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Nearly a year after its theatrical release, director Luke Gilford‘s feature debut National Anthem is streaming just in time for Pride Month.

Wolfe Video and Ld Entertainment will release the LGBTQ western drama Thursday, June 5 exclusively on Hulu, along with several queer titles from Wolfe’s library that hit the streamer on June 1.

“National Anthem is a film about the search for belonging,” said Gilford in a statement. “I’m thrilled that the film will be streaming on Hulu, making it accessible to even more viewers who might connect with its reimagined vision of the American West, and perhaps see themselves reflected in it.”

Set in a rural queer ranching community, against the real-life International Gay Rodeo Association, National Anthem stars Plummer as Dylan, a 21-year old construction worker in rural New Mexico, who joins a community of queer ranchers and rodeo performers in search of their own version of the American dream.

AI-centered dramas need a dash of formal ingenuity and a rich emotional, human connection for them to fully work. The presence of a robot in the narrative isn’t enough to push it. There should ideally be a sense of stakes when the film also hints at manipulation in the mix. If the story is so cut-and-dried, the film would only collapse into a generic muddle. AI narratives demand a cleverness of conceit that’s also touching, probing, and at least interested in the matrices of agency, power, and intelligence. Robert Rippberger’s directorial “Renner” is a determinedly thin rendition of topical concerns over the intervention of AI in human lives and decision-making.

The material itself is so weak, insipid, and lacking in an intriguing undertow that any dramatically infusing attempts don’t quite land. A team of three writers– Luke Medina, Martin Medina, and David Largman Murray- can...

Stars: Frankie Muniz, Marcia Gay Harden, Violett Beane, Taylor Gray | Written by Robert Rippberger, David Largman Murray, Luke and Martin Medina | Directed by Robert Rippberger

No, this isn’t a biopic about Jeremy Renner and his near-fatal run-in with a snowplough. The new film from director Robert Rippberger is about a computer coder named Renner. He’s wealthy and successful, but like most Hollywood techies, he’s a hopeless introvert and can’t bring himself to talk to the neighbour he’s crushing on. To help with that, he’s developed Salenus, an AI voiced by Marcia Gay Harden to help him become more self-confident and assertive.

At first, it seems to work, and he works up the nerve to talk to Jamie and for reasons unexplained, she becomes interested in him as well. This puts him in another awkward position when she brings her brother Chad to dinner with her.

Luke Gilford knows about rodeos — his father was a rider in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.

So it’s no surprise that the gay celebrity and fashion photographer turned his camera on the queer rodeo circuit for his 2020 debut photography book, “National Anthem: America’s Queer Rodeo.”

It’s that work that inspired the Colorado native’s feature directorial debut, also called “National Anthem.” The movie, which Gilford co-wrote with Kevin Best and David Largman Murray, stars Charlie Plummer as Dylan, a young man who goes to work on a ranch that is home to a group of queer rodeo performers. An unexpected romance blooms between him and a trans woman, played by Eve Lindley, as Dylan becomes more attached his new chosen family.

“’Brokeback Mountain’ was almost 20 years ago,” says Gilford, who splits his time between New York and Los Angeles and has had his work published in Vogue,...

A frank and stylishly made tale of coming of age and sexual frenzy in New Mexico, “National Anthem” commands your attention well before its centerpiece scene: Charlie Plummer, in a red sequined dress and grungy platinum-blond wig seemingly torn from the lookbook of mid-‘90s Courtney Love, performing drag to Alannah Myles’ whiskey-soaked power ballad “Black Velvet.”

The actor, a fair-haired 25-year-old so reedy he’s liable to get swept up with the tumbleweeds billowing across the desert, fulfills the promise of his breakout performance as another sort of cowboy in Andrew Haigh’s “Lean on Pete.” Dylan’s (Plummer) drag turn in this powerhouse moment is such a total 180 from the repressed construction worker we see in the opening moments, shouldering the burdens of caring for his little brother and sauced single mom. That’s because his American dream and sexual identity have been totally shattered by a spirited community of queer rodeo performers.

National AnthemImage: Variance Films

There has long existed a link between cowboy and queer culture, at the very least along aesthetic lines: Assless chaps, skin-tight denim and “riding bareback” transmit an innate homoeroticism. Cinema also boasts a fascination with queer cowboy narratives, most famously with Ang Lee’s devastating Brokeback...

Frankie Muniz, best known for his days as a child actor starring in the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle and films like My Dog Skip, Agent Cody Banks, and Big Fat Liar, has signed on to star in the sci-fi thriller Renner alongside Violett Beane, whose credits include The Flash, God Friended Me, Flay, and Truth or Dare. Deadline notes that filming will take place at the newly formed Ascent Studios in Spring Hope, North Carolina this summer.

Robert Rippberger (Those Who Walk Away), who is a founding partner at Ascent Studios, will be directing Renner from a screenplay written by Martin Medina and David Largman Murray (who were working from a story crafted by Luke Medina). The film will center on a computer genius named Renner and played by Muniz as he looks to court his neighbor Jamie (Beane) with the help of an A.I. he develops named Salenus — only to realize,...

Exclusive: The production and management company Citizen Skull is expanding with the launch of a Btl division to represent cinematographers, production designers, costumers, editors and others.

Leading the charge will be Liz Williamson (formerly of Wpa), who is supported by Gerard George (formerly of Screen Talent Agency) and Mike Diaz. New signings at Citizen Skull that come with the expansion include Emmy winning cinematographer Petr Cikhart (The Amazing Race) and production designer Flora Ortega (God’s Country).

Citizen Skull has previously produced such titles as Collision, 12 Feet Deep, Heartthrob, Oak Room and Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street, continuing to produce 5-7 titles a year, with writers, directors and actors also being repped on the management side.

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Taylor Gray

Exclusive: Taylor Gray (High Expectations) has signed on for a role opposite Frankie Muniz and Violett Beane in Robert Rippberger’s sci-fi thriller Renner, which is heading into production this summer.

Exclusive: Frankie Muniz (Malcolm in the Middle) and Violett Beane (The Flash) have signed on to star in Renner, a new sci-fi thriller from filmmaker Robert Rippberger (Those Who Walk Away). Production will kick off this summer at the newly formed Ascent Studios in Spring Hope, Nc, where Rippberger is a founding partner.

Written by Martin Medina and David Largman Murray, from a story by Luke Medina, Renner follows a computer genius of the same name, played by Muniz, as he looks to court his neighbor Jamie (Beane) with the help of an AI he develops named Salenus — only to realize, a bit too late, that he accidentally programmed his manipulative mother into it.

Rippberger will produce alongside Martin Medina, KT Kent, Devin Keaton, and Jay Burnley of Slated. Exec producers are Greg Gertmenian, Ali Baghdadi, Kyle Pritchard, Stan Hahnel, LeaAnne Hahnel, Anita Konka, Laura Winstead, Nathan Edwards, and Neuman Vong.

Thankfully there seems to have been a moratorium lately on movies that mine the Lgtbq+ experience for tragedy and awards. There’s also been a move towards authenticity, notably in the area of casting trans actors for trans roles, and both of those factors help and hinder photographer Luke Gilford’s feature debut, a film as rich in personality as a Diane Arbus snap but, dramatically, about as punchy as an instalment of High School Musical. In another year, this might be more of a problem than it actually is, since, perhaps more by coincidence than design, National Anthem arrives at a time when everything it celebrates is under attack, and such a low-key affirmation of personal growth and freedom might actually be what we really need right now.

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Toward the end of National Anthem, D’Angelo Lacy in splendiferous drag sings a powerful a cappella rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” while an assembled group of Queer Rodeo competitors and spectators stand in reverent silence through that hymn of patriotism, hands on hearts. Given that the recently passed Tennessee bill banning drag performances is looking to spread through red states and legitimize transphobic discrimination, the scene takes on added poignancy. That helps bolster the emotional heft of first-time writer-director Luke Gilford’s gentle New Mexico-set story of self-discovery in a chosen family.

Gilford knows the setting well. He grew up in the Southwest, with fond memories of attending rodeos with his father as a kid, only later becoming aware of how homophobic and narrow — white, Christian conservative, macho — mainstream rodeos could be. Returning after years of studying art and working in New York, Gilford discovered the International Gay Rodeo Association,...

Night Watcher is one of those independent horror flicks Lionsgate picked up as of late. I think it upset me a bunch, really. Mainly because it represents a missed opportunity for something that might really stand out. Intercut with some of the most tedious and underwhelming stalking sequences I’ve seen in a while are moments of drama that honestly touched me. The human story in Night Watcher is way better than anything about it the title might suggest, but it’s just such a shame that it’s squandered on a horrid reveal, bewildering technical screw-ups and an infuriating final shot.

First, that reveal I was talking about. I would think that a film possessing such a unique and captivating visual style as Night Watcher would pride itself on its ability to tell a story though images. For a while, it really does well there, but when it comes time to reveal whodunit,...