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David Ehrenstein

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Feeling Blue

In Porn Theatre, people go looking for lust in all the wrong places.

By David Ehrenstein
Jan 15, 2004

Furtive anonymous sex and deep psychological insight don't usually accompany one another -- except in the writings of John Rechy and Irving Rosenthal. But they most certainly do in Porn Theatre, writer-director-actor Jacques Nolot's uncannily subtle mood piece, helpfully retitled from the French original, La Chatte à Deux Têtes. That's...
Free Willies

The Cockettes brings back nostalgia for a gay old time.

By David Ehrenstein
Aug 8, 2002

The past is a foreign country -- they do things differently there." So goes the immortal line from The Go-Between. And in the brilliant new documentary The Cockettes, that "foreignness" comes through stronger than ever, even for those who lived though the fabled and reviled 1960s. The film, by David...
Life Drained of Worth

For a wrenching view of the world, try Our Lady of the Assassins.

By David Ehrenstein
Sep 27, 2001

If you were to hear that Our Lady of the Assassins is one of the most genuinely shocking films you'll ever see, what would that suggest to you? Some new level of extreme violence and explicit sex, no doubt. But that's not what's at play in this eerily cool melodrama...
Give Him an Inch

John Cameron Mitchell takes a mile with his all-purpose, silly-fun musical Hedwig.

By David Ehrenstein
Aug 2, 2001

Times certainly have changed. Twenty years ago, a musical about an East German transsexual rock singer would have premiered in one of New York's Off-Off Broadway theaters or cabarets, run for a couple of weeks and remained the pleasant memory of a select few. But when John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig...
Northern Composure

Tired of downers? In Big Eden, life is full of happy twists.

By David Ehrenstein
Jun 7, 2001

After winning five separate Audience Awards and other honors at various gay and lesbian film festivals over the past year, Thomas Bezucha's Big Eden has finally opened in general release. You don't have to be an expert on the history of gay cinema to see why -- and you don't...

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