According to writer/director Ira Sachs, “Peter Hujar’s Day” is “a film about what it is to be an artist among artists in a city where no one was making any money.” At least, that’s what Sachs – an Indie filmmaker who has been exploring his identities as both a gay and Jewish man onscreen since his 1997 debut effort, “The Delta” – told IndieWire, with tongue no doubt firmly planted in cheek, in an interview last year.

Certainly, money is a concern in his latest effort – which re-enacts a 1974 interview between photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) and writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall), as part of an intended book documenting artists over a single 24-hour period in their lives – and is much on the mind of its titular character as he dutifully (and with meticulous detail) recounts the events of his previous day during the course of the movie. To say it is the whole point, though, is clearly an overstatement. Indeed, hearing discussions today of prices from 1974 – when the notion of paying more than $7 for Chinese takeout in New York City seemed outrageous – might almost be described as little more than comic relief.

Adapted from a real-life interview with Hujar, which Rosenkrantz published as a stand-alone piece in 2021 (her intended book had been abandoned) after a transcript was discovered in the late photographer’s archives, “Peter Hujar’s Day” inevitably delivers insights on its subject – a deeply influential figure in New York culture of the seventies and eighties, who would go on to document the scourge of AIDS until he died from it himself, in 1987. There’s no plot, really, except for the recalled narrative itself, which involves an early meeting with a French journalist who is picking up Hujar’s images of model Lauren Hutton, an afternoon photo shoot with iconic queer “Beat Generation” poet/activist Allen Ginsburg, and an evening of mundane social interaction over the aforementioned Chinese food. Yet it’s through this formalized structure – the agreed-upon relation of a sequence of events, with the thoughts, observations, and reflections that come with them – that the true substance shines through.

In relaying his narrative, Hujar exhibits the kind of uncompromising – and slavishly precise – devotion to detail that also informed his work as a photographer; a mundane chronology of events reveals a universe of thought, perception, and philosophy of which most of us might be unaware while they were happening. Yet he and Rosenkrantz (at least in Sachs’ reconstruction of their conversation) are both artists who are keenly aware of such things; after all, it’s this glimpse of an “inner life” of which we are rarely cognizant in the moment that was/is their stock-in-trade. It’s the stuff we don’t think of while we’re living our lives – the associations, the judgments, the selective importance with which we assign each aspect of our experiences –  that later becomes a window into our souls, if we take the opportunity to look through it. And while the revelations that come may occasionally paint them in a less-than-idealized light (especially Hujar, whose preoccupations with status, reputation, appearances, and yes, money, often emerge as he discusses the encounter with Ginsberg and his other interactions), they never feel like definitive interpretations of character; rather, they’re just fleeting moments among all the others, temporary reflections in the ever-ongoing evolution of a lifetime.

Needless to say, perhaps, “Peter Hujar’s Day” is not the kind of movie that will be a crowd-pleaser for everyone. Like Louis Malle’s equally acclaimed-and-notorious “My Dinner With Andre” from 1981, it’s essentially an action-free narrative comprised entirely of a conversation between two people; nothing really happens, per se, except for what we hear described in Hujar’s description of his day, and even that is more or less devoid of any real dramatic weight. But for those with the taste for such an intellectual exercise, it’s a rich and complex cinematic tapestry that rewards our patience with a trove of deep observations about art, life, and friendship – indeed, while its focus is ostensibly on Hujar’s “day,” the deep and intimate love between he and Rosenkrantz underscores everything that we see, arguably landing with a much deeper resonance than anything that is ever spoken out loud during the course of the film – and never permits our attention to flag for even a moment.

Shooting his movie in a deliberately self-referential style, Sachs weaves the cinematic process of recreating the interview into the recreation itself, bridging mediums and blurring lines of reality to create a filmed meditation that mirrors the inherent artifice of Rosenkrantz’s original concept, yet honors the material’s nearly slavish devotion to the mundane minutiae that makes up daily life, even for artists. This is especially true for both Hujar and Rosenkrantz, whose work hinges so directly to the experience of the moment – in photography, the entire end product is tied to the immediacy of a single, captured fragment of existence, and it is no less so for a writer attempting to create a portrait (of sorts) composed entirely of fleeting words and memories. Such intangibles can often feel remote or even superficial without further reflection, and the fact that Sachs is able to reveal a deeper world beyond that surface speaks volumes to his own abilities as an artist, which he deploys with a sure hand to turn a potentially stagnant 75 minutes of film into something hypnotic.

Of course, he could not accomplish that feat without his actors. Whishaw, who has proven his gifts and versatility in an array of film work including not only “art films” like this one but roles from the voice of Paddington Bear to “Q” in the Daniel Craig-led “James Bond” films, delivers a stunning performance, carrying at least 75% of the film’s dialogue with the same kind of casual, in-the-moment authenticity as one might expect at a dinner party with friends; and though Hall has less speaking to do, she makes up for it in sheer presence, lending a palpable sense of respect, love, and adoration to Rosenkrantz’s relationship with Hujar.

In fact, by the time the final credits role, it’s that relationship that arguably leaves the deepest impression on us; though these two people converse about the “hoi polloi” of New York, dropping legendary names and reminding us with every word of their importance in the interwoven cultural landscape of their era, it’s the tangible, intimate friendship they share that sticks with us, and ultimately feels more important than any of the rest of it. For all its trappings of artistic style, form, and retrospective cultural commentary, it’s this simple, deeply human element that seems to matter the most – and that’s why it all works, in the end. None of its insights or observations would land without that simple-but-crucial link to humanity.

Fortunately, its director and stars understand this perfectly, and that’s why “Peter Hujar’s Day” has an appeal that transcends its rarified portrait of time, place, and personality. It recognizes that it’s what can be read between the lines of our lives that matters, and that’s an insight that’s often lost in the whirlwind of our quotidian existence.

Boxing movies have often been used as vehicles for actors to show what they’ve really got with a transformative, meaty performance. Like music biopics, they can often be constrained by a strict adherence to formula, but in honoring the real-life boxer Christy Hall’s personal story of resilience and survival, director David Michôd (The King) gives Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney the gift of a role in Christy.

The film, the first U.S. release by distribution label Black Bear Pictures, starts off by not shying away from Christy’s queerness, as her quiet, conservative family — mainly her mother played by a never-more-evil Merritt Wever in a bad wig (Marriage Story) — gives her the option of either getting help and stop seeing girls or not receiving any more rent money. Yearning for independence, Christy falls into boxing almost by accident after a break-up, and after quickly falling in love with its raw physicality, finds herself on the forefront of women’s boxing as a sport in the ‘90s. But in marrying her trainer James (Ben Foster), she quickly sublimates her true identity into a hard-as-rock persona. When asked questions by the press about increasing women’s pay and advocating for her fellow boxers, Christy makes it known that she’s not a feminist by nature, throwing out gay slurs just to make the point extra clear.

In the background, away from prying cameras, Christy’s relationship with James grows increasingly volatile. The violence is initially shown offscreen, leaving Christy’s screaming cries for help echoing through her empty home. But eventually, Christy — and the audience — is forced to confront the darkness that lies in plain sight. Michôd and Mirrah Foulkes’ screenplay can’t quite convince us why a man like James has such strong connections to the boxing world, including promoter Don King (Chad L. Coleman). However, it does a good enough job at setting up why Christy sadly finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship.

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Ultimately, Christy is a decent boxing movie elevated by a much stronger directed second half where violence unexpectedly takes center stage. This is also where Sweeney’s performance kicks into another gear — watching the life drain from her eyes as she contemplates leaving James, struggling to find her own identity, and realizing that she can’t even turn to her own family. It’s full of complexity that the actor has rarely been able to display with previous roles. The physicality of watching Sweeney in the ring is certainly impressive, too, but it’s also what viewers have come to expect in this specific sub-genre of sports movies. Alongside Sweeney, Foster is an unsettling force of nature here and gives another impressively evil performance.

While the boxing scenes are mostly standard practice, Michôd directs a few key moments and montages with invigorating energy, painting a visceral picture of what Christy’s boxing represented for her as she grows distant from her family and friends. So when a different kind of violence takes center stage, Michôd is able to pull back and let nearly entirely silent scenes play out with terrifying realism. Less is more.

The second half of Christy is also made more interesting by the collision of Christy’s queerness and her coming to terms with not seeing love for women as adversarial to her work in the ring. There’s a tender relationship that blossoms with Lisa Holewyne (Katy O’Brian) and Rosie (Jess Gabor), who Christy confides in as a safety net when she hides away in a hotel room, although these characters feel slightly underdeveloped. The film could’ve benefitted from showing more juxtaposition between the persona that Christy develops and her own self during private moments, and the initial storyline teasing Christy versus her female opponents can feel repetitive.

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Beyond some of the awards buzz that Sydney has garnered for her performance, however, Christy should be remembered for what it spotlights about domestic abuse and violence through Christy Hall’s unbelievable story. So for viewers interested in checking it out, it definitely deserves a content warning, and even if it doesn’t fully escape the trappings of boxing biopics, it’s got more up its sleeve than most.

Even if you’ve never heard the name Lorenz Hart, chances are high you’ve heard some of his songs.

A giant of early 20th century Broadway songwriting, he was a lyricist whose complex blend of wit and wistful romanticism – mostly set to music by longtime composing partner Richard Rodgers – became a significant part of the “Great American Songbook,” performed and recorded by countless musical artists in the decades since. Yet despite his success, happiness eluded him; depression and alcoholism eventually hobbled his career, and he died in 1943 – aged only 47 – from a case of pneumonia he caught after passing out in the rain in front of his favorite bar.

His tragic story might seem an odd fit for a screen treatment from maverick director Richard Linklater, but his latest film – “Blue Moon” in theaters as of Oct. 24 – delivers exactly that. Crafting a mostly speculative and highly stylized portrait of Hart (portrayed in a tour-de-force by longtime Linklater muse Ethan Hawke) on a night that was arguably the lowest point in his professional career: the opening night of “Oklahoma!” – the soon-to-be smash hit composed by Rodgers (Andrew Scott) with new partner Oscar Hammerstein III (Simon Delaney) after their two-decade partnership had been tanked by his personal struggles.

In Robert Kaplow’s theatrically crafted screenplay, Hart shows up early for the post-opening celebration – held, of course, at Broadway’s legendary meeting place, Sardi’s – to hold court with the bartender (Bobby Cannavale) and a young hired piano player (Jonah Lees) while steeling his nerves with a few shots of the whiskey he has sworn to avoid. He’s not there to support his old colleague, however; there’s too much resentment swirling inside him for that. Rather, he’s there to connect with 20-year-old college student Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), whom he has taken on as a protege – and with whom he has convinced himself he is in love, despite the homosexual inclinations that are mostly an “open secret” within his circle of Broadway insiders.

Constructed as a real-time narrative that follows Hart over the course of the evening, Kaplow’s script could almost be described as a monologue – with interruptions, of course – by the songsmith himself; aided by Hawke’s fearlessly unsentimental performance, the film’s presentation of Hart – a queer man grappling with his own self-loathing in a deeply homophobic era – is almost brutal in its exploration of his emotional and psychological landscape. He has walked a thin line for most of his life, alternately hiding and flaunting his inner truth to navigate his world for decades; and the strain has taken its toll – once heralded as one of Broadway’s brightest talents, his reputation has been ravaged by rumor and he occupies his time by escaping his loneliness through self-denial and liquor. He’s become that guy at the bar who regales you with larger-than-life stories while peppering them with barely concealed bitterness and regret; you can’t help but feel empathy for him, but you’d love to politely extract yourself from the situation at the first opportunity.

There’s something relatable about that situation – from both perspectives – and that’s what keeps “Blue Moon” from becoming insufferable. It’s the kind of movie that makes us cringe, not over the pathetic behavior of its leading character but in anticipation of the next uncomfortable development that’s sure to come as a consequence. He’s a seasoned raconteur, with a polished wit and a prodigious skill with language, and we find ourselves pulling for him both in spite and because of the sense of manic desperation we can feel behind his words.

It’s that almost-grudging empathy we feel for him that gives “Blue Moon” a sense of humanity in the face of what might otherwise seem a relentlessly bleak character study, and keeps us from judging Hart’s impulses toward self-delusion and self-destruction too harshly; and in the end, Linklater’s biopic leaves us with a perspective on his life that emphasizes the legacy he left behind – the poignant lyrics that bespoke an unfulfillable longing for love and connection – and the lasting influence he cast over the generations that succeeded him.

To underscore the latter, the movie imagines a few fortuitous encounters during the festivities at Sardi’s, in which Hart unknowingly drops nuggets of inspiration for such future icons as author E.B. White and a very young Stephen Sondheim. The meetings may or may not not be flights of fancy, but they convey the lasting impact of Hart’s creative contributions in a way that not only feels truthful but provides some amusing moments for buffs of Golden Age Broadway-and-Hollywood lore.

In fact, it should be said that “Blue Moon,” despite the underlying melancholy and the squirm-in-your-seat discomfort that hovers around its edges, is a thoroughly entertaining film; constructed like a play, shot in a style that evokes the cinema of the era (with ongoing references to “Casablanca” to underscore the connection), and wrapped in the nostalgic glow of old Manhattan in its elegant heyday, it bubbles with the kind of wryly sophisticated humor that marked so much of Hart’s own work and thrills us with the feelings it sparks within us. 

For that, we must again point to Hawke’s award-worthy performance as the core element; though he accomplishes a physical transformation into the short, balding Hart and masterfully captures his flamboyant personality, it’s the actor’s understanding of the songwriter’s inner landscape that gives the movie its heart, soul, and painfully human perspective.

Even so, it’s a movie with an entire cast’s worth of superb performances. There’s Scott’s carefully measured Rodgers, balancing genuine friendship with the frustrated impatience of navigating a strained relationship in public. Qualley walks a similar tightrope as the object of Hart’s misguided affections, charming us with authentic fondness and diplomatic compassion, and Cannavale provides a solid ground of streetwise wisdom as the bartender who might be his best friend. Patrick Kennedy’s E.B. White, bringing a welcome note of respect and insight, is also a standout.

Yet while the acting in “Blue Moon” may be excellent across the board, it’s Linklater’s direction that drives his cast’s work and ties it all together; a proven chameleon behind the camera, he embraces the theatrical structure of the screenplay with a perfectionist’s aesthetic, and indulges his fascination with time by encapsulating the portrait of a man’s entire life into the observations that can be gleaned from a single night. More importantly, perhaps, he honors his subject by refusing to define Hart’s sexuality to fit modern sensibilities. We can draw whatever conclusions we want, but in the end we have no reason to reject the songwriter’s description of himself as “ambi-sexual” – even though, with its undercurrent of jealousy between two ex-partners, it’s hard not to take note of some very gay implied subtext.

In the end, Hart’s sexual “label” is irrelevant; his loneliness is what matters, the longing to love – and to be loved – which we all share, regardless of our sexual makeup. 

It’s the tragic beauty of that universal pang that comes through in all of the timeless lyrics that Lorenz Hart wrote, and it comes through in Linklater’s excellent movie, too.

It took eight years for Kristen Stewart to get her ambitious directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, independently made and financed, and she’s been open about how “impossible” the entire process was following its buzzy Cannes premiere. But for the award-winning actor and writer, the prospect of making something “boring” was more terrifying.

“Being an actor has absolutely fucking nothing to do with the reason that we got this thing made because nobody could have,” Stewart said at a post-screening AFI Fest conversation on Oct. 26, moderated by IndieWire’s Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson. “Logistically, the only reason I was really able to do it is because I had met some people who were at some point sick of hearing me complain about it and just went like, ‘Okay. I’ll try and connect you with the people that can actually realize this.’”

Now with a U.S. distributor in The Forge backing the project, Stewart’s adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir of the same name will have an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run. The Chronology of Water recounts the author’s personal experiences (played on-screen by a fearless Imogen Poots) through violent family abuse, trauma, and her own relationship with the female body over multiple decades. “I’ve loved a lot of books in my life, but this felt like it should be a movie because it could really have its own body and have its own memory and life,” Stewart said. “[It’s] a movie that is super faithful to the book, not because it’s obsessed with the details, but because it’s obsessed with the form and how it breaks and then reforms itself.”

Thora Birch, who plays Lidia’s sister in the film, admits that she was initially “confused” about how to approach the character. “But then once I realized that I’m just existing in the form of someone’s memories, it was a little bit more freeing,” Birch said. And she explains that as somebody who started acting as a child in films like Hocus Pocus and American Beauty, she had a shorthand and shared understanding on-set with Stewart, a former child actor herself. 

While Poots wasn’t present at the screening, Birch spoke highly of her co-star: “She carries the film, basically in a close-up, and that’s incredibly difficult to do. And so my experience working with her was [wanting] to be there and present for her, but also [giving] her a little space … One day, there [were] some eye drops that gave her a really bad reaction, she couldn’t work for like an hour. Normally, you would see a visible reaction from any actor or actress, but she was like, ‘Everything’s fine.’”

Stewart explained why Poots was the right choice to portray Lidia: “Some of my favorite movies ever are when you just cannot get with the decisions that, you know, the woman makes. It’s just [Imogen’s] fucking face! And it’s like how present in this moment she was … There was a mutual rupture that was ready to go, and she’s been working for a long time.”

For the visual look of the film, Stewart shot on 16mm and wanted it to “feel out of time,” like something the audience found hidden away in an attic. The story becomes forceful and visceral through editor Olivia Neergaard-Holm’s (The Apprentice) abrupt style, often cutting conversations and scenes short as Lidia is reliving her uncomfortable memories: “The film encouraged us to cut when we wouldn’t have thought to cut because sometimes that’s, like, what happens when your neurons don’t fucking fire,” Stewart said. “That’s often what it feels like to try and grab at the drags of memory.”

Blood is a key motif, starting from the opening scene. That symbolism, and depicting the female body, was important for Stewart. “It’s not always your choice, but it is something that you have to hold in your fucking hands. And the viscosity of that speaks so much to where it comes from, what it means in given moments,” she said. “[The book] wasn’t just about the things that happened to this person — it’s about the things that come out of us. All of us.”

And when asked by Thompson if the offers have started pouring in for her second feature, Stewart remained as honest as ever: “No! We have to do it again ourselves with our bare fucking hands.”

The Chronology of Water played at AFI Fest, which runs Oct. 22-26 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. The film will have a U.S. theatrical release in December.

For first-time director Diego Céspedes, making The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo — a film that emotionally oscillates between violent outbursts and empathetic hugs — was all about honoring and celebrating chosen family.

“It’s not just about queer people or AIDS, it’s about the chosen families looking for tenderness. It’s a thing that we all universally look for, a way of resistance,” Céspedes tells The Blade during AFI Fest in Los Angeles. “The most important thing about this film is how these people create family. And how do different people create a family?”

Set in an ‘80s western mining town, the film follows a community of transgender women and genderqueer people who have taken in 11-year-old Lidia (Tamara Cortés) and go to hell and back to protect her. While AIDS is never mentioned by name in the film, Céspedes’ script imagines the epidemic as a plague that spreads to men simply through eye contact. After an unexpected act of violence leaves Lidia shaken, she sets out on a journey of vengeance, and along the way discovers the truth behind the mysterious plague.

Since taking home the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section back in May, the film’s worldwide visibility has only continued to grow. Most recently, the project was chosen to represent Chile for this year’s Best International Feature race at the Oscars. The last Chilean film to win this category was 2017’s A Fantastic Woman, Sebastián Lelio’s terrific drama about a grieving trans woman.

“At first, I was kind of scared to have this campaign position in the times that we’re living [in] here. But at the same time, I think the Oscars mean a huge platform — a huge platform for art and politics,” Céspedes says. “To have the possibility to use that, even if we don’t make it to the end, for me that’s OK because this means there are different people [making] films. There’s still a lot of hope and resistance in the world.”

Céspedes wrote the first treatment of the script back in 2019, and after applying to different funds and working to secure a budget through private investors and companies, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo wound up being a co-production between Chile, France, Belgium, Spain, and Germany. “That [was] what took the most time,” he says.

Throughout the year-long casting process, Céspedes and his team went for a mix of working and non-professional actors, with the goal of pushing new faces forward, including Matías Catalán (Bitter Gold), who plays Flamingo, Lidia’s mom. “I think we cast the entire queer community in Santiago to look for the characters, because this canteen is not just about transgender women. It has a lot of people on the spectrum of the community,” he says.

The most important character to get right was Lidia, who wound up being played by newcomer Cortés. Crucially, Lidia not only acts as a core member of the chosen family, but gets many solo scenes as the story progresses: “Tamara’s very talented and funny, and the most important thing is that she didn’t have any prejudices about the community. When she was meeting the girls, she didn’t have any questions that [could] be uncomfortable — she just felt natural in that world.”

Despite the ‘80s period setting, Céspedes and his costume and production designers never wanted to try and directly replicate any looks. And that was especially important when designing the vibrant, colorful outfits that Lidia’s family wears during drag performances: “It was more about creating our own rules or creating a world that can have this contrast between this harsh, aggressive desert and this beautiful family, to give the feeling that they were flowers in the desert.”

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo played at AFI Fest, which runs Oct. 22-26 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. The film will have a U.S. theatrical release this Fall.

When queer Argentine author and activist Manuel Puig published his novel “El beso de la mujer araña” in 1976, it’s doubtful he could have dreamed it would one day be turned into a musical. With most of the action taking place between two characters in a cramped prison cell, and a bleak political context casting dark shadows across even its brightest moments, it didn’t exactly seem a good fit for that kind of treatment. And besides, thanks to its open depiction of queer sexuality and the overtly revolutionary tone of its political messaging, he could barely even get it published.

A decade later, it had become a major Hollywood movie, winning an Academy Award for William Hurt; it had also caught the attention of John Kander and Fred Ebb, the composing team responsible for (among other hit musicals) “Cabaret” and “Chicago,” who joined with playwright Terrence McNally to craft an adaptation for the Broadway stage. The resulting show would debut there in 1993, winning seven Tonys and a host of other awards; Puig, sadly, did not live to see it, dying in 1990 of complications from surgery after a life lived mostly in exile over his queer activism and outspoken political beliefs.

Now, the musical incarnation of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” has finally made its way to the screen, courtesy of veteran filmmaker Bill Condon – who, besides his screen adaptations of “Dreamgirls” and “Chicago,” is also responsible for “Gods and Monsters” and the “Twilight” movie franchise – and starring Latina diva Jennifer Lopez in the title role.

For those unfamiliar with the piece, whether in its musical form or any of its earlier iterations, the story centers on the relationship between two cellmates in an Argentine prison – Valentin (Diego Luna), a revolutionary being held as a political prisoner, and Molina (Tonatiuh), a queer window dresser imprisoned for “public indecency” – with very little in common and even less to talk about. Nevertheless, a connection begins to form between them when Molina decides to pass the time between them by narrating the story of his favorite movie – a glossy old Hollywood musical romance starring his most beloved Golden Age star, Ingrid Luna (Lopez) – and Valentin is drawn in despite his disdain for Molina’s trivial interests and seeming lack of political conscience. As the days pass and Molina continues his narrative in installments, their forced cohabitation begins to deepen into an unlikely friendship – and maybe more.

Of course, there are dark secrets in play, too, hidden agendas and undisclosed truths that strain their trust between each other; nevertheless, as they continue to bond, through both the escapist fantasy of Molina’s ongoing cinematic “recap” and the harsh brutalities of their shared reality, they find an intimacy that helps them transcend their perceived differences in a place designed to crush both their humanity and their hope.

In Condon’s adaptation, the stage musical is reworked to bring it closer in tone, perhaps, to Puig’s original novel, emphasizing the contrast between the grim and colorless prison cell with the spectacular glitz and larger-than-life glamor that saturate the imagined world of Molina’s recounted movie – and it’s quite a contrast. In these sequences, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” opens up its claustrophobic setting into an elaborate recreation of glossy Hollywood escapism at its Technicolor peak, full of exquisitely staged scenes of romance, action, and Golden Age MGM-level musical choreography, which also permits the film’s two male stars to spread their creative wings even further, by casting them alongside Lopez as parallel characters in the “metafilm” fantasy where so much of the story’s emotional resonance occurs – and where many of the plot details begin to reflect their “real world” circumstances as it goes along. It’s all carried off with excellence, professionalism, and technical wizardry, and the result could easily be described as cinematic “eye candy” that’s sure to please fans of the musical genre.

Yet there’s something vaguely disappointing in the choice to differentiate the two worlds of “Spider Woman” so distinctly and completely. It creates a sense of watching two separate movies that have been spliced together, one a gritty story of oppression and survival and the other the other a wild and campy exercise in nostalgic Hollywood gloss. It’s an effective enough tactic, but what it misses is the blending that happens between the two worlds in the stage production, where fantasy and reality overlap and intertwine, and we can’t help wishing that Condon had taken a more imaginative approach, one that might have translated that magical theatricality to the screen in a uniquely cinematic way.

Still, the message comes across. The story’s deeper explorations – of facing reality without sentiment or escaping it through fantasy, of bridging differences of attitude and perspective through human connection at its most basic level, and perhaps most crucially, of seeing beyond a limited understanding of sexuality and gender.

For that last point, there is no more direct reason for it than the performance of Tonatiuh. Seeing Molina embodied by a queer actor brings a level of sensitivity and truth to the mix that illuminates every other element around him. It’s a breathtaking leap toward stardom from a previously (mostly) unfamiliar performer, equally adept in the musical sequences as with the strictly dramatic material, and it elevates “Spider Woman” simply by being there.

His co-star is equally superb. Luna brings his own brand of sensitivity – and vulnerability – to Valentin; he’s also up to the demands of the musical scenes, going toe to toe with Lopez and a whole crew of dancers and seeming to enjoy every minute of it. Most important, he strikes a chemistry with Tonatiuh that makes their blossoming tenderness toward each other into the true saving grace in their character’s lives – the real world magic for which movie fantasies are only a metaphor – and lingers fondly in our memory long after the film is done.

As for Lopez, she claims the screen when she’s on it, bringing a commanding presence and a hard-working pro’s intensity to her multiple roles as Molina’s beloved actress, her character, and the sinister alter ego of the title. No, she’s not Chita Rivera (but then, who could ever be?), but she’s more than up to the challenge of bringing her own distinct energy to make the part her own.

We can’t deny that “Spider Woman,” which began its theatrical release on Oct. 10, faces an obstacle as the screen adaptation of a popular piece of musical theater; fans of the original will doubtless have expectations going in, and opinions coming out, and there’s nothing to be done about that. While it might have benefitted from a more out-of-the-box handling of the show’s dual reality, what’s important is the purity and resonance of the queer voice that comes shining through it, not just in Tonatiuh’s soulful performance but in the movie’s essential core, and that’s worth more than enough to counter any nit-picky quibbles about its overall approach.

It may not please everyone, but thanks to its remarkable lead performances and the authenticity that illuminates both its drama and its fantasy, it’s got the kind of soft power that can stay with you forever.

She was an exceptional woman of the early 20th century, an ambitious powerhouse with beauty, intelligence, and a bold creative vision, along with a determination for success that helped her become a pioneering female artist. She rose to prominence as a dancer, actress, photographer, and filmmaker who helped to define the aesthetic of an era, and reached the top of her profession in a male-controlled industry. Her career was relatively short, but her life was long enough to see her movies held up as cinema masterworks, studied by filmmakers and scholars for their blend of technical prowess and poetic vision, before eventually dying at the impressive age of 101 in 2003. 

Yet today, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone eager to celebrate her legacy with anything more than carefully calculated appreciation.

That’s because her name was Leni Riefenstahl, and her filmmaking career ended prematurely not in retirement, nor from illness, nor even because of some scandalous gossip-column tale of adultery or sexual deviance. It ended because she built it in Germany, collaborating with Hitler and hob-nobbing with a who’s-who of infamous Nazis while enthusiastically creating spectacular documentaries that implicitly promoted a romanticized vision of the Third Reich. Her celebrated films were tarnished at the end of the war, their artistic merit eclipsed by the circumstances under which she had made them, and she spent much of the rest of her life as a relative pariah.

Indeed, as the cinema buffs out there probably already know, her name became practically synonymous with the idea of an artist whose work cannot be separated from their “problematic” ethical choices or political views; and while she would resurface when her films found muted-but-sincere appreciation from a new generation of critics, participating in interviews or appearing on the occasional talk show, she would spend the rest of her long life trying desperately to rehabilitate her image and her reputation in the public eye. Yet however often she repeated her claims – that she had never believed in the ideals of the Nazi movement, that she was never aware of the atrocities that took place under Hitler’s reign, that she had always only been motivated by “art” – most of the world seemed to never quite believe them.

Now, with an exceptionally comprehensive documentary from director Andres Veiel, Riefenstahl’s culpability in the Holocaust is up for examination again, and the timing couldn’t be any more perfect.

Granted unlimited access to Riefenstahl’s personal archives by her estate, Veiel draws deeply from the rich collection of imagery, writings, and artifacts contained there to assemble a measured and methodical portrait that is largely drawn from her own words and the pictographic record she chose to keep as part of her official legacy. Tracing her from her upbringing as the child of a stern authoritarian father and a mother who pushed her aggressively to succeed, it follows her rise in the German movie industry, where she gained fame as an actress before making her own first film as a director – “The Blue Light” (1932), a successful debut that caught the attention of Germany’s future führer, eventually leading to her first commission as a filmmaker for the Nazi government.

It goes on to examine the records of her associations with the Nazis during the wartime years, including an implied affair with Joseph Goebbels and an eventual marriage to a leading Wehrmacht officer, as well as a friendship with Nazi architect Albert Speer that would endure beyond his 20-year post-war prison sentence. Even more provocative, it explores her participation in the filming of location scenes for a propaganda film that used child inmates from a nearby concentration camp as extras – something that casts her claimed ignorance of the Nazi agenda in an even less convincing light.

It also utilizes the copious material that documents her lesser-known history after the war, during which she undertook the writing of her memoirs and returned – briefly – to the limelight with an extensive photographic study of the Nuba tribes of Sudan. But it’s her frustrated attempts to escape the stain of her past that provides the recurring theme for this portion of her life, punctuated by footage of her confrontations with interviewers, talk show hosts, and documentarians who asked her the questions she didn’t want to answer. In these moments, we can witness her unfiltered; we take note of her imperious manner and her quick temper, of the vanity which shows through her demands over lighting and makeup, and of the tongue-slips that inadvertently offer a glimpse at something we suspect she’d rather we didn’t see.

Veiel organizes all this information in a sort of kaleidoscopic narrative in which the various periods of his subject’s life bleed across and into each other, forming recognizable patterns which acknowledge and revel in her singular artistic vision, yet come to form an inescapably damning assessment of her long-held denials; though there’s no “smoking gun” that proves her unequivocally to be a liar, there are far too many of those “tongue-slips” to ignore. In the end, it leaves us with the inescapable conclusion that Leni Riefenstahl, whether she believed in the party agenda or not, was willing  – at best – to overlook Hitler’s monstrous crimes against humanity for the sake of her own ambitions; even more, it suggests that the only thing she regretted afterward was the loss of her career and the stigma that was steeped upon her. In the end, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that she, like so many Germans of the Nazi era, wanted to simply pretend they didn’t know what was happening, when they were tacitly condoning it every step of the way.

With its leisurely pace and its brooding, minimalistic score by Freya Arde, “Riefenstahl” weaves a hypnotic effect that makes its two-hour runtime drift by like a dream, but there’s a meticulous logic and a rigorous empiricism to it all – marked by a sparseness of narration from its director, who merely supplies essential context to material he allows to speak for itself – that crystalizes the facts in way that’s entirely rational, and leaves us with an ominous feeling of familiarity with the world in which its controversial subject made her contribution to cinematic history; it’s this which renders Veiel’s documentary with such a profound sense of relevance, an ominous feeling of déjà vu that might be best illuminated through Riefenstahl’s own words from the final recorded conversation included in the film, in which she predicts that it will take “one or two generations” for Germany to reawaken to the “morality, decency, and virtue” to which its people are “predestined.” 

Doing the math, her calculations feel chillingly accurate, though perhaps the spirit that has reawakened has more to do with a particular worldview than a specific national identity.

“Riefenstahl” premiered at the Venice film festival in 2024, with an American debut at Telluride earlier this year. Released in New York and screening at venues across the U.S. and Canada this fall, it’s a movie to watch for. Set your radar accordingly.

Once upon a time, before there were cell phone apps, gay men looking for a quick hook-up had to go out and find it in person.

Obviously, there are many of us still around who remember those days clearly enough (and frequently with a considerable degree of fondness), but generations who came of age after the advent of Grindr may not have a full enough picture of what it was like to understand the thrill of it – or the risk involved if you happened to get caught.

No matter which generational demographic you’re in, if you’re a gay man who has indulged in or even fantasized about “cruising” in a public space you will likely be drawn to “Plainclothes,” a Sundance Award-winning film from first-time director Carmen Emmi that opened in limited cities on Sept. 19 and expands for a wider release this weekend. Set in Syracuse of the mid-1990s, it offers a palpably personal – and uniquely double-sided – glimpse into the culture of anonymous gay sex that existed in that era, as well as the nerve-wracking tightrope of maintaining the semblance of “straightness” for our own safety despite the conflicts it ignites within our very nature.

That dual perspective comes because the film is centered on Lucas (Tom Blyth), a promising young police officer who has been assigned to work undercover in an ongoing “sting” operation targeting gay men at the local mall, using his good looks and “rough trade” charm to lure suspected cruisers into the men’s room and entrap them for public indecency. There’s just one problem: Lucas is gay himself, meticulously closeted both in his career and around his large working class family, and it’s becoming harder for him to dissociate himself from the persecution he’s helping to inflict against other guys just like him.

Things come to a breaking point when he finds himself attracted to one of his would-be targets, a distinguished-looking older “daddy” named Andrew (Russell Tovey) with a confident swagger that feels like a force of nature, and purposely fumbles the sting to protect him – but not before getting those all-important digits for a later connection. A clandestine romance begins, though Andrew has a double life of his own to maintain, and Lucas, weary from the ever-exhausting effort of keeping his true self hidden, finds himself increasingly at odds with the hypocrisy of his work. Adding an even greater urgency to the situation, a misplaced letter puts his secrets at risk, forcing him to face the very real possibility of being exposed as gay to everyone he knows.

Marked with a distinctly authentic feel for both the social environment around queerness and the particulars of cruising culture in its pre-millennial setting, “Plainclothes” avoids the pitfalls of pushing an agenda and the tropes of victimhood that often mar such stories about living in the closet, largely due to an unvarnished frankness that comes with the expression of lived experience. There’s an observational neutrality about it that lifts it out of the trenches of culture-war politics and frames its narrative as something personal, the story of one among the many rather than an invocation of shared political grievance.

This refreshing freedom from pointedly overt cultural messaging stems largely from the fact that, while it is not strictly autobiographical, “Plainclothes” is woven from the personal history of its filmmaker. As writer/director Emmi explains in the movie’s press notes, he was inspired to make it when his brother was becoming a police officer in 2016, and he learned of sting operations against gay men that were still being conducted, conjuring his own memories of what it was like to be newly out in the ‘90s, when the public stigma of being gay was still amplified by the AIDS crisis and police persecution – especially in smaller-town settings like his native Syracuse – was a constant worry.

“To process these feelings, I found myself reflecting on my childhood in Syracuse, NY, in the ’90s,” he says. “I remembered deepening my voice, lying about my favorite music and movies to appear more ‘masculine’ – more ‘straight.’ I realized that, shaped by societal expectations of what a man should be, I ‘policed’ my feelings and became my own harshest enforcer.”

He goes on to say, “Writing this story for my hometown was something I had to do. I wanted to honor the place that raised me, even if I hadn’t always felt I belonged. Revisiting key locations — my childhood mall, the Landmark Theater, the greenhouses where my grandfather taught me to pot flowers — felt essential.”

It’s that essential feeling that lends his movie the sense of in-person realness that eludes many such films; by making something that feels like a memoir, infused with emotional intimacy rather than deliberate messaging. He gives us the story of an individual trapped in the conflict between personal identity and professional responsibility, whose struggle to emerge expresses an individual truth without conflating it into a larger battle for acceptance, and that makes it seem all the more universal, a coming-out story we can all relate to in our own way, even if our own coming-out looked nothing like it.

Of course, it would not be as effective as it is were it not for Blyth’s performance in the lead role; convincingly embodying the smoothly nonchalant feigned “machismo” of his blue-collar cop persona while also navigating the inner awakening that’s sparked by his world-changing encounter in the men’s room at the mall, he carries the film squarely on his shoulders and delivers it with full conviction. As for Tovey, who seems to have embraced the full-on “daddy” status that comes with his maturity, his Andrew is an enigma that peels slowly away as his own secrets come to light, and his chemistry with Blyth – with whom all of his scenes are shared – is both smouldering and tender. It should be mentioned that his role is more of a supporting turn, and that he has far less screen time than might be expected from his prominence in the film’s publicity campaign – but the presence he brings to it looms large enough to be tangible throughout the entire thing.

Coming at a time of dire uncertainty for queer existence in America, “Plainclothes” is certainly a film that’s aware of the importance of delivering queer narratives that both honor our humanity and remind us of what it’s like when we have to live in a world that requires us to disguise ourselves. 

Thanks to Emmi’s focus on his own experiences of learning to navigate gayness in America, it succeeds with refreshing humility in achieving both objectives. It’s a small film, and one that feels even more intimate than its smallness might suggest, but that’s part of its winning strength. Better yet, although it doesn’t offer some unrealistic “happy ending” scenario or smooth over the pain and genuine risk of coming out in an environment where it doesn’t feel safe to do so, it leaves us with a feeling of relief, and a sense that things are always better when you don’t have to live your life undercover.

In a year filled with hardships for the LGBTQ+ community, few days have been as collectively devastating as when it was announced that The Vivienne, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and international superstar, had passed away. 

The Vivienne’s impact transcended borders; after winning the inaugural season of Drag Race UK, the Queen broke barriers with her performances in theater and television. In just a few years, she became a mainstay of international queer culture, a rise to stardom that Pete Williams’ documentary Dear Viv does its best to honor.

The doc gathers The Vivienne’s loved ones to speak about her impact on modern culture and how devastating it was to lose such a powerful light in their lives. The feature is a beautiful memorial of a life taken too soon — and it’s also a call-to-action. Because the documentary details how The Vivienne’s struggles with addiction led to her death, it hopes to not only commemorate a legend but raise awareness of the rampant drug abuse that fills the queer community.

The Los Angeles Blade got the chance to sit down with some of the other UK stars featured in the documentary to hear not only what The Vivienne meant to them, but what they hope this legacy can do for thousands of LGBTQ+ individuals today. 

“We always knew she was destined to be a star…and just to see her achieve her dreams, it couldn’t have happened to a better person,” said Michael Marouli, runner-up of Drag Race UK season five and long-time friend of The Vivienne. It was a sentiment shared by not only her close friends, but the late performer’s thousands of fans; viewers first met The Vivienne when she strutted onto Drag Race UK season one, marvelling with her talent before eventually winning and becoming the country’s first Drag Superstar. “Everything that she did from her crown onwards, she did it to the utmost excellence,” agreed Cheryl Hole, another series alumni who spoke in the documentary. “From her TV work to her theater runs…I knew the future was just going to be so bright and so full for her.” 

And it was a bright future indeed, as The Vivienne’s tenure on Drag Race was followed up with appearances in other hit UK shows, features in multiple popular films, and even a starring role in the West End’s production of The Wizard of Oz. The early portion of Dear Viv highlights these successes and the hard work it took to achieve them, following its central figure as she grew from a teenager performing underage at drag bars to the iconic Queen fans know her as today. It emphasizes how she paved the way for so many other queer celebrities, making it all the more gut-wrenching when viewers remember what is to follow all this success. 

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Advocates have been speaking up for decades about the disastrous impact hard drugs have on the LGBTQ+ community. Since the 1970s, studies have shown how party-centric venues, being some of the only inclusive spaces, combined with mainstream society’s mistreatment of queer folk, make LGBTQ+ people particularly vulnerable to drug and alcohol addiction. It’s what has led queer communities to have some of the highest rates of drug addiction in the world — yet since this problem has gone largely unaddressed, many of the people facing this addiction are left to deal with these issues in solitude. 

Dear Viv not only details the Queen’s multi-year struggle with addiction and the relapse that led to her death, but also how loved ones are using her legacy to save others from fighting their demons alone. The Vivienne’s blood sister, Chanel Williams, is leading the charge; not only has she appeared on numerous talk shows raising awareness around the dangers of ketamine, but she has created the House of The Vivienne, an addiction support group working to combat drug addiction in the UK’s queer community. 

“I truly believe what Viv’s family are doing right now is incredible,” said Cheryl Hole, the usually sardonic Queen growing serious when discussing this important advocacy. “[This is] a place where people can come for narcotics, anonymous support, and truly take away the stigma of using drugs.” It’s a goal that has gone worldwide; in the months since The Vivienne’s death advocacy organizations across the U.S. have spotlighted the harmful impact of drug addiction and the role we all play in assisting LGBTQ+ people through recovery. It’s unfortunate that these resources were not available when The Vivienne herself needed them, but it’s why her loved ones are determined to help the countless others they know are struggling through the same fight she did. 

Beyond anything else, Dear Viv is a heartwrenching, uplifting memoriam for someone who truly changed LGBTQ+ representation for the better. “Whether she was talking, whether she was performing, whether she was just there visually as a gorgeous presence, you were in safe hands with her,” continued Hole, tearfully describing how it was The Vivienne showing viewers that LGBTQ+ performers were just like them which allowed other UK Queens to achieve similar fame. And when it comes to her struggles with drug abuse and the advocacy her death has spurned on, the Queens echo in interview the documentary’s mission statement: reach out. There is help available even when it seems like there’s not, and people like The Vivienne’s family are fighting to make these resources more visible every single day.

While the entire documentary embodies this message of seeking help, nobody articulates it better than Michael Marouli themself. “I promise you it gets better when you speak to somebody,” said the Queen tearfully as her interview came to a close. “I can imagine how scary it is and how you might feel alone, but once you speak to someone, it does get better — I promise. So please, please, please, if you are struggling, seek the help you need. And there are people out there who are willing to do the work to get you where you need to be beautiful.”

A statement that The Vivienne would be proud of. 

To most of us today, folk music is just another genre. We might have some general knowledge that it originated as rustic traditional songs handed down across generations, but few of us likely think much about it beyond that.

If we did, we might recognize how much human experience, with all its joys and sorrows, was wrapped inside those traditional tunes, and how many private emotions are refracted in them through each link in the human chain that passes them down – and that is what “The History of Sound” (Oliver Hermanus’ new film, starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor) tries to convey. It’s an esoteric idea, to be sure, but the South African director (whose film “Beauty,” won the Queer Palm at Cannes in 2011) has a sophisticated cinematic vocabulary capable of getting it across, and it certainly helps that he uses a sexy and passionate queer love story as the vehicle to take us there.

Set in the years around World War I, it’s the story of Lionel (Mescal) and David (O’Connor), two music students who meet at college in 1917; Lionel comes from humble origins in the farmlands of Maine before, while David is a young man of status and means, yet it’s as close to love at first sight as you can get. They strike a spark together that only grows brighter as their passion for music bonds them deeper. Of course, it’s 1917, and history is about to get in the way. War is declared, the college is closed, and David is called to active service in Europe, while Lionel returns home to a farm that’s declining along with his family’s already meager fortunes.

After the war, David returns, world-weary from his time in the trenches but eager to get back to his musical studies – and to Lionel, whom he asks to accompany him on a trip through rural Maine to collect local folk songs by recording them on wax cylinders for study and for posterity. Their journey together is idyllic; they connect deeply with the music – and the people – they encounter and record along the way, and embrace their love for each other without reservation. When it ends, however, they go their separate ways.

From there, the story leaps ahead, following Lionel as his academic career takes him to Europe and a life he never dreamt of – all the while haunted by memories of David. Eventually, fate provides a thread that might bring them together once more – leading him to hidden secrets that cast a whole new light on their love for each other, and that add yet another layer of personal meaning to the folk songs that once brought them together.

It would be easy to play up the sex appeal of the lead couple Hermanus scored to enact his heartfelt opus about love, music, and an eternal thread of shared human experience – indeed, the press around this buzzy movie, which was a favorite at this year’s Cannes festival (where it was nominated for the Queer Palm), has focused most of its attention on the chemistry between its two “It-Boy” stars, neither of whom publicly identifies as queer but who have both established themselves firmly as dedicated to the authentic portrayal of queer experience. 

That chemistry, unsurprisingly, is epic. Mescal, whose irresistibly masculine appeal is deepened by the vulnerable sensitivity he brings to his characters, both here and in previous films (such as the haunting “All of Us Strangers”), melts our hearts and wins our respect with a performance that feels almost sacred in its stubborn refusal to abandon queer hope; O’Connor, who so searingly welded us to his struggle over homophobic self-loathing in “God’s Own Country” long before his stint as Prince Charles on “The Crown” or his bisexual-teasing turn in “Challengers,” provides a tantalizingly opaque portrait of “prudently” compliant queer identity, coupled with an implied-but-essential element of “don’t ask, don’t tell” which lends the whole thing a tragic air of compromised resignation. Yet the combination somehow evokes our own deepest fantasies, our true-romance daydreams of finding a queer “eye of the hurricane” in which it is possible to live our truth, shielded from the strictures imposed by the larger society.

Inevitably, there are comparisons to be made with “Brokeback Mountain,” the quintessential tragic gay love story that shares its contrast of pastoral bliss and societal obligation and mirrors the star-crossed romance which drives it; and while we’ll be the first to say that we wish we no longer had to see bittersweet onscreen queer love thwarted by tragedy, timing, and social convention, we can’t deny that it’s important to be reminded of the reality that has made that trope so eternally relevant – especially in a time when any advances we may have made toward living an open life have been critically endangered by a political climate that seems bent on rolling us all back into the closet,

In any case, it hardly matters. “The History of Sound” might move a bit too slowly for some tastes, or indulge in its fascination with music a little too deeply to suit those who are just there for the love story, but it ultimately succeeds in making us identify with its lovers’ boldness to embrace their lives fully, and the sanctuary they provide for each other behind the camouflage they must maintain in the larger world. It’s the tightrope of living in a homophobic society, rendered vividly in Hermanus’ leisurely-paced, deeply compassionate, and utterly heart-stirring period narrative – adapted for the screen by Ben Shattuck, from two of his own short stories – and left in our laps to contemplate as the final credits roll.

What elevates it beyond that bittersweet validation of queer love, in all its devastating cultural inconvenience, is its profoundly felt embrace of music as an ongoing record of human existence; “The History of Sound” is also a history of hardships and sorrows, of hopes and dreams and inspirations, and by invoking that continuous thread of lived experience, binds it to the long-obscured reality of queer love that has always existed outside the margins, reminding us that we’ve always been part of an ongoing story that is still being written today.

In all its candid melancholy, it reminds us that we are and have always been a part of the whole, despite the objections of small minds and societal acceptance, and that’s more than enough to justify all the industry buzz that precedes it.

And if you need more encouragement to see it, that spitting scene is pretty hot, too.