For more information and reviews of every film screening at Reel Affirmations 27, check out our Complete Guide here!
This gathering of uplifting, often funny shorts opens with Blocked (★★★★☆) an uber-gay parody in which filmmaker Kevin Yee tussles with writer’s block. With a not-so-subtle nod to The Sound of Music and a sharply funny, unexpected ending, it captures the simplicity and artfulness of the short movie format in under 4 minutes. Oriana Oppice’s Go Go, Boy! (★★★☆☆) is less successful in its story of Bobby (Marcus Owens), a budding young queer with an obsession for both wrestling and drag. It’s inoffensive enough, but it feels incomplete. Still, Owens saves it by playing his character’s inner desires to the hilt.
In Next Level Shit (★★★★☆), Taylor (Ben Bauer) desperately wants to keep his pipes clean in anticipation of a big date with Chris (Daniel K. Issac from The Other Two and Billions). He refuses to eat for the entire day, leading his friends to casually mock his rumbling stomach. Things head toward a predictably disastrous conclusion when store-bought sushi enters the picture. Even though you can see the narrative coming from ten-miles away, writer-director Gary Jaffe manages to put a smart, human spin on the comedy, providing it a cute punchline at the very end.
Things get truly bizarre in the experimental dance short Self Worship (★★★☆☆). A testament to female empowerment, complete with menstrual blood as warrior paint, the film stars Che Che Luna, whose dancing is as vigorous as her on-screen performance. The artistic self-indulgence is a bit much at times. Still, the film manages to be absorbing and there are moments where it’s utterly transfixing.
The clear winner in this program is Sexpert Advice (★★★★★), in which a relatively seedy sex specialist (a scruffy Eddie Cahill) helps nervous, uncertain Albert (Tobit Raphael) land an online hookup. “We’ve got to send him the goods,” he says, instructing Albert to drop his drawers. “Are you a shower or a grower?” It’s a gleaming little gem, written and directed by Raphael with an abundance of humor and humanity.
The amblin’, rough-around-the-seams To Be with You (★★★☆☆) closes things out, as Alex (Avi Roque) and Mari (Sierra Santana), two old friends, reconnect after Alex, who has recently transitioned, visits L.A. to spread the ashes of his father. Written and directed by Elliott Feliciano, the movie, at 20 minutes, is too long by half. Feliciano needs to work on developing better pacing, as the acting feels improvised and unsure of itself. Yet there are elements to admire — the brief romance that develops between the two feels authentic, Nacia Schreiner’s photography, especially during an L.A. montage, is often entrancing, and the music by Mike Meehan is sumptuous, especially in the film’s final minutes. You get the sense you’re watching budding talents at the start of their careers, with enormous promise ahead.
“It Feels Good” screens as part of this year’s Reel Affirmations Film Festival. For more information about the festival or to purchase tickets or festival screening passes, visit https://reelaffirmations.eventive.org.
Pornhub is blocking visitors from Texas in response to an age-verification law that leaves adult websites liable if a minor is found to have accessed the content, even through deceptive means.
Under the law, passed last year, websites offering adult sexual content, or where more than one-third of a website's content may be deemed "harmful to minors," must require users to prove their age by providing government-issued identification to access the site.
Alternatively, a person could use a "commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data" to verify a visitor's age, whether that means signing up through a digital third-party site that would verify a person's age before granting access or potentially using a camera and facial recognition technology to verify that a user is an adult.
Police arrested a former Jackson Police Department officer who allegedly killed his ex-boyfriend in a bloody attack at a Jackson, Mississippi apartment complex.
Police mounted a search for 33-year-old Marcus Johnson in connection with the murder of 25-year-old Carlos Collins, a registered nurse who hailed from Yazoo City.
Collins was killed on April 9 at the Tapestry Northridge Apartments, off Parkway Drive near Old Canton Road, in the northeastern part of Jackson.
According to WAPT, members of Collins family said police told them that Collins succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained during the attack, and that an axe was used during the murder.
Voters in Huntington Beach, California, a Los Angeles exurb in Orange County, approved a measure last week to ban the Pride flag and any other non-governmental banners on city property. The move is part of a larger right-wing push against LGBTQ visibility.
While only 31% of registered voters showed up at the polls in this year's presidential primary, the primary ballot also featured Measure B, which sought to limit the types of flags displayed on government property. Nearly 58% of those voters endorsed the measure, according to county election results.
Moving forward, any flag representing a political or social cause, such as breast cancer awareness, a specific religion, or a specific community -- such as the LGBTQ community -- will not be permitted to fly on city-owned flagpoles.
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