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Film
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Vintage Gay Porn Trailer x 2: Inches / A Deep Compassion
Here are two trailers from a time when porn movies actually had something like a story: Steve Scott’s INCHES is a gay porn classic from 1979 and was one of the first longer movies that featured Al Parker (1952-1992) who started off as a butler of Hugh Hefner and became a porn star in the eighties. I found this nice trailer on Colin Quinn’s tumblr and I’m curious how long YouTube is going to keep it online. An explicit version can be found on the webpage of Bijou Video, a vintage porn distributor. On Bijou’s YouTube channel you also find the trailer of A DEEP COMPASSION from 1972. Here a young blind boy is “caught in a web of sin and cruelty” in a dramatic story of “biblical proportions”. Sounds great! UPDATE: The Bijou Video channel has been deleted by YouTube for showing to much explicit stuff. I tried to find the clips on their website, but the page is also currently down. So at least for now it seems like the trailers are no longer available on the internet.
Lad For Rent: Greek Pete On DVD
This could be especially interesting for all German readers of this page: After already being released in the UK and in the United States in autumn last year, the part documentary/ part fiction film “Greek Pete” is now also available here via Indigo. With the movie director Andrew Haigh wanted to take a closer look at the London-based gay escort /rentboys scene (read more about it here). It can now be preordered on Amazon and I think it’s not gonna take long until it’s going to appear in the pink section of bigger video stores.
HOWL (Featuring James Franco) At Sundance
At the end of this month “HOWL”, a movie by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (“The times of Harvey Milk”, “Celluliod Closet” etc) featuring James Franco playing the young Allen Ginsberg will have its world premier at this year’s Sundance festival. The film is going to depict events that happened in 1957 when an obscenity trial was brought against the publisher of Ginsberg’s eponymous poem. For the synopsis I quote from the Sundance page: “The film recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society’s reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment—the birth of a counterculture.” You find more pictures of the movie on Film School Rejects. For a text version of HOWL click here. UPDATE (Jan 23) : Footage and some clips of the film here.
Howl will have its World Premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition. Check out more photos below.
Psychedelic Choreography x 2: Busby Berkeley / Michel Gondry
The italian guy in the first video stops talking at 0:30. Thanks Todd & Martin for introducing me to Mr Berkeley! Another one of his stunning choreographies here.
Rewatched: Jeepers Creepers 2
Jeepers Creepers 2 by Victor Salva is definitely not one of the “most unintenionally gay horror movies” ever as proposed in this article. I think you should rather call it one the most intentionally gay horror movie ever produced for a straight audience. A German critic wrote about the film: ‘With this movie Salva seems to exorcise his own demons. With regard to his past as a convicted pedophile (which caused the financial miscarriage of his Disney drama ‘Powder’ ) the character of the Creeper clearly is a metaphor for the destructive power of homosexuality. From this perspective this excellently filmed slasher movie is much more ‘creepy’ than many fans of the genre may realize.’ The movie (no, it’s not a masterpiece but still entertaining) only got 23 out of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
William S. Burroughs: The Documentary
On January 22nd the first posthumous feature film about writer William S. Burroughs called “A Man Within” will debute at the Slamdance Filmfestival in Utah. The independent movie was directed by a 25-year-old Chicago based filmmaker called Yony Leyser and is going to feature “never before seen” footage of Burroughs as well as interviews with his friends and colleagues. The long list of interviewees includes John Waters, Genesis P-Orridge, Laurie Anderson, David Cronenberg, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Sonic Youth (who also did the sountrack) and others, so the whole thing sounds like a really nice project. More about the movie here, an interview with Mr. Leyser here, and if you want to support it by donating click here.
Salazar: The Art Of Simplicity
I quote from the guys’ website: “Salazar was founded in 2008 by Jesse Savath, Bienviendo Cruz, Jeff Petry, and Nathan Drillot as a motion picture collective focusing on music videos and narrative films. All four had been working separately inside the industry in various disciplines. Recognizing natural shared instincts and aesthetics the decision was made to stop competing against each other and join forces as a collective.” Check out their videos for Circlesquare, Metronomy, Fand Death and others on their webpage, their Vimeo page, their MySpace page or on the pages of Jesse Savath or Liam Mitchell. These two guys are also the directors of the beautiful videos below.
John Water’s “Movies That Will Corrupt You”
I just stumbeled over a YouTube channel called ScandyTangerineMan whose owner a while ago posted clips of a film anthology series from 2006 that was presented by John Waters. The series is called “Movies that will corrupt you” (website here) and it features both classics like Pink Narcissus and movies of the new queer cinema like L.I.E. The clips you find on YouTube are John Water’s introductions and closing comments to the movies. So if you’re (like me) one of the people that regularly have blackouts at the video store when you ask yourself what you wanted to see, mabye Mr. Waters has got some nice ideas for you. Click here for episode one of the series (you also find the other ones in the bar on the right) or check it out below.
James Dean In A Tree x 2
The left picture is a scan of the last page of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Paul Alexander (found here), the right one one is a painting by Keith Mayerson called “Love Triumphant (James Dean in a Tree)” (found here). And because this combination is kind of disturbing here’s another (g-rated) nice one I think I found on skeetshoot/pull!:
Sissy Mag / The First Day Of Summer
Sissy is a “Homosexual’s Film Quarterly” published by a German film distribution company called “Edition Salzgeber” that is releasing a lot of great stuff in the field of the New Queer Cinema. This is why the mag (that can be read and downloaded for free here) is much more than just an advertising paper but offers a clever, sophisticated view on new movie releases (not only via Salzgeber) and the history of gay/ queer cinema. The only problem is that you only get it in German language. But I’ll keep you posted if I find nice something nice in it that is worth to be shared. And to start with that straight away: here’s the very minimalst trailer of an Italian independent movie by a director called Mirko Locatelli called “The first day of winter”. The movie takes place at a public swimming pool and tells the story of a young guy who is a swimmer and who is bullied by the other guys until he finds a way to turn his relationship to the others upside down and becomes the one in charge (read more about it here). In Germany the movie has been released on DVD two weeks ago, I hopw I’ll get a chance to see it soon.
that most of the time plays in a public swimming pool.
