Week of Nov 4
The restoration of a nearly-lost cult classic comes to LA! Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers, a madcap underground musical from 1972, was one of the first films ever to star a trans actor. Warhol muse Holly Woodlawn gets her first and only leading role in this film, now restored by the Academy Museum and American Genre Film Archive, screening Wed Nov 6 at the Philosophical Research Society.
Not sure about the Philosophical Research Society? Despite the space's mystic origins, today it is a nonprofit community arts space and library. Want to know more? Check out the exhibit Sci-fi, Magick, Queer LA: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation, which explores how LA's occult communities in the 1930s-60s helped incubate the LGBTQ+ rights movement. On display until Nov 23 at the USC Fischer library; part of PST ART: Art and Science Collide.
Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers at PRS >
Spotlight on Gregg Araki
New Queer Cinema director Gregg Araki has one of the most distinctive voices in cinema, finding the weird kids and the slackers and the sex workers and the folks at the margins with horrifying visions of aliens and apocalyptic futures. He tells their stories with his own style, a combination of Gen X slacker cool and winking allusions to the French New Wave, digging up raw emotions and wild visuals.
Brain Dead Studios presents a month-long retrospective on Araki's works, including the recently-restored Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, and the not-streaming-anywhere Splendor and Three Bewildered People in the Night.
Gregg Araki Spotlight at Brain Dead Studios >
Sergei Parajanov Retrospective
Bisexual Soviet film director Sergei Parajanov was jailed for his art, his sexuality, and his support of nationalist movements within the USSR. None of his films are explicitly Queer by modern standards, but they play with gender, kitsch, and folklore in beautiful ways. In 1969's The Color of Pomegranates, actress Sofiko Chiaureli plays multiple roles, both male and female. The film was heavily censored by Soviet authorities, and was not fully restored until 2014.
The UCLA Film and Television Archive and American Cinematheque partner to present a retrospective of Parajanov's body of work, one hundred years after his birth, running Nov 23 - Dec 18.
Sergei Parajanov Retrospective >
This Week
Moonlight
Nov 10, 12:00 pm @ Egyptian Theatre
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
The Haunting
Nov 11, 7:00 pm @ Los Feliz 3
The Haunting was remarkable for 1963 for having a main character who was a lesbian, without being punished for it. The 2018 Netflix miniseries adaptation makes Theo even more explicitly gay (and even more of a badass).
Tickets from American Cinematheque >
Cuckoo
Nov 11 & 12, 7:30 pm @ New Beverly Cinema
After reluctantly moving to the German Alps with her father and his new family, Gretchen discovers that their new town hides sinister secrets, as she’s plagued by strange noises and frightening visions of a strange woman.
Tickets from The New Beverly >
Kamikaze 1989
Nov 10, 8:00 pm @ Whammy Analog Media
New German Cinema Queer auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder wasn't just a writer and a director--he was an actor, too. Catch his final film appearance in this West German science fiction cult classic about a detective in a totalitarian-utopian future.
Tickets from Whammy Analog Media >
Queer Film LA Meetup
The Handmaiden
Nov 25, 7:30 pm @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
Queer Film LA Meetup at 6pm in the lobby bar
Oldboy director Park Chan-Wook adapted the Victorian lesbian con artist psychological thriller Fingersmith into 2016's critically acclaimed The Handmaiden, moving the setting to Japanese-occupied Korea as our main characters set out to seduce and rob a Japanese heiress.
Upcoming
Safe // Carol Double Feature
Dec 9, 7:00 pm @ Egyptian Theatre
Director Todd Haynes in person
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association celebrates their 50th year with a monthly series with master filmmakers at the Egyptian Theater. The series begins with Michael Mann in November, and Todd Haynes in December--screening a double feature of 1995's suburban paranoia nightmare Safe and lesbian Christmas classic Carol.
Naked Lunch
Nov 30, 11:55 pm @ New Beverly Cinema
Luca Guadagnino's upcoming Queer (opening Nov 27) is adapted from a semi-autobiographical novel by outlaw beat writer William S Burroughs--as is Naked Lunch, which director David Cronenberg described as the story of a closeted man trying to cure himself of his homosexuality.
Tickets from The New Beverly >
Mutt
Nov 16, 10:30 pm @ Landmark Westwood
A trans man confronts his past after bumping into his ex-boyfriend, sister and dad for the first time since transitioning — all within the span of a day.
Tickets from Landmark Theatres >