In 2006, China banned Lou Ye from shooting movies for five years after he screened “Summer Palace” at the Cannes Film Festival without government approval. In the film Lou tackled the Chinese military’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy student protesters at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people are believed to have been killed.

But he defied the ban, secretly shooting the love story “Spring Fever” with small, digital cameras in the eastern city Nanjing last year. He also entered it at Cannes this year, where it won best screenplay in May.

In “Spring Fever,” he takes on homosexuality – another taboo in China – with graphic gay sex scenes. The 115-minute movie is about a private investigator hired to spy on a married man having a gay affair. But the investigator falls into a love triangle with his own girlfriend and the boyfriend of the husband he is investigating.

Commercial distributors have bought “Spring Fever” for release in Russia, South Korea, France, and the U.S., but not so in China. It was only screened in four showings at an independent film festival in Nanjing last month.

On Friday it screened as one of the two opening movies at this year’s Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. But a Chinese distribution deal is unlikely, given Lou’s status.

Lou said, however, that Chinese film officials have turned a blind eye to his supposedly illegal activities, including for shooting “Spring Fever” and showing it at the independent film festival in Nanjing.

He has also been allowed to travel freely in and out of China, but he wants the ban lifted so his films can be screened more widely in China.

“It’s regrettable that this film won’t be released in the Chinese market,” Lou told The Associated Press in an interview before the Hong Kong screening.

Lou, whose credits also include “Suzhou River” and “Purple Butterfly,” urged the Chinese government to shorten his ban.

“Everyone should be able to make movies. I hope this ban will be canceled earlier and I hope the government won’t impose any more bans on other directors,” the 45-year-old director said.

Lou arrived in Hong Kong on Friday from Paris, where he was preparing for his next project, his foreign-language debut – a French film about a Chinese student’s romance in Paris.

These famous lyrics made its way back into our lives last week when the re-make of the 1980 movie, Fame, was released in theaters.

Of course I went to see the movie, because I am a dancer. I received my BFA in dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts. I love to see dance on stage and it gives me chills to experience it on the big screen.

Besides the five middle school boys a few rows behind me, snickering and kicking the already flimsy seats around them with full force, I had the best experience.

Performing artist or not, you should see this movie. It isn’t just another dance flick where there is no real plot or character development.

In the past five years, dance has been all over the big screen and I have no complaints there, but in most of these movies, honestly, there has been no through line. The movies have been completely unrealistic but we haven’t paid attention to it, simply because the dancing was just so amazing.

In Fame (2009) on the other hand, every character develops throughout the story and each scene has a purpose.

The movie depicts the lives of performing artists perfectly– the hard work, physical and mental.

Debbie Allen reappears in the movie and repeats one of her famous quotes from decades ago, “You’ve got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying in sweat.”

This next part may be a spoiler but it goes to show how deep the film goes into a dancer’s psyche.

One of the male characters is passionate about joining a ballet company. However, his teacher warns him that he will never get into a ballet company nor will he be able to support himself as a dancer, but suggests the possibility of him becoming a great teacher. I heard the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ in the theater as we all felt his heart break. And in the next scene he attempts to commit suicide.

The film is just that realistic. So all of the drama on top of great dancing makes this a kick ass movie.

And it is not at all a replica of the original film. I know many people think that the re-make doesn’t do justice to the original. They say that the first was much grittier, but this one goes to the edge just as much.

Also, because this film wasn’t a musical, it was neither cheesy nor predictable; although there was the typical lunchroom scene where everyone breaks into a song and dance that everyone seems to know. (I always found this scene unbearable.)

There are also different characters and story lines as well as up-to-date references to popular culture such as YouTube and text messaging.

The big dance company named in the film is Complexions Contemporary Ballet which, although founded in 1994, didn’t become the number one company to audition for until recently.

My favorite part of the movie was Naturi Naughton, who plays Denise. I’ve always been a fan of her but we’ve all wondered where she’s been since she left the group 3LW…I hope those aren’t crickets out there. 3LW was a popular R&B group during the early 2000s. Two of the members became Cheetah Girls while Naturi seemingly fell under the radar.

Well, she’s clearly spent that time perfecting her craft because her performance in this movie is phenomenal, as an actress and as a vocalist.

So if you are still a skeptic, I suggest you head down to your local theater to formulate your own opinion on the movie.

Here’s a trailer of the first five minutes.

Selena Watkins is a 365gay intern.

The folk over at Gay Patriot have very little in common with me. I’m left of center and they proudly are not. They’ve been nominated for blogging awards. My only claim to fame is when I post minus grammar mistakes. So when I went to the site yesterday, wasn’t looking for much; however, it’s always a good idea to read, and study, the opinions of your political enemies. And by the way: read and study does not include  using these terms: “self-loathing Nazi” or “liberal hater of America.”

The site earned my everlasting respect because of a post about The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola’s ode to family, crime, and the perversion of the American dream. GP is eating dinner, getting prepared to do a few errands. He figures he can watch an hour and then move on to the work that is waiting to be done. Yeah right. That’s like me turning down good cherry pie or a free drink.

“Never start to watch that movie unless you’re prepared to watch all three hours.  I should have known.”

Come on GP. What were you thinking? From the bit players to the major stars, there isn’t one  false note. And who doesn’t watch with fascination as the youngest son (played by a non-hammy Al Pacino) starts the film denying his family legacy but ends as its ruthless guardian.

Why am I yapping so? Well I always yammer about the film (my favorite character is consigliere Tom Hagen); however, it’s always good to be reminded that while we argue and fight over politics, there is much that binds us together. There is nothing wrong with vigorous, and respectful debate, but at the end of the day our connections are what really matter. Seems to me we can have our arguments over policy and share wonder over the things that are beyond the political.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards, and Gus Van Sant’s Milk scored nominations in the categories of Best Picture, Best Actor (Sean Penn), and Best Supporting Actor (Josh Brolin), Best Director (Gus Van Sant) and Best Original Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black). Also: Costume Design, Editing, and Score. That’s a total of 8.

The big shockers are that Kate Winslet and that Happy-Go-Lucky chick, who won Golden Globes for their roles, weren’t nominated (Winslet was nominated for The Reader but not for Revolutionary Road, and in a different category than for her Globe). And The Dark Knight and Wall-E were shut out of the major categories, proving once again that the Academy doesn’t like it’s cinema that cinematic.

Best picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Reader
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Milk
Frost/Nixon

Director
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant, Milk
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Actress
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

Actor
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Supporting actress
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Supporting actor
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, Dark Knight
Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Original screenplay
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
Martin McDonough, In Bruges
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Andrew Stanton, WALL-E

Adapted screenplay
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
David Hare, The Reader
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

Foreign-language film
Baader Meinhof Complex, Germany
The Class, France
Departures, Japan
Revanche, Austria
Waltz With Bashir, Israel

Animated film
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E

And here’s the full list. ]]> http://www.365gay.com/uncategorized/milk-nabs-best-picture-actor-supporting-actor-director-screenplay-oscar-nominations/feed/ 5 http://www.365gay.com/living/milk-named-best-film-by-new-york-film-critics/ http://www.365gay.com/living/milk-named-best-film-by-new-york-film-critics/#comments Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:28:54 +0000 Jennifer Vanasco http://www.365gay.com/?p=4532 Sean Penn and “Milk,” Gus Van Sant’s biopic about gay rights leader Harvey Milk, continued to gain awards momentum Wednesday, winning best film from the New York Film Critics Circle.

Penn was chosen as best actor for his performance in the lauded film about Milk, the openly gay San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978. Josh Brolin won best supporting actor for his performance in the film.

On Tuesday, Penn was chosen as best actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. “Milk” also leads the Broadcast Film Critics Association with eight nominations, tied for the most with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

Like their West Coast brethren, the New York critics picked Sally Hawkins for best actress for her performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky.” Best director went to Leigh.

The New York circle, which last year chose “No Country for Old Men” as best film, is a group of 33 New York-based critics. Their picks are one of the early film honors in Hollywood’s long awards season, which continues Thursday with nominations for the Golden Globes.

Best supporting actress went to Penelope Cruz for her role in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Jenny Lumet, daughter of Sidney Lumet, won for her screenplay of “Rachel Getting Married.”

“Man on Wire” won best documentary, “WALL-E” won best animated film and “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” won best foreign film. Anthony Dod Mantle won for his cinematography in “Slumdog Millionaire.” Courtney Hunt (”Frozen River”) won for best first film.

The awards ceremony will be held Jan. 5 in New York.

With clean, economic storytelling, an efficient script and wonderfully grounded performances from its impressive cast, the film on the surface might not feel like anything special. Like dozens of awards-season projects before it, Milk is a competently-made bio of an extraordinary individual that pulls all the right heartstrings and hits all the right notes.

It’s not until you take a step back from the film that it hits you: This is the gayest major motion picture ever made.

From its sobering opening montage (news footage of gay bars being raided in the 1960’s) to the humbling final moments when thousands march in the deceased Harvey’s honor through San Francisco, Milk is an unapologetic, beautiful and affecting testament to the strength, warmth and complexity of gay men and women at a landmark time in gay rights history.

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk

The screen is rarely without a gay character. We see gay men cooking, lounging in bed, working, dancing, loving, squabbling, joking, driving one another nuts and supporting each other in the wake of tragedy. Though the conversations are overwhelmingly about discrimination against gays, there are numerous tender moments when we see these men not marching in the streets or shouting through bullhorns, but simply living their lives.

The anticipation leading up to the highly-buzzed film has mostly been about the fact that the story of Harvey Milk, a gay rights leader who was assassinated along with Mayor Geroge Moscone by a fellow city supervisor, was actually — impossibly — making it to the screen after nearly 40 years. But its real accomplishment is something different, and to me, unexpected: it gently but without hesitation takes the audience into the world of gay men in a way that no film ever has before.

Equal parts sweetness, melancholy and rage, it’s a wonderfully immersive, warts-and-all journey. Harvey and his friends aren’t perfect, but they’re not out to hurt anyone. They just want what’s fair. And it would be near impossible to walk out of this film without understanding that.

The approach works thanks mostly to the stellar performance of Sean Penn as Milk, a brassy New York Jew with an infectious grin and a rascally but harmless sense of humor (it’s not just any guy who can turn a line like “My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you” into a campaign catchphrase, least of all in 1974). Penn’s Milk is aggressively flirtatious, obnoxious, stubborn and shameless … which, by many accounts, is probably historically accurate.

He is also gentle, caring, intelligent and braver than you could imagine. He says “Here I am, and what of it?” There’s never a moment of hesitation, not a second that you don’t believe that he is doing what he truly believes to be right, and not a moment when Penn feels counterfeit or uncommitted to the role.

This isn’t about a gay man struggling to come to terms with himself, it’s about a gay man struggling to get the world to come to terms with him. And for that fact alone, this film is like no other that has come before it.

It was fired from the gun of Dan White, an ex-cop who’d gone to Milk’s City Hall office after killing San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, who had refused to re-appoint White to the Board of Supervisors from which he’d recently resigned.

Harvey Milk was San Francisco’s first openly gay supervisor, swept into power in the same neighborhood revolution that gave White his victory in 1978. It was Milk’s fourth run for office, and the first successful one, although he was the recognized leader of San Francisco’s large and growing gay population.

Milk was a newcomer to politics. He’d blown into town when he was in his 40s and disrupted the existing gay power structure with his in-your-face grassroots activism and refusal to cower and apologize for being gay.

His watchword was “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” and he used tactics those who recently watched Barack Obama’s campaign would easily recognize: register voters, get out the vote, organize relentlessly, empower your volunteers and supporters, and spread a message of hope. He became an acknowledged power broker, and many observers believed he was on track to being the nation’s first openly gay mayor.

But just as it was violence and police brutality at New York City’s Stonewall Inn a decade before that had given birth to the modern gay rights movement, it was violence and police brutality that marked the end of its first wave. Dan White was convicted of nothing more than second degree manslaughter for the killing of Milk and Moscone. (White later gave himself a harsher sentence, and took his own life after being released from prison.)

The gay community came together in fierce sorrow after Milk was killed, with a miles-long peaceful candlelight vigil stretching from the Castro district to City Hall.

But it erupted in rage at White’s sentence, burning a dozen police cars and the basement of City Hall in what became known as the “White Night Riot.” The police retaliated the next night, hiding their badges while beating patrons during a raid of the Elephant Walk, an upscale gay bar in the Castro.

Next page: “Harvey Milk lives!”

Hours before the Side by Side film festival was to have opened at The Place and Sochi nightclubs, fire department officials held “emergency inspections” and told owners the clubs did not meet safety standards and were ordered closed.

Neither club is gay. Both are popular with students and artists.

Two movie houses, the state run Cinema House and the privately owned PIK, earlier cancelled.  Side by Side organizer Irina Sergeyeva said authorities were doing all in their power to block the festival.

Sergeyeva said the festival had been moved to the two clubs after the movie houses cancelled.

“It was virtually the same situation at Pik; after the contract was signed and tickets went on sale, in a week’s time the contract was terminated ‘for technical reasons,’ but there was information in Moi Rayon newspaper that it was done under the pressure from the city and district administrations,” Sergeyeva told the English language St. Petersburg Times.

Although LGBT film festivals have been held in St. Petersburg in the past, this was the first one that was to have been open to the general public.

Side by Side organizers could file legal complaints against the city, but they would be unlikely to succeed.

In Moscow, gays have been sparring with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov for several years over his refusal to grant permits for gay pride celebrations.

Despite Luzhkov’s refusal to grant a parade permit, the third Moscow Pride took place on Sunday, June 1. Gay activists picketed the monument to the Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky and then hung a huge banner from an apartment in front of Moscow City Hall.

The banner read: “Rights to gays and lesbians! Homophobia of Moscow Mayor should be prosecuted.”
Last year, the mayor refused a parade license, citing security concerns. Gays, many of them from the European Union,  marched anyway. About 20 people were arrested at the May 27 parade, including Alexeyev, two European parliamentarians and British gay advocate Peter Tatchell.

Charges against the foreigners were later dropped and Alexeyev was fined $1,000 rubles – about $40.

Lawsuits against the city failed and pride organizers have taken their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.

Last year, in another case against the mayor, a Moscow court tossed out a lawsuit accusing Lushkov of libel over claims he made that gay rights marches were “satanic.”

The court ruled that Moscow Pride leaders had failed to prove that the remarks were incendiary or intended to vilify gays in general.

In January, a Moscow judge acquitted 13 gay activists arrested for staging a protest outside a polling station during national elections.

Not so fast. For one thing, despite a few high-profile projects, we’re still not represented in books and movies and TV shows in numbers anywhere near our actual percentage of the population.

And as I’ve written before, we’re especially under-represented in stories that aren’t specifically about Being Gay, or in genre projects like fantasy, mystery, or science fiction.

Basically, we’ve conquered the urban areas, the blue states, and most of the European Union; we’re finally starting to become well-represented in our strongholds, in our little specialized media niches: online, or in art house theaters, on cable television, and in Broadway theaters or big city bookstores and libraries.

But there are still vast swaths of the world where gay content is almost unheard of, or where the gay content that does exist is watered down or “balanced” so as to not “offend” conservative Christian sensibilities. Last year, the Oklahoma state house went so far as to pass a bill requiring that all public libraries put gay-themed books, even picture books, in a special “adults-only” section. But I’ll hazard a guess that public libraries in Oklahoma aren’t buying a lot of gay-themed books to begin with.

In other words, for all our recent success, gay content is still controversial; we still haven’t quite gone mainstream. Brokeback Mountain, for all its acclaim and publicity, made “only” $83 million in domestic release, slightly more than half of what the last Tom Cruise movie Mission Impossible 3 made, which, incidentally, was considered a disappointment. Another Gay Movie, which has been seen by literally every gay person I know, has made less than a million dollars in domestic release.

So how do we break out of our entertainment ghetto? After all, gay people live everywhere. And people everywhere need to know how we live. No one would ever suggest it’s acceptable for stories with African American content to be censored from much of the country, right?

But moving ahead won’t be easy. In fact, the obstacles we face may be some of the scariest and most infuriating that we’ve faced yet.

That’s because the obstacles we face now are institutional ones.

A few weeks ago, I had an interesting conversation with an author friend who was considering writing a teen science fiction book with a main character who is gay. Her editor loved the idea, but warned her that, despite her solid track-record, her book probably wouldn’t be picked up by chains like Walmart and Target—outlets that now represent 40 percent or more of the book market. For a teen book like the ones this author and I both write, gay content also effectively rules out placement in a book club or school book fair—placements that can literally mean sales of hundreds of thousands of books.