Santa Rosa Symphony Hosts a Free Fire Relief Benefit Concert Monday, November 20
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When 14 year old Ulysses’s (Luka Kain) father suddenly dies, his mother (Margot Bingham) has to take on a second job to make ends meet. She somewhat reluctantly accepts an offer from Ulysses’ ultra-conservative Aunt Rose (Regina Taylor) to come to take care of him and his younger sibling after work until she gets home. The teenager is in the throws of discovering his sexuality and identity, and when Rose finds out he has been secretly trying on his mother’s shoes she doesn’t let up on him for one single moment.
On a whim he takes himself off on the subway to the West Village and after wandering around aimlessly for hours stumbles on a small group of friends who befriend him and persuade him to join them at Church. This is not for any religious service but is for the weekly LGBT drop-in center in the crypt where they get a meal and support.
As each of his new young friends share their (mostly unhappy) stories of how they got to this stage of their lives, their sense of optimism and empowerment starts to gradually effect Ulysses, and he starts making regular trips to the Church every Saturday night.
He is still being bullied at school and Aunt Rose keeps up her meanness, but now encouraged by his very first group of friends to consider entering an upcoming Vogueing competition, the young teenager happily buys himself a rather wicked pair of studded stiletto shoes. However when Aunt Rose is spying in his bedroom, and discovers them, an almighty row breaks out ending up with Rose throwing him out.
He immediately flees to the Church, but as this is midweek there is no sign of anyone and so left to his own devices he ends up at a homeless shelter where his shirt gets taken, and next day on the streets he gets picked up and loses his virginity.
This cute and compelling coming-of-age tale which does have a realistic and conclusive ending is by no means a new story, but its take on it is refreshing and innovative. It is aided by the fact that openly gay newbie filmmaker Damon Cardasis turned this into a hybrid musical with catchy original songs accompanied by some impressive choreography.
The central performance from its young star is totally stunning with his wonderful sense of innocence and abandonment, and it is what really makes this drama feel so authentic and so extremely watchable.
Two women meet and fall in love, despite parental disapproval and their own personal roadblocks. Needless to say, the story of Signature Move, a SXSW world premiere, is far from novel. But vivid details can animate almost any old chestnut, and many of the variations on this timeworn tale help to give the film its appeal. It seems certain to reappear at gay and lesbian film festivals and might turn out to be a modest niche item in a few theaters as well.
The story takes place in Chicago, which contains a more multi-faceted ethnic community than some may realize. Zaynab (Fawzia Mirza) is a lawyer who comes from a Pakistani family and lives with her mother (played by veteran Indian actress Shabana Azmi). Alma (Sari Sanchez) is Mexican-American and more of a free spirit than the somewhat sheltered Zaynab. Nevertheless, the two women fall into bed quickly after a meeting in a bar.
Then the problems arise. Zaynab’s mother still expects her daughter to marry a man, and Alma is reluctant to get involved with a closeted woman, so the two women are at odds despite the strong physical attraction. “I don’t go backwards for anyone,” Alma declares.The most affecting part of director Jennifer Reeder’s feature deals with Zaynab’s contentious relationship with her mother. Both Mirza and Azmi give excellent performances. Azmi in particular keeps the provincial mother from falling into caricature. Whether she is spying with binoculars for potential male suitors for Zaynab or tentatively trying on some American makeup, Azmi finds unexpected humor in her portrayal and always convinces us of her love for her daughter.
Sanchez makes an engaging foil, though her relationship with her family is not quite as sharply drawn as the story of Zaynab and her mother. There are other disappointments in the script, which was written by Mirza and Lisa Donato. Zaynab’s legal practice seems to focus on immigration issues, definitely a timely theme, but it would have been fascinating to get a few more details on the problems facing some of her clients. Another subplot, about Zaynab training for a wrestling tournament, also seems carelessly thrown into the mix.
Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon is one of the executive producers of the film, and the Chicago settings are well caught. On the other hand, there isn’t much visual originality in the romantic montage sequences. Nevertheless, the characters are distinctive and likable enough to keep us engaged. Although the romance concludes on a hopeful note, the final images focus on a reconciliation of Zaynab and her mother, and that is as it should be.
“Signature Move” will be shown at Frameline 41 Friday, June 23 at the Castro Theatre.
“I’m a writer who is gay,” the novelist Armistead Maupin says in “The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin.” “I’m not a gay writer. I write about heterosexuals as well.” This fond documentary portrait, directed by Jennifer M. Kroot, makes it clear that Mr. Maupin’s mastery of assorted perspectives is his gift, evident in his masterpiece, “Tales of the City,” a love letter to San Francisco comprising multiple characters. And yet the film offers an enlightening glimpse into how the gay experience informed Mr. Maupin’s art.
Mr. Maupin, 73, grew up in Raleigh, N.C., the son of a conservative, distant father. To win his approval, he served in Vietnam and even met Richard M. Nixon in the White House. Little did Nixon know that Mr. Maupin would later migrate to San Francisco, come out and encounter a broad variety of men of diverse backgrounds. Such meetings provided the invaluable insight that fed his newspaper serial “Tales of the City,” which grew into a book and eventually a groundbreaking television mini-series.
Friends like Laura Linney, Ian McKellen, Amy Tan and Neil Gaiman testify to Mr. Maupin’s generosity of spirit, while the writer speaks candidly about cruising in Raleigh public parks, Fairmont Hotel trysts with Rock Hudson and the agonies of the AIDS crisis. Now Mr. Maupin is content with a husband, extolling what he calls the “logical family” of his gay peers over the “biological family” of straight society. For all his distinguished man-of-letters status, he is warm and winning company.
Spacey, 58, announced on Twitter Sunday that he was choosing “to live as a gay man” in the same statement he used to apologize to actor Anthony Rapp for an alleged encounter when Rapp was just 14.
Sarah Kate Ellis – the LGBTQ advocacy organization’s president and CEO – did not mince words when it came to how she felt about Spacey’s decision to combine his apology with the shocking revelation of his sexuality.
“Coming out stories should not be used to deflect from allegations of sexual assault,” she wrote on Twitter. “This isn’t a coming out story about Spacey, but a story of survivorship by Anthony Rapp & those who speak out about unwanted sexual advances. The media and public should not gloss over that.”
Spacey wrote in his statement that he was “horrified” to hear Rapp’s story, but did not remember the encounter. Rapp, now 46, alleged to BuzzFeed News that when he was a teen, Spacey hauled Rapp over his shoulder, tossed him onto a bed and climbed on top of him in an attempt to “seduce” the “Star Trek: Discovery” actor after a party at Spacey’s apartment.
Spacey wrote in his statement that he was “horrified” to hear Rapp’s story, but did not remember the encounter.
“If I did behave as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years,” Spacey wrote.
He then followed up by writing that Rapp’s story had encouraged him to “address other things” about his life — namely his sexuality.
Anthony Rapp claims Kevin Spacey tried to seduce him at 14
Many on social media, however, shared Ellis’ disdain for Spacey’s timing.
“Kevin Spacey has just invented something that has never existed before: a bad time to come out,” comedian Billy Eichner wrote on Twitter.
Mexican filmmaker Ernesto Contreras’s fourth feature film with a script by his brother (Carlos Contreras) is a magical mythical tale about the search for a language that is on the brink of extinction, because the last two remaining elderly speakers are bitter enemies who haven’t exchanged a word for the past 50 years.
Martin (Fernando Álvarez Rebeil ) is a young linguist expert who has traveled to a remote part of Mexico in the hope of recording some conversations with these last two people known to be fluent in Zikril. There was a 3rd person but she dies practically as soon as Martin arrives in the tiny hamlet in the jungle, so he is left with no alternative than trying to get Don Isauro (José Manuel Poncelis) and Don Evaristo (Eligio Meléndez)to agree to talk to each other.
Isauro never married but widowed Evaristo lives with his granddaughter Lluvia (Fátima Molina) who is the one who eventually shares with Martin how the two men who had been blood brothers had fallen out over a girl when they were teenagers. The twist was the fact that Evaristo had only married her to suppress his true sexuality and stop her from sharing what she had witnessed on the beach one hot summers day.
It takes time, and the bribe of a new television, to get the two men to now agree to have a conversation, and to everyone’s relief it is a great success and they actually start to renew their friendship. However this new turn of events doesn’t last long as though both men still have this deep bond for each other, whilst Isuaro remembers it fondly, Evaristo is still very ashamed and violently turns on his old friend yet once again.
This is all set against the story of trying not just trying to save this lost language, but be a witness to an ancient fading culture that is steeped in mysticism such as the mammoth cave in the jungle where the spirits take all the Zikril people’s bodies when they die. It’s a society that sees things differently than most others, but obviously not when it comes to sexuality.
It’s an intriguing movie with the back story told in flashbacks, and one that makes a great use of the rather stunning dramatic vistas. It unfolds at a slow gentle pace and even the side plot of Martin hooking up with Lluvia, doesn’t ease the sadness of the way these two men led such unhappy lives simply because they were never allowed to their true selves.
“I Dream In Another Language” will be shown at Outwatch – Wine Country’s LGBTQI Film Festival Sunday, November 5 at 2:45 p.m. at Third Street Cinema in Santa Rosa. For more information, go to: www.outwatchfilmfest.org. All profits from the film festival will be donated to Wildfire Relief Funds for LGBTQI folks.
Opening Night: Nov. 2nd, Sebastiani Theater, Sonoma
The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin • 7:30pm Tales of the City Author This Documentary also screens in SR on Sunday 11/5 at 12:30pm
All the Following Films Screen at: 3rd Street Cinema, Santa Rosa
Friday November 3rd
Signature Move • 7:30pm 2017 / USA / 80 min Lesbian Comedy
Saturday November 4th
Saturday Church • 12:30pm 2017 / USA / 81min Trans Musical Drama
Fast Girls: Lesbian Shorts • 2:30pm Fun! Sexy! Thoughtful!
Lavender Scare • 4:30pm 2016 / USA / 88 min Documentary about LGBTQ people in the 1950s and 1960s
After Louie • 7:30pm 2017 / USA / 100 min. Gay film starring The Good Wife’s Alan Cumming
Sunday November 5th
The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin • 12:30pm 2017 / USA / 91min Tales of the City Author
I Dream in Another Language • 2:45pm 2017 / Mexico, Netherlands / 101 min In Spanish with English Subtitles ASL/Spanish/English Interpreters Gay. Audience Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival
Extra Terrestrials • 5:00pm 2016 / Venezuela, Puerto Rico / 113 min In Spanish with English Subtitles ASL/Spanish/English Interpreters A Lesbian Comedy everyone can relate to
Tickets & Information
All films $10 and for those effected by the wildfires – pay what you can
OutWatchFilmFest.org
Sponsors include: LGBTQI Giving Circle, Pink Spots, Law Office of Naomi Metz, Bliss Organic Day Spa, Fastsigns, Abacus Wealth Partners, Ask Realty
Due to fires that devastated our community, Art Trails is rescheduled to October 21, 22 and October 28, 29.
Studios NOT OPEN either weekend: 11 Christine MacDonald, 14 Susan Miron, 17 Tom Berto, 25 Barbara Kelly, 26 Lisa Skelly, 28 Bill Gittins, 30 Anne Regan, 31 Char Wood, 32 Dannell Powell, 63 Valerie Adams, 67 Donna DeLaBriandais
Studios open Oct 21-22 ONLY: 34 Rick Blundell, 36 Jennylynn Hall, 39 Sargam Griffin, 58 Beverly Todd Rose, 81 Caro Pemberton, 100 Jay Blums, 147 Sherri Ortegren
Studios open Oct 28-29 ONLY: 1 Martha Mellinger, 9 Ann Iverson, 70 Tamra Sanchez, 134 Carol Peek
Status undetermined at this time: 4 Hugh Buttrum, 6 Evan Garber, 8 Roxanna Ahlborn, 10 Sandra Lane, 15 Wayne Reynolds, 16 Caryn Fried, 62 Ralph Broussard
Art Trails artists are an incredibly caring group and we hope that you will visit the studios that are open to show your support and help the community to heal through art.
Please use this website for the most current information. It is changing daily as new information comes in. Thank you for understanding.
Posted 10/18/17
If you’d like to donate to the Art Trails Artist Relief Fund use this form
Check out Art Trails on YouTube
The Sonoma County Art Trails Collectors Guide is a year-round guide to local artists and businesses. After the Open Studio weekends, some studios are open by appointment only.
Click HERE for a map to Sebastopol Center for the Arts.
The 2018 Applications to participate will be available in March and due May 1, 2018.
When 14 year old Ulysses’s (Luka Kain) father suddenly dies, his mother (Margot Bingham) has to take on a second job to make ends meet. She somewhat reluctantly accepts an offer from Ulysses’ ultra-conservative Aunt Rose (Regina Taylor) to come to take care of him and his younger sibling after work until she gets home. The teenager is in the throws of discovering his sexuality and identity, and when Rose finds out he has been secretly trying on his mother’s shoes she doesn’t let up on him for one single moment.
On a whim he takes himself off on the subway to the West Village and after wandering around aimlessly for hours stumbles on a small group of friends who befriend him and persuade him to join them at Church. This is not for any religious service but is for the weekly LGBT drop-in center in the crypt where they get a meal and support.
He is still being bullied at school and Aunt Rose keeps up her meanness, but now encouraged by his very first group of friends to consider entering an upcoming Vogueing competition, the young teenager happily buys himself a rather wicked pair of studded stiletto shoes. However when Aunt Rose is spying in his bedroom, and discovers them, an almighty row breaks out ending up with Rose throwing him out.
He immediately flees to the Church, but as this is midweek there is no sign of anyone and so left to his own devices he ends up at a homeless shelter where his shirt gets taken, and next day on the streets he gets picked up and loses his virginity.
This cute and compelling coming-of-age tale which does have a realistic and conclusive ending is by no means a new story, but its take on it is refreshing and innovative. It is aided by the fact that openly gay newbie filmmaker Damon Cardasis turned this into a hybrid musical with catchy original songs accompanied by some impressive choreography.
The central performance from its young star is totally stunning with his wonderful sense of innocence and abandonment, and it is what really makes this drama feel so authentic and so extremely watchable.
“Saturday” Church” will be shown at Outwatch – Wine Country’s LGBT Film Festival, Saturday November a at 12:30 p.m. at Third Street Cinema in Santa Rosa. For more info, go to: www.outwatchfilmfest.org.