Cinema Very Gay

We are rounding out our second season with one of the most acclaimed movies of the last decade, Barry Jenkins' Moonlight (2016). Moonlight is a touching and poetic coming-of-age story showing the life of Chiron, a black man in Liberty City, Miami, in three chapters- his childhood, his adolescence, and his adulthood. It explores how Chiron struggles not only with poverty and race at the height of the crack epidemic, but also his struggles with his sexuality. At the center of Chiron's struggles are his relationships with his mother and his close friend, Kevin. Moonlight stands out as a beautifully edited and directed film, but sticks in our cultural consciousness for its success at the Academy Awards, taking home the prize for Best Picture. Is there a performance in this movie that isn't perfectly calibrated? Is the imagery too heavy-handed? Can you wipe your hands on sand? This and more with Jake and Kevin on our new episode!

Turn on the AC and pour yourself a cold drink because things are about to get hot and muggy on the podcast. This week we're talking about Joyland (2022), a Pakistani film about a family living in Lahore. In the movie, Haider (Ali Junejo) escapes the demands of his family through an affair with Biba (Alina Khan), a transgender woman/his boss at an erotic dance revue. Haider stumbles into his job as a dancer, just as he stumbles through the rest of his life. But has he found his calling as a background dancer? No. Can he at least get the choreo down? No. Directed by Siam Sadiq, the movie won the Jury Prize and Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival before being shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at 95th Academy Awards. Does it live up to the hype? Join us to find out. And we're continuing our miniseries on the Criterion Channel's LGBTQ+ shorts collection. After a quick glance at the painfully earnest Blood Below the Skin (dir. Jennifer Reeder, 2016), we take a deep dive into Marin Håskjold's What Is A Woman? (2020), a thought experiment about a transgender woman who becomes a lightening rod for a couple of Norwegian Kårens when she enters a women's locker room. Høres morsomt ut!

Pull out your hat pins and loosen up because it's time for another installment of Cinema Very Gay! Desert Hearts (or, "Not Another Lesbian On This Ranch") is a seminal piece of lesbian cinema, and for many good reasons. The film was directed by Donna Deitch in 1986 and stars Helen Shaver as Vivian, a stuffy literature professor at Columbia who is in the process of divorcing her unseen husband. To expedite the process, she establishes residency in Reno by staying on a "ranch" run by Frances (Audra Lindley). As in any good lesbian period piece, a woman can't run into the wilderness without finding romantic entanglements, as Helen is unexpectedly seduced by the confident and carefree Cay, played by Patricia Charbonneau. Though there are some familiar beats to the script, the movie is touchingly directed and does an incredible job at showing the complexities of Helen and Cay's romance, as well as its impacts on those around them. Why does Frances care so much that Cay might find love? Is this the dustiest lesbian movie ever made? Is Kevin actually in love with Patricia Charbonneau? This and more on this week's episode! And then an entry in our miniseries on Criterion's LGBTQ+ shorts collection, but we aren't over the moon about this one. Jake and Kevin watched the short film Call Your Father (dir. Jordan Firstman, 2016), which follows a disastrous first date between men from different generations. There's not much reason for the date to have continued as long as it did, but there is a bit of sit-com humor to appreciate.

It's San Francisco, how hard can it be to meet cool people? Well, if the only people you run into is the cast of the HBO series and movie, Looking, you might have some work to do! This week we tackle the controversial and short-lived HBO series and subsequent moviefilm, Looking, created by writer-director Andrew Haigh. The series followed a group of gay men in San Francisco and their travails in life and love- Patrick (Jonathan Groff), our anxious protagonist with deeeeeeeep mommy issues; Augustin (Frankie J. Alvarez), the tortured "artist" looking for meaning in his work and finding drugs along the way; and Dom (Murray Bartlett), a peri peri chicken lover having a mid-life crisis. Over the course of the series, which only ran for 18 episodes from 2014-2015, we follow this crew and a great cast of supporting actors, including but not limited to Lauren Weedman, Scott Bakula, and sexpot Raul Castillo, as they look for meaning in their lives, with plenty of cringe, Grindr dates, and drunken dancing along the way. The series unfortunately had a short run, but was brought back for one final installment in 2016 with Looking: The Movie. Join Jake and Kevin this week as we talk about the highs of lows of the series and how successful the movie holds up as a final episode. Why did they not cast any gay or queer Asian characters in a show set in San Francisco? Why are the three protagonists so insufferable in the first season? Did Richie and Patrick really get back together in the movie? This and more on this week's episode! PLUS: We dive back to our regularly-scheduled mini-series programming this week! The Criterion Channel (who does not yet sponsor this podcast but we're open to the idea) has a fantastic selection of queer filmmaking, bolstered recently by a collection of queer short films. For the next few episodes, we'll be watching some of these shorts, beginning with the film The Red Tree, directed by Paul Rowley in 2018. This pseudo-documentary short follows a fictional gay man who travels back to the island where Mussolini interred hundreds of gay man in his rise to power in the 1930s.

Oh you thought that Hudson content was in the past huh? We're sneaking back into your feeds with a short episode on the "biographical" passion project from Mark Rappaport, Rock Hudson's Home Movies from 1992. Taking an ironic look back on Hudson's filmography, Rappaport has amassed a clip reel highlighting all of the ways in which Hudson was supposedly subverting his own macho-man image with queer tropes and dialogue over the course of decades. Do you think Rappaport really believed in this conspiracy, or is this a comical way to review an actor's career? Either way, it's a fun way to wrap our series on Rock Hudson's movies, so go watch Rock Hudson's Home Movies and enjoy the bonus episode!

Welcome to the final episode of our journey through the annals of Rock Hudson's filmography as we bid a fond farewell to the 6'5" actor and his legacy. To this day, Hudson is most often remembered first for the notoriety of his death in October 1985 due to complications from AIDS. For a man who was famous for keeping his personal life as private as possible, the revelations of his diagnosis and rapid decline at the age of 59 came as quite a shock, not just to Hollywood, but to the whole American public. In this week's episode, Kevin and Jake take some time to talk about the circumstances and significance of his death, but also take a look at what became of his filmography after a renaissance with his Doris Day collabs. Hudson certainly did not shy away from dabbling in new genres in the late 60s through the end of his life! He tried his hands at a blockbuster disaster (Avalanche), submarine thriller (Ice Station Zebra), and even Blake Edwards comedy/musical (Darling Lilli). This week we talk about some of the most interesting films of the last stage of Hudson's career and discover the newfound appreciation we have for this underrated actor! How much did ending his Universal Studios contract help Hudson expand his filmography? Did New Hollywood help or hurt his acting career? Why do the 70s look so damn good on him? This and more on this week's episode of Cinema Very Gay!

After and during his rise to stardom with the help of Douglas Sirk, Hudson was also being tried out as Universal's hottest new leading man. While Rock was given opportunities to play the swoon-worthy romantic lead with Sirk, a handful of other directors were making him the headlining "every-man" of their films, with very mixed success. This week, we cover the top (there's really just one) and the bottoms of this period of his career spanning 7 films from 1952-1961: The Lawless Breed (Raoul Walsh, 1952), Giant (George Stevens, 1956), A Farewell to Arms (Charles Vidor, 1957), Something of Value (Richard Brooks, 1957), Twilight for the Gods (Joseph Pevney, 1958), The Earth is Mine (Henry King, 1959), and The Last Sunset (Robert Aldrich, 1961). While most of these movies are scraping the bottom of the classic Hollywood barrel, Giant stands out as a true triumph of film-making and an example of Hudson's star power being used correctly. Why did Universal put Hudson in so many movies? How might his whirlwind marriage with a producer's secretary have impacted his image? Did Hudson almost certainly sleep with Sal Mineo? This and more on this week's Cinema Very Gay!

We're trying something new on Cinema Very Gay and taking a career retrospective for the next few weeks on Rock Hudson! He is known perhaps best for being a hunky, mildly-talented, openly-closeted movie star of the 50s and 60s, and for his high profile death due to complications from AIDS in 1985, but there really was much more to Hudson and his famed career than many first assume. Over the next four episodes, join Jake and Kevin as we look back on four key periods in Hudson's film career and talk about how the façade of Hudson's on-screen presence was in contrast to his real-life dalliances.  To begin, we start with the phase of Hudson's career that flung him into stardom and made him a household name, his collaborations with director Douglas Sirk. Sirk today is synonymous with 50s melodrama, those saccharine, romantic "women's pictures" that we know and love today. Though not as critically-acclaimed in his time as he is today, Sirk's films still were hits at the box office, and his decision to bring Hudson out of the background and into his turn as a leading man. Thanks to Sirk, every man wanted to be Rock Hudson, and every woman wanted to be with him...and as it turns out, lots of men did too! Join Jake and Kevin this week as we take a look back at the 8 films of the Sirk-Hudson collaboration: Has Anyone Seen My Gal? (1952); Taza, Son of Cochise (1954); Magnificent Obsession (1954); Captain Lightfoot (1955); All That Heaven Allows (1955); Written on the Wind (1956); Battle Hymn (1957); and Tarnished Angels (1957). They might not all be hits, but we're pretty obsessed with a few of them, and hope you find some new favorites in this first part of the series!

Join us on Cinema Very Gay as we journey back in time, a beautiful time before Tim Burton discovered CGI. In 1994 Burton directed the biopic Ed Wood, chronicling the career of notorious B-movie writer and director, widely claimed to be one of the worst directors of all time. Wood was more than just an eager and enthusiastic film-maker though, it was also an open secret that he was a cross-dresser, going so far as to show up to his own production sets in women's clothes (especially angora sweaters). Ed Wood (film) stars Johnny Depp as the titular director alongside Oscar-winner Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, with whom Wood had formed an unlikely friendship. As a companion to Ed Wood, we also look back at one of Wood's exploitation films featured in Burton's movie, Glen or Glenda (1954). In this confusing production, Wood was aiming to earn some empathy for "transvestites" and cross-dressers by following a police inspector uncovering the truth about a man's suicide. The film even starred Wood himself both in and out of drag, a bold move given the shoddy production and shaky terminology used in the script. How did Burton manage to capture the queerness of Ed Wood without turning him into a spectacle? Is Martin Landau's Lugosi one of the best screen performances ever? How many problematic actors can fit in one cast? This and more on this week's Cinema Very Gay! Then, we have finally reached the end of our mini-series of queer coding in Disney villains, rounding our list out with the pompous, maniacal Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas (1995). We have to admit, this was not a strong note to end the series on, either with the film (woefully misguided) or the villain (unnecessary). But at least we have a chance to take stock of the miniseries with some power rankings of the villains, play some Disney villain trivia, and pontificate on what the Grindr profile for Ratcliffe might be like. 

Jack Twist? Jack NASTY! That's right, get ready to get into one of the most highly-esteemed gay films of our generation, Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain from 2005. In case you've somehow managed to miss this one in the last 18 years, this film follows the years-long illicit affair between two shepherds, Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal). What starts as a romantic fling while working together one summer soon becomes an emotional attachment that they just can't quit, even while building separate lives hundreds of miles apart. This movie continues to impress your hosts, from gorgeous cinematography, an impeccable supporting cast (including Oscar nominee Michelle Williams), and a touching screenplay that we think leaves just enough room for some ambiguity. This film also holds a reputation as being one of the biggest Oscar snubs of recent film history, losing Best Picture to Paul Haggis' Crash, a loss that continues to boggle minds. What would have kept audiences from connecting with these characters strong enough for that win? Does Ang Lee know how gay sex happens? Will Kevin stop bringing up Memoirs of a Geisha? This and more in this week's Cinema Very Gay! Speaking of more, the sun is soon setting on our queer-coded Disney villain mini-series, but we couldn't end without discussing the usurper king, Scar, voiced by Jeremy Irons in Disney's Lion King (1994). This sniveling and scheming lion all but tells the audience that he's more into lions than lionesses! Scar gives us some familiar coded tropes (the smaller stature, the sibilant sneer), but we still can't help but have fun with his dryness. Be prepared! It's a good episode.