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.

Four Christmases (2008) - Shipwreck 4

This was pretty bad, I went to see it with a couple of friends from Brazil (a straight couple-- they liked it and laughed quite a bit).

In Four Christmases, Vince Vaughan and Reese Witherspoon play a couple terrified of spending Christmas with their families -- they don' want to confront their ghosts. Their attempt spend Christmas away from their families in Fiji fails when all flights are grounded due to bad weather and they end up on TV (this after having lied to their families -- they had said they were going to Burma to save children or sth like that). Seeing them on TV, their families talk them into spending time with them.

We have a bit of gay content.  While visiting Reese's mom family, we learn that the husband of Reese's sister (played by Kristen Chenoweth) "has experienced with men" -- Kristen reveals the news as a way to tell Reese how much she knows about her husband (and, to a lesser extent, how forgiving she is); Reese, meanwhile, knows nothing about her boyfriend Vince. Kristen might have talked about the gay experience in a somewhat positive light, but I think it came off as being just for laughs, at our expense.

Later in the same visit, Reese`s mom shows Vince pictures of Reese's lesbian phase (she basically had a very butch friend growing up; but soon after we learn Reese didn't actually know her friend was a lesbian). Vince shows what appears to be his support and understanding of the "lesbian phase" and I did want to see the scene in a good light, but at the end, again, I think it was all really just for laughs, at our expense ("at us, not with us" king of thing).

I must say, though, that if this is the way that homophobia is going to be portrayed, we are probably on a good track as at least there seems to have been an effort to not just go all purely derogatory on us; as I pointed out, the light can even arguably be seen as neutral to positive.

Independently of the gay content, the movie is pretty bad -- a waste of Reese's (and ours) time.

Fur (2006) - LightShed 8

This one is pretty creepy, but in a nice way. 

Fur's main character is called Diane Arbus (played by Nicole Kidman) -- the movie goes out of its way to make sure we know the story is not about real-life photographer artist Diane Arbus. 

In the movie, Kidman is fascinated with people who are usually thought of as freaks.  She is not fascinated as one would be in a circus, she really feels alive around different people. She befriends a few trannies and gays.  That was super nice.

The movie gets creepy as she falls for a uberhairy Robert Downey Jr. and cheats on her perfectly hot husband (played by Ty Burrell).

The movie is well put together, the acting is decent, but if you actually see this one, you should see it because of its kitsch value (in any case, don't expect much).  The flick is out on DVD.

Factory Girl (2006) - Shipwreck 4

What a depressing movie.  It's good, but depressing...and bad for the gays.  The movie is not out to get the gays, I don't think, but whoever watches it can't help but feel that the gays either helped destroy a poor rich little girl or sat and watched and did nothing while the girl destroyed herself.

In Factory Girl, Sienna Miller plays, very well, the role of Edie Sedgwick, a precursor to Paris Hilton who came from big money and wanted to be famous in NY. 

Edie suffers quite a bit throughout her childhood, from being committed to a mental institution to being abused by her father; Edie then goes on to suffer some more in the hands of a manipulative Andy Warhol, played, also very well, by Guy Pierce.

The movie is not all bad for the gays.  First the good stuff: There's a very sweet scene in which Edie is recounting the story of a very close friend who was gay and was rejected by his family.  The gay's family put the little gay in an institution and some time after that the gay commits suicide -- that marks Edie for life because she loved that gay very much.  That was very sweet, sweet enough to almost move the movie's rating into a LightShed zone.  Also good: the monster of a father Edie has, says to Andy Warhol's face that he is a faggot, and this is over a fancy dinner with lots of people around -- the slur was good here because the movie has us strongly against Edie's father; so, his being a homophobe is no surprise and fits his evil character well.  It goes to show that only nasty idiots say that word.  Another bad guy who doesn't do much to save poor little Edie is played by Hayden Christensen, who plays a musician (apparently based on Bob Dylan) whom Edie falls for; he tries (but not too hard) to protect Edie from Andy Warhol and utters one or two homophobic remarks at Andy...not nice. 

We have those two bits of gay positive content, but in the end, the light for the gays is not good.  I left the movie with a feeling that the plot construed Andy as a bad, greedy guy -- there's nothing really wrong there, but (and this is bad) the movie also gives us the idea that the fact that Andy was gay had some effect on his evil deeds.

Factory Girl is a good movie, it's just out on DVD, but watch it at our own peril (did I mention it's depressing? and portrays the gays in a bad light?)

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.

1408 (2007) - No Gay Content

Very good movie, it's not as scary as a lot of the reviews will have you believe, but it's still very good; actually, it's the only good thing I ever saw coming out of a Stephen King story.

In 1408 John Cusack is a writer who investigates supposedly paranormal activities in hotels across the US, only to discredit the investigated stories.  But it all changes once he checks himself into room 1408 of a NY hotel.  Spookay!

No gay content, except perhaps for a brief mention of a guy who made himself a eunuch in room 1408.

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.

Fracture (2007) - No Gay Content

This. Sucked. Donkey. Balls. 

Seriously, I don't know why I will waste my time even talking about this one, but here we go.  In Fracture, Ryan Gosling (whom I otherwise love) is a cocky district attorney who is going into the corporate world -- he just got an offer from a fancy law firm in L.A.; but before he goes, he is given this seemingly easy case.  The case involves Anthony Hopkins killing his wife and confessing the crime.   

The movie is a bad legal circus with dumb clowns trying to be funny with legalese.  It's just sad.  And I wanted to like the movie, I tend to like this kinda flick (courtroom/drama/suspense). But Fracture is just unwatchable.

The Fan (1981) - Shipwreck 0

By Guest Reviewer Andrew Belonsky from Queerty.com

It may not be the case anymore, but it used to be that if a screenwriter or author needed a good villain, they would look no further than the evil fag. The homo’s deviant sexuality provided a reliable excuse – or, perhaps, symptom – of his devilish ways. The odd – and endlessly commercial – character of Norman Bates springs to mind, as does the more recent and potentially just as gay, Hannibal Lechter. Meanwhile the 1980 Al Pacino classic, Cruising, spent an entire 106 minutes exploring the “sleazy and underground” gay world in which a serial killer got his S&M fueled kicks. One year later, John Hartwell and Priscilla Chapman – neither of whom, it’s worth noting, had ever written nor would ever write another movie – adapted Bob Randall’s queer killer novel, The Fan, for the silver screen. The critics blasted the film, and for good reason, but what it lacks in depth, it makes up for by providing a study of the gay gone bad.

The Fan concerns a famous actress, Sally Ross, played by Lauren Bacall and her obsessed fan, Michael Biehn’s Douglas Breen. It’s really not worth mentioning Biehn’s character’s name, for it disappears quite quickly behind his association with fanatic insanity. He starts off innocently enough – a conspicuously single, lonely and downright pathetic record salesman who writes letters to his favorite star of screen and stage. Too busy rehearsing for a Broadway play and dealing with her ex-husband, played very briefly by James Garner, and certainly far too famous to reply to her fan’s letters, Ross pawns the job off on her secretary, a low point in Maureen Stapleton’s career. Doing her duty, the secretary sends off a gracious reply, unaware her forged sentiments will only serve to feed Breen’s madness. She should have known better, of course, for give a fag a bone and he’ll keep coming back to strike more perverse terror.

And that’s exactly what happens. Breen’s letters become more and more feverish, exuding a dangerous persistence that leads the secretary to ignore him in hopes that he’ll disappear. But Breen – whose dementia’s already over taken his last shred of rationality and, thus, identity – refuses to go away. On the contrary, he intends to get as close to Ross as possible. How? By killing all her friends, of course.

Poor Stapleton’s the first to feel the cold of his straight razor, but The Fan wastes no time going after Ross’ other comrades, including her dance partner, whom he kills in the pool in that bastion of homo-variance, the YMCA. It’s really quite gruesome. Not to mention gay: The Fan swims underneath him, slashing him from neck to crotch, his blade coming within inches of his Speedo-clad penis.

What remains unspoken – namely The Fan’s faggotry – becomes a disturbing plot device after a Detective (Hector Elizondo) gets closer to discovering the truth. Thus, he cruises on through a gay bar, finds himself a hapless homo and proceeds to get blown on the roof. His ejaculation brings the trick’s extermination as The Fan uses his gleaming blade to finish him off and burns the body, leaving a guilt-ridden suicide note to cover his tracks.

The Fan’s cumming becomes The Fan’s climax, for it’s downhill from there (as if there were an up). Seemingly free of her stalker, Ross forges forward, unaware that her first performance may be her last. I won’t give away the details of the final confrontation, but rest assured that The Fan gets what’s coming to him, appropriately punished for his not so merry, but certainly very Mary murder spree.

While the movie provides a few chills, they’re washed out by the message: the solitary gay poses a threat to you and yours. Even the lighting – a staple in thrillers – seems a bit overdone, with The Fan stalking (literally) in and out of the shadows like the dubious, dangerous villain he was born to play. Certainly a stinker through and through, the film’s worth a view, if only to laugh (and grimace) at the stereotypes it propagates.

Flushed Away (2006) - LightShed 5

By Guest Reviewer ultranow

Flushed Away taught me so many things:  Hugh Jackman is still cute even when in the form of an animated rat; Sir Ian McKellen still brings forth gay even when in the form of a villainous toad named, actually, Toad; Kate Winslet, who once again puts in some boat time, can bring believability to even the most improbable circumstances; and claymation, the look of which is sporadically utilized, most notably with a doo-wop chorus of slugs, is always impressive, putting even the most high tech animation to shame, even if ironically it’s that high tech animation which created the claymation look.

Hugh Jackman stars as Roddy, who goes from living in a mansion, or most pointedly in a cage within that mansion, to being flushed down the toilet by an interloper and down pipes and down the sewer and down down down to Ratropolis, bizarrely a fun, happening place, literally a bizarre bazaar.  From capitalism to barter, and he’s got nothing to offer, except saving the whole darn place.

Going from a living in an exclusive zip code to being flushed down the toilet - it’s the animated equivalent of Shannon Doherty’s career, and based on disappointing grosses is also the equivalent of her movie career. Should have been called Ratropolis, which would have simplified matters and brought in at least an extra $25 million.  Or possibly just Charming Mini Hugh Jackman in a Tuxedo.  I adore movies with that title and so would the world.

Hugh Jackman’s Roddy, though decidedly heterosexual, does at the beginning of the flick count dolls as his only companions.  This is not so much gay as pathetic.  He is also in possession of a wardrobe which includes Elvis, the Vegas Years, and Wolverine, the kind of inside joke I hate.

Why does Sir Ian McKellen’s Toad read as gay?  Purple and pink paisley robe, yellow ascot, pinkie rings, excellent manners, general fastidiousness, and most of all, hatred of rats.  When he does change to a suit, it’s similarly purple, with a yellow tie, pink shirt and pink pocket square.  He possesses what he perceives as fine collectibles, building on the film’s theme of perspective.  What can each tiny object in the lives of humans be utilized/seen as from a rat’s or frog’s or other small creature’s point of view.  What is more important, fine objects or family?  He also possesses maniacal genocidal plans, making him Joan Crawford gay.

This picture was heavier on child-friendly slapstick and puns than on the tricky multi-layered dialogue found in many animated pictures seeking to capture adult and youth markets.  That said, a fair bit of the slapstick was ingenious, and puns don’t hurt as badly when delivered by a Sir. The slapstick involving Toad and his hapless assistants was particularly engrossing.  Who knew tongues could stretch so far?

Kate Winslet’s Rita is the heart of the picture, offering companionship that dolls can’t, offering family that Roddy needs.  Plucky female on boat.  Consider her Keira Knightley in pants, with the must have belt of the moment, at least as far as Toad’s evil plans are concerned.

This is jaunty fun.  The best part is how Robin Williams isn’t in it.

Flushed Away will be released on DVD on February 20.