Geek Girl Authority
8 Queer Christmas Romcoms That Don’t Totally Suck
By Melis Amber
Dec 11, 2023

Christmas romcoms: you either love them, or you hate ’em. Even if you love them, a good one is hard to find. The same can be said of queer cinema. Combine the two, and holy moly, is it difficult to find anything worth viewing? 

The eight movies we’ve featured below are far from cinematic masterpieces. But they are fun to watch and will get you in the Christmas spirit. Also to note, many of them feature queer actors!

There are spoilers below, but then again, being Christmas movies and all, they spoil themselves. 

Make the Yuletide Gay

Make the Yuletide Gay (2009) is cheesy in the best way possible. Directed by Rob Williams, the movie follows Gunn (Keith Jordan) as he brings his boyfriend Nathan (Adamo Ruggiero) home to meet his family. The trouble is Gunn wants to keep it all in the closet. While still having his cake. It’s a typical LGBTQ+ romantic comedy with a sprinkle of Christmas flair. Plus, if you’re a Degrassi fan like me, seeing Ruggiero is a treat. 

Rated: Not rated (content warnings)

Streaming: dekkoo; rent: AppleTV & Amazon

Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas

Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas (2019) epitomizes holiday silliness. While not front-and-center gay, Kimiko Glenn plays queer sidekick to ghostly protagonist Jess (Aisha Dee). This bonkers fantasy-comedy is a whacky, out-there twist that spins A Christmas Carol and Freeform-vibes into something truly awful in the best way possible. I mean, there is a tea shoppe. Even better, this film isn’t as much of a “white” Christmas as most holiday fare, featuring many actors of color. 

Rated: TV-14 (content warnings)

Streaming: Prime, Fubo, FreeForm

The Holiday Sitter

The Holiday Sitter (2022) was Hallmark’s first holiday (read: Christmas) romcom led by a gay couple. The movie stars Mean Girls‘ Jonathan Bennett as Sam Dalton, the wealthy perennial bachelor from The City. He has to give up his annual holiday to Hawaii when his sister needs an emergency babysitter. Turns out, he’s a pretty good guncle when the hot dude (George Krissa) next door lends a hand. Maybe he won’t leave after all… Bennett is genuinely funny in this film, making it worth a watch.

Rated: TV-G

Streaming: DIRECTV

Dashing in December

Directed by Jake Helgren, Dashing in December (2020) throws Wyatt (Peter Porte), a big-shot New York dude, back to his family’s ranch for some Christmas shenanigans. Enter Heath (Juan Pablo di Pace), the ranch hand with serious charm, and throw Andie Macdowell as Wyatt’s mom, and you’ve got your classic holiday “Hallmark” romance.

The big question is, will Wyatt save the ranch in time to salvage his burgeoning relationship with Heath? (Spoiler: Yes, of course, yes; it’s a Christmas movie)

Rated: TV-14

Buy: Amazon

Merry & Gay

Merry & Gay (2020), also known as Christmas With Love, has all the familiar plot threads of a holiday romcom: childhood best friends kindle a romance when the New York big shot returns home to the small town. But in this case, the small-town grumpster, Sam (Andi René Christensen), is nonbinary! This leads us to my only real issue with the film (I mean, it’s a pretty innocuous holiday romcom): Why are these characters called gay/lesbian if one of them is nonbinary? In any case, the leads have great chemistry.

Rated: 13+

Streaming: Prime, Peacock, Tubi, Xumo

Scrooge & Marley

This film, lol. Scrooge & Marley (2012) should not be mistaken for a cinematic masterpiece, but if you like offbeat gems, add it to your watchlist. Another play on A Christmas Carol, this film follows Scrooge ( David Pevsner), a grumpy bar owner, being led through his gay life as he comes to realize what a jerk he’s been. And when I say offbeat, I mean offbeat. Think: Bruce Vilanch plays Fezziwig. 

Rated: Not rated (content warnings)

Streaming: Tubi, FreeVee, HereTV

Tangerine

Tangerine is only nominally a Christmas movie, as the film takes place over Christmas Eve. It’s also only nominally the “rom” part of “com.” Directed by Sean Baker, Tangerine is the height of indie filmmaking, shot on iPhones in the grungy streets of Hollywood for that extra touch of sophistication.

The movie follows Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor), two trans sex workers, as they get into what can only be described as shenanigans. However, they’re some pretty serious shenanigans (getting out of jail, smoking crystal meth and having sex with your pimp). Tangerine might have rough production values, but the story is compelling.

Rated: R (content warnings)

Streaming: Fubo, Paramount, Showtime, Hoopla, Kanopy, DIRECTV, Magnolia Selects

The Christmas Setup

The most interesting, fun, and recommend-worthy part of The Christmas Setup (2020) is that its two leads are played by a real-life couple, Ben Lewis and Blake Lee. They have good chemistry and all that, but this is another film about, you guessed it, a big city guy going back home for Christmas. Hugo (Lewis), a New York lawyer, returns home to Milwaukee (ohmigosh! It’s not a tiny town), where his mom (“secretly”) sets him up with Patrick (Lee).  They fall in love as they try to save the local train station from being torn down. Also, Fran Drescher is in the film.

Rated: TV-PG

Streaming: Hoopla; rent: Amazon

The post 8 Gay Christmas Romcoms Worth Watching first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

ComingSoon.net
Scrooge & Marley Trailer Previews 10th Anniversary Release of Gay Holiday Comedy
By Anthony Nash
September 14, 2022

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, the LGBTQ holiday comedy Scrooge & Marley will be released on digital for the first time, as well as on DVD.

The news comes from Dark Star Pictures, who are set to release the film digitally for the first time. Scrooge & Marley will also receive a special 10th Anniversary DVD release on October 4.

“Returning to the 1970s days of his teen years by the saucy Ghost of Christmas Past (Ronnie Kroell),” reads the official synopsis for the film. “Scrooge bitterly recalls being kicked out of his home during the holidays for being gay, meeting the young rogue Jacob Marley, the fabulous disco impresario Fezziwig (Bruce Vilanch), and the luckless love of his life, Bill, whose love Scrooge eventually destroys in his pursuit of wealth. The jolly Ghost of Christmas Present (Megan Cavanagh) next whisks Scrooge on a joyous, music-filled tour of current holiday sights, including a visit to a lively party hosted by Scrooge’s niece Freda (Rusty Schwimmer) and her expectant partner Mary.”

Check out the Scrooge & Marley trailer below:

Starring David Pevsner, Tim Kazurinsky, Rusty Schwimmer, Bruce Vilanch, Megan Cavanagh, Ronnie Kroell, and David Moretti, Scrooge & Marley is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’s iconic 1843 novella A Christmas Carol that reimagines the story by turning Scrooge into a successful piano bar owner who despises people and makes life miserable for everyone in the gay community that he resides in.

Originally released in 2012, the film was partially crowdfunded through an Indiegogo campaign and was released to limited theaters. Following its premiere, the film received mixed reviews, with many praising its “campy” style and attention to care to a niche audience.

The post Director/Writer Richard Knight, Jr’s ‘Scrooge & Marley’Goes Digital & DVD On 10th Anniversary first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

CHICAGO – Bring up the immortal classic “A Christmas Carol,” by author Charles Dickens, then bring up how many film and TV versions have been done using its basic story. After a half hour of listing every conceivable production, a gay version won’t be found. “Scrooge & Marley” is the new film that takes care of that category. The premiere was last week in Chicago at the Music Box Theatre.

Bruce Vilanch, Portrays Fezziwig in “Scrooge & Marley

Bruce Vilanch is a Hollywood legend, a comedy writer known for working up material backstage at the Academy Awards, and developing jokes for Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Roseanne Barr and Robin Williams. He also spent four years on “Hollywood Squares” and wrote/performed a one-man show, “Bruce Vilanch: Almost Famous.”

HollywoodChicago.com: You seem like you were born to play a party coordinator like Fezziwig. What impresses you about his character in the source novel that you wanted to make sure was in this version of the story?

Bruce Vilanch: I viewed him as being crazy, over-the-top and flamboyant, at least as far as Dickens could go with that character back then, and it seemed to coincide with what the writers did in this movie. My Fezziwig spends a lot of time in the 1970s, when it seemed like everyone was having a party, and he was the party provider. [laughs] It was a nice match.

HollywoodChicago.com: Which line or piece of written material first got you noticed as the joke writer that eventually got you backstage at the Academy Awards?

Vilanch: I started writing with Bette Midler, having met her in Chicago at Mr. Kelly’s nightclub, and my reputation grew as she started doing more. I don’t know if it was one single line, but I remember I sold Johnny Carson a one-liner a long time ago. There was a football player named Lance Rentzel in the 1970s, and he was arrested for exposing himself. So the joke was ‘it was cold today…how cold was it?…it was so cold that Lance Rentzel stopped me on the street and just described himself to me.’ It got me a lot of notice, and I started writing more jokes for him and other people. So I’ll use that line as a first.

HollywoodChicago.com: What was the most controversial line you’ve ever written, who said it and what was the circumstance and setting?

Vilanch: I can’t think about the specific line, but I was involved when Ted Danzig did blackface at Whoopi Goldberg’s Friars Club roast. It was Whoopi’s idea, and Ted went along with it because their relationship at the time was ending, and they both thought it would be a good way to put a period on it. It was wildly controversial.

HollywoodChicago.com: Finally, if you had to write a saying on one of your famous tee-shirts that best describes this film, what would that line be?

Vilanch: We put the ‘dick’ back in Dickens. [laughs]

The post Hollywood Chicago Interviews Bruce Vilanch first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

The world contains quite a few people who seem to always be playing to an invisible camera. But Bruce Vilanch is one of those truly rare people who is always cracking jokes off the top of his head that are actually funny.
Vilanch is known for his work both behind and in front of the camera. The two-time Emmy winner has written material for many of America’s top comedians, but is probably best known to the public for his time as a regular on Hollywood Squares. Vilanch has been head writer for the Academy Awards since 2000. In 1999, he was the subject of a feature-length documentary, Get Bruce!, about his life as Hollywood’s most sought-after humor writer.

It’s easy to see why Vilanch is such a valuable commodity in Hollywood. In person, he’s endearingly clever in a down-to-earth way, loves playfully entertaining everyone around him, and seems unable to stop saying things that are genuinely hilarious.

Vilanch was in Chicago for the shooting of the new film Scrooge & Marley, a contemporary retelling of the classic Dicken’s tale, A Christmas Carol, “with a gay twist,” that will premiere during this year’s holiday season. In a casting stroke of genius, Vilanch plays the comic/tragic character Fezziwig in the film.

Though he already had on his Fezziwig wig for our interview, the makeup department had not yet glued on his Fezzi-beard. He stroked the strawberry blonde locks of his wig lovingly, and told me, “My old hair—it’s come back to visit. It’s been living in a condo in Boca Raton, and now it’s decided to come out of retirement.” In fact, his real hair today, with its strawberry blonde color and shoulder-length Prince Valiant styling, looked rather similar to his Fezzi-wig—just a bit less bushy.

Not done hamming it up, Vilanch began to croon to his wig: “‘Hello my old friend … ‘ I feel like Sweeney Todd,” he quipped. “‘This is my burden … .’ Soon there will be a beard to complete the picture. I will look like a nightmare version of myself from the Seventies. I can’t wait!”

In Dickens’ original Christmas Carol, Fezziwig is young Scrooge and Marley’s boss. He’s a generous, ethical businessman who treats his employees like family, cares about their welfare, and throws lively holiday parties for all. Sadly, he is forced to sell his business to avaricious corporate interests who care nothing about worker morale. Scrooge and Marley, grown more callous over time, side with the heartless new owners.

“I play Fezziwig, who you’ll remember from Dickens,” Vilanch said. “But this is a different kind of Fezziwig. He’s a guy who owns a disco in the Seventies and he’s Auntie Mame—Rosalind Russell and Auntie Mame.” Vilanch threw back his head, causing his wig to flounce. “He’s all, ‘Oh how droll, how vivid!’ He’s a pretty fabulous character, and he brings young Scrooge and Marley in [to his business] and of course they do him dirt—you know the story. And then we see his downfall. But then there’s a resurrection. It’s very biblical.”

Though Scrooge & Marley is a modern, gay-themed retelling of A Christmas Carol, Vilanch’s character follows the traditional Dickensian arc. “He’s a jolly old soul who gets caught up in his vices and gets caught up in their chicanery. And eventually he’s something they [the spirits] show Scrooge, to show what a bad guy Scrooge has been through the years. So Fezziwig’s kind of a poster child for excess. But at the same time, he’s brought down by the hand of somebody who is genuinely sinister. And he’s not. And I like him.”

Dickens’ Fezziwig symbolized the end of an era he knew well, the Industrial Revolution. Dickens’ saw it as a time when small businessmen and local industries like Fezziwig’s were disappearing, swept away by more ruthlessly profiteering business practices and cutthroat corporations. The Fezziwig in Scrooge & Marley also symbolizes the end of an era: the pre-AIDS gay culture.

“Fezziwig is the end of that party that was going on in the gay community in the Seventies, that was ended by the AIDS epidemic,” said Vilanch. “Suddenly everything got very serious and everything that we were told would happen because of what we were doing suddenly happened—and not because of what we were doing. It was totally coincidental. It was the end of some kind of a party that had been going on since I think Stonewall. There was a great deal of joy about liberation and getting a movement going and all that, and that came crashing down when people began dying. And ironically enough, that movement, because of the epidemic, became a real genuine political movement, which is as forceful today as it can be.”

Vilanch was living in Chicago in 1970, working at the Chicago Tribune, when he met Bette Midler. Midler hired him to write jokes for her, marking the start of a successful collaboration that has lasted through the years. After moving to L.A., Vilanch began writing material for other famous comics as well, including Joan Rivers, Richard Pryor, and Lily Tomlin, and for television shows like ABC’s original Donny and Marie Show and The Brady Bunch. Vilanch heard about the Scrooge & Marley project from his friend, the film’s co-director and co-writer, Richard Knight.

“I had done his radio show when I was in Chicago doing Hairspray, and we’ve been friendly ever since. And he talked about making this strange gay take on A Christmas Carol. When you consider Christmas Carol’s been done every other way—I mean, I’m waiting for the al-Qaeda version, that’s all that has been missed—so I thought, how could I not be a part of it? It’s so original, so unusual.”

Vilanch also considered a gay version of A Christmas Carol in it’s wider cultural context. “I think that the reason to do a gay version of anything is to show that we’re all basically the same under the skin. That the humanity is the same. We just have wildly different cultural perspectives and ways of expressing ourselves. But it’s the humanity of it all that’s important,” he observed.

“And gay community, and gay culture, for want of a better word, is just so much fun. It’s so festive and everything-is-in-quotes and over-the-top exaggerated, because it’s a culture that had to live under the thumb of a straight culture for years, so its take on things comes from being oppressed. And that’s always funny,” said Vilanch. “I mean, I’m Jewish, too, and we have that in common: we were oppressed for five thousand years and that’s why so many funny people are Jews. When you’re at the bottom, you kind of have to look up and laugh, because you don’t see the sun a lot.” Vilanch paused, then added warmly, “And eventually, you do.”

The post Star Of New “Scrooge And Marley,” Bruce Vilanch, Gives Great Interview first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

For self-professed “movie addict” and long-time Chicago-based film critic Richard Knight, Jr., it was probably only a matter of time until he put down the pen — or laptop, as it were — and took up the craft himself.

And in his latest project, Knight has done just that. In collaboration with executive producers Tracy Baim (Windy City Times, “Hannah Free“) and David Strzepek (“Hannah Free,” “Jamie and Jessie Are Not Together”) and others, Knight isn’t looking to make just any old movie, however: “Scrooge & Marley,” his first-ever feature film, is a modern-day take on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” — told with a gay sensibility.

The aim, Knight explained, is to create a gay-centric, old-fashioned holiday film, an idea he said first began to ruminate after seeing out director and screenwriter Thomas Bezucha’s 2006 film “The Family Stone.” Knight said he was so captivated by the gay couple depicted in that film that he “wanted so badly for the story to be told through their eyes.”

So for Knight, a film like “Scrooge” is “a dream come true.” In order to fund the project, which is set to begin filming in Chicago this May, Knight and his team have created an IndieGoGo fundraising campaign.

With the campaign recently launched, The Huffington Post checked in with Knight to learn more about his film.

What inspired you to put a gay twist on a classic holiday story such as “A Christmas Carol”?
I’ve been a film critic for a very long time and I write from a queer perspective. I was in a writing group with Tim Imse, who has since passed away, and [primary screenwriter of “Scrooge & Marley” and The Annoyance co-founder] Ellen Stoneking, a friend who has written many screenplays and was looking for an idea for something new to work on. At that point, we were approaching the holiday and so I said, “Why don’t you write a really good gay holiday movie?” I have never seen one. Ellen liked that idea and two seconds later, I said, “How about ‘A Christmas Carol’?” It’s in the public domain, first of all, and I also thought it would work really well coming from a gay place. We put together an outline very quickly and it went from there.

(Scroll down to watch the film’s IndieGoGo campaign video.)

It sounds like you’re sort of embracing this idea of a gay villain, which I know some filmmakers have been very hesitant to do, given the history of such sort of problematic depictions.
I do understand that concern, because for so long we [the LGBT community] did not have fair representation in films and television, so absolutely there was an initial hesitancy to have a gay villain. But then we went the reverse direction. Hello, we’re people! I think at this point culturally, there should be any problem with that. Scrooge actually redeems himself in this film. He’s a good guy in our story, or at least you understand the psychology of why he is the way that he is in much more detail. There are reasons why he is so blackhearted.

So tell me more about how “Scrooge & Marley” is set to play out — or are you keeping these things under wrap for the time being?
We’re keeping it close to the vest, but I can say that it is set in modern day and goes back to the ’70s, to Scrooge being a teenager. Of course, one plus one equals two: Being a gay teenager in the ’70s was not the best time to be out. We’ll flash forward to the ’80s and the AIDS pandemic and that will take us through to the present. The story has been changed — Nephew Fred is now a lesbian and, this is a scoop, we have signed Bruce Vilanch to play our Mr. Fezziwig, who presides over the biggest disco in town when we go back to the ’70s. It will be campy and fun until a much more serious kind of thing happens. We’ll see Bruce do something in this role that he has not done on film before.

You mentioned in the IndieGoGo video that this movie isn’t going to be about camp so much, like so many gay films are. You’re really aiming for something more in line with traditional holiday classics, correct?
Definitely. Our approach is to create a traditional Christmas movie that can be watched by and enjoyed by everybody. There will be camp elements to it and a little bit of salaciousness, but it will be based in the characters — it won’t just be there to have it. That’s certainly not the approach. I don’t know if fans of Ronnie Kroell will be really happy about that — you won’t seem him unclothed in this role — but he’ll look great, don’t worry.

We’re just not worried about the coming out story or the go-go boys or other typical gay scenes you see in films. We wanted to do this because every year, you pull out movies like “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story” and “Miracle On 34th Street” and we don’t have a gay one that’s told from our perspective. Hopefully now we’ll have one.

Tell me more about how the cast and crew for this film has come together.
I knew when I was writing the script that I wanted to direct and wanted Peter Neville to be my co-director. I’ve worked with him for 20 years on various projects and he is a fantastic editor, wildly creative and we have a great chemistry together. We’ve never shot a feature, so it’s a pretty big undertaking for us, but we feel greatly supported by Tracy Baim, our producer. I’ve worked with Tracy for almost eight years as her film writer [at the Windy City Times] but known her for much longer than that. And integrity is like her middle name — when she says she’ll do something, she does it and doesn’t mess around. When I went to Tracy with our initial draft, she said she really liked it and saw a lot of potential in it from both a creative and business standpoint. She brought in David Strzepek who is a marketing wonder kid and the creative daisy chain has gotten bigger and bigger as we went along.

As for the cast, we have Megan Cavanagh who is openly gay, whom Peter has known very well for many years. She loved the script. Rusty Schwimmer is an old friend of mine who has worked in Hollywood for 23 years and worked with every major director you can name. We’re thrilled to have this level of talent for our film.

Has having this talent attached to the project helped with funding?
Just because we have some high-profile names involved does not mean that the funding comes. It does help but we’re going to try and shoot this movie that spans 30 years in 12 days. It’s not a slam dunk, particularly as a gay movie. It took Lisa Cholodenko almost eight years to get the funding for “The Kids Are All Right” with Julianne Moore on board. It’s never a given.

You mentioned that this is your first feature film you’ve worked on — is that a daunting prospect to step from the writing world into this side of things?
I think what has been saving me is learning from those around me. Everybody has their first movie and film has been my passion, I’ve written about it backwards and forwards and worked on probably every other kind of film-related project. It makes sense to me that you have to have a great script, then find really talented people to enact that script and then have great people who technically can do it. Everybody coming on board sees it as an ultra low budget labor of love.

*Baim is a blogger for The Huffington Post.

As of March 7, the “Scrooge & Marley” film’s campaign has raised just $1,775 of their $15,000 fundraising goal. Click here to learn more about what inspired the project and how you can help get their gay-centric holiday movie off the ground.

Get in touch with us at chicago@huffingtonpost.com if you have a Chicago area-based Kickstarter or IndieGoGo project that you’d like to see featured in “Can They Kick It?”

WATCH the “Scrooge & Marley” IndieGoGo campaign video:

The post Bruce Vilanch At Work On A Gay Twist On ‘A Christmas Carol’ first appeared on We Got Bruce!.