March recommendations: Your top 3 queer films, a mermaid's love life, and Liberace the flower child

I remember seeing the short film Were the World Mine is based on while warching Logo (i think) back in like, 2004 and was like “well it’s kinda cute but MAN i hate the song they made” and then when I saw it was being made into a full length I couldn’t even bother to watch it

My recs for international queer cinema: Les Diaboliques (France, 1955) - A murder-mystery thriller; not explicitly queer, but has a very thick undercurrent of lesbian. Funeral Parade of Roses (Japan, 1969) - A loose Warholian, artsy adaptation of Oedipus Rex set in the underground gay culture of 1960s Tokyo. Zero Patience (1993) - Canadian Sci-fi musical fantasy where "19th-century English explorer Sir Richard Burton meets the ghost of the first AIDS patient in Toronto" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XboL_RWllAQ La Ceremonie (France, 1995) - A sort-of mashup of Funny Games and Parasite featuring Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire in a similar relationship like Diaboliques. Very intense French true crime-styled thriller. - https://letterboxd.com/film/la-ceremonie/ The Dreamers (Euro-American, 2003) - A young American studying in Paris in 1968 strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister set against the background of the ’68 Paris student riots. The New Yorker said it best: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/19/movies/saltburn-the-dreamers.html Saint Laurent (France, 2014) - Trippy, aesthetically pleasing biopic of Yves Saint-Laurent that also features Louis Garrel in a fun role. Weekend (UK, 2011) - "Following a Friday night party with his friends, Russell pulls Glen at a club, and, instead of never seeing each other again, the two men spend most of the next day and the following night together." - Google. A masterpiece of a gay romantic drama - https://www.criterion.com/films/27783-weekend François Ozon has many great films about queerness: "Summer of 85", "A Summer Dress", and "Time to Leave" are all highly recommended: https://letterboxd.com/film/time-to-leave/ https://letterboxd.com/film/a-summer-dress/ https://letterboxd.com/film/summer-of-85/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainer Werner Fassbinder is a must as-well for anyone looking for world queer cinema. There's not really any bad film in his oeuvre. - The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) - An theatrical melodrama about two women form a sexual triangle with a fashion designer. https://www.criterion.com/films/27953-the-bitter-tears-of-petra-von-kant (Speaking of Bitter Tears, François Ozon's loose adaptation, "Peter von Kant", is a big queer recommendation as well, with the leads being swapped to men. ) - Fox and his Friends (1975) - "Fox (played by Rainer Werner Fassbinder) is a young, gay member of the German working class. When he meets the older and dapper Max, who has upper-class roots, Fox thinks he may have found someone to help him out, but Max refuses to do so. However, this changes when Fox wins big on the lottery." - Google https://www.criterion.com/films/27957-fox-and-his-friends - Querelle (1982), In a French bordello, a young sailor meets a murderer who also is his supposed brother. Aggressively gay and erotic, in case the Criterion cover didn't make that clear enough. https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/querelle *Song of Love/‘Un chant d’amour’ (France, 1954), Two prisoners in complete isolation in desperate need of human contact devise an unusual way of communicating. Directed and written by Jean Genet (who also wrote the novel Querelle is based on), is also aggressively gay and erotic especially for its time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- My last two recs are followed by quotes from Bintang Lestada: https://letterboxd.com/journal/queer-awakening-bintang-lestada/ I Killed My Mother (France, 2009) - A coming of age romantic drama written, directed and featuring Xavier Dolan - "In his acclaimed debut I Killed My Mother, Dolan painted sex as something sudden, animalistic, which I hadn’t really ever seen in coming-of-age films. The writer-director (only sixteen when he wrote the film, twenty when he made it) also plays the leading character, Hubert, a selfish teen who, in between arguments with his mother, Chantale, explores his budding sexuality at both boarding school and in his growing connection with his secret boyfriend, Antonin (François Arnaud). Dolan’s youthful drive brings a hot realism to the film—and especially to Hubert and Antonin’s paint-splattered lovemaking. Aside from my deepest cultural issue—a screaming match with your mother … my Southeast Asian self cannot comprehend!—the grip that that wall-painting GIF has on Tumblr has been influential to so many of us." Arisan!/The Gathering (Indonesian, 2003) - "I will say this again and again: Nia Dinata deserves her flowers for bring Indonesian (specifically Jakartan) gay lives to mainstream audiences. Taking cues from television series such as Sex and the City and Ally McBeal, Arisan! was a comedy-drama of true delight. It featured the first on-screen kiss between two men in Indonesian film history (Sakti and Nino were the couple!), and won five major Citra Awards at the 2004 Indonesian Film Festival (for best picture, actor, supporting actor, supporting actress and editing). Arisan! spawned a television series and a feature sequel, and gave inspiration to film-critics-who-want-to-be-filmmakers everywhere, by launching the movie-making career of Dinata’s choice of co-screenwriter, Joko Anwar, who is now a prominent director, producer, writer and actor. For me, it was the first depiction of ‘chosen family’ in Indonesian cinema where the people looked like me and my friends. It may seem like a fairy tale to many, but for me it felt closer to a documentary. Above all, Arisan! assured me that there’s a life for gay people here." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sidenote: here's a list of queer Indonesian films, courtesy of Lestada: https://letterboxd.com/bergman_esque/list/qias-queer-representation-in-indonesian-films/ Here's a list with other int. queer films I whole-heartedly recommend: https://letterboxd.com/bergman_esque/list/for-the-gays-longing-and-yearning-will-always/ Also, a special shoutout to another person with recs for int. queer cinema that you probably won't hear about otherwise: https://www.yearendlists.com/list_authors/john-waters-cf8b52e3-f610-46d9-9608-218758dc982b

Here are my certified Eurotrash recommendations: Fucking Åmål - 90s Swedish teen dramedy about two girls in a small town. CW it's a Scandinavian movie so even their sweeter movies are depressing as fuck. Taxi zum Klo - 1980 German movie about intimacy, relationships, cruising. Slice of life-ish, if you allow explicit unsimulated sex scenes. L'homme que j'aime - 90s French TV movie about a gay man falling for a straight(ish) coworker. Includes references to ACT UP and is the only movie I've watched that includes queer Deaf culture (not as a main theme, but as a natural element of the story).

I am shocked you've never seen The Court Jester. It's a classic which I can't be tired of. Short vid of the classic tongue twister: "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!" https://youtu.be/WzmnSyqv37A?si=EMHyYNfMuL5kNxt6

Favorite Queer Comedy: The Favorite Runner Up: Shiva Baby Favorite Queer Drama: Moonlight Runner Up: God’s Own Country Favorite Queer Doc: Welcome to Chechnya Runner up: The Colloid Closet Favorite Queer Horror: May Runner Up: The Fear Street Trilogy (And everything that Chucky has been up to lately) Favorite Queer “hardest to sit through” movie: Mysterious Skin Runner up: Boys Don’t Cry Favorite Queer “what the hell did I just watch?!?” Movie: Rocky Horror Picture Show Runner Up: Everything Everywhere All At Once

Also, an unintentionally(?) gay coded American film which is rife with gay subtext. I mean loaded. The Girl Down Lovers Lane. Mystery Science Theater even did this one.

Here are a few recommendations: Australian TV series: Please Like Me rom Josh Thomas is a little off beat, but really good. A bonus for me was that it was my first intro to Hannah Gadsby. His next series, Everything's gonna Be Okay explores gay themes, autism, and dealing with a parent's death. Poignant and very funny. A British TV series from 2008 is a charming comedy-drama family oriented show based on the memoirs of Simon Doonan. Of course Ab Fab is a gay as it comes. Very enjoyable. French films, Pourquois Pas Mois, a really fun film about a group of friends planning to come out to their parents durin a weekend away. Lots of secrets and surprises. Also Wild Reeds, a breakout film. Crustacés & Coquillages or Cote d'Azur is a light breezy film. Of course, Ma Vie en Rose is incredible. C.R.A.Z. Y. is a 2005 Canadian coming-of-age drama film. Summer Storm, 2004, from Germany is another coming of age film wit a very gay plot. Well, once again I got carried away. As for Were the Wold Mine. Check out the short film Fairies, which was the idea germ for WTWM.

With regard to Danny Kaye, supposedly Joan Plowright, the third wife of Laurence Olivier said that it was Kaye and not her who broke up the marriage between Olivier and Vivian Leigh. (She later denied there was an affair between Kaye and Olivier.) With regard to international queer stuff: 1. I think any list would have to start with Almodóvar. All About My Mother is (I think anyway) his best, but The Law of Desire and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown are both wonderful for completely different reasons (and both featured his early muses Antonio Banderas and Carmen Maura). 2. Wong Kar-wai’s film Happy Together starring Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung. 3. Skam, a Norwegian show about a group of teenagers who attend a school in Oslo. The third season focuses on a boy grappling with his sexuality and his attraction to another boy in the school. The third season is far and away the best and can be watched as a stand-alone, but it’s much richer if you see the previous two seasons. 4. Derek Jarman’s adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward II, which he turns into a story of gay liberation. Bonus points for the Annie Lennox scene. 5. Also British: Beautiful People, a tv show based on Simon Doonan’s book of the same name, and adapted by Jonathan Harvey (writer of Beautiful Thing). Featuring Olivia Colman in a role forecasting her role in Heartstopper. (And just as an aside, while everyone has different tastes, I had a visceral dislike for Were the World Mine.)

I don't have absolute confirmation on Danny Kaye, but it is interesting to me that he always, always, in character or out, wore a ring on his little finger. Now, there are only two reasons for someone in the mid-20th century to do that, and Kaye's ring doesn't have any insignia on it, so it can't possibly be a sign of membership in some prestigious organisation. Which just leaves... the other reason (by the way, next time you watch Victim, take a look at Dirk Bogarde's hands). Also, the characters Kaye plays are often visibly camp, or at the very least queercoded; so he was putting queercoded heroes on screen, over and over, in an era when you were normally only allowed to queercode the bad guy or the comic relief guy. Final bit of suggestive evidence: this clip of Kaye and Gene Kelly acting for all the world like two men in love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFS4yaUWJDg The way they look at each other! The way they touch each other! The cute pet names (Mr GK and Mr DK)! The way Kelly's eyes keep sliding over to Kaye when he's supposed to be singing love songs to women! It's adorable. They're adorable. My personal feeling is that Kaye was predominantly gay, but able to physically function with women; but, as I say, I don't have conclusive evidence of that. Non-American queer stuff: off the top of my head, Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, maybe? A bit "bury your gays", I suppose, but then (non-comic) ballet is generally about burying absolutely everyone in any case, and making a gay version of a popular classic ballet takes some nerve. Or you could always check out the TLA Releasing catalogue: https://tlareleasing.co.uk/genre/gay-lesbian/ And because I just can't resist, I'm going to take advantage of the fact that you (kinda sorta) asked for it to go on about an episode of Adventures of Robin Hood that isn't available online, so if you haven't bought the box set it gives you a reason to, and if you have then it's something to watch out for! In one of the very early episodes (the third one, if you want to check it out), Little John (who is still a serf at this point), brings in some wood for his lord/owner, who has a girl with him who finds Little John impressive. Instead of being upset by "his" girl liking the serf more than she likes him, the lord is delighted, gets Little John to take his top off, and starts touching his half-naked body while talking about how strong and muscular he is. Little John attacks him and runs away, which is a pretty extreme reaction; yes, he's being humiliated, but serfs were used to that. But if he had good reason to be worried that he was about to be raped; yeah, that might explain it. The interesting thing about this is that it's more or less the same as that one scene in Spartacus that got censored: slave finds out his master finds him attractive, flees to avoid rape. But Cole and Weinstein got away with a more extreme version of the scene (there's actual physical contact between the two men), at an earlier stage, aimed at a younger audience. Yes, some of that is because telly didn't have the same kind of actual censoring bodies that film had; but still, I think it shows how good they were at getting away with stuff; at plausible deniability. And okay, the threat isn't exactly explicit; but then, "Hey, I like different kinds of food" is hardly explicit, either.

Great recommendations! :D Some of my favorite international queer films: 1. Parada/The Parade - a Serbian film about a group of queer people trying to organize a gay pride parade in homophobic Belgrade. 2. La mala education/Bad education - Spanish masterpiece from Pedro Almodovar. 3. El rubio/The blonde one - Argentinian sexy, understated but gorgeous romantic drama(LOVE this one!)

Oh, I can't believe that I didn't think to recommend "The Court Jester" but I'm so glad that others did! This first time I watched it I was blown away with the film's ability to build absurd gag on top of absurd gag. Glynis Johns has more of the straight woman role in the comedy, but she also feels like a early antecedent to the strong female character trope of recent years.

To add to the international queer stuff everyone should check out: the films of Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek, especially his 1997 film Hamam (often confusingly called Steam in English). Not only is there a queer romance at the heart, it will make you fall in love with Constantinople the city, even if you've never been. I also very much recommend his slow burn but very sexy and romantic film from last year, Nuovo Olimpo. Both are often available on streaming (though on Netflix etc, you may have to manually select the option for English subtitles as they often default to - horror! - the dubbed versions. Always watch in the original language, which for Hamam is Turkish and Italian and Nuovo Olimpo is Italian).

Oh, please don't feel obligated into recommending the degenerate things I find on the web! I'm just happy to have a place to share. Speaking of Bobby Banas, he was the choreographer for many films including Mary Poppins (sweeps and all) and West Side Story (finger snapping and all). I found a highlight reel someone made of his work on screen, including one sequence from Billie (1965) that's set in a men's locker-room that is exceptionally fruity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqYHJjLfKwM Also, not really queer-related, depending on your stance, but his story about about working with Marilyn Monroe on Let’s Make Love is really cute: https://themartinreport.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/getting-right-down-to-the-nitty-gritty-with-bobby-banas/ Speaking of queer movies that have had not-so-positive receptions, you reminded me about a movie called "Tru Loved" from 2008. It's a coming-of-age teen dramedy that Roger Ebert found so trite, shallow, and gratingly mediocre that he walked out after eight minutes, feeling he had gotten the gist of it. Later, he wrote a fuller review expressing his honest thoughts on why he left and what happened. In order: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tru-loved-2008 https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/dont-read-me-first https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/definitely-read-me-second That's it for me, I think; thanks again for the shoutout, Matt! ☺️

Ha, I saw "Were The World Mine" at our local queer film fest some years ago, and loved it so much I bought the DVD. Though I get it's maybe an acquired taste?

Paradoxically, the intro to the Smothers Brothers Show somehow manages not to be weird, even though it is very much of its time...

So glad you highlighted thee "Feeling Groovy" selection. It is my most cringeworthy best of the worst!!

Carol is a masterpiece!