Author Topic: Other gay-themed movies  (Read 141620 times)

moremojo

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #40 on: April 06, 2006, 10:21:38 pm »
I think the worst mainstream gay film out there was that awful Al Pacino piece of garbage from the 1970s whose name escapes me.

That was "Cruising."   I've never seen it, but I remember people telling me how negative it was.

I saw "Cruising" some while ago, on cable television, and do agree with the general consensus that it is disturbingly homophobic. This has less to do with the fact that the story involves a gay male serial killer than how Al Pacino's character evolves in the course of the tale. Pacino acts the role with conviction, but the characters' motivations are muddled and the specifically gay characters are depicted with little sympathy or understanding.

While on this topic, I wish to cite three other titles not yet mentioned here:

--"Der Tod der Maria Malibran" ("The Death of Maria Malibran"), a 1972 production for West German television, directed by Werner Schroeter and starring one of cinema's greatest actresses, Magdalena Montezuma, in the title role. This largely non-narrative experimental feature is ostensibly the story of the legendary opera singer Maria Malibran (1808-1836), but conveyed in such a refracted, fantastic way as to render any biographical verisimilitude inscrutable outside the specialist's purview. What Schroeter is really interested in here is evoking the world and aura of female performers, and specifically the special hold these ladies have long held over the imaginations of gay men. Although almost everyone in the film is a woman or a man playing a woman, this is one of the gayest films I have ever seen. It's also a masterpiece, and one of my favorite movies.

--"Loads" (1985), directed by Curt McDowell. This is the greatest film I have seen to date from the late McDowell, who was an independent filmmaker based in San Francisco. A powerful, experimental documentary of the artist as a sexual being, rawly exposing his hunger for physical intimacy with men. A masterwork of erotic film.

--"Beau travail" (1999), directed by Claire Denis. A loose adaptation of Herman Melville's novella 'Billy Budd', with the action transposed to the modern French Foreign Legion and Djibouti as the setting. This stands with "Brokeback Mountain" as one of the most hauntingly beautiful homoerotic films I have seen. The story shows how repressed homosexual desire can poison and destroy the lives of men. Denis Lavant, here playing the equivalent of Melville's Claggart, delivers a superb performance, and contributes unforgettably to making the film's closing moments both harrowing and enthralling at once.

Best regards,
Scott

Offline Impish

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #41 on: April 07, 2006, 09:47:48 am »
Thanks, Scott, for making me aware of all three films.  I had never heard of them before, and I'll definitely be checking them out.

Are they available on DVD?
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moremojo

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #42 on: April 07, 2006, 10:46:58 am »


Are they available on DVD?
To the best of my knowledge, "Beau travail" is the only one of these three currently available in DVD format. There is a Region 1 DVD put out by New Yorker Video, and a Region 2 DVD produced by Artificial Eye.

"Loads" exists in a VHS transfer, but I'm not sure if it's ever been commercially released that way. A print of the film can be leased through Canyon Cinema, based in San Francisco.

Cheers,
Scott

Offline JCinNYC2006

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #43 on: April 07, 2006, 03:23:27 pm »


Are they available on DVD?
To the best of my knowledge, "Beau travail" is the only one of these three currently available in DVD format. There is a Region 1 DVD put out by New Yorker Video, and a Region 2 DVD produced by Artificial Eye.

"Loads" exists in a VHS transfer, but I'm not sure if it's ever been commercially released that way. A print of the film can be leased through Canyon Cinema, based in San Francisco.

Cheers,
Scott
Thanks Scott!  I was looking up Loads, but could only come across another movie from the same director that's coming to DVD.  It's called Thundercrack, and it looks like it has a real John Waters feel.  The movie Loads sounds pretty sexy, reminds me that a movie called Sex In The 70s that I missed in theaters is also coming out soon.

Juan
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moremojo

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #44 on: April 07, 2006, 06:14:31 pm »
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Thanks Scott!  I was looking up Loads, but could only come across another movie from the same director that's coming to DVD.  It's called Thundercrack, and it looks like it has a real John Waters feel.  The movie Loads sounds pretty sexy, reminds me that a movie called Sex In The 70s that I missed in theaters is also coming out soon.

Juan
Hi, Juan,

Yes, "Thundercrack!", I've seen that one, on a VHS transfer that was missing about eleven minutes of the original edit. It is very much in the John Waters spirit--in fact, Waters was a friend of McDowell's. The film's screenplay was written by George Kuchar, a legendary figure in the New York underground film scene of the 60's, who by that time had relocated to San Francisco and had become McDowell's lover. Kuchar was one of the figures who influenced Waters's early aesthetic.

Kuchar's script is zany and poetic at the same time--I can't think of any other movie with dialogue quite as idiosyncratic as this. The film is also distinguished by a lively piano score written and composed by Mark Ellinger, and some beautiful black-and-white cinematography courtesy of the director, replete with strikingly evocative lighting effects served up by Kuchar. Perhaps chief among the film's assets is the brilliant central performance by Marion Eaton as Mrs. Gert Hammond, the lady of the isolated farmhouse in which the story takes place. Eaton is extraordinary in delivering what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest performances in cinema history, and it's a shame that relatively few people will ever discover it due to the film's graphic sexual content.

I saw a movie quite recently called "Gay Sex in the 70s" that I think is the film to which you refer in your post. It was interesting, but was primarily limited to the gay scene in New York during that era. I would have enjoyed a broader geographical scope of the subject, but the film is still valuable for documenting and preserving the remarkable air of freedom and celebration that marked the immediate post-Stonewall period.

Very truly,
Scott
« Last Edit: February 15, 2008, 06:07:20 pm by moremojo »

Offline Impish

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #45 on: April 14, 2006, 10:16:44 am »
I just watched "Longtime Companion" last night.  I hadn't seen it since it's initial theatrical release in 1990.  Longtime Companion was historically important because it put human faces on the AIDS epidemic for mainstream America.

This is a top-notch film in terms of production values and performances.  It's an in-depth examination of the AIDS epidemic and its effect on a group of friends.  It's sad, but the end has a big pay-off that's cathartic.  It feels really good to cry in the last scene.

When I first saw it 16 years ago, I knew only one actor in the large ensemble cast, Bruce Davison (who turns in one of his best performances ever).  It's really neat to discover that the I now recognized the other "unknowns," who had gone on to successful careers:

Campbell Scott
Mary Louise Parker
Patrick Cassidy (mostly TV)
Dermot Mulroney (who will appear in the upcoming "Zodiac" with Jake G.)
Stephen Caffrey (mostly TV)

and several other character actors ...  I recognized their faces but couldn't name them.

This is a truly fine film.



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Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #46 on: April 17, 2006, 09:13:39 pm »
OK, I'll help out in the lesbian film department.  I'll keep adding to it as I think of things...

Aimee and Jaguar (about a lesbian culture and a tortured romance in Germany during WWII... based on a true story)
Better Than Chocolate (classic but not very good, in my opinion)
Bound (awesome, awesome, awesome)
But I'm a Cheerleader (silly ... but fun and features Ru Paul out of drag!)
Chasing Amy
Claire of the Moon (classic, from the '80s and so dated that I can hardly stand to watch it)
Desert Hearts (not my favorite)
Gia (Angelina Jolie anyone?)
Girl Play
Go Fish (not my favorite, but very famous)
Fire (a film from India, which is beautiful and amazing... and was incredibly controversial, as one might imagine, when it was released in India)
High Art (lovely and based on the biography of a real artist)
The Hours
The Hunger (not the most *positive* depiction of lesbians... but *hot* nonetheless... plus it has David Bowie in it... always a plus for me)
Imagine Me and You (very recently in theaters)
The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love (silly, fun, a bit teeny-bopper and really like Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink for lesbians)
Lost and Delirious (good and sad)
Monster
Saving Face (about Chinese American lesbians, very recent)
My Summer of Love (very recently in theaters)

***
Not really films but BRILLIANT
The BBC has been making Sarah Waters' wonderful lesbian novels (they truly are wonderful) into very high quality mini-series.  I truly recommend checking these out... they're on DVD of course.
Tipping the Velvet (awesome, awesome, awesome)
Fingersmith (awesome, awesome, awesome)
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Offline Impish

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #47 on: April 18, 2006, 11:03:10 am »
Wow, I knew about only a few of these.  Thanks!

I recently watched the only lesbian film in my collection, "The Children's Hour" with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, from (openly-gay) Lillian Hellman's play.

Written in the 50's, the play is very dated and it's maddening how the sterotypes are presented.  Of course, the lesbian must die in the end...  such a bummer.

On the one hand, it does show the evil of homophobia, because it's about how lives are ruined by just the accusation of homosexuality.   On the other hand, the homophobia is presented as "normal" and I doubt  viewers in the 50's and 60's would "get it." 

I own it because it was historically important in gay cinema, and because it was a movie I would watch on TV as a child, an example of the kind of thing gay youth were exposed to in those days.
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Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #48 on: April 18, 2006, 04:47:58 pm »
Heya Impish,
Good call on The Children's Hour.  I forgot to mention that one.  Also The Haunting (the original good version) has a lesbian character and in many, subtle ways is about lesbianism (also not probably the most *positive* depiction).
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Offline Impish

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Re: Other gay-themed movies
« Reply #49 on: April 18, 2006, 07:07:25 pm »
Yes, I own the 1965 version of The Haunting and also the book it's based on, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.

In the book, Theo's sexuality is a teensy-weensy bit more overt than in the movie.
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