Dear Reader,
I must confess to you that I have about half a dozen 2022 newsletters started and never completed. I am choosing not to dwell on that, and instead am being extra positive: it’s a good thing the more half-baked ideas never graced your inbox. On the flip side, I have at least three newsletters ready to be completed in the new year! Rest assured that one of them is, indeed, derived from a crowdsourced list of favorite cinematic mommies. But to close out the year, I thought it would be fun to offer something very easy and satisfying: an arbitrary list of my ten favorite queer watches of 2022.
Despite doing a lot of writing this year for a project I desperately hope will see the light of day, and programming a retrospective BE GAY DO CRIME film series in June that is a true career highlight, I didn’t do a whole lot of individual film criticism past January, so consider this my one true push to recommend a few of the queer titles that I did love (or begrudgingly respect). There are still so many films that I haven’t managed to fit in to the last weeks of December, so if your favorite is left off the list, you can assume I didn’t get to it. Or you can assume I didn’t like it. Truly up to you to choose your Shayna (you can fight me, it’s ok).
I hope this list gives you a few titles to watch out for as they hit streaming in the coming months, or a few titles to argue over. Happy New Year, and may the next bring better and gayer movies, as I always hope it will. Additionally, please note that this list is unranked. If I had to stress over a ranking this list wouldn’t come out til next year, and it would just be this interview in which Aubrey Plaza begs Drew Barrymore to feed her and put her to bed.
Mars One/Marte Um (Brazil) - Written and directed by Gabriel Martins
One of the first films I saw this year at Sundance also, delightfully, endures as a highlight of the entire season. Mars One/Marte Um is a four-hinged tale of a working class Brazilian family on the night of Bolsnaro’s ascendence to office, and it is one of the most empathetic, kind, and naturalistically performed recent family dramas that I’ve loved. The brother-sister relationship at the heart of the film is a balm; gentle, protective, and a model of allyship in the most generous sense. If you want something hopeful, healing, and realistic but somehow not dismal, I would highly recommend this flick, which will be released on Netflix in January!
You can read my full review of Mars One here.
Sirens (Lebanon/US) - Written and directed by Rita Baghdadi
This rebellious rock doc is a personal favorite, not the least because it’s the very first film to use a pull-quote from my review on its poster! And what a film to launch me into “real film critic” territory - if the phrase “Lebanese queer thrash metal” makes your ears perk up, Sirens’ tale of discovery, determination, and dyke drama is for you. What’s so clarifying about Rita Baghdadi’s energetic documentary is that it takes its subjects, talented Beirut-based musicians Lilas and Shery, as seriously as they regard their music. It’s certainly a fun and engaging film, but even more impressively, it retains its subjects’ genuine, tumultuous emotion and strained but deep love for one another throughout. Music means the world to these unbelievably tenacious women, and I’m so thankful to be given just a peek into that vibrant, thrumming, explosive scene through Baghdadi’s lens.
You can read my full review of Sirens here.
Fire Island (US) - Written by Joel Kim Booster, Directed by Andrew Ahn
I fucking loved this movie. I watched it for the singular night that it graced a theater in NYC as a part of NewFest’s mini Pride festival, and then I immediately watched it the next day when it went directly to Hulu so I could drag my partner along with me through an ostentatiously gay and grudgingly romantic Pride and Prejudice adaptation adventure. This is sugary sweet and snarky pop cinema at its finest, with just enough hint of gravitas from supporting actors Bowen Yang and swoon-inducing Conrad Ricamora to keep your teeth from hurting. It’s a perfect ensemble, a perfect backdrop, and my prediction for most likely to become an annual rewatch. You’ve probably already seen at least this clip of the feral Marisa Tomei-off, so do yourself a favor: drop everything and lose yourself in its irreverence for a tight hour forty five.
That Boy (US) - Written, directed, and starring Peter Berlin; Dressed in Blue/Vestida de Azul (Spain)- Written and directed by Antonio Giménez Rico
I’m cheating here, but this is my list and I make the rules! Neither of these films are technically new releases, but they are newly re-released either through theater or home video for the very first time, and I want to take a moment to sing the praises of historian, filmmaker, and archivist Elizabeth Purchell’s efforts to bring lost queer cinema to our lucky eyes. Without her work this year, I never would have known about a trove of past treasures.
Peter Berlin’s That Boy is a dreamy cruising fantasy that follows a day in the life of Adonis-like Helmut (Berlin) as he drifts through the streets of 1974 San Francisco, ethereally passing through the sexploits of those watching him covetously. It’s at once unbelievably hot and corny, with an introspective but mostly superfluous plot about Helmut falling for an equally handsome young blind man - the only person who can’t see his physical beauty. Berlin’s brilliant erotic photography and lush imagination is on full view throughout, especially utilized in one vignette of a never-ending strip tease that sees Helmut shed layer after skimpy layer of leather, endlessly arousing and teasing his photographer. That Boy is pure pleasure and freedom in a time capsule that now only haunts Market and Polk, but it’s a treat to experience the corporeal titillation that Berlin can still inspire.
A rare time capsule of a different geography, Dressed in Blue is an invigorating, headfirst immersion into the lives of eight utterly singular trans women navigating sex work, transition, romance, and piping hot gossip in post-dictadura Madrid. Super stylized to match its subjects (and interspersed with brunch!!!) the documentary has excellent coverage and staging dictated by its subjects and captured by Teo Escamilla’s gorgeously intimate cinematography. It’s a pleasure to listen in on their stories, and hard to believe the conversations are over 40 years old. You can snag the beautifully restored blu-ray, supplemented by a rich trans critics’ roundtable and bonus features, from Altered Innocence now.
Girl Picture/Tytöt tytöt tytöt (Finland) - Written by Ilona Ahti and Daniela Hakulinen, Directed by Alli Haapasalo
In the frigidity of a harsh Finnish winter, three young women’s lives intertwine as they try to decide who they really are, and who loves them back. In my Brooklyn apartment, a full ten years older and way less Nordic than the demographic of Girl Picture’s protagonists, I tear up and nod fervently: yes, growing up really is that hard to do.
Alli Haapasalo’s hushed landscapes and insightful, expressive portraiture are perfect complements to the warring codependence and and hyper-independence that Ronkko (Eleonoora Kauhanen), Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff), and Emma (Linnea Leino) navigate in their quests for more out of the beginning of the rest of their lives. Performances, cinematography, and score are all top-tier in this small but impactful narrative, which is notable not only for its dynamic queerness (obviously), but for a rare and openhearted depiction of a teen confronting her own possible asexuality. If you’re feeling up for some angst and meditation on your own bad teen decisions, I would highly recommend renting Girl Picture, which is available now with either a premium Prime subscription, or VOD at all the usual suspects.
You can read my full review of Girl Picture here.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (US) - Directed by Laura Poitras
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed just got shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature for the 2023 Academy Awards, to which I say yes! Yes! I know it’s supremely arbitrary, but let’s goooooooooo! Let’s get The Janes in there too, while we’re at it.
Laura Poitras’ unfolding of legendary photographer Nan Goldin’s entire person alongside her present day fight against the opioid devastation doled out by the Sackler family is unique combination of biography, retrospective, and activist art that recognizes it can’t possibly encompass everything Goldin has touched in her whole life. With that knowledge, it instead examines what has formed Goldin: her beloved sister’s forced institutionalization; her parents’ repression and inability to confront truth or tragedy; her first friend and gay twin flame; her happiest moments as a runaway; her friendship with Cookie Mueller and a veritable list of Manhattan’s most creative, dissatisfied, and radical gay artists and sex workers; her cycles of addiction and abuse at the hands of her longterm boyfriend; and the way she finally found a voice through photography. Just the narration of Goldin reflecting on her photos would be enough to make this a special watch, but its interweaving with a fight against pharmaceutical genocide is a grueling and inspiring reminder that no art is divorced from its audience, subjects, or consequences.
ATBATB is still in theaters! Catch it so you can brag to everyone about getting in early on an Oscar frontrunner, or so you can have something to be loud hater about if it doesn’t end up with a nomination.
Tár (US)- Written and directed by Todd Field
Sigh.
Listen.
I don’t love Tár. I think it’s attempting to be a character study and a study of power and transaction through a contemporary digital lens once you strip away the defenses of marginality………like, for instance, the marginality of being a White Woman Lesbian Genius Human. It only succeeds at one of those, and the rest is an inconsistent critique that can’t imagine the speaking patterns of anyone under thirty.
HOWEVER, the nation has Tár fever, and that’s fucking hilarious. I am fully onboard for this sonically exacting ego death spiral of world-renowned EGOT Lydia Tár (author of Tár on Tár) being on everyone’s radar. I am onboard for the utter nonsense of Cate Blanchett using her slightly altered and strained Carol voice to unconvincingly monotone the phrase “U-haul lesbian” (does anyone in this movie know what a lesbian looks like?). There are so many layers of tone and texture and ACTING in this film, which was obviously meant to be four hours long and cut out much of the trailer footage from its final runtime, that even though I’m unconvinced of its social commentary and analysis, I would be happy to watch it all over again. As Lydia’s wife Sharon, Nina Hoss is a fantastic accomplice, and even if she’s edged out for the Oscar, I hope we all take a moment to applaud her minuscule facial expressions that convey what I think is the most powerful message to take away from Tár: my husband is an idiot.
Petit Mal (Colombia) - Written and directed by Ruth Caudeli
This may technically turn into a 2023 title, but think of it as something to watch out for! Despite playing the festival circuit and being acquired by Dark Star Pictures in June, Ruth Caudeli’s intimate continued collaboration with actors Ana María Otolora and Silvia Varón is not yet available to stream in the US. Petit Mal is an earnest, impressionistic look at polyamory that chooses to tell both the sweetness and the bitter jealousy of pouring your faith into unpredictable partners. In Caudeli’s experimental hybrid narrative, the absent partner in question usually takes up the middle spot between two queer women (and several dogs) in their shared king bed, which makes for a refreshing, and for Caudeli, Otola, and Varón, true-to-life examination. Caudeli and co’s filmmaking practices, which you can also see the product of in Screenshots for a Goodbye (2020) and Leading Ladies (2021), are part of a fascinating long-term arts process that seeks to break down any sense of boundary or propriety between real queer life and queer screen life, and I personally hope their prolific moviemaking will be seen by far more people in years to come.
Jackass Forever/Jackass 4.5 (US) - Directed by Jeff Tremaine
Despite growing up at the height of skate culture and trying my best to be one of the boys (lol), I never got into Jackass as a pre-teen. I barely knew what it was about - just that it seemed violent and probably gross. Now, older and wiser as I am, I can appreciate it for what it is: art. Gay art. Violent and gross extended homoerotic S&M art carried out by a chosen family that just loves to make each other suffer. Jackass Forever is yet another installment in an incredible series of dudes being dudes, and this time, they’ve brought in a new crop of eager to bleed stuntmen and woman, passing the torch the only way they could: by flattening each others’ penises under resin and creating a dick-to-dick ping pong court. Is this a meaningful film? Yes. Is it actually gay? Also yes. If I don’t get to program a screening of Jackass with a live impact performance in the next few years, I’m no real friend of cinephiles or gays.
If this is inspiring you to reconsider Jackass, might I recommend watching Jackass Two: Too Hot for Theaters, which features “The Bellhop Cart,” or John Waters sending Steve-O down hotel stairs in a bellhop costume and jockstrap to what should have been his death.
Happy New Year, ya filthy animals. May you ring in 2023 with something truly gay.
Geeze louise the part of the jackass interview hinting about the porta-potty scene was already a lot haha