Politics, pop culture and entertainment news of interest to the LGBTQ community
(image via Marvel Studios)The Marvel super-hero flick “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” smashed box office records during its first week in release. Continue reading “‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Smashes Box Office Records”
Chris Pratt & Chris Hemsworth (screen capture)Check out the new trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder starring Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Natalie Portman and more. Continue reading “‘Thor: Love And Thunder’ Trailer – Pratt & Hemsworth Have A Moment”
Walk The Moon lead singer Nicholas Petricca (photo: Anna Lee)Some news items you might have missed:
• Global Pride 2020: More than 57 million people from more than 163 countries joined the 27-hour virtual event, Global Pride 2020, that took place on June 27. Major artists including Laverne Cox, Elton John, Adam Lambert, Olivia Newton-John, Kesha, and Pabllo Vittar appeared alongside world leaders including former US Vice President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and openly gay Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
• Andrew Christian Blog: I’m not saying they’re sugar daddies but check out this list of the ‘6 Richest Gay Men in the World.’
• Instinct Magazine: On the last day of Pride Month, Nicholas Petricca (pictured above), lead singer of pop band Walk The Moon (‘Shut Up and Dance’), came out as bisexual on his Instagram page. Petricca posted a photo of a quote by Harvey Milk followed by a four-minute video where he started the video by saying, “Hi. My name is Nicholas. I’m the lead singer of a band called WALK THE MOON and I’m bisexual.”
• CinemaBlend: Matt Bomer explains why it’s been so important to tell the story of a gay superhero on DC Universe’s Doom Patrol. In his role as ‘Larry Trainor/Negative Man,’ Bomer says he gets to not only address the issue of coming out, but overcoming the guilt and shame many LGBTQ people feel in their journey.
• Heavy: Corey Hannon, who became infamous over the weekend for heading out to gay mecca Fire Island believing he was infected by the coronavirus, has been banned from all Fire Island bars and restaurants for his shenanigans.
• Pink News: Marvel star Tessa Thompson says her bisexual character, Valkyrie, will ‘push the bounds of’ queer representation in future films. Thompson has already told fans to expect a queer storyline in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder, teasing that as Asgard’s new king, “she needs to find her queen.”
• ABC News: About six-and-a-half years after criticizing then-President Barack Obama for doing the same, Donald Trump is weighing in on the controversial Redskins team name. The franchise put out a statement on Friday saying that it plans to “undergo a thorough review of the team’s name.” With a name change seeming all but certain for Washington’s NFL team, Trump tweeted his disapproval on Monday.
They name teams out of STRENGTH, not weakness, but now the Washington Redskins & Cleveland Indians, two fabled sports franchises, look like they are going to be changing their names in order to be politically correct. Indians, like Elizabeth Warren, must be very angry right now!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2020
President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name-our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them,not nonsense
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2013
(image via Instagram)Some news items you might have missed:
• InstaHunks: For Wise Wednesday, hunky Dan Tai reminds: “Don’t forget you are the lighthouse in someone’s storm.” Follow him on Instagram here.
• USA Today: Bernie Sanders said Tuesday night that he is not planning to release any additional medical records. Sanders, 78, suffered a heart attack in October during a campaign event. He had a blockage in one artery and two stents were inserted, his campaign said at the time.
• NY Times: Donald Trump is expected to name Richard Grenell, the American ambassador to Germany, to be the acting director of national intelligence. A vocal Trump loyalist, he would be the first openly gay cabinet member.
• Washington Blade: Actor Haaz Sleimann, who is openly gay, was speaking to LGBTQ media outlet NewNowNext for a profile story when he revealed that he will be portraying the husband of a gay superhero in the upcoming Marvel film, The Eternals, slated for a November 2020 release. Sleimann, 43, has recently garnered attention for his role as a gay Syrian refugee in Apple+ TV’s anthology series “Little America.”
• NBC News: Don’t forget the Democratic debate tonight from Las Vegas where former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg will take to the debate stage for the first time in the 2020 primary cycle. The debate will start at 6 p.m. PT (9 p.m. ET). You can watch the debate on NBC, MSNBC, and Universo. You can also stream it on NBCNews.com and MSNBC.com, as well as their Facebook pages – or the video window below.
Last week, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro called for a ban on superhero comic book because of ‘sexual content’ he deemed unsuitable for minors.
The ‘content’ in question occurs in the three-year-old Marvel publication Avengers: The Children’s Crusade. In one panel of the graphic novel, the characters Wiccan and Hulkling, who are in a committed relationship, engage in a kiss.
Why the 2016 publication suddenly caught the eye of the Mayor Marcello Crivella, a former evangelical pastor, now is unclear. But Crivella called for the comic to be banned from the Riocentro Bienal do Livro, Brazil’s most important literary event.
Rio de Janeiro’s councilman Alexandre Isquierdo also made a statement calling the imaging an “attempt to propagate homosexuality.”
But before authorities could remove the graphic novel, word spread and all copies were almost instantly snapped up by fans.
And now, Brazil’s Supreme Court has blocked the efforts to censor the Marvel publication.
“Attorney General Raquel Dodge challenged the move by Crivella, a former evangelical pastor,” reports ABC News. “She said allowing the mayor to remove books goes against freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas.”
According to the report, a lower court initially supported the mayor, but chief justice José Dias Toffoli “ruled in favor of Dodge on Sunday, blocking the mayor from removing any books.”
This is the gay kiss in a Marvel graphic novel that Rio de Janeiro’s radical Christian mayor Marcello Crivella tried to censor at the city’s biggest book event. That’s the response by Brazilian newspaper Folha de S Paulo. pic.twitter.com/ieIWLC8Ee9
— Fernando Duarte (@Fernando_Duarte) September 9, 2019
And just to put a point on the subject, Brazil’s largest newspaper Folha De S.Paulothrew shade by printing the image on the front page of the publication.
Ha!
It’s perfectly legal to be LGBTQ in Brazil (the country has legalized same-sex marriage), but thanks to statements and actions by virulently anti-LGBTQ president Jair Bolsonaro, the gay community has reasons to be concerned.
Bolsonaro has announced plans to remove mentions of LGBTQ people from textbooks and classrooms in schools; he’s posted tweets denouncing the country’s annual Carnival event for being too risque; told the world “Brazil can’t be a country of gay tourism” because “we have families.”
He’s even told publications he’d rather have a dead son than a gay son.
But, today, we celebrate this small triumph (and epic trolling) over hate.
Marvel’s Black Panther racked up an enormous $192 million for its three-day debut in North America this weekend becoming the fifth biggest opening of all time.
From CNN:
The opening for the film starring Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan did not just shatter expectations, it broke multiple box office records too.
It blew away the record for the largest opening for an African-American director. That belonged to F. Gary Gray and “The Fate of the Furious,” which opened to $98 million last April.
Disney estimates that the film will bring in $218 million domestically for the four day holiday weekend. The film brought in an opening of $361 million around the world.
“Black Panther” also shattered the record for an opening in February, which belonged to “Deadpool,” the R-rated superhero film from 20th Century Fox that brought in $132 million when it opened in 2016.
It is the second biggest opening for a Marvel Studios film, behind 2012’s “The Avengers.”
The super-hero/action flick is Marvel’s first film directed by an African-American.
Watch the trailer below.
Squee!!!
Excuse me as I, and the entertainment world, totally geek out over the newly-released trailer for Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Infinity War.
Bringing together just about everyone in the current Marvel cinematic universe, it’s pretty awesome.
We don’t really get to know much about plot points other than the story centers on galactic bad-guy Thanos.
“An unprecedented cinematic journey ten years in the making and spanning the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Infinity War” brings to the screen the ultimate, deadliest showdown of all time. The Avengers and their Super Hero allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.”
According to the press release, the film stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Paul Rudd, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan, Peter Dinklage, Josh Brolin, and many, many more.
Avengers: Infinity War opens in theaters on May 4, 2018. Check out the trailer below.
Via Rolling Stone:
Homecoming brings Peter Parker back to high school. The early Spidey suit he wears features web wings, a design only seen in the earliest of Spider-Man comic book appearances. Spider-Man, played by British actor Tom Holland, is shown scaling the Washington Monument, holding a sliced-in-half ferry boat together with his webbing and dealing with basic high school stuff like staring too long at a crush, zoning out in Science class and preparing for homecoming prom.
Robert Downey Jr. is also in the preview, with Tony Stark serving as a mentor for the fledgling superhero. “Don’t do anything I would do. And definitely don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Stark tells Parker. “There’s a little gray area in there and that’s where you operate.”
So, the plan is to eventually combine the stars of Netflix’s Daredevil, Jessica Jones and the upcoming Iron Fist with Luke Cage to become “The Defenders” in a series down the line.
With Daredevil and Jessica Jones already launched, Luke Cage gets his big premiere come September 30th.
Squeee!!!!
Squeee! Marvel’s first tease of the upcoming Dr. Strange starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Via USA Today:
While a lot of the Marvel movies just jump right in (there have been 12 so far — 13 when Captain America: Civil War hits theaters), Doctor Strange is going to take its time introducing you to the Sorcerer Supreme. Stephen starts out as a surgeon, who, after a very bad car accident that we see in the opening of the trailer, has nerve damage in his hands and thus loses his whole life. He heads for some soul searching in the Himalayas where he meets a mystical figure called The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton).
Speaking of which …
The Hulk had gamma radiation. Captain America had a serum. Iron Man has his tech toys. Doctor Strange, though, has straight-up magic on his side. You saw that bit where Swinton pushed Cumberbatch out of himself? Yeah, that was pretty cool. And it was pure magic. Not all heroes are the results of science experiments gone wrong. But, hey, he definitely wears a cape.
The visual effects look amazing – just as they should for a Dr. Strange movie. I’m definitely looking forward to this 🙂
In theaters November 4th.