THE SCREENING ROOM

OUT ON DVD: Michael Fassbender Feels Shame, Gay Dysfunction In Domain And American Translation, And More!

Despite the arrival of springtime sun, it’s a dark week in queer home video entertainment. Hot Irish actor Michael Fassbender plays a sex addict we wouldn’t mind enabling in Shame, while a French Bonnie and Clyde take a queer-hunting road trip in American Translation. In Domain, a gay teen falls in with his dysfunctional auntie, while a real-life gay genius you probably haven’t heard of gets his due in Paul Goodman Changed My Life.

Okay, perhaps that last one isn’t so dark.

FIRST: It’s a Shame


http://youtu.be/Op9iQiB_ANI

Shame
($39.99 BluRay, 20th Century Fox)

Directed by British artist-cum-filmmaker Steve McQueen, Shame sees Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Prometheus) play Brandon, a sex addict in modern-day Manhattan. When Brandon’s equally damaged sister (Carey Mulligan) shows up, old wounds are reopened. Shame is as raw and explicit as it gets in mainstream cinema and Fassbender rules the screen—particularly during a controversial, admittedly grim gay bar rendezvous. DVD extras include featurettes on the star and director, as well as, “The Story of Shame” and a digital copy of the film. But we’re sure plenty of you will buy it just so you can slow-mo through Fassbender’s many nude scenes.

 

NEXT: Auntie doesn’t know best in Domain

 

http://youtu.be/NgZLWwKj5Ow

 

Domain
($24.99 DVD, Strand)

While still getting a grip on his sexuality, gay teen Pierre (Isaïe Sultan) becomes attached to his seductive yet troubled aunt Nadia (the awesome Beatrice Dalle), an intellectual struggling with demons and the bottle. Pierre’s mom warns him away from the self-destructive woman, but the lad is drawn in to her world of twisted queens and over-the-top drama. Auntie Mame, this is not.

NEXT: A sexually confused couple hunt the most dangerous game in American Translation


http://youtu.be/NV_njOxnXV4

 

American Translation
($19.99 DVD, TLA)

Billed as a modern Bonnie & Clyde, directors Pascal Arnold and Jean-Marc Barr’s sexual thriller follows a hot young Frenchman Chris (Pierre Perrier), and his new lover, Aurore (Lizzie Brocheré), as they roam the Gallic countryside seducing and killing gay hustlers. Is Chris doing this because he’s a tormented closet case?  And why is Aurora helping to dispose of the bodies of gay hustlers he bangs and then kills? There’s more questions than answers, but Perrier’s numerous charms make it clear how his character can get away with murder.

 

NEXT: Queer intellect Paul Goodman finally gets his due

 

http://youtu.be/prHtmk7yfuc

Paul Goodman Changed My Life
($29.99 DVD, Zeitgeist)

One of the mid-20th century’s most outspoken and prolific queer Jewish intellectuals was Paul Goodman, co-creator of gestalt therapy. This activist, essayist, pacifist, poet and pundit made J. Edgar Hoover’s  shit list in the 1950s and ’60s  for being a subversive influence on America. (Goodman was such a part of the zeitgeist he even had a cameo in Annie Hall.)  Today, he is considered by some “the great unrecognized genius of our time,” somthing that  director Jonathan Lee’s documentary–with its deliciously retro Mad Men vibe—will hopefully help change.

 

ALSO ON DVD

Born to be Wild

Harold & Maude (Criterion DVD/Blu-ray)

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Treme: The Complete Second Season

 

 

 

 

 

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