August 2012
40 posts
4 tags
"I'm a dancer!"
SHOWBOY
USA, 2002 Director: Lindy Heymann, Christian Taylor Stars: Lindy Heymann, Christian Taylor, Joe Daley
Absolutely fabulous mockumentary that treats us to everything from a spunky lead and a great script to dazzling Vegas vistas and a guest appearance by Siegfried and Roy. Maybe it’s Christian Taylor’s dry, tentative British essence, but there’s an air of...
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Book Of The Day: Vulgar Favors
Andrew Cunanan would have been 43 today (31 August, 2012). He was killed by swat squad at his Miami houseboat on 23 July, 1997 having been pursued by the FBI over a string of murders that culminated in the shooting of Gianni Versace just over a week prior.
Vanity Fair journalist Maureen Orth covered the case and collates her info in this interesting book, which covers Andrew’s...
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Happy Birthday Richard Gere
Richard Gere turns 63 today (31 August, 2012). He shares his birthday with DebbieDeborah Gibson and alleged Gianni Versace killer Andrew Cunanan.
The Virgo has enjoyed a long career and was a huge star in the 1980s, playing lead roles in American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman. Sporadic hits like Pretty Woman and Chicago, for which he won a Golden Globe (he has never been nominated for...
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Trailer Park: Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
The Spanish-language trailer for Kiss of the Spider Woman (below) starts out much the same as the final English language trailer (below-below) until the film’s relatively brief moments of violence unfurl one after the other and then, the correct pronunciations of “Raul Julia” and “Sonia Braga” are revealed.
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The new DVD trailer did some interesting new...
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Simply Streisand #15
I’d never seen this promo still for The Way We Were before.
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Last Year
A YEAR WITHOUT LOVE (UNO ANO SIN AMOR) Argentina, 2005 Director: Anhai Berneri Stars: Juan Minujín, Mimí Ardú, Carlos Echevarría
Pablo Perez (Juan Minujín) is a lonely writer who hunts in vain for intimacy at his hospital, at his home, and at the private leather sex clubs of Buenos Aires. When he hooks up with a hardcore sex gang, meets the charismatic Martín and decides to publish a frank...
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Waiting for Beauty: Paglia's Glittering Images
frederickwoodruff:
I await the publication of a new essay or book by Camille Paglia the way I used to count the days until new albums would be released by my favorite musicians back in the 70s and 80s. David Bowie, Joni Mitchell — artists of that caliber. That’s rare for me now, as far as music goes. Save for Radiohead and a couple of other bands or artists, there aren’t that many recording...
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Calm down
RELAX … IT’S JUST SEX USA, 1998 Director: PJ Castellaneta Stars: Mitchell Anderson, Lori Petty, Jennifer Tilly
Review by Gary Morris
Relax … It’s Just Sex opens promisingly, with a very funny send-up of 1950s black-and-white educational films about “threatening” topics like homosexuality. A booming male voice intones “This is a lipstick lesbian … This is a...
6 tags
Workaday blues
REGULAR GUYS (ECHTE KERLE)
Germany, 1996 Director: Rolf Silber Stars: Christoph M Ohrt, Carin C Tietze, Tim Bergmann
Christoph (Christoph M Ohrt) is a coffee-and-donut cop who prefers tv and cars to his fiancé, who in turn hooks up with a bodybuilder and kicks Christoph out as a result. Without a place to stay, he somehow encounters Edgar (Tim Bergmann), a gorgeous gay mechanic...
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Happy Birthday River Phoenix
“I don’t want to die in a car accident. When I die it’ll be a glorious day. It’ll probably be a waterfall.”
River Phoenix born on this day (August 23) in 1970.
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Legendary Liberace #2
Phyllis Diller has died, aged 95. Across her lengthy career she appeared with Liberace several times, including this 1969 spot on his TV variety show:
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Music Theatre: Steve Kardynal "Call Me Maybe...
Steve Kardynal’s smash hit Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen (Chatroulette Version) is fabulous. Plus, my dream boyfriend appears from 0:29, cheerily lip-synching along.
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Who's muse?
LOVE IS THE DEVIL
UK, 1998 Director: John Maybury Stars: Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig, Tilda Swinton
Like Prick Up Your Ears, this biopic of a famous artist is far more interested in the artist’s relatively little-known, long-suffering boyfriend. And why not? In both stories, the untalented partners of genius were, inadvertently, everything their partners tried to capture artistically...
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Remembering Al Parker
“I had never really thought about the size of my cock until I was saddled with the nickname ‘Pony Boy.’”
Born as Andrew “Drew” Okun in Natick, Massachusetts on June 25, 1952, Al Parker was a major star of pre-AIDS gay porn. His definitive “clone” look and act as well as his 9-inch cock,was a highlight of classics including Inches and The Other Side...
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A moment with Elizabeth Taylor #7
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Group booking
BOYFRIENDS
USA, 1996 Director: Tom Hunsinger, Neil Hunter Stars: James Dreyfus, Mark Sands
Review by Gary Morris
The bitchy, bittersweet gay ensemble movie a la The Boys in the Band or Love! Valour! Compassion! has become a familiar, if not always welcome, cinematic subgenre. All the elements of the drama are narrowed and the focus concentrated — the setting is mostly a single,...
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Gay Scene: The Devil in Miss Jones Part 2 (1981)
In this sequel to The Devil in Miss Jones, Part 1 (1973) Justine Jones makes a deal with the Devil to secure everlasting life. She doesn’t count on Lucifer (Jack Wrangler) falling in love with her and refusing to let her leave Hell. Assisted by his advocate and a number of henchmen who wear rubber penis costumes, Lucifer frustrates Justine by placing her spirit in bodies up on Earth who...
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What becomes a legend most?
WRANGLER: ANATOMY OF AN ICON
USA, 2008 Director: Jefrey Schwarz Stars: Jack Wrangler, Margaret Whiting, Bruce Vilanch, Christine Ebersole, Gino Colbert, Jerry Douglas, Candida Royale, Samantha Fox, Joe Gage, Jamie Gillis, Chi Chi LaRue, Sharon Mitchell and Gloria Leonard Available on DVD - order here
Review by Matthew Rettenmund
This movie is a very straightforward bio of the very gayforward...
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Music Theatre: Duran Duran "A View To A Kill"...
Roger Moore was the most glamourous James Bond, so it was only fitting that Duran Duran, a beauty counter in pop group form, provided the title song for 1985’s A View To A Kill.
Going incognito was never going to be Duran Duran’s forte, so it’s quite fun to watch them play secret agents cavorting around the Eiffel Tower (where else?) in this fabulous clip:
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Simply Streisand #14
Furious Barbra Queens protest outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion before the commencement of the 56th annual Academy Awards in 1984, where Streisand was not nominated in any major category for her work on Yentl.
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Positively Infuriating
If you’re HIV-negative and growing tired of the increasingly persistent suggestions that the only consistent thing about your approach to HIV is your ignorant, demeaning attitude towards those HIV-positive, then you’re sure to love Condom Break, a film from Raw Joxxx.
In Condom Break, a dorky (and presumably HIV-negative) guy tentatively announces “I only play safe” (who...
7 tags
Good Times
TIME TO LEAVE (TEMPS QUI RESTE, LE) France, 2007 Director: François Ozon Stars: Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Christian Sengewald
Romain (Melvil Poupard) is a thirtysomething fashion photographer who receives a terminal cancer diagnosis out of the blue. Given a month or two to live, Romain embarks on a stilted journey to say goodbye to people he’s never really...
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Legendary Liberace #1
Best. Signature. Ever. And who doesn’t request their beer be served in a champagne flute?
Liberace was obsessed with beer, and never missed a chance to mention his Milwaukee roots. The two came together in this perky rendition of The Beer Barrel Polka:
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Trailer Park: The Sum of Us (1994)
Everything seems to add up in the opening moments of this trailer for 1994’s The Sum of Us. Shots of Sydney Harbour, a gladitorial Russell Crowe with only a towel around his waist. Suddenly, an an American-accented narrator chimes in with a line straight out of Porky’s: “They’re more than just roommates!”
First of all, yes they are - they’re father and (gay)...
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Hang 5 (out of ten)
SHELTER
USA, 2007 Director: Jonah Markowitz Stars: Trevor Wright, Brad Rowe, Tina Holmes
Shelter has one foot caught in the indie gay film trap, but anyone who endured a viewing of the pitiful Tan Lines, the Australian gay-themed movie from 2006, will appreciate this relatively enjoyable gay-themed surfer flick from 2007.
Trevor Wright plays Zach, a talented and ambitious painter from the...
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Judith Crist dead
Billy Wilder said of Judith Crist: “inviting her to review one of your pictures is like inviting the Boston Strangler to massage your neck.”
The merciless film critic for New York magazine and TV Guide died yesterday (August 7, 2012), aged 90. A champion of the blockbuster who believed that James Bond was more important than Ingmar Bergman, Crist explained that her job was to expand on the...
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Interview with Colby Keller
Colby Keller has described himself as “a bigger, scruffier, and more introverted variety of porn actor.” That’s perfectly apt for the thoughtful entertainer, whose latest venture is an appearance in the remake of Wakefield Poole’s 1971 classic Boys in the Sand.
I spoke with Colby in August 2012.
Mark Adnum: Mark S. King’s recent article in the Huffington Post asked...
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Quotables: Camille Paglia
You began to have sex shows, and fist fucking was coming in, men in swings, that kind of thing. And almost immediately, this was in the mid-Seventies, I remember reading this in the New York Native or something like that, and it reported — now also, my friends started talking about having this — trouble with amoebas, these parasites that would not go away. And then I saw this...
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Bo Peep
TRANSFIXED (MAUVAIS GENRES) France, 2001 Director: Frances Girod Stars: Robinson Stévenin, Richard Bohringer
Francis Girod has a history of tormenting the screen lives of icons or ingénues, making Romy Schneider empty a dissolved corpse out of an acid bath bucketful by bucketful in Le Trio Infernal (1974) and then teenage star Sophie Marceau battle her older, alcoholic husband after he...
11 tags
Bumble in the jungle
STRYKER FORCE
USA, 1987 Director: Matt Sterling Stars: Jeff Stryker, Steve Hammond, Jim Pulver, Doug Cory
Jeff Stryker and Steve Hammond play Stryker and Dutch, sworn enemies on the hunt for diamonds in some unnamed Central American jungle. Machine guns and blowdryers at the ready, Stryker and Dutch lead their rival teams on a wild goose chase that digs up little more than heaps of sex!
We...
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A moment with Elizabeth Taylor #6
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Doing Lines: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
It should hardly be any effort to watch this scene enough times to memorise the dialogue (transcripted below) since Marlon Brando performs the entire thing in a wife beater and a bad mood:
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STANLEY: “Take a look at yourself here in a worn-out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for 50 cents from some rag-picker. And with a crazy crown on. Now what kind of a queen do you think you are?
Do...
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Outrageous(ly bad) fortune
FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES
Canada, 1971 Director: Harvey Hart, Jules Schwerin Stars: Wendell Burton, Michael Greer, Zooey Hall
Tom of Finland meets “Banana Splits” in the completely stupid Fortune and Men’s Eyes.
Doe-eyed hottie Smitty (Wendell Burton) gets six months in the Canadian clink for using pot. Smitty’s prison life initially seems much like a boys boarding school – roughhousing high...
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Stand By (Me): River Phoenix returning to the...
Eighteen years after the death of River Phoenix, Dutch director George Sluizer has announced that he will finish Dark Blood, the 1993 film that Phoenix was shooting when he died of a heart attack outside the Viper Room in Los Angeles on Halloween night, aged 23.
After Phoenix’s death, Sluizer took the Dark Blood footage and kept it hidden, fearing - he says - that it would be destroyed. The...
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First look at Michael Douglas as Liberace!
Michael Douglas looks fabulous as Liberace in these first photos from the set of Behind The Candelabra, Steven Soderbergh’s HBO movie about the final years of Liberace.
I’m really interested in this movie, since it’s based on Scott Thorson’s memoir Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace, and Scott Thorson is the guy who:
started going out with Liberace in 1976...
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Happy Birthday Peter O'Toole
Peter O’Toole is 80 today (August 2) and quite frankly, he’s looked that age for about fourty years now. The eight-time Academy Award nominee (zero-time winner) has appeared in over sixteen thousand films and first appeared on stage with Thespis.
In 1979’s Caligula, he played Tiberius, the syphilitic Emperor of Rome and father to the wayward heir of the title. In this scene,...
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Happy Birthday James Baldwin
James Baldwin was born on this day (August 2) in 1924. He passed away (from liver cancer) in 1987.
The author of Giovanni’s Room and a campaigner against discrimination (race, poverty, homosexuality), James Baldwin’s adventures included this televised roundtable of 1963, which he shared with Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, Charlton Heston and Sidney Poitier among others:
July 2012
89 posts
3 tags
Andy Warhol eats a hamburger
Gore Vidal died today (July 31, 2012). Of Andy Warhol, Vidal said:
“Andy Warhol is the only genius I know with an IQ of 60.”
That seems as good a time as any to revisit this scene from Jørgen Leth’s 66 Scenes From America:
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John Calendo's "Pornville"
This is an excerpt from John Calendo’s essay “Pornville”, a kaleidoscopic carousel centred around his experiences as editor of gay porn magazine In Touch, an essay which ends in tears.
Fresh off the bus from Nowheresville where they had always been told by passing men in slow-moving cars that they were the hottest thing since toast, finding themselves not in a red-carpeted...
