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Reviews

Enter the Drag Dragon

It’s been over a decade since being first exposed to Canadian cult hit Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter and Lee Demarbre’s wholesome filmmaking for mature audiences.  Underneath its goofy and ambitious premise about our lord and saviour socking it to some blood-suckers was an infectious love for filmmaking and community.  It’s main concern other than entertaining audiences was having fun with friends behind-the-scenes.  And while that rallying doesn’t always work for all indies, it benefited Demarbre’s…

Reviews

Death Drop Gorgeous

Camp is notoriously tricky to pin down, and even tricker to execute.  As Susan Sontag notes in her 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp’”, “[o]ne must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp.  Pure camp is always naïve.  Camp which knows itself to be Camp (“camping”) is usually less satisfying”.  Sontag suggests that the best, most satisfying examples of camp are those that are trying to be serious.  When something tries to be camp, it usually fails….

Reviews

Jump, Darling

At a time when drag has made its way into mainstream media (thanks, in no small part, to the Emmy winning reality television show Ru Paul’s Drag Race), Jump, Darling stands as a much-needed antidote to the commodification of an art form that was created by and for queer and trans people.  It isn’t a bad thing that straight folks these days know what a death drop is, but at times it does feel as…

Reviews

Paris Is Burning

Jennie Livingston’s award-winning documentary Paris Is Burning has received a 4K restoration twenty-eight years after its initial release, and it’ll screen in select theatres across Canada throughout the year.  I believe the re-release was planned in part to curate the footage, but also because the documentary is relevant as ever.