Theater, Movies, Art and Literature

"James Franco's Sal chronicles the final hours of the life of actor Sal Mineo, one-time teen idol and star of the blockbuster films Rebel Without a Cause and Exodus." Franco is too old to play Sal, so a muscular young actor named Val Lauren did that. I am not so sure that Mineo was so muscular, nor that he received testosterone shots way back then. (1976) His fame was on the decline and he was trying to push a script that didn't seem to be going anywhere. Frankly, it could have been the script for this movie, which was brutally painful to watch. Boring scenes, bad camera angles, and washed out lighting don't help what was a rather tedious final day for Mineo, whom I ado…

The Forgotten Reign of England’s Lesbian Queen by Michael Korda Oct 31, 2013 5:40 PM EDT Daily Beast The last of the Stuart monarchs ruled England with brilliance and intrigue, likely had an affair with a Churchill ancestor, and made sure her country stayed Protestant. Finally she gets the biography her remarkable life deserves. Nothing is more difficult than to recreate in all its complexity than a distant age and not only to get it right, but make it seem fresh and relevant. Fortunately, Anne Somerset has already done this brilliantly in her outstanding biography of Elizabeth I. In the case of Elizabeth, of course, Ms. Somerset had the advantage of wri…

Great collection of anecdotes by former -- and current! -- residents of the Chelsea Hotel: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/10/chelsea-hotel-oral-history

Don Bachardy interview: 'I was just waiting to be told who I was' Don Bachardy talks about his love for Christopher Isherwood, and how he kept on painting him after he died Men of letters: Don Bachardy with a painting of his partner Christpher Isherwood Photo: Getty By John Walsh 7:00AM BST 22 Oct 2013 The American artist Don Bachardy and the British writer Christopher Isherwood were an item for more than 30 years. Despite the gap in their ages – Bachardy was 18 when they met, Isherwood 48 – and the fact that few gay couples lived openly as couples in America in those times, they became the most solidly enduring arty-literary relationship in Sixties and Seventi…

Have always loved his art. Bizarre Balthus show reveals artist's fixation with cats and young girlsMore character study than retrospective, the Met's provocative new Balthus exhibition has an unsettling undertone • Click here for more images from the Balthus show Jason Farago theguardian.com, Monday 21 October 2013 09.29 EDT Thérèse Dreaming by Balthus, 1938. Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, 1998 © Balthus If current trends continue, in just a few years all of contemporary culture will be nothing but an unending stream of cat pictures. Newspapers desperate to survive will publish only adorable kitten photos; soc…

Reflections by visionary underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger, director of 'Scorpio Rising' and 'Lucifer Rising', author of Hollywood Babylon and Hollywood Babylon II... Kenneth Anger: 'I'm reasonably proud to be American'The controversial author and filmmaker, 86, on creating his own religion, working with Marianne Faithfull and living through the Red Scare Alex Needham The Observer, Saturday 19 October 2013 14.00 EDT Kenneth Anger, the American underground experimental filmmaker: 'Lucifer is not the devil. He's the god of light and colour.' Photograph: Pål Hansen for the Observer Time will conquer. Humans can attempt to freeze it and keep it, trick it and say…

Nice piece on what Banksy may really be up to... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/15/banksy-streets-new-york-molly-crabapple

Yes, I am a fan. I even went to see him play a homophobic nephew who is sent to live with his gay uncle in a very off-off Broadway play many years ago. (A cute little sidenote- the landlord's son was at the play. He was somewhere between 16 and 18, but when he saw me see him at a gay play, he left at intermission! Dad would not have approved) Anyway, the new flick is being touted at another website, but the tragedy of that is they never name the film! It's called Don Jon. Levitt apparently wrote and directed it. He has a new hunky torso, which he shows off a lot in the movie, but that's it. No other skin for him.He plays a good-lookin guy who likes to get the good-lookin…

The LA Times today has an interesting review of novelist David Levithan's new book, Two Boys Kissing. It gives us a good look at the novel, but also tells us about a previous novel he wrote, Boy Meets Boy: http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-david-levithan-20130901,0,2856052.story But, at only 208 pages, is it a novel or a short story? Well, if it's interesting, then it doesn't much matter.

Boys will be boys! We know that sometimes people new to the theater do not react appropriately, but at the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss, audience members heckled performers during a performance of The Laramie Project, a theater presentation about the death of a young gay man, Mathew Shepard, by bigoted young men. The bigoted young men at Ole Miss seem to have been largely from the football team, but not entirely. It was not easy identifying exactly who the hecklers were. But they did not show theater etiquette, and one wonders if this is endemic to the region. Yet we (occasionally) have posting here a resident of the state who shows great dignity and comportment,…

Bestselling author Tom Clancy, known for military and spy thrillers including "The Hunt for Red October" and "Clear and Present Danger," has died at age 66: http://usat.ly/18P4351 He's shown here at the 2002 Washington, D.C., premiere of "The Sum of All Fears" with Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman.

I have read such mixed reviews of Dan Brown's latest book Inferno. Some love it and other hate it. But, I am a big fan and I felt I owed it to him to read it. I am half way through and so far I really love the story and the writing. Have others read this book yet? What are your thoughts?

Buy Tight Ends here.

A rather quite good intro to Stanislaw Lem's SF volume Imaginary Magnitudes... http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/07/smoothies-fruit-juices-new-health-risk

I really enjoyed renting this on ITunes. The movie was great and had some good performances but I really loved seeing the scenes of the locals. The story was interesting as well but the movie really took me to Havana! If you have a chance to see this on the big screen give it a shot or try it on ITunes. I am glad I did.

Just a Question of Love, Una cuestión de amor (2010). - After his gay cousin dies from hepatitis, young Laurent, who lives with his best friend Carole, falls in love with Cedric, a plant scientist. He's afraid to inform his conservative parents that he is gay. Full movie on YouTube below: 1 hour 27 minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntO6hbgL_dk

Today I went to see the movie The Spectacular Now, which has some good reviews. I hated it. The boy in it was selfish, but more importantly, he was a lush. His girl dumps him and he takes up with a nice girl, giving her her own engraved flask. It's all downhill from there. But I wondered if I would have liked the movie more if the actor was cuter. He plays a charming character, but I wasn't so charmed. Now we all know that cute guys have the advantage when it comes to being charming because we are so willing to be charmed with them. So this movie, I think, would have worked better if differently cast. That's my opinion. And your opinion? Is Miles Teller cute enough to c…

Five hundred new fairytales discovered in GermanyCollection of fairytales gathered by historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth had been locked away in an archive in Regensburg for over 150 years Read one of the fairytales: The Turnip Princess Victoria Sussens-Messerer theguardian.com, Monday 5 March 2012 10.25 EST A whole new world of magic animals, brave young princes and evil witches has come to light with the discovery of 500 new fairytales, which were locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years. The tales are part of a collection of myths, legends and fairytales, gathered by the local historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810–1886) in the B…

I love Sedaris. Thought maybe he was losing it with his last book, but the new one mentioned below is him in top form, from the one story I've read in it so far (the one about visiting the taxidermist, also mentioned below). David Sedaris at Edinburgh: 'I'll never run out of things to laugh about'As he prepares for his Edinburgh festival show, David Sedaris talks about the things that scare him: hecklers in their 80s, the stench of enthusiasm – and the word 'loo' Stuart Jeffries The Guardian, Sunday 4 August 2013 13.00 EDT David Sedaris: 'People keep asking me, "When are you going to run out of things to write about?" Why would I?' Photograph: Jacob van Essen/Hoge…

If the purpose of myths is to make orderly sense of the world, isn’t it funny that the very first question the Judeo-Christian mythology in Genesis sets out to explain- after the origins of the Creation itself- is how mankind fell from grace? In effect, “How did things get to be so bad?” “Why is life so hard?” From a modern perspective, the early farming civilizations that gave us Genesis enjoyed a slow-paced life with meaningful community bonds, a deeply-felt connection with the environment, and a rich array of festivals and folklore which reassured each member of an orderly and predictable universe, and their place in it. Why did the Ancients feel the need to explain…

I recently watched this film for the 3rd time since its release. Its a story of two boys Neil and Brian who played on the same little league team. We follow their lives from age 8 to 18ish. One boy Neil, played by Joseph Gordon Levitt, had been molested by his Little League manager. Neil grows up to enter the world of boy prostitution at about 15 ... he has no emotional attachments except for his mother. However she is more like a friend to him than a parent. Eventually Neil moves to NYC to join a platonic woman friend who constantly urges him to be careful. Brian, played by Brady Corbet, is a very passive young man. He is extremely lost ... he feels that he had been a…

"Like many other men, Swann had a naturally lazy mind, and lacked imagination. He knew perfectly well as a general truth, that human life is full of contrasts, but in the case of each individual human being he imagined all that part of his or her life with which he was not familiar as being identical with the part with which he was. He imagined what was kept secret from him in the light of what was revealed. At such times as he spent with Odette, if their conversation turned upon an indelicate act committed, or an indelicate sentiment expressed by some third person, she would condemn them by virtue of the same moral principles which Swann had always heard expressed by his…

Just came across this endearing blog site by Jerry Torre, the Marble Faun of the Maysles' unforgettable 'Grey Gardens.' http://themarblefaun.com/

Daniel Radcliffe getting good early notices for his performance as Allen Ginsberg in this film. http://m.imdb.com/news/ni45354973 http://m.imdb.com/news/ni45339979 http://m.imdb.com/news/ni45326598 http://m.imdb.com/news/ni45345329