Queer Beacon

I Love You, Man (2009) - LightShed 8

Finally another movie with Paul Rudd and good gay content. For all the gay buzz Paul Rudd gets, he has actually been in some pretty gay-bad movies (Knocked-Up and Role Models come to mind -- both of which have "faggot" slurs and other jabs at us gays).

Things went our way in I Love You, Man.  In the movie, Paul Rudd plays a recently engaged guy in a quest for a best man; Rudd is a girl's-guy and has no male friends. In his quest toward Jason Segel he meets Reno 911's Thomas Lennon, they go out to dinner. It turns out Lennon is gay and thought he was going on an actual date (as opposed to a man-date) with Paul Rudd...at the end of the date Thomas kisses Paul, he actually leads with the tongue (you can see that on the main theatrical trailer). Paul is surprised but takes it nicely. So, that's our first gay content.

A little later into the movie, we learn Paul Rudd has a gay brother (played by Andy Samberg).

The gay brother is a pretty butch personal trainer. Our gay is an actual guy's guy. The portrayal is very nice, the gay brother is Dad's best friend and even coaches Paul Rudd in the straight art of getting a wing-man.

 

You should see this one. The movie is funny even if Paul Rudd's constant attempt at creating fun catchphrases gets old early into the movie, but he drags on...

Iron Man (2008) - Shipwreck 3

Even though RDJ's portrayal of a superhero was a little over the top for me, I still liked Iron Man -- the gay content, not so much.

In Iron Man, RDJ plays a rich arms dealer (he owns a company that manufactures high tech missiles) who, after being kidnapped in a rogue country, is forced to rethink some of his values and actions. Cute.

While being driven in a military convoy to this site where he was going to make a demonstration of the latest weapon developed by his company, RDJ acts all surprised when he realizes the driver is actually a girl -- not so nice to the butch looking ladies.  Later into the movie, RDJ makes a joke with real life homophone Terrence Howard -- something about Terrence going out with a tranny or something like that.  Very derogatory. Not nice.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) - LightShed 10

I cannot believe how much buzz this movie got.  The actors (Kevin James, Adam Sandler, and Jessica Biel) were everywhere.  You turned on your TV and there they were, promoting Chuck & Larry. 

If you watched pretty much any TV show during the past month or so, you know that Chuck & Larry is about two firefighters (Kevin and Adam) getting into a domestic partnership in order for Larry (Kevin James) to maintain pension related benefits for his kids, a little girl and a little gay boy.

The movie is mediocre.  Maybe reading a few bad reviews will help you lower your expectations and allow you to enjoy the movie -- that kinda worked for me.

As for gay content, there is a lot of it, of course.  A lot of it, especially in the first half of the movie, is really bad on the gay side.  Really bad.  I will talk about that first, and then about what in the movie makes me think it deserves the highest positive gay rating on the Beacon: LightShed 10.  I will talk about the positive stuff after the jump because it will ruin the plot.

I see four really big problems with Chuck & Larry: (i) it suggests gays should not get rights lest people abuse the system with all sorts of fake marriages/domestic partnerships; (ii) Adam Sandler (whom we are made to like and stay on his side) uses "faggot" to refer to gays; (iii) Adam Sandler hits Kevin James hard on the face when Kevin approaches him with kissing intentions; and (iv) Kevin and Adam give Kevin's gay son a hard time for being gay-bound (the kid likes musical theater, etc.).

I think the movie overcomes the problems above, except for the first one, and that is very sad.  Gays are in need of rights and acceptance so that they can be happy and stop being bashed and killed on a daily basis.  I think that, despite the effort made in the movie to the contrary (I talk about that effort after the jump), there's still a message that fraud can occur, and that is a message that assholes like Bill O'Reilly, who might be looking for a cheap, idiotic, argument against gay rights, will find in Chuck & Larry.  So, that's really bad.

Beforing moving on to the positive aspects of the movie, let me address an important criticism the movie has received.  I read somewhere that one reason the movie was homophobic was the fact that the gays in the movie were mostly stereotypical characters, basically queeny, effeminate guys, particularly the gay son and this firefighter who is all macho and then, when it turns out that he is actually gay, he turns into a flaming 'mo the minute he comes out. 

I can see how stereotypes hurt people and how stereotypes shouldn't be encouraged.  But I think the argument against stereotypes of gays as super happy queens is actually based on a not so noble argument; the argument may actually be: If there were no effeminate / queeny gay men, it is possible that we would already have equal rights because we would have an easier case for how normal gay people are; it would be easier to show that we really are equal and "normal".  But that is not what life and happiness should be about.  Life should be about people being happy no matter how they look, talk, walk, etc.  What the hell is the problem with a guy being effeminate?  Again, I know society sees that as a problem, but why do we have to comply with assigned roles?  Here's what needs to be changed: people who see a problem in an effeminate man (or a butch woman, at that).  That's where the problem lies.  The mind of those people, that's what needs changing.  And, mind you, that sadly includes a lot -- I mean a lot -- of gays too.  People need to accept that a man can be effeminate and that a woman can be butch and everything else in-between.  Femmies and butchies are people just like you and me, and deserve the dignity all human beings deserve.  So, you need to seriously reconsider your views on effeminate men and butch women if you have a problem with them.  They must be embraced and that needs to start with us gays.

Just one last think before jumping into the reasons why I think the movie deserves a LightShed 10. The movie is surprisingly racist towards the Chinese.  Adam Sandler tries to get a few nasty laughs out of this Chinese guy in the movie.  Not nice.

Read on for the remaining of my gay discussion, or go see this mediocre, but very gay-important, movie.

The Invisible (2007) - No Gay Content

In The Invisible, Justin Chatwin is brutally attacked by this bully of a girl; she thinks he snitched on her for robbing some jewelry.  His soul gets out of his body on a quest for justice.  Watch the trailer.

It's all pretty bad until it gets a little more interesting, if I told you why it would ruin the plot, though. 

Margarita Leviera (the bully) is okay in the movie but the acting is bad otherwise: Marcia Gay Harden, who can be excellent, is pretty sucky here (she plays Justin's self-absorbed rich bossy mom); Justin was also kinda sucky, and I think he has potential.  Remember him as a gay drug dealer on Weeds?  He was also pretty good as The Bitch's rebellious son in War of the Worlds.  Oh, and he can be cute too, like when he had this short hair for a Lost cameo -- he played an undercover cop there:

But he does not look hot with the feathered hair:

We also get to see a new hottie, bad guy Alex O'Loughlin:

No gay content.

The Illusionist (2006) - No Gay Content

Very good movie.

In The Illusionist, Edward Norton is a magician who steals the heart of Jessica Biel.  She is about to get married to this Crown Prince, it's the early 1900s and Ms. Crown Prince gets all pissed, goes berserk on poor Ed Norton.

Jessica Biel was pretty good (surprise there...).  I have never been an Edward Norton groupie, but he was more than okay here. 

I went to the movie for the subject, magic, and magic it had.  Man, it was beautiful.  All sepia, all the way. 

I also went to the movie for Paul Giamatti, who was good, as usual -- he played a police investigator and the Crown Prince's bitch.  He is out to bring the Prince's personal vendetta upon Norton.

Rufus Sewell stole the show, though, he played the Crown Prince, and he was excellent.  I could see some of Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus in Sewell's Crown Prince.  A vicious, childish, truly idiotic narcissistic and selfish bully, a tyrant wannabe.  You don't wanna cross this mofo...

No gaiety whatsoever, though.  Of the three magic themed movies this year, we got no gays in two.  Nothing in Scoop, nothing in The Illusionist.  Let's see what The Prestige will bring us.

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2006) - No Gay Content

Mediocre movie.  Kids will probably like it, but an adult will not be amused (so, this is no The Incredibles).

In the movie, Diego the tiger (Denis Leary'), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), and Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano) are trying to escape the valley in which they live.  The valley will soon be flooded by a big ice meltdown.  Manny is also trying to find a female mammoth to perpetuate his species.  Queen Latifah is the voice of the female mammoth, Ellie.

The movie did have a nice message about acceptance.  That message was delivered through Queen Latifah's character.  In the movie, the mammoth played by Queen Latifah was raised in a family of possums.  So, she thinks she is a possum and struggles to accept herself as a mammoth.  Her struggle could have a gay undertone, don't you think?

In Good Company (2004) - Shipwreck 4

Mediocre movie.  I think the casting was off a bit.  I think Dennis Quaid was ok, and Marg Helgenberger was fine too, but they either needed to downgrade Scarlett Johansson or upgrade Topher Grace.  Scarlett becomes Topher's love interest, but she is so out of his league it's like another game. 

In the movie, because of this crazy corporate world, 26 year old Topher Grace becomes the boss of 52 year old Dennis Quaid.  You can kinda see Dennis' booty in the movie.  Topher develops an interest for Dennis Quaid's daughter, played by Scarlett.

The decision on the gay content was a close call here, but I think it falls more on the negative side.  In one scene, Scarlett is playing Foosball with Topher Grace and she mentions she is leaving this athletic tennis thing, is going to college at NYU, and she kinda complains about a 'rumor' about her being a lesbian.  She says it like it is not really something good.  Topher was better about it, he is all confused/embarrassed and says it is a pity, that she is not a lesbian.  Confusing. 

The following scenes also involved a bit of questionable content, but I'll leave them out of the scoring.  There is this one guy who is a sexist.  He is quoted as having called a co-worker 'sugar tits' -- nice huh?  But he is portrayed in a good light, which is not good.  At least he gets fired (for reasons other than being a sexist), so I guess that could help teach him a lesson.  In another scene, this jerk suggests Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace should get a room when Topher and Dennis mention their good work together.  Calls them pussies in a basketball game.  Not nice.  But the guy is portrayed as a jerk, so I'm living that out too.  I'm also leaving out the time when lucky Topher Grace sort of cleans a spilled over drink off of Dennis Quaid's crotch area, Dennis Quaid pushes Topher away saying that only his wife is allowed to do that.  That's ok, of course.

Good tunes though, worthy of note: jazzy Besame Mucho by Diana Krall.  You can rent the movie I guess, but don't expect much.

Inside Man (2006) - Shipwreck 3

Very good movie, not excellent though.  Bad gay content.  It is upsetting that Spike Lee covers some important subjects in the movie, including issues related to more than one religion and race.  The gays, screw them.

In the movie, Clive Owen is a clever bank robber, Denzel Washington is the detective in charge of the case, and Is She/Isn't She? is a powerful outsider.  I'll call her JoFo.  She needs to keep a big secret.

Consider this dialog.  A judge: "You are a magnificent cunt." 

JoFo: "Thank you." 

Gotta love her anyway.  As someone once said, I'll see anything with JoFo in it.  She attended Yale, she must know what she's doing.

Now to our queer movie review.  The cop and the bank robber start negotiating.  This is early in the movie, I'm not giving anything away, don't worry. 

Clive tells Denzel he'll soon be in a Jacuzzi with 6 beautiful girls named Kimberly and Amber, and sucking on pina coladas.  The homophobia that ensued was predictable.  Denzel warns Clive that instead of being in a Jacuzzi, Clive will be in a prison shower, and instead of girls it'll be two guys.  And what Clive would be sucking on would not be pina coladas if he doesn't surrender himself.  Clive gets really riled up with the comment, like that's the worst thing a man can get.  Awful.  Awful content. 

I know rape is rape, in prison or not, and that of course no one would be interested in that, and that it would be awful and all, but you know what I'm talking about here.  If Clive's character were gay, do you think the detective could have used a similar threat?  Like "threat" him with two girls?  Of course the comparison is far from perfect, but you get the drill.

And the favorite homophobic slur nowadays makes an appearance too.  This trampy character calls someone a cocksucker.  We do not see who that someone is, but probably a cop.  Name calling.  Nice.

There is no come back for the gays, no other mention.  Just the bad stuff for us. 

The religious and race issues all, I mean all, get avenged or corrected.  Now, that actually makes the movie's homophobia sound even worse because if the issues were all left uncorrected, it would not be homophobia, it could actually be a positive thing to have everybody look bad.  That is, if the religious group, racial groups and gays were all seen as bad in the movie, it would have been clear that the movie was trying to criticize people's attitudes towards those groups.  It would be effective criticism.  But, when everything else is thoroughly corrected, except homophobia, the criticism is then turned to the gays themselves.  The message becomes "it is wrong to slur or pre-judge other people based on their races and religion, but it's ok to slur the gays."  I am pissed off.

JoFo how could you let that happen?  Out, out damn celebs!

There were two hostages that looked like they could have been boyfriends, just by their demeanor towards each other during the movie, we see them a couple of times, they are muscular chelseaboy types, so I thought something good was going to come out of there.  But I was wrong, it is not at all further suggested they could have been gay.  Pity.

Shame on Spike Lee.  Shame on writer Russel Gerwitz.

In Her Shoes (2005) - LightShed 5

I really liked the movie.  Here, Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz are sisters.  One is pretty and one is responsible.  They are best friends but Cameron Diaz is all screwed up.  They find out about a granny in Florida they thought was dead.  The grandma is played by Shirley MacLaine. Everybody is trying to find out who they are.  Yay!

Our gay content is brief.  In one scene, Shirley MacLaine is chatting with her two old friends, played by Jerry Adler and Ruth Byler (both in their early hundreds).  Ruth says her 55 year old son is still single.  Jerry asks: "gay?", and Ruth just shrugs: "I wish.  Immature."  So being gay is better than being immature.  I'll take it.  Old people need to get over their prejudices, they cannot hide a prejudice behind their age, and this movie helps.  Go chick flicks! Go rent the movie already.