24th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival: TMC reviews The Man Who Loved Yngve

by Strawberry Cheesecake

The Man Who Loved Yngve tells the story of  17 year old Norwegian Jarle. It’s 1989, the Berlin Wall has just fallen and with a new girlfriend, great friends and his own punk bad, everything seems to be going right in his life. However it all begins to fall apart when the tall blond Yngve joins his class. Jarle is soon preoccupied by this strange boy who is unlike anyone he has ever met. … Continue Reading

The Same Old Conservatives

by Strawberry Cheesecake

A few weeks ago the police launched an investigation into the Christian owners of a B&B in Berkshire after they refused service to a gay couple requesting a room. It generated a lot of media attention at the time and one might have thought that this close to an election politicians would be keen to condemn this anachronistic discrimination and show off their pro-gay credentials. Yet the Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Grayling has been taped arguing that bed & breakfasts should be able to refuse service to gay couples. … Continue Reading

24th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival: TMC reviews Sex My Life

by Strawberry Cheesecake

What’s it like to be a trans person in Iran? This is the intriguing premise of Sex My Life and I suspect I’m the not the only who chose to see it on this basis alone. The film begins in a group therapy session in Tehran, as an affable though slightly off-putting male therapist inquires as to the current troubles of his clients. … Continue Reading

24th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival: TMC reviews Brotherhood

by Strawberry Cheesecake

Brotherhood tells the story of Danish service man Lars and his drift into the dark world of the Danish Nazi Party. A successful young commander until two of his men accuse him of having made a pass at them, the film follows his disenchantment with the army and his attempt to adjust to a life outside of it. … Continue Reading

24th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival: TMC reviews… Prayers for Bobby

be Strawberry Cheesecake

If you had asked me a few days ago, I would have assumed it was obvious that a film about gay teen suicide could not also be morally inspiring. Yet this is precisely what Prayers for Bobby achieves. It tells the true story of a religious mother in small town America whose picture perfect life is shattered when she finds out that her teenage son Bobby is gay. … Continue Reading

TMC Reviews… Women Like You

by Strawberry Cheesecake

Women Like You is a small exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery supported by the Pankhurst Centre and organised to coincide with International Women’s Day. It celebrates the life of leading suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, as well as the wider suffragette movement. It’s now been a little over 80 years since women won the right to vote on the same terms as men, and Women Like You is a profoundly worthwhile attempt to make sense of this history and present it to a new generation. … Continue Reading

TMC Reviews… Unpopular Culture

by Strawberry Cheesecake

For all the hype and hostility which surrounds the Young British Artists, it can sometimes be difficult to remember that there was once a time when they exercised no hold over the art world. Grayson Perry, acting as curator rather than artist, has trawled the Arts Council’s archive to produce an intriguing celebration of British culture and art prior to this cringe-worthy era of ‘Cool Britannia’ and its ensuing fallout. He has called this Unpopular Culture – and it is difficult not to feel that the name is profoundly apt. … Continue Reading

TMC Reviews… Smile Or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich

by Strawberry Cheesecake

Smile or die! It’s such an arresting title that, on first thought, it seems like it must be the sort of contrivance which publishers and authors come up with to emblazon the fronts of their books. Well it may seem that way but, as we learn by the first chapter of Smile or Die, it’s not. In fact “Smile Or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America And The World” was what the author Barbara Ehrenreich was effectively told when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. … Continue Reading

TMC Reviews… Kienholz: The Hoerengracht at the National Gallery

by Strawberry Cheesecake

The Herengracht (Lord’s canal) is the first of the three major canals in the city centre of Amsterdam. The Hoerengracht (whore’s canal) however is a tableau vivant constructed by the American artists Ed and Nancy Kienholz in the mid 1980s. It is one of the last major pieces produced by the couple before Ed died in 1994 and, until the 21st of February, it will be on display in the Sunley Room of the National Gallery.

It aims to recreate the experience of walking through Amsterdam’s red light district… … Continue Reading

LolCatz: the modern way of chatting over the garden fence

by Strawberry Cheesecake

Over the last few years, it’s become something of a cliché to argue that the modern web (a.k.a. web 2.0) is transforming the way we interact. This happens to be one of those clichés which is, to a large extent, true. It would nigh on impossible to deny that things like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are having the sort of radical impact which extends far beyond the internet and into society at large. … Continue Reading

TMC Reviews… Precious

by Strawberry Cheesecake

A word of warning: this is not an uplifting film. It is however one of the rare films worthy of the epithet “unmissable”. Set in 1987, it tells the story of Claireece Precious Jones (usually known simply as Precious): a 16 year old black girl who is obese, illiterate and pregnant for the second time by her father. … Continue Reading

There’s more to life than sex?

by Strawberry Cheesecake

My reflections on a year spent studying asexuality

I was a little confused when I first encountered the term asexual. The person who used the term defined as asexual and yet, living with him at the time, I knew he had sex. Or at the very least that he sometimes brought people home who then spent the night. … Continue Reading

TMC Reviews… Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism (Manchester Art Gallery)

by Strawberry Cheesecake

The book which accompanies this exhibition suggests that the role of women in the surrealist movement has largely escaped recognition. This is something of a reassurance that my own prior ignorance as to the scope and significance of this role is at least more widely shared. The name alone piqued my curiosity when I saw it advertised: there are few things likely to appeal to me more than such a juxtaposition of the angelic and the anarchic. As it turns out I wasn’t disappointed. … Continue Reading