Week of Dec 16
Make the Yuletide gay with this amazing bounty of Queer film gifts this week. Clea DuVall joins a screening of lesbian Christmas classic Happiest Season, Elizabeth Purchell presents a special 35mm print of Pumping Iron II: The Women, the NSFW Film Festival fills a steamy night at AKBAR with sexy Queer shorts, and so much more!
Happiest Season
Dec 18, 7:30 pm @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
Writer/director Clea DuVall in person
A young woman’s plans to propose to her girlfriend while at her family’s annual holiday party are upended when she discovers her partner hasn’t yet come out to her conservative parents.
Pumping Iron II: The Women
Dec 16, 8:00 pm @ Brain Dead Studios
Programmer Elizabeth Purchell in person
Presented from a rare archival 35mm print provided by the University of North Carolina School of the Arts featuring music by Grace Jones, The Art of Noise, by historian, programmer and filmmaker Elizabeth Purchell and Hollywood Entertainment.
Tickets from Brain Dead Studios >
NSFW Film Festival: Queer Sex-Positive Short Films
Dec 16, 8:00 pm @ AKBAR
NSFW Film Fest is dedicated to screening queer films that would normally be excluded by mainstream outlets because of sexual content. Join Queer Planet for their fifth annual screening of these sexy, daring, and creative short films at Akbar!
The First Underground Movie Star: Taylor Mead at 100
Dec 18, 7:00 pm @ Philosophical Research Society
Poet, actor, filmmaker and traveler, Taylor Mead was a fixture of postwar America’s art and counterculture scenes, gleefully bridging the Beat movement and New York’s downtown scene. An uninhibited screen comedian and queer icon, Mead’s centennial will be celebrated tonight.
Shortbus
Dec 21, 9:45 pm @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
Vidiots' Holiday Hornyfest screens this sexually explicit ensemble comedy from Hedwig creator John Cameron Mitchell, who wrote and directed this tale about the intersecting (sex) lives of couples gay straight and in-between, leading up to a gathering at the weekly Shortbus art/sex salon and orgy.
UCLA Film & TV Archive Winter Program
The UCLA Film and TV Archive just announced a super Queer winter program! Highlights include a two-night celebration of lesbian New Black Cinema filmmaker Michelle Parkerson, and a month-long series of Trans films, Disclosure: A Trans Re-Reading of American Cinema.
Also returning is the Legacy Project Screening Series, showing a 35mm print of 2004's Harlem Renaissance film Brother to Brother, new restorations of short films by 1960's Southern California underground drag film troupe Gay Girls Riding Club, and a brand new restoration of 1971's gay erotic odyssey Pink Narcissus.
Mark your calendars and get there early! All UCLA Screenings are at the Hammer Museum, where all film programs are presented for free on a first-come, first-served basis with no advance ticketing.
Queer Christmas
Carol
Dec 22, 7:00 pm @ Los Feliz 3
Make it a Todd Haynes Christmas! Lesbian period drama Carol follows Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in the repressed world of 1950s high society New York City (at Christmas). The #1 film on the BFI poll of Best Queer Films of all time.
Tickets from American Cinematheque >
Tangerine
Dec 18 & 20, 10:00 pm @ Los Feliz 3
A new queer Christmas classic, Tangerine follows trans workers Sin-Dee and Alexandra on a holiday odyssey across Los Angeles. Shot on a micro budget on three iPhones, Tangerine is a triumph of scrappy indie can-do--that led to Gotham and Spirit awards for co-star Mya Taylor.
Tickets from American Cinematheque >
Rent
Dec 19, 10:00 pm @ Los Feliz 3
This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in late 1980s East Village, New York, USA. In the year that follows, they and their friends deal with love, loss, and working together.
Tickets from American Cinematheque >
Also This Week
Paris, 13th District
Dec 16, 4:00 pm @ Egyptian Theatre
This story of criss-crossing romances in a Paris apartment building was co-written by lesbian auteur Céline Sciamma (Tomboy, Portrait of a Lady on Fire) and co-stars Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire).
Deep Red
Dec 21, 11:59 pm @ New Beverly Cinema
Dec 22, 8:00 pm @ Brain Dead Studios
One of Dario Argento's most famous Italian giallo films, many of which play with gender, sexuality, and social critique, Deep Red has a gay supporting character who is wrongly assumed to be guilty because of his sexuality.
Tickets from The New Beverly >
Tickets from Brain Dead Studios >
Saint Joan
Dec 22, 2:30 pm @ Academy Museum
Was Joan of Arc the original gender outlaw? The 15th century teenager was burned at the stake for the heresy of wearing men's clothing (and helping to lead the French army).
Auntie Mame
Dec 20, 7:00 pm @ Egyptian Theatre
If you know a gay man over 50, you've probably heard this film quoted endlessly. "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" is one of many pearls of wisdom from Rosiland Russell as Mame, a progressive woman of the 1920s who takes in her orphaned nephew.
Tickets from American Cinematheque >
Coming Soon
Extremely Unique Dynamic
Jan 3, 4 & 5 - 7:30 pm @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
Jan 7, 8 & 9 - 7 pm @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
Directors Harrison Xu & Ivan Leung, with special guests each night
This year's festival hit, a meta Queer stoner buddy comedy movie inside a movie, turns its LA premiere into a week-long party at Vidiots. Each night, filmmakers/stars Harrison Xu and Ivan Leung will be joined by guest Q&A hosts from around LA.
Born in Flames
Dec 29, 6:00 pm @ Brain Dead Studios
In near-future New York, ten years after the “social-democratic war of liberation,” diverse groups of women organize a feminist uprising as equality remains unfulfilled.
Tickets from Brain Dead Studios >
Cunningham
Dec 30, 2:00 pm @ Academy Museum
This remarkable 3D documentary showcases the life work of gay choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was a trailblazer in modern and avant-garde dance, and frequently collaborated with his life partner, the composer John Cage.
Use code QueerCinema for $2 off your ticket!
Chinatown Punk Wars
Jan 15, 7:00 pm @ Philosophical Research Society
Director Steve Kochones in person
Gregorio Davila's Queer Diaspora series continues with this local documentary, about the 1970's punk scene in LA. Shunned by Hollywood venues, punk acts moved downtown to Chinatown, where two rival punk bars developed into an inclusive underground scene welcoming of all races, genders, and sexualities. Q&A to follow.
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