Music and movies.

Visit Rainbow World Radio Presents StoneWall Society Birthday Show to hear new music from gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender musicians CRAYMO, Deb Barber, Elton Costello, fundamentalists, Andrew Suvalsky, Lipstick Conspiracy, D.C. Anderson, Daphne Rubin Vega, David Brown, Eliane Ellis, Joshua Klipp, Ember Swift, Moon Trent, Ochi, Shawn Ryan, Soce The Elemental Wizard, Oestrongenix, Tomas Bell, Tommy Johns, and Emily Nyman.

I recently heard and loved The Saints Are Coming, a CD single that combines two of my favorite bands, U2 and Green Day. They performed the song during half-time at the Superdome, when it reopened for a Saints game on September 25, 2006.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is a sure-bet for one of the top-selling DVD’s this holiday season, but I think Superman Ultimate Collector's Edition will also be popular. The alternate versions of the first two Superman movies make that box set appealing, and the enjoyable movie Superman Returns should find a larger audience on DVD than it did during a crowded box-office summer.

To promote the AIDS-themed movie 3 Needles and support AIDS Prevention in Africa, visit www.MySpace.com/3Needles.

Listen for my interview with the founder of StoneWall Society on the internet radio station Rainbow World Radio; it will premiere on November 15, 2006 at 7:00 PM eastern time and
run through December 1, 2006.

StoneWall Society promotes music, books, artwork, and other media that feature positive images of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

I previously received two 2002 Pride in the Arts Awards and a 2003 Pride in the Arts Award.

Book review: All We Have Is Now

Robert Taylor’s novel All We Have Is Now skillfully captures some of the worlds in which gay men find themselves: embraced by the supportive environment of the theater, hated in a small town, loved by a soul mate, or living with the grief of someone taken by AIDS or a hate crime. For narrator Ian McBride, however, the most troubling environment is one of openness and vulnerability. Ultimately, Taylor weaves a tale that not only reflects all those realities but also gives hope for gays, as well as anyone else who might feel different or isolated.

I especially enjoyed the stage scenes, in which McBride not only acts out but also internalizes some of the world’s most beloved plays. His interaction with the characters he portrays becomes an important and touching part of his budding relationship with a young admirer.

--Duane Simolke, author of The Acorn Stories, Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure, Holding Me Together, The Return of Innocence (with Toni Davis), and New Readings of Winesburg, Ohio.

OpenCam: My review for This Week In Texas.


While chat rooms might feel like familiar territory for many gay men, thrillers aren’t familiar territory for many gay movies. In fact, thrillers often feature gay villains and gay stereotypes. OpenCam might include a gay villain—considering that the entire cast seems gay—but it also rises above stereotypes.

After giving up on a lasting relationship, Manny (Andreau Thomas) spends much of his time trolling a chat room for gay men in Washington, D.C. That distraction often keeps him from his artwork, and from his best friend, Maurice (Ben Green). Maurice obviously wants their friendship to go further, and his emotional openness sometimes gets a bit scary.

An attempted robbery causes Manny and Maurice to cross paths with Hamilton (Amir Darvish), a detective who later asks Manny to help him solve a series of murders. The murders not only involve the chat room Manny cruises but also involve people he knows. As it turns out, several of Manny’s acquaintances seem suspicious.

Amir Darvish creates an intriguing hero—seductive, dangerous, and concerned. However, Andreau Thomas is the star, giving Manny enough faults to make at least one of his acquaintances want to kill him but enough charm to make audience care what happens to him.

Writer/director Robert Gaston keeps taunting viewers by making certain characters seem like the obvious culprit but then planting doubts about the killer’s true identity. Gaston moderates the pacing by focusing on the relationships between the characters, while interspersing scenes of danger. He also makes good use of shadows and light, especially in scenes where a character on the Web cam obviously receives an unexpected guest.

Sex and nudity play an important role in the film, but the emotional conflicts and the growing sense of danger make it even more engaging. A little bit of humor even sneaks in now and then, usually from sarcasm, but also from some playfully romantic scenes between Hamilton and Manny. The soundtrack features an enjoyable mixture of dance music and alternative rock, with artists such as Warren Cuccurullo (a lead guitarist for Frank Zappa, Missing Persons, and Duran Duran) and 2005 Outmusic Award Nominees Keyth Lawrence and the Purple Circle.

Without giving away any of the ending, something apparently happens between two of the characters that doesn’t quite show up in the film’s concluding scenes. Maybe it’s implied and I just didn’t catch it, but it seemed distractingly missing. That is my only complaint about the entire movie, though. OpenCam is sexy and suspenseful.

Read more about this movie at OpenCamMovie.Com.

--DuaneSimolke.Com, author of The Acorn Stories, Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure, Holding Me Together, and New Readings of Winesburg, Ohio.

This is entry #250 for this blog! Thanks for reading!

It looks like some great book-to-movie adaptations are coming to theaters, like Running With Scissors, Flags of Our Fathers, Eragon, The Prestige, and James Bond: 007: Casino Royale.

I’ve recently updated the following pages: The Return of Innocence: A Fantasy Adventure and DuaneSimolke.Com: Canada.

Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema: My review for This Week In Texas.

Vito Russo's 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies explored how movies portray gays and lesbians. That book led to the documentary The Celluloid Closet, from directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. While both incarnations of The Celluloid Closet remain ground-breaking and essential, Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema focuses mostly on gay films, made from a gay or gay-friendly perspective.

Of course, only a few such films were widely available when Russo wrote his work. Now gay movies line the walls of video stores and the shelves of many gay homes. We just needed some kind of map to help us navigate those movies.

Directors Lisa Ades and Lesli Klainberg provide that map with this exciting new DVD. Though their 82-minute feature sometimes feels a little too brief and rushed, Ades and Klainberg carry the readers through important events in gay history and how those events impacted gay cinema. They also look at how changing attitudes, the popularity of film festivals, the advent of affordable DVDs, and many other changes made gay films a much larger market. If Ades and Klainberg create a sequel to this documentary—and they should—they might also examine the impact of gay TV networks and gay-owned film companies; of course, it might take a few more years to see that impact.

The entire film relies on a high-speed mixture of interviews and film excerpts. The resulting documentary is relentlessly informative and often amusing. Comments from Gus Van Sant, John Waters, Wilson Cruz, Guinevere Turner, Peter Paige, Alan Cumming, and many others in the film industry not only show why these films matter so much to gay viewers but also help trace the evolution of gay cinema. From obscure films to Brokeback Mountain, Ades and Klainberg help viewers see the importance of gay-themed movies. The DVD’s extras include even more interview footage, grouped thematically; my favorite of those features is “First Gay Movie Memories,” with the interviewees telling how particular gay scenes affected them.

Fabulous! succeeds as a gay cultural study, as a reference to help viewers decide which movies to buy and rent, and as an entertaining look at film-making. Even the negative portrayals this film examines will help inform film-lovers. Ades and Klainberg prove that queer cinema is as amazingly diverse as the queer community that supports it.

Mark Kendrick, author of Stealing Some Time and Into This World We’re Thrown, wrote the following review of The Return of Innocence: A Fantasy Adventure, at Amazon.Com.

In 'The Return of Innocence', Duane Simolke once again proves his writing mastery. Populated by at least two dozen characters, the story focuses on Sasha, a young female swordswoman, and her quest to destroy the evil Tay-lii. With well-fleshed out characters at her side, Sasha (or Innocence) goes on a classic fantasy adventure through the world of Theln, which exists right along the dimensional edge of another one of Duane's stories called 'Degranon'. So, along with his other offerings in the genre of contemporary fiction and sci-fi, Duane has produced this fantasy story; again proving his ability to write in any genre he needs.

To me, the mark of an excellent writer is the ability to write in a voice not his own - and to stay consistent in that character. Duane achieves that in spades by writing from the point of view of a young female warrior and taking it to its inevitable conclusion in 'The Return of Innocence'. Another mark of an excellent writer is the ability to shift genres when necessary to achieve an aim. I have read stories from three genres that Duane has written in and I've found them superb. This is an author you don't want to miss!

Music, Another Gay Movie, Another Gay Science Fiction Novel.

Please visit this new page: Music Reviews.

Watch This Week In Texas for my review of the racy comedy Another Gay Movie.

If you don’t want to read about gays or people of color, you won’t like the revised, second edition of Degranon. Though it takes place on other worlds, all the characters are people we might call Native American, African American, Hispanic, Asian, or Middle Eastern. Some of them are also gay. In fact, you could call it a gay science fiction novel. For the revised, second edition, I rewrote three of the main characters as gay men, gave a larger role to a lesbian police officer (known as a “Maintainer”), and further explored the “closet” metaphor that appeared in the first edition. Degranon deals with themes of diversity, censorship, and religious violence. It takes place in an alternate dimension, with some of our prejudices and other problems looked at from unusual angles. More importantly for most scifi fans, though, it delivers fast-paced adventure and constant twists.

Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure
By Duane Simolke

Please visit these new pages: Excepts from The Acorn Gathering: Writers Uniting Against Cancer and Gay Science Fiction for UK Readers.

Like gay movies? On September 19, 2006, Wolfe Releasing is releasing Fabulous! The Story Of Queer Cinema. That DVD will include interviews with Ang Lee, Christine Vachon, Wilson Cruz, Guinevere Turner, Gus Van Sant, John Waters, B. Ruby Rich, John Cameron Mitchell, Jenni Olson, and many others.

According to a press release from Wolfe, “Produced for the Independent Film Channel and featured at the year’s top film festivals, FABULOUS! picks up where THE CELLULOID CLOSET left off and explores the emergence of gay and lesbian films from the beginning of the gay rights movement in the 1960s to the ‘New Queer Cinema’ of the 90s, the proliferation and influence of gay and lesbian films festivals, the discovery by the film business of the gay market, and the explosion of gay images in the mainstream media.”

Visit Wolfe Releasing for more details, and please read my gay movie reviews at TWIT.

In a review of The Return of Innocence: A Fantasy Adventure at Allbookreviews.com, Bob Medak suggests the book “For lovers of fantasy and just a good book to read.”