Can we start by not using Barbra Streisand as a polestar here?
This year’s earth-shaking advance in gay cinema apparently was the first inclusion of same-sex couples in “Christmas rom-coms.”
If the original version of The Prom had zazz—to borrow from one of the show’s signature numbers— Ryan Murphy’s adaptation barely achieves fizz.
I often think of Boys in the Band as the gay play equivalent of Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat—it’s hugely important in theater history, but the politics have become extremely problematic.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane is, of course, the founding document behind the concept—itself almost a piece of Grand Guignol theatrics—of horror as the genre to which female stars are left once they’ve hit 50.
By the end, we have rolling heads, a lot of screaming, and cheap horror too often overwhelms the better instincts of the screenwriters.
It’s the legendary Jeanne Eagels in the spotlight, which is exactly the right term. From our first glimpse of her fabulous face, she seems almost lit from within.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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