Beyond Queer: "The Lily's Revenge"

Once upon a time, there was an entity called community. It evolved out of the retro notion that people needed one another both to survive and thrive. It began with blood ties, since in the old days most of the support network around an individual happened to have a biologically-related component. But as people ventured out of these clans and the world became more global, communities became more fluid. Those whose blood ties fell short of support suddenly began to band together to form new families. These new outsider families were given labels—Beat, hippie, punk, queer—and often overlapped in their membership. But then a strange thing happened. As those communities grew, they began to splinter into ever more niches until identity suddenly required the individual to choose sides against oneself and family. Were you a lesbian first and a black woman second? And why would a black lesbian set foot in a white gay male bar? Where once there was a GLBT community that felt unrepresented in the media and in society at large, there's now a queer silent majority reeling from the over-saturated mainstream images of a cookie-cutter gay life they don't conform to or recognize at all.

To read the rest visit my “Sex Beat” column at Carnal San Francisco.

CineKink: San Francisco, November 19-21

Mark your calendars for the west coast edition! Our “Un Piede di Roman Polanski” will be screening Saturday, November 21st as part of the Best of CineKink/2009 Shorts Sampler program. Stop on by!

The End of Poverty?

Due to its timely subject, Philippe Diaz's “The End of Poverty?” — a 35mm indictment of the colonialism that led to the free market system, that led to our current global economic catastrophe, that led to the onslaught of documentaries rushed into the marketplace to blame it all on the system that funds them — was invited to premiere at Critics' Week at Cannes before it was even finished. Which is an odd choice given that the financial meltdown in itself has already personally and viscerally brought home the shamefulness the film addresses, essentially neutering Diaz’s straightforward explanatory doc.

To read the rest of my review visit Slant.

Sexual Violence and "The New Guignol"

My most delectable Halloween treat last week was attending “The New Guignol,” an evening of short, ripped from the perverse-but-true headlines plays presented by The Blood Brothers and Nosedive Productions at my new haunt, The Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Of course a Grand Guignol show, theater's answer to a haunted house, is pretty much critic-proof, akin to reviewing a night of campfire tales. Either you delight in the horror – which I unequivocally did – or you find yourself nodding off anxious to crawl into the nearest sleeping bag. (I was especially fond of the patter and chemistry between “blood brother” actors/directors Pete Boisvert and Patrick Shearer, who served as our Uncle Fester looking guides through the simultaneously gory and hilarious vignettes.) Acting, directing, sets, lighting and costume design are mere accompaniments to the spectacle of body parts and stage blood, and savoring that which is taboo in proper real life.

To read the rest visit my “Sex Beat” column at Carnal San Francisco.

Halloween Treat Pt. II

Monkey Town Presents Häxan, Witchcraft Through The Ages

Saturday, October 31st
Admission: $8, $10 minimum
Showtime: 8pm
Reservations are recommended

The 1922 classic documentary in six parts
Live score performed by:

Jeremy Slater
Murder of Angels (Bryin Dall & Derek Rush)
Phil Puleo
Christopher Russo
Maxx Klaxxon
Bradford Reed

Narration by William Burroughs

Written and directed by Benjamin Christensen (also appearing as Satan)

One of the most controversial films of the silent era, “Häxan” is a dramatized documentary of the practice and persecution of witchcraft in the Middle Ages. The elaborate production made it the most expensive Scandinavian silent film ever made. Although it was celebrated in its native country, it was widely banned and censored elsewhere for the elaborate images of Satanism and the Inquisition, closely following medieval engravings referenced in the film.

Halloween Treat

My film critic friend and colleague Jeremiah Kipp will be screening his short Contact on:
SATURDAY, OCT. 31, 2009
Millennium Film Workshop
66 E. 4th St. / Manhattan
8:15PM / $10

SUNDAY, NOV. 1, 2009
Millennium Film Workshop
66 E. 4th St. / Manhattan
5:15PM / $10

As part of the Sinister Six Fest.

A spooky good time for all!

"Un Piede di Roman Polanski" To Screen in Germany!

Our award-winning, G-rated homage to Roman Polanski’s foot fetish will be playing in the Experimental Porn, Short Films section of the Pornfilmfestival Berlin, which takes place October 22-25.

And since these feet were made for walking “Un Piede di Roman Polanski” will then screen at the Fetisch Film Festival, taking place October 29-31.

Who knew our feet would be so big in Europe?