In which a film designed to provoke discussion about gender causes me to go on a long, personal detour about my relationship with my gender identity and my name.
A bold and thought provoking short about the gender clinic and the way trans people have to shave off nuances of their gender expression in order to get what they want. It's a film about medical assumptions but also about our limited ways of understanding transition and gender diversity. Cleverly, it…
Long rant about this which includes discussions of homophobia and bad queer cinema with lots of swearing.
I do not like to be mean about Australian films, especially queer ones. But I truly hated Sunflower, a film I found so deeply upsetting I had a panic attack and a mild mental breakdown in the cinema. Okay, yes, this was the fourth film of my six film day in the middle weekend of MIFF, my exhaustion was probably a factor in…
Complete banger, a perfect blend of horror and comedy that manages to do both. Ridiculous and terrifying all at the same time, a cinematic zombie party with an incredibly likable cast of weirdos (Trash has my heart) and brutal gore. A punk aesthetic and a punk sensibility, a fuck you to cold authority with a gleefully nihlistic ending.
But it's the pain I'm drawn to. Frank and Freddy are two morgue clerks, funny and human and really dumb. And they…
The story is pretty derivative, not really feeling like it does anything new or interesting (doesn't help that Nimona had a similar climax). But I loved the dialogue in this. All the Turtles talk like real teenagers, a constant stream of weird, specific pop culture references and slang. Adam complained about the references, but I felt they really suited the characters and told us a lot about their lives, it's how they view the world and why they want to…
Not me crying over some hats... Really incredible motion animation here and there's a gorgeous final image that is so perfect.
Cannot be objective about Please Baby Please, a film so firmly and wonderfully my shit. Colourful, arch, intensely homoerotic study of masculinity and gender in conversation with decades of queer art (Brando, porno theaters, Physique magazines, Kenneth Anger, drag and so many others).
Andrea Riseborough is a force, commanding every delirious moment. Every choice she makes is insane, playing to the hilt, chewing scenery at every opportunity, making a meal out of camp dialogue but also staggeringly vulnerable when she…
