I remeber this movie so well because when I came out to my best friend (she was straight), by that point had not even seen a lesbian in real life or on tv because I was this really sheltered catholic, I remeber the day after I came out to my friend she brought over "But, I'm a Cheerleader".  That was the first time in my life I had ever seen a lesbian, I love the movie to this day, 5 is definately accurate it wasnt my coming out movie, but rather my coming in movie i guess

 O and Katie your definately hott!

Love this movie....one of my personal faves for sure.  It's definitely one of the most relatable lesbian films to me too even if it uses stereotypes and lots of unrealistic humour. I still love it!

 you guys all rock....keep up the reviews!! :)

 Clea Duvall...I though she was out, no?

I absolutely love this movie but like you Rina, I have to give it a four. I don't have a concrete explanation as to why but I give it a four.

You girls did a great job reviewing.

You got some nice arms there Danielle

Ariel was one of my 'root's too!  I was obsessed with the movie when I was a kid, my friend and I would try and pause the tape when she changed from a mermaid to a human cause there were rumors around school that you could see her naked, lol! 

This Vlog is great, you guys are insightful and fun, and feel free to go all film geek, I love it!

Omg! This movie totally turned me gay. I saw it when I was 11, I was Mega! How did I not see it?

Don't need therapy! All better now!

i don't know.... can't really explain why i give it a 4 but it is a really good, and funny movie. when u were talking about the stereotypes what i first thought of was in the beginning when they held the meeting with the gay-turned-straight counselor. they were saying that you must be gay because 1. you like Melissa Etheridge. 2. the tofu. 3. the suggestive flower on the pillow. (something like that). what made it worse is that i do kind of like tofu and ME. i remember pausing the movie and going wtf.

i have a movie suggestion.... i don't think it's a way older movie-can't remember- but DEBS.

its funny, its great, but i dun think it deserves a 5 

Chasing Amy, Bound, High Art, GI Jane 

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The acting, writing, and technical aspects of this film are all pretty fantastic, in my opinion. Oh, and the soundtrack. Love it!  But I found the story a little formulaic, and it's a little on the short side.  And I think maybe I just have a slight problem of suspension of disbelief with this film.   I tend to think of Show Me Love or All Over Me as being worth 5, but this seems more like a 3.5 or 4 to me.

     As for the Vlog itself, I'm still really enjoying it.  You all are very engaging. :)

swishes of gay magic, this movie MUST receive a 5. It has camp (no pun originally intended, but I intend it now!). It works and re-works stereotypes. It confronts gender role/assignment. And it was a contemporary gateway to introducing queer identities in that generation.

I don't have a problem with the stereotypes represented because I think the conversations about gender roles adequately subvert them. While we're introduced to the characters as stereotypes, we find out that, really, all of their 'traits' can be disassembled into heteronormative-nurtured qualities. I think the set and costumes (both in the heterosexual world and in the "camp" homosexual world) work to positively deconstruct the stereotypes - and even highlight the ridiculous qualities that are thrust upon children when they're young. The Barbie comparison works perfectly. I love all the dull browns and odd oranges in the straight world versus the almost neon pinks and blues at the camp.

The love story fits into the romantic comedy genre really well, and the whole thing is well acted. Ru Paul is absolutely priceless, and this was the first movie I notice Melanie Lynskey in (I saw Heavenly Creatures later), and she's wonderful. Kudos, of course, go to Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall and Cathy Moriarty for being fabulous.

This movie made me realize I was gayer than I thought. Wild Things "made" me gay. God, Neve Campbell.. You might review that movie, which I don't really think would get many magical gay swishes, but it works well as a sexy mystery/thriller/legal drama. It would get swishes from me because I <3 it. The Faculty, another not great movie, also made me happy (again Clea DuVall - but she was a fake lesbian who wore purple in the end. Awkward.)

Ladies, you're doing a great job. I'd agree with tootles about sticking with the good, bad, ugly motif to avoid repetition. However, another option would be to go out and purchase notepads, appoint a Jill Bennett, and muscle through thataway. Doubtless you would veer off topic, but at least you'd have really cool notepads.

p.s. love the opening and closing graphics and the integration of the film into your conversation. it looks awesome, and it's a great addition. loved the re-enactment of the housework paired with the actual clip. PRICELESS. That gets 5 swishes of gay magic any day.

i give this movie a 4.5 on the gay magic scale, it's definately one of my all time faves.

with jan though, i really don't believe her character was intended to be a butch but straight woman. i think that her role was there to challenge gender roles, i think that she's intended to hint at transgenderism, and in the end in fact was a form of a gay male.

there is a happy gay camp in the US, it's the most incredible place in the world. it's in washington state and goes for two weeks every august, the first week being for kids with LGBTQ families (ages 8-16) and the second week is for LGBTQ kids (ages 13-17 when you're 18 you become staff members)i've been going for 2 years since i was 15 and it has truly changed my life and made me a better person. if you want to know more their website is www.CampTenTrees.org you guys are too old to be campers, but we love new staff members!

Enjoyed your new vlog.  Keep up the great work.  I hope you do Madchen In Uniform (one of the truly great films of the 1930's).  What is comical to this day is that many film critics want to downplay the clear cut lesbianism presented in the film instead focusing on it's attack on a repressive, conformist environment (it never seems to occur that part of a conformist environment is the repudiation of sexual attraction outside the "norm").  Great movie directed by a lesbian filmmaker from a strong book, The Child Manuela, written by a lesbian author. 

Can't wait for Personal Best.  I just watched The L Word finale where the suits tell them to change the ending so Jesse returns to Jim and Personal Best came to mind.  Hope to see Show Me Love and Lost and Delirious (a difficult film because it is a lesbian tragedy - but while apparently fulfilling lesbian tragedy cliches it actually turns cliches on their head placing full blame on a heterosexist/homophobic society and turning what would have been the villain years ago into the heroine) reviewed. 

I miss Natasha Lyonne of 1999.  Hope she comes back stronger.    

I enjoyed the movie and the vlog. Looking forward to your take on Personal Best one of the films of MY generation...as But I'm a Cheerleader is for yours. I did recently watch Personal Best on LOGO, but DANG LOGO, they totally CUT the only love scene in the movie. There couldn't have been THAT much skin. Without the intensity of that scene the rest of the emotional aspects of Personal Best don't really make sense. Just my Personal Rant. I'd be interested in the German movie you mentioned, since I liked Loving Annabelle with the original (and ethically correct) ending. Perhaps when you get around to those movies you can discuss them in one vlog...making it more relevant.

You didn't back rate Basic Instinct, but I give it 1.5 swishes. 

This was the first lesbian themed movie I ever saw too! But I still think that some parts were a bit too over the top. So it only gets a 4 on the magical gayness scale. I think that notes and such would help. Also, maybe you should all try to even out the points discussed so that you all get to talk equally throughout. It just seems like one person will be talking constantly while the others watch quietly.

Katie you are definately hot but I personally think Rina deserves a 5 for her fabulousness ;)

Danielle, omg flex your arms more next time. Maybe get in a few close ups? Just sayin. 

I am my very own shade of grey.

While the movie does have its faults - not being long enough is definitely one - you can't get more "gay swishy magic" than that.

Also, I can't believe all of you discussed the production values and the saturated plastic colours, and didn't manage to mention the word camp. That movie is as camp as a row of gay pink tents at Mardi Gras, in every way. As for a queer camp in RL for adults, there are plenty around the world, including the US. 

The exaggerated stereotypes are also part of camp. According to Susan Sontag: "The essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration." So while the truth in the stereotype was portrayed, it was also totally exaggerated and satirised.

some movies to look into: "The Children's Hour", "Loving Annabelle", "Imagine Me & You", "Boy's dont Cry", "The Hours", "Lost and Delirious", ok ill stop cuz i could keep one goin. but you know what im talking bout.

great job, u girls are awesome! u made my day Danielle :)

I love But I'm a Cheerleader.

And what's really awesome is that my teacher edited the movie. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I'm tearing all my posters down

All of my idols are dead

I thought the movie was a bit over the top. Even though parts of it are very funny, there were other bits that I just found annoying.

It also does not help that I found the lead character annoying too.

However, the cute love story makes up for this a lot....and well, I'd watch anything with Clea Duvall in it. She's hot.  

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-Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

Who doesn't blog these days?

Ariel was one of my roots too!! I thought I was the only one! hahaha
This is a great movie, but I'll give it a 4.
and... Danielle.. you're hot! 

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This is my favorite lesbian movie of all time.

As it is my standard of lesbian movie perfection, I must give it a 5.

Fabulous review, I definitely enjoyed the brief reenactments.

I loved but I'm a cheerleder. It's so camp and funny and Jamie Babbit is a genious. Up until BICL I hadn't seen that many well made lesbian comedys so it was a relief to find a lesbian movie that made me laugh.

Since this movie I've had the hugest crush on Clea Duvall. I mean she wears a black shirt during the movie and looks so gorgeous (I have a slight fetish for girls in shirts cause I have a theory that every woman looks good in the right shirt) and she plays a bad girl (come on! every lady loves a bad girl).

You have to review "The Children's hour" it's the classic lesbian movie and I'm suprised that more lesbians don't know about it, especially as it stars to gay heroines Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MClaine.

Great vlog guys

I remember seeing this movie when it came out in theaters and absolutely adoring it!  And looking back, it was probably my "root" (I mean, have you seen Clea Duvall in this film??  HELLO???!!)

Also I was super excited to see Rufio from Hook as the gay jock who escapes.  RU-FI-O! RU-FI-O!

Loving the vlog ladies!  You gals are awesome!  Keep up the great work! 

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-groomed, and unaggressive. - Leslie M. McIntyre

Some quick random thoughts:

Danielle, more tank tops, please. I love girls like you who are passionate talkers. Who accidentally flex their arms while talking.

I want to echo the sentiments about more film school geekitude in your reviews. I always watch movies a second time if I liked it the first go-round. And it's the lighting, editing, sound effects, etc. that catch my attention the second time. So feel free to geek out.

Maedchen in Uniform (Maiden in Uniform), 1931, is considered a masterpiece in early German cinema. The Nazis destroyed the original negative, so the version we have now has been pieced together from various prints. You can't get more retro than this.

I would love to hear you opinions on The Killing of Sister George (an atrociously camp classic). It's a late 1960s English film. The lesbian bar scene with the all-girl band, the predatory posh butch, the childish femme, her unsympathetic bullying bull-dyke girlfriend - all the stereotypes you've never wanted.

I'm glad you'll be revieweing Personal Best next. It was so important when it came out because there hadn't been much in the way of lesbian film characters before that. It got a wide release, I think, because it was written and directed by a straight man, so heteros weren't as threatened by it. But having said that, overall I'm not much of a fan of it.

Great vlog, girls! I can't wait to see more.

Good job with the review! It was more fun to watch this time because I've seen the movie you're talking about.

"Mädchen in Uniform" was on TV just this week but unfortunately I missed it. (I'm German btw and your pronounciation was a bit adventorous but I knew which film you meant :) Thumbs up already for trying to say the title!)

I've never seen this but I'll definitely check it out.

My request for a review: Sirens (1994). 

I love this movie, but yeah there is just something missing from it. I don't mind that its campy and stereotypical and uses why too much symbolism, because of the way it makes use of these things for humor. Humor can be so important in conveying controversial messages to mainstream society. Its like a 'spoonful of sugar' (please no one start singing that song). And it also helps convey that message to those of us who are questioning ourselves. Did anyone notice that the only time the movie seemed to have a 'normal' appearance to it was when everyone snuck out to the gay bar? Well, it was still a little campy then too... but that was the only real point in the film when everyone could be themselves and not the Barbie and Ken dolls the True Directions place was trying to turn them into.

Mariel Hemingway has played lesbian charcters in films besides "Personal Best". One movie I saw with her was called "The Sex Monster". It wasn't the greatest film, but I remember it was about this hilarious threeway (are those usually funny?) that has her chasing every woman in town after that. Not to mention her liplocking "Roseanne" and even AE's Jill Bennet in "In Her Line Of Fire".

Other films I would mention are Desert Hearts, Gia, If These Walls Could Talk 2, Better Than Chocolate, Chutney Popcorn, Aimee and Jaguar, and The Children's Hour.

The heart has its reasons, for which reason knows nothing. - Pascal

First off I love this movie. Although this wasn't my first gay themed movie it still holds a special place for me. One night i let my 16 yr old female cousin spin the night over my house. She's not homophobic but she abit out spoken, she perfers the terms dyke and faggot over lesbian and gay. Anyway she slept in the living room and watched movies that night the next morning we had a interesting conversation... oh yeah spoiler alert:

Cousin:Why didn't you tell me you had other good movies?

Me: What are you talking about?

C: The movie with the cheerleader?

Me: But I'm a Cheerleader?

C:Yeah, It was sweet and had me crying.

Me: Why?

C: Because I didn't think she would pick the girl in the end, but she did.

I really had nothing to say about that cause all i could think about was how I was happy she was moved by the movie. After I took her home I saw my Incredible True Adventures of Two Girls in Love DVD lieing on her floor. She wanted to borrow it to watch it. Sadly I had to take that back cause she already had the disk on the floor and I didn't want to get it back scratched or broken. Maybe next time she spends the night i'll let her watch it.

Loved the movie, loved the soundtrack even more. Picked up some Go Sailor and Bonfire Madigan CD's, but alas, I could find no official movie soundtrack. Bummer, because I loved the Tattletale song played during the tasteful sex scene.

Glad you are going to review an 80's  (79?) classic movie next week.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie!

IT IS A COMPLETE 5 outta 5! The love scene coulda been longer though JUST SAYIN

Clea Duvall is sooooo sexy as GRAHAM, wayyyy hotter than the other girl.

PS: All u ladies are equally sexy! :)

I love this movie!  Yes, there are stereotypes, it is not long enough, there are parts that are wanting, BUT this is gay magic incarnate!  Beautiful actors, wonderful comedy, a GREAT romance, with a happy ending!  Who could ask for anything more?  I think, as you Retro Reviewers pointed out, that this movie came along at a point where a comedic view of lesbians, and gayness in general, was sooo needed.  I had just come out a year before and as a film buff, I was scouring the archives to find lgbt themed films.  All the ones I saw were so serious!  So tragic!  This was a bit of fresh air in a very stagnant room!

 As for suggestions for the format, as great as notes are, I do enjoy your random style.  Structure is overrated!  I also like the incorporation of the movie (and your viewing of it) into the vlog.  Also, please continue and expand on your film geek moments.  I am a film buff and love to hear other peoples perceptions on the technical aspects of film.  For instance, in the infamous love scene in But I'm a Cheerleader, where are we to think this is taking place?  As you said the lightening is from everywhere, which totally threw me as to where they had snuck off to.  All I could think of is the "doghouse" where Clayton had been banished to.

Anyhow, enough of my own rambling.  Great Vlog! Rina, you are Fabulous!  Danielle, great arms!  Katie, you are ok (lol just kidding, trying to keep you head from exploding!)

... but it's definitely a 4 that i would watch on a rainy afternoon, not one of those "wow it's so good but never again" films.

i'm interested in yr future review vlogs, esp. of films that the general lesbian populace LOVE that i frickin' despise (e.g: loving annabelle, lost and delirious - 'cute' girls who do stupid psycho shit to each other does not a good film make)

so please yes, review them, state good reasons if they're good, who knows i may even reconsider and take my fingers out of my ears :)

also, i'd like to add to a future review list: unveiled, julie johnson, butterfly (HK film - NOT butterfly kiss though - amanda plummer is uber scary!), the virgin machine and the watermelon woman.

keep up the good work!

heh, i first watched it on youtube. It was so deliciously camptastic (and had Clea Duvall, on whom I'd had had a crush for ages) that I had to buy it online. Took me weeks to get it, but it was all worth it! Definitely 5 gay swishes. The scene where Megan is sitting in the chair and crying "I'm a homo! oh my god, I'm a homo!" really hit home for me - I'd come out to myself sitting on a bus after years of confusion, thinking to myself "oh my god, I'm a lesbian!" staring out the window with my eyes welling up.

And I'm not normally one for structure, but I kind of think that a bit of structure wouldn't be too bad - when it comes to reviews, I take them pretty seriously because for me to have to purchase one takes a lot of trouble, especially as I have to borrow someone's credit card to buy it online. And yes, I'm 23 and I still don't have a credit card. But then again, I guess because you guys are American, and the audience for whom this vlog is created are mostly American, it really depends? Cos there's no way I can get any lesbian-themed movies or tv shows here unless I buy them online.

Anyway, my point is that yeah, a little structure never hurt anyone? So we know whether to buy/rent/steal/skip it or not. And just out of curiosity, will you guys be reviewing non-English or non-American lesbian movies? But anyway, thanks for taking the time out to review these for us!

That's what the German movie from 1931 is called..incidentally, it's 

much easier to get it in France or the UK or the US, for that matter, because most of the German (much less cut copies, by the way..) fell victim to the great "book burning" in 

1933. Speaking of gay history..However, besides this movie,there is a fantastic remake 

from 1958, which "Loving Annabelle" can't hold a candle to..Try checking that out as well,

it features the great Romy Schneider, and Lilly Palmer..Heart wrenching and fantastic..

and colored;-) 

Take care, lot's o love

D 

"Have fun!"

"Don't have too much fun!!You'll end up with one of those sexy transmission diseases!!" 

out of "Kick" 

But doesn't the girl from Madchen in Uniform look like a young version of Chloe Sevigny? I gove But I'm a Cheerleader a 5. I saw it twice in the theatres because I had waited for freakin' ever to come out.  It's quirky, fun, and true love wins!

Shelley C

I only saw this film recently, and it was really refreshing to see a sweet, charming teen movie featuring lesbians. It was interesting how it tackled the genuinely disturbing concept of gay rehabilitation (would that be the right word?) camps with subversive humour, which is generally more effective than ranting. When watching the scene where the 'warning signs' were being discussed (gay iconography, vaginal imagery in artwork etc) was anyone else reminded of the media's recent speculation over Ellen Pages' sexuality ("she dresses tomboyish!")?

with regards to the vlog you guys are doing a great job but i would love to hear some more analysis of the technical aspects (direction, lighting etc) that you found interesting

from me this movie gets a hearty four swishes of gay magic :)

though I can only give it a 3...

Bound is like the only movie that gets a 5 from me regarding Gay Magic Lol.

you guys should totally review Bound!

::::::Natasha:::::

i give this movie a 4 just because it was a great movie and my root movie as well, but ya'll should totally review Imagine Me and You, though not a "classic" i love Lena Headey and Piper Perabo together

I'd def give But I'm a Cheerleader a 5 and Katie a 5 too...

This movie literally made me realize i was gay...The fact that at one point this along with Lost and Delirious were my favorite movies pretty much made me realize something was going on. Special thanks to Natasha and Piper for that!