Despite Bernie Sanders's Demand, Barney Frank Will Stay on DNC Committee (Video)
Bernie Sanders’s legal team sent a letter to DNC leadership claiming Barney Frank and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy are “self-proclaimed partisans intent on marginalizing [Sanders] supporters.”
Justin Bieber Grabs Attention (and More) with Latest Underwear Selfie
Justin Bieber adopts a pose made famous by Marky Mark and more recently Nick Jonas in a shirtless and pantsless selfie posted to Instagram late Friday night. In the shot which quickly went viral, Bieber stands before a mirror grabbing his crotch.
In related news, on Friday we reported that Bieber and Skrillex were being sued by the indie artist Casey Dienel over vocal loops used in the hit track “Sorry”.
Skrillex took to Instagram on Friday as well to set the record straight on where those vocal loops came from.
The post Justin Bieber Grabs Attention (and More) with Latest Underwear Selfie appeared first on Towleroad.
Another Gay Man Allegedly Attacked in West Hollywood (Video)
Brandon Akerman believes he was drugged and then brutally assaulted on his way home from Mickey’s bar in West Hollywood, Calif., last weekend.
www.advocate.com/crime/2016/5/28/another-gay-man-allegedly-attacked-west-hollywood-video
Bernie Enters Campaign Rally To Insanely Antigay Hip Hop Anthem
Fair & Equal Treatment, by Dr. Babak Dadvand
“I realize that as a plastic surgeon, I may not be literally saving someone’s life. However, I strive to improve the quality of life for my patients. I always try to do things in my personal and professional life that can have an impact on the people around me. This has led me to transgender surgery , and specifically transgender TOP surgery. Every human being
www.noh8campaign.com/article/fair-equal-treatment-by-dr-babak-dadvand
Bernadette Peters, Meryl Streep And Gucci: 8 Juicy Reading Recommendations For The Holiday Weekend
Memorial Day Weekend is here, which means summertime has unofficially officially begun. And since summer means lots of extra time laying out at the beach, by the pool, on the balcony, or in a hammock, you’re going to need something to do. Why not read a book?
Check out our eight juicy reading recommendations to help you pass the time this lazy holiday weekend…
Bernadette Peters Hates Me: True Tales From A Delusional Man by Keith A Stewart
Queer Southern humorist Keith Stewart writes about his most clumsy moments in life, including ripping down a gas pump, fighting with a bird trapped inside a grocery store and confronting the one and only Bernadette Peters who, as the book’s title implies, hates him.
Say Uncle by Eric Shaw Quinn
As a busy advertising exec and single gay man, Michael Reily never expected to find himself raising a child. So when he discovers he’s been named guardian of his infant nephew he finds he’s taken on the most challenging and simultaneously hilarious job of his life.
Boy Erased: A Memoir by Garrard Conley
When Garrard Conley was 19 years old, he was outed to his parents and was forced to make a decision: attend a church-supported conversion therapy program to “cure” him of homosexuality, or risk losing everything. This explosive memoir offers an insider’s peek at conversion therapy, the impact it had on him, and how Conley managed to break free and find true happiness in life.
Out of Orange: A Memoir by Cleary Wolters
The real-life Alex Vause from the critically acclaimed, top-rated Netflix show Orange Is the New Black tells her story in her own words for the first time in a memoir about crime and punishment, friendship and marriage, and a life caught in the ruinous drug trade and beyond.
Some Go Hungry by J. Patrick Redmond
This literary mystery follows Grey Daniels on a return trip to his hometown of Fort Sackville, Indiana where, decades earlier, one of his gay classmates was brutally murdered. While visiting, Grey must confront a painful past riddled in homophobia, secrets, religious hypocrisy and fear.
Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep by Michael Schulman
Michael Schulman’s meticulously researched biography of Meryl Streep, the three-time Academy Award-winning “Iron Lady” of acting, explores her beginnings as a young woman of the 1970s grappling with love, feminism, and her astonishing talent, and how she came to be the greatest actress of her generation.
Fall of Man in Wilmslow by David Lagercrantz
David Lagercrantz’s latest thriller begins with Alan Turing’s suicide in 1953 and quickly plunges into a post-war Britain of immeasurable repression, conformity and fear. As a witch hunt for homosexuals rages across the country, detective Leonard Corell sets out to uncover the truth about the man who cracked the Nazis’ Enigma encryption code.
In the Name of Gucci: A Memoir by Patricia Gucci
Read the never-before-told family drama surrounding the rise and fall of the late Aldo Gucci, the man responsible for making the legendary fashion label the powerhouse it is today, as told by his daughter, Patricia. This is an epic tale of love and loss, treason and loyalty, sweeping across Italy, England and America during the most tumultuous period of Gucci’s sixty years as a family business.
Fly That Landed In Donald Trump’s Hairpiece Becomes Internet Superstar
Muslim Cleric: Gay People Cause Earthquakes
A Muslim cleric in Ghana, where violence and harassment of gays and lesbians has reportedly intensified, has offered his countrymen what he believes is sound justification for their demonization, according to News Ghana:
Speaking in an interview, a local cleric, Mallam Abass Mahmud, said “Allah gets annoyed when males engage in sexual encounter and such disgusting encounter causes earthquake”.
According to him the destruction of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by Allah was as the result of homosexuality and he called for a holy war against gays and lesbians in the country, particularly in Muslim dominated suburbs.
“Should we allow such a shame to continue in our communities against our holy teachings?” he asked. He answered that “certainly no,and we are very happy to chase away such idiots from our Zongo communities”.
Several local residents have reportedly fled their homes for fear of being persecuted for their homosexuality, according to the paper.
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‘X-Men Apocalypse’ Will Give You an Extreme Case of Deja-Vu: REVIEW
Oscar Isaac didn’t age well. This is what he looks like at 5046 years old
If you experience extreme deja vu at the movie’s this weekend, don’t panic – that’s just how summer movies play. Take X-MEN APOCALYPSE for example. The sixth film in the X-Men franchise will feel very familiar if you’ve seen any X-pictures before. And maybe even if you haven’t. So let us begin (again) with a short detour.
Oscar Isaac is the internet’s current boyfriend and an amazing actor and as is required by the law of desire he’s in everything now. He was used sparingly but potently in The Force Awakens last Christmas as dashing pilot Poe Dameron and he’s in theaters again in a much larger role as the big bad of X-Men Apocalypse.
A few scenes into Star Wars: Episode 7 – The Force Awakens we see Oscar strapped to a chair and bleeding. A slender masked bad guy named Kylo Ren is holding him captive and enters his mind using The Force to extract information.
In the first scene of X-Men Episode 6 aka X-Men Apocalypse we see Oscar strapped to a stone slab and not bleeding (even if you cut him open the wound instantly heals). A hulking ugly bad guy named Apocalypse is holding him captive and enters his body — not like that (!) It’s PG-13 — using Ancient Rituals / Mutant Powers to extract that healing power. And also to possess his gorgeous body. It turns out Apocalypse has done this many times before and is becoming all powerful.
Are you following? I know it’s confusing but my point is this: If every franchise film would like to tie Oscar Isaac up at the beginning of the movie so that we may forcibly ogle him, this is understandable and aesthetically warranted and we shall forgive all such repetitions.
As it happens, though, this is Oscar Isaac’s last good scene in X-Men Apocalypse because once he’s been possessed, he is transformed into looking just like that ugly villain who possessed him. That last thing you want to do when you hire an “it” actor is to bury their beautiful mug in inexpressive latex. You’re only hurting yourself, movie!
After that prologue there’s a popcorn fun credit sequence that speeds through key moments in history, albeit slightly altered to include mutants (which might remind you of the alternate history credits sequence of another superhero movie called Watchmen from 2009), to bring us up to date.
Up to date in this case is the 1980s. We know this because the movie tells us and also because Nightcrawler is wearing Michael Jackson’s Thriller jacket and Jean Grey and Cyclops are going to see Return of the Jedi in movie theaters.
Other things that happen in the movie, you’ll remember from previous X-Men movies: The bad guy tries to use Xavier’s mutant locating machine Cerebro to kill everyone, Wolverine has a berserker rage, the X-Men find Nightcrawler and bring him to Xavier’s school, and the movie drops hints that Jean Grey’s powers are growing and she’ll soon be the far more dangerous Dark Phoenix ALL of which also happened in X2 back in 2003.
Quicksilver gets a crowd-pleasing complete song sequence to super speed around in while the world is frozen, Mystique can’t quite believe people love her in her natural blue form, and Xavier tries to convince Magneto that he has good inside him ‘so, like, please stop killing people!’ as we previously saw in X-Men First Class in 2011 and/or X-Men Days of Future Past in 2014.
And director Bryan Singer is still trying to use the mutant struggle as an allegory for civil rights while awkwardly showing a complete lack of interest in diversity (unless you count blue people) and wasting Storm yet again. She’s a hugely important and fan beloved character in the comic books and six movies in she’s still completely disposable.
The “new” plot is super complicated but boils down to this sentence: Apocalypse reemerges, enlists flipflopping hero/villain Magneto to help him, and will destroy the world unless the X-Men can stop him.
Sophie Turner, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Tye Sheridan have taken over the roles of Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops
Honest highly-agitated question: Why do they keep making the same movie about, essentially, the same four characters (Magneto, Professor Xavier, Mystique, and Wolverine… who mercifully sits most of this one out) when there are years and years of printed material to work with and multiple fascinating characters to explore from a book that’s always featured a truly diverse ensemble and never been primarily about three white men and their blue lady?
In the 7th film, as hinted by this movie’s finale, it looks like the franchise will reexplore the “Dark Phoenix” saga which they already botched in X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006.
My mutant power is apparently being a killjoy. (Aside: There are good movies out in the summer time but you generally have to seek them out since they’re not on 4,000 screens. You must see Sing Street which is completely endearing,The Lobster which is ballsy and original and A Bigger Splash which is on fire with sexual charisma.)
It’s not that X-Men Apocalypse isn’t fun in spots. It has its big colorful spectacle moments. And some of the visuals are so outlandish that they’re at least as memorable as they are silly.
But it’s also uninspired, largely incoherent, has a dull all-powerful villain with dumb looking powers (something about killing people with sand?) and is entirely weightless in its overreach (Oh, the world is ending again? *shrug*) probably because it’s not grounded with careful characterizations or any consistency beyond repetition.
Thanks to Marvel Studios (who do not control the X-Men films since the rights were sold to Fox years ago) the superhero genre has changed a lot since the X-Men first got the big screen treatment in 2000.
The genre now features very tightly developed characterizations (see the Captain America films), drama with an eye on the long game, complex action sequences that extend way beyond CGI beams crashing into each other, regular introductions of new heroes to play with (Guardians of the Galaxy, the ever expanding Avengers team, and Doctor Strange this November) and stays mostly true to the various source materials in terms of character, powers, tone, and general guiding principles.
By contrast X-Men Apocalypse feels like it was made before the superhero boom. It’s the one super-franchise that’s frozen in time, and not just because they yelled “do-over” by traveling backwards in it.
The post ‘X-Men Apocalypse’ Will Give You an Extreme Case of Deja-Vu: REVIEW appeared first on Towleroad.
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