Queer Beacon

Burn After Reading (2008) - Shipwreck 4

Burn After Reading is better than mediocre, but not quite good. In the movie, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand are world class losers who come across top secret info that John Malkovich lost (he plays an former CIA employee).  The two retards go on a quest to try to get money in exchange for the information they found -- they go to the CIA and the Russians trying to sell the info. Bad idea.

Brad Pitt was pretty bad in his portrayal of a stupid personal trainer and so was Frances in her protrayal of a shallow gym employee craving love and plastic surgery. Tilda was the only one doing some acting in the movie (she plays John Malkovich's wife, a cold and bitter bitch).

We have a tiny bit of bad gay content. In one scene, John Malkovich is talking to a colleague when the colleague realizes a guy is staring at John Malkovich, at which point the colleague asks John whether "he turned poof on me"...the tone was pretty derogatory.

Breakfast with Scot - LightShed 10

What a cute movie. 

In Breakfast with Scot, Canadian hottie Tom Cavanaugh is a former Toronto Maple Leaf hockey player who is gay, he is married to the team's lawyer (Ben Shenkman) and they become the parents of an 11-year-old boy. The boy is super-fem and that challenges Tom's perception of what it means to be gay, a man, masculine, a father etc.  It's all good.

Breakfast feels like a holiday family movie -- that's probably intentional and could explain why our gays are asexual (all we get is one grandma-type kiss between Tom and Ben).  Still, great light for the gays; we are shown to be parent material; normal.

Becoming Jane (2007) - No Gay Content

The movie is mediocre, and Anne Hathaway's performance is not all that.

In Becoming Jane, Anne is Jane Austen; we are offered a boring look into her impossible romance with Tom Lefroy, played by butt-ugly James McAvoy. 

Don't expect much from this one.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) - No Gay Content

Bourne Ultimatum is a good action movie, but you may want to have some Dramamine before seeing this one; it's one of those movies shot with a trembling camera. 

In this installment, Matt Damon is being hunted down by the C.I.A., his former employer.  He lost his memory, his only love (Franka Potente), and now just wants to find out who he is, and, of course, some revenge on the side.  Matt is in action from beginning to end, the movie really delivers on non-stop blow-ups and chase scenes; but there's more than that, Matt's nice, somber, performance is worth the ticket price. 

Nothing gay in the movie, though.

Bug (2007) - LightShed 9

I am ambivalent about Bug.  The movie is very well done, the acting is solid across the board, everybody is good in it, especially Ashley Judd -- her performance in Bug brought me memories of Charlize Theron in Monster for some reason (and that was one of the best performances ever).  But the movie itself, the plot, is such a crazy downer. 

So, I can't really recommend the movie.  Basically, Ashley Judd plays a woman who's been through a lot, she gets a nasty visit from her ex-husband who's fresh out of prison (played by a hot Harry Connick Jr.) and she invites this stranger (played by Michael Shannon) to stay with her -- next thing you know, they start seeing bugs everywhere.

We had some interesting gay content. 

Ashley works at a small town lesbian bar for a living, and she is best friends with this super cute lesbian-co-worker (played well by Lynn Collins).  There is quite a bit of info on Lynn adopting a child, and about other lesbians and all.  Ashley kisses Lynn on the lips (a goodbye-type kiss) a couple of times.  All very sweet.  Nasty Harry Connick Jr. curses a few times against our lesbian and Ashley's new guest (Michael Shannon), but Harry is a total loser, so no harm there.  Moreover, our lesbian character seems to be one of the few sane people in the story; so, kudos for the portrayal of us gays!

Blades of Glory (2007) - LightShed 6

In Blades of Glory, Will Ferrell and Jon Heder are figure skaters who get in a nasty fight at the podium while receiving their medals.  Because of the fight, they are banned for life and there's only one way they can go back into figure skating.  They need to skate in the pairs category.  Since no lady will take either of them, they end up stuck with each other.  The movie is pretty funny, I bet you'll laugh.  I did, a lot.

I still don't really know exactly what to think of the gay content, though.  There was very little explicit gay content, but the movie can be seen as being about, I think, male intimacy and the discomfort straight guys feel with that. 

The fact that men are (or pretend to be) uncomfortable touching another man is one of our biggest problems.  I think that explains a lot of the homophobia in the world.  Ending that unjustified disgust may very well help decrease discrimination against us queers.  Because the movie displays a lot of man-on-man action, I think that the resulting light turns out to be positive.  We see the two lovebirds touching each other a lot, with no problem.

Not once a homophobic slur is used, and that's great.  At first, the two are really bad at the touching-each-other thing, but it all gets better as the plot moves forward.  It is for that reason above all that I think the light for the gays is positive (MSNBC's review of the movie seems to agree with me).

But the picture isn't all rosy.  The gay innuendos and all the male intimacy were use as the butt of the jokes, no doubt about that.  But, in this case, I think the price to be paid is almost agreeable.  The gays were used for a laugh, but on the way to laughter, I think that the audience is led to see that two guys can be together, touch each other, dance: be partners.

In many scenes, the writing does feel overly concerned with making sure we, the audience, know Will and Jon's character are not even remotely gay homosexuals.  There are all sorts of hetero love interests for them.  On one level, I guess it's good for the public to see that you can look all gay, and still be straight.  As in: looking gay is fine for straight guys. 

But on another level, why couldn't we have one or two gay characters in a movie dealing with a sport so famous for having gay (even if deeply closeted) athletes?  I think we lost a nice chance to see some of those closet doors being opened.

The little explicit gay content comes when we first learn Will and Jon are going to compete as a pair.  A random guy being interviewed for a sports show says something like this: "like figure skating isn't gay enough already."  The comment came off as kinda negative.  Also on the negative side, we have Nick Swardson in a role so dear to him: the gay freak.  Our freak is a fan of Jon Heder's character and stalks him throughout the movie.  It is pretty clear that Nick's character is gay, but no names are named.  I must admit he is very funny in the part. 

By the way, is Nick gay in real life?

You can see a funny video with Nick after the jump.

Breach (2007) - LightShed 5

Ryan Phillippe was pretty bad and the movie kinda followed his lead.

In Breach, which is based on true events, we follow Eric O'Neil (played by Phillippe) in his new assignment with the FBI.  He is put in a quasi menial position working under Robert Hanssen (played well by Chris Cooper).  Eric has to help uncover evidence of Hanssen's many misdeeds and expects to make agent if successful.

One of Hanssen's misdeeds involves some sort of work pornography crap.  When I first saw the mention of Hanssen's "sexual deviancy" on the trailer, I thought we could potentially have bad gay content there, but (and I am not at all ruining the movie for you by saying this) his sexual deviancy has nothing to do with the gays.  Hanssen is, however, shown to be a homophobe.

In one scene, Chris Cooper's character (Hanssen) talks about a lesbian from Planned Parenthood who defends gay marriage in a speech she had delivered.  Cooper's character tone is derisive.  Awful. 

Then, Hanssen has to have his picture taken for some mural with people who served for 25 years at the FBI and his photographer is obviously gay.  Our gay is trying to make him look better (by telling him to do this and that) and Hanssen gets all worked up: he won't stand a "faggot" telling him what to do.  Awful.

Chris Cooper's character is supposed to be the bad guy in the movie, and we know that from the outset.  In these circumstances I usually give the movie a lightshed score (indicating a positive light for the gays) because in such circumstances, we see that the bad guy is wrong, we see that only bad guys are homophobes, and I had that feeling watching Breach (but not so much).

I must say that my hubby, who loves spy movies, thought Breach was better than mediocre.  Below, you see a pic of Ryan with the real life Eric O'Neil:

Because I Said So (2007) - No Gay Content

By Guest Reviewer Hunk du Jour

Daphne has married off two of her three daughters, and is now fixated on ending the horrible dating luck of Milly, her last single daughter.  So, she does what any sane mother would do: She holds interviews for her daughter's potential mates by way of a profile on an online dating service. 

Love triangles and trapezoids surface and "hilarity" ensues.

While the movie isn't as wacky as it tries to be, it does deliver a couple of funny and heartwarming moments.  Milly's sisters Maggie and Mae (played by Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo) bring some much needed sensibility to the family.  Johnny (Gabriel Macht) and his family also provide a perfect juxtaposition with the more tightly wound family of his unknown competition -- Jason (Tom Everett Scott.)

Overall the performances may have been good -- but the film itself had more trouble.  It played more like a collection of romantic comedy cliches than a solid film on its own.  I left the theater feeling like I'd seen this movie before, only I'd seen a version that had better writing.  The director should really have thrown the script out and tried it over with better material.  They nailed the casting -- the script was the problem.

Diane Keaton: Plays the neurotic mom like no other, but almost too well -- for me, the movie ended up suffering because I was just unable to root for her later.

Mandy Moore: Delivers a solid performance as the insecure Milly, following up on her appearances in American Dreamz and Saved! (What I wonder though, is how an "insecure" daughter so constantly reminded of her shortcomings can have such a great singing voice and performing presence.)

Gabriel Macht: He is charming and disarming as the easygoing single dad and guitarist who crashes Daphne's arranged courtship. You're rooting for him the entire time.

"Because I Said So" spoken 4 times.  A song is sung by Milly and family twice. (Yes -- musical numbers.) Baked goods are burned, dropped, or otherwise spoiled at least a (bakers) dozen times. The surprisingly populated theater (of mostly women) managed some light applause, during which my companion and I looked at each other with an exclamation of "What the... ?"

Blood Diamond (2006) - No Gay Content

In Blood Diamond Leonardo DiCaprio plays an African diamond smuggler who is interested in this big rock Djimon Hounsou has been hiding.  Jennifer Connelly plays an American journalist trying to uncover the connection between this big European diamond empire and African conflict diamonds.

The movie had its good moments, but it was sadly mediocre.  I think Manohla nailed it in the head: "If films were judged solely by their good intentions, this one would be best in show." 

A subject of this magnitude deserved a better movie, but still, I think the message was delivered.  We see the unbelievable suffering people in Africa are going through because of the interest that people of rich nations have on diamonds. 

The movie has enough footage of human suffering to make you think twice before buying a diamond.  If you want to get more serious about the issue, head over to the UN site on conflict diamonds.  Sad, sad world.

All right, now that I pointed to the seriousness of the issue (it really is serious, folks), let me tone it all down by saying that that Djimon Hounsou is one hot man.  Initially, I felt uncomfortable, self-conscious and shallow appreciating Djimon's hotness on a screen full of suffering of the worst kind.  Kids in arms, screaming moms being parted from their kids. Awful.  But once you see how the movie shamelessly and poorly ties-in a little romance between DiCaprio and Connelly, you give up on taking the movie that seriously.  I bet you won't complain about the many shirtless scenes with Djimon under the hot African sun; and they threw in a little shirtless DiCaprio too. 

But no gay content.  Damn it.

Just FYI, I am at the Miami airport now, and will be off to Brazil in a couple of hours.  I will be posting from there the next few days!

Borat (2006) - LightShed 5

People were crazy to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.  Theaters were packed. 

And have you seen the average critics rating for Borat?  The average is A- according to Yahoo!Movies.  That means the critics think the movie is "almost perfect."  I would certainly not go that far, but the movie is good.  You will laugh hard, even if self-consciously and with guilt, quite a few times.

In Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen plays an idiot from Kazakhstan.  He is sent to the U.S. to survey the way of life of the American people for a Kazakhstani TV show.  He arrives in NY and after watching an episode of Baywatch, he falls in love with Pamela Anderson.  He goes on a quest from NY to L.A. to find her and marry her.

The movie is not a substantial improvement over the Borat skits you see on the Ali G series (which you can watch on DVD).  I actually like the disconnected skits, so, I think that trying to give the movie a plot was not really necessary.  Jackass worked out great without a plot.

Borat is deeply disturbing and deeply disturbed.  He is full of prejudice against a lot of people, but he clearly concentrates on the Jews.  I think Sacha chose the Jews as a big target because he is Jewish himself and thinks that that gives him some sort of license...Some people say his jokes would not be funny if he were not Jewish.  And I have to agree, but does that give him a license to make fun of other groups as well?  Should Gays, people of African descent, and women be offended since Sacha is not gay, black or female?

In this kind of movie, the light on the gays would be positive if the main character (Borat) was actually homophobic.  Remember, he is an idiot.  Completely clueless.  Every single thing he does and thinks is wrong.  So, were he to like gays, or be gay himself (even worse), would actually work against us.  That's my theory anyway.  That of course needs to be coupled with movie-goers actually having some sense of right and wrong to be able to tell that the joke is on the racist, homophobic and intolerant.  The whole thing is a harsh criticism.  Right?  And people should be able to see that.

Having said that, my assessment of the movie's gay content is actually slightly positive, although I am still a little unsure about that.  My biggest concern on the matter was voiced by The New York Times: "some people are too stupid and too racist to understand that the joke is on them".  And that might very well be true.  I don't doubt there will be copycats playing out Borat's ignorance like that was something to be proud of.

Anyway, we did have quite a bit of gay content, which I will discuss after the jump.

[SPOILER AHEAD]