Richard King and Mark S. King in November, 1989 My brother Richard will tell you stories about his long-time partner, Emil Matzner, with great enthusiasm. Emil’s endearing quirks, their adventures as a couple, things like that. Richard might even provide details about Emil’s death from AIDS thirty years ago, but those are the [...]
Welcome to Chechnya, the unnerving new documentary by filmmaker David France, stopped playing in my living room a full hour ago and I’m still trying to shake it. That may take some time, considering the events of the film -- the kidnapping, torture, and disappearance of LGBTQ men and women in Chechnya and the efforts [...]
Milford, Pennsylvania, is the kind of idyllic small town that Frank Capra romanticized in films like It’s a Wonderful Life. Nothing much rattles the citizens of this quiet country borough. They pay their taxes, vote conservatively, and don’t consider someone a native unless their roots can be traced back for several generations. If Milford is [...]
Karen Mason in Circus of Books (Netflix) Circus of Books, the Netflix documentary premiering Wednesday, begins with old home video footage of a large and boisterous family during domestic mealtime chaos. Children are tugging sleeves for attention while parents shoo away the camera. It is a fitting opening for a film that is [...]
Tyne Firmin and Charles Sanchez (Photo: Mark S. King) Something struck me, maybe halfway through the uproarious screening of the new, second season of the musical comedy web series, Merce. I surveyed the packed room at the LGBT Center in New York City, the audience laughing, clapping, cheering on the characters and growing [...]
What would the lives of gay men be like today if AIDS never happened? Filmmaker Leo Herrera’s answer to that question is a genre-busting web series Fathers. A dreamlike mix of actual historical information and clever wish-fulfilment -- with plenty of sex for good measure -- Herrera’s series takes us on quite a fantastical journey [...]
Charles Sanchez has audacity, you have to give him that. Not only did he create a web series, Merce, drawn from his own life as a gay New Yorker living with HIV, he made it a musical comedy, people. With original music and a cast of lively singers and dancers. Oh, and then he stuffed [...]
To say that Pose is an unlikely hit is an understatement. It’s a goddamn miracle, and while we’re at it, Pose is also a gift to LGBTQ history, to the visibility of marginalized people, and to HIV awareness in the here and now. It challenged me, then, when the most recent episode, “Blow” (7/30/2019), left [...]
Pose on FX is nothing less than astounding to me. So much could have gone wrong, with the era, the themes, the characters, and – the aspect of the show closest to my heart and my critical eye -- the disease that looms over it all. Trans writers and advocates are better qualified to remark, [...]
(UPDATE: On April 27, 2019, Ella Johnson's video proceeded to Nationals. She ranked first in the "Senior Individual Documentary" division.) When Ella Johnson made a video documentary about Greg Louganis for her National History Day project, she knew most of her fellow students would be shocked. Ella is a high school freshman in Whitehall, a [...]
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