Gay Pop Culture

Regent Releasing is pleased to announce the U.S. theatrical debut of No Regret, an award-winning romantic drama focusing on class conflict and contemporary gay life in Korea. No Regret was recently acquired by here! Films, Regent Releasing’s sister company, and will premiere in Los Angeles and New York on July 25th, with other select cities to follow.

No Regret, the first true gay film from Korea, centers on Sumin (Lee Young-Hoon), a poor 18 year-old orphan who seeks his fortune in the bright lights of Seoul. After losing a series of jobs, he is forced to work as a prostitute in a gay karaoke bar. A wealthy and powerful industrialist, Jaemin, (Lee Han) falls passionately in love with the boy and seduces him. Their relationship soon begins to interfere with Jaemin’s pending nuptials and his promotion to a high-profile job at his father’s company. Vengeful after becoming ignored, Sumin sets off on a destructive course of action that brings the film to a powerful and emotional moment of truth. No Regret is as uplifting and bittersweet as it is compelling and surprising.

“We are thrilled to bring Lesoong Hee-il’s groundbreaking first feature to American audiences,” said Mark Reinhart, West Coast General Manager and Executive Vice President of Acquisitions and Distribution for Regent. “No Regret’s authentic and heartbreaking portrayal of gay culture in metropolitan Seoul along with its powerful performances make it a wonderful addition to our growing slate of independent films.”

Director Leesong Hee-il has received critical acclaim for his shorts (Sugar Hill, Good Romance) as well as omnibus work (Camellia Project - Three Queer Stories at Bogil Island). His screen achievements have set the bar for gay Korean filmmakers and his devotion to creating true-to-life gay characters has made him a favorite at film festivals from Vancouver to Berlin. “No Regret” has been well received at prominent festivals in the U.S., such as Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, Outfest in Los Angeles, the Seattle International Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Leesong Hee-il has received numerous awards including “Best Independent Director of the Year,” Director’s Cut Awards Korea and the “Best Film Award,” Ansan International Next Film Festival.

Richard
June 16, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

KABLUEY, a unique heartfelt indie comedy will be released in select theatres this summer. KABLUEY stars an ensemble cast led by Lisa Kudrow (“Friends”), Teri Garr (Tootsie), Christine Taylor (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story), Conchata Ferrell (“Two and a Half Men”), Chris Parnell (“Saturday Night Live”) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (“Grey’s Anatomy”), among others. With the idea conceived on an airplane, Scott Prendergast wrote, directed and acted in the film based on his personal experiences as a bad babysitter for his brother’s kids.

Kudrow plays the mother of two rambunctious young boys, barely holding things together while her husband’s National Guard unit is off fighting in Iraq. Desperate for some help, she lets her husband’s brother, Salman (Prendergast) move in and act as make-shift nanny. But his parenting skills are lacking and soon all hell breaks loose. In order to keep the family afloat, Salman takes a job as a corporate mascot, spending his days baking in the heat of a ridiculous giant blue costume. However the suit’s anonymity offers him a fresh start and surprising new opportunities to keep the family together.
KABLUEY opens in select cities including New York on July 4th at the Cinema Village, Los Angeles on July 11th at Laemmle’s Sunset 5, Austin on July 25th at the Dobie Theatre and in San Francisco on August 1st at the Lumiere.

This is Prendergast’s first feature film after having created “Anna is Being Stalked” and “The Delicious,” as well as three other short films that have screened at over 40 film festivals including Sundance. He was also a staff writer on MTV’s “Celebrity Deathmatch.”

KABLUEY has been a favorite on the 2007 film festival circuit garnering special audience awards at the Austin Film Festival and the Oxford (Mississippi) Film Festival. Sold out screenings also took place at these prestigious film festivals: LA Film Festival, Montreal, San Diego, Ojai, Hamptons, El Paso, Gasparilla, Orlando and Oxford (Ohio).

KABLUEY was produced by Whitewater Films and is being distributed by Regent Releasing. The film is produced by Rick Rosenthal, Gary Dean Simpson, Jeff Balis, Rhoades Rader, and Doug Sutherland, with Executive Producers Sarah Feinberg and Nancy Stephens. It was shot on location in Austin, Texas. KABLUEY is rated PG-13 for some sexual material, including a crude reference and brief strong language. The running time is 87 minutes.

KABLUEY follows on the heels of Whitewater Films’ Mean Creek and Nearing Grace. The company recently wrapped production in New Jersey on Greta, starring Hilary Duff, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Murphy and Evan Ross.

Richard
June 11, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

here! Films is pleased to announce the acquisition of Cthulhu, a contemporary adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft mythos focusing on a young gay man who discovers frightening aspects of his father’s New Age cult.

“Cthulhu is a superbly realized first feature from director Dan Gildark and writer Grant Cogswell,” said Mark Reinhart, West Coast General Manager and EVP, Distribution and Acquisitions for Regent. “The filmmakers did a wonderful job re-imagining the H.P. Lovecraft mythos using a gay lead character,” he added.

“We are pleased to be working with Regent in releasing this film to a broad audience,” said Daniel Gildark, the film’s director. “Fans of H.P. Lovecraft will be naturally drawn to the story as its appeal is as timeless as it is wide-ranging. Cthulhu’ is also the first big-screen take on H.P. Lovecraft’s work that does not rely on parody and camp, instead approaching the original material with real complexity.”

This is Dan Gildark’s debut feature; he was a founding member of Baltimore’s Contemporary Museum and of Seattle’s award–winning agit–prop multimedia theatre company, The Boondogglers. In 1990 Daniel created a series of original images used for years in the credit sequences for MTV’s 120 Minutes. In 1995 he traveled to the former Yugoslavia to document the civil war.

Filmed in Seattle and on the Oregon coast, the movie features beautiful, vibrant, torrential land and seascapes that foreshadow the lead characters’ ominous fate. Cthulhu is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth. By setting the story in modern times and working with current social, ecological, and political issues, the film offers a provocative new vision of the world.

Jason Cottle, Scott Patrick Green and Cara Buono are featured as the lead characters, and the cast for Cthulhu includes Tori Spelling as a cheerfully evil seductress who wants the male lead to father her child in order to fulfill an ancient prophecy.

Richard
June 11, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

Hollywood homophobia slowly diminishes:

… Leslie Jordan, 53, of the former NBC program Will & Grace and author of the recently released book My Trip Down the Pink Carpet, who faced steep adversity when he stepped off the bus in Hollywood more than 25 years ago

Jordan has always been openly gay, but early in his career the word “gay” was not even part of the casting vocabulary, he said. Gay parts were called “mama’s boy” or “Truman Capote” roles, but it was obvious who they were for, he said.

Hollywood sees cracks in gay “glass closet”

But it has a bit easier for gay actresses than the guys.

I think queer male actors will always face a stiff barrier.

In action and adventure movies heterosexual men are going to want to identify with the two-fisted he-man hero. And how many of them have the emotional maturity or creative empathy to get past a gay actor’s sexual orientation?

Hope I’m a poor prophet.

Richard
June 07, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

From a review of Polaroids: Mapplethorpe exhibition at the Whitney:

They represent a kind of “coming out,” artistically speaking. The mature themes of this intensely neoclassical photographer’s art are all there: still lives and self-portraiture, pictures of the demimonde and the mondaine—downtown personages, uptown celebrities, artists, socialites, and creatures of the night, who crawled before his camera from who knows where. And, of course, the great theater of eroticism, from the baroque accoutrements of gay sadomasochism—leather masks, nipple rings, penile harnesses, etc.—to tender embraces between men, to the naked mattress ticking that waits, in one photograph, like an empty page for the story of sex to be written upon it.

Robert Mapplethorpe’s Instant Precious Relics

Richard
June 05, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

here! Films is pleased to announce the U.S. theatrical debut of “Holding Trevor,” a unique dramedy focusing on the lives and loves of attractive twenty-somethings. Holding Trevor will be distributed by Regent Releasing, here! Films’ sister company, and will premiere in Los Angeles and New York on July 4th, Denver on July 11th and Palm Springs on July 18th. Other select cities will follow.

A funny and scathing evaluation of a group of friends and lovers, Holding Trevor offers a shrewdly perceptive, biting analysis of young men and women struggling to make sense of their lives and relationships. The film stars writer and executive producer Brent Gorski and singer/songwriter Jay Brannan (“Shortbus”) and was directed and produced by Rosser Goodman (“Daddy-O,” “Life’s a Butch!,” “Wet Dress”).

“’Holding Trevor’ is a wonderfully accomplished first feature from director Rosser Goodman and writer Brent Gorski, ” said Mark Reinhart, West Coast General Manager and EVP, Acquisitions and Distribution for Regent. “We are delighted to bring this uplifting, yet uncompromising look at life among contemporary youth to audiences across the country, “ he added.

Trevor Holden (Brent Gorski) is young, beautiful and intelligent, and desperately looking for himself in all the wrong places. Despite the well-meaning advice offered by his sexually promiscuous best friend and his self-righteous female roommate, Trevor still seems to come up short. Almost ready to throw in the towel, Trevor happens upon Mr. Right. He ends his unhealthy relationship with Darrell, a self-destructive heroin addict, and finds a potential new beginning in Ephram, a medical intern with ambition, a warm demeanor and stunningly good looks.

“Nothing could make me happier than to know that HOLDING TREVOR, our little film that could, will finally get it’s theatrical debut thanks to here! Films and Regent Releasing,” said director Rosser Goodman. “It’s a dream come true for me and we could not be in better hands,” she added.

Director Rosser Goodman and writer Brent Gorski have received critical acclaim for “Holding Trevor,” which has been well received at such prominent festivals in the U.S. such as Los Angeles’ Outfest, San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival, the Philadelphia Film Festival, the Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, Washington DC’s One In Ten/Reel Affirmations, the Seattle Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and the Austin Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

Holding Trevor is Rosser Goodman’s directorial debut. She recently launched Last Bastion Entertainment and is currently attached to direct the upcoming romantic thriller “MONGOOSE8,” which she also wrote. For more information on Rosser Goodman, please visit www.rossergoodman.com.

Brent Gorski is an LA-based writer/actor originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. “Holding Trevor” is the first feature film written and produced by Gorski for his production company, Stray Films. Currently, Gorski is working as an actor and developing new scripts for film and television. For more information on Brent Gorski, please email strayfilms@gmail.com.

Richard
June 05, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

here!, America’s premium gay and lesbian television network, is pleased to present the network premiere of Kiss the Bride. The romantic comedy directed by C. Jay Cox (Latter Days) and starring Tori Spelling will make its network debut on Friday, June 6th.

The story revolves around Matt (Philipp Karner), a gay bachelor who receives an invitation to the wedding of his high school best friend Ryan (James O’ Shea). Matt is shocked to learn of Ryan’s plans to marry and plans to rescue his former love from the “she-devil” that has trapped him into this huge mistake.

On the other hand, Ryan’s perky fiancé Alex (Spelling) takes quite the liking to Matt. Is she very cunning, disarmingly ditzy, completely adorable - or all three? As Matt tries to rekindle the old flame, Ryan is intent on dousing any sparks. Ryan dismisses their old romance as just an adolescent thing, while Matt realizes Ryan may actually be the love of his life. All the while, Matt must deal with his new galpal Alex, the two families, and a hometown he thought he’d left entirely in the past.

Cox’s first feature film, Latter Days, won the Audience Award for Best First Narrative Feature and was nominated for its screenplay at the 2005 Los Angeles Outfest. Latter Days starred Jacqueline Bisset, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Steve Sandvoss and won top prizes at the Toronto and Philadelphia Internation Gay & Lesbian Film Festivals. Cox previously wrote the box office smash Sweet Home Alabama, starring Reese Witherspoon, Patrick Dempsey, and Josh Lucas. Shadow Factory, the production company formed by Cox along with producers Richard Santilena and Bob Schuck, is “dedicated to producing commercially successful entertainment projects under an efficient economic model.” Kiss the Bride is their first feature.

“We are very excited to premiere this wonderful C. Jay Cox film on here!. He is a brilliant filmmaker adept at telling comedic and yet heartwarming romantic stories. It is a film that appeals to our diverse gay audience, and its message reminds us that love often does not have boundaries and may not discriminate based on sexual preference. Kiss the Bride is a film that crosses boundaries of sexuality; a movie that any man or woman – straight or gay – can enjoy on many different levels,” says Mark Reinhart, General Manager and Executive Vice President Distribution and Acquisitions.

In addition to starring on Beverly Hills 90210 as Donna Martin, Spelling received critical praise for her performance in the Fine Line Features comedy Trick, playing an aspiring actress who is constantly coming between her best friend and his potential hunky one-night stand.

Her additional feature credits include the independent feature 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, opposite Poppy Montgomery and Fred Willard; Scary Movie 2, the sequel to the 2000 blockbuster; a cameo in Scream 2; and a starring role in the Miramax comedy-drama The House of Yes, garnering Spelling kudos for her portrayal of a young college student who meets her fiancée’s dysfunctional family over a stormy Thanksgiving weekend.

Kiss the Bride, which previously had a limited theatrical release in April, is a funny, fascinating exploration of the complex social and sexual landscape we all inhabit, told with a sexy

Richard
June 03, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

here!, America’s premium gay television network, is pleased to announce the network debut of two thrilling original productions. Disaster-adventure films Polar Opposites and Solar Flare will both be making their network debuts this month on Friday, June 20th and Friday, June 27th, respectively. Polar Opposites stars Charles Shaugnessy (The Nanny, Days of our Lives) as Scientist David Terran. David has written bestsellers about the dangers of the Earth’s magnetic fields, but his unconventional theories have made him a joke amongst his colleagues. Even his best friend, Martin (played by Ken Barnett of The Producers and Puccini for Beginners), refuses to take David’s scientific ideas seriously. Denied the respect he deserves, David gives up on his career and retreats to a remote cabin to live out his days alone with his father.

Meanwhile, halfway across the globe, the Iranian government has begun a series of rogue nuclear tests which unexpectedly sets into motion a series of dangerous events. A sudden spike in solar radiation and devastating earthquakes threatens to destroy all life on the planet. Desperate to do something, the US government calls on David for help. But the only way he can succeed is with the help of the friend who didn’t believe in him. Now David and Martin must pull together to rebuild their friendship and save the world from total destruction. Also starring in Polar Opposites are stage and screen veterans Tracy Nelson (The Father Dowling Mysteries) and Beth Grant (Sordid Lives, Donnie Darko, No Country for Old Men). Solar Flare revolves around fifteen-year-old Riley (Chris Brochu, known for guest roles on Hannah Montana and Zoey 101), a math genius with a tough talking mom (Michelle Clunie from Queer as Folk) who is fascinated by the universe. Riley has developed a groundbreaking new way to accurately predict the frequency of dangerous Solar Flares. Soon he discovers that a huge solar storm is hours away from frying the earth’s power grid. With the help of his professor, the no-nonsense Dr. Clark (Tracy Gold from Growing Pains), he sets out on a race against time to convince the world to prepare for the worst before it’s too late.

But things take a darker turn when Marshall Pryor (Ted Monty), the head of a powerful corporation, learns of Riley’s prediction. Pryor thinks the coming global disaster could be a huge moneymaking opportunity, especially if it comes without warning. Dr. Clark’s discovery of this terrifying plan instantly makes her and Riley the newest targets of Pryor’s murderous wrath. Narrowly escaping Pryor and his henchmen, they decide their only hope is to deliver a warning directly to the White House.

As the huge solar storm enters its final stage, Riley and Dr. Clark have one last chance to stop the disaster—if they can survive long enough to convince the most powerful man in the world to act. here! looks forward to airing these titles as part of a new franchise which will highlight ordinary men and woman from the LGBT community as we brand them “Everyday Gay Heroes.”

Richard
June 03, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

Playboys homoerotic TV offerings sound too tame:

Each program in the package “may depict erect genitalia, male-on-male fellatio and simulated or implied sexual intercourse.”

But, according to the memo, content “shall not depict actual anal penetration, licking or anal sexual play of any kind.”

Playboy Wants The Gays

Using a pre-existing network:

The initiative, under the corporation’s spicier Spice banner, will launch next month in a limited number of geographical areas, the company said Thursday.

Playboy Spice adding gay-targeted movies

But really:

What’s the point then????

You can get better stuff - for free - on the Internets!

Hey, at least this is some sort of progress. We have a feeling the closeted “straight” dudes will love this the most!

Playboy’s Going Gay

Richard
May 17, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)

From a highly entertaining essay on Philippine gay slang:

The 1970s gay icon, Lindsay Wagner as the Bionic Woman, also gets a place of honor in Philippine gay lingo. Miss Wagner mesmerized Filipino gay men with her slow-motion way of running, and her bangs that flipped from one side of her head to the other. Now, “Bionic Woman” means “magbayo,” or to masturbate. A sample sentence is: I did a Bionic Woman last night because I am afraid of Tita Aida [AIDS].” A synonym for this would be “Biogesic,” which is an analgesic and antipyretic drug.

“Ahas” means “snake” in Tagalog. The root word for this is “anaconda.” A sample sentence is: “You are so anaconda. You stole my jowa (boyfriend).” Synonyms for this would be “serpentina” and “Medusa.” To have pointed lips implies somebody who loves to sow intrigues. It also gave rise to the query: “Why do gays have pointed lips?” The answer, supposedly, is “Because they have a phallic pout. Their lips are already molded outward.”

On Philippine gay lingo

Richard
May 06, 2008 • Permalink • Comments (0)