Queer Beacon

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.

10,000 B.C. (2008) - No Gay Content

Man, this was unwatchable. 

In 10,000 B.C. this tribe is headed for extinction and have to rely on their warriors to survive. I did not care, except that I kept wishing I was on the set to shampoo those people. Barfy hair was everywhere.

No gay content.

Wild Hogs (2007) - Shipwreck 0

The movie really is as bad as you think it would be.  In this piece of trash, William H. Macy (I didn't expect him to sink this low), Martin Lawrence (blank), Tim Allen (vomit) and John Travolta (double vomit) are a bunch of middle-aged losers trying to have some fun in a road-trip on bikes.  In their journey, they are confronted with a gang of real, nasty, bikers led by Ray Liota (vomit).

There are many homophobic (or at least heterosexist) jokes and innuendos in Wild Hogs; but what really locks in the Shipwreck Zero is the violence against gays the movie promotes.  On two occasions, John Travolta's character threatens to kill whoever smells him up close (a comment prompted by the fact that William H. Macy smells him while riding 'bitch' on his bike) or looks at his genitals (a comment prompted by his agreeing to swimming naked in this silly pond with his other butch buddies).  Travolta is supposed to be a good guy. 

The bad guys, as expected, take it even further and actually act on their homophobia.  One of the gay characters, played by bad guy Kevin Durand, is constantly talking about the things he would like to do to other guys, kinda inadvertently describing things only a gay guy would do.  At one point, he says he would put the balls of all the wild hogs in his mouth, and in response to that, Ray Liota, the gang leader, punches him hard on the face.  In the movie, Kevin is beaten for describing a gay act.  Although Ray Liota's character beats his buddy up many other times for other reasons, the beating for the gay comment was particularly sad, and, unfortunately, glorified. 

The other more common homophobic innuendos included the scene which you can see on the trailer, where John C. McGinley (the smart-ass doctor from Scrubs) plays a naughty gay cop lustful for the wild hogs.  Most of the scenes in which McGinley takes part are homophobic (even though those scenes were not nearly as bad as the ones in which violence against the gays is glorified).

Shame on writer Brad Copeland and everybody involved with this piece of crap for letting homophobia in their movie.  It is hard to understand how Wild Hogs could have been the #1 movie for so long -- it was awful and not funny at all.  The movie was unfortunately released on DVD on August 14.

Mr. Brooks (2007) - LightShed 6

The rundown: Dane Cook sucked the hardest, but there was a lot of sucking (I mean, a lot) left for Kevin Costner, Demi Moore and William hurt.  God, it was awful.

If you saw the trailer, you know that in Mr. Brooks, Kevin Costner plays a successful business man who kills for pleasure.  He wants to stop but he just can't: William Hurt (who plays Kevin's alter ego -- they talk to each other like there's no tomorrow) keeps convincing him to continue killing. 

Dane Cook watches one of Kevin's jobs and starts to blackmail.  Demi Moore is a millionaire cop (yes, a millionaire cop) who wants to put an end to it all.

There was a tiny bit of gay content: in one scene, Dane Cook is reading this note that must be read by putting together words that had been circled on a newspaper, and one of the circled words is "same" on a headline that says "Same-sex Marriage" -- that was nice (although we can't really read what the article under the headline says).

Curiosity: did you see the video where Dane Cook talks about a gay roommate?  I don't know what to think of it (watch that here).

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) - No Gay Content

Awful movie. I was confused most of the time I was not asleep.  I was thinking I was confused precisely because I dozed off a few times (and was awaken by my husband, looking at me startled -- as in "are you going to review the movie or not?"), but more people (who I assume did not sleep) were also confused by the plot. 

Here's the yahoo! description of the shitty story: "Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) are allied with Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) in a desperate quest to free Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from his mind-bending trap in Davy Jones' locker, while the terrifying ghost ship, The Flying Dutchman and Davy Jones, under the control of the East India Trading Company, wreaks havoc across the Seven Seas."

I guess you really need to have watched (and remember well) the previous installments.  One thing the movie does deliver, though.  The special effects, especially the open sea battle scenes, are awesome, I must admit -- so if that's all your after, you will probably enjoy At World's End. 

Even though Johny Depp's Captain Sparrow is sounding gayer than ever, there's no gay content in this installment.

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.

Leeches! (2003) - No Gay Content

By Guest Reviewer Tottyland

The name David DeCoteau has never really been synonymous with quality and it isn't here. It's the usual silliness coupled with a lot of male flesh.

The plot, for what it is, involves giant leeches that are slowly taking out a college swim team. The chaps all die in long drawn out scenes usually with little on, while the girls are bumped off fast enough to avoid spoiling the real purpose of the film. Plot holes abound but that's to be expected (there is one major jump-off-the-sofa-and-shout-at-the-TV flaw). As a victim can escape the leeches just by moving away slowly, they have to be immobile so Josh Henderson's character gets tied up, Trevor Harris' passes out, and Matt Twining's can't get up a pool ladder. To top it all the plot twist at the end looks tacked on, and it probably is.

The cast consists of television stars like Josh Henderson, soap actors such as Matt Twining, and DeCoteau regulars like Michael Lutz, Greg Lyczkowski and Trevor Harris. You know what to expect: bad acting and lots of eye candy.

In summary, better watched with the volume down, with remote in hand.

IMDb page for Leeches! here. [QB Note: Tottyland is right on the money with his review, take a look at some of the scenes from "Leeches!":]

[More at Tottyland.]

Children of Men (2006) - No Gay Content

What a piece of crap.  Children of Men is unwatchable, I cannot understand the many great reviews the movie got. I disagree with them all, the acting was bad and the story was boring (save for this small subplot involving a rich guy and his son -- but that was it).

In Children of Men, people are living the last days of what turned out to be a chaotic, dirty, greasy, somber future.  Women can no longer conceive, so civilization is set to end soon.  But there seems to be hope (ha!), and Clive Owen is brought in to help out.

I already wasted two hours with this movie; I won't waste more time with it.  No gay content :-(

Code Name: The Cleaner (2007) - Shipwreck 2

In Code Name: The Cleaner, Cedric the Entertainer is a janitor who loses his memory and is duped into believing he is actually a secret agent.  Nicollette Sheridan pretends to be married to him in order to gain his trust and some valuable information about a computer chip.  Cedric is further duped by Lucy Liu, who pretends to be his real girlfriend.  Corrupt agents from the FBI and CIA are also on the loose.  You can see the trailer here.

The good news is that the movie boasts nice shots from the two most beautiful cities in the world: Seattle and Vancouver (the movie takes place in Seattle, but we can see that a lot was actually shot in Vancouver).  We have two actresses I like: Nicollette and Lucy.  Also, the few short scenes with comedian DeRay Davis, who plays one of Cedric's co-workers, are pretty funny; and, best of all, we have Niecy Nash in a character called Jacuzzi! I think Niecy is one of the funniest girls around and her short cameo in this movie is hilarious -- she plays one of Cedric's flings.  Oh, and the movie is only 91 minutes long; if you do decide to see Code Name against my advice you will be thankful for that...which brings us to the bad news.

The movie is bad, kinda watchable, but bad; and we have five scenes with negative-leaning gay content.

Our first scene with gay content is the opening scene of the movie.  Cedric wakes up in a hotel room next to a guy, and without knowing he is next to a guy, Cedric gropes him, only to be utterly disgusted a few seconds later when he finds out he was groping a dude.  His reaction was actually not so bad given that Cedric could have been repulsed by the fact that he groped a dead guy.

In the second gay scene, Nicollette takes Cedric to her house to try to convince him that they are married, and Cedric finds a pink thong in his bathroom, and he is all "oh this is so wrong." Again, not so homophobic, but not nice either.

Then, Cedric is waiting for someone in his car and a guy who is sitting in a car accross from him stares at Cedric, getting Cedric to go talk to him.  Cedric thinks the guy in that other car will have some sort of intel for his case (Cedric thinks he is a secret agent, not a janitor, remember?), and when Cedric approaches the car we learn the guy in the car is a gay guy who had arranged a meeting on the Internet.  Again, Cedric is repulsed by the idea of male intimacy and his reaction was pretty bad.  Again, gays are used for a cheap laugh.

Then, in a scene that was actually pretty funny, comedian DeRay Davis (who plays a janitor and rapper wannabe) is about to get shot while cleaning the bathroom.  To our surprise, the janitor actually invites the shot because in his reasoning the shot will validate him as a rapper: "if I die I'm Tupac, if I survive I'm 50 cent."  He asks the guy who is about to shoot him to aim at his ass, he turns around and starts screaming "give it to me in the ass," like a crazy person, the guy who is about to shoot him freaks out and leaves our funny janitor screaming "I wanna it bad in the ass" and a janitor friend walks in at that moment, of course.  I think that in the old days, the janitor friend would have had a very bad reaction and called him all sorts of names, but in Code Name he just said something like "I don't even know you anymore."  So this was the only sort of neutral light for us gays, but in the end, that scene too used the gays for ridicule.  Again, not nice.

The worst scene with gay content happens at the end.  I will talk about it after the jump because it will ruin a bit of the plot, but since you will probably not see this movie when it opens tomorrow, read on...

[SPOILER AHEAD]