Week of Apr 14
Farewell My Concubine
Apr 18, 7:30 PM @ Academy Museum
This Chinese 1992 Palm D'Or winner (the Queer Palm didn't exist until 2010) was banned in its home country shortly after release, in part for the film's unrequited gay love story. Stars out bi Cantopop star Leslie Cheung, who also starred in Wong Kar Wei's Happy Together.
Use code QueerFilmLA2025 for $2 off your ticket.
Sebastián Silva Retrospective
American Cinematheque has announced a retrospective of the films of Sebastián Silva, starting next Friday April 15 with Rotting in the Sun and the director in person.
Folks were buzzing at Sundance about the copious male nudity, the drugs, the orgies--but beneath the "director and star play themselves" hedonism is a class struggle, a taut thriller, and a Hollywood satire all in one. More titles to be announced soon.
Sebastián Silva: An American Cinematheque Retrospective ↗
Also This Week
Where In The Hell
Apr 19, 8:15 PM @ South Park Center
Director Laramie Dennis with cast & crew in person
When her girlfriend disappears mid-road trip, sardonic prop master Kasey is left stranded in a California backwater. Panicked, she hitches a ride with cash-strapped actor Alan on his trek to an audition in Canada. Together, the unlikely duo dodges Reno psychics, stale corn nuts, and border security on a quest to find a missing soulmate and maybe validation.
Tickets from New Filmmakers LA ↗
FREE: The Wedding Banquet
Apr 16, 7:00 PM @ University of Southern California
Frustrated with his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris and running out of time, Min makes a proposal: a green-card marriage with their friend Angela in exchange for her partner Lee’s expensive IVF. Elopement plans are upended, however, when Min’s grandmother surprises them with an extravagant Korean wedding banquet.
Midnight Cowboy
Apr 18, 9:45 PM @ Brain Dead Studios
Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.
Tickets from Brain Dead Studios ↗
Little Shop of Horrors
Apr 20, 4:00 PM @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
This musical classic, about a carnivorous plant and its meek owner, was co-written by out lyricist Howard Ashman. Ashman was openly gay during his career in the Disney Renaissance, and died of complications of AIDS while Beauty and the Beast was still in production.
Jeffrey Gibson at the Broad
Gay and Indigenous visual artist Jeffrey Gibson brings his exhibition the space in which to place me to Los Angeles at the Broad this summer. Adapted from the exhibit of the same name at the 2024 Venice Biennale, it will be Gibson's first solo exhibition in Southern California. Tickets are now available for advance sales; opens May 10 and runs through September 28.
Tickets from the Broad Museum ↗
Next Week
Bound
Apr 26, 7:00 PM @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
Co-director Lilly Wachowski in person
Corky, a tough female ex-convict working on an apartment renovation in a Chicago building, meets a couple living next door, Caesar, a paranoid mobster, and Violet, his seductive girlfriend, who is immediately attracted to her.
Rocco and His Brothers
Apr 25, 26 & 27, 6:30 PM @ New Beverly Cinema
One of the pioneers of Italian neorealism, director Luchino Visconti was openly gay later in life. In this sweeping epic of a migrant Italian family, his camera swoons over the gorgeous young Alain Delon, in the title role of heartbroken boxer Rocco.
Tickets from The New Beverly ↗
Neptune Frost
Apr 26, 28, & May 1, 2:00 PM @ Academy Museum
This science fiction fantasia follows the romance between a miner and an intersex runaway at a hacker's commune, in a future world brutally exploited for precious metals. Filmed by a cast and crew of Burundi refugees, it was a nominee for the Queer Palm in 2021.
TCM Classic Film Festival
Suddenly, Last Summer
Apr 24, 7:00 PM @ TCL Chinese Theaters
Based on the play by Tennessee Williams, the only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.
Tickets from TCM Classic Film Festival ↗
Bringing Up Baby
Apr 25, 3:00 PM @ TCL Chinese Theaters
Likely bisexual Cary Grant and sapphic icon Katharine Hepburn star in this perfect screwball comedy that still feels fresh today--and is a footnote in many queer film histories as the first Hollywood film to use the word "gay" to mean homosexual.
Tickets from TCM Classic Film Festival ↗
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Apr 25, 11:59 PM @ TCL Chinese Theaters
If you love Queer cinema, you probably watched this movie a lot in high school. Rocky Horror needs no intro--but when do you get a chance to see it on the big screen at the Acadmey? No word on whether the museum will be encouraging callbacks or auctioning virgins before the show.
Tickets from TCM Classic Film Festival ↗
Car Wash
Apr 26, 3:15 PM @ TCL Chinese Theaters
"Honey, I am more man than you'll ever be and more woman than you'll ever get" is the iconic snap-back from gay-and-proud Lindy in this cult Black comedy about the employees at a Los Angeles carwash.
Tickets from TCM Classic Film Festival ↗
The Birdcage
Apr 26, 6:15 PM @ TCL Chinese Theaters
A gay cabaret owner and his drag queen companion agree to put up a false straight front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancé’s conservative moralistic parents.
Tickets from TCM Classic Film Festival ↗
Morocco
Apr 26, 6:30 PM @ TCL Chinese Theaters
The first American film from bisexual superstar Marlene Dietrich features an iconic gender-bending cabaret number in which Dietrich performs in a tuxedo and kisses a woman at the end.
Tickets from TCM Classic Film Festival ↗
The Big Combo
Apr 27, 9:15 AM @ TCL Chinese Theaters
Restoration World Premiere
This film noir classic made the censors sweat, given just how many sexual implications director Joseph H Lewis fit in--including two mob henchmen who are almost certainly lovers.
Tickets from TCM Classic Film Festival ↗
The Ritz
Apr 27, 5:45 PM @ TCL Chinese Theaters
Rita Morena co-stars in this adaptation of gay playwright Terrence McNally's The Tubs, about a straight man hiding out from the mob in a gay bathhouse.
Tickets from TCM Classic Film Festival ↗
