Queer Beacon

A Mighty Heart (2007) - No Gay Content

I really wanted to like this movie, the real-life story on which it is based is touching and deserving of a great portrayal, but somehow the movie fails to deliver, and I don't know exactly what was off.  Angelina was fine (not excellent, but fine), and the supporting actors did their job too, so I can't really put my finger on the problems of this mediocre movie.

A Mighty Heart tells us the real-life story of Daniel Pearl (played by Dan Futterman), a journalist kidnapped in Pakistan and his wife's quest to try to get her hubby back; the wife, Mariane Pearl, is played Angelina.

There is no gay content in the movie, except that this FBI agent played by Jilian Armenante gave me major lesbo vibes (like, major), but we don't get any indication that she is indeed a lesbian in the movie.

Alpha Dog (2007) - Shipwreck 1

This could have been a great movie. The story is interesting: we have Emile Hirsch as Johnny Truelove, a low-life drug dealer who likes to feel like his is the boss of everybody; Justin Timberlake as Frankie Ballenbacher and Shawn Hatosy as Elvis Schmidt, both of which gravitate around Truelove; and Ben Foster (the hottie from X-Men 3, only he is not hot at all in Alpha Dog) as Jake Mazursky, a small-time crook/addict who messes up with Truelove.  As payback, Truelove kidnaps his brother Zack Mazusky (played by Anton Yelchin).  The brother is kept in captivity, like this:

 

Life in captivity is not looking so bad for Zack, but things take a dark turn when Truelove feels threatened with jail time.  I like this type of story, involving middle to upper class teenagers in California -- nothing new, but interesting; Sharon Stone rocks as Zack's mom, a desperate housewife.

Ben and Anton did pretty well too.  Justin needs a little more work, but I think he has screen potential.  Maybe he'll be better in Black Snake Moan.  Anyway, other than the acting I singled out, the execution of the movie is mediocre at best, and so is the movie.

On the gay content front the movie is bad.  There are so many homophobic epithets: "faggots," charged "queers" etc., uttered by everybody (from good guys to bad guys).  I think the worst scene is the one in which Justin's character teases Shawn's character about him being gay and in love with Truelove, it's pretty bad.  Another bad instance of homophobia comes when Zack, the kidnapped boy, is in the bathroom with a bunch of people and when a guy tries to walk in, he yells something like: "no fucking queers in here." 

All bad, except maybe for two sort of (just sort of) neutral scenes: one time, Zack the victim, says that he likes his mom (played by Sharon Stone) and that he knows that that was "kinda gay;" another time, when Truelove and Justin's character are looking for a place to hide Zack, they go to this house full of people and one of those people is called "Gay Lumpy."  I thought he was gay, but that might have been just his name...Lumpy the "gay" was treated nicely by the owner of the house, a neutral light.

I want it to be clear that I don't think that the movie does not reflect reality, that amount of homophobia might very well be the reality in that setting of teenage thugs and in many other settings, but the 'reality' should not prevent us from calling on the homophobia.  Shame on writer/director Nick Cassavetes.

American Dreamz (2006) - LightShed 8

What was I thinking? American Dreamz is unwatchable.  It's got a big cast: Hugh Grant, Marcia Gay Harden, Willem Dafoe, Mandy Moore, and Seth Myers.  Marcia, Hugh and Mandy have performed well before, but they all sucked here.

In American Dreamz, Hugh Grant is both Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest, he hosts, produces and is the judge on an American Idol type show. One of the contestants, played by Sam Golzari, is involved in a plot to blow up the American President (played by Dennis Quaid), who will be a guest judge in the show finale.

Seriously. Don't see it. The contestants are painful to watch.  I guess the movie tried to show contestants that looked like and sounded like the rejects from American Idol, except for Mandy of course, bitch can sing.  The American Idol rejects are usually pretty funny, but the contestants in the movie just sucked, they were not funny at all.

At least we got gay content.  The dad of one of the contestants, played by Mandy Moore, is gay and is living in another city with another man.  She mentions it to her manager, played by Seth Myers, who is devising publicity strategies for her, something that would show her as personable, but Seth dismisses the gay dad thing, like that's something that needs to be hidden.  Not too nice.

In one of the rounds, after Omer, the character played by Sam Golzari, performs Hugh Grant says he liked the performance and that he just became omer-sexual. Neutral, I guess it was supposed to be a play with "metrosexual," I guess it was also supposed to be funny.

We have one gay character pretty much throughout the movie, which here on the Queer Beacon would usually mean a LightShed 10, but the light for our gay is not all positive.  Our gay is played by Tony Yalda, seen below on the right, holding the sign.

Our gay is super shallow, but so is his straight sister, and our gay is a little jealous of his cousin Omer.  But it is nice to see that his family loves him and apparently has no problem with his being gay, they really love him.  Anyway, he comes out as an annoying queen.  Queens are nice.  I love queens, but not annoying queens.  Still, positive light overall.

All the King's Men (2006) - No Gay Content

All the King's Men got so many bad reviews, you almost wouldn't wanna see it.  But with a cast like that, how can you not?  We have Sean Penn, Jude Law, Patricia Clarkson, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet, Kathy Baker, James Gandolfini, and Mark Ruffalo.  It should have been the movie of the year, right?  But it wasn't, I think director Steven Zaillian screwed up if you ask me -- everybody was kinda lost in the movie. 

In All the King's Men, we clumsily follow the rise and fall of a southern politician.  Sean Penn is the politician, Jude Law is his right hand.  That's pretty much all you need to know.  Oh, and the 1949 version, also based on Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer wining book, got the Oscar for best picture back then...so maybe you should watch that instead.

Anyway, with the bad reviews, I ended up going into the movie with no expectations -- because of that I guess I enjoyed the movie more than I would have otherwise (remember how excited I was in this post?), but still, the movie was barely mediocre.

No gay content, even though I sensed quite a bit of heat between Jude Law and Sean Penn, and between Jude Law and Mark Ruffalo...it was all in my head though.

A Good Woman (2005) - No Gay Content

Mediocre movie.  It starts off really bad, but it gets a little better.

I cannot believe they managed to screw up -- they had a great plot and a nice cast (Scarlett Johansson and Tom Wilkinson). 

Helen Hunt was also a lead here.  I love her, I do think she is pretty, but she was not the right one for this role.  She is supposed to steal Mark Umbers from Scarlett.  No way Jose.

The movie is based on Lady Windermere's Fan, from Oscar Wilde, so you can expect some awesome lines.  Too bad the delivery was not there.

No gay content :-(

I guess you can rent this, but don't expect much, at all.

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.

Art School Confidential (2006) - LightShed 7

Good movie.  I expected much more, but it was good.

In Art School Confidential, Max Minghella is a young artist who wants to make it big in the art world, he goes to a prestigious art school in New York and learns that the art world is way tougher than he thought.  Having talent is the least of his concerns -- he really has to learn how to "suck cock and lick ass" as a fellow artist, played by Jim Broadbent, explains. 

To make things crazier, there's a serial killer on the loose.

The great cast also included hottie Matt Keeslar (who played a gay character in Urbania), John Malkovich, and Angelica Huston.

We had tons of gay content, peppered throughout the entire movie.  Not all was positive though.

Here are some highlights from the gay content in the movie:

Early in the movie we see a butch girl with a backpack that carried an equal sign from the Human Rights Campaign, that was nice, even if she wasn't a lesbian.

Max Minghella has a roommate, played by Nick Swardson, who was obviously conflicted with his sexuality (you kinda get that from the trailer).  He is quite effeminate and he goes out of his way to say he misses his girlfriend right off the bat.

Two street punks call Max and his classmate, played by Joel Moore, faggots.  The punks say they make a cute couple in an offensive way, but Joel just shrugs and actually puts his arms around Max, not minding at all if he looks gay or not.  Excellent.

When Max tells his parents about a girlfriend (played by Sophia Myles) the parents hug each other in relief and happiness.  This was supposed to be funny but it's just offensive. Max's sister even spells out to Max that the reason why their parents are hugging is because they are happy to know Max is "not a homo."  I know that is probably the truth today and most parents would still be all happy and relieved to learn their kid is not gay, but that is sad.  Dianne Keaton in The Family Stone and Jack Thompson in The Sum of Us are just two great examples of how parents should behave with their gay kids.

Later on, we learn that Max's girlfriend (Sophia) had a lesbian affair with an artist.  The artist run into the new couple and she is all angry and crazy, but that's not a big deal.  Max acts naturally and don't even mention the fact (that his girlfriend had a lesbian affair).  So, that was nice. 

But when Sophia is alone, the artist tells her that she can crawl back to her when she is done with men, and kisses her on the lips.  Sophia dismisses her former lesbian lover by rolling her eyes and we can see Sophia was sort of embarrassed by her, so that was not so hot.

  Jim Broadbent plays a failed artist whose first advice to Max is to learn how to be good at cock sucking and ass licking.  Initially you think that Jim is actually making a pass on Max, but that's not the case.  Still, it was kind of a bad use of "cock sucking" and "ass licking" I thought.

I got major gay vibes from John Malkovich's character, but I'm not going there...

Oh, and there's a scene in which a male model poses for an art class.  The model is fugly but he is quite an exhibitionist -- and we see his sizable tool clearly and for quite a long screen time.

I will discuss two other incidents, one positive and one negative but they will spoil a bit of the movie.  Read on or go see Art School Confidential. [SPOILER AHEAD]

A Prairie Home Companion (2006) - No Gay Content

Very good movie.   

Here, an ensemble cast tells us the story of a radio show called A Prairie Home Companion.  The show is (still) aired on Public Radio in the U.S. and apparently it was a big hit.  Garrison Keillor wrote the screenplay and also played himself, the host of the show.  Garrison's story is a fictionalized account of how the show ended.  Robert Altman directed.

Our characters included Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as sisters in a double act. 

There was a great chemistry between them -- they could easily get Oscar nominations for their performance.  You saw a bit of their act in their presentation of the Oscar to Robert Altman:

Just in case you didn't know, Lily Tomlin is an out lesbian.  I guess you can sort of think of her as a female Ian McKellen.  Both are outstanding out gay actors.  We need more of those.

Lindsay Lohan is also in the movie.  She plays Meryl's daugther, and I was pretty surprised with her performance.  In the movie, her character is obsessed with suicide and death.  I think she has a future -- she just needs to stay away from bad movies. 

We also had Woody Harrelson and John C. Riley, both very good, as a pair of singing cowboys.

   

So, the acting was truly superb (particularly Garrison Keillor, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin -- loved them).  Lily definitely needs more screen time and more projects, we rarely get to see her act. 

I thought Kevin Kline and Virginia Madsen could have been better though -- they were good, don't get me wrong, but they can deliver much more than that.  Kevin was involved with the management of the radio show and Virginia was a mysterious stranger.  Virginia was a bit lost and Kevin was dull.  Well, her role was kind of weird, kind of a Woody Allen role (I won't say much more here, go see the movie). 

No content for our gay movie review, although there was one scene in which Woody Harrelson mentions something about a guy's bulge and that only someone not normal would look at it -- something like that.  That could be potentially homophobic, but I didn't really get that part, they have that small dialog while a hundred other people are talking and screaming at the same time...so I'm leaving it out.

I say A Prairie Home Companion is very good, not excellent, basically because of the subject.  The type of radio show portrayed in the movie is uninteresting to me and the flick is very much about radio.  In that sense, A Prairie Home resonates more with A Mighty Wind than with Best in Show.  Both A Mighty Wind and Best in Show deal with subjects that are as boring to me as radio is (folk music and dog shows, respectively).  Somehow, A Mighty Wind is a great movie, but difficult to watch if you are not into folk music.  On the other hand, Best in Show is a fantastic movie regardless of your taste for dog shows.  I think Best in Show was more successful in focusing on the various eccentric characters (including quite a few gay ones) rather than on the dog show thing.

Anyway, go see A Prairie Home Companion, it's definitely worth your time.

After the Sunset (2004) - LightShed 8

Bad movie.  That's a pity because it had a nice gay content and because I saw the flick on the airplane to Brazil, holding my hubby's hand (oh, come on, that's cute).

Here, Pierce Brosnan is a thief about to retire somewhere in the Caribbean.  Salma Hayek is his criminal partner and will retire as well.  Woody Harrelson is a friendly FBI agent who does not believe the couple will actually retire, so he sort of stalks them.

We have lots of gay content for our gay movie review.  The first scene with gay content happened very early in the movie.  In the scene, Pierce Brosnan kisses a beggar, whom we initially think is a guy, but we soon find out the beggar is Salma Hayek -- with some bad make-up.  Well, we knew about that "surprise" from the trailer of the movie, but it was nice anyway.  After the kiss Pierce complains about her fake beard -- it tickles (I think Pierce looks like he can take more than a little little tickling, but whatever).

Later on we have quite a bit of homoerotic content, which turns out to be real nice for us.  In one scene, Woody Harrelson asks Pierce to rub sun lotion on his back, which he does, a little reluctantly, but he does.  Then, Woody offers to Pierce his own lotion-rubbing services.  Just like a good closet case would do.  Soon after that, they are fishing, and Pierce asks Woody to grab hold of his rod, something to do with a big fish he just caught.  It was all kinda hot. 

Then, Woody gets drunk and Pierce carries him over to his hotel room with the help of a bartender (played by the cutie in the picture, Troy Garity).  Pierce gets Woody tucked in, all cute.  A good male bonding scene. But then, Pierce warns the bartender that he will kill the bartender if he tells anyone he tucked Woody in.  The threat was certainly not nice, even if it was a joke.  That joke lowered the lightshed score, which would have been even higher otherwise.

In any event, it's great to see a guy being comfortable touching another guy, and we see a lot of that in After the Sunset.  That is good for us gays because I think a lot of the homophobia straight guys have stem from the guy-on-guy mental image.  Straighties find the image icky -- the "icky" gay sex, so it is nice for straighties to see a little guy-on-guy onscreen.  It's a good start, don't you think?

Then, later, Pierce is leaving a bathroom stall dressed in a diver's outfit (there's a costume party going on) and there are a few gay guys hanging out in the bathroom.  One of the gays compliments Pierce's diving costume and Pierce just thanks.  Super nice.

We also had some lesbian content.  When Woody is wiretapping Pierce and Salma, he realizes the couple is getting hot and heavy.  We hear Salma talking about a female friend of hers who is coming over to join in the lovemaking, all supposedly to have Pierce feel more relaxed.  Salma says she does anything to make Pierce happy -- which in this case can be taken as a strong suggestion of girl-on-girl action.  Woody gets all riled up listening to the conversation.  I have mentioned before that I am not really sure that having guys so into lesbian action is a good thing, because that can actually reflect female objectification -- instead of reflecting or promoting a positive light for my dear lesbians.  I don't have my mind set on that yet though.  I'll let you know.

While I'm at it, I also have a bit of problem with older male leads, like Pierce, getting it on with much younger female hotties, like Salma.  I know that that actually reflects real life -- we see it a lot, but it does bother me a little.  Women must hate that, and they have every reason to hate it.

Finally, the movie is shot in the Caribbean, and I think it missed a big opportunity to let straighties know about the homophobia in the region.  I don't think political activism and the gay agenda must necessarily be a part of every movie plot, but since this plot did include a small discussion on poverty and politics by Don Cheadlle, it would have been nice to have a little discussion about homophobia.  In any event, Don Cheadle is a bad guy in the movie and maybe it's just too early to expect bad guys to be gay friendly.

The hottest scene in the movie (including one hot pic) is discussed after the jump.  My discussion of the scene will reveal a bit more of the plot (but I will be far from giving away the ending or anything really major). 

Around the Bend (2004) - No Gay Content

Bad movie.  I saw it because it had played in this theater that usually plays good movies, but I thought I'd wait for the DVD.   

Here, Michael Caine is the first generation of Lairs, Christopher Walken is the son, Josh Lucas is the grandson, and Jonah Bobo is the great grandson.  Michael Caine dies sort of early in the movie, which leaves us with no professional actors.  Walken blows.  Josh blows.  Hard.  Michael Cain leaves a list of to-dos.  Male bonding my butt.  Watch grass grow instead.