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Queer Cinema: “Princess Cyd”

Queer coming-of-age movie Princess Cyd, from writer-director Stephen Cone, is now playing in Los Angeles and will be available On Demand and all digital platforms beginning December 5.

Official synopsis:

16-year-old Cyd (Jessie Pinnick) decides to take a break from her depressive single father and spend a summer in Chicago with her aunt Miranda (Rebecca Spence), a well-known novelist. Soon after her arrival, Cyd encounters Katie (Malic White), a young barista behind the counter. The two make plans to meet up after Katie’s shift and a new, charged relationship begins. The Chicago landscape expands, and we navigate intimate and fragile moments between Cyd and Katie as they explore their new attraction. Miranda functions as a counterpart to young Cyd’s new explorations of sexuality and love, and as the summer continues they develop a strong relationship founded on a shared openness and healthy criticism of particular personal moments.

The Los Angeles Times raves:

As comfortable to slip into as an afternoon in the sun, as satisfying as a late-night piece of cake, “Princess Cyd” is a jewel of a film that plumbs thematic depths far below its surface.

“Princess Cyd” is many things: a queer coming-of-age story (Malic White is fantastic as Cyd’s summer fling Katie), a tribute to intergenerational friendship, a redemption tale. But it also captures one deeply significant thing, that moment when family members transform from strangers to loved ones.

Naming Princess Cyd one of the “Ten Best Films of 2017, ” Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson wrote, “As kind a movie as there was this year. Cone quietly asserts himself as a major talent. How heartening to see big topics – like faith, like sexuality – discussed in such warm, considerate terms by two such gifted actresses.”

You can check out the trailer below.

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Netflix Announces “House Of Cards” Will Resume Production Without Kevin Spacey

Netflix has announced that production on the 6th and final season of House of Cards will resume in early 2018, according to chief content officer Ted Sarandos.

Via Variety:

Production of “House of Cards” season 6 was suspended in October, following sexual assault allegations against star Kevin Spacey.

Season 6 of the political thriller will be eight episodes, starring Robin Wright, Sarandos said. The final season will not include Spacey, as previously announced.

“We were really excited we could get to an agreement… for the conclusion of the show,” said Sarandos, speaking Monday at UBS’s Global Media and Communications Conference in New York.

“House of Cards,” the first major original show for Netflix, is produced by Media Rights Capital (MRC) and is shot in Baltimore. Sarandos said he was gratified to have reached the deal for the team of 370 people who directly work on the show and for “the 2,000 people in Baltimore” who have jobs working on “HOC.”

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Donald Trump Endorses Accused Child Molester Roy Moore In Alabama Senate Race

The chyron says it all…

Donald Trump has wholeheartedly endorsed accused child molester Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race to be held in 8 days.

Via The New York Post:

“Just got off the phone with President Trump who offered his full support and said he needs a fighter to help him in the US Senate. I look forward to fighting alongside the President to #MAGA!” Moore wrote on Twitter, adding that the president exhorted him to “Go get ‘em, Roy!”

The White House also released a statement confirming Trump’s endorsement of the former judge.

“The President had a positive call with Judge Roy Moore during which they discussed the state of the Alabama Senate race and the President endorsed Judge Moore’s campaign,” spokesman Raj Shah said.

Moore’s wife also crowed about the president’s call on Facebook.

“Judge Moore just got off the phone with President Trump — we have his full support! Thank you Mr. President! Let’s MAGA!” Kayla Moore posted.

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Australian Lawmaker Proposes To His Partner During Same-Sex Marriage Debate In Parliament

It was an emotional moment when Tim Wilson, a member of Australia’s House of Representatives, addressed fellow lawmakers about the impending vote to legalize same-sex marriage.

“In my first speech I defined our bond by the ring that sits on both of our left hands, and they are the answer to a question we cannot ask,” Wilson said as his partner of seven years, Ryan Bolger, watched from the public gallery.

“There’s only one thing left to do: Ryan Patrick Bolger, will you marry me?” Wilson continued.

Bolger, a primary school teacher, smiled broadly and immediately answered, “yes.”

And the crowd goes wild.

After the legislation sailed through the Senate last week, the House is expected to vote later this week.

Watch the marriage proposal below.

(source)

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SCOTUS Will Let Stand Texas Ruling Denying Same-Sex Couples Equal Spousal Benefits

This is very bad.

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will let stand a ruling by the Texas Supreme Court that said the right to a marriage license did not entitle same-sex couples to spousal benefits under employee insurance plans.

From The Texas Tribune:

The high court on Monday announced it would not take up the case — which centers on Houston’s policy to provide spouses of gay and lesbian employees the same government-subsidized marriage benefits it provides to opposite-sex spouses — just months after the city of Houston filed its appeal, arguing the state court’s June decision “disregarded” precedent.

In that decision, the Texas Supreme Court threw out a lower court ruling that said spouses of gay and lesbian public employees are entitled to government-subsidized marriage benefits, and it unanimously ordered a trial court to reconsider the case. The ruling found that there’s still room for state courts to explore “the reach and ramifications” of marriage-related issues that resulted from the legalization of same-sex marriage.

That’s despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015 and noted that now-defunct marriage laws were unequal in how they denied same-sex couples the benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples.

In its decision, the Texas Supreme Court noted that Obergefell requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages just as they do opposite-sex marriages but did not hold that “states must provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons.”

That does not mean Houston can “constitutionally deny benefits to its employees’ same-sex spouses,” the court added, but the issue must now be resolved “in light of Obergefell.”

Following the Obergefell ruling, public employers in Texas, including state agencies and public universities, quickly extended marriage benefits to spouses of gay and lesbian employees.

“Equal recognition of same-sex marriage requires more than a marriage license; it requires equal access to the constellation of benefits that the state has linked to marriage,” Houston attorneys wrote in their brief to the court.

This is particularly disconcerting as SCOTUS prepares to hear the case of Colorado baker Jack Phillips tomorrow who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.

All eyes will be on that ruling.

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Billy Bush Reflects On Trump’s Infamous Candid Camera Moment: “He Said It”

(screen capture)

As rumors swirl that Donald Trump is attempting to take back his admission that he said “Grab’em by the pussy” on video tape, Billy Bush, former host of Access Hollywood and The Today Show, reflects on witnessing Trump’s infamous candid camera moment for The New York Times.

Bush begins:

He said it. “Grab ’em by the pussy.”

Of course he said it. And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real.

We now know better.

Recently I sat down and read an article dating from October of 2016; it was published days after my departure from NBC, a time when I wasn’t processing anything productively. In it, the author reviewed the various firsthand accounts about Mr. Trump that, at that point, had come from 20 women.

Some of what Natasha Stoynoff, Rachel Crooks, Jessica Leeds and Jill Harth alleged involved forceful kissing. Ms. Harth said he pushed her up against a wall, with his hands all over her, trying to kiss her.

“He was relentless,” she said. “I didn’t know how to handle it.” Her story makes the whole “better use some Tic Tacs” and “just start kissing them” routine real. I believe her.

Kristin Anderson said that Mr. Trump reached under her skirt and “touched her vagina through her underwear” while they were at a New York nightclub in the 1990s. That makes the “grab ’em by the pussy” routine real. I believe her.

President Trump is currently indulging in some revisionist history, reportedly telling allies, including at least one United States senator, that the voice on the tape is not his. This has hit a raw nerve in me.

I can only imagine how it has reopened the wounds of the women who came forward with their stories about him, and did not receive enough attention. This country is currently trying to reconcile itself to years of power abuse and sexual misconduct. Its leader is wantonly poking the bear.

Read the full essay at The New York Times.

 As you’ll recall, Billy Bush lost his job for being present during Trump’s statement.

Trump was rewarded by becoming president.

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News Round-Up: December 3, 2017

(via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Fitness guy Dominick makes for all kinds of sexy Santa. Looks like he’s got a nicely wrapped package to deliver, too 😉

• The Human Rights Campaign has wisely chosen to endorse Nevada Congresswoman Jacky Rosen as she begins her campaign to challenge GOP Sen. Dean Heller in next year’s election. The HRC writes, in part, “She has been an outspoken critic of the Trump-Pence Administration’s assault on LGBTQ equality, from revoking discrimination protections for transgender children in public schools, to attempting to render the LGBTQ community invisible in the U.S. census.”

• A gay man standing outside a McDonalds in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was viciously attacked by seven men. The man had to be treated in the hospital for a broken cheekbone and damage to his eye.

• Last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Alabama Republican Roy Moore wasn’t fit to serve in the U.S. Senate. Today, McConnell flip-flopped saying the people of Alabama should make that call. #SaveThatMajorityAtAnyCost

• MSNBC’s Joy Reid has apologized after blog posts from ten years ago surfaced wherein she often referred to former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist as “Miss.” Crist has long been rumored to be a closet-case.

• A male model named Jason Boyce has filed suit against renowned photographer Bruce Weber alleging that the lensman sexually harassed him during a photo shoot.

• InstaCouple Justin and Nick share the afterglow of seeing an NYC screening of soon-to-be-in-wide-release Call Me By Your Name.

A post shared by Justin & Nick (@justinickpgh) on Dec 3, 2017 at 8:15am PST

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Meme Of The Day

I wish I knew where this came from because I totally believe it.

While most think a discussion about politics and religion has to either be complete agreement or an argument, I make to point to keeping tempers even when I ask people how they arrived at their positions.

That doesn’t mean I abandon my own passions, but no one can hear me talk if they’re too busy yelling at me.

We have to listen to each other.

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SNL: “Donald Trump” Visited By Christmas Ghosts Billy Bush, Vladimir Putin & Hillary Clinton

In the aftermath of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s guilty plea, Saturday Night Live delivered a Christmas Carol themed cold open.

Check out President Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) being visited by the spirits of “Jacob Marley” Michael Flynn (Mikey Day), “Christmas Past” Billy Bush (Alex Moffatt), “Christmas Present” Vladimir Putin (Beck Bennett) and “Christmas Future” Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon).