I've got a bad feeling about this.

Good morning.

Yesterday, Universal quietly dropped the news that they had acquired the Anne Rice Lestat franchise (yeah, the whole thing).  Hmmmm....

I've written about Interview with the Vampire.  In 1994, David Geffen made Interview with the Vampire.  Geffen was the most powerful gay in all media (he still is, really).  Being the most powerful gay in all media allowed him to get Neil Jordan and Stan Winston and Brad Pitt/Tom Cruise, as well as $90MM behind what is unquestionably the gayest horror franchise in history.

Now it's being made by four straight men (two of whom have neglected to include a single queer character in any one of their multiple picture franchises) and a lady studio exec.  Hmmmm....

While I try to stay on the side of love and light, this news has me more anxious than I was when all that Prop 8 business was going on.  While it's been 20 years since Tom fell in love with Brad, I don't believe for a second that a major studio would be willing to finance a 10 picture franchise around gay vampires.

Get money, Anne.  Get paid, Christopher.  I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the dirt.

Now you'll have to excuse me, I'm going to lie down and listen to "The Art of Letting Go" on repeat.

skyrockets in flight...

Hi, dolls.  I took today off my previously scheduled unemployment napping to pour some of the floor for Marilyn Burns.  How are you doing?  

I, for one, don’t go for summertime.  Fuck sunburns and trying to cover up my love handles.  Give me autumn!  Give me sweaters and hayrides and cider donuts!  Yesterday I was bumming around the mall and the Goddess heard my prayer – Hallmark has their Halloween goods out already.   Praise her!

The best business (aside from a witch doll just COVERED in black glitter) was their selection of the new, 2014 Yankee Candle autumn flavors – Harvest and the newly improved Pumpkin Spice rank just above their Pumpkin Apple and Pumpkin Buttercream.  Run don’t walk!

So, I’m sitting here with the shades drawn – contemplating leaving the house for a run or going to the gym – while this Halloween candle stares at me.  Taunting me.   How do we ever get through these two months to Halloween season?  Do I just hibernate until October? Oprah finally started airing reruns of her talk show on OWN and I'm starting to feel like myself again.  
You know what I think we need?   
We need a FaggotyAss Movie Club to get us through these Dog Days of Summer.  

Since it's still August and humid and seeing as I'm currently funemloyed for the first time in my young queer life, there's no better movie to get us started than the smutty French thriller, Stranger by the Lake.

"Bonjour. Croissants.  Fromage.  French fries!"

Stranger by the Lake is about exactly what I'm going through right now.  Franck is funemployed and it's summer so he goes off to swim in a magic lake that only gay people know about.  They're all French so everyone is naked and uncircumcised and they all have adorable sneakers.  We know that Franck is our final girl because he shaves his testicles and he talks to the dumpy old man who sits all by himself.  See, I don't like strangers.  I'd love to go to this magical lake, but the minute I was expected to socialize, forget it.  Not to mention, they keep referencing some sea monster that lives in the water.  Come to think of it, the sun is bad news - as much as I like sun-kissed highlights, it's not worth looking like a handbag (Luke Evans) and the last time I went on a hike, there was this HUGE rattlesnake.  Oh God.  Even thinking about it makes me shake.  Haven't I been through enough?!

Back to the film (the fact that Stranger by the Lake is French demands we call it a film and not a movie)...

One afternoon, while creeping behind some bushes, Franck witnesses gay on gay murder!  MURDER!  Like any red-blooded bottom, this only makes him desperately attracted to the killer.  He proceeds to spend the entire summer chasing homicidal dick all around that lake like a damned fool.  You know what?  Good for him.  Live.

This movie is great.  Timeless.  A midsummer night's dream.  Stranger by the Lake sets out to examine how our dicks usually wind up winning over our intellects.  This is especially relevant now with everyone treating PREP like a panacea and using Grindr free of consequence, it may as well be 1981 all over again.  You know what they say about history, dolls.

He Lives

Friday the 13th

 + 

Gay Pride 

+ 

Full Moon

Today is a sacred day.  Consider it your moral imperative to LIVE tonight.

And, by live, I  mean dressing like a whore, getting drunk, having sloppy sex in a tent [or a cabin] and shopping online for underwear and really expensive summer sweaters.

xoxo

butterflies are free

Hi dolls.  I'm a day late and a dollar short in my Under the Dome recap this week.  Sorry.  It's just that watching that last episode made me unbearably anxious.  As someone who loves television, there's nothing worse than bad television.  Under the Dome is bad.  Everything about it is bad.  The show is poorly plotted, terribly lit and inconsistently shot.  Every actor is giving a hackneyed performance with no regard for tone or ensemble or consistent stakes.  I could go on, but I don't want to.  Despite the Bougie Contrarian that lives inside everyone who has a "blog," I like being positive.  I love to like things - Just ask Joe Seely!

So, while I could spend an hour coming up with catty things to say about Ginger Dursley and her dead husband, Nicky Arnstein's gambling problem, I would much rather take this opportunity NOT to discuss Under the Dome and, instead, explore some of the fantastic developments in "queer cinema" over the past couple years.  Strap yourself in, we're going off genre.

Andrew Haigh.

Andrew Haigh made a romance for the ages. Weekend deals with the complexities of two men trying to overcome their own baggage and make a genuine connection.  This movie was way ahead when it came out in 2011, influencing everything from Rihanna music videos to Lena Dunham's Girls.  Criterion even released their own edition of the film last year.  Andrew Haigh is directing and producing a new series for HBO about a group of gay besties living and loving in San Francisco.  If it's anything at all like Weekend, it looks like we all have something to look forward to this winter!

Travis Mathews.

Travis is the queer iconoclast who was hand-picked by performance artist James Franco to guide him into the gay consciousness.  Franco and Mathews collaborated on Interior: Leather Bar which pretended to recreate the mythical missing forty minutes excised from Cruising in order to explore how we deal with male sexuality and objectification, etc etc.  I'm much more interested in Travis' first feature, I Want Your Love.

I Want Your Love is based on Mathew's short film where two hipsters talk for a bit and then have graphic sex and kiss.  The feature version tracks an aimless twenty-something artist whose life plan isn't coming together the way he imagined.  We follow him through his last day in San Francisco before moving back to the mid-west with his parents.  Yes, the actors have real, on-camera sex but this movie isn't a porn.  I Want Your Love shows us something much more terrifying to the Million Mom brigade than sodomy - emotional intimacy.  Shocking!  This movie captures the transition from ennui to productivity, from just fucking around to actually wanting something more (or not).  I Want Your Love is great.

Adam Goldman.

Like Miss Vanessa Williams (second reference this week - point to Gryffindor!!!), I went and saved the best for last.  Adam Goldman's The Outs is perfect.  It's a perfect thing.  To call it a web-series is too limiting.  The Outs is aspirational.  Goldman proves that we can create the art we deserve.  Gay stories don't have to be about Coming-Out or about AIDS or about being shirtless whores with lemon faces(dotcom).   The Outs is about learning to love yourself enough to accept reciprocity. When my long-term relationship ended last winter, I watched this show repeatedly, as if I was trying to absorb it so I could somehow manifest a happily ever after of my own.  It worked.  That's the power of good art - in it we can see reflections of ourselves and our potential.  I cherish this series. More thoughtful than anything you'll ever find on Logo and better produced than most features, The Outs is the future.  

The next time you find yourself disheartened by lackluster, late-summer entertainment, know that there are alternatives (and we only have five more weeks until Glee is back up and running).  

La Dolce Moore

Hello, snow angels!  While I try to never brag, keeping the lines between my journalistic obligation to expose our rightful place in the hallowed tomes of horror history and my personal trials and tribulations as a gay working in said industry strongly defined, if you know me at all then you surely know that I have the best friends in the world!  Just in time for the holidays, one of my oldest and dearest has graced us with his presence.  Mister M.A. Fortin - proprietor of This Movie Exists has stopped by the manse for a cup of egg nog and he's brought us all a gift (hint: it may or may not be Gucci and it is obviously wrapped in an sumptuous, red velvet bow).  I give the faggotyass floor to Mark...
 

YOU GUYS. Why is Julianne Moore not more of a gay icon?

I mean... okay, she sort of is. She meets a lot of the requisite pre-existing conditions: she cries hysterically in every movie, she plays gay a lot, she's played some of the WORST mothers in film history, and she's a Todd Haynes muse. She played Carol in Safe, for Chrissakes. Yet I don't see the real outpouring of pink support that she deserves on the internet (despite a recent honoring here on this very website). Is she just too normal? Maybe she's just too grounded-- she doesn't look like the type of woman who could possibly end up in a hit-and-run or an insane custody battle or be found sleeping in a neighbor's backyard.

Whatever. J-Moo is very much a living, breathing gay-icon, whether drag queens dress up as her on Halloween or not, and Ridley Scott's batshit fantasia Hannibal (2001) proves it! 

"I always figured him for a queer."

Hannibal is a gay movie. Whereas The Silence of the Lambs was in every way a straight movie about aberrant gay desire, its sequel is framed with the light whimsy of a fairy tale-- and has a fairy tale's perverted ability to do WHATEVER THE HELL IT FEELS LIKE, WHENEVER IT FEELS LIKE IT. You know how Silence was (and remains) one of those movies that feels controlled to perfection? Well, Sir Scott (and screenwriters Steven Zaillian and David Mamet) apparently decided that careful plotting and things like, I dunno, logic were irrelevant to theirproceedings. No, Hannibal is pretty much the one movie you can find that features Julianne Moore (by most accounts a terrific, thoughtful, and focused actress) looking like she has no idea what she's signed up for. It's hard to believe that Hannibal exists-- but I guess this is what happens when you get carte blanche from Universal and Dino DeLaurentiis. Where to begin?

"This town is full of corn pone, country pussy."

Everything in the Thomas Harris universe has a faintly homo-unfriendly tinge to it. Hannibal starts with Julianne stepping into Jodie Foster's roomy, sensible shoes as FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling, now out of Quantico and going to fish markets to have accidental shootouts with HIV-positive, automatic-weapon-wielding drug queenpins with children strapped in their Baby Bjorns. Oopsie! Panic ensues for J-Moo as she tries to hose off the baby covered in "tainted" blood post-shootout-- and OK, while you can't automatically link anything HIV-related in a movie to being necessarily "gay," I feel like this is just a soupcon of the wild, evil sissy panic that Hannibal has in store for us: an overture of distaste before the first act of pure, uncut WTF.

Following this upsetting interlude, J-Moo goes home and cries. I like to think that Julianne is crying because she was realizing that taking this role was a losing battle-- and that she cannot make any sense of the script. But J has to dry her eyes right quick because she needs to run off and get back in the saddle to catch Hannibal Lecter, the world's most crypto-queer cannibal psychiatrist! Girls, let's face it, and own it: Lecter is the gay world's Freddy Krueger. She cooks, she LOVES to stir up drama and ask inappropriate questions, and she knows everything about antiques and opera. I dunno about you, but I've certainly met Miss Lecter in a gay bar on an off-night once or twice in my life (fact: white wine spritzers are a helpful tool to enable a sly, discreet escape). 

Anyhoo, back to Julianne: during her quest to find Lecter (who's roaming free now in Florence, Italy), Julianne is forced to head to a huge (and I mean obscenely huge) home to visit with Hannibal's resident evil queen, a man who makes Lecter look like Pat Buchanan when it comes to filling out the faggoty checklist. This lady has:

a) an antique-laden (yet childless, barren and empty) home;
b) a dedicated and resentful manservant;
c) TONS of money.

Yes, kiddies: Julianne must meet with TOM FORD.

No. Wait, that's not right. It's Mason Verger (played with icky relish by an uncredited Gary Oldman), a former patient of Lecter's who had the hots for him. See, years ago, Verger (who likes to diddle little boys-- disgusting "gay" character trait #1 established: molester) went home with Lecter to get it on, and Lecter offered him the use of some "poppers" (disgusting "gay" character trait #2 established: druggie). Well, that bitch shoulda checked the label, 'cause whatever was in that bottle wasn't amyl nitrate. It makes Verger go batty, and cut her own face to ribbons-- and then Lecter feeds the pieces to a dog (disgusting "gay" character trait #3 established: gay sex is gross). Now Verger's confined to a wheelchair and has a face like a squashed tomato. She's dying to find Lecter to get revenge-- and her plan for that involves having Lecter eaten alive by wild boars. I've heard of pig play, but this bitch is one sick lady.

"She will spit and bite if she's cornered, so you should watch it."

Fast forward: Julianne really goes through it in this movie. She not only has to deal with this sicko homo, but then she gets suspended by the bureau, sexually harrassed by Ray Liotta, and gets a mash note from Lecter. Oh, and in the interim, Lecter's been getting cruised HARD by this distinguished, older Italian gent who just CAN'T stop looking at pictures of Lecter online (girl, we've all been there)! This man ends up hanging by his intestines in a piazza. I like to think that Lecter punishes this dude because he's already married. To a woman. And if there's one thing a self-respecting gay can't tolerate, it's the DL.

Nor can any self-respecting gay tolerate any behavior that abuses children (hence Verger's initial flashback punishment). I guess this is why we, the gays, need to embrace Lecter more as our own: because he's an avenging angel of sorts with exquisite taste who can't tolerate bad manners. He's like Martha Stewart's fever dream fantasy come to life. Maybe I'm reaching, but in the rococo, baroque landscape of crazy known as HANNIBAL, a girl needs something to hold on to. Just ask Julianne.

Seriously, ask her. Because by now she's tracked Lecter back to Verger's home, rescued him from the hungry, insatiable pigs (girl, we've all been there), and subsequently shot. Lecter rescues her himself to bring to a cozy lakeside cottage, but not before stopping at Gucci (again, I'm sorry, but Tom Ford is in here somewhere) to get the comatose Julianne a hot little number to wear.

It's around this point that it looks like Universal execs were watching dailies of the movie and collectively decided to fire Ridley Scott and give the movie over to that nice Nancy Meyers. The film's truly insane last act takes places at Ray Liotta cottage, where Lecter has both him and Julianne hostage (I mean, for the weekend!). Remember how in Something's Gotta Give, Meyers lingered grotesquely over appliances, furniture and whatnot to create a movie that's the equivalent of a throw-pillow? Well, her touch is at work here in spades. Julianne wakes up, drugged out, and hoping that this whole movie was a horrible dream and that her handsome hubby Bart Freundlich is already downstairs making egg-white omelettes. But no: J-Moo is still in Hannibal, and Julianne, ever the trouper (she was in Body of Evidence, you guys), stumbles downstairs to find that Lecter is about to torture Liotta for dinner (in divine copper cookware, of course). That's what you get for fucking with his Julianne. Lecter doesn't want to bang her-- I think he's just her bestie and will sass anyone who disrespects her. Of course, "sassing" and "sauteeing and feeding a man his own brain" are different responses entirely, but we must keep in mind that the gay community is wide and diverse and therefore we mustn't judge.

In the end, Hannibal ends up somehow being both meretricious and totally hysterical. It's a hard film to take seriously, yet it still has some sort of power. Whatever the reason, we gays love our embattled ladies-- and the trials of Julianne in this flick should be enough to anoint her a gay saint for life. 

You're welcome.

In honor of our second Halloween together,

I give you...

THE PAUL LYNDE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL.

Have fun this weekend, dolls. Be careful of razorblades in your vodka and never say I didn't give you anything!

xoxo

no country for gay men

"Hey, did you go to the shooting today?"

I don't know about you, kids, but this Target nonsense has me out of sorts. I’m positively depressed. It's not Back to School season without being able to pick up a New Kids on the Block TrapperKeeper and a couple of chintz picture frames. I don't even know where to buy socks anymore! Alas, no one ever said that being gay was easy. We must stay the course.

All of this political sacrifice, coupled with the sudden availability of pumpkin ale in my Whole Foods, has me harkening back to the days of being a schoolboy. Clutching my textbooks to my chest, tempra paint on my flat-front khaki pants from last night's all-nighter, cramming for that omnipresent Final Exam (1981).

Maybe we should all take a page out of the student handbook of those kids at Lanier College. Their student body was renowned for their elaborate political performance art projects in times of conflict. Take for instance the time that they staged a terrorist shooting on campus to get more funding for the arts (mind you, this was well before Columbine and 9/11 so it was still okay to laugh) – these kids were living!

Of course, the students were living until they start dying off one by one at the hands of a psychotic killer dressed up like Javier Bardem, but you can't make an omelette...

You see, Final Exam isn't really about a campus plagued by a serial killer.  The real story here, what separates this from the other ultra-low budget slasher dreck, is Radish. Radish is the school's resident old-school  sissy gay. Perpetually lemon-faced, Radish walks with a proud sashay as words slither from his mouth like a gay snake with sibilant s’s to spare. Whenever he speaks, eyes roll and midwesterners pray for a mercy-killing. 

This kind of gay isn’t at all exclusive to Final Exam.  Let me tell you a story.

The year was 1986. I was in second grade at Saint Agatha’s Parochial School and there was a little boy in my class named Paul. While my own budding homosexuality was subtle enough to pass as aloof intellectualism (unless, God forbid, someone brought up Ellen Greene), Paul wasn’t so lucky. Paul wore his gay with a badge of honor that, at 7 years old, left me mortified. I made the obvious second grade assumption that if I were to even look at Paul, it would draw attention to my own secret and they'd come for me in the night with torches. I avoided him like the gay cancer.

One day Paul was having a birthday party and he handed out the most beautiful invitations.  They were handmade with construction paper and glitter and dyed feathers. In a flash, it came to me - I figured out the perfect way to show that I was nothing like that sissy, Paul. In front of all my classmates, I tore up his invitation and sprinkled it on the floor to a chorus of laughter.  This was the worst moment of my life. I was Judas Iscariot. I was Nancy Allen!

"I should have had a salad instead of this spaghetti."

"Well, why didn't you?"

We all know about Mean Girls, but nothing trumps a mean gay. Gay on gay hatred is tricky business and it’s everywhere. No different than the Phelps clan or Target, this hatred is spun out of fear – fear of being taken down, fear of being questioned, fear of change. As long as it’s socially acceptable for everyone else to hate the gays, how about we take it easy on each other?

Whether in school or at work or at the grocery store, there's always a Radish – a gay who can’t be anything other than the precious little butterfly that God made him. And he shouldn't have to be.

If your first instinct is to cringe and distance yourself, I get it. I was that way too, but I got over it. Take a moment to acknowledge that feeling and then try to amend that behavior.  Why not? Let's evolve together. Straight people hate us enough; we don’t have to hate each other.

The next time you see a Radish, think about what it’s like to be in his shoes (even though they may be sandals with socks and even though they may make you throw up in your mouth a little). You don’t have to invite him over for a movie marathon sleepover or to your next vodka infusion brunch, but a little kindness can go a long way.  We’re all in this together.