Author Topic: Other gay-themed movies  (Read 141606 times)

Offline Mandy21

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #250 on: February 11, 2012, 12:21:08 am »
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.
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Offline brokeback-fan

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #251 on: February 26, 2012, 07:24:45 pm »
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. 

Offline x-man

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #252 on: August 23, 2013, 09:55:46 am »
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.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2013, 01:56:33 am by Penthesilea »
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Offline x-man

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #253 on: August 25, 2013, 10:33:34 am »
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.

 
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Offline x-man

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #254 on: August 27, 2013, 08:28:19 am »
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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Offline x-man

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #255 on: September 01, 2013, 04:21:14 pm »
I notice that someone has recommended the UK film Maurice.  Rupert Graves as Alec Scudder, the young stablehand, does not even show up until the last third of the movie, but from there on the movie is his--and he provides the happy ending we want, but are afraid we aren't going to get.

YouTube has the full movie, and for the more jaded among us, someone has kindly made a 2-part video of the Rupert Graves section.  He was/is a terrific actor, and in those days he was very beautiful and hot.  I didn't realize that male full-frontal nudity was allowed in UK films in 1987, but there he is.

Watch both parts of the Scudder videos.  Five million people have watched the first part, but only a quarter of a million have watched the second.  They don't know what they are missing.

Go to <YouTube Maurice the complete movie> and to <rupert graves as alec scudder in maurice (1/2> and same citing for (2/2).  Enjoy.
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Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #256 on: September 01, 2013, 06:53:52 pm »
I have a decent collection of DVDs that are gay-themed.

8:  The Mormon Proposition
Bear City
Big Eden
Billy Elliot
Boys In The Band
Brokeback Mountain
Handsome Harry
The Laramie Project
Latter Days
Maurice
Milk
My Beautiful Launderette
Out of the Past
Prom Queen
Shelter
Small Town Gay Bar
Sordid Lives
Stonewall Uprising
The Times of Harvey Milk
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar
Trans America
Were The World Mine


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Offline x-man

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #257 on: September 14, 2013, 09:05:31 am »
BETWEEN LOVE AND GOODBYE, tla releasing, 2009
Has anyone else seen this movie?  It is so bizarre I wonder how others have reacted to it,  My first time through I kept asking myself if I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. 

The plot centres around Kyle and Marcel, a young couple in NY who are trying to make their relationship work and to con Immigration into letting Marcel stay in the US.  The Menace here is Kyle's super-bitch sister who will stop at absolutely nothing to break them up and get the apartment for herself.

The film take itself deadly seriously but the blurb on the box talks of "operatic excesses of melodrama."  That is the understatement of the century.  The two young men are hopelessly clued-out about everything, especially about the sister who is straight from hell.  Why Marcel would want to stay in the middle of the whole mess is inexplicable, except that he is so stupid.  The plotline and characterization are as subtle as a punch in the face.  You don't feel for the characters as much as shake your head in disbelief.

If you take the movie seriously, you will be disappointed.  If, however, you see it as a way-over-the-top parody, you will have a good time.  If you find it on the sale table in your video store or can rent it, and you feel like a little fun, pick it up.  I'm not sure I would go to the trouble of ordering it from Amazon.
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Offline x-man

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Re: Other gay-themed movies Gay Operas?
« Reply #258 on: September 14, 2013, 12:19:30 pm »
I didn't know where else to post this, so it's here.

We have gay Shakespeare, gay plays, gay movies--Why not gay operas?  (Yes I know about Billy Budd, but that is so forbidding and inaccessible to call out for something else.)  Shawn Kirchner could do it, even Rufus Wainwright, and others.

Then too, existing operas are crying out to be adapted.  Imagine La Traviata:  Hunky, naive, young artist finds slightly older, HIV positive party-boy in a dance club.  After a summer of spectacularly hot, continuous sex, the artist's father steps in and it is downhill from there.  Carmen would be easy: Hunky, naive, young soldier falls for slightly older, sophisticated, veritable sex machine, civilian mechanic on the military base.  They go AWOL to San Francisco, and after a summer of spectacularly hot, continuous sex, the mechanic tires of the soldier and hooks up with a professional athlete, and it's downhill from there.  Madam Butterfly:  Hunky, naive, young Japanese twink meets godlike bear American naval officer.  After a summer of spectacularly hot, continuous sex...Well a pattern seems to be developing here.  Anyway, why not gay operas?  Their time has come.
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Offline milomorris

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Re: Other gay-themed movies Gay Operas?
« Reply #259 on: September 14, 2013, 06:25:54 pm »
Shawn Kirchner could do it, even Rufus Wainwright, and others.

They are very good composers in their own genres, but opera is a whole different beast musically. And so is the operatic voice. Also, opera composers either need to know how to write for a full orchestra, or work with an orchestrator.

Then too, existing operas are crying out to be adapted.  Imagine La Traviata:  Hunky, naive, young artist finds slightly older, HIV positive party-boy in a dance club.  After a summer of spectacularly hot, continuous sex, the artist's father steps in and it is downhill from there.  Carmen would be easy: Hunky, naive, young soldier falls for slightly older, sophisticated, veritable sex machine, civilian mechanic on the military base.  They go AWOL to San Francisco, and after a summer of spectacularly hot, continuous sex, the mechanic tires of the soldier and hooks up with a professional athlete, and it's downhill from there.  Madam Butterfly:  Hunky, naive, young Japanese twink meets godlike bear American naval officer.  After a summer of spectacularly hot, continuous sex...Well a pattern seems to be developing here.  Anyway, why not gay operas?  Their time has come.

- I don't see much a market for it. Sure, there may be an initial novelty following for such adaptations, but--much like the practice of realizing standard operas in contemporary settings--it grows tiresome pretty quickly, and only a few directors would be able to pull it off well.

- There are plot problems. The libretti (especially for the operas you mention) would need to be altered to suit the alternative situations you describe. Swapping out the original words with words that fit your scenarios could have disastrous effects on the music and rhyme scheme. For example, Traviata opens with a party at Violetta's house. The libretto uses "festa" for party. The Italian word for nightclub is "discoteca." The latter would require fitting 4 syllables to music written for 2 syllables.

- Then there are gender problems. The female characters you mention think like women, express themselves like women, and the music written by the composers is optimized to relay that to the listener. Moreover, female voices do not behave identically to male voices. This is why there is idiomatically typical soprano music, versus say, idiomatically typical tenor music. And that doesn't even address the need for transposition into new keys...which is a huge "no-no" in the world of opera. The key an aria is written in is part and parcel of the overall mood and affect of a scene. Transposing an aria (or a role) destroys the overall harmonic structure of the opera.

I think that we should leave the standard operatic repertoire alone. It would be better to do what Charles Wuorinen and Annie Proulx are doing in Madrid: take a story about two homosexual men, and write a new opera based on that story. I am reminded of the opera Margaret Garner. Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison collaborated to create an opera based on her book Beloved about a real-life slave woman. The result was an opera that told an actual story about the American experience. As sexual minorities, I think we deserve to have our stories told via the operatic art. We don't need to "gay-up" operas that already exist.
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