Category Archives: Film

An interview with BeBe Zaraha Benet documentarian Emily Branham

The following is an excerpt of an interview I did with documentarian Emily Branham for a piece entitled “Inside Emily Branham’s 12-Year Quest to Document BeBe Zahara Benet’s Rise to Drag Stardom” for Writer’s Bone. That piece (which you should totally read if you haven’t) was an inside look into the behind the scenes process of making a documentary over the course of a decade.

I didn’t get to include a lot of Emily’s history with BeBe and her thoughts on the first winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race but I thought the world should know a bit more of Branham’s thoughts. Enjoy.

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Five books to read after watching the trailer for ‘Detroit’

Kathryn Bigelow’s trailer for her (sure to be Oscar-nominated) Detroit hit the Internet today and already has me eager for August 4 to get here. The Oscar winner teamed up again with journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty).

The period piece is about the unwarranted police raid of an after-hours bar in a motel during the summer of 1967. The event, where black men ended up dead at the hands of police, kicked off the 1967 Detroit Riot. Bigelow and Boal have been working on this for a while now, but barely anything was known about the project. For months we knew John Boyega, Will Poulter, Hannah Murray, and Anthony Mackie would star in the film. Yet their roles remained nearly a mystery. Finally, with the release of the trailer, we learned the name of the film would simply be Detroit and who would play which role.

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30 podcasts from 2016 you need to subscribe to

Podcasts are trendier than ever now. Which is a grand thing to say. There’s a lot out there – some top notch, some not so much – and trying to find the right one for you is tricky. Here are 30 I listen to that I suggest to a lot of people I meet. Most of them are the “mainstream” ones, because I haven’t done much of a deep dive. Chances are you’ve listened to most of these if you love podcasts, but if you haven’t listened to much, you should definitely check some out.

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Gut reaction picks: 88th Annual Academy Awards

This year’s Oscar nominations were announced, and they featured a few surprises. Here are my gut reactions to the major awards. I doubt any of my personal favorites will win this year. That’s vastly different than last year when my favorites basically all won their category.

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‘Room’ reviewed

Room (2015)

Lenny Abrahamson’s direction of Room, adapted by Emma Donoghue of her own 2010 novel of the same name, is masterful. It’s intimate, thrilling and heart wrenching.

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87th Oscar votes

A few days ago I ranked all of my favorite nominees without saying much about the choice. Well, a few coworkers and I were discussing who might win this weekend and we all made our cases for our favorite films. I’m going to do the same here. Don’t consider this a “who will win” post, but why I would vote a certain way if I even had a vote.

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