Way back when, in the early 2000s, the Duplass brothers, Mark and Jay, were at the forefront of what turned out to be a short-lived, but nevertheless influential film sub-genre is known as mumblecore.
It seems like every year there’s a new crop of memorable directorial debuts and 2022 is no exception.
Queer filmmaker Catherine Gund has a history of choosing fascinating LGBT topics for her documentaries.
With echoes of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” gay filmmaker Myles Yaksich’s “Albatross” (Freestyle) never really soars, but that’s not for lack of trying.
A top-notch scene-stealer since she was a child while appearing in TV commercials and as Opal on “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse,” Natasha Lyonne reached the pinnacle when she hosted “SNL” in May 2022.
With a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and narration by out actor Matt Bomer, it’s safe to say that you can’t go wrong watching co-directors Bryan Darling and Jesse Finley Reed’s 2022 doc “All Man: The International Male Story” (The Collaborative).
When it comes to what the French think is funny, it’s important to remember that they considered Jerry Lewis to be a comic genius.
Just a few years before gay performer Michael Carbonaro worked his magic on his popular hidden camera illusionist show “The Carbonaro Effect” he cast a spell over us in Todd Stephens’ raunchy queer teen flick parody “Another Gay Movie” (Breaking Glass Pictures).
Who doesn’t love pansexual icon Janelle Monáe? The fiercest of divas (sorry Bey) in the music world, there are few who can compare to her when it comes to the inventiveness of her musical creations. As an actress, known for her layered performances in the Oscar-winning “Moonlight” and the Oscar-nominated “Hidden Figures,” she is truly on a path to cinematic stardom.
Writer/director James Gray’s well-intentioned but flawed drama “Armageddon Time” (Focus) attempts to draw a through-line from the dawn of the Reagan Era to the Trump-tainted present day, and even includes the presence of Fred Trump.
For a lot of lesbians, Nicole Conn’s derided and ridiculed 1992 lesbian romance “Claire of the Moon” is considered being a horror movie.
Revisionist history isn’t just for holocaust deniers. In Hollywood, filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…”), Ryan Murphy (“Hollywood”), and even Steven Spielberg (“The Fabelmans”) have been taking liberties with Tinsel Town mythology, incorporating real and fictional characters to tell stories.
“Saturday Night Live” has been a launching pad for some of the best (and a few of the worst) acting careers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
From the moment Nicole Kidman first appears onscreen as Lucille Ball in “Being the Ricardos” (Amazon Studios), it’s clear that writer/director Aaron Sorkin loves Lucy (although he must not have seen her in the movie version of “Mame”).
Over the course of his lengthy career, Kenneth Branagh has been nominated for five Academy Awards, including once for Best Director for 1990’s “Henry V.”
Gay, British filmmaker Terence Davies has a longstanding fascination with literature.
“Better Nate Than Ever” (Disney), based on the middle-grade novel by gay writer Tim Federle (who also directed and wrote the screenplay), was made before Disney took a stand for LGBT folks after homophobic Florida Governor Ron DeSantis went on his infamous rampage.
“Bodies Bodies Bodies” (A24), the English-language directorial debut by Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn, is everything and nothing that you expect it to be.
The thing about the 1968 movie “The Boston Strangler,” for which Tony Curtis received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of the titular character, is that it was released just a few years after the brutal killing spree made headlines.
Co-produced by Ryan Murphy, gay actor/director Joe Mantello’s 2020 film adaptation of “The Boys in the Band” (Netflix) is nearly a note for note remake of the classic 1970 William Friedkin movie adaptation of Mart Crowley’s brilliant but brutal stage play.
In Mike Mosallam’s affectionate Ramadan rom-com “Breaking Fast” (Vertical), Mo (out actor Haaz Sleiman) is a devout, disciplined Muslim doctor who has reconciled his religious dedication with his queer sexuality.
The late filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée, who died unexpectedly at 58 in December 2021, never saw his 2005 movie “C.R.A.Z.Y.” (Samuel Goldwyn Pictures) receive a general theatrical release in the States.
Not exactly a sequel. Not really a remake.
When a film opens with the tagline “Based on true events,” even before the credits roll, it’s an attention-grabbing move.
Writer/director Lukas Dhont’s “Close” (A24), winner of the Grand Prix at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, is also Belgium’s entry for the Oscar’s Best International Feature category.
Co-directors Patrick Sammon and Bennett Singer open their documentary “Cured” (Story Center Films) with the viewer discretion warning that it “contains graphic images of past treatments used by doctors to ‘cure’ homosexuality.”
Chances are that neither the real 17th-century French writer Cyrano de Bergerac nor the “Cyrano de Bergerac” created by 19th-century playwright Edmond Rostand could have imagined the way that movie audiences would embrace the story.
Gay filmmaker David Freyne (“The Cured”) gets personal with his Ireland-set queer rom-com “Dating Amber” (Samuel Goldwyn Films).
One thing you can say about Kenneth Branagh, at the very least he’s consistently inconsistent.
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