Queer Cinema for Caoimhe LESBIANS

POPULAR

Heavenly Creatures - I don't think of this as a lesbian film despite everything, but maybe I'm deeply wrong! It's been a while. Absolutely worth watching if you haven't seen it yet anyway

The Handmaiden - super high on my list but haven't seen it yet. director of Oldboy, Lady Vengeance (also one I want to see read from a feminist persp. more!) ALSO: this is a readaptation of Sarah Waters's Fingersmith, and there have been lots of good gay British adaptations of her work before. This one was always popular, and Tipping the Velvet is another adaptation of work by the same author.

Set It Off - I want people to think more about Queen Latifah being a super famous gay black woman I guess

Desert Hearts - big deal when this made it to DVD, came out in a big fat 2-disc set, always rad to see movies like this get a lot of ancillary material released.

High Art - i just read this has Patricia Clarkson as an over-the-top heroin-using German lesbian and I have to see it immediately, she rules

Go Fish - perennial renter, early 90s no-budget dramedy, very much a product of that time and place, Gay Clerks (not really but you know)

Kissing Jessica Stein - nobody actually rented this after 2005, idk if you need to

Bound - i feel like it's a good thing i didn't see this earlier, it'll be good to have seen it now. also SpeedRacer is the greatest film of all time

But I'm A Cheerleader - cute but i didn't get very much out of it in the end. No Hedwig for sure. Interesting as a focal point of the MPAA ratings controversy, where it was getting NC-17ed left and right for relatively mild girl-on-girl (or girl-on-self) sex scenes.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, another BBC serial, this one from 1990. I don't think this hit DVD but it was a 2 VHS set that rented well while we carried it.

Butterfly Kiss by Michael Winterbottom, actually his debut, I hadn't realized. Thought he was gay too but he's not. Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction, the uh female robber, Tim Roth's counterpart) is a bisexual serial killer who goes on the road with a shy young lesbian; lots of fucking and murder, probably more pulp than queer.

Cloudburst - an old lesbian couple (one w/ alzheimer's I think) break out of a nursing home and go on a road trip with a young man hitchhiker. Definitely gonna be sad and such. Director is a local gay playwright, also directed The Hanging Garden (great) and Beefcake (docu-comedy about the Extremely Straight Fifties Muscle Mags For Manly Men)


ARTISTIC

The Misandrists - huh. i haven't seen this and probably won't BUT I was gonna bring up Bruce LaBruce who is Canada's horniest gayest director and has been at it for a long time. Anyway weird to see him telling a lesbian story

The Watermelon Woman - literally no relationship to The Watermelon Man AFAIK. This always rented well and the lead character works in a fuckin video store! "the first feature film directed by a black lesbian" is a pretty incredible claim to make

When Night is Falling


GENDER &c.


LET ME DIE A WOMAN - 70s exploitation documentary about the wacky world of """transsexuals""", but i believe this has some genuine good-intentions behind it (being from the 70s one can't perhaps expect perfection...) and may also include actual footage of GRS from the era. Not sure if that claim (from the DVD case) is true or if wikipedia claiming there are reenactments encompasses that. It might be a difficult or awkward watch but it is a reasonably available snapshot of *something*, at least.

Southern Comfort (2001 documentary) - more sad gays dying, unfortunately, but I have heard good things about this doc which follows a transman dying of ovarian cancer, unable to find a doctor to work on them for fear of it harming their reputation. At least part of it is about the relationship between the man and his (also trans) girlfriend Lola, which by all accounts is cute and nice at least.

The Aggressives

VAMPYROS LESBOS daughters of darkness