In the month of Pride, Lgbt cinema offers a great deal of hidden treasures beyond the more well-known landmarks
With Pride upon us, you may wish to celebrate by watching something Lgbt-themed, but you’ve seen the obvious classics of the genre (from Victim to Paris is Burning to The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant) and the new canon titles (from Brokeback Mountain to Carol to Weekend), and honestly can’t be bothered with the Elton John biopic. What other options are out there? We’ve singled out 10 essential queer works that deserve a wider audience.
Related: The Lavender Scare: the shocking true story of an anti-lgbt witch-hunt...
With Pride upon us, you may wish to celebrate by watching something Lgbt-themed, but you’ve seen the obvious classics of the genre (from Victim to Paris is Burning to The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant) and the new canon titles (from Brokeback Mountain to Carol to Weekend), and honestly can’t be bothered with the Elton John biopic. What other options are out there? We’ve singled out 10 essential queer works that deserve a wider audience.
Related: The Lavender Scare: the shocking true story of an anti-lgbt witch-hunt...
- 6/25/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
This week’s movie reviews ran the entire horror spectrum, with titles ranging from indie darling Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” to a big-budget “Chucky” reboot. The same goes for nonfiction TV, as our reviews include both chilling Lgbt stories and competitive mini golf. So there’s really something for everyone here. Keep reading for a roundup of all of IndieWire’s film and television reviews:
Film
‘The Edge of Democracy’ Review: Brazil’s Slide Towards Fascism Becomes a Cautionary Tale
This documentary about Brazil’s failed attempts at democracy seems to foreshadow America’s future, writes David Ehrlich.
‘Midsommar’ Review: ‘Hereditary’ Director’s Latest Horror Epic Is Actually a Perverse Breakup Movie
Eric Kohn praises the film’s bold vision and appetite for risk taking, even if some scares don’t land.
‘Child’s Play’ Review: Even Aubrey Plaza Can’t Save This Half-Baked Horror-Satire Reboot
The franchise’s first...
Film
‘The Edge of Democracy’ Review: Brazil’s Slide Towards Fascism Becomes a Cautionary Tale
This documentary about Brazil’s failed attempts at democracy seems to foreshadow America’s future, writes David Ehrlich.
‘Midsommar’ Review: ‘Hereditary’ Director’s Latest Horror Epic Is Actually a Perverse Breakup Movie
Eric Kohn praises the film’s bold vision and appetite for risk taking, even if some scares don’t land.
‘Child’s Play’ Review: Even Aubrey Plaza Can’t Save This Half-Baked Horror-Satire Reboot
The franchise’s first...
- 6/21/2019
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
As Pride month is in full swing, Josh Howard’s award-winning documentary “The Lavender Scare” premieres nationwide to address a little-known part of Lgbtq history in America. Narrated by Glenn Close and based on David K. Johnson’s book “The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government,” the doc reveals how President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Joe McCarthy carried out a systematic witch hunt to root out and remove gay men and lesbians from government and security positions.
Treated with just as much suspicion and unfounded fear as communists targeted in the Red Scare, more than 10,000 queer people were fired or forced to resign as a result of this Lavender Scare. Beyond losing their livelihoods, this had a much longer-lasting and far-reaching effect. As with the Chinese Exclusion Act or the Japanese internment, the executive order against gay and lesbian people amounted to...
Treated with just as much suspicion and unfounded fear as communists targeted in the Red Scare, more than 10,000 queer people were fired or forced to resign as a result of this Lavender Scare. Beyond losing their livelihoods, this had a much longer-lasting and far-reaching effect. As with the Chinese Exclusion Act or the Japanese internment, the executive order against gay and lesbian people amounted to...
- 6/18/2019
- by Hanh Nguyen
- Indiewire
In an eye-opening new documentary, director Josh Howard reveals the horrifying state-sanctioned homophobia that once plagued the Us
When Josh Howard began working on his documentary The Lavender Scare, way back in 2009, America was a very different place – not least for its Lgbt citizens. Barack Obama had recently been elected president; one of his early actions, in a reversal of Bush administration policy, was to sign a Un declaration calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Months later, the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed. Meanwhile, the list of states to legalise same-sex marriage was steadily growing.
Related: Outside the multiplex: the best smaller films to see in the Us this summer...
When Josh Howard began working on his documentary The Lavender Scare, way back in 2009, America was a very different place – not least for its Lgbt citizens. Barack Obama had recently been elected president; one of his early actions, in a reversal of Bush administration policy, was to sign a Un declaration calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Months later, the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed. Meanwhile, the list of states to legalise same-sex marriage was steadily growing.
Related: Outside the multiplex: the best smaller films to see in the Us this summer...
- 6/18/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
When fear and paranoia get their hooks into a society, they can invade people’s minds in revealing metaphorical ways. Donald Trump, in his rise to the presidency, stoked fear and hostility toward immigrants, and also churned up racism against African-Americans. As monumental — and hideous — as both those hatreds are, you can argue that there were times when the former issue became a conduit for the latter: anti-immigrant fervor as a code for anti-black racism. There’s no better example of this than the “birther” issue. That was a pure racist fantasy, yet in spreading the canard that Barack Obama was a Muslim born in Kenya, Trump suggested, in effect, that Obama was an “immigrant.” The two corruptions overlapped and dovetailed and, at moments, became one.
An equally horrific psychological bait-and-switch went on during the repressive 1950s. In the opening minutes of “The Lavender Scare,” Josh Howard’s essential and...
An equally horrific psychological bait-and-switch went on during the repressive 1950s. In the opening minutes of “The Lavender Scare,” Josh Howard’s essential and...
- 6/7/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots comes “The Lavender Scare,” a compact and fairly well-made documentary on the purging of homosexuals from government jobs; it began with an executive order from Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 — shortly after he was elected president — and only ended in 1995 when Bill Clinton signed an executive order to reverse it.
This is a movie with a clear hero: Frank Kameny, who was fired from his position as an astronomer in Washington, D.C. in 1957 and made it his mission to fight for the rights of homosexuals. Some of his letters are read by David Hyde Pierce, and we only get to see Kameny himself towards the end of the documentary, which details the lives of others who had been fired before him as well as the gay social life in Washington during the 1930s and 40s before the crackdown in the 1950s.
This is a movie with a clear hero: Frank Kameny, who was fired from his position as an astronomer in Washington, D.C. in 1957 and made it his mission to fight for the rights of homosexuals. Some of his letters are read by David Hyde Pierce, and we only get to see Kameny himself towards the end of the documentary, which details the lives of others who had been fired before him as well as the gay social life in Washington during the 1930s and 40s before the crackdown in the 1950s.
- 6/4/2019
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
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