Arts & Entertainment

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MVFF Film Review: “Moonlight”

  Moonlight is probably the most exquisite and understated lgbt coming of age story to hit our screens for years. Light on plot and even sparse on dialogue, it nevertheless packs a powerful punch showing the inner turmoil of an African/American youth coming to terms with his own sexuality as he grows up in one of the tougher aggressively machismo neighborhoods of Miami. Chiron’s story is played out in three parts. The first is when he is a scrawny 10 year old who is nicknamed ‘Little’ (Alex R Hibbert) and is always being picked on by his classmates.  one day to avoid […]

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MVFF Film Review: ‘The Handmaiden’

  Boasting more tangled plots and bodies than an octopus has tentacles, South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook’s “The Handmaiden” is a bodice-ripper about a pickpocket who poses as a maid to swindle a sequestered heiress. His first Korean-language fiction feature since 2009’s “Thirst,” it’s sybaritic, cruel and luridly mesmerizing. Freely transposing Welsh novelist Sarah Waters’ Victorian-set romantic thriller “Fingersmith” to 1930s Korea under Japanese colonialism, Park initially takes the tale of calculation, seduction and betrayal to heady narrative heights. Before long, however, the director of such extreme revenge thrillers as “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” and “Oldboy” slides back into his own […]

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Children’s Book Review: ‘Princess Princess Ever After’ by Katie O’Neill

Princess Princess Ever After is a warm-hearted graphic novel centered on the adventures of two strong-willed princesses. Playful in tone, this colorfully illustrated story was originally published as an online comic, but was later picked up by Oni Press for hardcover release. The story begins when Princess Amira rescues another Princess, Princess Sadie, from an archetypal tower. The two use some creative problem solving skills to make their way past the typical fantasy novel obstacles of ogres and evil sisters. Through the arc of the story, both characters learn to recognize their self-worth, their different strengths, and to appreciate each other. […]

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New Series “Feral” Looks At Gay Love In The Bible Belt

  What if the action of HBO’s “Looking” was dropped right in the middle of Memphis, Tennessee? That’s the question creator Morgan Jon Fox sets out to answer with “Feral,” a new original television series following a wayward band of gay twenty-somethings as they stumble through life and love. Fox describes his characters as “kids who are left on their own, whether it’s financially, whether it’s identity, or whether their lovers are deceased. Whatever that is, they’re left to their own devices to carve their own way.” The story centers on Billy and Daniel, two best friends who have shacked […]

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Book Review: ‘Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983’ by Tim Lawrence

While unearthing the cultural crossroads that formed the foundation of the Mudd Club and so many vital venues, Tim Lawrence absolutely nails what early the 80s New York City club scene was all about: “The venue was helping establish the foundations for a renaissance marked by convergence and exploration.” That’s right. Renaissance. Disco didn’t die–it shattered into a thousand mirror ball fragments that refracted artistic innovation, new technologies, emerging modes of self-expression, from punk to new wave, to rap and dance music. In a shockingly brief period of time, New York City was the center of an artistic universe in […]

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Movie Review: “King Cobra”

  This movie is  the fictionalized account of the start of the career of a young San Diego youth called Sean Paul Lockhart with the stage name of Brent Corrigan, who in 2003 in the early days of a burgeoning internet culture became an extremely successful gay porn star. Lying about his true age to the rather sleazy predator producer who liked to be known by same name as his label i.e. King Cobra (brilliantly portrayed by Christian Slater) Corrigan (25 year old Garrett Clayton) became an overnight sensation as the latest hot ‘twink’ to perform on camera.  After a year living with Cobra […]

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Book Review: ‘A Thin Bright Line’ by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Is it possible for a novel to both break your heart and to heal it? Lucy Jane Bledsoe was named after her aunt Lucybelle Bledsoe who died when the author was six-years-old. She knew her aunt had left the family farm and moved to Greenwich Village, was intellectually brilliant, had never married, and, in 1966, died in a fire. There were also blurred family memories of a companion named Vera. Bledsoe took these snippets of knowledge and went on an odyssey of discovery where uncovered facts about her aunt’s life, the backdrops of the Cold War and Civil Rights Movement, […]

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Book Review: ‘They May Not Mean To, But They Do’ by Cathleen Schine

Cathleen Schine’s They May Not Mean To, But They Do is a novel about reasonably pleasant people to whom nothing much happens except time, in all its ordinariness and brutality. That starts off as a weakness but, by the book’s end, turns into its core strength. Given the Philip Larkin epigram that also lends the book its title (They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do), one might arrive expecting a somewhat darker look at family dynamics. In truth, nobody in this story of two octogenarians and their offspring—as devoted New […]

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The Mill Valley Film Festival Announces Lineup

The Mill Valley Film Festival, presented by the California Film Institute, announced today the complete lineup for the 39th edition of the Festival (October 6 – 16, 2016). The 11-day event will screen films across Marin County and will feature premieres, panel discussions, and live musical performances. Every year the Festival provides attendees a first glimpse at the potential Academy Award contenders while discovering acclaimed films from local filmmakers and filmmakers across the globe. OPENING NIGHT | La La Land and Arrival  The Festival will begin with two of the Fall’s most buzzed about films. La La Land, Damien Chazelle’s (Whiplash, MVFF 2014) love letter to dreamers, […]

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Attention Writer! Call for submissions: Gay Bar Anthology

  The days and nights following the massacre at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, we listened as various spokespersons attempted to explain to the general public exactly what the gay bar/club meant to LGBTQI people. We heard the words “safe place,” “refuge,” “free to be ourselves.” Some of us posted pain-filled messages on the social networks. Others took the time to remember past experiences and write about them. Lee Lynch’s blog, “Freedom Clothes,” pried open memories I’d forged in gay clubs in Philadelphia and its suburbs. My recollections and Lee’s forced the door open a bit further and jump-started […]

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