Behind The Candelabra

And the week of movies comes to an end (probably) with the discovery of a new favourite cinema and an underwhelming movie.
The Dominion Theatre is fab - leather sofas, well positioned footstools, and it's licensed. I'll be back there.

Behind the Candelabra was...meh.

Some good performances - Scott Bakula looked great in his porn moustache, and Debbie Reynolds, as ever, stole the movie (and had the best line - "I'll take a cheque"). Michael Douglas was fearless and fascinating - he looks more like his father as he ages, and wasn't afraid to be shown bald and old and a bit creepy. It was fun to see Matt Damon being cut to look like a movie star - in this case, he was supposed to have surgery to look more like Liberace, and ended up looking more like Matt Damon, which I thought was very funny.

So I have a lot of admiration for the movie, but very little liking. Mostly, I think, because under the glitz or Liberace, past the seedy 70's and 80's West Coast gay scene, it was a very, very banal story. Rich man takes up with younger love interest, and then moves onto another, younger lover. It's a story I've seen a hundred times, and for it to work you need to care for the rich man, or the ingenue, or both, and, despite some touching moments, I just didn't like either of them. And I knew that Liberace would die alone, and I knew that there would be a palimony suit, and, to be honest, despite the comfy seats, after the first half hour I just couldn't wait for the movie to be over.

A film worth making? Definitely. A film worth seeing? I'm not so sure.

Guest post by Elise Matthesen: How to Report Sexual Harassment

Originally posted by mistborn at Guest post by Elise Matthesen: How to Report Sexual Harassment

(A friend of mine wrote this, and I and a few other people in the community are posting her narrative to raise awareness. —Brandon)

How to Report Sexual Harassment

by Elise Mattheson

We're geeks. We learn things and share, right? Well, this year at WisCon I learned firsthand how to report sexual harassment. In case you ever need or want to know, here's what I learned and how it went.

( Read more... )

On Finding A Safe Place

I chose to share that last post (without cut-tags, even) because I happen to think it deals with something which is very important to me, personally. Yes, sexual harassment at cons is important to a white, middle aged man, who will never suffer from it.

Partly, it's the "no man is an island" thing - that sort of behaviour does affect me, because it changes (it should change, dammit) behaviour towards every man, not just abusers.

Mostly, though, it's because when I was 17, and geeky before the party, and totally sexually inexperienced, I found a safe place to go. That place was called Albacon, and Hitchercon, and Easter Con, and Scone and lots of other things. But I felt safe against physical violence, and I felt safe to express myself in a way that would have exposed me to physical violence elsewhere (mostly spouting Vogon poetry and dressing up as Soylent Green. The movie, not the product).

The thought that that safe place isn't available to all of us makes me sad, and angry, and whatever small thing I can do about it I will.