Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Other gay-themed movies
Mandy21:
I just finished watching "Handsome Harry" from 2009. When I started watching, I didn't even realize it was going to touch on homosexuality. But a lot of the plot points began to lead in that general direction. It was a pretty good film, with touching performances by Jamey Sheridan and Campbell Scott -- two ex-Navy buddies that meet up every 32 fuckin' years.
brokeback-fan:
Since everyone has listed most of them - I have a couple that I also enjoyed:
Just Say Love
Get Real
Nico and Dani
Boy A
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Steam: the Turkish Bath
Summer Storm
Swimming Upstream – not gay, but beautiful movie and boys in speedos!
Billy Elliott
Connie and Carla
History Boys
Beautiful Thing
Maurice
Milk
Just a Question of Love
Jeffrey
All Over the Guy
Edge of Seventeen
East Side Story
Mambo Italiano
Trans America
L’Ennemi Naturel – let me tell you, this was one of the sexiest French movies I have ever seen! Hard to find though.
x-man:
Mod-notice: Preface text by X-man added on request; Sept, 2nd, 2013
I like to learn the names of gay movies I have not encountered, but I appreciate knowing something about them so I can decide if it is worth my money to order them. That is what I have tried to do with the films I have talked about below. I hope that those of you who have films to recommend will help out and post not only their names, but something about them, and what made you like them.
I was totally blown away by Private Romeo (Wolfe Studios 2011), which I saw for the first time on Monday, and now watch every day. I really was not prepared for it.
The blurb on the back of the box says this: "Set in a modern day military high school, the greatest romantic drama ever written seeps out of the classroom and permeates their lives. Incorporating the original text of Romeo and Juliet, Youtube videos, and lip-synced indie rock music, Private Romeo takes viewers to a mysterious and tender place that only Shakespeare could have inspired."
I began seeing and reading Shakespeare when I was 12. I really liked the histories and tragedies, but the love stories were something else. I could never understand boy-girl love and sex, so R&J left me cold--all that verbal foreplay. Two guys would just get down to business right away. Also, I have spent long periods in all-male environments, which, frankly, I prefer. All this may help to explain my reaction when I finally saw R&J in a context I could understand and relate to. The language does not get in the way; it sweeps it along, creating waves of sexual tension and frustration as the lovers come together. The tension is also there for 2 other cadets who are infatuated with Romeo and are wildly jealous of his new love (Matt Doyle).
The original R&J has a sad ending. Not so Private Romeo. You will finish the movie happy, with a smile on your face. All in all it works great as a movie. Take a chance on it. Ah Romeo, Romeo.
x-man:
A few postings ago I recommended the film Private Romeo. I wrote to longtime moderator serious crayons about whether this site was the best place for such a posting. She said it was. So I hope to post similar descriptions/reviews of some of the gay films in my own small collection that not everyone may know about. This kind of information is important to me, so I hope other people will do similar postings.
I only want films with happy endings. Some BetterMostians have suggested that I have a dark view of the world. This is probably true, and it explains why I am not interested in buying movies that mirror that view. I have watched them, but I don't want them amongst my collection. I mean films like Handsome Harry, A Single Man, Cruising, and Undertow (gay Nazis in prison? I don't think so! Even if the sex is not simulated.). Enough, already, of these depressing films.
(Of course BBM is in a different league, no need to talk about it here. BBM is not a movie; it is a gut-wrenching experience that left us all shaken.)
When I find out the name of a possible film I google it for reviews in order to decide if I want to order it. I made a terrible mistake with Holding Trevor and Leather Jacket Love Story. Holding Trevor is a glacially slow-moving hymn of praise to Trevor who is the writer, director and star. Talk about narcissistic self-absorbtion! I threw it away. With Leather Jacket Love Story, I should have been smart enough to realize that the operative phrase would not be "Love Story" but "Leather Jacket" which turned out to be a code for S&M. There was no clue of this in the reviews. I threw it in the garbage as soon as I saw where it was headed. Ugh. I don't suppose we need to talk about Shelter. Doesn't everyone already know about this gay cinema classic?
Next time I want to tell you about Strapped (TLA Releasing 2010), perhaps the best gay film I have seen.
x-man:
STRAPPED (TLA Releasing 2010)
After my disastrous encounter with Leather Jacket Love Story which I described before (It turned out to be S&M and I threw it out in disgust as soon as I saw where it was headed.), I was afraid that Strapped would be a bondage movie. I did not need to worry.
The blurb on the box says this: "A routine trick propels a tall, dark, cynical hustler (the strikingly handsome newcomer Ben Bonenfant) into a series of life-changing encounters in this stunningly photographed drama. But this amicable and sexually efficient rent boy begins to look at himself differently when he finds himself lost in a maze-like apartment building. On his journey through the building, he tricks with a variety of johns; sex is the commodity, but out of that comes raw, unguarded emotions for all. Witty, sexy and touching, Strapped is an unforgettable look into one young man's journey to understanding."
I have watched it several times, but have not checked any reviews on-line. So these are just my own thoughts about the film.
As the hustler visits each new apartment, he looks around and talks to the trick for a few moments, and then changes his name, story and personality to fit the new situation. He tells each man that he never turns the same trick twice, but always goes on to someone new.
The entire film revolves around a verbal exchange in the second apartment. Three men sit looking at the hustler standing before them. One does not believe him and asks, "Who are you (really)? He replies with a quotation from the French writer Michel Foucault: "I am an agent of desire. Do not ask me who I am, and do not ask me to remain the same." The point is that the hustler is the agent of his tricks' desires, becoming what they want him to be in order to answer their desires. Do not ask him who he is because, as we see in his unguarded moments, he doesn't know himself--until his last encounter with the young poet. In the poem he is inspired to write after their meeting, he says his longing is aimed at the hustler and then reflected back to himself. Only now with the poet, when he finds true intimacy, does the hustler learn who he really is, and that he can at last remain the same.
This is a highly intelligent and subtle reworking of the hustler-turning-tricks plot familiar to gay films and literature. Ben Bonenfant as The Hustler does a bang-up job with the acting he must so. He is, as he tells us in the Bonus Features, a straight actor playing a gay hustler who is constantly changing personalities.
Strapped bears watching more than once. Each time you see it you will find new depths of meaning. Strapped ranks with Private Romeo as the best gay movies I have seen.
On the DVD along with Strapped is the short film Screen Test. A male model comes to a studio to be photographed. The interaction between the model and the photographer is tender and sweet, and shows what can be done with a gay film in seven minutes.
Next time I want to tell you about and recommend the Donald Strachey Mysteries, a four-film series from Here!, 2006-2008.
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