In the grand cinematic tradition of voyeurs becoming involved with their subjects, two unlikely men assume the archetypal roles in Carmen Emmi’s Plainclothes (B). Set in ‘90s New York, a working-class undercover officer (Tom Blyth) is tasked with entrapping and apprehending gay men, only to find himself drawn to one of his targets, portrayed by Russell Tovey. The acts of surveillance – especially footage in VHS and CCTV forms – add texture to Emmi’s creative and intimate camera work. Blyth is the fascinating find here; he’s absorbing to observe when both stoic and displaying utter yearning. There are lovely set pieces ranging from a matinee movie palace to a botanical garden greenhouse adding atmosphere to the furtive romance. Despite good performances, some plot elements feel routine, and the central leads’ familial stakes are largely given short shrift. Overall it’s a good watch.
The honey and apples fall fabulously far from the family tree as 39th generation ex-Orthodox Jew Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie radically reinvents religion and ritual in Sandi DuBowski’s Sabbath Queen (B+). Spanning more than two decades, with animation filling in some of the ancestral details, this entertaining and insightful documentary chronicles the nonconforming descendent of the Chief Rabbis of Israel as he questions conventions at every stage of his journey. Sampling elements from all walks of life, faith and identity, Amichai leverages his drag queen persona, life as a queer bio-dad and his role as a crusader for human rights in his quest to keep faith fresh and relevant. The thesis includes notions that sacred prayers for peace and protection and entreaties to “Preach, gurl!” all have worth on a walk of faith, but the film often pierces deeply into long-standing norms. At first the protagonist’s bucking of tradition seems to ruffle the feathers of the elders, and soon the doc showcases encounters in Israel with people who deeply disapprove of him and don’t hold back about their disdain for his lifestyle and approach. Viewers won’t agree with every nuance of the subject’s iterative approach to identity and inclusiveness, but tracing his path proves fruitful and fascinating.
SEE IT: This recommended documentary makes its Atlanta premiere at Atlanta Jewish Film Festival February 23 at 4:45pm at Plaza Theatre Atlanta:
GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, consisting of over 500 entertainment critics, journalists and media icons (including yours truly), announced the group’s democratically chosen nominees for its 16th Dorian Film Awards. The Dorians go to both mainstream and LGBTQ-themed content, celebrating what the group calls “the expert Q+ eye on entertainment.”
Leading with an impressive nine nominations is writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s thought-provoking horror tale I Saw the TV Glow, a film overlooked by many other kudos groups considering 2024’s theatrical and digital releases. Star Demi Moore’s thriller of a comeback The Substance is a close second, with 8 Dorian nods.
From there, the genre-defying trans mobster musical Emilia Pérez and tense ménage-à-trois dramaChallengers each hold six nominations, and Dorian-nominated director Brady Corbet’s artful epic The Brutalist makes more than good with five. Other movies GALECA anointed with multi-nominations: Anora, Nickel Boys and Wicked all with four nods each, and Problemista and Queer with three apiece.
In the per-studio counts, A24 has a whopping 25 nominations. Other outfits posting impressive scores: Amazon MGM with 13 nominations, Netflix: (11) and Mubi (10).
Some notable titles in the group’s trademark races include the inventive slapstick comedy Hundreds of Beavers vying for Unsung Film of the Year, Madame Web and Trap looking at Campiest Flick honors, and The Brutalist, Nosferatu and Dune: Part Two among the cinematic dazzlers aiming for Visually Striking Film.
The group’s Timeless Star career achievement honoree will be named when the winners are announced Thursday Feb. 13. GALECA’s members are tentatively scheduled to toast winners and nominees in a brunch the following Sunday.
Along with its film nominations, GALECA announced it is donating $1000 to The Los Angeles Press Club’s emergency relief fund, the amount earmarked for entertainment journalists directly affected by the historically devastating wildfires that have destroyed vast swaths LA, leaving thousands of residents homeless. Professional journalists whose main livelihood involves entertainment criticism, editing and/or reportage can apply for help at lapressclub.org. Additional donations may be made there as well.
GALECA: THE SOCIETY OF LGBTQ ENTERTAINMENT CRITICS 16TH DORIAN FILM AWARDS LIST OF NOMINEES
FILM OF THE YEAR
Anora (Neon) Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios) I Saw the TV Glow (A24) Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios) The Substance (Mubi)
LGBTQ FILM OF THE YEAR
Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios) Emilia Pérez (Netflix) I Saw the TV Glow (A24) Love Lies Bleeding (A24) Queer (A24)
DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist (A24) Coralie Fargeat, The Substance (Mubi) Luca Guadagnino, Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios) RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios) Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)
SCREENPLAY OF THE YEAR (Original or adapted)
Anora (Neon) Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios) Conclave (Focus Features) I Saw the TV Glow (A24) The Substance (Mubi)
LGBTQ SCREENPLAY OF THE YEAR
Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios) I Saw the TV Glow (A24) Love Lies Bleeding (A24) Problemista (A24) Queer (A24)
NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
All We Imagine as Light (Sideshow / Janus Films) Emilia Pérez (Netflix) Flow (Sideshow / Janus Films) I’m Still Here (Sony Pictures Classics) The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Neon)
LGBTQ NON-ENGLISH FILM OF THE YEAR
Crossing (Mubi) Emilia Pérez (Netflix) Queendom (Greenwich Entertainment) Vermiglio (Sideshow / Janus Films) All Shall Be Well (Strand Releasing)
UNSUNG FILM OF THE YEAR —To an exceptional movie worthy of greater attention
Didi (Focus Features) Hundreds of Beavers (Cineverse, Vinegar Syndrome) My Old Ass (Amazon MGM Studios) Problemista (A24) Thelma (Magnolia)
UNSUNG LGBTQ FILM OF THE YEAR
Femme (Utopia) My Old Ass (Amazon MGM Studios) National Anthem (Variance, LD Entertainment) The People’s Joker (Altered Innocence) Problemista (A24)
FILM PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist (A24) Daniel Craig, Queer (A24) Colman Domingo, Sing Sing (A24) Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez (Netflix) Cynthia Erivo, Wicked (Universal) Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths (Bleecker Street) Nicole Kidman, Babygirl (A24) Mikey Madison, Anora (Neon) Demi Moore, The Substance (Mubi) Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)
SUPPORTING FILM PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR
Michele Austin, Hard Truths (Bleecker Street) Yura Borisov, Anora (Neon) Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures) Ariana Grande, Wicked (Universal) Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios) Brigette Lundy-Paine, I Saw the TV Glow (A24) Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing (A24) Guy Pearce, The Brutalist (A24) Margaret Qualley, The Substance (Mubi) Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR
Dahomey (Mubi) Daughters (Netflix) The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Netflix) Sugarcane (National Geographic) Will & Harper (Netflix)
Flow (Sideshow / Janus Films) Inside Out 2 (Disney) Memoir of a Snail (IFC Films) Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Netflix) The Wild Robot (Universal, DreamWorks)
GENRE FILM OF THE YEAR For excellence in science fiction, fantasy and horror
Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.) I Saw the TV Glow (A24) Nosferatu (Focus Features) The Substance (Mubi) Wicked (Universal)
FILM MUSIC OF THE YEAR
The Brutalist (A24) Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios) Emilia Pérez (Netflix) I Saw the TV Glow (A24) Wicked (Universal)
VISUALLY STRIKING FILM OF THE YEAR
The Brutalist (A24) Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.) Nosferatu (Focus Features) Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios) The Substance (Mubi)
CAMPIEST FLICK
Hundreds of Beavers (Cineverse, Vinegar Syndrome) Madame Web (Sony) Megalopolis (Lionsgate) The Substance (Mubi) Trap (Warner Bros.)
“WE’RE WILDE ABOUT YOU!” RISING STAR AWARD
Jonathan Bailey Vera Drew Karla Sofía Gascón Brigette Lundy-Paine Mikey Madison Katy O’Brian Drew Starkey
WILDE ARTIST AWARD To a truly groundbreaking force in entertainment
Colman Domingo Luca Guadagnino Coralie Fargeat Jane Schoenbrun Tilda Swinton
GALECA LGBTQIA+ FILM TRAILBLAZER For creating art that inspires empathy, truth and equity
Vera Drew Cynthia Erivo Luca Guadagnino Jane Schoenbrun Julio Torres
Formed in 2009, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics honors the best in film, television and Broadway/Off Broadway, mainstream to LGBTQIA+, via the Dorian Awards. A 501 c 6 nonprofit, GALECA serves to remind bigots, bullies and our own beleaguered communities that the world looks to the informed Q+ eye on entertainment. The organization also advocates for better pay, access and respect for its members, especially those in our most underrepresented and vulnerable segments. GALECA’s efforts also include the Crimson Honors, a college film/TV criticism contest for LGBTQ women or nonbinary students of color. See members’ latest reviews, commentary and interviews, along with looks at entertainment’s past, on Bluesky and elsewhere @DorianAwards. GALECA’s YouTube channel features the group’s past Dorians film and TV Toast awards specials, video chats with filmmakers and performers, plus talks with members about their latest books and more. Find out more at GALECA.org. GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment journalists is a core member of CGEM: Critics Groups for Equality in Media, an alliance of underrepresented entertainment journalists organizations.
Outreach director Jim Farmer and Silver Screen Capture’s Stephen Michael Brown among panelists discussing queer cinema of 2024:
Faithful to its source material about Beat Generation postmodern author William S. Burroughs’ self-imposed exile to Mexico, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer (B) casts Daniel Craig in the central role of the controversial author cruising for sex and coping with a lifelong heroin addiction as he nurtures twin obsessions with romance and magical drugs promising extrasensory perception. Guadagnino is undoubtedly the right match for the off-kilter material, with sumptuous historical period art direction and an uncanny knack for capturing mood. And Craig proves to be a bit of a revelation in a role cast against type from his James Bond image; as “Lee” (a stand-in autobiographical nickname of the author), his every turn of phrase feels like inventing a peculiar new language. The loose, limber and impressionistic narrative gets even more opaque as the film changes venue and the Naked Lunch type imagery gets increasingly surreal. Drew Starkey is solid as the object of the protagonist’s affection. Jason Schwartzman is also memorable as a schlubby fellow bar denizen. There are moments of incredible sensuality and sentiment and many others which may leave casual moviegoers scratching their heads. The film is a must for fans of the iconoclast writer and a sterling showcase for a daring lead actor.
Trying out different environments for size, two longtime buddies contemplate changes afoot in their lives while embarking on a revelatory journey. Josh Greenbaum’s meditative documentary Will & Harper (A) traces a 17-day westbound road trip across America via station wagon with friends comic actor Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, a 61-year-old comic writer transitioning from male to female. Thoughtful questions, thorny run-ins, poignant discussions and witty encounters mark this life-affirming chronicle as Harper tells her goofy pal no question is off limits. Scored to a jukebox of great needle drops by the likes of Simon & Garfunkel and Bon Iver with some “Wagon Wheel” and “Luck Be a Lady” tossed in for good measure, the film contemplates the notion of living lonely versus living authentically out in the world. Joyful adventures abound, ranging from riding hot air balloons over Albuquerque to standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and the Mighty Mississippi. Acceptance comes in unexpected biker bars, just as a restaurant stopover results in a cascade of mean tweets. Ferrell, known for doing whatever it takes for comedy, tones it down to put his friend on a pedestal (several moments overwhelm him) and assembles some of their well-known Saturday Night Live collaborators for some bright cameos. The movie makes an important statement about friendship and acceptance without ever being preachy or treacly. It’s a beauty of a film.
Out on Film presented by GILEAD has announced the lineup of films and events for the 37th Anniversary edition of the Atlanta-based LGBTQIA+ film festival.
Both an Oscar and BAFTA qualifying film festival, Out on Film will open on Thurs., Sept. 26 with Anthony Schatteman’s Young Hearts, about a 14-year-old who realizes he has fallen in love with his new neighbor but interactions with family and friends bring more questions than answers. The Southeastern premiere of Marco Calvani’s High Tide will take place on Closing Night, Sun., Oct. 6. The film follows a young undocumented immigrant (Marco Pigossi) searching for purpose in Provincetown, who starts an intense and unexpected new romance. The supporting cast includes Oscar winner Marisa Tomei, Jams Bland, Bryan Batt, Chrissy Judy’s Todd Flaherty and Mya Taylor.
Centerpiece screenings include Juan Pablo di Pace’s Duino, Andrea James’ and Puppett’s Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps and Kat Rohrer’s What a Feeling. Out On Film will host 15 world premieres as part of the 2024 festival.
Out On Film 37 offers a diverse selection that includes 35 features (22 narrative films, 12 documentaries and one special event), five streaming-only films and 111 shorts films (in 18 shorts programs) for a total of 151 films.
“Our 37th Anniversary presentation is a wonderful celebration of celebrated films from all around the world and from Atlanta,” explained Out on Film Festival Director Jim Farmer. “We’ve never had this much ATL in our festival. I’m also particularly proud of our short films, which includes work from Emmy nominee Nava Mau, Meg Statler, Elliot Page and Alex Hedison and Jodie Foster.”
Since its official inception in 1987, Out On Film has grown to become one of the major LGBTQIA+ film festivals in the country. Now one of USA Today‘s 2020 Reader’s’ Choice picks as one of the top 20 film festivals in North America, Out On Film hosts an 11-day film festival in the fall as well as programming throughout the year.
High TideA House is Not a DiscoYoung HeartsDuinoClose to You
The tradition of film protagonists who pine for prime time glory has whisked away a portly Baltimore heroine with fabulous flair and hair to break bandstand barriers, a Brighton Beach widow to risk addiction en route to game show gains and a failed comedian to pursue his darkest impulses with a sinister smile on a late night broadcast. The isolated adolescent characters played by Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine in Jane Shoenbrun’s psychological horror-drama I Saw the TV Glow (B-) dream of escape into a nostalgic supernatural girl power show to fight monsters of the week, but it’s unclear who’s the show-runner and if either is remotely in control of overcoming a series of traumas. Shoenbrun creates a luminous look for this movie, laced with ribbons of lavender haze and mesmerizing low budget creature effects, and a detailed backstory so fully fleshed out, you almost wish the show-within-the-show took center stage. As committed as both leads are to their roles, they bring similar ambivalent energy that doesn’t always fully enliven the pace but offer aching portraits of coming of age in a world of mixed signals. It’s a film full of creative ideas, many more fully rendered than others. A less than satisfactory final act fails to build on some of the most intriguing plot points, but the movie is overall an original with enough intrigue and whimsy to earn this mystery box a recommendation.
There hasn’t been a more fascinating “tied up in right’s issues” guerrilla indie since 2013’s Escape from Tomorrow, the paranoid thriller secretly filmed and set entirely in Walt Disney World. Operating under the loosest definition of parody, The People’s Joker (D+), directed by, co-written by and starring Vera Drew, premiered at 2022’s Toronto Film Festival and has been embroiled in legal challenges ever since because it leverages nearly all elements of DC’s Batman universe to craft a loosely threaded tale about transgender identity. The backstory is much more fascinating than what’s actually on-screen as Drake utilizes live action drama with occasional stop-motion and other forms of animation swirling around Drew’s transgender woman mash-up of iconic villain The Joker and sidekick/love interest Harley Quinn embodied in one protagonist. Drake’s central character is an aspiring comedienne working at a renegade theatre with Nathan Faustyn as slacker friend The Penguin to ostensibly ascend the late-night TV comedy industry. This antihero’s complex psychology isn’t served by a flimsy plot that feels like it’s being made up as it’s progressing, with the fact that it is unfunny being chalked up to the fact that the characters are making an “anti-comedy.” Kane Distler fares better than others in the ensemble as Mr. J, an emotionally manipulative trans man reminiscent of Jason Todd (a post-Dick Grayson Robin) and Jared Leto’s Joker from Suicide Squad; it’s a more fleshed out character with some showy moments, but the filmmakers drop the ball here too. Although the film’s aesthetic occasionally hits promising strides including a first date in a tunnel of love, it’s mostly a long string of misses packed into those 92 minutes. Kudos to the themes of self-acceptance embedded in the go-for-broke fantasia in which The Riddler, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, a CGI Nicole Kidman and a villainous Batman exist amidst an array of adjacent IP characters including Perry White, Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Betty Boop (perhaps Steamboat Willie was months from being available). An anti-depressant called Smylex administered at Arkham Asylum and acid-like vats of estrogen are among too many half-baked ideas in the madcap mishegoss. The filmmaking isn’t fascinating enough to justify the fuss. An actual parody could have been made from all these ideas; instead it’s more theft than deft.
Pop music stardom is an uneasy fit for the idiosyncratic women of one of the State of Georgia’s most popular exports, but this steely duo’s combination of vulnerability and authenticity expresses a profound harmony powerful enough to heal an aching world. Director Alexandria Bombach’s joy-balm of a career chronicle Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All (A) derives its title from a verse of the duo’s hit song, “Closer to Fine,” recently featured on the dream car radio airwaves of the Barbiemovie as characters trek between fantasy and the real world. This documentary similarly exists in a realm of crafty contradictions and sly serendipity as amplified acoustic troubadours Amy Ray and Emily Saliers reveal their starkly divergent pathways to achieve both their iconic sound and inner peace against a backdrop of changing times and minds. These two couldn’t be more different! Amy constantly tames tempestuousness, all grit and ache simmering on the surface while unleashing her inner rocker, as Emily belts lovely ballads and a bright blend of poetic melancholy while privately battling her own doubts and demons. The sound they make together is singular and sublime, and the respect they have for one another is apparent in every revealing frame. Both women are raw in their confessions, wry in their self-effacing observations and clearly having a wonderful time curating a career unlike any before or after them. The film showcases two lifelong friends coming of age without a roadmap, united in music-making as a mutual coping mechanism and antidote to growing up gay in the south, to being unconventional women in the entertainment business and to not always being particularly prepared for the role model activists they’ve become. While showcasing the origins of their welcoming brand of lyrical and sonic composition forged in the otherworldly necessity of their friendship, the movie also traces the womens’ journey to an even more pronounced consciousness about environmental and justice issues they hold so dear, outside opinions be damned. Archival footage captured on every conceivable form of media, testimonials from true believers who would follow the band anywhere and a keen directorial eye on the lovely details which define a relationship for the ages are among the poignant ways the film showcases its subjects so lovingly. For both devoted fans and newbies discovering these pioneering women in action, bearing witness to their stories both in conversation and song will be nothing short of inspiring. The film is a highly recommended glimpse at two people who by their very existence, and their talent on top of that, are changing the world and saving lives. Go, go, go!
Get ready to experience pulp friction of the edgiest order as a mismatched love story collides with a badass crime drama and all-out revenge and cover-up saga in the consistently surprising Love Lies Bleeding (B), directed by Rose Glass. Set in the 1980s, this often unhinged movie chronicles the sexy relationship between a gym manager played by Kristen Stewart and a nomadic bodybuilder portrayed by Katy O’Brian, with a powderkeg or two threatening the serenity of their sapphic world order. Both women are incredible in the roles; their unbridled feral chemistry is a necessary foundation on which the most outlandish episodes can take place. Ed Harris and Dave Franco are also compelling as outrageous and dangerous men; and it’s clear we the audience are settling in for some supernatural splatter when steroids stoke the kindling of the bonfire. After opening sequences ground the story in a very specific world, some of the plot lines admittedly become completely ridiculous. But Glass keeps the story taut and entertaining with a clever eye for detail and noirish nuances. This is a very fun indie walk on the wild side.
Esteban Arango’s rollicking rollercoaster of a Sundance Film Festival entry Ponyboi (B+) features an unconventional intersex protagonist who shows there’s no clear pathway to forge between point X and point Y when it comes to the thrill of a crime caper. This neon-illuminated film glides successfully on the resplendent and deeply touching performance of River Gallo who is a force to be reckoned with and also the writer and producer behind the work. Gallo plays a resilient Jersey Shore sex worker caught up in a series of misadventures on a berserk Valentine’s Day; soon life on the streets of the turnpike becomes an all-out getaway and a big choose-your-own-adventure between a full escape and an unexpected invitation home by a formerly unsupportive parent. Other familiar cast members are Dylan O’Brien as a vile pimp and drug dealer (he’s magnificent), Victoria Pedretti as a wannabe ally and Murray Bartlett as a mysterious cowboy who may or may not be the titular character’s saving grace. Arango consistently raises the stakes through locales ranging from laundromats to diners and nightclubs; there’s an absorbing sequence in a pharmacy where favors are traded for hormones mid-way through a gangster chase, and viewers simply haven’t seen this exact series of predicaments before. This film is poised to be a gritty hit indie and will hopefully break through for those up for something radically different in a familiar genre.
The protagonist Adam superbly played by Andrew Scott has some unfinished emotional business to reckon with in Andrew Haigh’s intimate, immersive dramatic fantasy All of Us Strangers (B+). The hero’s journey involves a new romantic partner in the form of Paul Mescal and an interlocking plot in which Adam’s parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) come back into his life despite having perished in a car crash three decades earlier. Given the intricacy of the film’s structure and the cerebral presentation of an unlikely premise, Haigh guides his characters masterfully with a transfixing wisdom and wistfulness. The film’s bending of time and space works so effectively because Scott keeps viewers so grounded in his emotional arch; he delivers a quietly revelatory performance. Mescal continues his streak of interesting indie roles with a strong portrayal of a character just out of reach. And Foy and Bell are wonderful as the flawed but fabulous couple who get to tie up some loose ends with the adult son they never knew. The film is a talky tearjerker that ponders some big issues including loneliness and abandonment and is sure to provide tender recognition to those who have lost loved ones. Haigh continues to traverse unexplored territory about gay characters and doesn’t serve up easy answers; he blazes new emotional and filmmaking landscapes. From its effective use of evocative pop music to its stunning close-ups of interlocking characters thrust into unexpected disclosures, the film is a lovely discovery and a must-see for cinephiles.
