Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Drawing a winner
I am always interested in the MacArthur Award winners. The "genius" grant.
MacArthur Awards Go to 21 Diverse Fellows
The annual event is one of the most prestigious events for artists, a term that has a rather wide meaning where the MacArthurs are concerned.
This year a particular thrill to see that Alison Bechdel, a wonderful writer and cartoonist is one of the winners.
Bechdel is the creator of a series of cartoons depicting lesbian life and is the author of an autobiographical graphic book called Fun Home which I am sure that I reviewed here a long time ago.
I have gotten a lot of pleasure from seeing her work and am so happy to see her receive this substantial financial gift for her work.
She had a website, Dykes to Watch Out For which I would regularly "watch out for" on my daily internet travels. She has since retired that site to do the later books as well as to take advantage of several scholarly projects.
Such good news.
Her cartoons managed to bring humor to the counterculture without compromising the point. They covered a wide range of the PC territory.
Labels: cartoons, counterculture, humor, lesbians
Thursday, November 17, 2011
UP AND DOWN
I am watching three films by Lisa Cholodenko, a great new director.
Today's film was
On the face of it, this is a lesbian love story, a double triangle. Some melodrama, that. But this is a smoke screen for the real theme which is drug addiction and the extent addicts will go to control their own life and not lose their high.
It takes a while to see this. That is the great thing about Cholodenko's writing and directing.
The classic ingenue, a young, straight, partnered goes upstairs to see why water is leaking through the floor to her ceiling. There she finds a group living situation to which she becomes attracted, the attraction turns to one of the women also in a couple and her life changes.
Her ambition then becomes involved in her attraction.
Acting is great with a favorite, Patricia Clarkson, playing a role so close to the edge of histrionic and hysterical that she would be hilarious if she was not so sad.
I saw this before and was happy to see it again so that makes it a 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films, gay life, lesbians
