TMP MOVIE PICK
ABOUT RAY
I finally got the chance to see the film Ray. The film was released the end of last summer, and I felt it received mixed reviews from the community. Many were glad to see Hollywood tackle trans masculinity in a major film, yet many were still demanding that Hollywood let the thousands of struggling trans actors have a shot at playing a life they know first hand. I was not particularly in the front of the line to see this film myself seeing both sides of the debate, but I finally got around to it and was pleasantly surprised.
The film stars Elle Fanning as a sixteen year old trans male, who desperately wants to start hormone therapy. Naomi Watts plays his overwhelmed, supportive mom and Susan Sarandon plays his overbearing, lesbian grand mother. The film first premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was originally titled, 'Three Generations.'
I really think there was something to that title, because it does fit. All the characters in the film were about his mother. It seems she had some dark secrets in her past, but as a mother she did her best to protect her child. Even when it came to locating one of the fathers of Ray, who had to sign his consent forms to begin therapy, she was protecting him. About Ray was so much more than a film about a boys journey to be himself. It was even more so, about a mother who had to stay strong for her emotional child, but morn the loss of what she thought was her daughter.
So often we forget that those closest to us are in a transition as well. Even though Ray's mom seemed to be on board from the beginning of the film, no one including Ray seemed to allow her that time to grieve. Especially not the overbearing, grandmother played excellently by Susan Sarandon. The grand mother's role was perfect, in showing that even those within the LGBT community can be a little bigoted and not understanding. It would take half the film before the grandmother realized that Ray being a boy, was no more a choice than it was for her to be a lesbian. It just is.
This was an excellent film, and I loved it showed the different viewpoints of the people involved. Finally a film was showing how the parent grieves, and transitions too. I also loved how it showed that just because someone is gay or lesbian doesn't automatically make them supportive of another persons life choices, even if they should be more understanding of all people,but....
She did come around, and the mother finally did get support from both the fathers, and grandmothers. In the end, even Ray showed appreciation for his mom, and all she had done for him, with a simple 'I'm proud of you'. With given the smile it brought to his mother's face, that was all she needed. I guess in the end, it was really all about her.So grab some tissue, and be prepared for some laughs and gasps. This is a heart warming film full of hope, and inspiration for many families in transition.
For anyone who knows me, you know I love a free movie. So I try to include a video or a link to a free site to watch the film. Hey that money can easily be spent on some hormones. So here it is guys and dolls; I use several sites, but this one I found on potlucker. I've heard some people have had issues with the site, but I do know it works best if you have an ad blocker running. If you know of better sites, or films you'd like to show here, or even if you are a film maker and want your film on this blog, do email me @transmuseplanet.gmail.com
YOU WILL SEE THIS IMAGE
TMP WEEKEND MOVIE PICK
Between Love and Goodbye
9-13-15
A long time online friend wrote and told me they finally saw the tab here for trans related films and love it but asked "Sabrina, why isn't your one liner up there?" Well probably cause it was just a one liner and not totally a trans topic film, although it does have 2 transgender characters. The film was produced and directed by Gay film makers, and they tried dealing with the topic of de-transitioning of one of the trans characters. I can't say enough about the producer Marcus and director Casper, they are so talented and it was a fun experience. Hadn't thought about putting the film in my blog, actually forgot about it being somewhat trans related, but since I was asked, here you go Vanessa, and all my TMP readers.
Kyle and Marcel are in love at first sight. Marcel, who is from France,
marries his lesbian friend Sarah so he can stay in the US with Kyle.Enter Kyle s sister, April, a former prostitute who needs a place to crash.
Taking a quick disliking to Marcel, April methodically drips poison into
their happiness. But where Marcel sees a conniving woman with a notso-
hidden agenda, Kyle only sees his sister in need. The perfect couple
falls headlong into possessiveness, jealousy and rage; trapped in the
tangled emotions found in that space between love and goodbye.
From The New York Times Review: “Between Love & Goodbye” tells of the ill-fated romance between Marcel (Justin Tensen) and Kyle (Simon Miller), a pair of East Village transplants with 2 percent body fat, zero personality and even less chemistry.
Written and directed by Casper Andreas, the movie opens with a frolic as Marcel, a French citizen, marries a grumpy lesbian named Sarah (Jane Elliott) in order to permanently settle in New York. Marcel and Kyle move in together and promptly get naked and roll around, thereby consummating their pseudomarriage and the inevitable soft-core titillations of the cute-gay-boy-indie-melodrama.
Enter April (Rob Harmon), Kyle’s troubled, transgendered sister, for a spell of couch-crashing that goes on for months, with disastrous consequences for the men.
TMP WEEKEND MOVIE PICK
Romeos
5-31-15
The German-language Romeos depicts a transgender FTM youth (the talented Rick Okon) in Cologne caught between his former life as Miri and who he ultimately wants to be as Lukas. The English language internet confessions, the testosterone shots, and the constant working out, Lukas’ journey at first isn’t altogether clear to the less discerning. Initially, the films seems to be about a boy obsessed with his slight frame, as well as a steroid addiction. And, then, thanks to the stunt casting, there is somewhat of a unannounced revelation.
The dissipating clouds segue to the secret Lukas prolongs during his budding romance with Fabio (Maximilian Befort), a cocksure Romeo who can’t keep his dick in his pants just as much as Lukas must hide the fact that he doesn’t have his own yet. Like with Boys Don’t Cry, there’s the two-gender two-step, but, here, it’s a gay-male simulation of a relationship, rather than a boy courting a girl. 
Romeos is one of those rare gems that tugs at your heart strings and makes you cheer for the hero of the film. This movie has a lot of heart and soul. It was funny at times yet serious all the same with a very relatable subject matter to those going through what the main character is going through of a person trapped in the wrong body finding his place in the world and all the while searching for acceptance from the people around him and from within.Rick Okon, who plays the brave and rebellious Lukas, a gay trans man who is transioning from female to male, is simply amazing. He played the character with such realism and truth that I couldn't take my eyes off of him, more so than the object of Luka's attraction, Fabio, the closetted bad boy played by Maximilian Befort, who was amazing as well in the film. The other actor who stood out in the film for me was Liv Lisa Fries, who played Lukas lesbian BFF -Ine, who had to accept her childhood friend transformation from a girl to a young man real fast.
TMP Weekend Movie Pick 5-09-15
Beautiful Boxer
The Beautiful Boxer is the controversial 2003 biopic detailing the life of transgender (‘kathoey’) Muay Thai fighter, Nong Thoom. The film, while winning awards and nominations in Europe, Asia, and America raised temperatures in Thailand. The censors felt aggrieved by the extreme frontal nudity which made the film popular elsewhere.
Nong Thoom is portrayed by male kick-boxer and Muay Thai pro, Asanee Suwan. It was the shots of Asanee’s genitals which saw the film censored in parts of Thailand and banned altogether in others. Still the film did win several high profile Thai film awards in 2004 including awards for Best Actor and Best Makeup. Elsewhere the movie picked up awards in Torino’s Gay/Lesbian/Transgender movie festival and new director Ekachai Uekrongtham picked up a prestigious Outfest award for Outstanding Emerging Talent.
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| Nong Toom with Actor |
The Beautiful Boxer deals with the life of Nong Thoom. Nong had always been aware of her gender and her biological complications from a young age and after spending time in a Buddhist monastery, decided to pursue boxing and Muay Thai as a means of paying to support her under privileged parents and get a sex change operation. She was dubbed The Beautiful Boxer as a result of her first fight where she beat and then passionately kissed a much larger opponent.
The Beautiful Boxer continued to rise to fame as a successful transgender boxer at the prestigious Lumprini Boxing Stadium in Bangkok. At the epicentre of all things Muay Thai, The Beautiful Boxer went on to become a champion in mid 1998. Having revitalised the Muay Thai scene in Thailand (and across the globe), The Beautiful Boxer announced a shock retirement when she had enough money to release her parents from financial hardship and she finally underwent her reassignment operation in early 1999.
The movie, The Beautiful Boxer, depicts Nong as a strong and often exploited but loved figure of Muay Thai and Thailand’s tourism industry in general. The movie did well in America upon its import release in 2005 and Nong began to reappear in the public eye fighting and winning several exhibition fights against heavier male opponents. Indeed, the speed of The Beautiful Boxer has often been the main reason for her victories as seen in the movie.
Noom Tong Today
TMP Weekend Movie Pick 4-26-15
What's The T?
I have to admit, this is one film documentary I had intended to watch but never got around to it until tonight. I remember when it came out in 2013, it won several independent film awards and received a surprising amount of publicity. I'm finally glad I ran across this on hulu, which started showing this documentary last June. I hope you enjoy friends.
What's the T is a documentary that explores the challenges, successes and lives of five trans gender women. These five women represent normality and abnormality, seamlessly in their daily efforts to achieve a balance of feminine and masculine as the day may require. These women are prime examples of reality and self-identity.
With effortless candor and courage, the 5 ladies of Whats the T display their day to day lives. They exhibit the hard work one must possess in order to achieve success as defined by them. All these women have gone through similar experiences and all have risen above these trials to gain what is rightfully theirs in their own fields.
While the battle is a long and arduous one, these women have proven and are still proving that they will end up on top. The documentary features Cassandra Cass who is a performer at the Starlight Room in San Francisco, Rakash Armani an up and coming star in the ballroom scene, Nya an ingénue from AsiaSF, Vi Le is a biology and psychology major in SFSU working towards her medical degree, and Mia TuMutch who is a youth advocate for the San Francisco Youth Commission.
*Try refreshing page if at first you don't see film appear.
While the battle is a long and arduous one, these women have proven and are still proving that they will end up on top. The documentary features Cassandra Cass who is a performer at the Starlight Room in San Francisco, Rakash Armani an up and coming star in the ballroom scene, Nya an ingénue from AsiaSF, Vi Le is a biology and psychology major in SFSU working towards her medical degree, and Mia TuMutch who is a youth advocate for the San Francisco Youth Commission.
*Try refreshing page if at first you don't see film appear.
TMP Weekend Movie Pick 4-19-15
Holiday Heart
Yes, I know it's not Christmas time, or that this is a completely transgender film, but it is a great movie about gender expression, love, and acceptance. I first saw this film as a child and it was influential in seeing an African American film explore gender expression without any ridicule or as a joke.
Unfortunately it is from youtube and I'd advised ignoring the comments or the gay transphobic person that uploaded the film, otherwise this is a joyous, uplifting film about love and acceptance.
Black men in dresses tend to be objects of comedy in mainstream media, broadly drawn characters who elicit laughter more than desire. Think: Flip Wilson’s Geraldine, Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma, Eddie Murphy’s bevy of female Klumps, even Wesley Snipes in To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. They’re all flamboyant and broadly drawn, and they’re also definitively unthreatening, mainly because they’re so upfront about being men in drag. Not gay men, not femmey men, but men who wear dresses to make statements about themselves: they’re fearless actors, good actors, the mere act of putting on a dress connotes having cojones. The glorious RuPaul is the exception who proves the rule—he became mainstream as a drag queen. The breakthrough embodied by RuPaul was that he was an overtly gay man who was, suddenly, everywhere—battling Milton Berle on MTV, promoting MAC cosmetics, hosting his own tv talk show, and appearing in movies like The Brady Bunch Movie or Crooklyn. Unfortunately, some years after RuPaul’s grand appearance, mainstream media and audiences haven’t quite been able to embrace the possibility that black male celebrities might actually be okay with their “feminine” sides, that they might flaunt them or enjoy them openly. The fact that Dennis Rodman is so often dismissed as a “freak” suggests that mixing gender codes is still a dicey business. Unless you’re playing a very het cop undercover, wearing a dress isn’t exactly the most immediate ticket to longstanding stardom for a black man.
Ving Rhames in a dress is another story.
In Robert Townsend’s Holiday Heart, Rhames plays a drag performer named Holiday Heart. As the film opens, Holiday is singing and playing the organ in church and in grand, self-loving style. Holiday’s long-haired head tilts back as his big-boomy voice proclaims his love for the Lord in no uncertain terms. Amen amen. Immediately, the film cuts to another Holiday Heart performance, this time in a club called the Penthouse: here comes Holiday in full Diana Ross regalia, a large, well-muscled black man backed by two oohing-and-aahing singers and wearing a gorgeous sequined gown, lip-synching with all his considerable heart. It appears that there’s nothing this guy doesn’t do full-on.
Holiday has deep history, too, conveyed in several minutes worth of flashbacks. Here you learn that his lover was a closeted policeman who was killed, and that Holiday’s appearance at the funeral service made the other cops mightily uncomfortable. (So much for the “undercover” cop as the only possible route to mainstream drag.) All this is only the beginning of Holiday’s incursion into mainstream masculinity. That it’s Ving Rhames who embodies this incursion is noteworthy, since he’s not known as a comedian (like Wilson or Murphy) or as a particularly beautiful movie star (like Snipes). He’s a big, rough-looking guy, famous for playing Don King and Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible sidekick (I like to remember his remarkable, movie-stopping performance as Cinque in Paul Shrader’s Patty Hearst). True, no one will ever mistake Ving Rhames for a woman, but there’s something else going on in his portrayal of Holiday, something that’s by turns daring and awkward, and precisely because of this unusual range and risk-taking, expands the possibilities of gendering as a social and media process. Unlike most mainstream male stars who put on dresses, Rhames takes Holiday seriously, and asks you to do the same. That isn’t to say that Holiday doesn’t appear in some funny situations or cut loose with occasional jokes or outrageous bitchiness. It is to say that Holiday is not a victim. Holiday is a rich, warm, and wholly appealing character, equally feminine and masculine and quite unapologetic about it.
Holiday’s adventures begin when he meets a young girl in trouble, Niki (Jessika Quynn Reynolds), a child wise beyond her years, mostly because her mother, Wanda (Alfre Woodard) is a crack addict. Niki spots Holiday on the street one Halloween (which means Holiday is in a sparkly gown and foofy high heels), takes him by the hand, and leads him to the apartment where Wanda is in the middle of a beating by her big meanie junkie boyfriend. Holiday knows what to do—abandoning his feminine demeanor and high-pitched voice, he roars at Bad Boyfriend to back off. When the villain comes at him anyway, Holiday whips out a knife: “Come on man! Trick or treat!” The crowd that has gathered in the hallway is duly impressed, as is Bad Boyfriend, who does indeed back off. It’s clear that Holiday is not, as Bad Boyfriend calls him, “stupid ass faggot.” Holiday is a man, however unconventional his outfits and mannerisms. He’s a man who can take care of himself and protect women and children from bullies.
The film goes on to make the case that Holiday is a good man, fully capable of adopting and looking after a family. He provides Niki and Wanda with a free apartment in one of the buildings he owns, an apartment that happens to be across the hallway from his own, so that they can spend a lot of increasingly intimate time together (Holiday is a good landlord too—he fixes the toilets himself). At first, both Niki and Wanda are skeptical, but soon the girl happily finds out that Holiday has tastes she can understand (“You like rap, like I do!” she exults), wears pants on occasion, and cooks great meals. Her mother is a little harder to convince, harboring some understandable distrust of men in general and some expected ignorance concerning gay men in particular. “Just so you know,” she spits, “I don’t do fags!” But Holiday has a quick and wicked comeback: “And I don’t do no-good evil bitches who sleep all day instead of taking care of their children!” Wanda is taken aback. In this moment, when Woodard’s extraordinary face reveals Wanda’s rapid reconsideration of just about everything she’s assumed about gender roles and social conformity, Holiday Heart makes its most cogent point, that indeed, Holiday is a good man whose sexuality has nothing to do with his capacity for boundless, unconditional love.
This being a movie with about an hour more to run, you know that Holiday’s capacity will be tested. Crisis must come, even after the threesome have formed something of a happy home: Wanda is a poet who is working on a book, while Holiday continues to perform at the Penthouse and take in rents. Wanda, however, just can’t stay quite straight. Soon she brings home a smooth-talking, smartly-dressed drug dealer, Silas (Mykelti Williamson), the “successful” version of her former man, mainly because Silas does not do the drugs that he sells. Because this is a movie with a lesson to teach—more than a little movie-of-the-weekish in its sentiment and structure—Holiday Heart makes everyone suffer some more before a stable family unit emerges.
On the upside, this unit includes the two men, each redefining what it means to be a man in his own way. Sadly, as ambitious and laudable as this point is, Holiday Heart falls back on the tired stereotype of the bad, weak-willed, crack-addicted, out-of-control mother to make it. There is another movie in this one, waiting to get out. And at the center of that movie is Rhames’ performance—solid as always, but also inventive, both gaudy and nuanced. His Holiday holds the film together, even during its uninspired and obvious moments.
TMP Weekend Movie Pick 4-04-15
Tomboy
Tomboy, is a 2011 French drama film written and directed by Céline Sciamma. The story follows a 10-year-old transgender child (given the name Laure by his parents) who, after moving with his family to a new neighborhood introduces himself to his new friends as Mikäel. The film opened to positive reviews, with critics praising the directing and the performers, particularly Zoé Héran as the lead.
Laure is a 10-year-old child whose family moves to a new address in Paris. One day Laure sees a group of boys playing outside the window and goes to play with them, but they disappear quickly. Instead, Laure meets Lisa, a neighborhood girl, and Laure introduces herself as Mikäel. Lisa then introduces Mikäel to the rest of the neighborhood children stating that "he" is the new kid in the apartment complex. A bath scene in the film reveals that Mikäel has a vagina, and a following scene confirms that Mikäel is female by birth as his mom addresses him and his sister as "girls." Mikäel becomes friends with Lisa and the boys and tries to hide his genitalia to appear like a boy (make it seem that he has a penis). At one point this leads Mikäel to pee his pants, which originally makes him embarrassed, but is soon forgotten. As they all play, Lisa and Mikäel develop crushes on each other and after swimming one day, Lisa kisses him. At this point, Mikäel also seems to be accepted into the group of boys.
After running into the woods Mikäel overhears the boys talking about him, and when they see her running they chase her and surround him saying they're going to see if he's really a girl, Lisa stands up to them and tells them to leave him alone. Once she is called disgusting for kissing a girl, however, Lisa reluctantly "checks" and confirms Mikäel's genitalia, leaving Mikäel distraught.Later, we see Mikäel in his house with his mom and sister, not wanting to go outside. But, when he sees Lisa standing outside her window he goes out. This final scene suggests hope for at least a
friendship between him and Lisa.
TMP Weekend Movie Pick
The Aggressives
TMP celebrates all forms of gender expressions. This weekend, I ran across a great documentary about transmen and trans masculine lesbians of color.
Director Daniel Peddle spent five years recording the lives of six "aggressives" -- lesbians who strive to be as masculine as possible in lifestyle and appearance. The result is a portrait both enlightening and endearing as we watch each woman come up with her own inventive ways of expressing her identity. From prison to the underground ball scene, where lesbians compete for lead "AG" status, this film reveals a largely hidden subculture.
It was a favorite of the film festival circuit, THE AGGRESSIVES is an insightful look at the little
TMP Weekend Movie Pick 3-21-15
Princesa
Without a doubt, my favorite trans film of all time. I hope you enjoy!
PRINCESA is an Italian film that hints of Fellini's best movies and yet has a style that is less bravure ,more sensitive, and touching. The world of prostitution has been widely examined by writers and directors, but the world of prostitution where the main characters are all transgender or transvestites, has only been suggested in the works of Almodovar and a few other daring avant garde directors.
PRINCESA (the street name of the main character, a young trans girl from Brazil who moves to Milan to make enough money as a hooker to pay for her much desired gender change operation) takes on only the subject of how these extravagantly dressed prostitutes survive the street life that supports them. There are friends of Princesa who are also from Brazil and the dialog is in both Italian, Portuguese and well translated in subtitles. The story is simple: Princesa falls in love with a 'john' who at first rejects her when he discovers she has male genitalia even though she is everything any beautiful woman is. The rejected Princesa moves in with the Madame of the prostitutes (Karin - likewise a trans-female) and finds support, caring, and a good life. When Princesa's 'john' (Gianni) returns to apologize for his initial behavior, they slowly develop a relationship, fall in love, and the rest ....you must see the film to discover.
The characters are so beautifully acted that it is difficult to tell if the actors are really playing themselves or a role! The cast is strong, never creating parodies but instead allowing the inner person to emerge in a credible way. The photography and music score are excellent. A must see film!
TMP Weekend Movie Pick 3-14-15
Red Without Blue Documentary
An honest portrayal of a family in turmoil, RWB follows a pair of identical twins as one transitions from male to female. Captured over a period of three years, the film documents the twins and their parents, examining the Farley's struggle to redefine their family.
The twins' early lives were quintessentially all-American: picture-perfect holidays, supportive parents who cheered them on every step of the way. By the time they were 14, their parents had divorced, they had come out as gay, and a joint suicide attempt precipitated a forced separation of Mark and Alex for two and half years.
Through candid and extensive interviews with the twins and their family, RED WITHOUT BLUE recounts these troubled times, interweaving the twins' difficult past with their efforts to find themselves in the present. The film follows the painful steps of Clair's transition, including electrolysis and the difficult decision to proceed with bottom surgery.
Through its portrayal of these articulate and independent twins, each haunted by the painful experiences of their adolescence, the film questions normative standards of gender and identity – as Mark and Clair reassert their indescribable bond as identical twins.
Through the power of the Farleys' voices, we hear the story of a family's redemption from a dark past, and ultimately, its revival to the present.
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2007
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TMP Weekend Movie Pick 3-07-15
Screaming Queens; The Riots At Compton's Cafeteria
Before the riots at Stonewall in 1969, there had been a decade of smaller riots erupting in major cities across the country. One of those was the riot's at Compton's Cafeteria. In the 1960s, the Compton’s Cafeteria staff began to call the police to crack down on transgender and transsexual individuals, who would frequent the restaurant. In response to police arrests, the transgender and transsexual community launched a picket of Compton’s Cafeteria. The documentary often refers to transgender as drag queens, which was the widely used term of the times.
When San Francisco police raided a popular late-night hangout for transgendered people in the city's impoverished Tenderloin district at Compton's Cafeteria in 1966, the patrons unexpectedly fought back. It was the first to gain national attention of a collective, queer resistance to police intimidation in United States history. “Screaming Queens,” tells the story of this little known uprising that helped launch a broader fight for human rights in America. History documentary is both in forms of transgender expression and identity.
TMP Weekend Movie Pick 2-29-15
Carlotta
I was so glad to see someone uploaded this movie on You Tube. Based on a true story, this film covers the life of Australian Trans Pioneer, Carlotta, who at 72 is still showing her 'transtastic', 'fabulousity'.
Based on the extraordinary life of the iconic Les Girls headliner and Australian transgender pioneer, Jessica Marais, stars as Carlotta. A universal story about identity, family, tolerance and acceptance. Carlotta lays bare the life of the confused teenager named Richard and her flight into the turbulence of the hedonistic sixties and seventies. Against the threat of criminal prosecution as well as social rejection, Carlotta emerges as the all conquering drag queen and performer. How many working class Balmain boys grow up to be showgirls? Not just any showgirl but a household name, a legend of Kings Cross, a daytime TV star, and a symbol of generational change. Spanning forty years, Carlotta is an uplifting celebration of finding your place in the world and making your mark against all odds.
Director: Samantha Lang
Writer: David Hannam
Stars: Jessica Marais, Anita Hegh, Eamon Farren
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| Carlotta Today
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TMP Weekend Movie Pick 2-22-25
I first saw this documentary last year after being urged by my fiancé. The documentary is extremely moving. I had heard of the Southern Comfort Conferences that were held in Atlanta. It is now being held in Fort Lauderdale. Any updates on the conference please start a topic in The TMP Forum. Below the Documentary description, I've inserted a link to a Face Book group for the upcoming Southern Comfort Conference 2015 if anyone is interested.
Robert Eads (December 18, 1945 – January 17, 1999) was an American trans man, whose life and death was the subject of the award-winning documentary Southern Comfort (2001).
Eads transitioned later in life and as such it was deemed unadvisedly to seek surgical sex assignment to male genitalia. Eads was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1996, but as an example of the social stigma faced by gender variant individuals, more than two dozen doctors refused to medically treat him on the grounds that taking him on as a patient might harm their practice. When he was finally accepted for treatment in 1997 the cancer had "already metastasized to other parts of the body, rendering any further treatments futile.
To Keep up to date on the Southern Comfort Conference their facebook group page.
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