Exclusive Interview: Tegan & Sara on bringing their bestselling memoir High School to the screen "no one delves into what it's like for women to write music"

Exclusive Interview: Tegan & Sara on bringing their bestselling memoir High School to the screen “no one delves into what it’s like for women to write music”

One of the LGBTQ+ highlights at last month’s 47th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), was the world premiere of the Amazon Freevee series High School. The eight-episode tender and visceral coming-of-age drama is based on the New York Times best-selling memoir by Grammy-nominated platinum recording artists, and certified queer icons, Tegan and Sara Quin. Discovering your own identity as a…

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'It's a part of my history. I was born in the mid-50s. I was born at a time when there were no LGBTQ± - we didn't even have all those letters - characters anywhere in film, television. I never heard the word 'homosexual' spoken aloud until I was in college. It was the worst thing that somebody could be.

'And here I'm at a film festival in Toronto with a movie that I've written, and it's a love story - a profound love story - between two men. 【voice breaks] And it moves me, almost to tears, as you can see...

'The message is: Love is a radical political act. Don't be afraid to love.'

Ron Nyswaner, screenwriter for My Policeman, TIFF 2022, 9.11.22

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Here’s my thoughts on @veradrew22’s controversial Queer Joker Film!

Bros (dir. Nicholas Stoller) x TIFF 2022.

Comedian Billy Eichner (also a co-writer) takes a stab at injecting a much-needed dose of homosexuality and queerness into the well-worn romantic comedy formula [...]. Stoller adheres surprisingly closely to familiar rom-com conventions with some refreshing LGBTQ+ twists like our current dating app hookup culture.

TIFF 2022: Day 2

Films: 4 Best Film Of The Day: Bros

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues: Satchmo gets his due in Sacha Jenkins’ reverent doc, as one of most highly celebrated horn players and Jazz ambassadors in the history of popular music. Beginning in the mid-’20s, as an impossibly talented protege of then-legend King Oliver, Armstrong took the world by storm, especially when he came into his own band, where he could be the undisputed ringleader and lead trumpet. His style, an impossibly high-energy blend of improvisation and a steady stream of high-C notes (difficult for even a seasoned pro to attain), along with his gravel-voiced diction (“foist” for “first”) and penchant for smiling showmanship, created a perfect entertainment vehicle for pre-civil rights white America. The film doesn’t shy away from the accusation that Satchmo, for all his prodigious gifts and charms, played nice with the Whites, and profited handsomely for it, while not being public about his political views, or overtly supportive of the burgeoning movement spurred on by MLK, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and many others. For his part, Armstrong  —  who was obsessive about recording his thoughts in his various writings and autobiography, and in the hundreds of taped conversations he made with various friends and illuminaries  — speaks to this interpretation of his dealings with white people in pretty measured tones. He believed his music created a bridge that everyone could walk on  —  the film makes much of his frequent duets with the trombone player Jack Teagarden, the pair’s genuine bonhomie showing the world how it could be done. He also claims to have given generously to the cause (a point the film doesn’t confirm or deny), but it’s also true that he came up from an entirely different era. It’s not as though he didn’t suffer under the harsh racial conditions of the time  —  he grew up dirt-poor in New Orleans, and was very often unable to stay in the same fancy hotels that welcomed him to their performance stage  — but he had orchestrated a way to survive and thrive in the world amongst the Whites in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and saw his audience, demonstrably white, in glowing terms, no matter the strife around him. Whether or not that makes him a positive-minded realist, or a capitalist-minded opportunist, the film doesn’t entirely conclude one way or the other. It’s not an in-depth profile of his politics, as it is a celebration of the thing that mattered most to him (only two of his four wives get much mention at all, though the film does include many bits and pieces with Lucille, his fourth  —  and last  —  wife, who was with him for nearly three decades until his death in 1971), his music. Nearly every shot of him, on-stage or off, has him with horn in hand (along with his ubiquitous white handkerchief), either in the midst of playing one of his unique, up-tempo solos, or about to put his beloved horn to his lips. I would have preferred more mention of some of his frequent collaborators (Ella Fitzgerald, for example, barely appears), but as a summary of the man and his wondrous career, it’s pretty essential viewing. 

Roost: Based on a play by Scott Organ, Amy Redford’s film takes the idea of the male sexual predator, and turns it neatly on its head. Anna (Grace Van Dien) is a bubbly high school girl just about to turn 17, when she casually mentions to her mother, Beth (Summer Phoenix), that she’s met a guy she really likes online (her mom’s response: “Those are literally famous last words”). The guy turns out to be Eric (Kyle Gallner), a 28-year-old with a shared love of poetry with Anna, who drives 900 miles on a whim in order to meet her in person. None of this sounds the least bit good, but when Anna finally gets around to introducing her guy to her mom and her mom’s fiance (Jesse Garcia), things take an even stranger series of turns, until it becomes clear there’s much more happening here than anyone, including the audience, might imagine. There are some interesting angles at play here, and strong (if uneven) performances from Van Dien and Phoenix, but too much of the story’s dramatic build up requires a series of actions and responses that really don’t make any sense from an EQ perspective for it to hold together as tightly as it needs to, in order to be effective. Shot in what appears to be Colorado, with the glorious mountains peeking out in the background, and with strong camera work by DP Bobby Bukowski, it feels suitably lived-in, but it still can’t quite get to life-like. 

Domingo: Moody atmospherics from Costa Rican filmmaker Ariel Escalante Meza, whose film trades both in gritty textures, and wispy metaphysics. Domingo (Carlos Ureña), a widow for two decades, lives in a simple house up in the mountains, near his daughter (Sylvia Sossa), and a couple of friends, with whom he splits a large bottle of moonshine each night. They have reason to drink: The town is in the throes of being bought out by a greedy developer, intent on making a killing when the land is sold to the state for a new highway, and isn’t opposed to actual killing in order to make that happen, threatening the otherwise peaceful inhabitants with a group of thugs buzzing around on their motorcycles and shooting indiscriminately into houses by way of intimidation. Domingo, who speaks with his dead wife via the various clouds of mist that rise up over the mountains and into his ramshackle house, doesn’t want to leave for fear his wife’s ghost won’t be able to find him if he moves away. With nowhere else to go, and refusing to be bullied out of his home, he has no choice but to put up a fight, whatever the cost. Meza’s film skillfully juxtaposes the simple tranquility of the mountains, and their steep, verdant calm, against the imposition of machinery, and guns, and the heavy construction of the highway being built below the town. With a mise-en-scene that feels thoroughly natural (Domingo wears the same rubber boots and natty sweater in almost every scene), the hostility these simple people face with the advancement of modernity, and its enjoining capitalist opportunities, feels like an even greater assault than the bullets that are fired in response. 

Bros: Well, why can’t gay people have their own major studio, wide-release raunchy rom-com? Billy Eichner’s screenplay (co-written by director Nicholas Stoller) follows many of the standard sorts of hurdles  —  two busy NYC men who pride themselves on not getting emotionally involved with their partners find each other, lose each other, and find each other again  — and several of the seemingly indelible tropes of the genre (Bouncy best friends! A trip away together! An issue of honesty!). But it also has many clever satiric touches (a Hallmark stand-in called “HallHeart” that tries to get hip with seasonal titles such as “Christmas With Either,” and “A Holly Polly Christmas”), and enough of Eichner’s clever pop-culture gags (“We had AIDS,” his character, an outspoken podcast host says of the current generation, “they had “Glee”!), to keep the engine humming, even as the film very nearly pauses at various times in order for Eichner to deliver various preachy polemics about the mostly ignored history of gay people (his character is head of an upcoming LGBTQ+ museum being built in Manhattan). There are enough of these moments  —  Eichner practically takes off his glasses and says “But if I could be serious for a moment..” before launching into a diatribe  — that the film has a kind of stuttering energy to it, a start/stop dynamic that draws attention to itself. On the other hand, you can sort of tell what Eichner might be thinking, here: How many more chances will he, or other LGBTQ+ filmmakers, get making a major studio release starring a fully queer cast? Given the dearth of such material writ large on the masses to this point, you can’t blame him for wanting to go out with his boots on, so to speak, blasting his six-shooters in all directions until he’s run out of ammo. Much of the film works because of the exceptional chemistry between Eichner (who tones down his usual “Billy on the Street” persona in service to a slightly more well-rounded character) and co-lead Luke Macfarlane, who gets the more thankless role as the hunky comic foil (the “straight” man, if you will) to Eichner’s neurotically charged dynamo, and more than holds his own. The film also doesn’t hold back on its ‘R’ rating, including several scenes of passionate (though non-graphic) lovemaking, a boisterous affirmation of queer sexuality.  If there seem to be a few too many moments designed to pump up Eichner’s ego (at various times, characters tell him how attractive he truly is), then so be it. It’s not a crime to have a film celebrate a character’s self-worth, even if it feels a bit self-serving in the process, for a group so universally marginalized, the film’s wide release (at the premiere, Eichner told the enraptured crowd it will be on 3000 screens when it comes out at the end of September of 2022) will doubtlessly not include the many countries that won’t even recognize the LGBTQ+ community actually exists. 

TIFF: One Last Time, wherein the author contemplates this year’s offerings and the past decade of covering this fabulous film festival, as he’s poised to embark on a new career path that will more than likely involve him standing up in front of a group of sullen teens, espousing the glories of the Russian masters, rather than taking in a beatific week of international cinema in the early days of September. 

Perfect Pop 3 - Tiffany

"Kids buy kids."

Tiffany's management didn't know how to market their young singer. Club performances didn't work - she was just 16, couldn't really be there. An A&R guy who was at the shopping mall with his kids one day and looked around and said, "What about singing in a mall?"

And that turned out to be Tiffany's unique selling point, something to make her stand out from all the other young women. She's singing in your space, in your local shopping centre. There's a big oral history of Tiffany's mall tour.

Tiffany was someone just like you. Dressed in clothes that are affordable and accessible - jean jacket, crimped hair, earrings. Anyone can follow that fashion, however little budget, however little fashion sense.

I first came across Tiffany when the single came out here. “I think we're alone now" was bright and breezy, a vaguely familiar song reinterpreted by someone who sounds like she could mean it. And, during a weak January sale, it rose to the very top.

That’s a brave TOTP performance. A chunky cardigan, far too big for her; not going to get into Legs & Co. Live vocals, because Tiffany is at her best when she’s singing live. Different vocal line from the single, almost as if she’s distancing herself from it. Tiffany’s better than this? Too right!

For about six weeks, I was very interested in Tiffany. Hello, hormones. Hello, "yeah, would like to pop over and help with your maths homework, look after your plants. See the all-white bedroom, get something in black."

There’s childhood crushes that never go further, and there’s another act on that week's TOTP. David Van Day of Dollar fell head-over-heels with young Tiff. Sent her red roses, and his number, and a note saying how she was his “forever girl”. How utterly spewsome! The pervgusting Van Day (31) was told where to go by the management of Tiffany (16).

Traffic chaos in London, where huge crowds turned out and blocked the Euston Road. "Come and see Tiffany" said Capital Radio presenters Pat and Mick, and the rest was a mess.

"She's the next Barbra Streisand," said Elsie Gummer of Bromley. Maybe she'd heard the second single, the heartbreaking song Could've been.

"It's about the end of a relationship that doesn't quite work out, one that improves your life and you wouldn't go back on it."

Written by Lois Blaisch, the song turned out to be one Tiffany could convincingly sing, and one that fitted her vocal style. With the benefit of hindsight, we file it as a neighbour of Duncan Laurence's "Arcade".

A cover of The Beatles' "I saw him standing there" gave Tiffany a third top ten hit, but follow-up "Feelings of forever" failed to trouble the top 40. Behind the scenes, Tiffany had sought to cut ties with her mother, there were disagreements in her management, and it showed.

Second album Hold an Old Friend's Hand came out for Christmas 1988, new product for while there was still a decent fanbase. The lead single was "Radio romance", promoted with an appearance on Going Live.

"It's happened so fast... it's been my dream come true."

Tiffany's career on the top 40 lasted exactly one year: 1988. "Radio romance" fell out after Gift Token Week, follow-ups "All this time" and "Hold an old friend's hand" stalled.

Stateside, Tiffany started a tour supported by New Kids On The Block; by the final date, it was New Kids On The Block supported by Tiffany. When she was the voice of Judy in The Jetsons Movie in 1990, we thought, "Good grief, remember Tiffany?"

Freed from the pressure of making hit records, Tiffany was able to follow her own path, and actually write some songs of her own. 2000's album The Color of Silence was praised by critics, there was some dance singles, reality shows, support for the LGBTQ+ fans because we stood solidly by her, nostalgia tours with New Kids on the Block and Salt-n-Pepa, and much more.

And in 2022, Tiffany released a new album, Shadows. Here's "I like the rain", a "sarcastic and fun song about chaos, owning your mistakes, rebelling and not caring what people think but making adjustments as you go along in life to another season."

Tiffany's only turned into Stevie Nicks! Who'd have thunk that the little denim-clad gal at the mall would turn out to be a closet rock chick?!

Now, how’s the maths homework going?

A ‘diplomatic tiff’ over same-sex marriage is downplayed, but differences on LGBTQ+ issues remain in the Jamaica-U.S. relationship · Global Voices

LGBTQ+ issues have long been a vexed issue in Jamaica — and rarely discussed at an official level. Jamaica’s Information Minister recently announced that LGBTQI+ rights and abortion will not be on the agenda during ongoing discussions on constitutional reform. While several Caribbean nations took positive steps towards recognition of the LGBTQ+ community in 2022, Jamaica was not among them. The…

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Film Review: My Policeman ★★★1/2

Film Review: My Policeman ★★★1/2

Tony and Olivier award-winning veteran theatre director Michael Grandage follows his 2016 feature film debut, Genius, with the delicately powerful My Policeman, which world premiered at the 47th Toronto International Film Festival and opens in select US cinemas today ahead of its global launch on Prime Video on November 5th. Based on the bestselling book by Bethan Roberts, which was inspired by…

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Notes from the queerest TIFF ever

Notes from the queerest TIFF ever

Compiling a list of LGBTQ+ highlights ahead of the 47th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, I was struck by the sheer number of queer films that had been selected, a powerful enough statement from the festival’s programmers in itself. But actually being there at TIFF in-person—for the first time in three years—to catch as many of them as I could, was a cumulatively emotional…

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NewFest Pride Summer Film Series returns to New York with sizzling five-day lineup

The third annual NewFest Pride Summer Film Series, running June 1st – 5th, 2023 in New York, will kick off Pride month in the city in style, featuring a mix of exclusive in-person premieres and panels, virtual screenings, and social events. Fairyland. Courtesy of NewFest. Among the nine feature films being shown, is the opening night selection Fairyland—receiving its New York premiere—written…

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This photo will definitely be in an lgbtq history book. Through The Glass Closet: Power, Profits, and Pride

Tiff 22

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