Christmas is a time for love, family, warmth… and this Letterboxd list of Christmas films featuring heterosexual couples wearing red and green. While the list plays for laughs, it highlights how manufactured straight Christmas films are and how inundated audiences have become with them. LGBT stories that take place over the holidays are few and far between,…
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Review: The Haunting of Bly Manor
Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, based on Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name, was an absolute masterclass in emotive storytelling, story adaptation, and filmmaking. This time, Flanagan continues to reinvent great stories of the past as the second installment of The Haunting explores Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw”. The Haunting of Bly…
Review: Ratched
We were first introduced to the terrifying and tyrannical Nurse Mildred Ratched in Ken Kesey’s book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — but her character was brought to life by Louise Fletcher in Miloš Forman’s film adaptation, which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1976. Nurse Ratched manipulated her patients in…
Killing Eve: the Transformation of Eve Polastri
Also featured on Medium. Since the beginning, we’ve always wondered whether Killing Eve — the title — means that Villanelle (Jodie Comer) will eventually kill Eve (Sandra Oh) as part of their intoxicating game of cat and mouse. But what if the title isn’t literal and instead possesses a deeper meaning? At its core, Killing Eve is really about…
‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ Explores Lesbian Romance Using the Female Gaze
At the end of the 18th century, Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is teaching portraiture to a group of young women when one of them asks her about a painting they discovered at the back of the class — the titular ‘portrait of a lady on fire.’ We then jump to a flashback, which takes precedence for…
Film Review: Jenny’s Wedding (2015)
“When you meet the right person, you go the distance. And let me tell you about the distance: everybody changes. But if you’re with the right person, and they change; you meet the right person all over again.” Jenny Farrell (Katherine Heigl) and her immediate family are brought together for a baptism, and Jenny learns…
Film Review: Freeheld (2015)
“The only thing I care about is justice for the woman I love.“ Freeheld is a film that is based on true events which has demanded attention since it announced its lead stars Julianne Moore and Elliot Page. It tells the story of Laurel Hester, a police officer in Ocean County, New Jersey, who is eventually…