The Cult of JT LeRoy

My friend and I both laughed out loud when we saw Rufus Wainwright appearing on stage reading from one books by J.T. LeRoy. In the documentary, “The Cult of JT LeRoy” (which we saw last night at the “Antenna Documentary Film Festival” in Sydney) we had already seen Sandra Bernhard, Carrie Fisher, Susan Dey (Patridge […]

Stockholm Pride – Chinese Queer Film

Sadly, my “Swedish” is not sophisticated enough to understand the complexities of some of the discussions you might encounter at an event like Stockholm Pride. While it won’t be too much of an issue at events like the Schlagerkväll (the pop music night), I’m still very interested in going to talks and events, especially since […]

Fyra år till – Four more years

Having seen Au Pair, Kansas the other day and all of its faux Swedish-ness, it was great to see a real Swedish film, as part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival. “Fyra år till” (Four More Years) tells the story of two Swedish male politicians with contrasting lives and viewpoints who fall in love. From […]

A little bit of Sweden (and Norway) at the Mardi Gras Film Festival

The opening scenes to “Au pair, Kansas” feature a forty-ish woman and her two teenage sons standing at the airport of a small Mid-West American town holding up a Swedish flag. My friends and I all laughed out loud, because we knew the character they were meeting was actually supposed to be Norwegian. D’oh. The […]

Long Weekend

I had a long weekend. I took some seriously good drugs and I didn’t go to work. The drugs were, in order, Cephalexin, Panadol and, best of all, Voltaren Rapid. Oh my goodness, that has got to be the best drug ever. The pain relief was necessary to deal with the sebaceous cyst I have […]

Absolute Beginners

For several hours I’ve been trying to figure out why I liked, but didn’t love the film “Beginners”. I first noticed the film a few weeks ago when I was visiting Sweden. The plot-line intrigued me: the story of a relationship between a father and a son, where the father had made the decision to […]

James O'Brien