Author Topic: Other gay-themed movies  (Read 141630 times)

Offline JCinNYC2006

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #20 on: March 22, 2006, 06:43:55 pm »
Boys in the Band--yikes! I saw that one on stage when I was 18 and dealing with being gay and boy did it depress me. Everyone I was open to was telling me it was  look into my future, and I believed them, at the same time knowing that there was nothing I could do, or would do, to avoid it. I am sooooo thankful everyone was wrong.
I didn't see the play on Broadway and I caught the movie years later, so maybe it didn't have that same effect on me.  It wasn't my first exposure to "how things could be": I had read "The Lord Won't Mind" and "Giovanni's Room" by then.  A few years ago, I actually saw a version of the play in a theater in Spanish.  I was surprised by how much it held up, though they did update the play to make it modern time and changed some of the characters to lesbians!

But the first gay movie I saw in the theater was after I had come out, an 80s indie flick called "Parting Glances", which did have the effect of making me think about what my life in the big apple might be like.  Would I be the cute young guy who's adored?  The homebody who fights to keep his marriage going?  It's still a really good watch.

Juan
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Offline Impish

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #21 on: March 23, 2006, 11:37:17 am »
But the first gay movie I saw in the theater was after I had come out, an 80s indie flick called "Parting Glances", which did have the effect of making me think about what my life in the big apple might be like.  Would I be the cute young guy who's adored?  The homebody who fights to keep his marriage going?  It's still a really good watch.

Juan

"Parting Glances" is on my wish list at my favorite online DVD store.  I use its wish list feature to keep track of movies that I have already decided to buy someday.

Curiously, there was an column in a recent issue of "The Advocate" in which the writer talked about the importance of "Parting Glances" in his own "coming-of-age" story.
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Offline JCinNYC2006

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #22 on: March 23, 2006, 12:09:40 pm »
Yeah I think it was influential for a lot of people my age.  It had a cool diversity of characters in it, the gay married couple, the straight married couple (with the husband with a penchant for boys on the side), the pretty boy college student (ah those were the days), the hipster gal friend.  It's a shame that writer/director Bill Sherwood died a few years after making the movie.  Who knows what he could have gone on to do....

Juan
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Offline iristarr

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #23 on: March 23, 2006, 07:57:09 pm »
"The Wedding Banquet," an early Ang Lee film, I highly recommend: a gay- themed film with a happy ending.
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Offline rightstar

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #24 on: March 23, 2006, 11:25:38 pm »
Two more I just remembered: Love...Valor...Compassion, which I didn't flip over but my partner loved,
and a Cuban film called Strawberry and Chocolate that was quite good, I think.
there was also an old British film with a very young Dirk Bogarde playing a gay guy being blackmailed. Maybe in the 50s? Anyone know it?

Offline iristarr

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #25 on: March 24, 2006, 12:53:31 am »
Thanks for reminding me of Love, Valor, Compassion. I liked it so much when I saw it but had forgotten about it.  I've just signed up for Netflix so am compiling my Queue.  Another I liked is Maurice, about two young men falling in love in an English boarding school.  I believe Hugh Grant is one of them.  It doesn't have a happy ending.
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Offline JCinNYC2006

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #26 on: March 24, 2006, 11:01:36 am »
Really?  I find the ending of Maurice to be very sweet.  Just when it seems they'll be pulled apart, Maurice makes a leap of faith and decides to "run away" with Alec.  Before he does so, he kind of tells off Clive, the Hugh Grant character, and then meets Alec in the boathouse.  What I don't remember is whether the movie had a different ending than the novel.  I read somewhere that Forster himself found the idea that they could overcome their class differences to be together improbable. But then again, he also asked that the novel not be published until after his death.
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Offline iristarr

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #27 on: March 24, 2006, 02:47:09 pm »
I'm happy to hear that.   It's been years since I first saw it, on PBS, and I blundered trying to record it and cut off the ending. And then, apparently, forgot it (the ending).  Sure look forward to seeing it again, via Netflix.

(VCR-impaired, in California)
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Offline JCinNYC2006

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #28 on: March 24, 2006, 03:25:25 pm »
Do you have a DVD player?  It was releasd last year on DVD with a lot of terrific extra features.  I could always make you a copy.  J
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Offline Impish

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #29 on: March 24, 2006, 09:00:04 pm »
Welcome iristarr!

I think you may be the first lesbian to join us in the Safe Haven column...  and it will be so nice to get your point of view in the mix.   :D

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