POP ART, WHERE WE FIND THE POP CULTURE IN ART AND THE ART IN POP CULTURE. SODE.
OTHERWORDLY: Join me and writer Caitlin Duffy (Reacher, untitled Arnold Schwarzenegger Netflix series) while we talk two films about contact with another world, Contact and Another Earth.
“Boy, this is really going to change the Miss Universe Contest”. Are we alone in the universe? And if not, what does that mean? And what would aliens be like? And what would they want? To destroy us? To bring peace? To gain knowledge?…Sounds like it’s time for Episode 81 of Pop Art, where we find the pop culture in art and the art in pop culture. It’s the podcast where my guest chooses a movie from popular culture, and I’ll select a film from the more art/classic/indie side of cinema with a connection to it. This time I am happy to welcome as my guest, writer Caitlin Duffy, who has chosen as her film the hard sci-fi Jody Foster film Contact, while I have chosen soft sci-fi Brit Marling film Another Earth, both films about first contact with beings from another planet.
And in this episode, we answer such questions as: What is SETI? What is hard sci-fi as opposed to soft sci-fi? Who do they want to play the president in Contact? Who is the Saw Lady? Why did they use Bill Clinton? What is special about the opening shot in Contact? Cyanide pill or no cyanide pill? Who is Steven Ford’s father? How does Gianni Versace fit in?
Ever wonder what a reader for a contest or agency thinks when he reads your screenplay? Check out the second edition of my screenwriting book, More Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader published on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GD1XP9Y
In a follow up to my previous post of my top 30 gay films, I realized there were a lot more I wanted to share. Some of these should have appeared on the first list. Others are more obscure films. So here re 25 more. Have fun.
1977 – The Consequence. This 1977 West German film directed by Wolfgang (Das Boot) Petersen is about the son of a prison warden who falls in love with a prisoner. They begin a life together when the prisoner is released, but no one will just let them lead their lives. This was a time when gay films were almost required to have an unhappy ending.
1978 – In a Year with 13 Moons. More Fassbender. Erwin transitions to Elvira, but finds nothing but alienation from family and friends. She struggles to find meaning and purpose while visiting her past.
1980 – Taxi zum Klo. Directed, written and starring Frank Ripploh, this film was groundbreaking at the time in its sexual frankness and honesty about a teacher’s life in Berlin, caught between wanting no romantic restrictions and a lover who wants a monogamous relationship.
1983 – The Fourth Man. An early psychological thriller directed by Paul Verhoeven, it follows a bisexual writer who has sex with a woman, then falls for and seduces another of her lovers, only to find out she’s a witch.
1983 – Lianna. In this early film written and directed by John Sayles, a married woman realizes that she is attracted to women and has an affair with a college professor.
1992 – Swoon. Director Tom Kalin’s dramatization of the crimes of Leopold and Loeb, focusing more on their sexual relationship.
1992 – The Living End. Writer/director Gregg Araki’s early entry in the new queer cinema follows a gay hustler and a movie critic, both HIV+, who meet and fall in love. In what is called a gay Thelma and Louise, one kills a homophobic police officer and the two go on the run.
1993 – Farewell My Concubine. Directed by Kaige Chen, two boys meet in 1924 at a Peking opera school. They friendship lasts their whole lives informed by their country’s turbulent history, one in unrequited love with the other.
1996 – Killer Condom. Written and directed by Martin Walz, from a comic book by Ralf Konig, this German film that takes place in New York, revolves around a condom with teeth that goes around murdering people in a hotel called Quicky. It’s up to a gay police detective who is, shall we say, well blessed, to find the murderous rubber.
1997 – Steam: The Turkish Bath. A man inherits a Turkish bath from his aunt and restores it, leading to his realization that he likes men. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek.
1997 – The Hanging Garden. Writer/director Thom Fitzgerald’s feature debut is a British/Canadian film about a morbidly obese gay young man who is caught about to have sex with another man. Ostracized by his parents, he considers hanging himself, but leaves home to return ten years later for his sister’s wedding, having lost all his weight and at peace with being gay.
1999 – All About My Mother. Pedro Almodóvar wrote and directed this Spanish film about a mother who, after her teenage son is killed in a traffic accident, tries to find his father who has transitioned into a woman. ‘
2000 – Confusion of Genders. From France and Ilan Duran Cohen comes this story of a bisexual attorney who is sleeping with his boss, his client, his client’s girlfriend and a young man who ends up living with him.
1999 – Aimee & Jaguar. In German director Max Faberbock’s historical drama, it’s 1943 Berlin and a Nazi officer’s wife has an affair with a Jewish woman.
2005 – C.R.A.Z.Y. In French Canada, the youngest brother of a conservative and homophobic Catholic family tries to come to terms with being gay.
2006 – Dark Blue Almost Black. Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s feature follows two best friends. One whose infertile brother asks him to impregnate his girlfriend since he is in prison. The other who spies on a gay masseuse and discovers he knows one of the clients, leading him to find out something about himself.
2006 – The Bubble. Eytan Fox’s Israeli drama updates the Romeo and Juliet story to modern day Tel Aviv as an Israeli and Palestinian fall in love.
2008 – Antarctica. Another film from Israel. Written and directed by Yair Hochner, a gay man turning thirty drifts from one sexual encounter to another until he finally finds someone who can melt his heart.
2012 – Out in the Dark. Michael Mayer directed this thriller about an Israel lawyer and a Palestinian who fall in love. But their relationship gets complicated when the secret police want to use the Palestinian to help capture those working against the government.
2013 – Stranger by the Lake. In this Alain Guiraudie film, a young man spends his days at a gay cruising spot at a lake. He is attracted to one of the regulars. He sees the man kill someone, but still begins a sexual relationship with him.
2017 – A Fantastic Woman. Winner of the Best International Feature at the Oscars, this Sebastian Lelio drama focuses on a transgendered woman who has to come to terms with the death of her older boyfriend, while confronting his family.
2017 – The Cakemaker. Ofir Raul Grazier wrote and directed this drama about a pastry chef living in Germany who starts an affair with a man visiting from Israel. When the man dies, the chef goes to Jerusalem and takes a job at the widow’s café without telling her who he is.
2017 – Thelma. Directed by Joachim Trier. Thelma comes from a very conservative religious family. When she goes to college, a fellow female student falls in love with her. But Thelma’s denial of her true feelings causes her to subconsciously release her telekinetic power resulting in tragedy.
2021 – Flee. This feature was nominated for Best International Feature, Best Documentary, and Best Animated Feature and under the direction of Jonas Poher Rasmussen tells the story of a young gay man and his family trying to flee to safety after the Soviet Union withdraws from Afghanistan.
2021 – Benedetta. Paul Verhoeven’s over the top, campy treatment of a young 17th century girl who has visions. This leads her to joining a convent and rising to the top while having an affair with a fellow nun.
Happy Holidays.
Meanwhile, listen, like, follow or comment on my podcast, POP ART, the podcast where we find the pop culture in art and the art in pop culture. Every episode, my guest chooses a movie from popular culture and I’ll choose a film from the more art/indie/foreign/classic side of cinema that has a connection to it.
It’s June, which means it is Pride month. So here is my pick of the top 30 gay films.
1931 – Mädchen in Uniform – The controversial and often censored German film directed by Leontine Sagan from the play by Christa Winsloe. A young girl is sent to a private boarding school and falls in love with one of her teachers.
1941 – The Maltese Falcon – This third, and best, version of the classic Dashiell Hammett story, written and directed by John Huston, involves private detective Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart, becoming involved in a search for a priceless treasure, with three of the four bad guys being queer as a three dollar bill.
1961 – Victim – The first English-language film to use the word homosexuality. This British film directed by Basil Dearden follows a barrister played by Dirk Bogarde as he is being blackmailed for being gay.
1971 – Sunday Bloody Sunday – Director John Schlesinger and writer Penelope Gilliatt give us this swinging London look at a triangle consisting of a female office worker, a male doctor, and the male artist who drifts between the two of them.
1972 – Cabaret – One of the greatest musicals of all time. Directed by Bob Fosse and adapted from the stage by Jay Presson Allen, a gay man goes to Berlin in the 1930s and finds himself caught up with a cabaret singer and the rise of Nazism.
1972 – The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant – The story is driven by the sexual conflicts between a fashion designer, her female assistant, and the young woman the designer leaves her assistant for. One of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s films that put him on the map. With Hannah Schygulla.
1975 – Fox and his Friends – Fassbinder again. He plays the central role, a plain, working-class gay man who wins the lottery. And then is quickly taken advantage of by his friends and lovers.
1975 – Dog Day Afternoon – Al Pacino plays a bank robber trying to raise money to help his boyfriend get a sex change operation. Directed by Sidney Lumet. With John Cazale.
1982 – Personal Best – In this film written and directed by Robert Towne (Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown), a female track and field athlete is caught between two romantic interests; her male coach and her main female rival.
1985 – My Beautiful Laundrette – In a metaphor about an England on the verge of cultural change, a young Pakistani man joins forces with his white boyfriend to make their fortune by opening a laundromat. This is an early film that got Daniel Day-Lewis really noticed. Directed by Stephen Frears.
1987 – Law of Desire – Pedro Almodóvar’s tragicomedy about a gay film maker who becomes involved with an obsessive fan while still longing after his straight ex-boyfriend. With Antonio Banderas and Almodóvar muse Carmen Maura.
1991 – Edward II – Derek Jarmen’s transgressive adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s play of the same name about a king who sacrifices it all for the man he loves. With Tilda Swinton.
1994 – The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – Two drag performers and a transgender woman take their cabaret act across the lengths of Australia. With Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, and Terence Stamp. Written and directed by Stephen Elliott.
1996 – Bound – Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon, one a mobster’s girlfriend, the other an ex-con plumber, join forces and become lovers in order to cheat the mob of a suitcase of money. Written and directed by Lily and Lana Wachowski.
1998 – High Art – Written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, the movie dramatizes an up and coming magazine writer who has an affair with her new subject, a drug addicted photographer. With Ally Sheedy as the photographer.
2000 – Before Night Falls – Javier Bardem received his first Oscar nomination for this biographical film about the Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, who managed to escape to the US. Directed by Julian Schnabel, with Johnny Depp in a dual roll as a prisoner who dresses in drag and a Lieutenant at the prison.
2004 – Mysterious Skin – Two boys are molested by a pedophile. One grows up to be a hustler, the other grows up believing he was abducted by aliens in this powerful drama written and directed by Greg Araki. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
2004 – Bad Education – Another Almodóvar entry. Two friends who meet while attending a Catholic school under the repressive regime of Franco reunite later when one is an actor and one is a film director. Or is something else going on? With Gael Garcia Bernal.
2005 – Time to Leave – Francois Ozon’s drama about a gay fashion designer who is diagnosed with a brain tumor and decides to forgo medical help and die on this own terms.
2005 – Brokeback Mountain – Director Ang Lee and writers Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana broke new ground, at least from a Hollywood point of view, in this story of two modern day cowboys who fall in love. With Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
2009 – I Killed My Mother – Québécois Xavier Dolan’s first, and still probably best, film is a semi-autobiographical story of a young gay man’s conflicts with his mother.
2009 – A Single Man – Colin Firth stars as a professor whose is having trouble coping with the death of his lover who he met just as World War II ended. Directed by Tom Ford and co-starring Julianne Moore.
2013 – Blue is the Warmest Colour – In this Cannes award winner, a high school student from a working-class background meets and falls in love with a collegiate who travels in more intellectual circles; will their relationship be able to survive their class differences? Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche.
2015 – Tangerine – A trendsetting movie filmed entirely on a phone. Aided by her best friend, a transsexual hooker goes up and down Sunset Boulevard trying to find her pimp who cheated on her while she was in prison, having taken the fall for something the pimp did.
2015 – Carol – From the short story, The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, one of the few gay stories to have a happy ending at the time it was written. An up-and-coming photographer falls in love with an older woman leading to complications in both of their lives. With Oscar nominees Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Directed by Todd Haynes.
2016 – Moonlight – Writer/director Barry Jenkins Oscar winning film (remember that ceremony) about three stages in a young man’s life as he struggles with his sexual identity and life on the hard streets of Miami. With Oscar winner Mahershala Ali.
2016 – The Handmaiden – From the director of Old Boy and Thirst comes another South Korean masterpiece in which a handmaiden helps and falls in love with a Japanese heiress who is being defrauded by her guardian.
2017 – God’s Own Country – Francis Lee’s debut feature dramatizes the growing love between an unhappy farmer and a Romanian immigrant hired for lambing season.
2017 – BPM (Beats Per Minute) – This French masterpiece focuses on a love affair between HIV+ and HIV- activists in the early days of AIDS activism in France. Directed by Robin Campillo.
Happy Pride month.
Meanwhile, listen, like, follow or comment on my podcast, POP ART, the podcast where we find the pop culture in art and the art in pop culture. Every episode, my guest chooses a movie from popular culture and I’ll choose a film from the more art/indie/foreign/classic side of cinema that has a connection to it.
Howard Casner - Rantings and Ravings 