Of Beauty and the Beast, Howard director Bill Condon told Attitude the character of the Beast was innately personal: “Specifically for him, it was a metaphor for AIDS,” noting Ashman wrote the lyrics at home shortly before his death from AIDS-related illness. An indomitable force who wrote canonical Disney songs like “Be Our Guest,” “Under the Sea,” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” Ashman worked alongside the voice actors and actresses who brought many of Disney’s most precious characters to life, including Angela Lansbury and Jerry Orbach, pictured in the clip above.Īshman tied many of the themes in his work to LGBTQ issues, as he saw them. In what’s bound to be a tear-jerker, legendary Disney lyricist (and unofficial director) Howard Ashman is profiled in Don Hahn’s documentary Howard. In July, FOX released another trailer, shown below, in which Freddie seems a bit more femme and we see a few more moments of his sexuality. But it only features a brief, brief moment of what looks like seduction between he and Ian Jareth Williamson, credited as “NY Clubber / Former Lover to Freddie,” and the official FOX synopsis of the film describes his AIDS simply as a "life-threatening illness." Recent interviews have suggested we might be getting a squeaky clean version of the story, focused on protecting the remaining band members’ legacy, and few are happy about that prospect. The trailer shows Mercury, portrayed by Rami Malek, lusting after "life-long lover" Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) and doing all of the wild, crazy things you’d expect to see from him amid the blossoming of the legend's career. Queen is finally getting the story of its band told with Bohemian Rhapsody, but we’re not sure if Freddie's is going to be that of the (likely) bisexual man who died of AIDS-related illness just yet.
26 | U.S., fall release planned in New York, Los Angeles, and five other cities Kenyan writer-director Wanuri Kahiu and South African co-writer Jenna Bass adapted their Cannes Un Certain Regard contender from Ugandan author Monica Arac de Nyeko, and the project is actually banned in Kahiu’s home country for attempting to "legitimize lesbianism." From the looks of the trailer, it doesn't just attempt this, and by the laws of homosexuality, its ban means you must post about it on social media until it's available to stream or comes to the U.S. Kena and Zika's young, tender romance is met with inevitable complications brought on by homophobia in her conservative home. Her shopkeeper mother Mercy (Nini Wacera) is running for local office and finds herself incredibly pleased when her daughter begins to spend time with another girl, Zika (Sheila Munyiva), the daughter of her political competition and one of Kena's few female friends. Now forced to navigate a life of bloodthirst, Sang-hyun must reckon with his new existence as well as his feelings for Tae-ju (Kim Ok-bin).Set against the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, young Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) is a talented student and very much a tomboy.
In the midst of this, he volunteers at a local hospital and takes part in an experiment to help cure a blood disease, but as he receives transfusions that seem to cure the virus, he becomes a vampire. In the film, which was written and directed by Park Chan-wook, Catholic priest Sang-hyun (played by South Korean staple Sang Kong-ho) experiences a startling realization he's in love with his friend's wife, and suddenly, being with her by any means necessary seems like the cure for the doubt and depression hidden by his devout exterior.
A relatively loose adaptation of French writer Émile Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin, the 2009 film Thirst - called Bakjwi, or "bat," in South Korea - is an utterly unique story of love, horror, and gore, and also owns an interesting distinction in South Korean cinema as the first movie in the country's history to contain full frontal male nudity.