Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a rewatch.Who’d have thought that a middle-class, Jewish, straight couple would be the driving force behind Circus of Books, the iconic gay bookstore and adult shop located in West Hollywood’s gayborhood?
For that matter, who’d have thought that the daughter of said couple would make a sort of biopic of the business, trumpeting her folks as unwitting champions of queer equality?Director Rachel Mason chronicles the “life” of the store from conception until its closure in 2019 via archival footage, as well as in-depth interviews with Karen & Barry Mason, Rachel’s parents, her siblings, and former store employees, including future.