Founded in Hamburg in the 1970s, the gay theater "Brühwarm" toured Germany with its musical cabaret. Founding member Corny Littmann wrote the lyrics and Rio Reiser ("Ton Steine Scherben") provided the music. The result was a new form of theater as a political tool. In the documentary, former members of the theater have their say and give an impressive account of how the theater group, with its emancipatory and political aspirations, fought for gay rights in the turbulent political times of the 1970s.
Stand and Deliver is an inspirational classic from 1988 starring Edward James Olmos as Jaime Escalante, and his class of rag tag students in East Los Angeles. It’s the story of how a new teacher shows a motley group of students in the inner city with backgrounds as gang members, dishwashers, and mechanics — the power of self-determination. He teaches the teenagers to believe in themselves through algebra and calculus.
This coming-of-age movie discusses immigration issues in the United States through the eyes of two exchange students in Brazil.
At first glance, one wouldn't think John Carpenter's cult classic would be a thematic double-billing - or that Free Guy would be worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as They Live - but the two films of vastly different genres have more similarities upon further examination.
The film didn’t have to be as long as it is. It just dragged on and on with scenes that had no substance. Every so often we get an action scene, and even those isn’t that fun.
Adapted from a 2014 novel by Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life is the feature film debut of documentary filmmaker Bing Liu. With the help of screenwriter Martyna Majok, he paints a realistic and somber portrayal of Aishe, a Uyghur immigrant, as she struggles to make a living while undocumented in the United States.
Perhaps the most amazing and groundbreaking quality about The Birdcage is how removed it is from both illness and insensitivity. Whereas films preceding it were often somber stories about the tribulations of being gay in a conservatively straight world, Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May expose the fallacies of conservatism as traditional values are thrown into a more open-minded space. They don’t care how far the community has fallen so much as how high they can rebuild themselves.
