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The Paperboy première in Montréal: ticket contest!

More : Florida, Lee Daniels, Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy, Zac Efron

by 2B site Webmaster on October 12, 2012

Gays have been waiting with bated breath for The Paperboy to come to theatres, and now you can win a pair of tickets to its Montréal première! After the success of Precious, out gay director Lee Daniels’s gritty new feature was already on the gaydar when the promise of sex scenes between a ripped Zac Efron and sultry Nicole Kidman putting the film’s buzz into overdrive.

A big hit at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals, The Paperboy is a Southern crime drama set in the languid Florida swamps in 1969. Zac Efron plays Jack, the titular character who is like a walking 1960s “beefcake” model, who is in over his head. He becomes the chauffeur (and then some) to Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman), a sultry housewife who tries to convince Jack’s journalist brother, Ward (played by Matthew McConaughey) that her prison pen-pal has been wrongly convicted of murder. John Cusack plays the convict Hillary Van Wetter, whose innocence is as murky as the steamy swampland of America’s iconic swing state.

Moral ambiguity infects the entirety of Paperboy, with the questionable journalistic tactics of McConaughey and his writing partner Yardley (played by David Oyelowo), and the mysterious impulses of Kidman’s death-row-obsessed femme fatale. Based on a novel by American author Pete Dexter – who also wrote for the HBO series Deadwood – The Paperboy was originally pegged to be directed by gay Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, known for his love of frenetic stories adapted from real life.

Whereas Precious was infused with the themes of poverty, abuse and racism of 1980s Brooklyn, The Paperboy shifts Lee Daniels’s focus from the innocent victim to a cast of morally shifty characters living under the equally charged politics of the American South. Fans of Hollywood vérité will notice some similarities: just as Precious allowed us to see a totally unglamorous Mariah Carey as an empathetic social worker, Daniels casts R&B diva Macy Gray as Jack’s housekeeper and confidant.

To be one of 20 lucky viewers at the special preview screening on Thursday, October 18 at 7:30pm, just go to our Facebook event and tell us why you’re a fan of Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Macy Gray or Lee Daniels. The first 20 people to post will win a pair of tickets and a chance to see The Paperboy before anyone else in Montréal!