To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995) - LightShed 10

This is a mediocre movie, but it's one of those mediocre movies you can't stop watching - you've got to see what's next.  So, I just cannot place it in the mediocre category. 

I had seen it on video, and saw it again the other night on Bravo, while flipping channels.  Bravo became such a great gay TV channel, don't you think?

Here, Patrick Swaize, Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo play three drag queens stranded in a small town waiting for some car part to arrive so that they can get their car fixed and go to Hollywood.  They help the town be gayer.  Here are their names: Vida Boheme (Swaize), Noxzeema Jackson (Snipes), and Chi Chi Rodriguez (Leguizamo).  Classic.

The gay content is excellent.  Tons of cliches, not one of them bothered me though. The drag queens were like real drag queens, all joy, even if they were also shown to be shallow at times -- except for Patrick Swaize's character, who was thoughtful and deep.  Only John Leguizamo's Chi Chi was believable (pic on the right), Wesley and Patrick must improve a lot for their next drag queen role.

Chris Penn plays a cop who tries to kiss and assault and take advantage of poor Patrick Swaize and gets knocked over.  So he keeps trying to find the drag queen who hit him back.  He is shown as a loser and an idiotic bigot.  So, great for us.

Michael Vartan has a cameo in the movie too.  He also plays a bigot, but his bigotry disappears pretty quickly into the movie.  Yay!  Go Vartan!

I was surprised to see the movie made $36.5 million in the US box office.  That is pretty nice for a movie that is not that good.  Although Brokeback clearly represented a change in perspective for gay movies, we have quite a bit of clues that there was some life before Brokeback.  To Wong Foo is certainly one of such clues.

More discussion on the great positive light will ruin the plot.  Keep reading or go rent this vintage.