Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a rewatch.
The Transcendent: Poison
Director Todd Haynes announced himself as a brilliant, very queer auteur with this film that won the Sundance Grand Prize back in 1991. Critics hailed it as a masterpiece of erotic surrealism, while key politicians including Ralph Reed and Dick Armey (go figure that they were all Republican) decried Poison as degenerate smut.
Can both be true?
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.
Describing the plot of Poison isn’t easy: the film is a triptych, telling three different stories vaguely connected through themes and style. Hero follows a seven-year-old boy that murders his abusive father, told in the style of Hard Copy-type tabloid journalism. Horror borrows from 1950s b-movies, telling the story of a mad scientist obsessed with an elixir of human sexuality. Homo tells a prison love story that would make the characters in The Prince blush. Haynes weaves these three stories together, allowing them to comment on one another, sometimes with humor, others, with despair. The sum result is a film about the pain of growing up queer and the dangers & ecstasy of gay sex and love.
Still powerful almost 30 years later, Poison would have struck a particular chord with LGBTQ audiences in 1991 at the height of homophobia and the AIDS epidemic. Maybe because of recent political developments, the film feels oh-so-appropriate now, with the forces of hatred again on the attack. Strange how the man that made Poison would go on to make tender love stories and mainstream dramas such as Carol, Far From Heaven and Dark Waters. Much like making sense of Poison’s plot, it seems impossible to reconcile. And like Poison, when viewed together as a whole, it all makes perfect sense.
Streams on Kanopy & VUDU.
WashDrySpin
This is one of the essential gay movies that gay men should watch
The three intercut stories that comprise Poison are:
Hero: Seven-year-old Richie shoots his abusive father and then flies away. The story is told in the style of an episode of a tabloid television news magazine.
Horror: Told in the style of a “psychotropic horror film” of the mid-1960s, Horror is about a scientist who isolates the “elixir of human sexuality” and, after drinking it, is transformed into a hideous murdering leper.
Homo: The story of a prisoner, John Broom, who finds himself attracted to another prisoner, Jack Bolton, whom he had known and seen humiliated as a youth in a juvenile facility. It is an adaptation of part of Genet’s Miracle of the Rose (1946).
ElPillo
All sounds like a bad B movie from the 50s
WashDrySpin
You are as clever as a moth flittering around a light….idiot
Josh447
What a way to kill a Sat afternoon. And republicans called it degenerate smut? You know it’s gotta be good!
Josh447
“degenerate smut” = R code for: I fking loved it but I can’t tell that to my wife.
Josh447
I take it back, watched a bit, this isn’t my cup of tea. Oh no. I’m a republican!
barryaksarben
I saw “Superstar: the Karen Carpenter” story at the Seattle FIlm festival Secret screenings because her family sued so it can not be shown commercially but for an additional fee you could join the “CLUB” where it was shown for free. It was all done in barbie and ken dolls but in a very serious style and mood. It was a really good movie. I miss the early seattle film festivals they were so much fun. We also got to see “white Dog” the racist killer dog movie Kristy MacNichol starred in and decided to never release in theaters.
WashDrySpin
Hello fellow Seattleite…
I loved Superstar and White Dog was just odd
barryaksarben
I actually left Seattle to care for my mother but it will always be home to me. The film festival was one of my favorite things and I would take my vacation and get a full pass
Dick Gozinia
I remember that trilogy being very dark and weird. I would skip this one and watch something better.
Liquid Silver
Agreed. I found it had a bunch of easy to pick up and easily telegraphed sets of symbology and seemed to want to make people pat themselves on the back for how intelligent they are for catching that. It’s not really a challenge and only particularly groundbreaking for its subject matter at the time.
There are better things to be watching. As “art” films go, think of it as “Alien vs. Predator VII.” Amusing if you have a free Saturday night and a cheap bag of weed. Except with a bag of weed, I’d rather watch Croco-gator 5: BabyCrocs and just enjoy myself without the pretentiousness.
Troysky
@dick and @liquid ….. sad to say, I agree …. “Poison” was such a chore. A few cool scenes, but…uggh.
Mattster
This was an excellent movie, I think still his best work. Everyone has their favorite story in the trilogy, for me that was the prison story, adapted from Genet. Both raw and artistic.
Saw the Carpenter movie online, it was a terrible print, still interesting but a shame it was suppressed, it will probably never get remastered or commercially released again.
barryaksarben
Superstar was NEVER released as Richard Carpenter sued. It has been leaked or shown in non-profit settigs but It can never be released
ShiningSex
THIS FILM SHOULD BE A CRITERION COLLECTION BLU-RAY.
CRITERION NEEDS TO DO MORE LGBT FILMS. THEY ONLY HAVE A HANDFUL.
zephyr69
WTF did I just watch?
Troysky
…saw this in the theater. ….a few good scenes, but…uggh, not for me. ……however, I will always remember this pervy moment: when two prison(?) guys were energetically fvcking seen via a sweeping camera going over the top’s ass – very fast [SADLY]….. of course, I got a hard on ….also I saw a guy a few seats in front of me squirm uncomfortably, then lean over to his friend and say in a surprised loud redneck kinda way, “well, i guess he’s dickin him!”