Julianne Moore
Graces the Screen
He's the 12-years-absent director responsible for Swoon, an acclaimed film of the early 1990s 'New Queer Cinema' movement. She's a muse for Todd Haynes, another New Queer Cinema alumnus. And together helmer Tom Kalin and actor Julianne Moore will work on Kalin's long-awaited follow-up, Savage Grace. Using Howard A. Rodman's screenplay, adapted from the book by Natalie Robins and Steven Aronson, the film will explore the class crisis and criminal activity that arises when a poor woman (Moore) marries into a rich family. It's all based on the real-life story of the Bakelite-inventing Baekeland family, an idly rich clan who ended up with a murder on their hands—how embarrassing. Christine Vachon's Killer Films is producing, and shooting will take place in the United Kingdom, France, and Spain.
Polk Builds an Arc
Patrick Ian-Polk, writer-director-producer of 2001's gay African-American independent comedy, Punks, knows that waiting patiently for another break gets a filmmaker nowhere fast. He also knows about the overwhelmingly Caucasian casting on all those successful queer TV shows (The L Word's Pam Grier and Jennifer Beals, as well as Queer Eye's Jai Rodriguez, being the only major exceptions). And that's why Ian-Polk is working on his own queer series, Noah's Arc. Much like Punks, the show will center on the lives of four Black gay men in Los Angeles; and also like Punks, if the idea catches fire it will be the first of its kind. No word on casting decisions or broadcast affiliations yet, but here's hoping the Arc floats.
Mizrahi Meets the Peacock
Right under America's noses, Isaac Mizrahi has become a TV star. Turn on the tube and and you can see the fashion designer and focus of the 1995 documentary Unzipped singing in Target commercials for his own line of women's wear, dishing with his boss Oprah about Oscar fashions, or hosting The Isaac Mizrahi Show on Winfrey's Oxygen network. And now he's used his fashion-sketching pen to sign a deal with NBC Enterprises, one that might turn him into a Queer Eye-style household name. His own syndicated show is what he'll probably reap from the deal—most likely on Bravo, the de facto gay network—but what it will entail is still a mystery. No matter. The fun, charismatic Mizrahi is sure to please in whatever the Peacock network decides to do with him.
Deneuve and Depardieu Do It Again
Andre Techine, the acclaimed gay French director, has decided to reteam France's two biggest film stars, Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve, for his latest film, Les temps qui change (Changing Times). The story focuses on a man (Depardieu) attempting to reunite with his first love (Deneuve) 30 years after their breakup. Searching from France to Tangiers, Depardieu finally finds his lover, only to discover that his old flame has undergone a startling transformation. No word on exactly what that transformation entails, but Romeo's guessing it probably has more to do with gender than wrinkles and gray hair. Techine has already worked with Deneuve five times, including her turn as a lesbian in Les Voleurs. Shooting on the new film begins in April.
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