Lauren Wissot holds a B.F.A. in Acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where she studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute. After years performing with the legendary Living Theatre and lip-synching with the drag queens and gender benders as "Lauren Vile," she gave up the spotlight to become a writer and filmmaker. A published film journalist and critic, Lauren is also an award-winning director and grant-recipient whose short films have screened in festivals across North America. Currently, she is bent on bringing an S&M flavor to the big screen with her scripts "Obeying Lola," a dyke dominatrix coming-of-age comedy, and the psychosexual trilogy "The Slave, The Shrink and The Stripper."
Attending the press conference for Gus Van Sant’s biopic Milk, I had a Eureka moment that revealed my own naivety. A woman had asked Van Sant about his creative casting decisions, not just in choosing straights to play all the major gay characters (including a stunning Sean Penn as the gay civil rights leader [...]
Irony held center stage at the press conference for Milk, Gus Van Sant’s passionate biopic about the first openly gay man elected to higher office in the United States, that took place at The Regency Hotel in Manhattan a little more than two weeks after the passing of California’s (heavily financed by the Mormon Church) [...]
Lauren Wissot examines how Paul Haggis has systematically stripped the Bond franchise of sex, wasting a phenomenal natural resource in the process.
If same-sex marriage advocates are ever in need of a Prop 8 teaching tool, the second part of Fatih Akin’s THE EDGE OF HEAVEN is it.
My mom has the hots for President Clinton as badly as I swoon for Arnold Schwarzenegger, both of us turning into goofy schoolgirls at the mere mention of our respective crushes. While the Governator’s arrogant, aggressive virility drives me wild, personally I’ve never fantasized about Arkansas charmer Slick Willy.
And yet I’d be thrilled to [...]
Yes, lesbian couples who suck blood as a team have an obvious advantage, but that’s not all to recommend this 70s cult classic. Lauren Wissot explains.
Jennifer Montgomery has cast female artists and academics in a video remake of DELIVERANCE. But is this gender switcharoo the stuff of inspired commentary, or is it just a gimmick?
Lauren Wissot picks her favorite cinematic sex workers.
Why does greed look so good? Lauren Wissot explains.
In the 9/21 edition of The NY Times Magazine, Randy Cohen, a.k.a. “The Ethicist,” responding to a writer inquiring about the morality of a professor patronizing a strip club, offered this little admonishment, “Nobody should attend strip clubs, those purveyors of sexism as entertainment. Strip shows are to gender what minstrel shows are to [...]
The author of CHOKE and FIGHT CLUB talks to Lauren Wissot about JT Leroy, the “physical business” of sex, and the inclusionary power of verbs.
Diablo Cody isn’t the only celebrated filmmaker with sex work in her past.
Lauren Wissot on three films that refuse to hew to preconceived notions of taboo.
Documentaries and socially-relevant foreign films are sexy, too! Lauren Wissot lists five international hotties who, no matter the plot, create a private porn of their own.
Ever since the great humanistic film critic Manny Farber died last week at the ripe old age of 91, writer/director (and former film critic and Kael acolyte) Paul Schrader, who so eloquently has been making the tribute rounds to Farber, has been on my mind. I’ve always been a fan of Schrader’s writing – [...]
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We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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