May 2013
8 posts
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Gay Scene: Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970)
When xanax and white wine mix:
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Be Silent!
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS USA, 1991 Director: Jonathan Demme Stars: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn
Misguided and counterproductive gay activists (is there any other kind?) who purport to love movies but seem to be perpetually aggravated by the cinema and know nothing about it set upon The Silence of the Lambs and made fools out of themselves as usual simplifying and misinterpreting...
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Quentin Crisp on Greta Garbo
The incomparable Quentin Crisp (1908-1999) shared a birthday with Jesus and was played by John Hurt in 1975’s The Naked Civil Servant, adapted from Crisp’s memoir of the same name.
The Queen of interwar Old Compton Street, he starred with Helen Mirren, among others, on the London stage before moving to the United States where his dinner parties became legendary. He played Queen Elizabeth I...
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Interview with Billy Hayes
Billy Hayes spent most of the seventies in a Turkish prison after trying to smuggle hash out of the country. His experiences were made into the film Midnight Express, which starred the late Brad Davis, and he is now a happily married film maker living and working in LA.
His 2002 directorial debut was with the film Cock and Bull Story, a violent but earnest tale about a sexually confused boxer and...
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Trailer Park: Cruising (1980)
William Friedkin’s misunderstood Cruising was actually based on the real-life “bag murders”, where dismembered parts of missing gay men washed up on the shores of the Hudson River in sealed black garbage bags.
Uncanny coincidence corner: Paul Bateson, who had worked with Friedkin on the set of The Exorcist, confessed to the murders.
[[MORE]]A former radiology assistant who...
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VIDEO: Behind the Scenes of Behind the Candelabra!
Scream! See the video below and take in my take on the amazing adventures of Scott Thorson here, or reprinted at Nightcharm and/or the Huffington Post.[[MORE]]
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VIDEO: Helen Mirren yells at noisy gays.
Rapidly becoming my new role model, Helen Mirren — who was once best friends with my boyfriend Brad Davis — read the riot act to a bunch of unnecessarily noisy gays promoting a music festival by banging drums while she was trying to perform onstage in a nearby theatre.
In full costume as Queen Elizabeth II, Helen emerged at interval visibly furious and used words like...
April 2013
17 posts
2 tags
Quentin Crisp on Joan Crawford
Miss Crawford did not grow old as other women do, nor did she become a dehydrated version of her former self as other movie queens are apt to do. Age could not wither her nor custom stale her infinite monotony. Instead, her face appeared to undergo what geologists term a process of denudation. As the tides of youth receded, the implacable ambition upon which the critics remarked in her early...
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Trailer Park: I'm So Excited! (New Almodovar)
Almodovar’s new film I’m So Excited is released in May. It looks fabulously retro, replete with cameos from Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz. Here’s the trailer:[[MORE]]
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Happy Birthday John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell, creator of Hedwig, is 50 today. Clip from the movie:[[MORE]]
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Happy Birthday Tony Danza
Here’s some pictures of the young, shirtless Tony Danza, who turns 62 today. Apart from TV’s “Taxi” and “Who’s the Boss”, Danza starred in dozens of films including 2006’s Oscar winning Crash, but yeah, the pics: [[MORE]]
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Joan versus the Volcano
Joan Collins (above) has made an invaluable contribution to my life and I am thankful for both her and the contribution. So it’s with a sense of gentle, respectful fun that I revisit this magic moment from her interview with Playboy in 1984:
[[MORE]]There’s a moral laxity around. Herpes and AIDS have come as the great plagues to teach us all a lesson. It was fine to have sexual...
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A Moment With Marlon Brando
No words.
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Reflections in Gold
The original release of Reflections in a Golden Eye was tinted entirely in gold but test audiences found that puzzling, and so a normal Technicolour version was released (my review).
With neither time nor a manifest list to track down the preview audiences who fucked it up for the rest of us, please enjoy this mega-gallery of stills and clips from the original version. Gold standard cinema,...
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BREAKING: Joan Collins, Speed Freak!
Joan Collins took amphetamines to lose weight at the height of her career.
The Dynasty star admits she has battled to control her waistline throughout her time in the spotlight, and was often asked to slim down for acting roles. While Joan insists she mostly used a diet of vegetables and cottage cheese to get in shape, she once lost about four kilos in just two weeks by taking pills packed...
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My review of The Celluloid Closet now at HuffPo
My review of this completely overrated “book” is now republished at Huffington Post. Here it is.
WATCH: Full Behind the Candelabra trailer!
Looks amazing![[MORE]]
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Miss Davis Says #9
“I was the Marlon Brando of my generation.” —- the incomparable Bette Davis compares herself to the incomparable Marlon Brando. Seems like a fair exchange. Miss Davis was born on this day, April 5, in 1908, and died in 1989, aged 91.
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Remembering Anthony Perkins
Though a fine character actor who starred in many films as well as an accomplished singer who released a number of charting pop albums, Anthony Perkins was born on this day, April 4, in 1932. He died just over 60 years later, on September 12, 1992, from AIDS.
Uncanny corner: His widow, Berry Berenson, was killed on American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001,...
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Simply Streisand #37
Fifty years ago this week, an original, audacious and gifted singer from Brooklyn entered the Billboard album chart for the first time. Barbra Streisand, who was not yet 21 when her debut album charted, was unconventional from the start, from the quirky way she altered the spelling of her first name to the defiant way she refused to alter the shape of her nose.
Those characteristics—originality,...
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Library Essentials: John Rechy
“All this ‘my gay brothers and sisters” crap. Some of the people I love are gay, and I love them. Some of the people I love are straight and I love them. Some people I think are despicable are gay, and I despise them. Some people I think are despicable are straight, and I despise them. It’s such a false and forced sense of community, and it has no purpose but banding...
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Happy Birthday Linda Hunt, 68 today
Linda Hunt’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Year of Living Dangerously is, in my opinion, the most deserved acting Oscar ever awarded. Observe:[[MORE]]
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Trailer Park: BEHIND THE CANDELABRA!!!!!!
OMG! The teaser trailer for Behind the Candelabra:[[MORE]]
March 2013
11 posts
3 tags
Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett took Princess...
With Kenny Everett in tow, Freddie Mercury took Princess Diana to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in man drag - dark glasses and a pull down military cap, and she went completely unnoticed, even ordering drinks at the bar!
Here’s the story.
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Hotty of the day: Carter Jacobs
Blond and inked Carter Jacobs is a dream come true for anyone who likes, well, blond and inked guys. He’s a playful performer who really responds to getting his dick sucked, and has even got into being fucked at ChaosMen.
A couple of pics after the jump show some of the action, but are way too outrageous for a family site such as this to present on the home page.
[[MORE]]
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A moment with Elizabeth Taylor, #9
“Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together.”
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The Evolutions of Chad Conners, my favourite porn...
Read all about it here.
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Happy Birthday Gary Oldman, 55 today
“Everyone obsesses over ‘how did you play Orton so convincingly gay?’ I just thought about cock the whole shoot.”
Quentin Crisp reviews Prick Up Your Ears.
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Simply Streisand #36
The unstoppable Barbra Streisand will be 71 when she embarks on her just announced tour of Europe, including first-ever appearances in Amsterdam and Cologne!
The press release:
[[MORE]]Following her dazzling North American tour of 2012, BARBRA STREISAND LIVE! will visit Europe this summer for four exclusive engagements with additional dates and venues to be announced soon.
Appearing for the...
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Happy Birthday, WIlliam Hurt, 63 today.
Quentin Crisp reviews Kiss of the Spider Woman
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Et tu, Brute?
Marlon Brando plays chess during a break during a break in the filming of 1953’s Julius Caesar. The film was directed by six-time Academy Award winner Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who apart from directing All About Eve also made this film.
Brando in a scene in Julius Caesar: [[MORE]]
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Gay Scene: Une robe d'été (A Summer Dress) (1996)
Quentin Tarantino did his thing with Nancy Sinatra’s version of “Bang Bang - My Baby Shot Me Down”, and François Ozon did his, with Sheila’s* take on that song (interpreted here by the delightful Sébastien Charles) in this scene from 1996’s Une robe d’été (A Summer Dress):
[[MORE]]
*Unacquainted with Sheila, who has sold over twenty five million records in...
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Simply Streisand #35
I’m not going to dissect or review The Performance since it was a) it was in honour of Marvin and b) flawless, majestic and easily her greatest moment in the 21st Century. I will point out that she knocked the look out of the park and I especially loved the white-witch hand jewellery and the return of the talons, painted a dusty rose to complement but not compete with the gorgeous gold....
February 2013
17 posts
3 tags
Simply Streisand #34
“Even Adele has revealed herself to be a Barbra Queen, admitting to being “extra nervous” about performing “Skyfall” in front of Streisand, whom she calls her “idol.” Gossipy websites are posting dubious stories that Barbra has installed a new yoga room in one of her mansions, flying in European facial experts and flogging Donna Karan around the clock to...
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Oh, Vicar!
PRIEST
UK, 1994 Director: Antonia Bird Stars: Linus Roache, Tom Wilkinson, Cathy Tyson, Robert Carlylse
Priest explores what I imagine must be the fascinatingly complicated world of gay Catholic priests in the most boring, lame way imaginable. In place of an exploration of the labyrinthine forces that simultaneously fuse and separate organised homosexuality & organised religion is...
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Simply Streisand #33
BREAKING (AP): Barbra Streisand is undergoing a million-dollar makeover to make sure her first Academy Awards performance since 1977 is one that nobody will ever forget.
The 70-year-old superstar has hired personal trainers and a nutritionist, and flown in “facial specialists” from Europe.
Barbra has also installed a state-of-the-art gym, a performance studio and a meditation room in her...
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Simply Streisand #32
Icons collided at the 1970 Oscars, when reigning Best Actress Barbra Streisand (she’d tied for the award the previous year with Katharine Hepburn, who only ever attended the Oscars, begrudgingly, once, and in her gardening clothes and that clip is below for you reference) presented John Wayne with his Best Actor Oscar for True Grit.
You’ll enjoy this clip so much since it shows...
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Simply Streisand #31
The crew of On A Clear Day You Can See Forever welcome Barbra back to the set the morning after her triumph at the 1969 Academy Awards, where she tied with Katharine Hepburn in the Best Actress category to win the first of her two Oscars.
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One Sheet: Films of Russ Meyer
[[MORE]]
(German poster for Beyond The Valley of the Dolls)
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A Lesson For Us All: How NOT To Win The Oscar...
Long before the campaigning for Oscar nominations took the form of today’s ubiquitous “For Your Consideration” full-page ads in the trade papers, the old studio system did its own form of campaigning, encouraging all contractees to vote for in-house nominees, and so on. Campaigning for Oscar nominations and then, votes for he actual awards, is as old as the Oscars themselves -...
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Music Theatre: Frankie Goes To Hollywood, "Relax"
Happy Birthday Holly Johnson, lead singer of “Frankie Goes To Hollywood”, who is 53 today (9 February 2013). A birthday gift he may like is your visit to his website www.hollyjohnson.com.
A friend told me that, apparently, the whole Welcome to the Pleasuredome album is about/an ode to fisting. Being the vanilla bean that I am, I took his word for it, and listening to some of the...
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Simply Streisand #30
She’s the woman who wanted everything, got everything, but what’s perhaps most interesting is that she just keeps doing everything.
Having just turned 70, the woman embarked on a US-Canada stadium tour days after filing wrapped on The Guilt Trip. The day after that tour wrapped, she began a month long promotional journey for the movie, then agreed out of the blue to perform at the...
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One Sheet: Fassbinder (assorted films)
Fassbinder’s films, for me, are a bit of a hit and miss affair. Even Querelle starts to outstay its welcome by the time Jeanne Moreau gets halfway through her raspy rendition of Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves and I agree with Wayne Koestenbaum that a Fassbinder film is often more enjoyable in the abstract, in your imagination, than the actual viewing. Fox and His Friends is the only...
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Happy Birthday Héctor Babenco
Happy Birthday Héctor Babenco, director, who is 67 today (7 February, 2013).
Babenco was nominated for a Best Director Oscar in 1986 for crafting the great masterpiece Kiss Of The Spider Woman (Sydney Pollack won that year for Out Of Africa).
An interesting life story: Babenco’s father was an Argentine gaucho and his mother was a Polish Jewish immigrant. He lived in Europe from...
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Simply Streisand #29
The 65th Annual Academy Awards, held in 1993 as you can tell instantly by observing Barbra’s then-new look, which she was trialling for her comeback concerts at the end of that year (she wore the identical outfit including the necklace and hairstyle) had the theme “Women In The Movies”.
Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood’s exemplary Western, won most of the major awards,...
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SAVING SAFE SEX now also at HUFFPOST
My interview with Richard Berkowitz, co-inventor of safe sex via his authorship of 1983’s gay Magna Carta, the booklet How To Have Sex In An Epidemic, which he co-authored with the late Michael Callen, was undertaken for and originally published at Nightcharm.
It was read fairly widely, and the editors at the Huffington Post liked it a lot, asked for reprint permission, and have installed...
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Simply Streisand #28
All this carry-on about the reconstructed face of King Richard III (which, in my opinion, looks a dead ringer for Glenda Jackson) only reminds me of the time they reconstructed the face of King Tut, only to find to everyone’s surprise — except perhaps Shirley MacLaine’s — that the Boy King was actually the original Barbra Queen.
Could it be that the two Great...
