Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

framptonhollis I must admit, this Valentine's Day I have certainly picked unconventional romance movies to watch..."Tongues Untied" plays out like a visual poem, featuring monologues and images dealing with black homosexuality, all edited to create a truly powerful portrait to a little discussed subject matter.The main thing this film has going for it is its style. As I previously stated, its like a visual poem. Its a rhythmic and emotional odyssey through the lives of these people who, especially in 1989, have been represented very little in the media. At times, it gets a little to SJW and over the top, but their rage is somewhat valid. In the late 80s, being black and gay was much harder than it is in the mid 2010s.

nelandquinten Marlon Riggs' documentary "Tongues Untied" left a brief, but definitive impact on me. This documentary about gay African-American men reveals several poets, preachers, activists, and scholars. There is no narration in "Tongues Untied". Instead, all the dialogue is spoken in philosophical rhymes and poems. The documentary showcases, and even full-on exposes its praise for the black homosexual lifestyle, in an artistic and flamboyant fashion.As a filmmaker myself, I was drawn into how Riggs was able to explain the persecution of homosexuals without having a sit-down interview, and instead uses stand-up performances, poetry, and symbolism to prove his point. From the confines of a gay black man's isolation and loneliness, to the exciting experiences of the San Francisco "Castro" district, Riggs took the audience to some fascinating, and often times deplorable world that gay black men face every day of their lives.I was a little annoyed by the pacing of the film. There were some parts that had me yawning. But "Tongues Untied" sends a powerful message of tolerance, culture, and tradition from a filmmaker who is sadly no longer with us. This documentary captured my attention, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

sandover "Black men loving black men is a revolutionary act." It is also a documentary act which is straightforward, polemic, complex, with heart, with gusto. With diction that fights affliction, this is its basic weapon of beauty, as if its undercurrent was "beauty is no booty for the enemy".For me, a gay white male from Greece, this documentary, coming from my oblique point of view (oblique because being gay in Greece, despite its, rather ironic, pederastic tradition, is quite apart with the issues and the culture of the film, yet the sense of segregation and tradition rings familiar), descriptively it feels like a star-crossed breed of gospel and guerrilla video art.Its veins are pounding deep; being a writer and translator, listening to such keen, sexy, visceral rhythms by the imposing figure of Essex Hemphill, was a revelation with an obsessive glow.And Marlon Briggs' narration, spacious and incisive, unflinching and embracing, with an amazing sense of building-up, leaves me bewildered, more so for appearing somewhat tuned down at first.For anyone liking the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do, as Gertrude Stein admirably put it, this is a definite watch.

Polaris_DiB In the late 80s and early 90s, a lot of experimentation occurred with movies that attempted to speak out for "marginalized voices", a media theory that concerns the disruption of the upper-middle class heterosexual white man with a wife and 2.5 kids motif of our Western hegemony. Most of these movies, I'm sorry to say, are only interesting to the audiences of which it reflected, and some of them went as far as to create reversal stereotypes by pretty much assuming that upper-middle class heterosexual white men with wives and 2.5 kids should feel guilty or punishable for what they've done to these "subjugated classes".Unfortunately for Marlon Riggs, his documentary "Tongues Untied" is part of the genre, but fortunately, his is a beautiful and poetic creation of it. "Tongues Untied" is about being black and homosexual, which is in fact a complicated thing because being homosexual is especially difficult for someone who is black, as one of the unfortunate side-effects of our history between "blacks and whites" (arbitrary, and yet designed) is the feeling of emasculation. Thus, being a gay black man means that one is torn along a racial standpoint and a sexuality standpoint, and that the one also causes conflict with the other.Thus, when initial audiences were offended that Riggs didn't lay more blame on some particular aspect of society during the movie's release in festivals, they weren't getting the point. Riggs' creation is the projection of himself, his desires, history, motivation, fear, anger, love, sexuality, culture, and humor, onto the screen, and other standpoints or antagonistic standpoints would only serve to destroy the wholeness he finally built within himself. Tongues Untied's theme of "black men loving black men is the only revolutionary experience" doesn't mean that if we want a new revolution, black men need to go out and start having sex with each other, it's that that's Rigg's revolutionary thought for himself--it could have been easier stated "Being yourself is the only revolutionary experience", except that that approach is way too PC and vague to account for the unification of Riggs' experience. The whole film, then, is an attempt to build towards that thesis.--PolarisDiB