Madonna wrote and produced a documentary about orphans in Malawi, entitled I Am Because We Are which is one of the favorites at Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary highlighting the plight of Malawi's estimated one million Aids orphans. "We are responsible for each other and that if we can help in any way, shape or form, we should," The documentary includes some excruciating scenes showing the agonising grief of a mother who has just lost her child to Aids.
"The idea was not just to shock audiences. In the beginning I wasn't in the movie at all, but then I realised because I was narrating that it was important that I let people know that it was my personal journey and my experience." source
Somewhat fatigued with low-budget gay independent films that mostly rely on supernaturally perfect male bodies to lure us in, I threw in my FAT GIRLS screener expecting to fall asleep or fast forward from gratuitous nudity scene to gratuitous nudity scene. I was mightily disappointed and absolutely engaged. This is a gritty, unforgiving look at authentically damaged and far from perfect real queers struggling through adolescence in some godforsaken corner of Evangelical Land. The film, which opens in New York on November 2 at the Quad Cinema and rolls out nationally through November, is billed a comedy--but it's the kind of comedy that relies on the mess that is our lives. If you can't laugh at yourself, you might have trouble laughing at this movie. Obeying the spoiler rule, I will say that the movie is full of surprising and very funny and often time disturbing plot twists--again, pretty much like real life. And the ending will not surprise you. It will surprise you. It may offend you. It may please you--depending on your hold on reality as opposed to having a firm belief in traditional and absurd Hollywood endings.
But like much of this flic, the ending will stay with you for days as you ponder it's political correctness vs the way things really and oftentimes work in this imperfect place we call our lives.
What I loved about this film is the lack of romantic rubbish and the veneer of glamor. Adolescence is hard and it is exponentially harder for fat girls and chubby gay boys. Finally we have a movie where the gay boys aren't' pretty and the struggle is real. Go and see this movie. It's refreshing and exciting to see a queer movie that doesn't rely on prostitution, tragedy or abs to draw you in. And no happy endings, just the next step in figuring out the plan--whatever it is.
One warning, the movie's R rating is misleading. I can't quite figure out the reason for the R rating other than to conclude that just showing gay reality is enough to offend the homophobic jerks who rate movies. If Fat Girls had been an entirely straight take on the adolescent struggle it likely would have earned a PG-13. So don't go assuming that an R rating means full frontal or even the occasional moon. There is some discussion of penis but no one is kind enough to show any.
Here's some recent pics of Alan Ritchson, a sexy Aquaman from Smallville. If you have seen 'Beowulf', you may recognise Alan's hot buff body as he was animated as the lead character -Beowulf. Movie trailer:
One more Golden Lion for Ang Leeposted on Sunday, September 9th, 2007 Taiwanese director Ang Lee picked up his second Golden Lion for best film at the Venice film festival on Saturday for his erotic spy thriller Se, Jie (Lust, Caution). Victorious two years ago with Brokeback Mountain, which also won him an Oscar, this time Lee served up a tense drama set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in the 1940s. Veteran US director Brian De Palma won the Silver Lion for his hard-hitting Iraq war film Redacted. The jury also bestowed a special 75th anniversary Golden Lion on legendary Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci. The Volpi Cups for Best actors went to Brad Pitt for The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford by Andrew Dominik and to Australian actress Cate Blanchett for I’m Not There by Todd Haynes. This year, the Queer Lion, a new prize for the best film that accurately portrays gay themes or characters went to Ed Radtke's coming of age film The Speed of Life and Kenneth Branagh's remake of Sleuth won a special mention. Watch Lust, Caution trailer (first video) and Jesse James trailer (second video)...Source AFP
A swirling, impresionistic portrait of an artist who regretted nothing; writer/director Olivier Dahan´s La vie en rose stars 2005 Cesar award winner Marion Cotillard ( A very long engagement, A good year) in a blazing performance as the legendary French icon Edith Piaf. From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf's life was a battle to sing and survive, live and love. Raised in poverty, Edith's magical voice and her passionate romances and friendships with the greatest names of the period - Yves Montand, Jean Cocteau, Charles Aznavour, Marlene Dietrich, Marcel Cerdan and others - made her a star all around the world. But in her audacious attempt to tame her tragic destiny, the Little Sparrow - her nickname - flew so high she could not fail to burn her wings.
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