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Reviews
Potato Dreams of America (2021)
Boring. Self-indulgent. Stilted.
This movie feels like what would happen if Wes Anderson were forced at gunpoint to make the worst movie possible about a gay kid in the Soviet Union. The movie attempts to be "deep" by invoking surrealist imagery, but it comes off as just being oafish, stilted, and unintentionally comical. Surprisingly, the cast has some well-recognized faces - but they're too weighed down by this heavy handed script to become their own organic characters. Instead, they're just frozen in place as superficial, one-dimensional fixtures decorating the background of this egotistical dollhouse posing as a feature film...it was nice seeing Rickety Cricket in a movie though!
Before Homosexuals (2017)
Stuck in the 90s
Conceptually & visually outdated - felt like I was watching a gay doc from the 90s. I was utterly surprised to see it was actually from 2017, which makes the lack of US BIPOC perspectives particularly unforgivable. Some parts are interesting (moreso the interviews with historians), but generally hokey, shaky, and overly autobiographical. Ironically attempts to have a "global" perspective while ignoring intersectionality, post-colonialism, and non-white LGB experiences in the US & Europe (briefly touches on two-spirit - but while rolling footage of the white host in "tribal" dress unironically... cringe).