LGBT+
Director Jason Barker: ‘Trans lives are often portrayed so bleakly’Thursday, 04 April 2019
When Jason and Tracey were trying for a baby, the worst happened. Tracey was diagnosed with breast cancer, and although she eventually recovered, was unable to carry a child. For Jason, the answer was clear - as a trans man, he would become pregnant... Read more... |
Benjamin review - awkward romcom meets cultural analysisWednesday, 13 March 2019
Benjamin is the debut feature of Simon Amstell, a young director who has thought cleverly about the torments (and hilarities) of artistic creation in an information-soaked world. The protagonist Benjamin (Colin Morgan) lives in a contemporary London... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Freak ShowFriday, 08 March 2019
You might think an American high school comedy an unlikely place to locate a love letter to Oscar Wilde – even if there’s a flamboyantly gay story behind it. But Freak Show screenwriters Beth Rigazio and Patrick J Clifton, adapting James St James’... Read more... |
Gently Down the Stream, Park Theatre review - gay history sifted for compact dramaTuesday, 19 February 2019
Ripeness is sometimes all. 80-year-old Martin Sherman's recent play, receiving its UK premiere at canny Park Theatre, says more about gay history in 100 selective minutes than The Inheritance managed in six and a half hours. True, it's not aiming at... Read more... |
Boy Erased review - gay vs God drama treated with empathyWednesday, 06 February 2019
Joel Edgerton’s second turn as a director is the second film in a year to treat the subject of gay conversion therapy. The first was Desiree Akhavan’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post, whose victory at Sundance a year ago confirmed, symbolically not... Read more... |
Coming Clean, Trafalgar Studios review - Kevin Elyot play has lost the pathos if not the plotTuesday, 15 January 2019
Time and a transfer haven't been kind to this well-meaning but surface-thin revival of Coming Clean, the 1982 Kevin Elyot play that is surely more poignant than is ever apparent here. Two summers ago, much the same cast found a better-calibrated way... Read more... |
VoD: 1985Friday, 11 January 2019
Dallas writer-director Yen Tan has brought 1985 back to stylistic basics, and the resulting resolute lack of adornment enhances his film’s concentration on a story that achieves indisputably powerful, and notably reserved emotion. Independent cinema... Read more... |
Colette review - Keira Knightley thrives in ParisThursday, 10 January 2019
In a telling scene midway through Colette, our lead is told that rather than get used to marriage, it is “better to make marriage get used to you.” In this retelling of the remarkable Colette’s rise, it is evident she did much more than that; by the... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Postcards from LondonWednesday, 19 December 2018
Postcards from London is a surprise. You will certainly come away from Steve McLean’s highly stylised film with a new concept of what being an “art lover” can involve, while his subject matter is considerably more specialised, not least in the... Read more... |
DVD: The HeiressesThursday, 06 December 2018
This first feature from Paraguayan director Marcelo Martinessi is a delicate study in confinement, and of how the chance of freedom can bring an equal sense of exhilaration and apprehension. The two heroines of The Heiresses, Chela (Ana Brun) and... Read more... |
DVD: Anchor & HopeTuesday, 06 November 2018
There’s a lovely feel of folk freedom to Carlos Marques-Marcet’s second film, which sees the Spanish writer-director setting up creative shop resoundingly in London – or rather, on the waters of the city’s canals that provide the backdrop for Anchor... Read more... |
DVD: Reinventing MarvinMonday, 29 October 2018
You have to turn to the brief interview with director Anne Fontaine that is the sole extra on this DVD release to discover the real source of her film Reinventing Marvin. Though Fontaine and Pierre Trividic’s screenplay is credited as original, it... Read more... |
