Snapshots (2018 feature)

Snapshots, dir. Melanie Mayron, 2018 USA, 94 minutes 👏
Wednesday, June 20, 9:30 p.m. Elmwood (Berkeley)
Thursday, June 21, 6:30 p.m. Victoria

Snapshots:
Emily Goss (L) and
Emily Baldoni (R)

Three generations of women (grandmother Rose [Piper Laurie; Shannon Collis in the flashback scenes], mother Patty [Brooke Adams], and daughter Allison [Emily Baldoni]) gather at the Rose’s lakeside cot­tage for a weekend. Patty’s husband has recently died, and she is turning to the bottle for solace. Allison is newly married and facing some difficult issues in that relationship. Allison found Rose’s old camera with a roll of exposed film in it, so she had the film developed; the prints take Rose back to her twenties (late 1950s and early 60s) when she and her hus­band bought the cabin and met bold and brazen redhead Louise [Emily Goss] and her husband.

Various family secrets and old but never settled arguments come to the surface, inter­spersed with flashbacks to Rose’s younger days. It’s the stuff of good, heartfelt drama, with some humor mixed in to keep it from getting too heavy. Patty’s anger at her dead husband (who she found out two months before his sudden death was cheating on her) and deep defensiveness with both Rose and Allison were rather annoying to watch at times, but the ending is ample payoff for putting up with one annoying character through the middle of the story, so I’ll give it a rating of highly recommended.

Although it is fiction, Snapshots is based on a true story.

• IMDb • official website • Twitter: @SnapshotsMovie • coming August 14, 2018 •

Of Love & Law (愛と法)

Of Love & Law (愛と法), dir. Hikaru Toda (戸田ひかる), 2017 Japan/UK/France, 94 min., in Japanese with English subtitles 💖

Saturday, June 23, 2018 • WEST COAST PREMIERE

Of Love & Law (愛と法)

Fumi [んと吉田昌史（フミ）] and Kazu [る南 和行（カズ）] (pictured) are an openly gay couple of lawyers in Osaka, Japan. Their Namori Law Firm (なんもり法律事務所) takes not only LGBTQ cases, but also the cases of other mar­gin­al­ized people. In Japan, 98.5% of the population is ethnically Japanese, leaving little room for anyone outside the main­stream. Fumi and Kazu have among their clients a woman who officially does not exist, simply be­cause her father and mother were not married to each other when she was born. (An estimated 10,000 people are in similar circumstances, unable to get a birth certificate, a passport, or even a drivers license, and thus blocked from many government services and educational opportunities.) Another client is a feminist artist charged with obscenity for her artworks depicting vaginas in a playful way. Yet another is a teacher who was fired for refusing to stand during the Japanese national anthem. They also fight for marriage equality and the right of a gay couple to be adoptive or foster parents. By chance, Fumi is named as the legal guardian to his orphaned client Kazuma, reinforcing the couple’s determination to bring children into their (still legally unrecognized) family.

The documentary is powerful from beginning to end, leavened with humor even amidst legal setbacks. Fumi and Kazu, through a combination of perseverance, charisma, and thorough knowledge of the law, press their cases, seeking to bring Japan into line with its constitution, which provides every individual the right to the pursuit of happiness. (Side note: in the United States, that phrase appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it has no legal force, because it appears in neither the Constitution nor in federal law.) In that respect, Japan is ahead of the United States, but in many, many ways it falls short of that ideal, and in recent years it has been moving in the wrong direction. The world — and, incidentally, the United States of Trump — desperately need more lawyers like these two, fighting for basic human rights. Their story gives me hope in a world under siege by conformist autocrats. With­out a doubt, a MUST SEE.

• IMDb • official website (Hakawati) • Facebook: @OfLoveAndLaw •

Dark Twisted Fantasies (2018 shorts program)

“Dark Twisted Fantasies” (shorts program)

Saturday, June 23, 9:00 p.m. Roxie 👎🏼

1. David, dir. James Sweeney, 2018 Germany/USA, 8 minutes 😑 WORLD PREMIERE
2. Lagi senang jaga sekandang lembu (It’s Easier to Raise Cattle), dir. Amanda Nell Eu, 2017 Malaysia, 17 minutes, in Malaysian with English subtitles 🙄👎 BAY AREA PREMIERE
3. Smågodis, katter och lite våld (Swedish Candy, Some Violence and a Bit of Cat), dir. Ester Martin Bergsmark, 2018 Sweden, 45 minutes, in Swedish with English subtitles 💩🤮 NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
4. Les Îles (Islands), dir. Yann Gonzalez, 2017 France, 24 minutes, in French with English subtitles 😑💤 BAY AREA PREMIERE

Four short films, the best of which I give a “meh.”

Studio 54 (2018)

Studio 54, dir. Matt Tyrnauer, 2018 USA, 98 minutes 👏
Sunday, June 24, 7:00 p.m. Castro • CLOSING NIGHT FILM
BAY AREA PREMIERE

Studio 54

By the time I went to Studio 54 in 1981, its heyday was clear­ly over — rather than carefully screening for only the most glam­orous guests, they were having college nights, even let­ting in unglamorous freshmen like me. All the same, I can honestly say that I personally witnessed people snort­ing cocaine in the balcony of Studio 54. I was dimly aware that Studio 54 had been a much bigger deal only a few years prior, but knew next to nothing of the details.

Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary covers a subject that has been written and filmed about quite extensively, but, even if you’ve seen multiple documentaries and/or feature films about Studio 54, you haven’t seen this doc. Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager speaks publicly about it for the first time in decades, giving the inside story in a way other films couldn’t, and Tyrnauer also found many never-before-seen still photos and 16mm films from the club’s heyday. It’s well worth seeing if you experienced the pinnacle of disco culture, or if, like me, you missed it by a few years. Highly recommended.

• IMDb • official website • trailer (YouTube) •

Kill the Monsters

Kill the Monsters, dir. Ryan Lonergan, 2018 USA, 80 minutes 💩🤮😒🙄
Saturday, June 23, 9:15 p.m. Castro • WORLD PREMIERE

Kill the Monsters

Frameline describes Ryan Lonergan’s Kill the Monsters as “a comedic Ameri­can allegory that will appeal to U.S. history buffs and to fans of hunky guys in three-way relationships.” Well, yes, it’s Ameri­can; I’ll grant you that. However, simply slapping “1776” and “1803” on the first couple of scenes is far from enough to establish any sort of allegory, and the inces­sant bickering over the most petty of bullshit was more than enough to kill any comedic potential.

I walked out after ~15 minutes. It was THAT bad. Emphatically NOT RECOMMENDED.

• IMDb •

Ideal Home

Ideal Home, dir. Andrew Fleming, 2017 USA, 91 minutes 👏🤣
Saturday, June 23, 6:30 p.m. • BAY AREA PREMIERE

Ideal Home

Erasmus (Steve Coogan, right) hosts a “lifestyle” TV show for foodies, assisted by his partner Paul (Paul Rudd, left). Everything is going swimmingly for the show, although there is also plenty of alcohol-enhanced bickering when the cam­eras aren’t rolling. Cue Bill, the grandson Erasmus didn’t even know he had — Erasmus had only recently gotten around to telling Paul he has a son — who shows up on their doorstep during a party one night, demanding a place to sleep and something to eat — none of that fancy-schmancy stuff, some real food: Taco Bell. Erasmus and Paul struggle with how to incorporate Bill into their lives, only to then face Bill’s father wanting the boy back now that he’s out of jail.

There is quite a bit of bickering between the main characters, effectively establishing them as self-centered to the point of egomania, but the bickering is in the service of comedy, as the sharp dialogue adds to the farcical events unfolding as the superficially confident men flounder in their newfound roles as foster parents. There were more than enough laugh-out-loud moments to smooth over the annoying bits of petty squabbling. Not quite a must-see, but definitely highly recommended.

• IMDb • trailer (YouTube) • Twitter / Facebook / Instagram: @IdealHomeMovie •  limited U.S. theatrical engagement beginning June 29 • opens in UK July 6 •

Leitis in Waiting

Leitis in Waiting, dir. Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson & Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, 2018 USA/Tonga, 72 minutes, in English and in Tongan with English subtitles 💖
Saturday, June 23, 4:15 p.m. Castro • BAY AREA PREMIERE

Leitis in Waiting

First, a quick sidebar: most English speakers pronounce Tonga as “tong-guh,” but if you listen carefully in this film, you will note that the correct pronunciation is closer to “tong-uh.” Tonga is a small island kingdom in the South Pacific, near Fiji and Samoa. It is the only Pacific island that was never politi­cal­ly colonized by Europeans, Americans, or other outsiders, but it was colonized in a much more insidious fashion by the Christian missionaries who viewed many aspects of traditional Tongan culture, including the respected role of the leitis (in Western terms, transwomen) in society (up to and including functions of the royal family), as unbiblical and disreputable.

Leitis in Waiting is a documentary about the leitis, particularly Joey Joeleen Mataele, their lives, and their struggle against the efforts of U.S.-financed fundamentalist preachers advo­cat­ing for stricter enforcement of the sodomy laws still on the books in Tonga (and in several other Pacific Island nations). The leitis, their royal patron, and their families and friends, are all engaging, speaking candidly about their childhoods and present-day lives. It’s a striking look at a vibrant culture at odds with the global push of fundamentalist homophobia and transphobia. Definitely a MUST SEE.

I’ve been fascinated by Pacific Islander cultures ever since my father gave me his copy of Pukui & Elbert’s Hawaiian dictionary, but all the more so as I have learned about the complex role of gender in traditional Pacific Islander cultures. I urge you, in addition to seeing this film, to sgin the petition to decriminalize LGBTQ Pacific Islanders in the 7 Pacific Islands Forum member nations that still have colonial-era anti-gay laws on the books, and to promote the respect and general welfare of sexual minorities in general.

• IMDb • trailer (YouTube) • official website • Facebook: @TongaLeitisInWaiting •

Marvin ou la belle éducation (Reinventing Marvin)

Marvin ou la belle éducation (Reinventing Marvin), dir. Anne Fontaine, 2017 France, 115 minutes, in French with English subtitles 💖
Friday, June 22, 9:00 p.m. Castro • U.S. PREMIERE

Marvin ou la belle éducation
(Reinventing Marvin):
Isabelle Huppert
and Finnegan Oldfield

Marvin Bijoux, whose last name literally means Jewels,  is grow­ing up in a small town in northeastern France, bullied by class­mates, bullied by his older half-brother, bullied by his father. One day he, perhaps not accidentally, misses swim lessons at school, so the principal drops him into an improv acting class, where he discovers his calling. He gets into drama school and moves to Paris, where he creates a new chosen family, including Isabelle Huppert (playing herself). Marvin looks back only to draw inspiration for a theatre piece about his childhood, garnering rave reviews but also causing a stir in his home town.

The story weaves back and forth from present-day to Marvin’s adolescence. Although Finnegan Oldfield (pictured) does a great job as present-day Marvin, I would be remiss not to highlight Jules Porier, who plays the younger Marvin; with roughly the same amount of screen time, he more than holds his own in establishing the story, playing a difficult role, in­clud­ing endur­ing quite a bit of on-screen bullying, with nuance and grace. Without giving too much away, the present-day story line does much to redeem the bleak suffering of the ado­les­cent Marvin. Although the bullying, both physical and psychological, is difficult to watch in places, it is entirely integral to the plot. Definitely a MUST SEE.

• IMDb • trailer (English) (français) (YouTube) •

Night Comes On

Night Comes On, dir. Jordana Spiro, 2018 USA, 86 minutes
Friday, June 22, 6:30 p.m. Castro

Night Comes On:
Tatum Marilyn Hall (left)
& Dominique Fishback (right)

Angel (Dominique Fishback, pictured right) has just turned 18 and thus aged out of juvenile detention for illegal pos­ses­sion of a handgun. She is released with a few dollars, a bus pass, and a phone but no way to charge it. Angel’s mother is dead, and her father killed her. Her girlfriend is not prepared to pick up as if nothing happened, she has no place to stay, and her job prospects are dismal at best. Angel goes to visit her little sister Abby (Tatum Marilyn Hall, left), planning to find their father and kill him, hoping that will offer her and Abby a fresh start in life.

Night Comes On is very well done, with superb performances by the two leads. It explores the gritty reality of life on the edge of the prison industrial complex, foster care, juvenile de­ten­tion, probation, and life on the streets. However, two things stood in the way of my enjoy­ment. First, the main characters are hardened by circumstances and experience, letting no one in — not even each other, nor the audience. Second, the story is an unrelenting downer, with hardly so much as a reflection of a glimmer of hope. Recommended, but don’t think you’re in for a “feel-good” movie outing.

• IMDb • trailer (YouTube) •

Gewoon Vrienden (Just Friends)

Gewoon Vrienden (Just Friends), dir. Ellen Smit, 2018 Netherlands, 80 minutes, in Dutch with English subtitles
Wednesday, June 20, 9:15 p.m. Castro • INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
Sunday, June 24, 4:00 p.m. Castro

Gewoon Vrienden (Just Friends)
Joris (left) and Yad (right)

Joris (Josha Stradowski, left) and Yad (Majd Mardo, right) are from very different backgrounds, but their paths cross when Yad goes to work cleaning for Joris’s grandmother. Grandma plays matchmaker, and things start off swimming­ly, but both Joris’s and Yad’s mothers tend to have strong opinions about the guys their sons are dating. The issue is never “Eek! My son is gay!!” but simply “Is this guy good enough for my son?” Issues of each young man’s career path and other parental drama come into play, but both families accept their sons’ sexu­ality as a given.

Stradowski and Mardo are both easy on the eyes, and there are some steamy scenes between them (though nothing beyond a soft R), but there is more here than just eye candy. Joris and Yad are both feeling their way through defining themselves and the paths they want to follow in life, and the journey keeps the audience engaged. Definitely a MUST SEE.

A couple of footnotes for American audiences: the title in Dutch is pronounced something like khǝ-vōn frēndǝ, and the town is Almere, located just across the IJmeer from Amsterdam and yet a very different place.

• IMDb • official website (in Dutch and English) • trailer (in Dutch without subtitles) •

Retablo

Retablo, dir. Álvaro Delgado Aparicio L., 2017 Peru/Germany/Norway, 95 minutes, in Quechua and Spanish with English subtitles 👏
Friday, June 15, 7:00 p.m. Victoria • BAY AREA PREMIERE
Wednesday, June 20, 1:15 p.m. Castro

Retablo

Director Álvaro Delgado Aparicio L. had a short film, El acompañante (The Companion) in Frameline 37* (2013); I was decidedly unimpressed, finding it a pointless exercise in characters I didn’t care about and into whom I gained no in­sight. Aparicio is back this year with his debut feature, re­turn­ing to the Quechua culture and the retablo art form, small figurines arranged in a diorama as an altarpiece, but with much more interesting characters and some actual plot and dialogue. Noé (Amiel Cayo, pictured left) is teaching his son Segundo (Junior Béjar Roca, pictured right) the craft. Unfortunately, Segundo discovers that Noé is also fooling around with some of the men in their village, something unacceptable in the brutish macho culture around them. Segundo struggles to reconcile his love for his father with the shame, os­tracism and violence Noé has brought upon the family.

Quechua is the third most widely spoken first language in South America, behind only Portu­guese and Spanish, but estadounidense audiences know little or nothing about the people or their culture. For that reason, I bumped this film up to highly recommended, despite its shortcomings, particularly the fact that Noé’s inner life is left unexamined, but it is Segundo’s coming of age at the focus of the film.

• IMDb • trailer with English subtitles (YouTube) (Vimeo) •

Note: this film contains scenes of homophobic violence, more graphic in sound than in images.

*Technical Note: the Frameline web archive has a configuration error. Although the website is not secure (i.e., it should use http, not https), it automatically redirects to the secure URL, which fails due to an invalid security certificate. You must set a security exception in your browser to view the site. Alternately, you can view the Frameline 37 Festival Guide here.

Mapplethorpe

Mapplethorpe, dir. Ondi Timoner, 2018 USA, 94 minutes
Thursday, June 21, 6:30 p.m.
BAY AREA PREMIERE

Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe (played here by Matt Smith) was a man of many contradictions. He was a fascinating man whom I’m honestly glad I never met. He’s a brilliant artist many of whose most celebrated works I don’t care for, but I appreciate him for opening the door to a much wider range of artistic expression. He celebrated the beauty of the human form but also fetishized black men and intentionally spread the HIV virus long after he knew he was infected.

Ondi Timoner’s biopic gives a well-rounded picture of a complicated man, showing his genius but also his numerous human failings. A few scenes lingered a bit long, leaving me looking at my watch, but on the whole it’s a compelling portrait, made with love but also an unflinching eye, of an influential figure in the history of photography as an art form. Highly recommended for all adult audiences, definitely a MUST SEE for any fan of Mapplethorpe’s work or of cutting-edge photography more broadly.

• IMDb •

Conversations with Gay Elders: Kerby Lauderdale

Conversations with Gay Elders: Kerby Lauderdale, dir. David Weissman, 2017 USA, 69 minutes
Thursday, June 21, 4:00 p.m. Castro
BAY AREA PREMIERE

Conversations with Gay Elders:
filmmaker David Weissman (L)
and Kerby Lauderdale (R)

It is rare for a documentary to hold my unflagging attention all the way through, but this conversation is engaging from start to finish. Kerby Lauderdale has a fascinating life, from child­hood sexual awakening to furtive cruising to marriage and children to living proudly as an out gay man. Of course, that’s partly down to a good editor selecting the best third of the raw footage, but Weissman has a knack for turning what could be an impersonal interview into an intimate conversa­tion. I did think at times about memories from comparable times in my own life, but not so much as to take me out of Kerby’s story. 

The series of which this is one installment is an indispensable record of what life was like for gay men who came of age before Stonewall, and it is definitely a MUST SEE.

(disclaimer: filmmaker David Weissman is an acquaintance of several years)

• IMDb (director David Weissman) • official website • Facebook: @GayElders •

Moroni for President

Moroni for President, dir. Saila Huusko & Jasper Rischen, 2017 USA, 76 minutes, in English and Diné (Navajo) with subtitles 👏
Wednesday, June 20, 9:15 p.m. Roxie

Moroni for President

The first time in my adult life that I passed through the Navajo Nation, I was surprised to see all along the roadside signs proudly proclaiming “BEGAY for President!” The Diné were in election season, and it turns out that Begay(e) is a quite common Navajo surname. So I shouldn’t be surprised to see someone named for a figure from the Book of Mormon (the religious text, not the Broadway play) running for the same office.

Moroni Benally (rhymes with Denali) was one of 17 candidates for President of the Navajo Nation in 2014. Although it was not a secret that Moroni is gay, the focus of his campaign was sovereignty: although the Navajo Nation is legally semi-autonomous, the US govern­ment owns the land and provides most of the money. The unemployment rate is over 50% and ⅔ of the people are below the poverty line. Moroni felt that the old guard, particularly incumbent Ben Shelly and his predecessor Joe Shirley, have failed to confront the bread-and-butter issues of everyday life on the rez. From his university background, he started out with abstract academic terms like decolonization, but found that people responded more to vague platitudes like “deciding our own future.”

We follow Moroni and some of the other candidates, as well as openly gay campaign workers for the two “establishment” candidates (Shelly and Shirley), through the campaign for the primary, with a brief epilogue about the results of the general election and what Moroni and others have been up to since. Although as of 2018 the Navajo Nation still does not recog­nize same-sex unions due to a 2005 “one man, one woman” law, LGBTQ rights were not a prominent issue in the campaign.

The Navajo Nation is the largest tribal jurisdiction in the United States, but most Americans outside the Four Corners area know little or nothing about it, and most LGBTQ Americans know even less about our Native American comrades. This documentary goes a long way to rec­tifying that, with an emphasis on allowing the Native Americans to speak for themselves with­out a white male interpreter. Highly recommended.

• IMDb • official site • official site 2 •

Wild Nights with Emily

Wild Nights with Emily, dir. Madeleine Olnek, 2018 USA, 84 minutes 👍
Wednesday, June 20, 6:30 p.m. Castro
BAY AREA PREMIERE

Wild Nights with Emily

Lots of funny lines that had a good part of the audience literally laughing out loud, mixed with the drama of exposing the myth of Emily Dickinson as a reclusive spinster and the origins of that myth. However, layered over all of it was a tone of absurdity that I felt detracted from both the comedy and the drama. Highly recommended for Emily Dickinson fans, but just Recommended for general audiences.

• IMDb • official site • Facebook: @WildNightsWithEmily •

Tinta bruta (Hard Paint)

Tinta bruta (Hard Paint), dir. Filipe Matzembacher & Marcio Reolon, 2018 Brazil, 118 minutes, in Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles 😴💩🤮🤬😖
Tuesday, June 19, 9:15 p.m. Castro
BAY AREA PREMIERE

Tinta bruta (Hard Paint)

Boring people doing boring things while bored, punctuated with sex scenes (only a couple of which were even marginally interesting) and scenes of homophobic violence. This film some­how managed to win the Teddy at the Berlin Interna­tional Film Festival and raves from the Frameline folks, but I went back to the festival program afterwards to see what on earth they could’ve possibly seen in this fiasco. The Frameline blurb says, “Actor Shico Menegat’s nuanced performance makes [main character] Pedro instantly relatable.” I couldn’t disagree more. I found Pedro utterly unrelatable, uninteresting, and unsympathetic. The blurb goes on to say, “[D]irectors Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon have crafted a love letter to community.” Well, it certainly looked like a giant FUCK YOU to their home town of Porto Alegre, Brazil, and any­thing but a love letter to anyone or anything.

I sat through almost the entire two hours because it seemed like there HAD to be some redeeming value to garner such accolades, but I really wish I had followed my gut instinct and walked out at least an hour and a half earlier. Sure, I would’ve missed the few bits that were actually sexy, but I wouldn’t have wasted two hours of my life that I could’ve spent cataloging specimens of navel lint. Emphatically NOT RECOMMENDED.

• IMDb •

Andið eðlilega (And Breathe Normally)

Andið eðlilega (And Breathe Normally), dir. Ísold Uggadóttir, 2018 Iceland/Sweden/Belgium, 95 minutes, in Icelandic and Crioulu (Guinea-Bissau creole) with English subtitles and in English without subtitles 💖
Tuesday, June 19, 6:30 p.m. Castro
BAY AREA PREMIERE

Andið eðlilega (And Breathe Normally)

Lára (Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir) is a single mother, strug­gling to raise her son Eldar, fighting a losing battle just to keep a roof over their heads. She gets a job as a trainee bor­der guard at Reykjavik Airport, where she crosses paths with Adja (Babetida Sadjo, pictured left), a refugee from Guinea-Bissau hoping to seek asylum in Canada. Lára, on her first day on the job, notices that Adja’s passport prompts a warning from the computer. Adja then spends weeks in bureaucratic limbo, applying for asylum in Iceland even though her family made it onwards to Toronto. Meanwhile, Lára and Eldar have been evicted, leaving them to live out of her small car. Lára and Adja’s paths cross again and again, leading them warily into friendship.

The main characters give superb performances in this understated story with minimal super­fluous dialogue. Ísold deftly captures the dilemma of a single mother living on the frayed edge and a refugee from Guinea-Bissau, one of the most impoverished countries in the world. The stark landscape of Iceland in September (yes, it’s not even close to winter yet) forms a bleak but beautiful backdrop to a story teetering on the edge between hope and despair. Definitely a MUST SEE.

Note to hearing-impaired audiences: although most of the dialogue is in Icelandic and Crioulu with English subtitles, significant parts of the dialogue, in particular almost all of the dialogue with Adja, are in English without subtitles.

• IMDb • trailer (with Icelandic subtitles) • a short clip (with English subtitles) •

Mi mejor amigo (My Best Friend)

Mi mejor amigo (My Best Friend), dir. Martin Deus, 2018 Argentina, 90 min., in Argentinian Spanish with English subtitles 👏
Tuesday, June 19, 1:30 p.m. Castro
BAY AREA PREMIERE

Mi mejor amigo (My Best Friend)

Lorenzo (Angelo Mutti Spinetta, pictured right) is a quiet teenager, living in Los Antiguos, a small town in southern Argentina, with his parents and his younger brother (played by his real-life brother). Then a friend of his father’s sends his son Caíto (Lautaro Rodríguez, pictured left) to stay with them indefinitely. Lorenzo and Caíto become friends, and Lorenzo develops feelings for Caíto.

It is certainly a beautiful film, but I found the character of Caíto difficult to relate to. He spends so much of the movie just being an obnoxious jerk, mostly at Lorenzo’s expense, that it’s hard to see what Lorenzo sees in him, beyond the eternal allure of “the bad boy.” Still, Spinetta’s performance redeems the film somewhat, enough that I give it a Highly recommended.

• IMDb • Facebook: @MiMejorAmigoFilm • trailer (YouTube) •

Riot

Riot, dir. Jeffrey Walker, 2018 Australia, 105 minutes 👍
Monday, June 18, 9:15 p.m. Castro
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE

Riot

In 1978, nine years after the Stonewall riots in New York City, gay life in Sydney, Australia, was still under the thumb — and too often under the boot heel — of the corrupt and benighted New South Wales Police. Then a group of activists decided, in stead of a conventional protest march, they would hold a gay mardi gras. Today the event is a cornerstone of Sydney’s tourist industry as well as one of the largest LGBTQ events in the world.

Riot is a docudrama, recreating the events leading up to the 1978 mardi gras, beginning in 1972. We follow the lives of several of the activists, principally Lance Gowland and Marg McMann, as they talk communist theory and protest marches and meeting with the premier. Unfortunately, at 105 minutes it’s a lumbering crawl through an overly detailed prologue, taking well over an hour to finally arrive at 1978. I think it could be a much more engaging film with a bit of editing, losing maybe about half an hour of the early stuff. However, because of the enormous historical significance of these events that have been largely forgotten over the intervening four decades, I will give it a Recommended.

This film includes graphic depictions of homophobic police violence.

* IMDb • official press release •

When the Beat Drops

When the Beat Drops, dir. Jamal Sims, 2018 USA, 86 minutes 💖
Monday, June 18, 6:30 p.m. Castro • WEST COAST PREMIERE
Thursday, June 21, 9:00 p.m. Piedmont Theatre (Oakland)

When the Beat Drops:
welcome to the world of bucking

Like far too many people, I had never heard of the dance style called “bucking” or “J-Setting.” It originated in the African American gay community in the Deep South, an homage in part to the style of the cheerleading squads at his­torically black colleges and universities, especially Jackson State (whence the term “J-Setting”), but it is begin­ning to emerge from the underground scene into the recognition it richly deserves.

When the Beat Drops follows several teams of dancers, from the venerable Phi Phi squad, led by Anthony “Big Tony” Davis, to the new troupe down from Detroit, Sundari. We get a good grounding in the history of bucking, but we also get to know the dancers, many of whom have professional day jobs — in sharp contrast to the street kids we met in Paris is Burning, a film with obvious parallels in introducing an underground phenomenon to a broader audience. Of course, the interplay of issues of race and sexual orientation is part of the story, but so is Faith.

The subjects of this documentary are worth getting to know, even apart from their connec­tion to bucking, but the skill, musicality and theatricality of their art is awe-inspiring. I greatly hope this film finds a wide audience and a prominent place in the history of our time. Definitely a MUST SEE.

Coming next month to Outfest in Los Angeles, with a live performance of bucking July 19 at the Ford Theatre.

• IMDb • trailer • WOW Report (World of Wonder) • Twitter: @Jamizzi (Jamal Sims) •