Queer Beacon

Frost/Nixon (2008) - LightShed 5

Frost/Nixon is a great movie, but I don't think it deserved an Oscar nomination for best film.

In this movie, Michael Sheen plays David Frost, an entertainer who scores a major interview with Richard Nixon (played by Frank Langella) soon after his defenestration.

My major problem with the movie, and I hope I'm not giving too much away, is that I felt there was not enough time for Frost (who had been upstaged and beaten to death by Nixon's trickydickyness for 4 out of 5 interviewing sessions), to be able to pull a Rocky and defeat Nixon in the last round with no real or meaningful chasing-the-chicken moments. That was a bummer for me. The acting is awesome, though. Langella is fantastic, and so is Sheen.

The movie has gay content, at least I thought so.

It actually was something that kinda held the movie together in a sense.  When Nixon is trying to study his opponent before the interviews, he notices Frost is wearing loafers and there's a whole back-and-forth on the subject between Nixon and his adviser...Nixon's adviser, played by Kevin Bacon, suggests the shoes are too effeminate -- the homophobic innuendo was pretty clear to me. Nixon had liked the shoes, apparently was actually challenged by the notion that shoes could come with no laces, but is easily led to see the shoes for what they are: gay.  At one point Nixon mentions the shoes to Frost as being something effeminate -- this as a way to bully Frost; put in him in his place, Nixon's bitch.  But Frost doesn't bite the bait and at the end even gives Nixon a gift:  a gay shoe, and Nixon seems to like it. I was ambivalent about the whole thing, but I thought it all was neutral to positive in the end.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) - LightShed 5

I liked the movie, but I don't see what the fuss is all about; maybe because of the great reviews I was expecting too much, and this one was not any better than the previous ones.

In Order of the Phoenix, Harry goes back to Hogwarts as ugly as ever and tries to develop his own little army of magic nerds to fight evil Voldemort (played by Ralph Fiennes).  Harry has to keep his army a secret from this new professor who's an evil bitch from hell (played by Imelda Staunton).

In the beginning of the movie we got a bit of gay content.  A bully (Harry's cousin Dudley Dursley) teases Harry about Cedric (remember? the student who died at the end of the previous installment).  Apparently, Harry had been having nightmares and kept uttering the name "Cedric"...the bully taunts Harry: "Who is Cedric, is he your boyfriend?"  Well, it was a about time Harry got a little homophobic abuse, in what world would a nerdy kid like Harry not be taunted by gay-hating bullies? 

The bully learns a lesson, but still, I wish we had more.  Hopefully we'll get more gay content next time.  I'm betting on Hermione coming out.  Isn't she the biggest lesbian?

She is one of the few mildly cute kids in that school...Also, I was glad to see Voldemort looking less like an evil queen.  In Goblet of Fire, Voldemort came off as a vicious queen and that was not nice, this time he is just evil (no longer really a queen).

Fast Food Nation (2006) - LightShed 5

Good movie.  Fast Food Nation will keep you hooked to the end -- I just wish they had crammed fewer issues into the movie. 

In Fast Food Nation, Greg Kinnear plays an executive in charge of finding out what is really going on with a burger patty plant: management suspects there is bull crap (like, feces) going into the patties.  Ewwwww.  Eww.  Ew.  All sorts of gross scenes ensue.  The movie really makes you re-think your meat eating habits, that's for sure.  On Kinnear's quest for the truth, we skim through Mexican immigration, greedy corporate america, sexual harrasmnet at work, you name it (except, of course, for the gays, that was left out of the political discussion). The issues are certainly related to how the fast food industry exploits low-wage illegal immigrants, blah blah blah, but I just don't think the whole thing was put together seamlessly.

Maybe something like Nine Lives, or Crash or Babel would have worked better.

We had only one tiny reference to the gays.  In one scene Catalina Sandino Moreno (that bitch rocks!) comments on seeing a few weird scenes in a hotel (she cleans hotel rooms), and the other cleaning lady mentions the other day she saw two guys in action in the room while their wives were out shopping and that the wives came back never knowing what went on. The comment depicts a circumstance not so nice for the gays (closeted gays married to women), but I thought the tone from the cleaning lady was pretty neutral.

Bobby Cannavale deserves special mention for his good performance as a prickalicious verbally and sexualy abusive hot Latino boss.  Fast Food Nation is out on DVD.

Sicko (2007) - LightShed 5

Michael Moore finally got it right this time, movie-making wise.  In terms of politics he has always, mostly, preached to the converted as far as this queer is concerned; but I always felt that his points were either weak or poorly argued (or both), and his movie-making abilities, lacking, at best.  But Sicko is excellent -- you absolutely must see it.

In Sicko, Michael Moore goes after the health care industry in the US and the picture ain't pretty: a lot of people are uninsured, and some of the people who are insured suffer too, with constant and abusive denials for health coverage.  We see how well France, Cuba, the UK and Canada do in the area of health for their population. 

I never loved the fact that I live in Canada more.

We get some brief gay content out of a scene from Paris, we see two guys strolling their kids together, and I am pretty sure they were gay, I mean, they could be just French, but by their demeanor to each other and how close together they were...I'm going with gay gay gay.

Seriously, go see this one whether you love or hate Michael Moore.  I hope he does a movie about the gays soon, now that he finally got a better hang of it all.

Open Water 2: Adrift (2006) - LightShed 5

I actually liked this one.  In Open Water 2, we see Eric Dane shirtless the entire movie, agonizing with his hot fellas (old high school buddies) in the open sea.  Here's the plot: they all hop into the ocean, all of them -- and, get this, they forget to lower the ladder necessary for reboarding.  Don't you just hate when that happens?

Right in the beginning of the movie, Susan May Pratt, an old fling of Dane's, is holding her baby when she and Niklaus Lange (one of the buddies on the boat) barge into a room where Eric Dane (looking like a real boat captain) is banging some Barbie; walking away from the incident, Niklaus says something like: "Now that baby is going to grow up to be a Popeye lover or a lesbian." Okay, right?

Then later, Eric Dane is making a toast in celebration of his best friend's birthday (that's Niklaus), and at the end of the toast Eric praises Niklaus "great ass." 

Oh, and did I mention Eric Dane is shirtless, and then naked (although we don't actually see much) the entire movie?

Fantastic Four: The Rise of The Silver Surfer (2007) - LightShed 5

If you are going to see Fantastic Four just to see Chris Evans shirtless, don't.  You can check that after the jump (via Totty).  The only legitimate reason you could have to see this mediocre movie is the special effects, those are cool, everything else sucked -- the acting chiefly.

In this installment of Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer (played by Doug Jones) comes from outer space to destroy our poor little planet (like we need somebody else to destroy us). 

Not-aging-well Julian McMahon (Dr. Doom) joins the team to help  (or does he?).

The movie doesn't really have any gay content, but there are two quick scenes that involves gayety nonetheless.  In one of the scenes, Ioan Gruffudd (Mr. Fantastic, aka Flaccid Man) acts all macho and stand up against this bully army general -- after his hissy fit Jessica Alba (wearing contact lenses borrowed from the set of the Exorcist) says that the fit made her all hot for her man, to which Chris Evans concurs, embracing Mr. Fantastic from behind saying he is hot for Mr. Fantastic too! -- it's just a guy fooling around, but from Ioan's look at the end, he did not mind the attention:

[photos from Towle]

In the other scene, a not so nice one, Chris kisses The Thing repeatedly on the face and The Thing says Chris is making him uncomfortable, and pushes him away.  Stupid Thing, if Chris wants to kiss you, let the man kiss you!!

There's more Chris after the jump.

Venus (2006) - LightShed 5

Venus is both cute and creepy.  It is cute because the movie shows the life of two aging actors (Peter O'Toole and Leslie Phillips) -- the two have a nice relationship, they even dance together a few times (nothing really gay about that, but I decided to give the movie a LightShed anyway because it is nice for people to see two old guys dancing together). 

The movie is creepy in a Notes on a Scandal way: Peter O'Toole develops this creepy infatuation with a much younger relative of his old friend. 

I loved the performances. Venus is out on DVD.

The Lookout (2007) - LightShed 5

Great script, mediocre movie.  In The Lookout, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a guy marked for life by a bad car accident, he goes from stud-hockey-player to janitor, and no one takes him seriously, not even his family.  In comes Matthew Goode hotting his way through town to lure Joseph into crime.

I was a little disappointed with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting (he gets a little better towards the end, but still...disappointing).  Jeff Daniels, who plays Joseph's roommate, was very good and so was Isla Fisher.  Matthew Good was hot but bad bad bad.

We had one gay character, I think.  I will talk a little bit about that after the jump -- my discussion will ruin the plot.  You can watch the trailer here.

[SPOILER AHEAD]

Color Me Kubrick (2007) - LightShed 5

I thought Color Me Kubrick was very good.  Here, John Malcovich plays Alan Conway, a real-life confidence man who went around England posing as Stanley Kubrick, and getting all sorts of favors from people mesmerized by being in the presence of such a great film director. 

Alan Conway was gay and John goes crazy with that detail.  Before you can say "camp" John is already coning men all over the place and flaming it all up.  Don't believe in any review that calls John's performance in Color Me Kubrick anything less than perfect.  He rocks.

As to the gay content, and there is a lot of it, I initially thought that the light on the gays was not positive; after all they are all either duping people (John's character) or being duped.  John's character is all wrong, he is basically an inconsiderate drunkard bitch from hell.

Still, and I don't really know why -- maybe I just liked the movie so much, I didn't really sense homophobia exactly, the duped gays were dumb (but so were the few straighties and hooligans who fell for Conway's lies) but they seemed like nice people for the most part, dumb nice people.  In any event, the movie and the plot don't allow you enough time to create any sort of emotional attachment to anyone, and you'll like it like that. 

Color Me Kubrick is as much about the cons of a crazy gay as it is about two former employees of Stanley Kubrick (Brian and Anthony) who wanted to make a movie filled with inside jokes, Kubrick movie references, and joy.  And that, they did.

You should definitely see this one.  The movie is currently in limited release in a few selected theaters, and it was also just released on DVD.

Breach (2007) - LightShed 5

Ryan Phillippe was pretty bad and the movie kinda followed his lead.

In Breach, which is based on true events, we follow Eric O'Neil (played by Phillippe) in his new assignment with the FBI.  He is put in a quasi menial position working under Robert Hanssen (played well by Chris Cooper).  Eric has to help uncover evidence of Hanssen's many misdeeds and expects to make agent if successful.

One of Hanssen's misdeeds involves some sort of work pornography crap.  When I first saw the mention of Hanssen's "sexual deviancy" on the trailer, I thought we could potentially have bad gay content there, but (and I am not at all ruining the movie for you by saying this) his sexual deviancy has nothing to do with the gays.  Hanssen is, however, shown to be a homophobe.

In one scene, Chris Cooper's character (Hanssen) talks about a lesbian from Planned Parenthood who defends gay marriage in a speech she had delivered.  Cooper's character tone is derisive.  Awful. 

Then, Hanssen has to have his picture taken for some mural with people who served for 25 years at the FBI and his photographer is obviously gay.  Our gay is trying to make him look better (by telling him to do this and that) and Hanssen gets all worked up: he won't stand a "faggot" telling him what to do.  Awful.

Chris Cooper's character is supposed to be the bad guy in the movie, and we know that from the outset.  In these circumstances I usually give the movie a lightshed score (indicating a positive light for the gays) because in such circumstances, we see that the bad guy is wrong, we see that only bad guys are homophobes, and I had that feeling watching Breach (but not so much).

I must say that my hubby, who loves spy movies, thought Breach was better than mediocre.  Below, you see a pic of Ryan with the real life Eric O'Neil: