Picture This! Entertainment and its sister label Picture This! Home Video have shuttered, closing its doors on September 29 according to a message posted to its website. Doug Witkins founded film company DW Diversified 25 years ago and entered the distribution market with off-shoot Picture This! thirteen years ago with a gala launch at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. His aim was licensing North American independent LGBT films to distributors and networks around the world. In 1998, the company established its domestic wing, which has released almost 100 features and shorts theatrically via home entertainment and TV in North America.
The labels championed gay genre films as well as “coming-of-age” stories, including “Garcon Stupide,” “Come Undone,” “Clara’s Summer,” and the “Boys Briefs” series. It is unclear as the company navigates bankruptcy court what will be the fate of its library. More about this at IndieWIRE
A beautiful young woman who is a murderous sexual psychopath returns from combat as a mercenary in Iraq and abducts a 14 yr-old boy, holding him prisoner as a bizarre relationship develops. So much for the plot. Sounds good, looks good. Expect a more detailed post once the film is released. Thanks for the heads up about it to Pink Neptune :) An interview with screenwriter Stephen Ryder (who also wrote L.I.E.) can be found over at SkyKid’s.
I know it doesn’t really fit in here age-wise but it was way too cute to skip it. And it has an important message about gender clichés of course. Try to ignore the horrible subtitles, rather be thankful there are some; Spanish speaking people tend to believe everyone speaks their language conspicuously often ;)
Isao is ten years old. He is gay and fully aware that such sensibility will get him in a lot of trouble with everyone around him. His mother wants him to be an Olympic swimmer, like his father was. Along with the complicity of his childhood best friend, Aleciram, a smart, sassy and faithful cohort, they embark on a journey of self discovery and coming of age in very unusual ways: through a near death experience.
The film is Spanish with English subtitles and can be orderd for $ 10 at TLAvideo
Rich with mystery and steeped in mythical superstition, this Mexican voyage into the world of the non-quite-dead finds new and fascinating ways to address the age old dilemma of being an outcast. Slightly reminiscent of Ma Vie En Rose’s Ludovic, Isao likes to dress up, carry a doll, and dreams of being a famous fashion designer in Paris. Left for dead after an unsavory encounter with a pederast gym teacher, little gay boy Isao wakes up in a bizarrely quiet hospital staffed by a single nurse and an unseen administrator. Suddenly joined by a confused lawyer with a bullet wound to the head, young Isao seeks out answers from the cryptic nurse, from his strange new companion, and from within himself. As their stories unfold in Limbo (the waiting room between heaven and hell), Isao’s best friend holds vigil over his still-breathing body, along with a blind janitor who knows a thing or two about displaced ghosts. In a coming-of-age experience befitting his unique temperament, Isao’s voyage into maturity takes place not in the confines of the physical world, but in the unknowable realm of an out-of-body experience.
Thanks to leetboys for posting about this in the milkboard and to Alejandro Morales for the review.
TV channel Fox started airing Skins on German TV recently. Skins, which was only available as download via BitTorrent or DVD import to Non-UK residents for a good while, became an insiders’ secret for gay teenagers all over the world but the German perversion of dubbing foreign series turns it into a disaster.
Tony and Maxxie from Skins, season 1 | Photo via The Bats Nest
The BAFTA-winning teen drama that follows a group of teenagers in Bristol, South West England as they grow up is one of the most popular TV series in the United Kingdom and fans, as well as critics, appreciate its authenticity, humour and the sentimentality of puberty it shows. But the German version cut out too much of that. Not only is it hard to stand the desperate attempt to translate English youth slang into German which is moreover presented by bored, 40 year old voice actors but even the carefully selected original soundtrack of the series was replaced with mainstream soap trash.
Worst of all: In the original version Skins uses a loose but correct way of referring to homosexuality. In the German version ‘tho, the Gay character Maxxie sounds like the worst cliché of a nancy boy; and right in the first scene of the first episode Maxxie’s father is insulting him as a “little faggot” – nothing like that happens in the Original series. German TV has managed to turn a show that has a respectful approach to homosexuality into an amplifier of homophobic language and behaviour.[via queer.de]
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Just like the flower in the opening scenes, 12-year-old Maxi is a beautiful accent in the gritty underworld on the outskirts of Manila, where he lives. Living with his outlaw father and two older brothers, Maxi dutifully infuses everything he does for them with love. From cooking and sewing to braiding his brother’s hair, Maxi fulfils the role of dalaga for his family, living as a young lady in the absence of femininity and their deceased mother. We follow Maxi through his glowing and textured world of shopping, reenacting beauty pageants, and hanging out at a local DVD stand that screens movies for abundant audiences of transient children. But Maxi’s emotions blossom late one night when he is rescued from neighbourhood thugs by Victor, a kind rookie cop. Smitten with the handsome policeman, Maxi begins to feel pulled between the petty-thief family that he loves and the law and romance Victor embodies.
Veering from adorable and light to bleak and tragic, Maximo Oliveros is all over the emotional map, but in a realistic way, sort of like life itself. The most interesting part of the movie is Lopez’s Maxi, a kid who should be screwed up but instead is totally comfortable in his own skin. Even when the movie is at its most melodramatic, Lopez keeps his performance in check, making this most unreal kid seem very real indeed.
The Philippines’ submission for the 2006 foreign-language film Oscar, "The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros" is a unique coming-of-age film, for Maxi is such an intriguing mix of the streetwise and the innocent, self-aware yet emotionally vulnerable. Solito’s ability to inspire such a daring, unself-conscious portrayal from Lopez is no less than astonishing.
Preteen sexuality is a sensitive subject, but director Auraeus Solito handles it with dignity, never becoming exploitative. Whatever you do, stick around for the final scene, a heartfelt tribute to Carol Reed’s 1949 masterwork "The Third Man." – New York Post
Jannis, a cute gay post-adolescent, and his adorable mute boyfriend, Patrick, infiltrate a circus to shoot an undercover documentary exposing an underground political conspiracy responsible for a recent spate of assassination attempts. But when Patrick meets Mo, a young woman whose sensitivity to sunlight forces her to live by night, Jannis’ jealousy threatens the entire project. Only Patrick’s unwavering devotion to the boy he loves will help save the day and reveal the truth of who is behind the conspiracy.
Set in the not so distant future, Whispering Moon is visually stunning like nothing seen before it. Blending media, narratives and skin to tell an enticing story about storytelling the film uses cutting edge techniques to move the plot along. As we see the story unfold, Jannis, the storyteller, interacts with the characters and their environments, creating an eye-catching visual landscape that challenges the audience even as it entertains.
Whispering Moon is a quirky film with quirky characters that bring you on a quirky journey. The story is full of weird twists and just when you think the script is going one way, the plot thickens and sends you in another direction. The whole story surrounds Jannis and his quest to uncover the truth about some mysterious deaths, crooked politicians, and poisonous frogs. Jannis’ mute friend Patrick (unable to speak since early childhood), is helping out by using his connections within the local television media; Patrick’s mother is an investigative journalist. Complicating things slightly for young Jannis is his inability to get inside Patrick’s pants.
Twelve-year-old Leo thinks he’s going to faint when he finally gets to the nudist camp where his mother has dragged him. But then an encounter with Antoinette and her magic mushrooms makes him change his mind entirely.
From Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick comes OUTRAGE, a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians with appalling gay rights voting records who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to. Boldly revealing the hidden lives of some of the United States’ most powerful policymakers, OUTRAGE takes a comprehensive look at the harm they’ve inflicted on millions of Americans, and examines the media’s complicity in keeping their secrets.
With analysis from prominent members of the gay community such as Congressman Barney Frank, former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey, activist Larry Kramer, radio personality Michelangelo Signorile, and openly gay congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (Representative, Wisconsin 2nd district), OUTRAGE probes deeply into the psychology of this double lifestyle, the ethics of outing closeted politicians, the double standards that the media upholds in its coverage of the sex lives of gay public figures, and much more.
These polemics have a kind of natural charge to them, but there are glimpses in the movie of something more complex and in a way more interesting -- the way closet psychology mixes with political ambition to create a fascinating hybrid of warring desires. -- Philadelphia Daily News
The hustler is a common figure in gay arts and culture. While sex workers of all sorts appear in straight cultural productions, the queer hustler is different from his female other. Rarely, to the best of my knowledge, are female sex workers in heterosexual arts subject to the kind of sympathetic characterization and subcultural adulation as the queer hustler, gigolo, rent-boy, or street-corner cocksucker.
The hustler is simultaneously tragic, romantic, and heroic. Often his tragedies appear the result of dysfunctional if not outright abusive families, and are further tied to a general and pervasive societal homophobia. So, in Boys Briefs 4‘s Into the Night, Marcus’ (Bryan Marshall) father has rejected him, presumably because of his son’s homosexuality, and in Boy, Sam’s (Jesse Lee) life is characterized not only by poverty, but also by seemingly casual homophobia and violence. The hustlers’ stories represent all too common experience of anti-queer violence and self-determination in the face of intolerance.
The hustler is romantic as far as the audience’s fantasy extends to “rescuing” him. This is a role commonly fulfilled by a caring john. In Rock Bottom, Billy (John Militello), a sweet, overweight, 30-something, picks up twinkie street hustler Jason (Timothy Lee DePriest) and takes him home. Typical hustler-john shenanigans take place; Billy makes awkward small talk, Jason cases the apartment, insists he doesn’t kiss. Yet a real rapport develops between the two, and the film ends with Jason crossing his own hustler boundaries to kiss Billy, suggesting things might get better for both. In Gold, the aging, nearly blind artist Cal (Aron Tager) employs hustler Jay (P.J. Lazic) not for his body, but to assist him in painting new canvases; in teaching Jay about passion and beauty, he leads the young man to a kind of salvation.
In queer arts, the heroic hustler is depicted as willfully resistant to cultures of normativity. He rejects the costs and expectations of bourgeois “respectability,” becoming romantic in his tragedy. This is the queer hustler of Jean Genet, John Rechy, and Dennis Cooper (among many others). This is also the hustler of Build and Gigolo, by far the two best shorts of BB4.
Gold‘s romance is too saccharine and Rock Bottom‘s rescue narrative too easy, Into the Night‘s understanding of personal tragedy is thin and Boy is arty-farty. But Build and Gigolo offer complex characters who gesture toward larger social problems and anxieties. Build, failed-out architecture student Crete (Greg Atkins) resorts to hustling to support his alcoholic mother Sherry (Nancy Beatty), while hiding the fact that he’s no longer in school from her. They’re a working class family of two, and all of Sherry’s hopes for a better life are based in Crete’s education. The obvious commentary here is the lack of opportunities available to the urban poor; we’re not told exactly why Crete failed out of school, but he’s obviously smart, so we wonder what wasn’t available to him that might have allowed his educational success?
Working the street one night, Crete meets fellow hustler Garnet (J. Garnet Harding), and immediately develops a crush on him. So when Garnet asks to crash at his place, Crete agrees, then spends several nights dreaming of making love to Garnet. Crete is twice betrayed by Garnet, and the delicately constructed house of lies he has built to protect (or deceive?) his mother falls apart. But this isn’t some apocalyptic tragedy for Crete or Sherry; it’s merely one more disappointment in a lifetime of failed aspirations. Both face up to this disappointment and somehow, heroically, muster on.
Gigolo tells a story a different story about social and economic obstacles, one not of perseverance but of accusation and reparation. Karim, the son of Algerian immigrants, finds a way out of the banlieus by selling himself to the upper crust of Parisian society. La Femme (Amanda Lear), one of his two primary clients, feels that Karim is starting to be “too much” for her. She wanted romance, but what she got was an angry young man shaped by French racism. La Femme’s desire for romance reflects Western fantasies of the Other, and specifically French erotic subjectifications of Northern African men and women. Both La Femme and L’Homme (Stephane Rolland), Karim’s other client, are desperate to interrogate him, to find out who he is. La Femme has a private detective investigate his past, and L’Homme endlessly questions Karim about why he hustles. L’Homme offers Karim this estimation: “I don’t think you choose to be a prostitute. I think you force it, in order to punish yourself.”
Karim recognizes his self-punishment. His physical degradation is reflected in his psychological deterioration, recorded obsessively in his journals ("Must write, record everything"). But Karim also understands himself as engaged in punishing his oppressors. Karim asserts, “I want to make you pay for what I’ve been through,” and he sees his fucking of rich Parisians as symbolically enacting his revenge on a racist and oppressive French culture: “I’ll be your shame.” Gigolo directly indicts France, and the West more generally, for violence against its Others.
In recording of his life and thoughts, Karim resembles the narrator (Genet “himself") of Jean Genet’s The Thief’s Journal, and Gigolo certainly reflects the existentialist welter out of which Genet wrote. Yet Karim and Gigolo‘s political engagement is more like Genet’s own. In his real life, Genet was dedicated to the cause of Algerian independence; he found symmetries in the exploitation and oppression of Algerians under French colonial rule with his own queer outlaw existence. For Genet and for Karim, sexuality and politics are intimately, promiscuously, intertwined. Gigolo demonstrates how the queer hustler—tragic, romantic, and heroic—still has the power to shock and to demand social change. (cia PopMatters)
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