Queer Beacon

Juno (2007) - LightShed 6

Juno is excellent. In the movie, Ellen Page (remember her from Hard Candy?) is 16 and she is carrying Michael Cera's baby.  Too young to deal with it all and unwilling to do an abortion, Page decides to give her baby away to Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, who play one of those perfect suburban couples.

The movie is a joyride despite the seriousness of the subject (teenage pregnancy). The soundtrack is full of first-rate alternative rock songs and the acting is really solid. Page certainly deserves the attention she is getting for her performance in Juno, but she is not alone. Olivia Thirlby, who plays Page's best friend (an unlikely friendship between a cheerleader and Juno, the screw-up goof-ball);  Allison Janney, who plays Juno's step-mom; J.K. Simmons, who plays the father, and Cera and Garner are all excellent.

We also have gay content, not all good though. In our first gay tidbit, Juno says that, ideally, she would give her baby away to be adopted by a nice lesbian couple. That is super nice. But then, later in the movie, when Garner is wondering about baby names, she suggests a name that Juno thinks is gay (I think the name was Marianne or sth like that).  Juno  said "gay" as though it was not necessarily a bad thing, there's no hate in her voice, but still we'd be better off if people didn't use " gay" to mean sth uncool (remember this post about whether it's okay to say "gay"?). Then, finally, Juno is just walking around in this mall with her best friend Thirlby when they bump into Garner, who was also shopping in the mall with her " girlfriends."  When Thirlby hears that, she asks whether Garner is gay. Of course, Thirlby just got it wrong, as Garner was referring to girls who are her friends, not actual girlfriends. That was pretty neutral.

You should definitely see this one on the big screen.

Mr. Brooks (2007) - LightShed 6

The rundown: Dane Cook sucked the hardest, but there was a lot of sucking (I mean, a lot) left for Kevin Costner, Demi Moore and William hurt.  God, it was awful.

If you saw the trailer, you know that in Mr. Brooks, Kevin Costner plays a successful business man who kills for pleasure.  He wants to stop but he just can't: William Hurt (who plays Kevin's alter ego -- they talk to each other like there's no tomorrow) keeps convincing him to continue killing. 

Dane Cook watches one of Kevin's jobs and starts to blackmail.  Demi Moore is a millionaire cop (yes, a millionaire cop) who wants to put an end to it all.

There was a tiny bit of gay content: in one scene, Dane Cook is reading this note that must be read by putting together words that had been circled on a newspaper, and one of the circled words is "same" on a headline that says "Same-sex Marriage" -- that was nice (although we can't really read what the article under the headline says).

Curiosity: did you see the video where Dane Cook talks about a gay roommate?  I don't know what to think of it (watch that here).

Blades of Glory (2007) - LightShed 6

In Blades of Glory, Will Ferrell and Jon Heder are figure skaters who get in a nasty fight at the podium while receiving their medals.  Because of the fight, they are banned for life and there's only one way they can go back into figure skating.  They need to skate in the pairs category.  Since no lady will take either of them, they end up stuck with each other.  The movie is pretty funny, I bet you'll laugh.  I did, a lot.

I still don't really know exactly what to think of the gay content, though.  There was very little explicit gay content, but the movie can be seen as being about, I think, male intimacy and the discomfort straight guys feel with that. 

The fact that men are (or pretend to be) uncomfortable touching another man is one of our biggest problems.  I think that explains a lot of the homophobia in the world.  Ending that unjustified disgust may very well help decrease discrimination against us queers.  Because the movie displays a lot of man-on-man action, I think that the resulting light turns out to be positive.  We see the two lovebirds touching each other a lot, with no problem.

Not once a homophobic slur is used, and that's great.  At first, the two are really bad at the touching-each-other thing, but it all gets better as the plot moves forward.  It is for that reason above all that I think the light for the gays is positive (MSNBC's review of the movie seems to agree with me).

But the picture isn't all rosy.  The gay innuendos and all the male intimacy were use as the butt of the jokes, no doubt about that.  But, in this case, I think the price to be paid is almost agreeable.  The gays were used for a laugh, but on the way to laughter, I think that the audience is led to see that two guys can be together, touch each other, dance: be partners.

In many scenes, the writing does feel overly concerned with making sure we, the audience, know Will and Jon's character are not even remotely gay homosexuals.  There are all sorts of hetero love interests for them.  On one level, I guess it's good for the public to see that you can look all gay, and still be straight.  As in: looking gay is fine for straight guys. 

But on another level, why couldn't we have one or two gay characters in a movie dealing with a sport so famous for having gay (even if deeply closeted) athletes?  I think we lost a nice chance to see some of those closet doors being opened.

The little explicit gay content comes when we first learn Will and Jon are going to compete as a pair.  A random guy being interviewed for a sports show says something like this: "like figure skating isn't gay enough already."  The comment came off as kinda negative.  Also on the negative side, we have Nick Swardson in a role so dear to him: the gay freak.  Our freak is a fan of Jon Heder's character and stalks him throughout the movie.  It is pretty clear that Nick's character is gay, but no names are named.  I must admit he is very funny in the part. 

By the way, is Nick gay in real life?

You can see a funny video with Nick after the jump.

Lie With Me (2005) - LightShed 6

This one just broke the mediocre barrier, but it did.  It's a good movie.

Here, Lauren Lee Smith is a super slut.  She has never had an actual date.  All she wants is anonymous, protected (yay!), sex.  Think Sex and the City's Samantha and multiply that by a thousand.  That's Lauren Lee Smith's character. 

She goes around town whoring it up, and she meets Eric Balfour.  She has her first date with him and they like each other.  But will her whore instincts be stronger than what she has with Eric?

Eric is hot in Lie With Me.  This is one sexy movie.

"Down on my knees for the very first time I remember there was all this hair in my mouth. I didn't think that was what it would feel like and the guy kept forcing himself in my face saying "please, please, please." He sounded like a little girl...I didn't know if I was supposed to close my eyes or keep them open."  That's a line from out slutina. 

The soft, mellow tunes were excellent.

This is the first movie in our I Can't Believe It's Not Porn category. 

I have never seen so much penis and vagina in a movie.  Ever.  You will not believe the amount of dick time Eric Balfour gets.  You see his erect penis for chrissake!  Fully erect.  You can try to watch that scene here (probably not for long though -- it's really explicit, be warned).

We see another guy's dick too (that's Michael Facciolo, who seems better equipped than Eric by the way), and quite a lot of Lauren's vagina.

With all that sex going on, all we got was a tiny bit of content for our gay movie review.  In one scene, Lauren Lee's mother is talking about her new place and she mentions her new landlord is nice, and that he lives downstairs with his boyfriend.  Excellent, even if very short (that's why the LightShed score was not higher).

A Scanner Darkly (2006) - LightShed 6

Good movie.   

If you have seen the trailer, you know the movie was animated.  The technique used is called rotoscoping.  Richard Linklater actually shot the whole movie with the real cast and then a software converted the images into the animation we see.  It takes about 500 hours to produce only 1 minute of animated movie, can you believe it?  So, after the movie had been shot it took an additional 18 months to finalize the animation.  The result is stunning and has a perfect fit with the plot.

In A Scanner Darkly, Keanu Reeves plays an undercover cop who is trying to score a big drug bust, for that reason he befriends this small bunch of druggies.  Winona provides the drug (it's called Substance D), and Keanu, Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson pop it like crazy.  They are stoned most of the time and the lysergic animation gives you an idea of how the characters see and feel things.  That's my take, anyway.

I always liked Winona, Woody and even Keanu (there, I admit it), but you should see this movie for Robert Downey Jr.'s performance.  He plays the perfect junkie blabbermouth -- he is lost, shallow, unreliable.

Now to our gay movie review.  In on scene, Keanu Reeves is in the bedroom with Lisa Marie Newmyer, and she asks about his housemates Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr., who were both out playing in the front-yard.  Lisa asks Keanu if they live there, Keanu  says they do, and she asks whether Keanu is gay.  He answers something like: "I try not to be, that's why I've arranged this transaction with you."  So, he's not gay but it's not a big deal to have been asked.  He wasn't offended.  Both question and answer carried a pretty neutral tone...Keanu and Lisa have sex and we can see a very fast dick shot.  Animated dick shot. 

In real life, we are still not sure about Keanu's sexuality.  It appears he denied being gay, but refuses to answer if he is bisexual or heterosexual.  Anyway, his butt shots are after the jump.

Hidden (Cache - 2005) - LightShed 6

Very good movie.

In Cache (that's the original French title), Daniel Auteil is the host of a round table on the public television in France.  Juliette Binoche is his wife. 

They start to get some weird videotapes that let them know they are being watched.  Creepy.  Cryptic.

Director Michael Haneke also wrote the screenplay.  He squeezed in a bit of gay content for our gay movie review.  In one scene, Daniel Auteil is editing one of the episodes of his TV show, and we hear one of the guests talk about Rimbaud.  We see that Daniel Auteil wants to cut part of the dialog to have his guest go directly to a talk about homosexuality.  Very nice.

Daniel Auteil goes sort of frontal in the movie.  We barely catch a glimpse of his tool, it's very dark in the room, but he does bare all.

Do rent this movie right now.  The DVD includes an interview with Haneke (pic on the right).  Make sure you see that too. 

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - LightShed 6

If you liked the previous installment from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise --called The Curse of the Black Pearl -- you will probably like this movie.  But, if, like me, you thought the first installment was mediocre, don't expect much from Dead Man's Chest. 

If anything, go see the movie for Johnny Depp's performance.  He is the movie.  As Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp is once again goofy and clueless, and excellent.  The movie will make you like his character.  Well, you gotta love any character inspired by both Keith Richards and Pepe Le Pew.  I think anyone other than Johnny in that role would have just annoyed me.

Remember that in The Curse of the Black Pearl (the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie), Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley were out to rescue Johnny Depp.  In Dead Man's Chest, Orlando Bloom and Keira are about to get married and they are arrested.  That's how the movie starts. 

For the couple to escape the death penalty, which they would get for having helped pirate Johnny Depp, they have to go find Johnny and negotiate a few items with him.  Johnny, of course, is in all sorts of troubles and is being chased by all sorts of crazy people, including a bunch of half-aquatic half-ghost creatures, something like the "Night of the Living Bouillabaisse."

We had a tiny tiny bit of content for our gay movie review, delivered to us in two short scenes.  Both scenes were just a little offensive, but nothing really major.

In the first gay scene, we see two sailors fighting over a woman's dress.  The captain of the ship tells them that if they want the dress they should share it, not fight for it.  Even though the tone of the captain was quite neutral and non-judgmental, all the other sailors laughed.  Silly sailors.

Then, later, Keira Knightley was pretending to be a male sailor in order to blend in with the crew of this ship.  After she got out of the ship, she was still sort of pretending to be a guy, and walking behind Johnny Depp, she asked something like :"I am looking for the man I love."  Thinking that Keira was a guy, Johnny does not turn to see who is talking, and he just sort of makes one of his weird, but disapproving, faces.  That was not too nice and that is the main reason why this movie is a Shipwreck to me.  It's sad, because Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow actually had a major gay vibe in quite a few scenes. 

Again, nothing major, but there it was, a tiny bit of bad light for us gays.

Everybody was pretty ugly in the movie, except for Jack Davenport, who played ex-Commodore James Norrington. (always click for bigger pictures)

Anyway, raking $132 million in the box office, Dead Man's Chest set the all-time record for a three-day movie opening.  The next Pirates of the Caribbean (which should be the last one) is set to be released on May 28, 2007.

UPDATE: Ronald pointed out in the comments that Captain Jack Sparrow might actually have said something along the lines of "I'm flattered, Sir," in response to Keira's "I'm looking for the man I love."  Ronald is not sure, but if he is correct, I will gladly change my rating to LightShed 6.  I already placed a question mark on my rating.  Johnny Depp mumbles a lot in the movie, but I am pretty sure he did not react verbally to Keira's looking for her man...I'll let you know (I think that might have to wait for the DVD though, I can't watch it again).

UPDATE ON JULY 16, 2006: Ronald, you were right.  My good friends at Oh La La posted my Pirates of the Caribbean review, and in the comments section there, Juno Reactor pointed to a movie clip that shows that Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow, very clearly, says "I'm deeply flattered, Sir, but my first and only love is the sea."  You can watch the clip here.  Johnny does put on a weird face when he hears what he thinks is a guy looking for another guy, but seeing the scene again, I think the face was more of a surprise face than a disapproval face.  I continue to have a bit of a problem with Johnny's gesture to his crew member -- don't you think it's a gesture indicating Johnny Depp wants the crew member to get rid of the "gay guy"?  I'll let it go, though, in light of Johnny Depp's recent declarations. LightShed 6 it is, for the small neutral to positive light for us gays!

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) - LightShed 6

Very good movie.

As you should know by now, this is the film version for the wildly popular novel The Devil Wears Prada.  Both the book and the movie are really supposed to be based on the hell it is to work for Anna Wintour (seen in a Peta ad below), editor-in-chief of the U.S. edition of Vogue since 1988.  The book and the movie, however, do not use the real Anna.  Our devil in the movie is called Miranda Priestley, and the magazine she runs is called Runway.

Miranda's assistant in the movie is played, well, by Anne Hathaway, and the devil is played by Meryl Streep.  Meryl was fantastic as usual.  She played a deliciously evil bitch who abuses Anne with all sorts of impossible personal and professional tasks.

There was no explicit gay content in the movie, but it was pretty clear to me that Stanley Tucci's character was gay.  In the movie, we see him talking about how he used to go to football practice just to try to be one of the guys, but all he really wanted to do was go and read Runway magazine under his bed covers with a flashlight. 

Also, in one scene, Stanley sort of makes eye contact with a guy, suggesting he was interested in the guy.  But the movie did not give us any hard evidence that he was gay.  Stanley Tucci was portrayed in a great light.  Down to earth, friendly and a very competent professional.  He helped transform Anne into this:

Another bit of possible gay content came to us via Rich Sommer, who is one of Anne Hathaway's friends.  He says early in the movie that he knows about fashion and brands etc. because he is really a girl.  Although that was a pretty good evidence that he was gay, he could have been joking -- that's what it sounded like anyway.  Later, Tracie Thoms, also a friend of Anne Hathaway, says she is going to introduce someone to Rich, someone he would like, but we do not see the actual introduction (it could have been a guy or a girl).  So, no hard evidence here either.  In any event, Rich's character was portrayed positively -- he was a regular guy, with good taste.

I hoped for some real nice gay content in this movie (yes, just because it deals with the fashion world), so I was disappointed that there wasn't much there. 

You should definitely see this movie anyway, it is very entertaining... and it gave us Adrian Grenier (pic on the right), who is kind of cute as Anne's boyfriend.  We also got a little gratuitous shirtless scene with Simon Baker (I like the caterpillar eyebrows). 

Watch the trailer here.

UPDATE ON JULY 6, 2006: Out.com just posted an interview with Stanley Tucci.  Tucci discusses the matter of his sexuality in the movie: "Nigel’s demeanor implies he’s gay, but he never really discusses it. He glances at an attractive man in the film, and he discusses how in his youth he would hide under the covers reading the latest issue of Runway instead of going to soccer practice. Was it your choice to not focus on Nigel’s sexuality? [Tucci's answer:] That’s the way it was written. To me there was no other way to play it. He’s gay. No need to spell it out."

Cashback (2006) - LightShed 6

Good short movie.  It was nominated for an Oscar in the short movie category.  I like short movies a lot but rarely get to see them -- they are kinda hard to find.

In Cashback, Sean Biggerstaff is an art student trying to make ends meet.  He works in the graveyard shift at a London supermarket.  Sean spends the movie telling us what he and his supermarket buddies do to pass their 8-hour shifts.  Artsy cool.  Worked for me.

We even had gay content.  In one scene Michael Dixon (who also works at the supermarket) pretends he is performing oral sex on co-worker Michael Lambourne.  I know they are just having fun, it does not look like they are gay, but it's nice to see they have to problem showing, uh, affection. 

A lot of my straight friends used to engage in that type of play growing up, and I bet you saw your fair share of that too.  If only that kind of play would develop into a healthy relationship with us gays... 

We had lots of nudity and frontals for the lady-loving ladies.  So, no male frontal, but I believe pretty much all the girls in the movie went frontal (or at least showed their breasts).

At just 18 minutes and $1.99, this is perfect to just download onto your iPod and watch it during your lunch break.  It will really take you away from it all.  Expect to see more short movies reviews here.

Download it now:

Last Days (2005) - LightShed 6

Good movie.  I like Gus Van Sant a lot.  The pace of the movie was pretty quiet and crazy, like Kurt Cobain's last days were supposed to be.  Worked for me.  This movie was certainly better than Gerry.

Here, Michael Pitt sort of plays the role of Kurt Cobain (the movie is not really about Kurt Cobain himself -- it's a fictionalized version of it all).  You know how it ended, right?

We had some interesting gay content.  At one point, two guys make out and they head to the bedroom -- there is a strong suggestion of gay sex (you actually see the guys on the bed, sort of -- but you cannot see much of the man-on-man action).  It's really a gratuitous sex scene, and I loved it, makes it all look natural I thought.  The two guys could have been bisexual too, we didn't get a whole lot of information for the scene.

They were all stoned all the time, and crazy and unreliable, that's why the LightShed score was not higher.  Still, having the gay sex scene in the movie was pretty cool and good for us (like, rock stars and groupies can have gay sex too).