How to Survive a Plague

Hello.  Hello.

I know my deafening silence after Prometheus must have had some of you combing the obituaries.  Rest assured, dolls - I am not, in fact, dead.  Better still, I finally found something worth talking about!

Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral is the only horror film to see this year.  It’s better than Noomi Rapace running down that space hallway with her tummy stapled.  It’s better than Nicole Kidman biting her lips and feeling up on her pussy in the front seat of Zac Efron’s Chevy.  It’s better than Nicole Kidman peeing on Zac Efron’s face after he got stung by all those CGI jellyfish.  It’s even better than Zac Efron yelling, “What’s the plastic for!?!”  (Okay, ThePaperboy is pretty awesome too).

I'm obsessed.  I'm giddy.  I'm not even drunk.  Antiviral is a film that's full of needle-sharp commentary on our ever-snowballing obsession with celebrity (Lohan/Bynes death race!) and health care reform.  More importantly, this film aesthetically GORGEOUS.  The austere proceedings are capped off by an old-Hollywood performance from Caleb Landry Jones who looks absolutely stunning throughout.  I’m talking true beauty.

Being David Cronenberg's son, I'm sure Brandon must be sick to death of the comparisons so I'm going to make another: at it's best, this movie belongs on the shelf right next to Shivers and Dead Ringers.  Go see it.  Tell your friends.  See it again.  If a movie like Antiviral is successful, people will be empowered to make more movies like Antiviral and then people named Jeffrey would maybe have to start writing more than once every two years.

Loving - always,

JGM

take it to the limit

 "What did you expect?"

Look, I haven't been writing. Sorry. I think part of me died when people responded so negatively to Scream 4. Besides, try and name one good movie released this year. Go on...  Exactly!  Anyway, I'm inspired.

Did you ever have one of those childhood besties - you know, the ones who go through all your major life moments with you?  You put on her face for Prom.  You promised her she wasn't a slut while driving to her first abortion and she assured you that you weren't bulimic just because you always threw up chicken lo-mien.

Invariably, something innocuous happens in your twenties and you stop being super close.  Then you go from not being close to assuming you might be in a fight so more years go by without talking until you bump into each other in the champagne aisle at CVS and you both just start sobbing, vowing never to be parted again.  The next thing you know, you're the best man at her wedding where, even though she swore up and down that she's off the sauce, she downs a fifth of Jack Daniels and winds up fucking a cater waiter on the golf course in her wedding dress.  Does any of this sound remotely familiar?

This is the experience of Lars Von Trier's Melancholia (2011).  Thank God.

Chock full of homages to Tarkovsky and Cassavetes, Melancholia is a return to form for Lars - much closer in DNA to Breaking the Waves than his past few features.  But who cares?  The real story is here Kiki Dunst.  I love her.

I love how fantastic she looks in her wedding dress (Kiki, where did you get all those boobies!?).  I love that we're in our thirties and we can put the past behind us.  I love that she's not afraid to look like hell.  I love that she's boozy.  I love how much she can convey without dialogue.  I love her teeth.  I love that we both get near-crippling anxiety.  I love the contempt she has for Charlotte Gainsbourg (really, Lars, you couldn't get Nicole back?).  I love this movie.  Melancholia is your best coffee table book come to life, infused with unexpected, raw emotionality juxtaposed alongside state of the art effects better than anything you'd see in Transformers.

It's nice to feel something again.  I was getting worried.

eat your heart out.

"You're pissed at everyone because you're gay."

I have a complex relationship with Jeffrey Dahmer. I hold him personally responsible for robbing me of my best slut years. While the kids nowadays can go to any bar or club or theatre festival or grindr app to find a gorgeous guy in high-waisted jeans and metallic frames, I stayed locked inside my room throughout twenties – absolutely certain that any clandestine affair with even the most devastatingly handsome investment banker was going to end with me face-down stapled to the floor of some Tribeca loft. I’m getting ahead of myself.

A while back, I was talking to Tanner about the death of gay cinema and he explained that the issue at hand is not the death of gay cinema at all, but the death of independent cinema. He's right.  We all sort of took for granted that pop culture would always be Nirvana and My So Called Life. We were wrong.

Don't get me wrong - the years weren't just Crystal Pepsi and hypercolor.  Unlike the 1980s, the nineties were actually a shitty time to be a gay teen. Gone were the days of jelly bracelets and pouty-mouthed camp counselors. AIDS and the recession took all the fun out. Liberace and Keith Haring were dead. Queer Cinema was alive and kicking thanks to Gregg Araki and Gus Van Sant, but regular kids looking for gay role models were SOL. We didn’t have Glee. Aside from that guy from Showgirls, the most famous gay of the 90s was Jeffrey Dahmer.

Despite the proliferation of gay cinema in the nineties, it wasn’t until the early aughts that a proper movie based on Jeffrey would see the light of direct to Blockbuster distribution. Dahmer (2002) is the kind of movie that Chloe Sevigny and Brett Easton Ellis watch ironically projected on a tarp in someone’s backyard thinking they were such a riot while talking incessantly about themselves and not even bothering to learn the name of their hostess.

It’s not very good, this Dahmer film, but it does teach us some very important lessons.

• Lesson #1:  Banjees are a gays best friend.

True story.  In the middle of Jeffrey's Korean phase, a lobotomized Gasians managed to escape the manse. Mute and naked, this poor kid came stumbling across a couple of Banjee girls on their way home from walking their little brothers to school.  These girls were concerned. The cops were not.  Refusing to get involved in another faggoty domestic dispute, they brought that Gasian right back to Jeffrey's house.

• Lesson #2  Don’t go home with any guy who talks like Emma Pillsbury.

No good can come from it.

• Lesson #3  This is what Jeremy Renner’s O-face looks like.

In case you were watching Thor and, you know, got to wondering.

• Lesson #4  If I lived in Wisconsin in the early 90s, I would be DEAD.

With his shaggy hair and lanky build, Jeffrey Dahmer was a catch! I mean, he worked in a chocolate factory…

dinner's in the oven

I've been learning a lot from Lea Michele's twitter lately.  The most important thing?

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

xoxo
(At least we got this video of Dave Franco. )

I'm so excited. I'm so scared.

I watched about three minutes of the last Final Destination movie and hated it - the actors were smug - the effects were lame - it obviously hated gay people (one word: Nascar). Despite this incident and because of the efforts of FaggotyassAward nominated actress, Emma Bell, my feelings towards 5nal Destination have shifted.  After a particularly anemic summer, its' nice to have something to look forward to... on HBO in six months (Bless).

xo

the most wonderful time of the year

Happy Gay Pride, dolls! 
Remember to wear sunblock, stay hydrated, respect your elders and don't be racist.

xoxo

Tina: Light and Dark

“Please, don’t drink anymore!”

Start doing your crunches, boys! It’s already time to start squeezing ourselves into our best cut-off shorts for those annual weekends at Camp Crystal Lake. In honor of this, the only Friday the 13th of 2011, I’m going to let you in on a special secret:  My favorite Jason movie is….

Friday the 13th, Part 7: The New Blood (1988).

While by no means the best, The New Blood is unquestionably the gayest entry in the Friday cannon. I’m talking Telekinesis, dolls. Jason Voorhees versus Lar Park Lincoln (“Tina”) pretending to be Carrie White. A force to be reckoned with, Tina is the only final girl in horror history capable of snapping the pearls right off of a bitch’s neckline without even using her hands.

“You’re more interested in this telekinetic stuff than you are in me!”

Aside from the fact that the men of Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood never manage to feign even the slightest interest in any of its women, our male protagonist is a showqueen ("Nick") with a denim fetish who only musters expressions of mild concern when faced with the prospect of his entire social circle being massacred at the hands of Jason. This film is gayer than a Sex and the City marathon on Fire Island – this film is gayer than my run-on sentences.

Our girl Tina has been having a rough time ever since she was a toddler. The pressure of being constantly mistaken for Heather O’ Rourke (RIP) at her neighborhood mall finally caught up with her and she wound up killing her own daddy with her magix.  It happens.  Years later, Tina’s finally out of the nut house and trying to work it out with the help of her obviously-evil therapist (who came highly recommended by Blake Carrington).

Tina’s mother spends more time maintaining her blow-out than actually trying to be of any help to anyone (or bothering to check the B&B reviews section on priceline.com), so it should come as no surprise that they wind up at Camp Crystal Lake for their annual weekend getaway. Therapist is not so much concerned with Tina’s recovery as much as he is hell bent on her having another nervous breakdown so he can act out all his favorite scenes from Carrie. And you wonder why I fired my analyst!

There are a bunch of kids in their early-thirties next door having a birthday party or something. Nick invites Tina over in hopes of having a fresh voice to sing his duet harmonies for Karaoke hour. Tina starts having visions of Jason. Kids die. You get the drift.

Lucky for Tina, that Crystal Lake is apparently made of Isabella Rossellini’s magic youth serum because, when the going gets tough, her dead father comes swimming up to the surface, looking better than ever.  He's back in the game and ready to drag Jason straight to Hell. What a good father.  By the end of the movie, Tina throws a television at Jason - She makes Jason's head expand until his hockey mask no longer fits right - She electrocutes Jason with a fallen transformer - She hangs Jason with some spare wiring - She hits Jason in the head with nails - She drops Jason through the floor into the basement - She shoves Jason down a flight of stairs - She hits Jason in the face with a lamp. Tina even blows up the house, all the while never chipping her french tip!

I haven't even scratched the surface of the glory that is Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood, but I must start coordinating my denim for tonight's screening of Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan.  I'll see you there and we can talk all about it.

Editor's note: Dr Crews was NOT, in fact in Dynasty - that's was the guy from Jason Takes Manhattan.  I'm sorry Dr. Crews was such a loser.  I will not apologize for finding excuses to embed clips from my favorite stories.