Studio One Forever review – affectionate look back at LA’s legendary gay club

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Frequented by those looking for a refuge from homophobia, this documentary charts the history of the venue and the effort to save its cultural legacy ‘It used to be paradise. Now it’s a straight club.” The dismay is obvious when a bunch of former regulars at Studio One, the legendary West Hollywood gay club, take a tour of the venue in 2019. From 1974 until 1993, 9pm to 2am, seven nights a week, men packed the dancefloor of Studio One. “It was the happiest place on Earth,” remembers one. Looking at the photographs you can almost smell the sweat. One ex employee says that so many guys were taking poppers you could get a head-rush high simply by breathing in on the dance floor. The story of Studio One is told in this affectionate, nostalgic documentary. Film-maker Marc Saltarelli interviews men who were there and follows a campaign in 2019 to save the Studio One building – a former factory – from demolition. When it opened in 1974, homophobia was rife outside. Studio One was a place wh
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‘It feels very personal’: Anna Kendrick on coercion, not wanting children and making a movie about dating a killer

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She became a Hollywood star despite enduring industry misogyny and an abusive relationship. Now, she has poured her experiences into her directorial debut

This may be the year of the childless cat lady, but Anna Kendrick isn’t ready to team up with Taylor Swift just yet. “I don’t ever think about having kids, so I guess I spend just as little time thinking about weaponising that,” she says from the kitchen of her apartment in Los Angeles, hugging her grey cardigan close. One of the takeaways from the 39-year-old actor’s candidly funny 2016 book, Scrappy Little Nobody, in which she dished the dirt on the inherent weirdness of the film industry and her place in it, was: “Anna Kendrick in ‘Doesn’t Want Children’ Shock!” As she explained later, any child of hers would only end up being “another kid that your kid is going to have to fight when the water wars come”.

She sounds today like someone beyond even JD Vance’s comprehension: a woman who makes no apologies for wanting neither kids nor cats. “Here’s the best argument for why I don’t have kids,” she says, then explains how she was nodding off recently to the sound of TikTok cat videos. “I thought: ‘I’d have an easier time falling asleep with the weight of a cat on me. But I’m not responsible enough to own a cat. Someone should really make a robot cat that does all the purring and the kneading.’ And then I was like: wait, I’m not even up to the ‘cat lady’ part! Why would anyone trust me with a kid?”

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