Music bio pics, such as “Rocket Man” and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” about Elton John and Freddy Mercury, respectively, continue to be popular among moviegoers. Even though Robbie Williams, the subject of “Better Man” (Paramount), may not have achieved the same level of fame as John or Mercury (stateside, at least), his story still got the cinematic treatment.
Movies about the abuse suffered by teens in correctional institutions are nothing new. Ireland’s repulsive Magdalene Laundries alone has been the subject of at least three dramatizations, as well as a documentary.
If you’re looking for an alternative to all the feel-good movie entertainment this holiday season, and you want something that will make you want to take a long Silkwood shower after watching it, I suggest “Babygirl” (A24). A depressing blend of sexual compulsion, infidelity, inappropriate workplace behavior, abuse of power, degradation, and heterosexual horror. The best thing that can be said about “Babygirl” is that the queer character far outshines her straight counterparts.
The world of the music biopic is littered with as many failures (“Back To Black,” “Jersey Boys,” “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Respect,” and “Stardust”) as successes (“What’s Love Got To Do With It?”, “Get On Up,” “Ray,” “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Rocketman,” and “Control”).
The writing of legendary Beat Generation author, gun enthusiast, and notorious opiate addict William S. Burroughs was long considered too bizarre and experimental to make the transition to film. But that didn’t stop body-horror-master David Cronenberg from adapting “Naked Lunch” in 1991.
Jimmy Erskine (out actor Sir Ian McKellen) is the titular character in “The Critic” (Greenwich Entertainment), now available on DVD, the feared and reviled drama critic for The Daily Chronicle, a “right-wing rag” in early 1930s London. Openly queer at a time when it was risky to be, he lives with Tom (Alfred Enoch of the “Harry Potter” franchise), who is both his lover and secretary.
People of all ages have grown to love the stop-motion animation movies of Nick Park, including “Chicken Run” and the “Wallace & Gromit” series. In “Memoir of a Snail” (IFC Films), Oscar-winning gay filmmaker Adam Elliot takes the genre in new, queer, and adult directions.
The eagerly anticipated movie version of “Wicked,” based on the multi-award-winning Stephen Schwartz/Winnie Holzman Broadway musical, which was based on the beloved novel by gay writer Gregory Maguire, couldn’t be better timed. As much a backstory of Glinda and Elphaba, the Good Witch of the North and the Wicked Witch of the West, respectively, as it is an allegory about the rise of fascism and the abuse of power.
With what seems like a minimum of effort, gay filmmaker Marco Calvani, writer/director of “High Tide” (Strand), manages to avoid many of the overused clichés and pitfalls that plague so many of the current wave of queer movies. That’s not to say that we don’t see some immediately recognizable characterizations, but even those are less annoying in Calvani’s skilled hand.
Religiously conservative Christians and Mormons are likely going to apply the kind of vitriol they usually turn on the LGBTQ community to the new Hugh Grant movie “Heretic” (A24). Surprisingly, other faiths manage to remain unscathed in the suspenseful horror movie co-written and co-directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.
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