Description
SPD MOVIE NIGHT presents TODD HAYNES' POISON (1991)
11/6, 1 PM at The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland CA, 94612
A New Queer Cinema classic inspired by the novels of Jean Genet.
"Todd Haynes's first feature, Poison (1991), has always stood for much more than itself. 'The whole world is dying of panicky fright,' reads its opening title, an apt epigraph for a contemplation of difference, affliction and stigma that arrived at the height of the AIDS crisis and became a lightning rod in the culture wars of the 1990s...
For detractors and admirers alike Poison was a new kind of gay film, not a polite plea for tolerance but an upfront exploration of identity, reflecting the heady complications of queer theory and the confrontational urgency of AIDS activism. The film's three strands are stylistically distinct—a newsmagazine-style account of a suburban boy who killed his abusive father, a black-and-white B-movie about a scientist turned leprous outcast, a rough-trade romance set in a Genet-like prison—and it cuts among them to create a web of unsettling correlations and an echo-chamber effect."—The New York Times
All proceeds go to Small Press Distribution, the only distributor in the country dedicated exclusively to independently published literature. Huge thanks to The New Parkway for generously donating their space.