The Empathy Deficit of ‘The Fighter’

Posted on February 26, 2011 by queerlefty

It happens every year: The Oscar Academy not only is famous for ignoring obvious masterpieces. It’s equally famous for actually rewarding movies that tend to come off as completely bland and airless the moment you start to look for something more than Oscar-worthiness in them (think A Beautiful Mind, The English Patient, Million Dollar Baby). An example of the former will become apparent when, as expected, The Social Network is robbed of a Best Picture Oscar at the hands of The King’s Speech, while David O. Russell’s The Fighter is a clear example of the latter. The movie suffers from what I’d call a severe empathy deficit; it’s too literal and heavy-handed where it would have benefited from holding back; while in other scenes it’s understated to a fault. Continue reading →

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If Only ‘The King’s Speech’ Could Have Been A Bromantic Comedy

Posted on February 14, 2011 by queerlefty

The Social Network is my personal favorite for the Best Picture Oscar in late February, and I will cry out in anger when it is predictably robbed of that honor by The King’s Speech, which by now seems a given. Continue reading →

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‘What To Read’ Rears Its Head Again

Posted on January 22, 2011 by queerlefty

I changed the format on What to Read, then promised to update in early and often, only to post with even less regularity than before. Anyway, here, finally, are some reading tips from around the web, adjusted for my personal politico.cultural biases and interests. By my regular rhythm, you should expect expect to see another installment sometime in early summer. Continue reading →

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In Place Of Killing My Darlings: An Addendum To My ‘Favorite Movies Of 2010’ List

Posted on January 11, 2011 by queerlefty

As you might have guessed from my Sexiest Males Alive list (meant to be a monthly feature but published somewhat irregularly lately), or my year-end film lists, or perhaps from my list of fifty favorite movies of the aughts; I’m kind of a sucker for listmaking. Not because I need them in order to sort out my life or anything like that; I just love how they force me to (re-)evaluate my taste, no matter if I tend to regret my choices or their ranking the very second they’re published (I’ll spare you my revised ‘Top of the Aughts” list). In the case of the SMA, they are just a chance for me to flash my gay side and do some pleasurable “research” while doing it, but when it comes to the film lists, I actually take them seriously. I want people to read and react to them, and I want to read about other people’s choices. Nothing deepens my love for a film more than being challenged to defend it. Continue reading →

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My Favorite Movies Of 2010

Posted on December 28, 2010 by queerlefty

The annual list of favorite movies is a fun exercise, but it’s also a tough one. I believe in debating movies on their merits, but what qualifies a movie to be a personal favorite often transcends the dry discussion of whether it is objectively great or not. It depends on your own expectations for the movie, your movie preferences in general, who you saw it with, if you got the chance to see it again, and a million other things. That’s why I call this my list of favorites, and not a best of 2010 list. Continue reading →

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The Death of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

Posted on December 21, 2010 by queerlefty

I’m a little late to the party on the repeal of  the US military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, but not as late as the repeal itself. Barring gay people from serving openly has done a disservice to American security and the code of ethics of the military since the day it was instituted back in 1993. For many years since then, the policy seemed to have disappeared from the minds of many Democrats and moderate Republicans, who, while not exactly in favor of it, seemed to mistake the lack of public debate about its consequences for an affirmation that it was working as intended. It never did. Continue reading →

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“I’ve got my Justin Bieber mask on”

Posted on November 21, 2010 by queerlefty

I feel like I have to state my position on Justin Bieber in general terms before I say anything about his new book, First Step 2 Forever. The Canadian pop singer is a child of the social media revolution, discovered through YouTube and catapulted into a position as one of the pop world’s most polarizing stars through Twitter. Although it makes me feel old to admit it, that was actually how I first heard of him, too. He had floated somewhere just below my radar for quite a while when this I was here when Justin Bieber wasn’t trending meme became a trending topic on Twitter. My curiosity teased, I felt like I had to find out who this guy actually was, and what I found surprised me. There were these deep pockets of downright vitriol for this 16 year-old pop star, and many people seemed almost personally offended by him and his success. Sure, it may be that such sentiments have always been out there, but that they only now have been given a forum to infiltrate the broader pop culture discourse. I didn’t yet know what I was going to think of his music, but I promised myself that even if I did end up hating it, I would at least try to articulate some actual reasons for my position, and to separate what I thought about the music from what I thought about Justin Bieber, the personality. Continue reading →

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The Movies of the 2010 Bergen International Film Festival, Part II

Posted on November 9, 2010 by queerlefty

This is the final installment in a two-part series about my experiences at Bergen International Film Festival in October.  Continue reading →

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The Movies of the 2010 Bergen International Film Festival, Part I

Posted on October 28, 2010 by queerlefty

One of the reasons why I haven’t blogged for a long time, is that I’ve been busy making the most of the just wrapped Bergen International Film Festival. As the place where I first saw not only Mysterious Skin, but other personal favorites like Shortbus and The Time That Remains, it has a very special place in my heart. My count this year ended at 25 films in eight days, which was not quite a record, but close. At the end of every festival I’m of course kicking myself for all the films I never got to see – and thus probably never will get to see – and for the some of the films I actually did watch that didn’t live up to my expectations. Continue reading →

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In SMA Veteran’s October Win, A Return to 2008

Posted on October 15, 2010 by queerlefty

At first glance, it seems obvious why Hunter Parrish re-took the top spot on the Sexiest Males Alive list. After all, the sixth season of Weeds is well underway, and my love for the guy occasionally makes me want to rewatch It’s Complicated. But actually, there is no particular reason why Hunter won. He just has most of what this list measures; sexiness. Oddly, I thnk the fact that Hunter won on this simple yet so complicated metric alone, is itself kind of beautiful. Continue reading →

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