EVEN COWGIRLS GETS THE BLUES is a revelatory misfire; a fleeting queer fever dream hampered by the scattered potential of Gus Van Sant’s failed expedition. It stands as the sapphic successor to MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO as well as a proverbial passing of the torch from the late River Phoenix to his sister, Rain, in […]
Read more "The Sapphic Classic That Never Was: On EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES"If you were to ask someone about a film titled ‘Revenge’ from the year in 1971, they’d most likely assume you were referring to Sid Hayers’ film, completely oblivious to the existence of a second, lesser known television flick by the same name, save for a matter of simple punctuation — an exclamation point, to […]
Read more "Obscure Oddities: REVENGE! (1971)"A glittering marquee towers in triumphant, theatrical fashion. “MADELEINE ASHTON — SONGBIRD” is laconically splashed along its margins in bold typeface, introducing the fantastical world of Zemeckis’ “Death Becomes Her” (1992) and harkening the arrival of its self-contained star’s diegetic enactment. Ashton (Meryl Streep), dressed to the nines, sashays across the stage with aplomb — […]
Read more "Flamboyance In the Glass Closet: DEATH BECOMES HER as the Queer Fantasy"Fifty four years ago, at the age of only 63, Kay Francis quietly passed after losing an ongoing fight with breast cancer. Her final years were a maudlin echo of an off-the-cuff sentiment which has since come to notoriously (and, to a point, erroneously) epitomize her character — “I can’t wait to be forgotten.” Of […]
Read more "Remembering the Forgotten — the Nuance of Kay Francis"Clare Boothe Luce’s THE WOMEN has been immortalized on screen three separate times since its initial publication in 1936. Independently, they capture the essence of each respective era; together, they stand as a triptych of successive synecdochal zeitgeists that examine the intersectional evolution of feminism and queerness through a foundational text that continues to timelessly […]
Read more "Queer Through the Years: THE WOMEN"The world of voyeurism in film has been traditionally a heteronormative slanted space for parasocial perversion dominated by men both behind and in front of the camera, from Hitchockian foundational staples like REAR WINDOW to dePalma’s erotic successors and everything inbetween. The intrigue teased by Hitchock would enjoy a full sexualized renaissance after the collapse […]
Read more "Bringing Legacy to Light: WINDOWS Through a Widened Scope"Love can be tacit — loud yet implicit, a silent understanding so potent it warrants no verbalization. A swirling amalgam of all its many emotional components that envelops the heart like a tempestuous twister. Strength is not measured in expression, but in feeling. All too often the power of implication is abandoned in favor of […]
Read more "Loud and Queer: Why THELMA AND LOUISE Is a Well-Rounded, Foundational Paradigm of Orientation and Identity"There exists a thin and ambiguous threshold within the narrative realms of any communicative conduit where emotional experience can easily be exploited as fact — where defining influences execute a punitive coup de grace to manipulate and malign. The integral austerity often essential to documentaries is often entirely abandoned in the adjacent genre of the […]
Read more "Expressionistic Intent in the Face of Subjectivity: Why Haywire Sets a Precedent for the Biopic Quandary"The emotional turmoil that FIVE EASY PIECES inflicted is precisely what endeared it to me — a film that challenges our morals and tests our empathy to places often beyond our understanding. Setting and landscape become a two-factor allegory for character and tone: the hardened rock exterior, gritty and crude; the labor and volatility involved […]
Read more "Detachment Conflict: On FIVE EASY PIECES"Sex is far too often presented as reductive surface sensationalism, a buoying excuse to indulge in objectifying hedonism — where dignity is somewhat spared under the guise of “art” and “film” rather than “porn,” a perpetuating agent of the sociological shame with which we equate it. Seldom do we stop to consider the possibilities of […]
Read more "BEYOND THE SORDID SOIREE: ON ‘CRIMES OF PASSION’ & THE INTERSECTION OF SEX AND SOCIETY"
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