Wendy & Lisa Come Out

No surprise — but I’m as pleased as punch that they’ve gone on the record. Love these girls.

See the article in OUT. Interesting stuff: http://www.out.com/detail.asp?id=25083 .

They discuss how the pansexual, black/white/straight/gay imagery of the early Prince records were specifically constructed by him (he would apparently even position Wendy & Lisa’s arms around each other during a photoshoot to be more provocative/suggestive of the concept.) It’s a surprising amount of insight as they finally break their silence.

I’m a little devastated to hear that the INCREDIBLE producer Trevor Horn (Seal, Grace Jones, Frankie Goes to Hollywood) is a loutish homophobe.

Fascinating to hear them talk about their relationship, how the record companies could only see them as the next Mary Jane Girls, and how they’ve pushed to assert their own identities. (They used to be a couple. But apparently aren’t anymore).

Here’s a link to their still transfixing first single, “Waterfall”

April 28, 2009

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Outrage

I ADORE my Variety and I came across a review of Kirby Dick’s new documentary in the magazine today (reviewed at the currently in-progress, Tribeca Film Festival).

At my sole sojourn to Sundance a few years ago (skiing, movies, parties!) I saw Twist of Faith, the director’s totally devastating doc about a man coming to terms with his molestation by a priest Rough, rip-yer-heart out stuff, especially with the subject there on the audience doing the Q&A talk-back, holding hands with his wife and fighting back tears.

His follow-up,This Film Is Not Yet Rated (about the MPAA’s wacky rating system) was a mild letdown. But Variety seems smitten with his new flick which looks to address the hypocrisy of closeted politicians (and ‘the closet’ in general).

It opens in limited release next week. See the Variety review below:

Outrage

(Documentary) A Magnolia Pictures release of a Chain

By JOHN ANDERSON

An exploding bathroom stall of a movie, “Outrage” makes an excellent ipso facto case for itself: If closeted gay politicians vote against equal rights for gays to protect their own secrets, outing them is for the common good. The targets won’t agree, but auds, regardless of their politics, will find Kirby Dick’s filmentertaining, brisk, visually interesting and perhaps even thrilling: Who will be the next hypocritical homosexual to taste the wrath of Michael Rogers, gay blogger-outer extraordinaire? Whether Magnolia Pictures can spin all this closet-spelunking into something noble rather than seamy will determine whether “Outrage” is one of the more successful docs of the year.

Whom does Dick debunk? Larry Craig, of course, the embarrassingly unctuous Idaho senator whose flirtations in an airport restroom got him arrested (the police tape of Craig protesting his innocence plays over the opening credits). Far more controversial will be “Outrage’s” dogged pursuit of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, whose sexuality has long been the subject of speculation, but whose alleged homosexuality is far more circumstantial than Craig’s (in the case of the latter, Dick has assembled several formerly intimate acquaintances, whose testimonies ring of long-buried truth).

With an aptly modulated score by Peter Golub and the engaging graphics of Bil White, “Outrage” levels withering assaults at the likes of former New York Mayor Ed Koch, whose record on AIDS and gay rights was virtually nonexistent, despite a well-established affair with a man he subsequently ran out of town (at least according to David Rothenberg, a Koch confidant and the first openly gay candidate for New York’s City Council). David Dreier, the California congressman and archconservative, and his ideological brethren, such as Louisiana’s Jim McCrery and GOP operative Ken Mehlman, all take their lumps. The fact that Mehlman helped orchestrate the GOP’s 2004 virulent anti-gay strategy is the kind of connection in which “Outrage” specializes.

Pic attempts to establish an ongoing media conspiracy to help keep these men closeted, and it doesn’t quite pull it off. Dick seems to think the mainstream media can speculate about a politician’sclandestine sex life while reporting how said politician voted on a gay adoption bill or AIDS funding measure, but this exhibits an obliviousness about libel laws, much less journalistic ethics. A sequence in which two CNN broadcasts are shown side by side — one in which comedian Bill Maher outs Mehlman, and another in which the outing was subsequently deleted — only shows the perils of live broadcast, and the prudence of CNN’s editors. Or its lawyers.

The docu also commits various sins of editorial juxtaposition: From a scene in which Crist insists on his straightness, it cuts to former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned in the wake of a gay sex scandal, talking about how important it is to be true to oneself. What can the viewer be meant to conclude but that Crist is being dishonest? From all the assembled evidence, he is, but manipulation is still manipulation.

At the same time, “Outrage” (which, one hopes, has its own legal team in place) is operating from a position of righteous indignation, and that indignation is infectious. In a near-poetic gesture, Dick brings in “Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner and Ray Cohn’s denials of his homosexuality, even while he was dying of AIDS co. Where Dick’s film goes very right is in attacking self-denial, the essential vice practiced by those who’ve built careers on denying others their rights.

Production values are tops.

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/story.asp?l=story&r=VE1117940124&c=31

April 28, 2009

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Little Boots

Pretty fantastic [Little Boots – “New In Town”] http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=8432760291

April 27, 2009

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R.I.P. BEA

from MAUDE:

April 27, 2009

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Cronenberg Re-do

So there are a few Cronenberg remakes in the pipeline. A risky proposition if you ask me. Especially if the main man isn’t involved. But if ever there was a Cronenberg flick that asked for a revisit — it’s this one. No telling how it could be updated for our over-mediated, reality TV-fueled times. There was some televised torture thrown in for good measure in the original if I remember correctly. So obviously there’s opportunity for a social commentary bonanza.

Bring on that classic Cronenberg body horror!

Universal to remake ‘Videodrome’

David Cronenberg-directed thriller gets redo

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Universal Pictures will remake the 1983 David Cronenberg-directed thriller “Videodrome,” with Ehren Kruger set to write the script and produce with partner Daniel Bobker.
The producers tracked down the rights to Canadian distribution vet Rene Malo, who will be exec producer. Universal distributed the original and had first refusal on a remake, and the studio snapped up the opportunity.

The original “Videodrome” starred James Woods as the head of Civic TV Channel 83, who makes his station relevant by programming “Videodrome,” a series that depicts torture and murder that transfixes viewers.

The new picture will modernize the concept, infuse it with the possibilities of nano-technology and blow it up into a large-scale sci-fi action thriller.

Cronenberg has no role in the film as yet. He is prepping for MGM “The Matarese Circle” as a starring vehicle for Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington. Since Cruise appears likely to next star in the DreamWorks drama “Motorcade” and Washington has committed to the Fox drama “Unstoppable,” “Circle” doesn’t appear likely to get under way until later this year or 2010.

Bobker/Kruger Films recently set the thriller “Dream House” at Morgan Creek and is producing, with Matthew Stillman, “The Keep” for Rogue. Kruger co-wrote the June 24 Paramount/DreamWorks release “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118002863.html

April 27, 2009