by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
Ghostlight | 2024
In theatre, the term "ghostlight" refers to a light left on in an empty theatre to provide illumination when the building isn't occupied. That ghostlight was, in essence, a safety mechanism meant to prevent people from walking off the edge of the stage and into the orchestra pit below. In Ghostlight, we are introduced to an emotionally distant construction worker named Dan (Keith Kupferer), a man of few words but big feelings - feelings that he usually keeps bottled up inside only to burst forth as explosive anger when pushed to the limit.
I Saw the TV Glow | 2024
Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow is ostensibly a film about the bonds created by the communal act of watching favorite TV shows. These are the kinds of deeply personal cult hits that feel as though they're made just for you; like a secret shared amongst friends that not only defines you but gives you an identity as a member of an exclusive club in which minutiae and trivia become a kind of language only the initiated can understand.
Challengers | 2024
One need not be particularly interested in sports to find Luca Guadagnino's new tennis drama, Challengers, compelling. Guadagnino frames his tennis matches as either gladiatorial blood sports or sex, and sometimes both at the same time. Tennis is a relationship, Zendaya's Tashi Donaldson explains; and indeed, the tennis matches here are often thinly veiled stand-ins for dialogue the characters are either unwilling or unable to have.
Love Lies Bleeding | 2024
Love Lies Bleeding is perhaps the horniest, most aesthetically electrifying film I've seen in a multiplex in very long time. It's a sweaty, sweltering, heady mix of queer eroticism, crime thriller, magical realism, and dark comedy that feels genuinely rebellious in a way films rarely do anymore.
Nearly 25 years after the release of the original Bridget Jones’s Diary the venerable romantic comedy franchise has yielded an impressive three sequels. Bridget has had her ups and downs over the years, having had Colin Firth and Hugh Grant fight over her (twice!), and been the center of a paternity mystery between Firth and Patrick Dempsey. Yet none of her indignities have been quite so egregious as seeing the latest entry in her franchise skip theaters to get unceremoniously dumped on the Peacock app for its American debut over Valentine's Day weekend.