Queersighted: Breaking Taboos on the Criterion Channel

by Cláudio Alves

O FANTASMA (2000)

For the past few years, the Criterion Channel has highlighted taboo-breaking pictures in queer cinema with their series "Queersighted." For its fourth edition, programmer Michael Koresky invited film critic K. Austin Collins to select and discuss a series of works that look at film history through a decidedly queer lens. This year's installment features movies that go from 1930s Hollywood productions to 2000s Portuguese provocations. Controversial and wildly transgressive, these films run a gamut of genres and formalistic approaches, showcasing how it's possible to push the envelope both from within the Hays Code-abiding studio system and the vanguard of New German Cinema.

Before saying farewell to Pride Month 2021, join us in exploring ten films presented in this program...

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I Saw the Signs - "Cruising" for Prime Beef Cuts

Shove a professional sign or any diegetic text or hand-scrawled message in front of the camera and we go all bookworm eyes. Are they subliminal subtitles? That's surely up to the set decorator, prop man, production designer and director. In this new visual series (we previously did Silence of the Lambs - don't read anything into two queer serial killler pictures in a row, erp!) we'll share textual images from a film that use unspoken words to tell the story... or are merely fun period details. 

This week's victim is the infamous homophobic serial killer movie Cruising (1980). Here are 28 photos of signs and messages and letters and whatnot from the film with a few notes on actual NYC history and a few asides to other pop culture wonders ...

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Tweetweek: Lotsa Cannes Action, Political LOLs, Sarandon x 2

A roundup as we do. It's so hard to keep up during Cannes! 

The #Cannes2017 press badge comes with amusing button that roughly translates, "I did not understand it, but the film was really good." pic.twitter.com/4eB9ZcppKm

— Peter Howell (@peterhowellfilm) May 16, 2017

More tweets after the jump including Cannes mania, White House exorcisms, Netflix divisiveness, and beautiful actresses of course. They're kind of a staple here, okay?...

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Sundance Kills Your Darlings In Interior Leather Bars

"Sex. Sex. Sex." That's a far more accurate and truer statement than the clichéd "Sex Sells" isn't it? Sex often emphatically doesn't sell. Sometimes it severely limits your market penetration... excuse me, saturation. So "Sex Sells" is an overstatement with lots of conditional clauses. But "Sex. Sex. Sex." that's just true, unequivocally! I'm not saying this because of this Kill Your Darlings trio's photo op I've just posted...

Daniel, Dane, and their Director John

poll by twiigs.com

...even though yes, director John Krokidas is totally 100% sexable based on this photographic evidence. (Tangent: Dane DeHaan turns 27 next month. Is he going to look like he's 30 when he's 60?).

I began this post with "Sex. Sex. Sex." because that's all I keep reading about from Sundance. Yesterday we covered the Cougar Island sexcapades of Two Mothers but apparently Sundance just keeps presenting the world with future MPAA challenges. Quoth Carpetbagger:

“I’ve seen five movies today, and it has been nonstop,” said a senior executive at a major Hollywood studio on Saturday night. “I’m no prude, but it’s a little much.”

NSFW James Franco, Amanda Seyfried, and Gay blah blah blah after the jump...

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