KAOS: September 2010

review

The Heiress

ove, sacrifice and revenge are the basis for William Wyler's The Heiress. Based on a adaptation of Henry James' novel; Washington Square, and set against the backdrop of pre-civil war New York, Olivia deHavilland , in an Oscar winning role, plays the rather plain and shy daughter of a successful Doctor, played by the amazing Sir Ralph Richardson.

In despair that she will ever find a husband, the doctor is surprised and threatened by the sudden appearance of a young, penniless and incredibly handsome suitor, Montgomery Clift and his ardent attempts to woo and win her. Fearing that he's a fortune hunter out for her inheritance, Richardson does everything possible to block the marriage. But true love wins out... or does it. And at what cost to all of them?

Directed with his famous attention to detail and backed by an Oscar winning score by legendary composer Aaron Copeland, The Heiress is dramatic story telling of the highest order, whose final moments and closing shot will stay with you forever. "Bolt the door, Mariah!"

Steve Hayes

Steve Hayes' Tired Old Queen At The Movies on YouTube

Steve Hayes' Tired Old Queen At The Movies on Facebook

Here at ka-os|theory, Steve Hayes is regarded as a legend. He's opened up a whole world of cinematic pleasure, and fired up my appreciation of film. His enthusiasm is infectious, electrifying, and unfailingly on point. The films he recommends are always worth seeing, and several have become firm favourites. If you have even a passing interest in movies, watch a couple of reviews. They're fun, funny, and you'll be intrigued. As he says, "Trust the tired old movie queen, this is terrific!"

(Syndication is with the kind permission of Steve Hayes. I'd recommend that readers check out his YouTube channel and explore his reviews. Discover the joy of vintage cinema - I did!)

||| The Down Low is dead. Or is it?

||| Meet college students Matty Daley and Bobby Canciello (right), who broke the Guinness World Record for Longest Continuous Kiss. The previous record stood at 32 hours, 7 minutes, 14 seconds. Matty and Bobby managed 32 and a half hours, without sitting down or separating lips. The whole thing was broadcast live. Facebook page.

US & CANADA

||| New York Times editorial: Don't enforce 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'.

||| They serve their country in the closet: "Photographer Jeff Sheng focuses on the personnel who can't be completely open because of the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy."

||| Jeff Sheng: Don't Ask, Don't Tell opens 18th September (until 23rd October, 2010) at the Kaycee Olsen Gallery in Los Angeles.

||| "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture", an exhibition opening 29th October at the National Portrait Gallery in New York. It "brings together 100 works from the late 19th century to the present, examining how gender and sexual identity have altered the development of the genre". Left, "Salutat" (1898) by Thomas Eakins.

||| Meet the Rev. James Stoll: "For every star in the history of gay rights — think the politician Harvey Milk — there are many more bit players, people whose names do not even make the credits. In the world of religion, one of the great neglected actors, a man who had a marquee moment but then fell into obscurity, is the Rev. James Stoll, a Unitarian Universalist who died in 1994. Mr. Stoll, one of the first openly gay ministers in America, had a difficult life, and his demons seemed to follow him to an early grave."

||| The political risks of supporting gay rights.

||| Coming out of Wall Street's closet: "The Old Boys have a long way to go in terms of protecting the civil rights of all who work there."

||| Meet Troy Smith (left): out, highly recruited tennis player at a Catholic college. Picture via OutSports.

||| Majority of Americans now include gay couples with children in their definition of "family".

||| 9 in 10 gay students are harassed at school. Billy Lucas (right), a 15-year-old student at an Indiana high school, took his own life after such bullying. A Facebook tribute page can be found here.

||| And this (left) is Justin Aaberg, a Minnesota teen who took his own life after being bullied since coming out aged 13.

||| The American dream is in tatters: One in seven Americans live in poverty.

||| NEW YORK: Thousands of migrating birds are trapped in the Twin Towers Tribute of Light.

||| NEW YORK: A smoking ban outdoors too? Just imagine that summer stroll in the park, unspoilt by the toxic chain-smoking chimney walking ahead of you. Bring it on!

||| When gays fight! Bitch slappin' frenzy in LA...

UK

||| Pregnant nun ice cream advert banned - company vows to use alternative poster (like the one left, maybe?)

||| John Amaechi "too black" for UK gay club? (Or just a jerk? Queerty goes with that angle...)

||| Ken Livingstone announces plans to improve gay equality in London. "I am proud that London is one of the great LGBT capitals of the world. We need to continually work to promote equality and tackle discrimination. Boris Johnson has downgraded important parts of work to tackle inequality, removed London government from the Stonewall equality index and abolished an annual Pride event at City Hall, whilst his friends in Whitehall are weakening the Equality Act which threatens the provision of equal services and employment for lesbian and gay Londoners." Livingstone is campaigning for re-election as Mayor of London.

||| Paedophile priests: Many of the Catholic clergy jailed in England and Wales remain in the priesthood.

||| Sex and death lie at the poisoned heart of religion.

||| Let people come out for all our sakes, Gary Nunn writes at The Guardian. "Be they actors or MPs, it shouldn't matter who comes out in the public eye – not least because we need gay role models."

||| WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Britain facing attack from "a new generation of al-Qaeda extremists and Irish Republican militants".

||| SCOTLAND: Great Scot! Edinburgh's a fine and friendly town. "Edinburgh has a surprisingly broad gay scene for a city of under half a million, and its gay history stretches back centuries."

EUROPE

||| UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urges repeal of anti-gay laws at human rights meeting in Geneva.

||| Ireland has turned its back on dogma and become a more open, more tolerant society.

||| SPAIN: A gay couple in Valencia have been told they can't register as parents of twins born legally to a surrogate mother in the United States.

||| Serbian doctor Miroljub Petrovic has found a cure for homosexuality. Hallelujah! At last I can be normal!

AMERICAS

||| NETHERLANDS ANTILLES: Three former Dutch colonies - the islands of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatitus - are to introduce gay marriage and adoption laws as they come under direct Dutch rule in October.

||| JAMAICA: A Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica-led ban has forced the cleanup of "murder music".

||| CUBA: Fidel Castro's apology has opened old wounds in Cuba's gay community.

AFRICA

||| ZIMBABWE: Robert Mugabe focused on legacy as his reign draws to a close. Surely single-handedly destroying a once prosperous nation is a pretty impressive legacy?

||| Below, a young Mozambican protester stands by a burning car in Maputo.

MIDDLE EAST

||| Jerusalem must cease discriminating against GBLT community, and fund Open House center.

||| Saudi Arabia's juggling act on homosexuality: Brian Whitaker writes for The Guardian, "As a gay diplomat seeks US asylum, Saudi Arabia seems torn between wanting a civilised image and appeasing traditionalists."

ASIA PACIFIC

||| India is Racist, and happy about it: An African-American's first-hand experience of India, where no one even wants to change.

||| SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) at Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions: "Lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people in Asia and the Pacific Islands experience extra-judicial killings, torture, violence and rape, as well as discrimination in employment, education, housing and health services." In two parts: Part 1, Part 2.

||| Wealthy BMW driver runs over Chinese toddler four times.

BODY & MIND

||| HIV was in monkeys for millennia: "What happened in Africa in the early 20th century that let a mild monkey disease move into humans, mutate to become highly transmissible and then explode into one of history’s great killers, one that has claimed 25 million lives so far?"

||| Getting a bargain in sales is as good as sexual arousal, boffins claim.

||| Loneliness really does kill.

||| Plagued by nightmares? You could develop Parkinson's in later life.

||| Lack of exercise makes your face look older and fatter.

FOOD

||| Watercress: the cancer killer?

||| Fruit and veg – five reasons to start buying frozen.

||| Wine by the tank - now, that's my kinda innovation! Michael K at Dlisted writes, "I can already picture the line of drunk ass whores waiting to suck off that nozzle." That would be me, then.

ZOOLOGY

||| Animal pictures of the week (28 more pictures). Left, dogs in Solvenia confront a canine graffiti artist. Right, a female bear, er, "presents" herself in a zoo in Finland.

||| In pictures: Eddie Nurcombe's amazing macro pictures of bugs, below (12 more pictures).

||| Armoured, wood-eating catfish found in the Amazon.

||| What killed the fish (below right)?

||| Sailor's body found inside shark. In pictures (extremely graphic).

||| Boffins investigate massive walrus haul-out in Alaska, fear declining Arctic sea ice may have caused an unprecedented mass migration to dry land.

||| A rare "Asian unicorn" has died after being captured by villagers in Laos. The saola was thought to be one of only a few hundred left in the wild.

PLANET

||| Arctic ice could be gone by 2030.

||| Small world: Everyday objects as seen under a microscope, in pictures. Right, a butterfly egg.

WEB & GADGETS

||| Internet Explorer 9: The future of the internet?

||| Google causes brain damage.

||| Google Instant is trying to kill me, Charlie Brooker writes at The Guardian. "For the sake of my sanity, and my attention span, the war against the machines starts now."

||| The death of the RSS reader.

DESIGN

||| Right: New auditorium enclosed by a red-lacquered shell, part of a new wing at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanei di Roma, designed by French architect Odile Decq.

PRINT

||| Queer Latino nuances in American literature.

||| Review: Miss Shirley Bassey by John L Williams. "She was the youngest of 10 and her parents made money organising 'rent parties' for sailors..."

||| James McGonigal's biography of the poet Edwin Morgan reveals the "sadness, fear and thrill of national poet's secret gay life".

||| Review: Aaron Bradley, Closet Detective by Timothy Owen.

||| Review: Lily White, Rose Red by Cat Ford.

||| Review: All of Me (Can You Take All of Me?) by Dirk Vanden.

||| Review: The Quarter Boys by David Lennon.

||| Review: Billionaire's Row by Sullivan Wheeler.

||| Review: Crook by Michael Gouda.

||| eBooks: You can't lend them out, you can't borrow them.

FILM

||| Rikki Beadle-Blair's long-awaited gay football flick KickOff gets its world première opening the Iris Prize gay film festival (his hugely successful FIT is also showing) 6th October in Cardiff.

||| Not in the UK? It's also showing at festivals in Prague and São Paulo. A DVD release is expected in March.

||| Here at ka-os|theory, Do Começo ao Fim (English: From Beginning To End) is the most anticipated film, like, ever. But when the hell is it going to get a DVD release (with English subtitles)? Check out the trailer. It's epic.

||| And yes, the two leads - Rafael Cardoso and João Gabriel Vasconcellos (right) - are two of the most beautiful men in cinema. ROCK MY BLOG has got a batch of shots for your perusal.

||| A Jihad for Love: "Can one be gay and a pious Muslim at the same time? That's the topic that Indian Muslim film director Parvez Sharma explores in his controversial documentary A Jihad for Love through a range of colorful characters."

||| Argentinian director Mauro Andrizzi's film En El Futuro (English: In The Future) has won the Venice Film Festival's Queer Lion prize.

||| Review: Plan B. "A deceptively affecting exploration of the complexities and contradictions of sexual identity and the human heart."

||| Review: Pornography - A Thriller. "A bizarre, blurry journey that might not reach its final destination but is still one helluva ride nonetheless... that augurs more than promisingly for the future of queer cinema."

||| Writer/director team Christian Martin and Darren Flaxstone (Shank) talk about their new film, Release. Review.

||| Steve McQueen cologne, anyone?

||| Sandra Bullock knows how to party!

TV

||| Introducing YouView, the new set-top box backed by (amongst others) the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and BT. Launching next year, it will feature a TV guide that goes back a week, allowing viewers to watch programmes they missed.

||| Brothers & Sisters' Gilles Marini's Luc to become underwear model in forthcoming season.

||| The Top Ten Hottest Homoerotic True Blood Moments.

||| A new TV drama planned by ITV about the Titanic disaster aims to show that "the English were not all villains".

||| Party like it's 2005! Kat and Alfie (left) are back in EastEnders...

||| ...Whilst Devon Anderson (Billie Jackson) is on his way out.

||| Review: The Road to Coronation Street. "There was no doubt that the writer who created some of the great women characters of British television was gay. This was very much his story."

||| Hollyoaks actor Kieron Richardson (right): I'm gay.

||| Top 10 1980s TV theme tunes.

MUSIC

||| Sacha Baron Cohen - of Borat/Brüno fame - is to play Freddie Mercury in the forthcoming Queen film.

||| Why George Michael doesn't belong in pop music's hall of shame.

||| George Michael is a national treasure, despite the funny fags, Polly Vernon writes at The Guardian. "He occupies a special place in the hearts of the British public and is ill-equiped to spend time in clink."

||| Review: Seal 6: Commitment. As I suspected, it's "polished, overwrought, formulaic slop". Oh, Seal, what went wrong?

||| Ricky Martin gets touched up.

||| Nicki Minaj wants to bridge 'gap' (how about yawning chasm) between gay fans and hip-hop.

SEX BIZ

||| Treasure Island Media seems to have figured out why people refuse to pay for porn (and no, it's not because they can get it for free).

||| Raging Stallion Studios announces "star-packed sexpic". Race Cooper and Dionisio Heiderscheid (left) to star.

||| I want one: François Sagat doll.

||| The Kings of Porn: My favorite porn stars, by ka-os|theory blog crush Mr. Toddy English.

||| Just how cute is Brent Everett's husband, Steve Pena? Hubby, meanwhile, was busy clocking in at his 9-5 (that's pm to am) in Pittsburgh (left)...

||| ...And the happy couple hanging out with Brent's pops (right). Now, ain't that sweet?

||| Model and porn star Omar Berger (left) is reported to have died of lung cancer in Tel Aviv last month.

MANIKINS

||| Real live manikins! It's the GANT window display in New York.

||| Pierre Debusschere lenses a gaggle of model fances for Vogue Hommes Japan (below right).

||| Below right, Guido Carminatti, lensed by Andrea Vecchiato for We Men magazine.

||| Dirk Merten shoots Jean-Luc Weitkamp for WINQ magazine.

SPORT

||| England cricketer Jimmy Anderson strips for Attitude magazine. "There's a perception of lots of committees and old men being quite prim and proper, but I think the game is moving with the times. From my point of view, I think doing this could be fantastic for cricket.

Hopefully this will attract a new sort of fan."

...AND FINALLY

||| The demise of glasses: something to lament?

||| Racist toothpaste!

||| Is this the real meaning of boy pussy (left)? (Via thegayte-keeper).

||| And finally: the Top 10 sexiest vloggers - and do you know a Dickhead like this?

||| On the cover: Taylor Siluwé's Dancing With The Devil.

||| Read last week's copy.

||| Remember what was going on this time last year? No? How about a reminder? Read Issue 27.

||| Help me make next week's copy even better. Contact me with tips and suggestions. If you're a model or photographer, contact me about being on the cover.

Issue 77: 13-19 September 2010

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POSTSCRIPT

"You know, we might just as well not have bothered to come.

The whole thing's been ridiculous."