Category: Articles
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I gave up drinking and felt like I lost my queerness – ‘Metro UK’
‘After a friend’s birthday in March 2018, we arrived home at 5:30am and he threw up in the driveway. Shots and strong doubles had consumed us with no concern for our overdrawn bank accounts. We’d danced, laughed, danced some more, and had semi-philosophical-sometimes-existential-but-mostly-nonsensical-conversations while we smoked on the roof terrace.’ You can read the full…
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Everything My Straight Friends Told Me About Sex Was Wrong – ‘Huffington Post UK’
‘My first time hadn’t gone as I’d anticipated. A stocky man with hair on his chest scrolled through his emails on the bed and made no attempt to cover his nakedness. He occasionally glanced at me as I pulled on my jeans and shirt. The hotel room felt like an Edward Hopper painting, lit by…
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And Then We Danced, Robyn, and Music in Queer Cinema – ‘Big Picture Film Club’
‘No, you’re not going to get what you need. Baby, I have what you want. Merab stands, cigarette in hand, topless, a crucifix on a chain around his neck. Come get your honey. Orange light floods the conservatory. Irakli’s dark eyes watch him as he puts on a white hat, adorned with feathers. I got your honey, baby. Then…
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The Problem with the Role of ‘The Wife’ in Movies like ‘Dark Waters’ – ‘Big Picture Film Club’
‘‘Don’t talk to me like I’m the wife,’ Sarah Billot (Anne Hathaway) says towards the end of Todd Hayne’s latest film Dark Waters. Until now, she’s had a few scenes complaining that her husband, Rob (Mark Ruffalo), hasn’t picked up granite samples on his way home from work, telling Rob’s boss that she used to…
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Birds of Prey & the Curse of Being Casually Queer – ‘Big Picture Film Club’
I’ve been burned before. The promise of queer representation dangled, cruelly, in front of me before it’s swiftly pulled away and edited out for China. Routinely, we’ve seen big studios get a lot of press by announcing the first ‘gay character’ in their particular franchise. It happened with Star Trek Beyond, Independence Day: Resurgence, Beauty and The Beast, Alien:…
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It’s Time to Talk About Marielle Heller – ‘Big Picture Film Club’
‘On the 13th January, Issa Rae, the creator and star of HBO’s Insecure, announced the directing nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards. ‘Congratulations to those men,’ Rae jibed as the names of the depressing all-male line-up loitered on the screen. Moments like this have appeared more frequently over the past few years. At the Oscars…
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Dear Straight Actors Who Want To ‘Play Gay’: Don’t. – ‘Big Picture Film Club’
‘There is a utopia on the horizon, distant and hazy like tarmac in the heat. It’s one where people sit around in dark rooms watching films and say, without any level of irony or ignorance, that ‘acting is acting’. Where LGBTQ+ actors are playing straight and the straights are playing gay, trans folk are playing…
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Sorry We Missed You: Film and The North – ‘Big Picture Film Club’
‘The North of England is largely misunderstood by those that don’t live here. The thrill of hearing a Northern accent on a night out, the obsession with gravy, and the ‘correct’ word for your evening meal are all points of fascination and humour to those who didn’t grow up above Birmingham. Over in Hollywood, that…
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Too Awkward For Love: Understanding The British Romantic Comedy – ‘Big Picture Film Club’
‘[R]om coms will never die THEY WILL JUST EVOLVE INTO NEW FORMS,’ one Twitter user wrote in response to series of Tik Tok videos playing out a queer romantic fantasy. It’s true, no other genre has endured the declaration it’s dead and born again as many times at the romantic comedy. It’s withered on the vine and flourished, it’s…
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Is Queer Autobiographical Cinema Subtly Political? – ‘Big Picture Film Club’
‘‘It’s about my inability to love… but I’m fine now,’ says Benjamin, the titular filmmaker at the heart of queer comedian Simon Amstell’s latest film. It’s a film about intimacy and it’s challenges, about pressure and it’s ramifications, and it finds itself in an interesting position. It’s at the intersection between two genres; autobiographical cinema…
Jon Paul Roberts 