Tying the Knot presskit |
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Tying the Knot
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Sam in front of the
vandalized entrance of his barn
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Derrick and Wayne 's
Beach Wedding
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A cool-button treatment of a hot-button issue.
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street
Journal
de Seves cogent pro-gay-marriage argument
appeals equally to emotion and reason.
Michael OSullivan, Washington
Post
Compassionate.
Michael Wilmington, Chicago
Tribune
Informative and infuriating! The legal injustices
suffered by the two partnerships might just break your heart.
John Anderson, Newsday
Rousing and heartbreaking! This is the kind of
film you watch with the hope that the other side is watching too.
Kevin Allison, Out
de Seves cogent pro-gay-marriage argument
appeals equally to emotion and reason. Centering as much around
people as ideas, it follow s an Oklahoma farmer and a Florida policewoman
both of whom have become embroiled in legal struggles to be recognized
as spouses since their same-sex life partners died a few years ago.
In every way but on paper, as Tying the Knot makes clear,
Sam and Earl and Mickie and Lois were married couples, and the legal
roadblocks that have been set up to prevent them from enjoying the
spousal benefits that straight widows and widowers would automatically
get seem, to put it mildly, inhumane.
Michael OSullivan, Washington
Post
Of all the recent political advocacy documentaries,
including FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and BUSHS BRAIN, Tying the Knot
may be the most coherent and the one most likely to change minds.
Director de Seve does an outstanding job of humanizing the issue.
Convincingly shows that much of the anti-gay argument is the same
rhetoric used agains interracial marriage 40 years ago.
Paul Sherman, Boston Herald
Tying the Knot succeeds by putting a poignant
human face on the struggle for equal rights.
The usual suspects from the religious and political right pop up,
but far more heartening are the shots of gay people in Toronto,
Massachusetts, Amsterdam, and San Francisco celebrating marriages,
no matter how fleeting their legality. One Dutch newlywed puts the
issue in perspective. He says the Dutch base the degree of a countrys
civilizations on how it treats its minorities. By that standard,
how civilized is the United States?
Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle
The movie personalizes a ferocious political debate,
never losing its frequently sad human face. De Seve takes us through
both the emotional toll and thorny financial nightmare men and women
face as gay widows and widowers without the legal protections of
marriage.
Between the profiles, de Seve cleverly reconstructs the current
battle over gay marriage using shots of rallies and protests, C-Span
footage, and interviews with people such as gay conservative columnist
Andrew Sullivan and E.J. Graff, author of What is Marriage
For?
A sane, civil, humanist case for marriage for all, and you never
fully forget the woebegone faces of people like Mickie and Sam.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
Celebrates the heartfelt desire of most people
gay or straight to unite completely with another human
being.
David Mermelstein, NY Sun
de Seve makes an effective, and often moving case,
for tolerance.
Glenn Whipp, LA Daily News
4 stars! Packed with information!
David Sterritt, Christian Science
Monitor
De Seves thought-provoking and timely documentary
succeeds in putting the hot-button topic in human, and often heartbreaking
terms.
Robert Dominguez, NY Daily News
Tying the Knot puts a human face on a hot-button
issue. Instead of focusing on political polemics, director Jim de
Seve highlights telling, poignant personal stories that document
lives hurt by laws prohibiting gay marriage.
Stephen Farber, Movielines
Hollywood Life
The most sobering, most moving account of the
gay-marriage issue Ive ever seen.
Loren King, PlanetOut.com
Mickie and Sam's stories give Tying the Knot
a powerful resonance.
Sean Bugg, Metro Weekly
Gut-wrenching!
Chris Phillips, Frontiers
Absorbing and persuasive!
Ella Taylor, LA Weekly
Heartbreaking, frustrating, inspirational, and
finally hopeful.
Richard Knight, Jr, Windy City
Times
de Seve's well thought out film is an excellent
addition to this year's slate of political documentaries.
Steve Warren, Reel Time
Tying the Knot packs
a wallop! Informed and impassioned, de Seve translates polemic strategies
into a focused rallying cry.
Max Goldberg, SF Bay Guardian
Effective, sweet and moving! The personal narratives
pack the punch. Mickie and Sam are Tying the Knot's greatest
assets.
Melissa Levine, SF Weekly
Extremely effective! These peoples stories
deserve to be heard.
Chris Barsanti, Filmcritic.com
"I think our society is great because people
are able to live their lifestyles, you know, as they choose or as
they're oriented."
George W. Bush, President of
the United States
"Freedom means freedom for everyone."
"People ought to be able to be free ought to be free
to enter into any kind of relationship they want to."Dick
Cheney, Vice President of the United States
A lively, cogent docu...Jim de Seve gives a puckish,
scholarly summation of the institution of marriage itself...De Seve
captures the sense of a movement gathering momentum through times
as state after state wrestles with the issues and the president
seeks a last-ditch Constitutional Amendment to stem the tide.
Ronnie Scheib, Variety
Lively, incisive and comprehensive! The film gets
its punch by setting the movements progress and setbacks against
accounts of two couples who lost their life partners and suffered
dire economic consequences.
Amid the debate on both sides of the issues that de Seve diligently
records, the droll remark of Kevin Bourassa, a Canadian gay activist,
adds a common-sensical touch: If you dont like same-sex
marriage, dont have one.
- Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
The stories put an affecting face on the just-ripped
headlines.
Ryan Godfrey, Philadelphia City
Pages
The film brings the issue down to a persona, and
often personally tragic, level.
Tying the Knot makes the case that it is not just societal
recognition that same-sex partners lack without the official decree
of a marriage it is the legal rights that married couples
share.
Stephen Rae, Philadelphia Inquirer
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