Fancy Meeting You Here

Remember when I said I was excited to see Lily Gladstone as a “queer 30-ish scammer” in the new AppleTV+ film “Fancy Dance?” Yeah, I’m really excited now. After earning raves at Sundance and SXSW, the film debuts in late June on the streamer. Sure, we don’t get to see any of her queer scamming in the trailer. But if a trailer can make me tear up, I trust the whole movie will do so much more (“little mother,” sob – yes, I might have some feelings about this as a gay auntie). Plus this story of familial and cultural love seems to have found a seamless way to address the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women. You love to see it.

I would also like to say how incredibly impressed I am with Lily’s post Oscar choices. Every single project she has signed on since is directed/created by a woman or a person of color (Quinn Shephard with “Under the Bridge,” Erica Tremblay with “Fancy Dance,” Morrisa Maltz with “Jazzy,” Andrew Ahn with “The Wedding Banquet” and Reed Morano with “The Memory Police”). Meanwhile Natalie Portman has worked with two female directors on full-length features in the last 20 years (the most recent was eight years ago on the 2015 film I’ve never heard of “Planetarium” and the other was the year before that in a movie she directed herself). Not to be outdone, Emma Stone has NEVER worked on a feature film with a solo female director. So, anyway, what I’m saying is way to go, Lily. Again, you love to see it.