city and you see the pro-life billboards. I run a queer film series through the Austin Film Society. What I’ve been trying to do is build a community and give people a safe space to explore film. Our screening of “Cruising” sold out. People were in full gear.Full gear?There was a furry bear wearing nothing but a leather jock. It was really wonderful. More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Movies

      ‘I’m Charlie Walker’ Review: More Wink Than Wallop

      by

      The actor Mike Colter imbues Charlie with cool savvy in this movie about a Black trucker in the ’70s who goes up against the white establishment.In January 1971, two tankers collided in the waters beneath the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, leaking 800,000 gallons of oil. The disaster is remembered for having spurred an environmental movement.Less known is how a Black trucker named Charlie Walker played a pivotal role in the cleanup campaign during a time when the white trucking unions and their political allies were freezing out Black workers in the Bay Area. The director and writer Patrick Gilles sets out to right the narrative with the movie “I’m Charlie Walker,” plying the overly broad gestures of ’70s blaxploitation films to mixed effect.The actor Mike Colter (“Luke Cage”) does his part, imbuing Charlie with cool savvy, though his style is more wink than wallop. As the Black owner of a trucking company, he has to be shrewd to contend with the unrefined racism of white truckers and the self-anointed superiority of oil executives.When a foreman grudgingly gives Walker a stretch of beach in Marin County with a nearly inaccessible road to clear, he catches a break. Currents redirect the crude oil away from the tourist spots where white truckers are waiting. Soon Charlie is marshaling hippie volunteers and hiring truckers keen for a paycheck — both Black and white — for the massive cleanup operation. (Along the way, Bay Area notables Boots Riley and Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor, make cameos.)Dylan Baker plays the unctuous executive who is sure he can control Walker and the narrative. But it’s Charlie’s wife, Ann (Safiya Fredericks), who provides the movie’s voice-over. Her account has a mythmaking undercurrent but is also the film’s deft way of celebrating Black love and family. Charlie Walker might not be John Shaft, but Ann — and the filmmaker — want you to know that he’s still a bad mother (shut your mouth).I’m Charlie WalkerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Walk’ Review: Two Families So Far Apart

      by

      This sentimental drama about an upstanding cop caught up in the 1974 school desegregation conflict in Boston recycles tired white-savior clichés.Set in South Boston in 1974, in the riotous aftermath of court-ordered school desegregation, Daniel Adams’s “The Walk” shows its hand early on. We first meet Billy (Justin Chatwin), a working-class Irish cop, as he lets a Black shoplifter off the hook and even pays for the man’s stolen baby formula. The perp responds incredulously with a comment that emerges as the film’s thematic refrain: “Damn, I guess there are some good white pigs left.”It’s a dubious choice, centering a film about anti-Black racism on a “noble” Caucasian policeman — no matter that Billy responds to the thief’s comment by gratuitously slamming him against the wall and threatening to arrest him.As the film opens, the Federal District Court has just mandated busing as a means of integrating Boston’s public schools. Much to the chagrin of his prejudiced neighbors, Billy is assigned to escort Black high school students as they are bused to the all-white school attended by his (increasingly, noxiously bigoted) daughter.Among the Black kids is the bright, brave Wendy (Lovie Simone), the daughter of an emergency medical worker (Terrence Howard). The film occasionally switches perspectives from Billy and his family to Wendy and her father, though their arcs all tie up in a melodramatic display of Billy’s heroism that reaffirms tired white-savior clichés.The topic is, of course, timely. (When is racism not?) Yet “The Walk” feels dated. Every exchange among Adams’s schema of archetypes — the radical, quick-tempered Black man and the peace-loving Black woman; the impoverished, racist white people and the do-gooding liberals — lands like a platitudinous lecture about “fighting hate,” with the stilted performances (featuring too-forced Bah-stin accents) adding to the after-school-special vibe.The WalkRated R for racist epithets and violence. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Ninja Badass’ Review: Kill Bad Guys, Save Hot Babes, Look Silly

      by

      Ryan Harris, an auteur of the gross, includes sight gags like puppies in blenders in this tedious action comedy.“Ninja Badass,” a crude, abrasive action-comedy about an Indiana hillbilly training to become a superpowered martial artist, is the product of one peculiar mind. Ryan Harrison is the writer, director, co-producer, editor and star of “Ninja Badass”; he even created its cheap but plentiful visual effects.Self-financed, and more than a decade in the making, the film is clearly a labor of love, realized in the raucous guerrilla-cinema tradition of Robert Rodriguez’s classic indie shoot-em-up debut “El Mariachi.” But without collaborators to push back against his instincts or question his ideas — the only other credited producer is his mother — Harrison’s vision reigns unchecked, to ends both excessive and self-indulgent. The result is a 103-minute vanity project I found utterly exhausting.Harrison plays Rex, a coarse, ill-mannered layabout with a bleach-blond bouffant hairdo. Attacked during a visit to a pet store by Big Twitty (Darrell Francis), the lunatic leader of the cultlike group Ninja VIP Super Club, Rex resolves to learn the ninja arts and seek violent retribution. Shot in the manic, off-the-cuff style of “Crank,” the action that follows is lurid and over the top, with lots of graphic lacerations relished for their comic shock value. Harrison favors a few gory sight gags, like an arm being ripped out of its socket or a puppy being shoved into a blender, and repeats them frequently, to what would be diminishing results if the jokes were funny to begin with. You get the feeling the film is daring you to wince or take offense, but for the most part, its tasteless provocations are simply tedious.Ninja BadassNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Lost Girls’ Review: Wendy’s Telling of Peter Pan

      by

      In her second feature film, the director Livia De Paolis awkwardly tries to comment on the gender dynamics in J.M Barrie’s classic.Peter Pan might persist as a symbol of whimsy, but never growing up also has a dark side. In her latest film, “The Lost Girls,” based on the novel of the same name by Laurie Fox, the Italian writer and director Livia De Paolis depicts generations of women haunted by Never Never Land. At least, she tries to.The main character is Wendy Darling Braverman, the granddaughter of the original Wendy (played by Vanessa Redgrave). Toward the beginning of the film, Young Wendy has one heady night with Peter Pan at age 13. (Emily Carey plays teen Wendy in flashback.) Though she promises Peter she won’t grow up, she does, eventually marrying and having a daughter of her own. Adult Wendy, played by De Paolis herself, is left struggling to accept her life, including her non-magical husband and her resentful daughter.Such a synopsis makes this film sound deceptively cogent. Adult Wendy, who is supposed to be an American, has a conspicuous Italian accent. What’s more, these characters do not converse like regular human beings. At one point, Wendy’s daughter, Berry, punctuates a dour fight with the line, “Sayonara, Mama.”Instead of laying groundwork for the role of Peter Pan as an arguably antagonistic figure, this film is oddly horny for the magical boy (played by Louis Partridge). The first act climaxes as Young Wendy falls head over heels for Peter. Sure, he thinks of her as a mother figure and also had dalliances with her mother and grandmother, but he’s also a real catch.“The Lost Girls” ostensibly has something to say about the female experience in J.M. Barrie’s classic, but it saves what little meaning it offers for the very end. Those poor viewers willing to take on this Freudian tale and its dialogue rivaling “The Room” must brave a ludicrous slog for crumbs.The Lost GirlsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      ‘1982’ Review: When War Canceled School

      by

      This film from the director Oualid Mouaness is inspired by his memories of being a child during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that year.“1982,” the first feature from Oualid Mouaness, is inspired by the director’s memories of having his classroom life suddenly interrupted by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that year. The film takes place at a school in East Beirut over a single day that begins quietly enough, although the first sound we hear is of rumbling planes. A fifth-grader, Wissam (Mohamad Dalli), slips an anonymous love note into the locker of Joanna (Gia Madi), a girl he likes from West Beirut, the mainly Muslim half of the city.As the fighting grows closer, culminating in an evacuation while Israeli and Syrian planes clash overhead, the characters show differing levels of awareness. Wissam’s best friend, Majid (Ghassan Maalouf), knows enough to warn a teacher that windows should stay open to reduce the risk of shattered glass — but is also enthused when told that school the next day will be canceled. For the children, the drama over the letter’s provenance is important. The adults, particularly two teachers (Nadine Labaki and Rodrigue Sleiman) whose romance has been strained by political arguments, engage in their own forms of denial. They’re skeptical that violence will reach East Beirut or that it’s time for students to stop their exams and leave.Working with a shrewdly limited setting, Mouaness skillfully gives the film a near-real-time feel, conveying a sense that the war is approaching through small-scale details like radio broadcasts, Wissam’s observation that pigeons have flown unusually close to the school and the volume and frequency of aerial noise. The filmmaker also mostly dodges the potential preciousness that comes with telling a story from a child’s perspective, even if a handful of animated sequences are a bit too cute.1982Not rated. In Arabic and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Tahara’ Review: Hierarchy at a Hebrew-School Funeral

      by

      Rachel Sennott and Madeline Grey DeFreece star in a canny portrait of teenage insensitivity and sexuality amid a tragedy.The Hebrew-school comedy “Tahara” mimics the zinging pleasure of overhearing teenagers chatter as they walk home from school: It’s gossipy, delicious and a tad cruel. The film eavesdrops on a group of teenage students during a critical day in their lives, when a classmate’s funeral has prompted them to wrestle with social status and school personas. Their dialogue crackles with vocal fry and viciousness as they reckon, maybe for the first time, with the consequences of school hierarchies.The story follows two longtime friends, Carrie (Madeline Grey DeFreece) and Hannah (Rachel Sennott), for a day of mourning alongside their classmates, crushes and nemeses at a Rochester, N.Y., synagogue. One of their peers, Samantha, has committed suicide, and the synagogue is hosting a talk-back session for students to share their feelings about her death. Carrie is an honest type, and she’s perplexed by the melodramatic performances of grief shown by her classmates. Hannah, on the other hand, is more interested in flirting than in grieving. Her pursuit of attention adds a discordant note to an already chaotic requiem. It’s a diminished chord that Carrie wants to resolve — particularly because she harbors feelings for Hannah, who kisses her in the synagogue bathroom under the guise of practicing for a boy.“Tahara” — a feature debut for both its director, Olivia Peace, and its writer, Jess Zeidman — smartly zeros in on the divide between students and the adults who try to facilitate conversations about grief. For the grown-ups, Samantha’s death is a matter of gravity that calls for solemn mourning. But some students respond with ambivalence, treating the suicide as an opportunity to add tallies to the ledger of who is attractive and who is disliked. Peace, the director, adds to the claustrophobia of this high-school panopticon by presenting the movie in a square format: It is shot with the kind of boxy frame common in old Hollywood movies, which here evokes an Instagram post. This is a canny, compact portrait of teenage insensitivity, all the more riveting for its biting dialogue and funny performances.TaharaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Small Town Wisconsin’ Review: A Father-Son Trip Goes Awry

      by

      A major-league farewell journey turns into an adventure for this dad who is losing shared custody.Taking advantage of a shared custody arrangement that is soon to be justifiably voided, a divorced father, Wayne (David Sullivan), entertains his young son, Tyler (Cooper J. Friedman), in an unorthodox way. Wayne takes Tyler to the house in which Wayne grew up (they enter the property through a hole in a chain-link fence; nearby hangs a sign reading “Bank Owned”) and imitates the harangues his own abusive, alcoholic father delivered at the ancestral dinner table.“Small Town Wisconsin,” directed by a Milwaukee native, Niels Mueller, from a script by Jason Naczek, is the story of a man who, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, knows something’s happening but doesn’t know what it is. Tyler’s mom and her new partner are moving West from the working-class suburb in Wisconsin where they live. Wayne is angered and befuddled by this but can’t make a case for himself. This also angers and befuddles him. Of course, he too is an alcoholic.He contrives a blowout weekend for him and his boy: a trip to Milwaukee and a major-league baseball game. Wayne’s ex insists on a chaperone — which is where Wayne’s best bud, Chuck (Bill Heck), comes in.Chuck is wary. “I’ve been a part of your failed missions before,” he tells Wayne. The trip goes wrong in a number of ways (one involving Wayne’s lack of credit cards). This forces the guys to take refuge with Wayne’s estranged sister (Kristen Johnston). Who, as you might figure, has some life lessons to impart.Mueller’s direction is patient and sensitive, the cast is accomplished and committed, and the picture’s comedic aspects sometimes earn a chuckle. But “Small Town Wisconsin” is not sufficiently distinctive to rise above the standard-issue cinematic contemplation of the arguably poignant state of the white male American screw-up.Small Town WisconsinNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Google Play, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More