Arts & Entertainment

It is important to understand in this totally enchanting Irish dramedy that the Mary (Seána Kerslake) in the title is not mad in the conventional sense of the word,  and this is just a label hurled at her by people who simply do not know how to cope with her wild and nonconforming spirit.  She has just been released from prison after a six-month stint for a vicious attack on a girl in a nightclub and the first words we here from her mouth ‘Bout fu–ing time!’ she bellows at her mother (Denise McCormack) when she is a little late to pick […]

With the sad news this week about the death of Alphonza Watson in Baltimore which brought the number of transgender women of color in the US killed in the first three months up to 8 now, the story of CeCe McDonald takes on an even greater significance.  A compelling new documentary from Jacqueline Gares doesn’t just tell what brought CeCe to national attention, but it also focuses on the plight and dangers that trans-women face on a daily basis. In 2011, Cece and three of her friends were attacked in the street by 4 people who had started off making racist and […]

When married gay couple Marc (Tom Bateman)  and Fred (Sean Teale) travel from London to a remote B &B in Wales for the weekend, their prime purpose is to taunt Josh (Paul McGann)t he homophobic owner. The year before he had refused to allocate the couple a room with a double bed, so they successfully sued  and almost bankrupt Josh in the process.  However what they thought would be a few days of fun and mischief bickering with the surly owner turned out to be literally a murderous nightmare in this deliciously entertaining black comedy / thriller in which they barely […]

Grief can affect us in many different ways, but it’s often the reason that we may behave in a manner that is very difficult for others to comprehend or accept.  When Jo’s (Laura Heisler) wife dies after she has nursed her for 18 months, her life as she knows it falls apart.  She is a published author who is now dealing with writer’s block and has becoming somewhat obsessed with having the baby that she and her late wife never got around too.  At 41 years old her biological clock is ticking away, and so she is plying on the […]

When Cecilia Aldarondo’s mother was clearing her garage out in 2008 she called her daughter and asked if she would be interested in a box of decaying 8mm home movies and several hundred slides that she had just uncovered. Little did she know then when she agreed to take the box did she ever imagine the journey she would undertake once she had examined its contents. It started Aldarondo out on a quest to discover more about the life of her Uncle Miquel who had died of AIDS some twenty five years previously, and about which her conservative religious family had […]

Its been some 17 years since Del Shores’s movie Sordid Lives played for a record-breaking  95 weeks at the Palm Springs Movie Theater. Mainstream audiences elsewhere may have dismissed the movie all too quickly, but it wasn’t long before it became a beloved gay cult classic that even spurned a prequel TV series. Now we are back again amongst the dysfunctional folks of the small suburban town of Winters in Texas where it always looks like time stands still.  Shores has assembled all the old wonderful cast that still feel like family to us fans : there is the bible-reading chain […]

Cuban filmmaker Carlos Lechuga’s second feature film Santa and Andrés is a heart-breaking compelling tale set in a remote part of Cuba at the beginning of the 1980’s.  Andrés (Eduardo Martinez) is an openly-gay subversive writer who has been exiled to his hillside hovel of a shack and forbidden to write anything more against the governing revolutionary Party. When there is to be another International Peace Forum in a nearby town, Santa (Lola Amores) a local peasant woman is sent to sit outside his house for three days to ensure he doesn’t leave to go and disrupt the proceedings. ‘Prisoner’ and […]