Beanpole (2019) Queer Film A+
“Beanpole” conveys, beautifully, the ability of human beings to find moments of intimacy and even love under the most horrific of circumstances.
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Category: Film Reviews
Under The Skin (2014) Scarlett Johansson A+
Explore the haunting world of ‘Under the Skin’ with Scarlett Johansson as an alien preying on Glasgow’s men.
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Take Shelter (2011) A Horror Masterpiece. A+
It boasts a tremendous performance by Michael Shannon as a quiet man, raising a family, who has horrific nightmares and daytime visions of a meteorological disturbance followed by a feeling that we (the Earth) are being visited by something alien.
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The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) Queer Film A+
“Ripley”, Minghella’s masterpiece, boasts Matt Damon’s best performance plus stunning turns by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jude Law.
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Grace of My Heart (1996) Queer Film- Bridget does Lesley B+
Bridget Fonda does a fabulous Lesley Gore (thinly disguised) in Alison Anders’ 1996 movie “Grace of My Heart”
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Polyester (1981) Queer Film (B) High Camp at a Midnight Screening.
It’s delirious fun in classic Waters mode, with the incomparable Divine scaling Crawford‑level heights of Sirkian melodrama.
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Wonder Bar (1934) Queer Film C+
The movie is full of lavish production numbers, melodrama, and even a brief same-sex dance gag in which a man asks a couple if he can cut into their dance, and, while the woman says Sure, he dances away with her partner!
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Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Queer Film (A)
Director James Whale’s masterpiece is as close to Susan Sontag’s definition of high camp as the movies can deliver.
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Top Hat (1935) Queer Film A+
The Best of the Astaire-Rogers movies. Cinematography: David Abel. Production Design: Carroll Clark/Van Nest Polglase. Songs: Irving Berlin.
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Sylvia Scarlet (1935) Queer Film B-
Both gay and trans, Sylvia/Sylvester set the bar impossibly high for years to come. One of the great financial disasters of the 1930s, it resulted in Hepburn being labelled box office poison.
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Dodsworth (1936) Wyler’s Masterpiece A+
“Dodsworth”: William Wyler’s masterpiece, the best movie ever made about the fear of growing old. It was Wyler’s first Oscar nomination.
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Stage Door (1937) Queer Film A-
Director Gregory La Cava, fresh off My Man Godfrey (1936), directs with a light, improvisatory touch, and Hepburn and Rogers play off each other beautifully.
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Bringing Up Baby (1938) Queer Film A-
When Hepburn’s aunt asks him to explain, he replies exasperatedly, “Because I just went gay all of a sudden”
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The Women (1939) Queer Film A-
Every character in the movie, and every animal featured, was female. Great work by Crawford, Russell, Shearer and Mary Boland.
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The Wizard of Oz (1939) Queer Film A-
Judy Garland captured everyone’s heart with that voice, vulnerable yet confident. Innocent yet knowing.
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Rebecca (1940) Queer Film. Hitchcock. A+
“Rebecca”, marked the arrival in Hollywood of the man who was, or would eventually become, the greatest director in the history of cinema.
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The Maltese Falcon (1941) Queer Film A-
Performances to savor. Mary Astor does a superb turn as Bridget O’Shaughnessy, a Celtic Tiger avant la lettre!
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The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) Queer Film A-
Monty Wooley delights as the impossibly pompous Sheridan Whiteside in William Keighley’s wonderful adaptation of the Kaufman/Hart play.
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Casablanca (1942-1943) Queer Film A+
Written on the fly by the fabulous Epstein twins and Howard Koch and directed by Michael Curtiz, this is one of the most romantic of all Hollywood movies.
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Cat People (1942) Queer Film B+
The finest achievement of producer Val Lewton’s legendary RKO horror cycle, Cat People (1942) occupies a foundational place in queer film history because it mobilizes horror not as spectacle but as a grammar of deviance, repression, and embodied otherness.
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The Seventh Victim (1943) Queer Film D+
Despite a loyal cult following, The Seventh Victim is a pale imitation of Cat People with numerous queer-coded characters, again, courtesy of queer screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen. The plot oscillates between the baroque and the faintly ridiculous, with Tom Conway reprising his role as the psychiatrist Dr. Judd and after a while, you begin to realize that The Seventh Victim is a weird sort of prequel to Cat People.
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Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Hitchcock A+
Alfred Hitchcock, the cinema’s greatest director, made seven perfect films in which every shot, every camera move, every editing sequence is, well, perfect. And this is one of them!
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Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Queer Film. Minnelli’s Masterpiece. A+
A favorite of gay men since its opening in the Christmas of 1944, it stars Judy Garland in her first adult role, singing three of her best songs.
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The Uninvited (1944) Queer Film B-
The 1944 movie is still entertaining. Victor Young’s haunting theme was transformed into the song “Stella by Starlight,” with lyrics by Ned Washington.
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Laura (1944) Queer Film A+
“Laura” is one of the classic film noirs. Gene Tierney is born and Clifton Webb becomes a star in his fifties. Haunting Raksin score.
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Double Indemnity (1944) Queer Film A+
“Double Indemnity” is the best of the three great film noirs of 1944, the others being “Laura” and “The Woman in the Window”. The three leads are superb as is Wilder’s direction.
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Murder My Sweet (1944) Queer Film. B+
Powell is in excellent company, and he acquits himself admirably. He also gets props for being the first to play Marlowe.
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Mildred Pierce (1945) Queer Film A+
Brilliantly filmed in high Germanic style by a cadre of Hungarian, German and Viennese émigrés—Curtiz, production designer Anton Grot and composer Max Steiner, in addition to Southern California natives cinematographer Ernest Haller and art director George James Hopkins—Mildred Pierce is one of the great noirs of the 1940s.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) Queer Film (A)
Albert Lewin directed his masterpiece, a superb adaptation of Oscar Wild’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” with the beautiful Hurd Hatfield.
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Gilda (1946) Queer Film (A)
“Gilda”: Rita Hayworth’s star-making performance, directed by Charles Vidor, with cinematography by Rudolph Mate and Jack Cole’s choreography.
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