Queer Beacon

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.

Harsh Times (2006) - Shipwreck 1

This was unwatchable.  Christian Bale is usually pretty good, but he was so bad here.  So was Freddy Rodriguez.  The plot was painful to sit through.

In Harsh Times Christian Bale plays a discharged Army Ranger haunted by his terrible war experiences.  You know, with those tacky crazy flashbacks?  So annoying. 

Christian hopes to get a job as a cop and to get married to his Mexican girlfriend (played by cutie Tammy Trull).  While waiting for his life to happen, he hangs out with his best buddy, played by Freddy Rodriguez.  Eva Longoria, who is married to Freddy in the movie (very believable, right?) keeps getting in the way of their "friendship." 

I did sense lots of heat in their "friendship." 

There was gratuitous homophobia everywhere.  Maybe because our main characters were afraid that they might have been attracted to each other (there's no strong evidence to that fact in the movie though).  So, we have to put up with lots of slurs, mostly "faggots", uttered by pretty much everybody in the movie, except Eva.  We also had to put up with a quick gay impersonation, done over the phone, by Christian Bale.  All bad.

Harsh Times is unfortunately in theaters since Friday...but certainly not for too long.  Really, don't bother (you don't even get Christian shirtless).

Four Brothers (2005) - Shipwreck 1

This was bad.  Real bad.  The movie was bad, and the gay content was just awful.  In the movie, 4 brothers re-gang to avenge the assassination of their mother.  The plot did have a few moments, but the acting was painfully bad, and I like Terrence Howard, who supports as a nice cop, and Mark Wahlberg, our lead homophobe here. 

Initially, I was going to see this in the theaters, but I had noted the movie was homophobic, so I thought maybe I'll rent it.  Well, I rented the movie, saw it, and realized that the homophobic slurs were so constant that it really affected the flow of the movie.  Sissie this, lady that, fairy here, suck c*** there.  All the time.  Really, you wouldn't believe it.  A constant parade of homophobic slurs.  I don't know how they kissed their mom with those mouths.  Wait, maybe that's what killed her.  There.

I did not give it the lowest score because the slurs are uttered by complete losers (mainly Mark Wahlberg's character).  The only character who is not a complete loser (played by Andre 3000, yep, the Outkast singer) does not spread homophobia.  However, the movie is set to have us on the side of the losers, who are homophobes.  And this is bad.  Really bad.