Pardon me for sounding blasé, but I can’t help but clench when a Canadian film makes supernatural suggestions. Other than the odd exception (A Sunday Kind of Love), these are ideas that are usually squandered of their potential (Considering Love & Other Magic). Imagine my surprise in Octavio Is Dead!, the latest filmmaking effort from Shortbus actor Sook-Yin Lee, when the writer/director treaded familiar ground but drove her film in a darker direction; blending different…
Craig Johnson (director/co-writer of The Skeleton Twins) returns with another sweet story about solving personal ambiguity with wonder, caution, and experience in Netflix’s Alex Strangelove. This time, the angst takes place in high school, as Johnson evolves the “teen sex comedy” sub-genre with positive (and current) messages of sexual orientation.
Yorkshire farmer Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor) has a rough exterior that could be intimidating to others. He’s certainly aware of this power as he reflects his standoff attitude to anyone who criticizes him. But, Johnny is also a closeted gay man, distancing himself with personal conflict and confrontations. He acts on sexual desires with casual flings, but his romantic interests remain indifferent. That is, until he meets a migrant worker named Gheorghe (Alex Secareanu).
Charlie, a queer millennial in New York, is looking for love. His modest expectations are reasonable, yet the mission proves to be a constant bust throughout the course of Prom King, 2010. Charlie chats with friends, family, and other acquaintances within his community (mostly for catharsis or assistance), but these conversations lead to opinions – sometimes closed-minded views – about love, Charlie’s sexual orientation, and dating etiquette.
The David Dance is a stage-to-film adaptation from actor/screenwriter Don Scimé. I haven’t seen his original stage play, but I can figure out a couple of things from the movie: Scimé is a passionate artist who cares very deeply about the themes acknowledged in his work, but not enough compromises have been made by director Aprill Winney to make his original material fill feature film britches.
Is there an animated .GIF that sufficiently portrays your facial expression when you are made aware that you and your twin sibling are dating the same person?
Out of all the stories and characters in Miles, writer/director Nathan Adloff picks the weakest ones to carry his semi-autobiographical indie.
If anything says “fun long weekend at a sunny lake house,” it’s deliberately creating awkward tension with your friends.
There are different ways for a writer to tell a story while tapping into their own personal catharsis. Chris Kelly (co-writer of Saturday Night Live and Broad City making his feature filmmaking debut) has found a vessel in Other People to tell his own semi-autobiographical story by re-capturing snapshots of his ailing mother’s final months.
