Queer Beacon

Shelter (2008) - Lightshed 10

Shelter is excellent.  The acting is solid across the board. Jonah Markowitz's experience with larger projects shows throughout -- bitch really kept everybody together. You should absolutely believe the hype. If the movie is playing at a theater near you (check out the venues at here!), you must see it.

In Shelter, Trevor Wright is an artist who flips burgers at a local joint -- he is clearly unhappy; he wants to go to art school but has decided to settle for the I-think-I-should-be-happy-but-I'm-not state of mind brought by the fulfillment of family responsibilities, in his case, that means taking care of his cute little nephew, a kid neglected by his mother (played by Tina Holmes, she delivers a nice performance). 

You can tell through Trevor's sad look that something big is missing (I must say that a few of his more pensive moments, like this one at a cliff by the ocean, were a little tacky -- you can almost hear the "hello...is it me you're looking for?" kinda deal).  Trevor's best friend, played by Ross Thomas, has an out gay brother.  This is the gay brother:

That's Brad Rowe. I've had my eye on Brad Rowe since Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss. I always thought he had the potential to become a true Hollywood lead and never understood why he didn't.  He is drop-dead-gorgeous and can act.  Not surprisingly, Trevor's character falls for him.  Or is he just confused?

While sorting out his issues, Trevor's character shows us how nice being gay can be after all.  Shelter is all about the normal guys, some of whom are gay.  The soundtrack is great too.  I can't wait for Markowitz and here!films' next release. Watch the trailer (but read my caveat first) after the jump.

The Gay on Lost

The QB was right! M.C. Gainey, whose character name is Tom (nom-de-drag "Mr. Friendly"), is indeed our gay on Lost.

On tonight's episode "Meet Kevin Johnson" Tom even kissed his, uh, friend, Arturo (played by Francesco Simone).  It is not clear if Arturo is Tom's boyfriend or just some sort of rent-boy.  Watch the episode to see the context of the gay revelation (you can read the spoilers at lostpedia -- I will post pictures as soon as I get my hands on them).

Talk shows and homophobia

I saw the video below on Towle the other day. In the video we see Ellen talking about a boy who was killed because of homophobia -- the video sandwiches a clip from an appearance of comedian Harland Williams on Conan O'Brien:

The story Ellen talks about is precisely the reason why I started this blog.  I continue to firmly believe that the often negative portrayal of the gays in the media can cause many damages to our lives, it causes gays to stay closeted and out gays to suffer, be killed.  Things need to change.

Male, white, heterosexual talk show hosts vary the degree of negativity with which they refer to gays, but they are invariably negative -- damaging to us. The leader in the nasty homophobic jokes circuit always seemed to be Jimmy Kimmel.  Case in point: his latest lame attempt at comedy, which sadly got the support from major stars.

(You can read more and watch the Kimmel video at Towle). 

But Jimmy is not alone, and his Ben Affleck stint is not even amongst his worst homophobic bits -- do you remember his nasty comments about Brokeback? Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and David Letterman are all together in making homophobic jokes.  David Letterman, who I sometimes think is the least damaging of them, the other day said he was happy that the Spitzer incident at least did not involve an airport restroom.  I guess he could just be jabbing at the Republicans with the reference to the Senator Larry Craig story, but his comment could very easily be seen as "at least he (Spitzer) is not gay"...

Hopefully those comedians will change soon, especially Conan and David -- both have talent and are better positioned to negatively influence people and instill greater homophobia in society. Conan, for example, could have said something to Harland after he was done with his "joke."  Kudos to Ellen and the maker of the Ellen video above for shedding some light on the issue of homophobia.

10,000 B.C. (2008) - No Gay Content

Man, this was unwatchable. 

In 10,000 B.C. this tribe is headed for extinction and have to rely on their warriors to survive. I did not care, except that I kept wishing I was on the set to shampoo those people. Barfy hair was everywhere.

No gay content.