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Bring Down The Walls (2020) – Another Brick In The Walls

Seen as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival (Online Screening)

Bring Down The Walls Info

The Prison Industrial Complex is a topic that’s been touched on by many truly fascinating documentaries for a reason, it’s an obscenely messed up system that is often used capriciously against POC and queer people who are just trying to live their lives. In the US it’s particularly awful, they have the largest number of prisoners on the planet and it’s disproportionately people of colour (largely black and Latin men). 

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Cured (2020) – An Important Piece Of History

Seen as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival (Online Screening)

Cured Info

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association took a vote to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. It was one of the most controversial votes that the board would ever have since homosexuality had been considered a mental illness since the first DSM was printed in 1952. With homosexuality being labelled a mental illness, it was able to be used as an excuse to deny employment or housing or basic rights to an entire class of people. This led to some of the most brutal torture ever done in the name of mental health, and a story that the film Cured tells brilliantly.

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P.S. Burn This Letter Please (2020) – And Watch This Film Please

Seen as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival (Online Screening)

P.S. Burn This Letter Please Info

The history of gay culture is hard not well recorded, this is almost intentional. Thanks to the way that the community at large was treated by a legal system that revelled in arresting gay people for the crime of existing, keeping records wasn’t a high priority. If one were to have letters or photos that caught moments of queer culture, they were either burned by an angry parent determined to pretend that their departed child was straight, or it was destroyed upon request by the person who wrote the letter who would often add “P.S. Burn This letter please” at the end.

Thankfully, someone in the 1950s ignored this request and kept a hold of a series of letters and photos that described the underground 1950s drag and gay scene and now we have a record of this period of the era when the LGBT community was its most secretive.

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A Secret Love (2020) – A Sweet Secret

Released: 29th April
Seen: 5th May

A Secret Love Info

In terms of gay history in film, we tend to focus more on the 70s-80s than almost any other time until now. If you were to ask most writers, it seems like the history of gay culture began around the time of the AIDS crisis and everything has happened in its shadow but that’s not the reality of the situation. Gay people have been a part of society since society became a thing but with few exceptions (like The Favourite or Wilde), we rarely see stories from before the decades mentioned… except in documentaries, which often give us stories of legendary queer people and the stories of their lives back when things were a lot worse than they are now.

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Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts (2019) – She’s the MVP heading up to bat

Seen: 17th June (Sydney Film Festival)

Possibly the most popular thing that I’ve ever done on this site would be the recaps of Drag Race. This doesn’t surprise me, that show is obscenely popular and the fans will read literally anything that has to do with their favourite show. While the show itself is now justifiably labelled a phenomenon, there are a few of the queens who have really taken what the show gave them (a platform to dive from) and used it to its full potential. Easily one of the most popular queens from Drag Race is the Barbie Doll-esque skinny legend herself, Trixie Mattel. Known for her big blonde hair, love of bright pink outfits and the darkest sense of humour that has ever come from someone wearing a giant pink wig and a pink Barbie doll dress. She has become an icon, a legend, a star the likes of which we’ve seen several times before but she does it while in heels and making jokes that would make George Carlin go “Bitch, too far”. She makes albums, she’s a Funko pop (which I own, no judging allowed) and now she has her very own documentary following her life on the road during a tumultuous time in her career.

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DC Did What Marvel Didn’t

For the last decade, Marvel has basically owned the cinema landscape. Since the release of Iron Man, they have never left the top 10 highest grossing films list of each year, the only exception being in 2009 when they didn’t release a film (remember when there was a year that didn’t have a Marvel film? Memories). In all that time they have proven to dominate the cultural conversation around movies, and recently they even added an Oscar to the collection of things they pulled off. But there is one thing that they didn’t pull off yet, that their competitor DC just pulled off with Shazam! and I’m in the mood to talk about that. The catch is, in order to talk about it I have to spoil a few things so if you haven’t seen Shazam! then be warned, I’m spoiling a lot of major moments that you’re going to want to see so this is where you abandon this editorial discussion and go see the film, then come back because I require validation.

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Another RuView: All Stars 4, Episode 4

Order in the court because the time has come to strut back into the pink workroom with the walls made out of fabric and it’s time to sit down and talk about what goes on in the wild and wonderful world of drag. Specifically in the world of Drag Race, a world where even when the show is over and everything is filmed, we still get so much drama from the cast that it’s honestly amazing. Hell, isn’t the season 3 cast due to create some drama now? Anyway, let’s get into it and go through the major elements of the show in this new structure of recap (Let’s see how long I keep this structure up)

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Another RuView: All Stars 4, Episode 1

Guess who’s back in the house, heels click-clacking about? That’s right, we’re back for another season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars where I will talk about the stunts, shenanigans and explore deep topics like “Why are they doing this again so soon?” “Why can’t they space these out more?” and “Who allowed so many flats to be worn on All Stars 2?”. We’ll go through, see if we can work out who has a good chance of winning and, now that I no longer have to worry about silly little things like “Assessments” and “Obscenely expensive education to get a degree that I will probably never be able to actually use in any official line of work”, I won’t vanish halfway through the season. So, now let’s begin the season properly by talking about the queen’s entrances and how they’ve grown since their last season.

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6 ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Lip Syncs That You’ve Probably Forgotten

Uploaded to MoviePilot on July 12th 2017

Every fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race has a list of his or her favourite lip syncs, it’s just how we roll. We all have that one performance that we will watch over and over again on an endless loop while screaming “YAS QUEEN” at the top of our lungs and demanding that both singers stay. These lists are long and varied, but there are a few standouts. Recent additions to the list being the “Shut Up And Drive” lip sync from All Stars 2 or the “So Emotional” lip sync from the recent Season 9 finale.

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This is the RuPaul’s Drag Race version of an explosion.

There are others on our list, from “Whip My Hair” to “MacArthur Park,” but what about the forgotten lip syncs, the ones that never get brought up on these lists? Well, with over 100 lip syncs to choose from, here is my list of the forgotten lip syncs. These are, of course, ones that I personally think should be talked about more. More queens!

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