Mary Poppins 2: The Possibly Very Bad Idea

We’ve reached a point in film history – and more specifically, in the history of the business of Hollywood – where remakes and reboots are just How Things Are, like it or not (we side mostly with “not,” just fyi). So it’ll come as zero shock that Walt Disney Studios has big plans to revisit its most beloved and acclaimed live-action film of all time: Mary Poppins. It isn’t going to be a proper sequel, nor will it be a remake. It will be set about 20 years after the original film, in 1930s London, and will draw its plot from stories in P.L. Travers eight Poppins books. Disney has chosen a director – Rob Marshall – and Life of Pi’s David Magee as screenwriter for the project. They’ve also chosen acclaimed songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray). But what they haven’t chosen yet is the big catch: Mary Poppins herself. Who steps into the shoes of the legendary Julie Andrews and holds her own? Who dares? We have no idea. But she’d better be that perfect combination of stern disciplinarian and bright, song-filled enthusiasm, or it’s all going to be like a pot of room-temperature tea. Oh, wait, we’ve got it: Emily Blunt. It’s Emily Blunt. You hear that, Hollywood? It’s Emily Blunt. You have your instructions.

Sexy queer disability begins to Oscillate Wildly

Setting aside the trendy appropriation of a Smiths song title for his latest feature, Oscillate Wildly, filmmaker Travis Mathews doesn’t much like to go where others have already tread. His narrative feature, I Want Your Love, featured explicit real sex as it told the story of a going-away party and gay male longing. His next, Interior. Leather Bar., imagined an alternate life for the controversial film Cruising. And now he’s teamed with executive producer James Franco and some gay men with disabilities – such as queer blogger Andrew Morrison Gurza, who lives with cerebral palsy and served as a production consultant – for Oscillate, which is shooting now. The film revolves around a subject usually ignored by queer cinema: the lives of physically challenged gay men, specifically one working-class guy with CP and his search for love during a scorching Austin, Texas, summer. The goal is simple: matter-of-fact representation and moving drama not based on triumphant “overcoming,” and a reminder that stories for everyone often come from highly specific, and singular, circumstances.

Mother’s Day for lesbian stand-up Cameron Esposito

Look, we’re not going to lie and tell you we’re overly excited for Garry Marshall’s upcoming mega-ensemble comedy, Mother’s Day. That’s because we saw his earlier movies, Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve (fool me twice, and all that). But these films are big hits with big swaths of the population, in the same way that Olive Garden is a popular Italian restaurant; somebody out there is lining up for it. But let’s talk about love for a moment. We love lesbian stand-up Cameron Esposito and Mother’s Day will have a lesbian storyline featuring the comic. She’ll play a young mother raising a son with her female partner, and she’ll be joined on screen by the usual Garry Marshall cast of dozens: Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Jason Sudeikis, Tomorrowland’s Britt Robertson, Timothy Olyphant, The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi, and Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell, to name but eight. And after the ludicrously timid gay male storyline of Valentine’s Day, there’s only one way for Marshall’s brand of sometimes clueless inclusiveness to go, and that’s up. Get ready for April of 2016. Your mom is going to want to see this one.

Hart to Hart, but with gay dudes

A “by the book” lawyer named Jonathan Hart and his free-spirited partner in life and crime-solving, Dan Hartman, are about to pick up where Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers left off. Who are Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers, you ask, oh young person? They were the backbone of the breezy, silly, glamorous _Hart to Hart_, that ABC TV staple of the 1980s. And now that show is getting the queer reboot it needs, thanks to producer Carol Mendelsohn and Sony TV. We love this idea, and we want something more than two pretty, bland, white guys as leads, OK? Go outside the box, with us, remakers, and give us Guillermo Diaz and Alec Mapa; or alt-comics Hannibal Buress and Kyle Kinane; or Empire’s Jussie Smollett and Damon Wayons, Jr. Whatever it takes, really. Just don’t be boring and we’ll watch.

OK, sports fans: Who was the first openly gay male athlete to play in a professional sports league?

Not Robbie Rogers. Not Jason Collins. And not Michael Sam.

The answer is Andrew Goldstein. An All-American lacrosse goalie, he came out to his Dartmouth College teammates a full decade before those three better-known trailblazers.

Goldstein was the first goalie to score in an NCAA tournament in nearly 30 years. The next year he played for the Long Island Lizards in Major League Lacrosse.

You’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of it. Professional lax flies under the radar (and pays accordingly). So Goldstein soon moved on, and started a new life as a medical student.

He continued to advocate for gay athletes, through speaking engagements, discussions with sports teams and through You Can Play. But gradually he left lacrosse behind.

For the first time, he says, he was out as “a regular gay man.” Living outside of the sports world was an education.

He needed the break. But he also needed lax. Eventually he joined a club team in his new hometown, Los Angeles.

Goldstein had earned a bit of fame in 2005, when ESPN aired his story. After a surge of contacts from athletes – many of them closeted and struggling – the emails had slowed to a trickle. But last winter, the former college star – now Dr. Andrew Goldstein, a medical researcher at UCLA doing groundbreaking work on a possible cure for prostate cancer – received an email that changed not only his life, but a 12-year-old boy’s.

Along with that youngster’s family, friends and now countless other strangers.

Braeden Lange’s parents suspected he might be gay. When they asked the sixth grader, he told. His mother was proud of his self-knowledge and courage. His father came around fairly quickly.

Braeden came out to some friends in a group chat. Some were supportive. But middle schoolers can be cruel. There was cyberbullying, and real-space taunting.

Braeden withdrew. He cried himself to sleep. He talked about suicide.

Braeden’s mother Mandy remembered seeing a story on a gay lacrosse player. She and her husband Scott found the ESPN piece. Immediately, they contacted Goldstein.

He read their email at a propitious time. He’d just hear of the suicide of trans youth Leelah Alcorn. Goldstein vowed not to miss this opportunity to help a child in trouble.

“When I was that age, no one ever told me my life would be OK,” Goldstein recalls. “I always thought, if I got the chance to tell my younger self that life would be fine, I’d seize it.”

He did far more than seize a golden opportunity. Soon after contacting Braeden, he sent him that long-ago ESPN video. And his old Long Island Lizards helmet.

Goldstein and his husband, Jamie Duneier, already planned to be in New York two weeks later. They quickly asked the Langes to join them.

Incredibly, the day they met was Goldstein’s birthday. The family gave him souvenirs from Braeden’s tournaments. The youngster was shy – “like any 12-year-old would be,” Goldstein explains.

Then the boy said, “Your helmet may not have meant a lot to you. But it meant so much to me.” He handed Goldstein a birthday card, with a note. He wrote that receiving the video was “the best day of my life.” Now he was “unstoppable.” He thanked Goldstein for being his role model, and his friend.

The two lacrosse players headed off to Central Park, carrying their sticks. “We were just two athletes playing catch,” Goldstein says.

But that was just a warmup. Goldstein wanted to do something else – perhaps a talk at Braeden’s school. Administrators nixed that idea (though Goldstein did end up talking about medicine to his science class).

A better idea was to organize a lacrosse game – one that would send the message that being gay is fine.

Over the next few frenetic weeks, Goldstein worked with Nick Wilson, a Seattle-area coach, to set up the show of support.

Goldstein, Wilson and You Can Play co-founder Glenn Wittman called in favors. A former Dartmouth lacrosse coach offered to officiate. Braeden’s mom solicited donations from local businesses. Nike donated jerseys.

On Memorial Day weekend – the day before the NCAA Division I championship match in Philadelphia, hundreds of lacrosse players and allies took part in The Courage Game. It was an incredible outpouring of support. Braeden’s friends and teammates were there. They saw him not as gay, but as a hero.

ESPN featured the game on SportsCenter. Many viewers emailed Braeden directly. They called him a role model.

Braeden Lange is still only 13. He just entered seventh grade. But – like his own role model, Andrew Goldstein – this lacrosse player is already paying it forward.