Great Movies By LGBTQ Filmmakers Streaming Now

With a special guest contributor!

Jun 25, 2021

Today we have a special guest contributor as we recommend films by LGBTQ directors. Joshua Ray from Cinema St. Louis was kind enough to join us! Each of us wrote about a different queer filmmaker’s work, including an 80s cult classic, a star-laden dramedy, and an early film from a Spanish master. Seek these out if you haven’t seen them, as well as work by other LGBTQ filmmakers, such as Gus Van Sant (who made the movie that gave our little newsletter its name!), Todd Haynes, Tom Ford, Dee Rees, and more!

Huge thanks to Joshua for joining us this week. Check out his work and give him a follow.

Joshua recommends…

Desert Hearts (streaming on HBO Max and Criterion Channel)

Two decades before Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar went up Brokeback Mountain and came down everyone’s favorite queer cowboys, Vivian Bell and Cay Rivvers consumated their queer lust in the Nevada dust. As far as reach and scale are concerned, comparing Donna Deitch’s 1985 micro-budget cult classic, Desert Hearts, and Ang Lee’s 2005 Oscar-winning hit may seem unfair, but their similarities go beyond their revisionist Western surfaces.

Namely, the achy-breaky Desert Hearts is another mid-20th century coming-out story taking place at the locus of sexual desire and personal identity. “I yearned for something we couldn’t analyze or reason away. I want to be free of who I’ve been,” Vivian tells her Reno, Nev. divorce lawyer. The tightly wound Columbia University professor (a rarely recognized great performance by Helen Shaver) has come to establish a six-week residency in order to obtain a quickie split from her husband. The ranch at which she’s been set-up is a part-time haven for such women, and one particularly electric young worker there, the openly gay Cay (Patricia Charbonneau), takes an immediate liking to the slightly older Helen. Cay pursues her aggressively and frankly, to the dismay of some within her immediate circle.

Deitch’s adaptation of Jane Rule’s 1964 lesbian pulp novel, Desert of the Heart, unfolds like an accumulation of memories: her most frequently used cut is a fade-to-black, often eliding narratives bridges that other filmmakers might highlight. Oneiric and wistful qualities like these are only buttressed by a mise-en-scène made necessary by budgetary constraints. The narrative may take place in 1959 but the production is clearly 1985. Like another Reagan era-by-way-of-Eisenhower work, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, the out-of-time aura presents possibilities for viewers to assimilate into its occasional dreaminess.

In stark opposition to that 1986 masterpiece, Desert Hearts isn’t a wake-in-fright nightmare. Deitch’s romantic reverie is about the ecstasy of self-actualization — either through tender explorations of bodies or favoring chance over programming. To this end, the cult of Desert Hearts grew strong because its swoon-worthy climax leans away from the tragedy of Brokeback and into the less frequently visited territory of queer joy.

Joshua Ray is a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies, a Telluride Film Festival Student Symposium alumnus, and a regular contributor to Cinema St. Louis' The Lens. He serves on the membership committee of the St. Louis Film Critics Association. He is also co-programmer for QFest St. Louis and on the selection committee for the St. Louis International Film Festival. Joshua has also served as a jury member for SLIFF and St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase competitions and presented at the Webster University Film Series and Cinema St. Louis festivals, including Golden Anniversaries and the Robert Classic French Film Festival.

Drew recommends...

The Kids Are All Right (streaming on Peacock)

While 2010’s The Kids Are All Right can’t be considered groundbreaking in a stylistic or thematic sense, it did succeed in wrapping the story of a same-sex couple in a Sundance-friendly dramedy that could appeal to mainstream audiences. With a charming cast and clever writing, The Kids Are All Right is an engaging examination of an unconventional yet recognizably messy family.

Writer-director Lisa Cholodenko pulled from her own life to craft this Oscar-nominated screenplay of a lesbian couple, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore), with two kids that arrange to meet their sperm donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). With their biological father suddenly in the picture, things get complicated in a hurry for the family. Cracks start to deepen between Nic and Jules as everyone gets to know Paul.

This makes for a unique showcase for Bening and Moore. Over the course of the film, the two actresses expertly develop this stable but imperfect marriage, revealing both the love they share and the insecurities they don’t. Meanwhile, Ruffalo, one of our most likable actors, gets to have a good time playing a carefree Los Angeles restaurant owner. Bening and Moore deliver the more dynamic emotional performances, but Ruffalo frequently gets the funniest lines and reaction shots.

Much like an Alexander Payne or Noah Baumbach film, Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right presents flawed people making questionable decisions who then have to work through the consequences. There’s no easy or tidy answer to the relationship issues here, only a warm and sharply observed look at what it means to make a marriage work.

Billy recommends…

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (streaming on HBO Max and Criterion Channel)

Over the past 3 or so months I have been bingeing the filmography of director Pedro Almodovar. His tone is almost always layered with extreme humor that is inserted into storylines that most directors would make uber serious. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is another example of that. We open up with a patient at a mental hospital named Ricky (Antonio Banderas) who is confidently discharged. From frame one Ricky has clear malintent. That tension of what he might do at any moment is the driving force of this beautiful film and is elevated even more by the G.O.A.T film composer Ennio Morricone’s score.

Almodovar is an openly gay director and typically profiles characters that are on the fringe of society in the real world. Characters that are often persecuted and/or have stereotypes associated with them. He primarily uses LGBTQ+ characters as that emotional catalyst to his films, but here he uses a discharged patient from a mental hospital and an adult film actress named Maria (Victoria Abril) to drive the story forward. For a recently discharged mental patient much of the world assumes that they would be obviously troubled out in the real world or have a clear tick that screams they have a mental illness. For the audience he is clearly unwell, but for the characters in the movie outside of Maria he is able to pull every string to mask his violence. And for an adult film actress many would assume that because of her profession sexual assault is expected or assumed. Almodovar cuts right through those false assumptions and brings humanity to these characters that are not often portrayed in cinema, and if they are, they are typically thrown into a stereotype and stripped of their humanity.

Ricky plans to abduct Maria who he fell in love with after he had sex with her. Banderas is given a chance here to bring twisted humanity to a character that doesn’t necessarily deserve it. When he first finds Maria again she is on a film set and while perusing around he finds a rocker type wig and air guitars. To make them feel like a real couple out in the world he puts on the most ridiculous fake mustache. In most contexts these attempts at humor would feel inappropriate, but it seems his goal is to create a character study of someone experiencing Stockholm syndrome and those lighter moments do a weird thing to the audience.

What is obviously perverse and violent in this movie is portrayed at a methodical pace. As Maria begins to fall for her captor the abduction doesn’t feel as violent as what we saw in the beginning. Perspective becomes cloudy. By no means are you supposed to want them to stay together, but a sense of empathy and calm is instilled in the audience. In a context like this these feelings will probably make you feel yucky by the end. Those conflicted feelings after finishing a movie create some of the best movie experiences for me. Almodovar is a master of creating characters and allowing them to authentically exist in a crazy story. He does not try to define any morality for his audience. He simply lets them sit in the craziness he creates and for that he has an endlessly enjoyable filmography.

Recent Release Mini-Reviews

Luca (streaming on Disney+)

Drew: Pixar isn’t going to smash a home run every time out, but the impressive thing about the Disney animation studio is how delightful their doubles and triples have been. While Luca is not likely to become a Pixar classic, there’s plenty to savor about it: the gorgeous animation of its Italian coastal setting, the laid back summer vacation vibes, and the fun voice work by Jacob Tremblay, Maya Rudolph, Jim Gaffigan, and more.

After the ambitious brilliance of last year’s Soul, Pixar is playing it light and relatively safe with this one. The fish-out-of-water (literally) story and themes will be familiar to many, and Luca doesn’t have that knockout emotional moment that has destroyed you in other Pixar movies. However, if gelato, Vespas, and endless pasta in a small Italian seaside village sounds lovely to you (and why wouldn’t it), Luca is a pleasurable experience with an affirmative message right on the surface. - 3.5 / 5 Apples

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