Two convicts make love though a hole in the wall, a hole so tiny that the only object that can pass through it is a straw and the only love that can be made is one convict blowing smoke into the other’s mouth.

This is the most famous scene in the dank and languid Un Chant d’Amour (A Song of Love), an underground film made in the year 1950 — an antique prehistoric moment before the emergence of a forthright gay sensibility — by Jean Genet, France’s most acclaimed thief, pornographer and poet of perversity. (You can watch the complete 25-minute film below, after the break.)

And when I say perversity, I’m not being flip or using the egregious code word for homosexual favored by haters of gay people. No, Genet had — or perhaps, for the sake of his art, for the “beauty of the gesture,” affected to have — a most Satanic taste for true perversity: he once wrote that the greatest act of love was for one lover to betray the other to the Gestapo, while the accused looked on. (more…)

Once again the tension is mounting. Oscar Eve is upon us.

The Smart Money, we are told, is on Helen Mirren. She is one of maybe three Sure Things set to look up from the stage of the Kodak Theater this Sunday into the full glow of Academy acclaim. The Smart Money is also on Dreamgirl Jennifer Hudson and — until just recently — Eddie Murphy.

Now readers, we know you’re just like us: longtime Academy-Award watchers, the kind of people who started rehearsing their Oscar speeches in the mirror at age six. We Nightcharmers know that Smart Money predictions and Shoo-Ins are a tradition of Oscar Night.

So is The Major Upset. (more…)

As this giddy NY Times review by Manohla Dargis reminds us, “There are, in the movies, few places creepier to spend time than in David Lynch’s head.”

But ask yourself: When it comes to David Lynch, isn’t that exactly where you want to be?

Remember Mulholland Drive? I do. After my sixth viewing I realized I was watching the movie, repeatedly, not because I enjoyed it as cinema but because as a process the movie taught me to appreciate symbols with the same deference I apply to modern art.

“What does it mean?” was replaced with — well, rewatching the film. (more…)

Dreamgirls is weirdly like The Wizard of Oz.

Neither one has a single shred of overtly gay content, and yet each of them has become an iconically gay piece of work. Wait til see you see the movie of Dreamgirls (and you will, you know you will). You’ll see just what I mean.

Here’s a movie made by two white gay guys (writer-director Bill Condon and producer Laurence Mark) based on a Broadway musical made by a bunch of other white gay guys (director-choreographer Michael Bennett, playwright-lyricist Tom Eyen, composer Henry Krieger, and producer David Geffen) loosely based on the real-life story of four young black women from Detroit in the early ‘60s whose singing group crosses over from R&B to Top 40 and launches the superstardom of their lead singer.

Lord knows, gay guys aren’t the only people in the world who love the Supremes or the Broadway show loosely based on their story. But the same mysterious alchemy by which chubby nerdy mamma’s boys all over the world identify with a spunky pubescent girl in pigtails and a checked gingham dress singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” seems to operate inside the mythic landscape of Dreamgirls. (more…)

Serene and telepathic, the fair lady of the wood, the Elf Queen who keeps her innermost thoughts hidden, Galadriel stares at the ring of ultimate power that Frodo offers her.

She has long wanted it, and now here it is, being offered freely by a guileless hobbit, an accidental ringbearer, who wearies of its weight, fears its pull.

In an instant Galadriel sees how the ring would overpower her — even her, with all her forest sorceries. The grove where she is standing takes on an eerie green glow, positive and negative light switch. “In place of a Dark Lord,” she warns the hobbit, “you will have a Queen! Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Dawn. Treacherous as the Sea.” She grows immense before his eyes. “Stronger than the foundations of the earth.” Her voice thunders with a multitude of shrill over-voices:

“All shall love me and despair!”

And then, in one of the most fateful turns in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, she rejects the offer, as she is destined to. “I pass the test,” she gasps in relief. “I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.” (more…)

Booze, dope and showbiz. How can we resist?

The Valley of the Dolls is finally out on a deluxe 2-disc DVD — just in time for Gay Pride Day. And what a celebration it is! From its shocking-pink plastic case to its tons of queer-centric extras, we have never seen a DVD cater so hard — or so lovingly — to a certain kind of fabuloso gay mania.

Here you will find extras that include: Karaoke versions of the film’s dumbly worded songs where you follow the bouncing Rx bottle. Commentary by a camp-savvy but earnest Barbara Parkins (who hated her boxy, beige good-girl suits when all the other actresses got to wear sparkly Travilla gowns.) Remarks from Patty Duke (who hated the director and was accused of beating up too hard on Susan Hayward in the the film’s campfest finale, the ladies room cat fight.) And comments from a supporting player, who noted that it was a movie where all the actresses hated each other, upstaged each other, and saw their roles as pivotal career-changing opportunities. (more…)

Now, fresh from 2-disc DVD rehab, David K and editor John Calendo discuss the magic, the myth, and the madness of Valley of the Dolls.

David K: For years I’ve been smitten with the publicity still of the three girls on the bed. It’s the most famous image associated with the film.

John Calendo: It’s too bad the three actresses never appear in the same scene together. As to what they might all be doing on a big ‘ol Hollywood bed except trying on each other’s falls, I will leave to the girl-on-girl aficionados.

DK: That image symbolizes the heart of what I love most about Dolls: It’s a movie about glamorous, beautiful women … with big hair. But for all its pinky glamor the photo is also disturbing. The way the trio is juxtaposed on the bed, but not relating to each other — that signals complications. Goodie! A movie about Gals in Trouble! That fact shoots the film into the queer stratosphere. Beauty and chaos intermingling — it’s an addictive combo. (more…)

On June 10, just in time for her birthday, Judy Garland will appear on a U.S. stamp.

I always think of Judy at this time of year, as the rainbow flags unfurl and the floats come down the street with their glamor-girl boys and near-nude leathermen. Hyper-real spectaculars that would not be out of place in the Emerald City — or Munchkinland!

“Are you a friend of Dorothy?” soldiers would ask each other during World War II, using this code phrase to signal that they were gay. It was only a matter of time before the brass caught wind of it, without quite understanding its significance. In a dither that Reds and homos were sneaking into their ranks, the military spent $250,000 to find out who this diabolic den-mother of the GI homos was. Yet even the nelliest civilian could have told them (in exchange, we hope, for a little buzz-cut face action).

She was, of course, our Judy. The gal who fell from a star called Kansas. So tenderly young in The Wizard of Oz, yet already empowered by that penetrating cry in her voice. (more…)