Just in time for Succession‘s end, let’s look at method acting. The Criterion Channel are highlighting the controversial practice in a 27-film series centered on Brando, Newman, Nicholson, and many other’s embodiment of “an intensely personal, internalized, and naturalistic approach to performance.” That series makes mention of Marilyn Monroe, who gets her own, 11-title highlight––the iconic commingling with deeper cuts.
Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...
Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...
- 5/22/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
June is Lgbt Pride Month, and this weekend is the culmination of Pride events in NYC. Recognizing this, Indiewire's latest curated Documentaries page for Hulu presents five films exploring the diversity of the Lgbt experience. Watch all these docs for free now! "Out in Silence" After filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer place their wedding announcement in Joe's rural hometown's newspaper, they inspire both a controversy and a desperate plea for help from a recently outed and now bullied teen. "Out in the Silence" follows the duo as they return to Oil City, Pa, to try to help the boy and find common ground with their opponents. "The Brandon Teena Story" Sadly, Brandon Teena didn't have this kind of support in rural Nebraska. In 1993, Teena - a female to male transgender - was discovered "passing" as a boy and murdered. Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir's "The Brandon Teena...
- 6/21/2012
- by Basil Tsiokos
- Indiewire
Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir's "Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement" centers on Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer. The couple never let the fire go out of their 44-year same-sex relationship. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the film itself.
The documentary examines Edie and Thea in the final stages of their whirlwind romance. Its imminent end is due not to age, although both women are approaching their 80s, but to Thea's declining health from her 30-year battle with Multiple Sclerosis.
The women moved to New York before they knew each other. Edie came here after a divorce in order to find herself; Thea, who first came to New York as an adolescent escaping Holland before the Nazi began imprisoning the Jews, had left the city for college, but later returned following her expulsion from the school for having relations with a woman. For Edie and Thea,...
The documentary examines Edie and Thea in the final stages of their whirlwind romance. Its imminent end is due not to age, although both women are approaching their 80s, but to Thea's declining health from her 30-year battle with Multiple Sclerosis.
The women moved to New York before they knew each other. Edie came here after a divorce in order to find herself; Thea, who first came to New York as an adolescent escaping Holland before the Nazi began imprisoning the Jews, had left the city for college, but later returned following her expulsion from the school for having relations with a woman. For Edie and Thea,...
- 12/1/2010
- Moving Pictures Magazine
Happily Ever After. I’ve come to regard these three words with hardy cynicism. They have a tendency to conclude tales of tiresome female passivity with the false hope that Sleeping Beauty woke up to more than an endless pile of ironing. They appear in stories which have no care to depict empowering, mutual partnerships, rather the winning over - or worse, the rescue – of the flailing girl by the commanding Knight/Prince/Creep who Climbs Hair. And whilst fairytales are no friend of egalitarian relationships, they are heteronormativity’s arch-comrade - rarely, if ever, providing positive messages to young gay kids. So it was with delight that last week, at the 24th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, I finally watched something which subverted the paradigm. The film was Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement – and it might just be a model of a modern day fairytale. Originally...
- 4/3/2010
- by Sophie Donovan
- t5m.com
Happily Ever After. I’ve come to regard these three words with hardy cynicism. They have a tendency to conclude tales of tiresome female passivity with the false hope that Sleeping Beauty woke up to more than an endless pile of ironing. They appear in stories which have no care to depict empowering, mutual partnerships, rather the winning over - or worse, the rescue – of the flailing girl by the commanding Knight/Prince/Creep who Climbs Hair. And whilst fairytales are no friend of egalitarian relationships, they are heteronormativity’s arch-comrade - rarely, if ever, providing positive messages to young gay kids. So it was with delight that last week, at the 24th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, I finally watched something which subverted the paradigm. The film was Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement – and it might just be a model of a modern day fairytale. Originally...
- 4/3/2010
- by Sophie Donovan
- t5m.com
2009 Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Awards 2009 Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival: Oct. 16-25, 2009 A major box-office hit in its native Norway, Stian Kristiansen’s The Man Who Loved Yngve chronicles the (homo)sexual awakening of a small-town male teenager after another male teen starts attending his school. Jury Awards Best Feature Film: The Man Who Loved Yngve, directed by Stian Kristiansen Feature Film Honorable Mention: I Can’t Think Straight, directed by Shamim Sarif Best Documentary Film: Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement, directed by Gréta Olafsdóttir and Susan Muska Best Short Film: Diana, directed by Aleem Khan Short Film Honourable Mention: Claiming the Title, directed by Jonathan Joiner and Robert H. Martin Most Innovative Short: The Apple, directed by Emilie Jouvet Audience Awards Best [...]...
- 10/28/2009
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
The tale told in this low-budget, award-winning documentary is so powerful, so compelling, that it overshadows any reservations about the quality of the filmmaking and storytelllng.
Brandon Teena was a Nebraskan teenager, born Teena Brandon, who decided to live her life as a man. Moving to a small town and forging a new identity, she fooled people to a wide extent and even had several girlfriends.
But eventually her secret was revealed, with tragic results; she was raped by two local young men, who one week later killed her, along with two other victims, to prevent her from testifying. Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir's chronicle of these events is receiving its theatrical premiere at New York's Film Forum.
The 16mm film is crudely photographed and edited, and deviates little from the talking heads syndrome, but there is no denying the dramatic impact of the story and the tragic central figure who inhabits it.
The film begins in a lighthearted fashion, with testimony from Brandon's various girlfriends who affirm her sensitivity and her qualities as a terrific "boyfriend." We even hear from Brandon's killers, although the filmmakers don't reveal that fact until later on.
Brandon's story turns fateful when the small town of Falls City discovers her true identity, the result of her arrest for petty theft. Particularly incensed are two young men, ex-cons named Thomas Nissen and John Lotter, who are deeply offended at their friend's deception. They brutally beat and rape Brandon, who reports the crime to the local authorities.
She is met with suspicion and outright hostility, however, as evidenced by a chilling audiotape of the interrogation conducted by the local sheriff, who is more accusatory than comforting. One week later, Brandon, 21, is shot to death, together with a pregnant woman friend and another visitor who happened to be at the scene. Nissen and Lotter are arrested, and are now in prison.
Brandon Teena's story is so dizzying in its implications, and touches so many chords, that it has the resonance of a great novel; it has been the subject of several in-depth journalistic pieces, and, not surprisingly, a feature film is in the works.
This extremely low-budget effort, which includes interviews with many of the principals involved as well as audio excerpts from the trial, doesn't do it full justice, and is often confused and scattershot in its storytelling approach. It also relies too heavily on cliched shots of barren rural landscapes and snippets of banal country music. But it nonetheless has a great power, and deserves wide theatrical exposure before its eventual berth on video and public television.
THE Brandon Teena STORY
Zeitgeist Films
Producer, director, camera, editing: Susan Muska, Greta Olafsdottir
Executive producer: Jane Dekrone
Music: Lorrie Morgan, Dinah Washington, April Stevens, the Brown Brothers
Color
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Brandon Teena was a Nebraskan teenager, born Teena Brandon, who decided to live her life as a man. Moving to a small town and forging a new identity, she fooled people to a wide extent and even had several girlfriends.
But eventually her secret was revealed, with tragic results; she was raped by two local young men, who one week later killed her, along with two other victims, to prevent her from testifying. Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir's chronicle of these events is receiving its theatrical premiere at New York's Film Forum.
The 16mm film is crudely photographed and edited, and deviates little from the talking heads syndrome, but there is no denying the dramatic impact of the story and the tragic central figure who inhabits it.
The film begins in a lighthearted fashion, with testimony from Brandon's various girlfriends who affirm her sensitivity and her qualities as a terrific "boyfriend." We even hear from Brandon's killers, although the filmmakers don't reveal that fact until later on.
Brandon's story turns fateful when the small town of Falls City discovers her true identity, the result of her arrest for petty theft. Particularly incensed are two young men, ex-cons named Thomas Nissen and John Lotter, who are deeply offended at their friend's deception. They brutally beat and rape Brandon, who reports the crime to the local authorities.
She is met with suspicion and outright hostility, however, as evidenced by a chilling audiotape of the interrogation conducted by the local sheriff, who is more accusatory than comforting. One week later, Brandon, 21, is shot to death, together with a pregnant woman friend and another visitor who happened to be at the scene. Nissen and Lotter are arrested, and are now in prison.
Brandon Teena's story is so dizzying in its implications, and touches so many chords, that it has the resonance of a great novel; it has been the subject of several in-depth journalistic pieces, and, not surprisingly, a feature film is in the works.
This extremely low-budget effort, which includes interviews with many of the principals involved as well as audio excerpts from the trial, doesn't do it full justice, and is often confused and scattershot in its storytelling approach. It also relies too heavily on cliched shots of barren rural landscapes and snippets of banal country music. But it nonetheless has a great power, and deserves wide theatrical exposure before its eventual berth on video and public television.
THE Brandon Teena STORY
Zeitgeist Films
Producer, director, camera, editing: Susan Muska, Greta Olafsdottir
Executive producer: Jane Dekrone
Music: Lorrie Morgan, Dinah Washington, April Stevens, the Brown Brothers
Color
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/1/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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