Queer Beacon

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) - No Gay Content

This wasn't bad. It's a pretty decent catastrophe movie.

In this remake of the 1951 movie, Keanu Reaves plays Klaatu, an alien sent to earth to destroy humans because they are destroying mother earth. Jennifer Connelly is a scientist that inadvertently helps him out.

I saw this on iMax, I mean sort of; they use the iMax screen but the projection is not really full iMax (a large part of the top and bottom are cut off). I think that is a problem that affects most wide release movies on iMax. It pisses me off but I keep coming back for more...

Death at a Funeral (2007) - Shipwreck 3

In Death at a Funeral, Matthew MacFadyen's dad dies and his funeral is a complete disaster.  We see all sorts of uncomfortable situations -- all (poorly) tied up by a single bottle of Valium (actually filled with some sort of acid).

The movie relies way too much on the workings of the powered-up-Valium pills, which keep crossing the paths of many of the invitees and supporting the mayhem.

The first victim of the crazy Valium pill is Alan Tudyk, who then goes on to spend most of the movie high and naked.

In addition to the Valium plot, the story pretty much revolves around Peter Dinklage's character and his affair with the dead guy (we learn that from the trailer).  With the Shipwreck rating, you can tell I did not like the way in which the gayety was handled. 

To the movie's credit, I couldn't tell any homophobic slurs, but still, I couldn't help but come out of the movie with the impression we were made fun of in a bad way.  My hubby seems to agree with my take on the movie, but a great friend (gay, also Brazilian, hot and sort of single) who saw the movie with me thoroughly enjoyed it -- I think he was not at all bothered by the portrayal of the gays.  I don't know, maybe just the bitter old queens are bothered by this one...

I will talk about the gay content in Death at a Funeral after the jump (I will reveal a lot, be warned).

Disturbia (2007) - No Gay Content

In Disturbia, Shia LaBeouf is a teenager in house arrest; he's a rebel without a cause (actually, he does have a little of a cause - he lost his dad, but that's no reason to go on punching people on the face, right?).  In his house arrest he becomes a voyeur, and starts seeing some weird shit going on in his neighbor's house.  The neighbor is played very well by David Morse.  Super creepy. 

The movie starts off real bad and slow, but gets very good later on. 

I knew there were going to be teenagers in the movie, but I didn't expect the movie to be so, uh, juvenile.  It is a bit of a movie with teenage actors for a teenage audience; but still, it's worth seeing.

There is a nice mix of minorities thrown into the plot.  Shia's best friend is of Korean ancestry, and I think that's really nice for people to see, especially after the terrible rampage on Virginia Tech. 

We also see African American and Latino cops and a Latino teacher.  But no gays :-(

Dreamgirls (2006) - No Gay Content

The movie could easily be called Dreamgirl, and that girl would be Jennifer Hudson.

Bitch got two ovations during the movie.  She made me cry a few times, not so much because of the emotional depth of her character or story, but because of the sheer power of her voice and performance.  Simply amazing.  I really hope you can see this movie.

I loved Dreamgirls.  Loved it.  It took me a while to get into it though; the first few scenes with Eddie Murphy bothered me, they were a little over the top, but aside from that, I think the acting was solid and everybody was great, including Murphy, after I got used to him.

As you should know by now, Dreamgirls is the much awaited adaptation from the musical of same name.  In the movie, we see three sisters trying to make it in the music industry.  The three sisters are played by Anika Noni Rose, who plays the weakest link; Beyoncé Knowles, who plays the beauty with a good voice; and Jennifer Hudson, the jumbo-sized train-wreck with a truly unique talent.  Jamie Foxx is excellent as a tough and evil manager who favors Beyoncé.  He is all business.  Jamie also manages Eddie Murphy a singer and womanizer who gives the girls their first break.

Dreamgirls is not the best musical out there, I much preferred Chicago and Moulin Rouge to speak of two recent examples, but I still thought it was outstanding; it didn't even bother me so much to have the characters break into song while arguing, something that would usually make me leave the theater pronto, cursing.

I must say I went into the movie wanting to hate Jennifer's performance.  I wanted to hate it because of her homophobic stance towards her audience.  She basically said we are sinners and later issued a statement saying she doesn't judge.  Get it?  We are sinners indeed, she didn't deny that, but we can still be friends with her and give her our money...I believe she is about tolerance, not acceptance.  Not nice.

Anyway, I have to give it up for her performance, the acclaim for which seems to be unanimous.  The movie, however, got pretty mixed reviews.  If you want to read the views of someone who did not like the movie you should read Rich's review (it has major spoilers, be warned).

The soundtrack was pretty good.  You may consider getting "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" and "I Am Changing," both performed by Jennifer -- those were the two songs that got Jennifer applause from my theater.

Deja Vu (2006) - No Gay Content

I liked Deja Vu, I thought the plot was interesting.

In Deja Vu, Denzel plays an ATF agent investigating a bomb attack on a New Orleans Ferry.  To solve the big terrorist attack he thinks he has to focus on one particular victim, played by Paula Patton.  Science fiction comes in to help.

I have seen many reviews lambasting the plot. The science fiction in Deja Vu was deemed "preposterous, even by the standards of the pulpiest speculative fiction".  The criticism does have a point, I must admit the plot did push too far on the science fiction craziness...but it is funny to be reminded that fiction is the only thing that needs to be somehow connected to or based on reality, it needs to be credible.  Reality itself can go amok as it pleases. I bet a lot of us have seen some pretty crazy stuff in real life that we would find too crazy for fiction.

No gay content.  And you don't get to see much of Denzel either, but let me just say he is aging well...very well.  I will talk about a KY reference made by Denzel after the jump, but that will reveal too much.

[SPOILER AHEAD]

The Departed (2006) - Shipwreck 0

In The Departed, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a cop infiltrated in a mob syndicate led by Jack Nicholson.  There is a bunch of cops out to get Jack, including Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Matt Damon and Mark Walhberg.  Every single one of them utter more than one homophobic slur.  We had tons of "cocksuckers" and "faggots". Non-stop.

The movie starts off with racism.  N word and all.  But the racism dies down into the movie, while the homophobic slurs increase in tone and frequency.  I was very upset to see that level of homophobia in a good movie, with great actors.

I had seen on Towle that there would be homophobia, but didn't know that it would be this bad. 

Until quite late in the movie mostly bad guys (bad cops and criminals) were using the slurs, but the Shipwreck Zero was locked in when our hero, Leonardo DiCaprio, calls the worst crook in the movie a "two faced faggot".

A really shameful movie by Martin Scorsese (I always thought he was overrated anyway) and writers William Monahan, Siu Fai Mak and Felix Chong. 

I hope they don't try to justify the homophobia and hatred in their movie with the sad assumption that poor and uneducated guys are homophobic in real life.  If they do think that that is the case in real life, shouldn't they at least try to end, not reinforce, that hatred and homophobia?

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."

The Da Vinci Code (2006) - No Gay Content

Good movie.  Initially, I had high expectations for it, but then I learned about the bad reviews and my expectations were lowered.  I guess my low expectations allowed me to actually enjoy the flick.  Watch the trailer here.

Here, Tom Hanks is a professor who gets sucked into this mystery which is protected by a secret society.  As you should know by now, the revelation of the mystery would shake the foundation of Christianity.  Audrey Tatou plays a French agent in the movie and Ian McKellen plays a super rich old friend, they both are out to help Tom. 

I guess you could read gayness into Ian's character and you could even believe he has a thing with his kinda-hot-daddy butler, played by Jean-Yves Barteloot (pic on the right). But there's no hard evidence of any of that in the movie, it's all just my wishful thinking.

I read the book a while ago and I had imagined a cast lead by Harrison Ford and Julie Delpie.  I think Harrison would have been more suitable to the plot and would have certainly lowered the standards and expectations for the movie, and everybody would have been able to enjoy it.  People would not expect an Oscar movie if Harrison was leading, and I guess they did expect just that with Tom Hanks in the lead.  And Tom is not good in it.

Oh, I also liked Paul Bettany as a crazy monk.  He shows quite a bit of skin in some eerie and disturbing scenes.

If I remember correctly, the book did not have any gay content, and the movie reflects that flaw.  A movie almost entirely based on Leonardo Da Vinci, a notoriously flaming 'mo, with no gay content is rather upsetting (consider this great discussion about the lack of gay content in The Da Vinci Code).

I saw the movie in Brazil, a deeply catholic country, and I actually saw people praying in the theater.  With a rosary in hand.  I kid you not.

Some in the blogosphere loved the movie, others were disappointed.  I liked it.  See it and decide for yourself.

Don't Come Knocking (2005) - No Gay Content

Mediocre movie.

Here, Sam Shepard (who also wrote the movie) is a Western movie star who has seen better days.  He's having something like a late-life crisis.  He goes to his mom's house, finds out he has a child.  He goes after the child.

Fairuza Balk was very good as the girlfriend of Gabriel Mann, who played a struggling singer.  Jessica Lange is in the movie too.  She had no expression above her eyes, due to a bad case of bottox, I guess.  Sam Shepard was just bad.

Sam Shepard's character was bothered when male fans stared at him, and that bothered me a bit.  He had no problem when females stared at him but was upset when guys did it.  But I won't take it as homophobia because there was no name calling, no suggestion of a real problem with gays, and no indication that the guys staring at him could have been gay.

Excellent tunes, some of which were sung by the mentioned struggling singer, who also shows some skin (unfortunately).

Now wait, a cowboy related movie with no gay content?  Oh, come on.

Dot The I (2003) - LightShed 5

Bad movie.  Great plot with truly remarkable twists and all, but the movie is unfortunately unwatchable.

Here, Natalia Verbeke plays a Spanish girl about to get married.  On her hen night, she goes out with a bunch of girls, all in drag king outfits, with fake mustaches and all.  The maitre d' of the joint asks Natalia to perform this French ritual which requires her to kiss another guy one last time.  She chooses Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays a Brazilian in the movie (he is actually Mexican).  The kiss goes way too well.

The acting is risible at best.  You would not believe it's the same Gael who lead Bad Education and Motorcycle Diaries.  I guess he needs firm directing hands. 

Now our queer review.  In the hen night scene, one of Gael's friends points to the table with the hen party girls and says: "Lesbians!" He sort of laughs and says something like: "Hey, whatever rocks your boat!"  Good light, right?  Oh, when Gael is about to kiss Natalia, he removes her fake mustache.  That's ok though, I don't like guys with mustache either.