Close Your Eyes And Hold Me

I recently stumbled across a movie that I'm planning to add to my DVD collection that was called Japan's The Crying Game.   It was also a 1997 selection of the Palms Springs International Film Festival

It's the 1996 Itsimuchi Isomura film entitled Me Wo Tojite Daite in Japanese.   It's known as Close Your Eyes And Hold Me in English and stars Kumiko Takeda, Kazuya Takahashi and Natsue Yoshimura.

The movie focuses on office worker Amane who has a good job and a steady girlfriend in Juri.   His predictably pedestrian work and personal life is turned upside down by accidentally running over a beautiful but mysterious stranger while fumbling around reaching for his cell phone while driving  .  

Amane is remorseful and apologetic about the accident as he vists her in the hospital.  He takes responsibility for her injuries and promises to do anything for her, but she refuses compensation and disappears. 

Concerned about how she's doing, he becomes obsessed with the beautiful stranger and tracks Hanabusa down to the night club where she works as a hostess.   Amane enters and is surprised to discover it's a night club in which the elegant and graceful hostesses working there are all trans women.   He sees her on stage singing, and curiosity about Hanabusa leads to conversation and a triangular relationship that will eventually involve Juri and impact all their lives.

If you're at work, may want to wait until you get home before you run that trailer





Let's just say the movie gets interesting   Script was obviously written by a cis person, because no trans woman no matter what her genital configuration refers to herself as a man.   Hanabusa is played by survey says, cis woman Kumiko Takeda, who lets be real, does have it going on in the beauty department. 

Unlike you Satoshi Kanazawa, I give credit where credit is due when it comes to beautiful women.  

But back to the post.   For the most part, Close Your Eyes And Hold Me lived up to its rep as the Far East version of The Crying Game.

Miguel/Michelle

This was an interesting 1998 film I stumbled across on YouTube by Gil Portes about a Filipino boy who leaves home after high school graduation to study in the United States.   After seven years she comes back after seven years as a transpinay and declares she is going to stay until her family accepts her..

Of course there is drama.  Mom is embarrassed, dad is angry and michelle's best friend Julio, who he knows is gay, suddenly decides he is going to get married.

Check out the uploaded snippets of the film.

Glad I Wasn't Watching The Oscars Last Night

The 83rd Oscar ceremony was televised last night.   I kept myself busy with other productive uses of my time besides watching that melanin free awards telecast.

After talking to Renee of Womanist Musings last night, glad I did. 

Seriously, a tribute to Gone With The Wind on a night in which African Americans were already pissed about having no Black actors, actresses or even behind the camera personnel nominated for Oscars?

Then you add insult to injury with a half azzed tribute to Lena Horne, one of our beloved performers and civil rights icons?
 

No wonder there's such crappy movie selections at the local multiplex these days.

And I'd love to see a Black themed movie that didn't involve 21st century coonery on the screen.   Spike?  John Singleton?  Hudlin brothers?  Robert Townsend? 

Just hope Oscars 2012 is kinder to actors of color in Hollywood.     But then again I won't be holding my breath on that one.
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'The Danish Girl' Movie Finally Begins Filming In July

It was back in 2009 when I wrote the post that announced that Nicole Kidman was going to play transwoman Lili Elbe in the Danish Girl.   

The movie is based on the David Ebershoff novel and at one point had both Gwyneth Paltrow and Charlize Theron slated to play Elbe's wife Gerda Wegener.

The $15 million movie will finally begin shooting in Germany in July with some exterior scenes being shot in Copenhagen.  

Rachel Weisz will now step in to play Gerda and Lasse Hallstrom will direct it.

Should be interesting to see this movie when it's finally done and how Nicole Kidman handles this role as one of our pioneering transwomen. 

Finally Got To See Avatar

Didn't get a chance to see it while it was in the theaters.   I was flipping channels on the TV while taking a break from staring at the computer terminal for a few hours and stumbled upon the broadcast of Avatar on HBO. 

Wow.   What a movie, what a story and what great special effects.   I'm waiting for the next broadcast of it on HBO so I can see it from the beginning.


Definitely will have to add it to my collection and I'm glad they will be starting to film Avatar 2 soon.   Just curios to see at what point they will pick up the story from and when.

Moni's Thoughts On 'For Colored Girls'

Like other peeps in the Afrosphere, I have my love-hate moments with Tyler Perry, Madea and his films at times.

But I have to grudgingly admit that many of them are in my personal DVD collection. When I need a good laugh, I pop the microwave movie butter popcorn, fire up the DVD player and watch them on a regular basis along with the other Black cinema classics such as Carmen Jones, Shaft, Cabin In The Sky and Imitation of Life that are in my movie collection.

So I was surprised to find out he was directing and producing the screen version of Ntozake Shange's classic play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf considering all the Black female directors such as Gina Prince-Bythewood, Julie Dash, and Kasi Lemmons, or screenwriters such as Suzan Lori Parks that I believe would have done a better job with this play than Perry.

Well, he was the one tapped by the studios to do it and the trailer has been released for the movie. For Colored Girls debut has been moved up to a November 5 release date so it can get Oscar consideration.



Okay people, now that you've seen the trailer, are you headed to the theater to support it?

I am, and hear me out on this.

One of the things I and many of my friends gripe about is the lack of quality Black movies to attend. The last quality ones I have gone to the theater and paid hard earned dollars to see were Precious and The Secret Life Of Bees, and I have yet to attend a movie since I moved back to Houston.

Come to think of it, the last movie I watched inside the Houston city limits was Two Can Play That Game.

Hey, don't trip. I like Vivica A. Fox, Morris Chestnut and Anthony Anderson.

But back to my regularly scheduled post.

Now, we know that Hollywood's idea of a quality Black movie is to put stuff like 'Lottery Ticket and other nouveau coonery on the screen when there are reams of novels by Black authors such as Eric Jerome Dickey, the late E. Lynn Harris, the late Bebe Moore Campbell, romance queen Kayla Perrin and others that just beg for and could easily be converted to feature length films.

But in order for those books to be turned into feature films, we probably need to support For Colored Girls with that larger goal in mind.

Yeah, I know the idea of putting your cash in Tyler Perry's pockets makes some of you nauseous. But it's also putting money in Ntozake Shange's pocket as well as the actors who are in this film.

You have to give him props for the cast he assembled for this film. H-town is represented in Tony award winning actress Phylicia Rashad and our homegirl Loretta Devine. There's two other Tony award winners in Anika Noni Rose and Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg.

Some of my fave actresses are in this film such as Kerry Washington, Thandie Newton, Janet Jackson, Kimberly Elise and even Macy Gray has a role.

So yeah, I'll definitely be at my local multiplex checking out For Colored Girls and I hope you will focus more on the people in the movie rather than the person producing it.

If it turns out to be a slamming movie, I'll definitely give Tyler his props for it.

But let's focus on the big picture, pardon the pun. If you wish to see more quality Black films coming from Hollywood, you have to send that message with your box office dollars before Hollywood hears it.

2nd Annual LA TG Film Fest Coming Soon

The second annual TG Film Fest will be held at the LA Gay and Lesbian Center's Renberg Theater on August 28th, 2010

The festival kicks off at 11:30 AM PDT and runs until 9 PM. The TG Film Fest will feature four ninety minute screenings of trans themed films.

The films being presented this year include one that I had the pleasure of seeing during last year's U of L Pride Festival. It's a short film by Calpernia Addams and Andrea James called Transproofed.

Transpoofed will be part of the short films being show at 7:30 PM.

Another interesting movie that will be part of the 2010 is a Todd Holland film called The Believers, which is about the 2004 Outmusic award winning San Francisco based Transcendence Gospel Choir.

Suggested donation is $20, but people without funds will not be turned away. Outside the theater, in the center's courtyard there will be a DJ and live performances from 11:30 AM to 9 PM and vendors selling art and crafts.

The LA Gay and Lesbian Center is located at 1125 N. McCadden Place in Hollywood, CA.