The dizzying career heights and details of personal turmoil in the life of the late legendary fashion designer Alexander McQueen are well documented, as is the status of his deep friendship with the late fashion editor Isabella Blow, his mentor and muse. Now, queer filmmaker Andrew Haigh (“All of Us Strangers”) will take his turn representing the pair in an upcoming short film, “Wild Bird.” Russell Tovey (“Looking”) will play McQueen and Academy Award winner Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) will co-star as Blow and the film will take them on an emotional — and fictional — road trip. And yes, there will be fashion, because Sandy Powell, award-winning costume designer (as in three Oscars and the same number of BAFTA Awards), will be in charge of the clothes. It shoots in June in the U.K., and while you’re waiting, the wonderful 2018 documentary feature, “McQueen,” is a good way to get up to speed.
Kristen Stewart and Wagner Moura consume ‘Flesh of The Gods’
The A24 thriller “Flesh of The Gods” has Panos Cosmatos at the helm. Don’t recognize that name? He’s the filmmaker behind mindbending cult films “Mandy” and “Beyond the Black Rainbow,” and he’s about to step into the mainstream on his own freaky terms with a couple of big movie stars: Academy Award nominees Kristen Stewart and “The Secret Agent” star Wagner Moura. Together, they’ll play a married couple living the high life in ’80s-era Los Angeles — think Fred Segal, Fiorucci and Angelyne — who then cross paths with someone called Nameless and a party crew of glamorous individuals who are almost certainly very seductive vampires. Just when you thought “What We Do in the Shadows” had finished off the genre with parody and absurdist comedy, along comes the version no one had considered: blood cocktails with the “Less Than Zero” gang. Can’t wait.
Tig Notaro will finally figure out who Glen Powell is
Tig Notaro works in entertainment yet doesn’t know the identities of many of her celebrity colleagues. She’s even made internet videos where she has to guess who the TV star sitting right in front of her is. (“Modern Family” star Julie Bowen, for one) It makes us wonder if she knew of Glen Powell before being cast in the new Judd Apatow film, “The Comeback King,” which stars Powell as a country singer in a career spiral. Tig will also become acquainted with the rest of the cast: fellow queer stand-up comic Chris Fleming (whose new HBO special “Live at the Palace” is breathtakingly weird and funny) as well as comedians Leanne Morgan, Atsuko Okatsuka, Stavros Halkias, Big Fella, Mike Birbiglia, Kumail Nanjiani and “SNL” vet Vanessa Bayer. There are no further details about plot, characters or anything else, so make peace with being in the dark until it comes to a theater near you.
Queer classic ‘The Servant’ gets a remake with Colman Domingo
In 1963, the Joseph Losey-directed classic “The Servant” — starring quietly gay actor Dirk Bogarde — got its Harold Pinter-penned script through the minefield of the era’s restrictive production code to weave a subtextual story of politics, sexuality and class war, one that eventually influenced films like Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite.” The remake in production from queer filmmaker Francis Lee (“Ammonite,” “God’s Own Country”) won’t have to skirt around anything to tell its own version of a spoiled rich man, played by Nicholas Hoult (“The Great”), and the contentious relationship he has with the titular servant, to be played by gay, two-time Academy Award nominee Colman Domingo. Non-binary Golden Globe-winner Emma Corrin is also on board, as is “Hamnet” co-star Noah Jupe. And it’s a period piece, too, set in 1950s New York, so the suspense and consequences of the closet can be explored in a way that wasn’t possible 60-plus years ago.
Romeo San Vicente cues up Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant.”