by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
You’re Cordially Invited | 2025
It says something about the current state of theatrical distribution that a comedy starring Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon, directed by the filmmaker who brought us such hits as Neighbors and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, gets unceremoniously dumped on Prime Video without even a token theatrical release. And it's a shame, too, because You’re Cordially Invited is surprisingly good.
Emilia Peréz/Will & Harper | 2024
It isn’t easy being transgender. For those of us who live in America, it’s about to get even harder. With the recent election of Donald Trump and the rush by Democrats to blame trans people for their loss (despite running away from our issues at every turn), the future can seem somewhat bleak. It is of some comfort, then, that our stories are still being told. But as shown by two recent Netflix releases, we’re both making strides, and taking steps back.
For most of its life, the Cannon Group was a minor studio known for brawny B-movies like Death Wish, Cobra, Missing in Action, and Masters of the Universe. But during the 1980s, under the direction of co-owners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who bought the company in 1979, Cannon also used some of its profits to take chances on risky auteur-driven projects in an attempt to gain some prestige. One such project was Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear, a deal Golan and Globus infamously made with Godard on a napkin at the Cannes Film Festival, where the pair were tenaciously courting filmmakers.