★★★★★
Cert: U • US: 55 min • Frameline • July 14, 1989

The 1989 documentary Tongues Untied: Black Men Loving Black Men looks at the African-American experience from the inside out..

“The insults are sped up and repeated, creating a cruel rhythmic song which seems to encircle both Riggs and ourselves. Thus the viewer become aware on an experiential level of the marginalizing effect of such taunts.”

★★★★★
Cert: 15 • US: 101 min • Columbia Pictures • May 3, 1996

’90s teen horrorThe Craft, with the struggle of the outsider at its heart, is a queer classic.

“During the ’90s, The Craft felt like an antidote to the films dealing with the woes of being a young adult. It comes off like a shot in the dark and feels like the twisted sister of the bubblegum highschool satire of Clueless released the year previously.”

★★★★★
US/UK: 106 min • Rank • DVD

The underrated Gus Van Sant movie To Die For was ahead of its time, and features Nicole Kidman as bewitching, unforgettable femme fatale.

“To Die For reveals a sociopathic desire for notoriety, in which people will sacrifice themselves and others around them to get to where they want to be.”

★★★★★
US: 99 min • 20th Century Fox • DVD

Sassy, sexy and funny, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is the story of gold-digger Loreli Lee in the booming 1950s.

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a film about glamour, music, money, love and power. It is superb comedy and is carried by two exceptional movie stars.”

★★★★★
UK: 140 min • EMI Films

Death on the Nile is a glittering gem that sparkles with first-rate actors and stunning locations.

“Of the all-star adaptations made between 1974 and 1981, Death on the Nile is the most gloriously camp – even more so than The Mirror Crack’d, with its excessively ham performances by Elizabeth Taylor and Tony Curtis.”

★★★★★
US: 111 min • Universal • DVD & Blu-ray

Is Flash Gordon the embodiment of camp? Why are there many hawkmen but no hawkwomen?

Flash Gordon earns Camp Wings from its very first frames. The camera zeros in on a dodgy papier-mâché model of the Earth, and then the hands of Ming the Merciless (played by Max von Sydow) appear sporting serious Bling. He starts his destruction of Earth – a planet he’s never heard of, even though he has a button labelled ‘Earth Quake’ on his Armageddon Console …

★★★★★
US: 99 min • TLA Releasing • DVD

Starting out in 1984, Edge of Seventeen is a coming-out story set against a time of social and political change.

The film captures the possibility of youth, and the edginess of that conservative decade the 1980s. The tracks by Yazoo, Thompson Twins, and Bronski Beat are for anyone who lived through the era a reminder of how conflicted a time it was.

★★★★★
UK: 95 min • Hammer • DVD

Bette Davis plays matriarch Mrs Taggart and plays a rough game to keep her sons away from the guiding influence of other women.

Like all hag films, the women get the strongest roles – Sheila Hancock and Elaine Taylor measure up well, although this is Bette’s film and she relishes the role, cackling with witchy glee at the outrageous things that she gets to do.

★★★★★
US: 665 min • 20th Century Fox • DVD

This first-rate sci-fi show was cancelled after 14 episodes when it should have run for many years.

Firefly was much mourned, and rightly so. It is one of the finest Sci-Fi shows in the history of television.

★★★★★
US: 106 min • Columbia Tristar • DVD

Truly magnificient femme fatale cinema, a film noir set in a world where the dark meets the light.

Gilda is considered to be one of the all time great femme fatales; displaying all the sexual power, allure and danger characteristic of those who wear the mantle, but what sets her apart from her predecessors is that Gilda doesn’t remain the enigmatic, almost supernatural, archetype.