Queer Beacon

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) - LightShed 7

I wish we lived in a wold where, if they couldn't come up with a movie like Benjamin Button, they just wouldn't make a movie at all; we would have the guarantee of being completely swept away to another world for the price of a movie ticket. Seriously, movie-making doesn't get any better than this; and, if you ask me, I don't think this movie was nominated for enough Oscars (but for one or two scenes here and there -- which we could have done away with -- the movie is perfect).

In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt is a guy who is born old and grows younger with age. That superb circumstance allows the movie to portray the impossible and heartbreaking love story between our aging-challenged Brad Pitt and a person aging as we all do (played by Cate Blanchett). I started crying at the scene when a 7-year old Cate sees the old-looking Brad for the first time.

The acting is superb across the board (Cate easily deserved a nomination for her role here).

We had a tiny bit of gay content. In one scene, Cate Blanchett tells Brad that there are a few lesbians in her dance company and that one of them proposed sleeping with her, she seemed proud of that, she was very non-judgmental -- and so was Brad's character. Nice. Later on, when we see some of the people within her dance company, you could see some guys who could have been gay (ok, I'll say it: they looked pretty gay) -- but we don't really know that, so I'm leaving that out.

 

You absolutely must see this movie.

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.

Character (Karakter - 1997) - No Gay Content

By Guest Reviewer Arjan Writes

Even though "Character" is not a queer movie, it most certainly has thematic aspects that gays can relate to. The sublime "Karakter" is a Dutch production directed by Mike van Diem that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1998. It is a modern film noir set in the gray and depressed city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands in the 1920s.

Written by famous Dutch author Frederik Bordewijk, "Karakter" tells the story of Jacob Katadreuffe (Fedja van Huet) and the strained relationship he has with his father Dreverhaven (Jan Decleir). The movie starts out with the mysterious death of Dreverhaven, whose will leaves everything to Jacob (who finds out only then that Dreverhaven was his father). Jacob is interrogated by the police and the plot unfolds through story flashbacks.

Jacob was born out of wedlock and raised by his single mother. Jacob's biological father is the influential bailiff and banker Dreverhaven, who is feared across the city for his harsh business manners. Growing up, a tumultuous relationship develops between father and son who keep running into each other. Jacob (not knowing Dreverhaven is his father) takes out several loans from Dreverhaven to start his own business. But when everything fails, Dreverhaven treats him like any other customer and demands his money back, which eventually leads to Jacob's bankruptcy.

Motivated by anger and frustration, Jacob climbs out of poverty to become one of the city's most successful lawyers.  Now, father and son often battle in court. During a final confrontation, Dreverhaven dies and Jacob is suspected of murder.

The question for viewers remains if Dreverhaven was so hard on his son because he wanted to make him strong or because he never accepted him as his own. Regardess of the answer, Jacob's biggest obstacle and source of frustration also became a source of inspiration and motivation that made him a success.

"Karakter" is a touching movie that not only features an epic duel between father and son, but is also an ultimate coming-of-age story.The underlying theme of the movie is that you can be who you want to be, no matter what people expect from you.

The movie is in Dutch with English sub-titles. The Dutch language might be a bit abrasive at first but you'll get used to it quickly. This is one of my favorite movies (and not only because my native language is Dutch).

[QB Note: SPOILER AHEAD]

Children of Men (2006) - No Gay Content

What a piece of crap.  Children of Men is unwatchable, I cannot understand the many great reviews the movie got. I disagree with them all, the acting was bad and the story was boring (save for this small subplot involving a rich guy and his son -- but that was it).

In Children of Men, people are living the last days of what turned out to be a chaotic, dirty, greasy, somber future.  Women can no longer conceive, so civilization is set to end soon.  But there seems to be hope (ha!), and Clive Owen is brought in to help out.

I already wasted two hours with this movie; I won't waste more time with it.  No gay content :-(

Code Name: The Cleaner (2007) - Shipwreck 2

In Code Name: The Cleaner, Cedric the Entertainer is a janitor who loses his memory and is duped into believing he is actually a secret agent.  Nicollette Sheridan pretends to be married to him in order to gain his trust and some valuable information about a computer chip.  Cedric is further duped by Lucy Liu, who pretends to be his real girlfriend.  Corrupt agents from the FBI and CIA are also on the loose.  You can see the trailer here.

The good news is that the movie boasts nice shots from the two most beautiful cities in the world: Seattle and Vancouver (the movie takes place in Seattle, but we can see that a lot was actually shot in Vancouver).  We have two actresses I like: Nicollette and Lucy.  Also, the few short scenes with comedian DeRay Davis, who plays one of Cedric's co-workers, are pretty funny; and, best of all, we have Niecy Nash in a character called Jacuzzi! I think Niecy is one of the funniest girls around and her short cameo in this movie is hilarious -- she plays one of Cedric's flings.  Oh, and the movie is only 91 minutes long; if you do decide to see Code Name against my advice you will be thankful for that...which brings us to the bad news.

The movie is bad, kinda watchable, but bad; and we have five scenes with negative-leaning gay content.

Our first scene with gay content is the opening scene of the movie.  Cedric wakes up in a hotel room next to a guy, and without knowing he is next to a guy, Cedric gropes him, only to be utterly disgusted a few seconds later when he finds out he was groping a dude.  His reaction was actually not so bad given that Cedric could have been repulsed by the fact that he groped a dead guy.

In the second gay scene, Nicollette takes Cedric to her house to try to convince him that they are married, and Cedric finds a pink thong in his bathroom, and he is all "oh this is so wrong." Again, not so homophobic, but not nice either.

Then, Cedric is waiting for someone in his car and a guy who is sitting in a car accross from him stares at Cedric, getting Cedric to go talk to him.  Cedric thinks the guy in that other car will have some sort of intel for his case (Cedric thinks he is a secret agent, not a janitor, remember?), and when Cedric approaches the car we learn the guy in the car is a gay guy who had arranged a meeting on the Internet.  Again, Cedric is repulsed by the idea of male intimacy and his reaction was pretty bad.  Again, gays are used for a cheap laugh.

Then, in a scene that was actually pretty funny, comedian DeRay Davis (who plays a janitor and rapper wannabe) is about to get shot while cleaning the bathroom.  To our surprise, the janitor actually invites the shot because in his reasoning the shot will validate him as a rapper: "if I die I'm Tupac, if I survive I'm 50 cent."  He asks the guy who is about to shoot him to aim at his ass, he turns around and starts screaming "give it to me in the ass," like a crazy person, the guy who is about to shoot him freaks out and leaves our funny janitor screaming "I wanna it bad in the ass" and a janitor friend walks in at that moment, of course.  I think that in the old days, the janitor friend would have had a very bad reaction and called him all sorts of names, but in Code Name he just said something like "I don't even know you anymore."  So this was the only sort of neutral light for us gays, but in the end, that scene too used the gays for ridicule.  Again, not nice.

The worst scene with gay content happens at the end.  I will talk about it after the jump because it will ruin a bit of the plot, but since you will probably not see this movie when it opens tomorrow, read on...

[SPOILER AHEAD]

Casino Royale (2006) - No Gay Content

Best. Bond. Ever.  The haters made fun of his ears, said his forehead was too big, blah blah blah, but Daniel Craig rocked.  The movie, not so much.  But don't get me wrong, the movie is good, it has those beautiful European and Caribbean shots, and you should definitely see it.  On the big screen.

I don't think Daniel Craig is classically handsome.  I think the most handsome Bond ever was Pierce Brosnan, and I still think Brosnan is one of the most handsome actors out there, but he doesn't have half the charm Craig has.  And I think that's what Bond should be about.  Craig is even a little ugly indeed, but he is scorching hot, and he can act.  And his body...

Which brings us to an interesting point. On a lot of Bond movies we do get to see James Bond shirtless, but the sexytime has always been clearly about the Bond girls, about objectifying them; this time, even though we have two hot Bond girls, the attention is clearly on Craig.  And it should be.  Seriously, you will get a boner with this one.

Craig is so fit, I think he is the Bond who most looks like he can actually get the job done.  On all accounts, if you know what I mean...

All right, enough with the drooling, let's get down to business.  In Casino Royale we see James Bond becoming a 007.  The movie is based on the novel that introduced Bond to the world, but it's set on present day and involves one of the most pressing issues surrounding us right now, terrorism.  In the movie, Bond can start to untangle a terror network if he wins this big poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro.

The plot was just okay, a few of the action scenes felt kinda flat, like they were really shot inside a warehouse.  I much preferred the scenes with dialog and more emotional content, like the one in which Bond tries to guess the background of a Bong girl, and the Bond girl kind of outwit Bond.

We had no gay content. 

We did have quite a bit of homo-erotic scenes, and I will discuss one disturbingly homo-erotic sequence after the jump; I will give a bit too much away though.

[SPOILER AHEAD]

Crank (2006) - Shipwreck 2

Hello folks!  I'm back.  My Ph.D. program started and it's been crazy already.  Sorry for the lack of posts this week ;-)

To make matters worse, my first post in a few days is about an awful movie.  Barely watchable, even with all the skin and wood Jason Statham gave us.

In Crank, Jason Statham is a hit man who kills a big shot kingpin.  The revenge he gets is pretty nasty, he gets injected with some drug that will kill him if his heartbeat falls below a certain rate, so he tries to keep the adrenaline up, running around, beating people up, drinking Red Bull, wreaking havoc...I hated it all.

I had noted in a previous post that Pedro played a tranny.

The portrayal of the tranny was not so bad.  Jason's character had her as a trusted friend (she was a criminal, but so was everybody else in the movie).  However, Jason uses homophobic slurs all the time, he teases a few gangsters by calling them faggots, that sort of stuff.  Nasty.  Having a tranny friend does not give him the right to slur, right?

At least we got lots of wood from Jason.  At one point he gets a shot that is supposed to help him out with his hearbeat rate, and that shot ends up giving him wood.  Like this one:

I had posted that picture before, and wondered whether that was an actual bulge...it turns out, it was a bulge.  We also got a little of his butt, but not nearly enough to keep you really interested in this piece of crap. 

C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) - LightShed 10

Excellent movie.  You should believe the hype behind C.R.A.Z.Y.  Watch the trailer here. 

I saw this flick at the Seattle International Film Festival and the lines were huge, more so than for other movies in the festival.

In this French-Canadian dramedy, Quebecois Marc-Andre Grondin is a teenager going through self-discovery.  That was for me the most important aspect in the movie, but there were quite a few other family issues addressed (father-son relationship, father-wife relationship, growing up in the 60s, etc.).  You are guaranteed to laugh out loud, and cry. 

I have to admit I had some problem giving C.R.A.Z.Y. the much coveted (as if...) LightShed 10 score, but I think the light was overwhelmingly positive after all.  The gay coming of age we see in the movie shows the pain and complexity you would see in real life.  I could relate to several parts of the movie and I believe you will too.

Our gay Marc-Andre does not want to be gay.  "I'd rather die than be gay."  Our main character tells his shrink, in an appointment arranged by his father, who wants his son to be straight.  To "cure" him.  All very painful to watch.

In Brokeback we are told by Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger's character) that boys learn to hate gays at an early age and that you should hate yourself if you are gay (that is the case 'till this day in many many parts of the world).  In C.R.A.Z.Y., we actually see the self-hate process at play.  How it all starts.  You see the first time a boy is called a faggot, how harsh that is, and what that does to him.

It took director Jean-Marc Valle (pic on the right) 10 years to come up with C.R.A.Z.Y., and I can't wait for his next flicks.  Look what he said about the movie:

“I wanted to show my sons [Émile and Alex] that everyone has something to offer. I wanted to show them that acceptance of people who are different is the way to go.”

Awesome.  We need more straighties like that!

The soundtrack is excellent, great Pink Floyd and David Bowie songs (like Major Tom, etc.).  The movie also had lots of Charles Aznavour and Patsy Cline songs -- I don't really like those, but they made lots of sense in the movie.

I will discuss one more incident in the movie, but the discussion will reveal a bit too much.  Read on or go get this movie as soon as you can.  As of now, the movie is not available on Netflix, but you can get it on Amazon.

[SORT OF SPOILER AHEAD]

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. 

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.

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