There’s a lot on offer this week in home entertainment, from 3D spectacle to an AIDS-themed period piece to a pair of upbeat VOD premieres!
300: Rise of an Empire, billed as a “sidequel” rather than a sequel, lays on the eye candy 3D-thick, while a gay dancer navigates HIV panic during the 1980s in Test (above).
A trio of punky girls start a band (and get awesome tomboy haircuts) in We Are The Best! and a frustrated lesbian filmmaker tries her hand at remaking a classic in Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
($44.95 3D Blu-ray, $35.99 Blu-ray, $28.98 DVD; Warner)
This 3D “sidequel” to 300 features even more insane slo-mo, special effects and gore-laden action and hot beefcake as we focus on the Greeks who also fought against invading Persian man-god Xerxes and his vengeful navy commander, Artemesia (Eva Green). Double-feature it with 300 and a bonus binge of Game of Thrones! Extras include five featurettes covering special effects, the real history that inspired 300, and the film’s strong female characters.
($24.95 DVD; Wolfe)
In 1985 San Francisco, a young dancer struggles to find an onstage role in his company, flirts with a charismatic yet slutty established member of the troupe, while freaking out about AIDS – for which a test is finally available. Writer/director Chris Mason Johnson’s follow up to 2009’s The New Twenty draws upon his own experience as a ballet dancer with Frankfurt Ballet and White Oak Dance Project (with Baryshnikov!), while tapping into a time when AIDS was still mysterious and phantom-like with a soundtrack featuring incredible ’80s tunes both familiar and obscure. Extras include a deleted scene and a video for the Kickstarter campaign.
(VOD; Wolfe)
Anna, a 40-year-old underachieving filmmaker, decides to mount a remake/reinvention of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Cue chaos! With the always amazing Guinevere Turner as Penelope, Anna’s best pal, a role for which she snagged Outfest’s Best Actress prize.
(VOD; Magnet)
Lukas Moodysson, director of the landmark Swedish teen lesbian film Show Me Love and delicious queer-inclusive dramedy about commune life, Together, returns with a delightful, upbeat 1982-set film — based on his wife’s semi-autobiographical graphic novel, Never Goodnight — about a trio of rebellious 13-year-old girls who form a punk band. Awesome and fun stuff, with some hardcore tomboy realness to boot!
ALSO OUT:
Bumblef**k, USA
The Apple Tree
Straight With a Twist
Winter’s Tale
Pandora’s Promise
Blood Ties
Frack Nation
Mezaien
I hope to watch them all.
Zekester
Leave it to Hollywood to take an historical event/people (the Sacred Band of Thebes; the 300) and make the 300 heroes (who were 150 gay male couples) hyper-masculine and hyper-heterosexual while portraying the leader of the villains a mincing, prancing drag queen.
And people wonder why we need Gay Pride and Gay History Month. Our history is denied, ignored or rewritten to make us the villains. Most gay people don’t even know the story of the Sacred Band of Thebes and even if they are aware of them they believe the Hollywood version instead of the historical version.
Palmer Scott
@Zekester: I need to point out that even though you’re right about this movie being a typical Hollywood rewrite of actual historical facts, you’re wrong about the “plot” of this movie.
It deals with the Battle of Salamis where the Athenian navy and allies fought against the Persian fleet, not the Battle of Chaeronea, where Philip II of Macedon established his hegemony over the Greek city-states.
The 300 referred to are the Spartans who died at Thermopylae, not the Sacred Band of Thebes.