Balls in the air: ‘Challengers’

American sports films act as unwitting excuses for the male horndogs in them to hide the strong feelings that develop during moments of crisis on the field or on the court. Women watch from the literal sidelines. By placing at its center the woman responsible for the sexual tension as catalyst and amused observer, Challengers

Ranking Pet Shop Boys albums: 1986-2024

Insisting on irony as an essential prism, these gay heroes understand how, rather than mitigating or cheapening the lusts of their male characters, it intensifies experiences as casual as a glance exchanged or a drink bought. Here’s the story of the Pet Shop Boys. Please rules not because it’s their best: it’s because their strengths

I’m the luckiest guy: ’69 Love Songs’ 25 years later

A songwriter who could have written musical theater but preferred the backwaters of DIY culture, Stephin Merritt uses dolefulness as an affect. He’s an Eeyore whose songs have the emotional range of Tigger. Remembering the context in which Merritt dropped 69 Love Songs in fall 1999 takes some doing. I remember a SPIN review. A

‘Merchant Ivory’ offers a view into filmmaking trio’s many rooms

At the apogee of their cultural influence the films of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, and screenwriter-novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala were standing jokes because they were popular and critically acclaimed. To be a moviegoer between 1986 and 1993 was to titter at the bluehairs buying matinee tickets for A Room With a View (1986),

Miami Film Festival 2024: ‘Fallen Fruit’ and ‘Salt Water’

With temperatures dipping into the low sixties Miami Film Festival 2024 has reasons to crow about delaying its usual launch. The event, in its 41st year, runs from April 5 to April 14 and will feature more than 180 films from over 30 countries. In addition to films by Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl) and Chloé

On Marlon Brando

Rod Stewart. Salvador Dalí. To come of age when Marlon Brando made movies was to wonder whether his loudest boosters were as full of shit as Brando himself, for the distracted mumbler of Superman and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery was in the Body Wishes and The Swallow’s Tail phase of a once redoubtable career. Indeed,

On ‘Improper Conduct’ and the hazards of Cuban liberalism vs Cuban socialism

To see tension within a group of Cuban Democrats who agree on Joe Biden’s presidency and who align on access to abortion, offering full Fourteenth Amendment protections to LGBTQ citizens, and so on, ask us about socialism. Between 2017 and 2020 the GOP, we know, never left Florida, a state won by Barack Obama in

Breaking a sweat: ‘Love Lies Bleeding’

To watch Kristen Stewart act is to wonder to what lengths a talent can tug at the limits of sullenness. The Twilight series, Adventureland, her wondrous pair of Olivier Assayas films Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper — Stewart demonstrates how reticence doesn’t function as defiance so much as skepticism. Those half-smiles and sudden

Please Say Gay

Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill suffered a blow this week when activists and Florida (the state with the prettiest name!) education administrators reached a settlement. School libraries can stock books with LGBTQ+ characters so long as teachers don’t use them for classroom instruction. Stickers are okay. So are anti-bullying programs. Students and teachers can freely

Lesbian road comedy ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ is a bawdy trip

Few people have watched the 1979 adaptation of The Europeans, and no wonder, there was not a dildo in sight. Merchant Ivory specialized in breathless period-drag sex but were less punctilious about the toys. No one will accuse Drive-Away Dolls of eschewing yummy details, but it does not lack for subtlety, nor does it treat

Queer intentions: ‘Saltburn’

An hour into Saltburn Oliver Swift (Barry Keoghan) watches as his beloved Felix (Jacob Elordi) masturbates into his bathwater, then, after Felix has gone to bed, scurries towards the tub and, shot in extreme close-up, laps up the cum-drunk water like a calf at a trough. I wish Saltburn had included more scenes this obscene.

The church of man love: Bowie and queerness

Eight years ago for SPIN I wrote, “If I’m gay thanks to Lou Reed, I’m cavalier about it thanks to David Bowie.”