Honey Moccasin
Dir. Shelley Niro
Streaming
1998 / Canada / English / 47 min
Set on the Grand Pine Indian Reservation, aka “Reservation X”, HONEY MOCCASIN combines elements of melodrama, performance art, cable access, and ‘whodunit’ to question conventions of ethnic and sexual identity as well as film narrative.
A Fantastic Woman
Una mujer fantástica
Dir. Sebastián Lelio
BluRay
2018 / Chile / Spanish / 104 min
Marina’s life is thrown into turmoil following the death of her partner. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy.
Novitiate
Dir. Margaret Betts
DVD
2018 / USA / English / 123 min
A 17-year-old trains to become a nun as the Roman Catholic Church undergoes radical changes in the early 1960s.
Beach Rats
Dir. Eliza Hittman
DVD
2017 / USA / English / 98 min
An aimless teenager on the outer edges of Brooklyn is having a miserable summer. With his father on his deathbed and his mother wanting him to find a girlfriend, Frankie escapes the bleakness of his life by causing trouble with his delinquent friends and flirting with older men online. When his chatting and webcamming intensifies, he finally starts hooking up with guys at a nearby cruising beach while simultaneously entering into a cautious relationship with a young woman.
God’s Own Country
Dir. Francis Lee
DVD
2017 / UK / English / 105 min
A young farmer numbs his frustrations with drinking and casual sex until a Romanian migrant worker sets him on a new path.
The Handmaiden
Agassi
Dir. Park Chan-wook
DVD
2016 / South Korea / Korean / 145 min (168 min Dir Cut)
With help from an orphaned pickpocket (Kim Tae-ri), a Korean con man (Ha Jung-woo) devises an elaborate plot to seduce and bilk a Japanese woman (Kim Min-hee) out of her inheritance.
Weekend
Dir. Andrew Haigh
DVD
2012 / UK / English / 97 min
Following Russell and Glen as their one-night stand unexpectedly turns into something far more reaching. Following a Friday night party with his friends, Russell pulls Glen at a club, and, instead of never seeing each other again, the two men spend most of the next day and the following night together.
Itty Bitty Titty Committee
Dir. Jamie Babbit
DVD
2007 / USA / English / 87 min
High School grad and all American gal, Anna, finds her purpose and herself after she hooks up with the radical feminists in The Itty Bitty Titty Committee.
Plus four from Pedro Almodovar:
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
DVD
1988 / Spain / Spanish / 89 min
When Pepa Marcos’ (Carmen Maura) lover Ivan (Fernando Guillén) suddenly leaves her without any explanation, she embarks on a strange journey to discover why. On the way she meets a variety of eccentric characters, including Ivan’s son from a previous relationship (Antonio Banderas), his fiancee Marissa (Rossy de Palma) and a Shiite terrorist cell who have been secretly holding her best friend Candela (María Barranco) hostage.
Bad Education
La mala educación
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
DVD
2004 / Spain / Spanish / 105 min
When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded (Fele Martínez) a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer (Gael García Bernal) who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.
All about My Mother
Todo sobre mi madre
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
DVD
2007 / Spain / Spanish / 104 min
Young Esteban wants to become a writer and also to discover the identity of his second mother, a trans woman, carefully concealed by his mother Manuela.
Broken Embraces
Los abrazos rotos
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
DVD
2010 / Spain / Spanish / 128 min
The death of Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez) sets off a chain of events that forces one man to come to terms with his past.
Leave a Reply