Raffy is a Los Angeles-based writer, editor, video creator, critic, and digital director of Out Magazine. The former editor-in-chief of PRIDE, he is also a die-hard Rihanna and Sailor Moon stan who loves to write about all things pop culture, entertainment, and identities. Follow him on Instagram (@raffyermac) and Twitter (@byraffy), and subscribe to his YouTube channel.
Gay vloggers James and John took to their YouTube channel, A Brit And A Yank, to release a short video that answers one burning question: instead of the movie industry's most iconic and romantic scenes featuring straight couples, what would they be like if they starred gay men?
Kieron Moore as Aaron Eagle; Reed Birney as Hank Grant in Blue Film.
Fusion Entertainment
Elliot Tuttle's debut feature Blue Film tells the story of a camboy and a disgraced former teacher that challenges hubris, conjures horrors, and casually hijacks one's attention to keep up with the intense unfurling of a drama that moves like a thriller.
Starring Kieron Moore as Aaron Eagle and Reed Birney as Hank Grant, Blue Film is set over an increasingly suffocating night in a Los Angeles Airbnb. The movie has already received all sorts of responses from audiences and critics alike since it premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival — a polarized reaction that Tuttle was not only prepared for, but was actually curious about.
Tuttle, a Scorpio king who turned 26 a few days before our interview, was 24 when Blue Film was shot, and 23 when he wrote the movie. "The script feels very personal in the way that the Aaron character feels very personal to me," Tuttle tells Out about Moore's character. In turn, the filmmaker describes Hank (played by Birney) as a "vessel to navigate ideas about sex that I wanted to explore."
Those ideas are not coyly suggested, but they are also not literal. Much like it is the case with Hank, Aaron is a vessel for Tuttle to unpack certain stories, not a literal reflection of his own life story, nor intended to be representative of any specific gay man.
In that sense, Tuttle drew inspiration from filmmakers like Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl, Brief Crossing) and Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Funny Games), referencing this "echo chamber" structure in Blue Film that entices audiences to be curious enough that they can sit through discomfort. "The film presents a lot of taboo conversations in very plain terms," Tuttle notes, observing that he understands why that can feel confrontational.
Reed Birney as Hank Grant and Kieron Moore as Aaron Eagle in Blue Film.Fusion Entertainment
And yet, the daring nature of Blue Film is precisely what makes it such an interesting watch — and, it bears repeating, one created by a new filmmaker in his early 20s helming his debut feature.
A surprising and very entertaining merit of Blue Film is its literacy in the digital era of gay porn, and how it uses those references to deconstruct the archetype of a verbal, straight-passing, dominant-presenting camboy. Early sequences lean into recognizable set-ups: Casting couch dynamics, masked off-screen blowjob givers, and even the Broke Straight Boys-style haggling over paying rates.
"I was really interested in taking this archetype and breaking that down," Tuttle says, noting that Aaron's gradual dissolution is one of the arcs that excited him the most. Specifically, the filmmaker was particularly by the disconnect between the webcam persona ("look at how fucking awesome I am") and the reality of a performer broadcasting from a cramped, messy bedroom.
Kieron Moore as Aaron Eagle in Blue Film. Fusion Entertainment
That gap, Tuttle argues, created a striking irony that encapsulated themes in the film like shame, self-loathing, and the stories people tell themselves to survive. "It felt like a fitting outline for all of those things to fit inside," he says of molding Aaron's bravado into a vessel to display a deeper insecurity.
Given the subject matter of Blue Film — a sexually charged reunion between a former student and a former teacher accused of abuse — Tuttle assumed that the role of Hank would be impossible to cast. Instead, Reed Birney, whose performance in Mass (2021) had floored Tuttle at Sundance, became his first choice, which subsequently turned into an official casting.
"Reed is an actor who's really in it for the love of the game," Tuttle says, recalling emails on Thanksgiving full of character questions and psychological conjectures. "I was kind of just over the moon that an actor cared so much, and took it so seriously, because that's what the part really required."
Reed Birney as Hank Grant in Blue Film.Fusion Entertainment
Meanwhile, Kieron Moore came to the project through a Zoom chemistry read with Birney. "Kieron and Reed had an immediate chemistry," Tuttle recalls. "It's so weird to do chem reads over Zoom because you don't see how tall anybody is. But it was immediately there, and it was clear that Kieron had a reverence for Reed, and that Reed was really smitten with Kieron."
Moore proved himself to be intensely invested in the project. Tuttle says, "He was really engaged with the material, and really curious about it. He was asking a lot of questions. He had done his own reading on... He had just read this book on 'pervert psychology.' He was really invested in the themes, and the story of the movie, in a way that you can only hope a young actor would be."
All of that intense preparation did pay off on set while shooting Blue Film. Tuttle reveals that Moore had to deliver roughly 30 pages of monologues and dialogue — in an accent not his own — across the first 30 minutes of the movie, which was entirely shot in a day and a half.
"I kind of just found myself at the monitor, wide-eyed, being like, 'Oh, they're great,'" Tuttle remarks. "If there's one thing that I'm the most proud of in the movie, it's their performances."
Kieron Moore as Aaron Eagle in Blue Film. Fusion Entertainment
Tuttle thinks of Blue Film as a drama, but acknowledges that he wrote the script like a thriller out of both creative instinct and actual necessity. The production shot in just 12 days on a small budget, with two characters in one location, meaning that it was all too easy to lose the audience altogether. "My job is to keep the narrative engine of the movie going," Tuttle explains. "Any kind of slip in momentum is a potential death for a viewer."
The movie does, in fact, become a moral whodunnit. Viewers are kept on the edge of their seats while renegotiating who these men are to each other, what's true or false in their narratives, and what their endgame for the night might actually be. It is through the unnerving build-up of tension in Blue Film that Tuttle's references jump out the highest, echoing feelings one has while seeing Haneke's Funny Games and The Piano Teacher.
Blue Film enters a landscape of queer films and TV shows that are mostly safer and more crowd-pleasing offerings. However, Tuttle never intended for his debut feature to be evaluated on different terms than other films. "In the movie, our protagonist is gay, and it deals with a lot of queer themes. But, in a lot of ways, it doesn't, to me," Tuttle says, arguing instead that Blue Film is a story about shame, the loss of innocence, and the difficulty of reconciling past and present selves.
And he's right: The strengths of Blue Film are in its capturing of internal reckoning. Tuttle reveals that he was in "kind of a quarter-life crisis" when writing the script — wrestling with grief and feeling disconnected from a more innocent version of himself. In that way, even as the story between Aaron and Hank gets darker, the film is still about the baggage that people carry with themselves when they aren't yet able to forgive themselves for things they still feel guilty about.
Reed Birney as Hank Grant in Blue Film.Fusion Entertainment
In an industry that seems to be increasingly risk-averse, especially in the U.S., Tuttle knew he was choosing a difficult path for his debut feature. American festivals repeatedly passed on Blue Film, only for Edinburgh to program it and unlock a wave of interest, proving that there's still an appetite for a "subversive kind of cinema" that isn't being entirely met by new work.
On the other hand, Tuttle notes that the shoot itself was "not tortured" as a process, and shares fond memories of how creatively liberated he felt working at such a small scale with supportive collaborators. His dedication to bringing this vision to life was supported by Mark Duplass along the way, who serves as a consulting producer in the project.
"I brought him the script pretty early on in the writing process," Tuttle says, noting that Duplass "has always been very supportive of me, and I consider him a bit of a mentor figure." Across the board, Tuttle sees Duplass's support of young filmmakers as "comprehensive and unwavering."
Director Elliot Tuttle at the premiere of Blue Film at 2025 NewFest at SVA Theater in New York City.Rob Kim/Getty Images
Does Tuttle want to keep tackling challenging subjects, like sex, in his next few projects? The filmmaker teases that he "got a lot of that kind of writing out of me with Blue Film." When asked about sky-high dream collaborators, he replies, "It's a very lofty aspiration, but I'd love to work with Isabelle Huppert."
Tuttle is also eager to work with his friend, Ryan Simpkins, in the near future. Otherwise, the writer/director is interested in bringing a musician into their first acting role. "I love the world of music, and I would really love to be able to find something for a musician who's never acted before, and try to build something," Tuttle concludes.
Count us in!
Blue Film is currently playing in film festivals, and a wider release is expected for 2026.
The holiday season is just around the corner, which means hot cocoa, plenty of flannel, and curling up with a fuzzy blanket to watch a cute Christmas movie.
Lucky for us, Lifetime is working to correct this problem with the upcoming The Firefighter's Christmas Wish, a sapphic Christmas rom-com about two women who fall in love.
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According to the official synopsis, “When firefighter Dani Reed (Holly Deveaux) rescues a family just before Christmas, she reignites her late mother's ‘Holiday Heroes’ fundraiser to help the community. With her ambitious sister Jackie, charming photographer Sasha, and supportive dad by her side, Dani finds love, purpose, and the courage to step into true leadership.”
After seeing those New Zealand women’s firefighters teasing their sexy calendar, we can’t wait to see someone living out our new dream of falling for a buff female firefighter.
Kyana Teresa, who stars as Sasha DuBois, the photographer who falls for Dani (Holly Deveaux), posted the poster for the upcoming film on Instagram with a message about the importance of queer stories, especially in our current political climate.
“It’s an absolute honour and privilege to be able to represent positive queer characters and stories especially during a time when we desperately need it most,” she wrote. “LGTBQ+ rights are under attack, queer media is being quietly removed from our screens, and anything we can do to show up, be visible and remain resilient in the face of it all is an absolute WIN.”
Of course, sapphics went wild in the comments and started reposting the poster all over social media.
“AHHHHHH!!! omg a new queer holiday romance movie!!! i promoted this on twitter and there's a whole queer community there that's excited, we can't wait,” one person commented.
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“a sapphic firefighter christmas movie? oh im seated,” someone else wrote on X, while another excited person posted, “oh my god a SAPPHIC HOLIDAY ROMCOM FEATURING A FEMALE FIREFIGHTER?!”
Teresa said she is unsure when the movie will be released, but it’s likely the holiday rom-com will hit our screens sometime before Christmas.
From left: Hunter Schafer, Tom Ford, Lux Pascal, and Adele.
Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images; tinseltown/Shutterstock; Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Disney; lev radon/Shutterstock
Fashion designer and filmmaker Tom Ford is set to direct his first film in almost a decade, and it’s going to be the next gay obsession.
The openly gay A Single Man director is helming and writing an adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Cry To Heaven, and it's also going to star gay icon Adele and some of your fave trans actors.
The movie, about a Venetian noble and a rival castrato singer who are both trying to succeed in the world of opera, is already in preproduction in London and Rome. While we don’t know a lot about the film yet, if it’s anything like the book, it will be full of betrayal, gay love, revenge, and plenty of melodrama.
But what do we know about the movie, what clues does the book give us about what the film will contain, and who is starring in it?
What is ‘Cry To Heaven’ about?
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We don’t have an official synopsis for the film yet, but the novel is set against the backdrop of 18th-centruy Italian opera and follows the intertwining lives of Guido Maffeo, a celebrated opera singer who was castrated when he was a young peasant boy, and Tonio Treschi, a Venetian nobleman forced to become a castrato by his exiled brother, Carlo. When Tonio is sent to study with Guido, the two men enter into a complex romantic and sexual relationship while also seeking revenge against Carlo.
Add in the unique position of the castrati who were lusted after by both men and women, as well as themes around identity, sexuality, and significant age-gap relationships, and you’re looking at a very gay-centric story.
What is a castrato?
In Cry To Heaven, both main characters are castrato singers, but what does that mean? A castrato is a male singer who underwent castration to retain his higher-pitched singing voice that would have been equivalent to a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto. This procedure was usually done to boys when they were 8 to 10 years old and would keep their voices in the prepubescent range. The practice started in the 1500s, and its popularity started waning in the 19th century when it was largely phased out.
Who is starring in 'Cry to Heaven'?
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The film will not only reunite Ford with Colin Firth and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who have both starred in two of his previous films, but will also feature Adele in her first acting role and will have some excellent LGBTQ+ representation.
Both trans actors Hunter Schafer (Euphoria) and Lux Pascal (Pedro Pascal’s sister) are starring alongside Nicholas Hoult, Ciarán Hinds, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Paul Bettany, Owen Cooper, Daniel Quinn-Toye, Josephine Thiesen, Thandiwe Newton, Theodore Pellerin, Daryl McCormack, Cassian Bilton, and Hauk Hannemann.
Is 'Cry To Heaven' based on a book?
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The upcoming Cry To Heaven movie is based a novel by Anne Rice, who also famously penned Interview with the Vampire. The book was published in 1982 and was a commercial flop at the time, receiving mixed reviews with some critics enjoying its eroticism and sexual tension and others thinking it was melodramatic with overwrought dialogue.
When will it premier?
Cry To Heaven will start filming in January 2026, but while there is no word yet on when it will premiere, it is predicted to have a fall 2026 release date.
Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly and Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada 2 teaser.
20th Century Studios
A sequel. For spring. Groundbreaking!
Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are all reprising their respective roles as Miranda Priestly, Andy Sachs, Emily, and Nigel on The Devil Wears Prada 2 — which just dropped a brand-new teaser that has the gays shaking in their Prada boots.
Director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna are attached to this sequel, which is scheduled for May 2026. The film also "introduces an all-new runway of characters including Kenneth Branagh, Simone Ashley, Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu, Patrick Brammall, Caleb Hearon, Helen J. Shen, Pauline Chalamet, B.J. Novak, and Conrad Ricamora."
The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens in theaters on May 1, 2026.
Reed Birney as Hank Grant and Kieron Moore as Aaron Eagle in Blue Film.Fusion Entertainment
Kieron Moore as Aaron Eagle in Blue Film. Fusion Entertainment 
Reed Birney as Hank Grant in Blue Film.Fusion Entertainment
Kieron Moore as Aaron Eagle in Blue Film. Fusion Entertainment 
Reed Birney as Hank Grant in Blue Film.Fusion Entertainment
Director Elliot Tuttle at the premiere of Blue Film at 2025 NewFest at SVA Theater in New York City.Rob Kim/Getty Images
The official poster for Blue Film.
