Independent film festival Full Frame, to be held in Durham N.C. from April 13-17, announced on Thursday that their opening night film will be Guilty Pleasures, British documentarian Julie Moggat’s 2010 exploration of how romance publishing powerhouse Harlequin Mills & Boon has affected the lives of five lucky, lucky subjects.
There are the three M&B obsessives, hailing from Japan, England and India respectively; there’s the male romance author who writes as the venerable Gill Sanderson; and there’s Stephen, the cover model for many a steamy sex romp whose life is one of celibacy and insecurity.
Shown in the UK last year, and airing on Canada’s CBC earlier this month, Tanya Gold of The Guardian said: “Guilty Pleasures bills itself as a ‘real life romcom’ and it is – in the way that Triumph of the Will was Zionist propaganda.”
Oh, good. So, just as Trekkies reduced sci-fi’s most notable fandom to a punchline, Guilty Pleasures, it seems, gives the love of love stories a bad name. But the real freak out moment? Gill Sanderson’s a dude? A balding, paunchy, 70-something dude? With a moustache? Huh. Actually, that explains a lot.
Rachel Hyland is the co-creator of GeekSpeak Magazine.
