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AfterElton's 50 Greatest Gay Movies Ever (and you LOVE #1!)
Ellemeno:
http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2008/9/50greatestgaymovies
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Without further ado, we present AfterElton.com’s Fifty Greatest Gay Movies!
1. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Ferragamos or Birkenstocks? Mojitos or good ol’ beer? Gay men don’t seem to agree on much. But by a wide margin of nearly two-to-one, you chose Brokeback Mountain as the greatest gay movie of all time. And how could it be otherwise? “It’s not ‘gay,’” said some, trying to broaden the film’s appeal, “it’s a ‘universal love story’!”
But is it really? Plenty of heterosexuals have had the experience of hiding a love affair, but how many of them know what it’s like to be forced by society to deny themselves the very possibility of love? This is the daring and fundamentally “gay” question at the heart of Ang Lee’s 2005 masterpiece: can two men simply allow themselves to love each other? And though the movie is set in the past, it is, ultimately, the very choice that every gay man still must make.
Jake Gyllenhaal is flawless as Jack Twist in arguably the movie’s most difficult role. But Heath Ledger’s heartbreaking portrayal of Ennis Del Mar, a walking cautionary tale of homophobia’s logical end result, is a revelation — a total acting transformation made all the more tragic by Ledger’s death earlier this year. But the indignities and injustices that Jack and Ennis faced did not end at Brokeback Mountain’s closing credits. Upon the film’s release, the movie’s makers and fans were subjected to a six-month orgy of tasteless jokes from clueless comedians and bile-filed commentary from right-wing pundits. All of this negativity culminated when the movie, long considered the Oscar front-runner, lost Best Picture to a fine but unremarkable movie called Crash, perhaps the most egregious upset in Oscar history and almost certainly the result of lingering homophobia in Hollywood’s old guard.
But that fusillade of ridicule and outrage is already fading into the gloom of a bigoted past while the movie’s artistry and quiet power shines brighter than ever. Let’s face it: this isn’t just the greatest gay movie of all time, it’s one of the greatest movies ever.
southendmd:
--- Quote from: Elle on September 10, 2008, 07:37:42 pm ---Let’s face it: this isn’t just the greatest gay movie of all time, it’s one of the greatest movies ever.
--- End quote ---
Hear, hear!!
Thanks, Elle.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: Elle on September 10, 2008, 07:37:42 pm ---Jake Gyllenhaal is flawless as Jack Twist in arguably the movie’s most difficult role. But Heath Ledger’s heartbreaking portrayal of Ennis Del Mar, a walking cautionary tale of homophobia’s logical end result, is a revelation — a total acting transformation made all the more tragic by Ledger’s death earlier this year. But the indignities and injustices that Jack and Ennis faced did not end at Brokeback Mountain’s closing credits. Upon the film’s release, the movie’s makers and fans were subjected to a six-month orgy of tasteless jokes from clueless comedians and bile-filed commentary from right-wing pundits. All of this negativity culminated when the movie, long considered the Oscar front-runner, lost Best Picture to a fine but unremarkable movie called Crash, perhaps the most egregious upset in Oscar history and almost certainly the result of lingering homophobia in Hollywood’s old guard.
But that fusillade of ridicule and outrage is already fading into the gloom of a bigoted past while the movie’s artistry and quiet power shines brighter than ever. Let’s face it: this isn’t just the greatest gay movie of all time, it’s one of the greatest movies ever.
--- End quote ---
These two paragraphs say it all; first goosebumps, then tears.
Thank you, Elle.
xxxx
John
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Yay!
http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2008/9/50greatestgaymovies?page=0%2C1
3. Shelter (2007)
There are “sleeper” films, and then there is Shelter. This small indie film received a very limited theatrical release in the spring of 2007 with a television debut on the subscription-only here! network only a month later. And suddenly, it was all anyone could talk about. Plenty of folks deemed it “the gay surfer movie,” but it’s ultimately as much about surfing as Brokeback Mountain is about animal husbandry. Instead, Shelter is a riveting family drama and a story of first gay love set in a working class world. Starring Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss's Brad Rowe in a career-reviving performance and newcomer Trevor Wright, there are no gay bars in Shelter, no drugs, no drag queens, no circuit anthems, no gay-bashings, no AIDS scares, and no screaming parents to speak of. And we gay folks loved it anyway. Or maybe, because it was so fresh and different, that’s why we loved it.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Loved, loved, LOVED this movie. Better than 13, surely!
http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2008/9/50greatestgaymovies?page=0%2C3
13. My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
Some movies are released; others explode into the world, crackling with creativity and audaciousness. My Beautiful Laundrette was just such a movie, highlighting the bold new talents of director Stephen Frears, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi. Of all the movies on this list, this might be the least overtly “gay.” Instead, it’s more a movie about racism and Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies in the U.K.
The gay element, even its gay sensuality, is presented in a remarkably matter-of-fact way, which is part of why the film seemed so bold and refreshing at the time. Like Beautiful Thing, My Beautiful Laundrette was originally a television movie, but there was just no containing this cinematic wonder on the small screen. And how often had we seen gay people of color on film before this movie?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091578/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Beautiful_Laundrette
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