Inflammatory material

When the supposed New Queer Cinema was trumpeted from the rooftops a few years back, how were we to know that it was just the latest in a procession of transparent and tenuous media inventions? We thought it was a good thing, right? Todd Haynes, Gregg Araki, Tom Kalin - whether or not you liked the films (and Swoon is a tough one to defend three years on), you couldn't have argued with what those pictures promised.

Meanwhile, Bruce LaBruce was loitering with intent on the touchlines. His feature debut, No Skin Off My Ass, wasn't seen by too many people but it was a winning, endearingly brash and grubby venture about a hairdresser who picks up a skinhead. It put LaBruce on the map, even if you did need a magnifying glass and compass to locate him there. With John Waters' ear for catty dialogue and Curt McDowell's eye for shooting sex, he was the choice of queers who didn't take themselves too seriously.

That film, and his equally inflammatory follow-up Super 8-and-a-half (right), are both featured in the London Film-maker's Co-op season, "Queer Cult". So too is a spot of Monika Treunt, a pinch of Andy Warhol, a smattering of Kenneth Anger. The LFMC are promoting the season as "a wild odyssey of cinematic mischief and transgression that crosses boundaries on the way to framing and re-framing a queer world". In other words: How To Be Queer And Still Have A Gas.

RYAN GILBEY

London Film-makers Co-op, 42 Gloucester Av, London NW1 (0171-586 8516) every Fri to 25 Aug