Double Feature: "Atomic Blonde" and "Girl's Trip"

This article was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It is reprinted here in a slightly extended edition.

It’s a special ‘Sister’s Are Doin’ It For Themselves’ double review with two female-driven hits.

Have you caught Girls Trip yet? I was one week late to the party after its hit opening weekend. When we looked around the theater this weekend my best friend was all “it’s 80% women of color and 20% gay men!” Truth! And perfect as target audiences go for an urban female comedy called Girls Trip. The crowd was boisterous, laughing their asses off throughout but also visibly feeling the '90s hiphop soundtrack and audibly praising the “message” moments in the movie.

The night before I saw Atomic Blonde and though I didn’t see anyone dancing in their seats, I was dancing on the inside with its killer 1980s new wave soundtrack...

Click to read more ...

Let the new "Girls Trip" teaser be a salve for your weary spirit

Robert here! Boy, these are some trying times to be alive and conscious in the world. Luckily no matter what shenanigans are going on in Washington, Hollywood continues to churn out entertainment to allow us a few hours of blissful ignorance to the outside world. In the spirit of that I present to you the first teaser trailer for Girls Trip, in theathers July 21st. The film is a raunchy R-rated comedy starring Queen Latifah and front woman of the nu metal band Wicked Wisdom, Jada Pinkett Smith, along with criminally underused comedians Regina Hall and Tiffany Haddish. Check out the trailer and more details about the film after the jump...  

Click to read more ...

HBO’s LGBT History: Bessie (2015)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

 Last week we looked at the grim, if necessary, doc Hunted: The War Against Gays In Russia which dove right into the ugly homophobic “hunting gays for sport” pastime which has been legitimized by a Russian government that, ahead of the Sochi Olympics, passed propaganda legislation that made it all but illegal to openly support and advocate for gay rights. This week, we’re turning our eyes to Dee Rees’s Bessie.

It’s a film that’s already been discussed quite a bit around these quarters. Angelica Jade Bastién wrote an in-depth review upon the film's release which, as she reminds us, “wonderfully explores the way black people relate to each other.” Anne Marie looked at it as part of her Women’s Pictures series, singling out the way queerness and blackness dominate the proceedings. I won’t rehearse their arguments because, frankly, I don’t think I could improve on their canny assessments of this ambitious film. Instead, I figure we could use the film to talk about the oppressively whitewashed LGBT representation that even a forward-thinking network like HBO cannot help but replicate.

Just as I was sitting down to write this piece, thinking that perhaps I was setting myself up for the usual cries of “ugh, another diversity article? Why must the PC police continue thumping that tired ass drum?” a mini-tweetstorm kerfuffle was taking place.

Click to read more ...

Women's Pictures - Dee Rees's Bessie

Considering how often Pariah is called "a critical darling," it's disappointingly shocking that it took another 4 years for Dee Rees's next movie. Bessie is an HBO biopic of singer Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, who rose to prominence in the 1920s and died in a car accident in the mid-1930s. When the movie premiered earlier this year, Angelica Jade Bastién wrote a fabulous personal review of it which I highly suggest you read. As Angelica points out, Rees's sophomore effort is a well-directed film that gets a lot right, even though it falls into a lot of the typical biopic pitfalls.

While the plotline of Bessie's meteoric rise, humbling fall, and return to semi-greatness followed a predictable biopic path, what really struck me about this collaboration between Dee Rees and Queen Latifah was how unapologetically individual it was. Unfortunately, fact-based films about black characters, if they are expected to attract a wider (whiter) audience, incorporate white characters to a large degree. Selma and 12 Years A Slave both have white antagonists who gain a lot of screentime - in the case of 12 Years A Slave, it was enough screentime to net Michael Fassbender an Academy Award Nominations.

In Bessie, blackness and queerness dominate...

Click to read more ...

THE WIZ LIVE! Live Blog with Anne Marie and Margaret

MARGARET: Good evening, Kansans and citizens of Oz! Margaret here with Anne Marie, ready and excited to ease on into NBC's The Wiz Live! 

ANNE MARIE: Last year Margaret and I re-capped that musical where Christopher Walken kinda sang a little bit, to the joy of few and the dismay of many. HOWEVER, this year The Wiz Live! looks like everything we ever wanted and more! The live-blog begins after the jump!

Click to read more ...