Queer Beacon

Last Days (2005) - LightShed 6

Good movie.  I like Gus Van Sant a lot.  The pace of the movie was pretty quiet and crazy, like Kurt Cobain's last days were supposed to be.  Worked for me.  This movie was certainly better than Gerry.

Here, Michael Pitt sort of plays the role of Kurt Cobain (the movie is not really about Kurt Cobain himself -- it's a fictionalized version of it all).  You know how it ended, right?

We had some interesting gay content.  At one point, two guys make out and they head to the bedroom -- there is a strong suggestion of gay sex (you actually see the guys on the bed, sort of -- but you cannot see much of the man-on-man action).  It's really a gratuitous sex scene, and I loved it, makes it all look natural I thought.  The two guys could have been bisexual too, we didn't get a whole lot of information for the scene.

They were all stoned all the time, and crazy and unreliable, that's why the LightShed score was not higher.  Still, having the gay sex scene in the movie was pretty cool and good for us (like, rock stars and groupies can have gay sex too).

London (2005) - Shipwreck 4

I thought this was a very good movie, but it got lots of awful reviews.  I think the amount of drugs done in the movie was a big part of the problem people had with the flick, and I can understand that.  The characters did snort blow like I've never seen before, but I actually think all the coke sniffing made some sense.  I know that some rich beautiful young people deal with their issues like that.

Here, Chris Evans is trying to get his ex-girlfriend back.  The girlfriend is played by Jessica Biel.  Jason Statham is a stranger who listens to Evans whine.  They spend most of the movie in the bathroom of a party.  I loved it.  Jason and Evans have lots of hair in their heads.  I think at least one of them was wearing a rug.

The acting surprised me, I didn't know Evans and Biel could act.  I mean, they weren't outstanding or anything, but they were pretty good.  They actually had a few really good scenes.  Who knows, maybe if they keep working under steady and firm directing hands they may turn out to be good actors.  Jason disappointed me though.  I think he is (a little) better than that.

We see a lot of Evans' torso.  Statham remains in a suit all the time.  Damn it.

Unfortunately we had one line of homophobic content for our gay movie review.  The girl hosting the party (played well by Isla Fisher), calls Evans a cocksucker like it's a bad thing.  Bitch doesn't know what she's missing if she really thinks it's bad.  Shame on her on two counts.

Also, in one scene, Jason mentioned they had no time for Evans to be a pussy.  Bad, but more misogynistic than homophobic, right?  And there were tons of misogynistic comments.  That was pretty bad.  It's like they replaced all the commas in Jason's script with the C word.

Oh, and the movie had a few excellent tunes.

Lord of War (2005) - No Gay Content

Mediocre movie.  A pity, because it had some pretty interesting, even if a little tired, political insights regarding guns (against them).

In the movie, Nicholas Cage sells guns to all sorts of rogue governments, fueling nasty wars everywhere.  He loves his family and his wife, played by Bridget Moynaham.  She is the only acting in the movie; Nicholas was just not there.  Neither was his brother Jared Leto.  I guess you can rent the movie, but don't expect much.

Nothing for our gay movie review.

Lucky Number Slevin (2006) - LightShed 10

Very good movie.  You get Josh Hartnett in a towel for several scenes (no booty though, maybe in the DVD) and outstanding gay content.  Yay!  Watch the trailer here if you haven't already.

In the movie, Josh Hartnett is in a bad case of wrong place, wrong time.  He is staying at a friend's house in NYC and he is mistaken for somebody else.  He is caught in a war between two gangsters, played by Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley.  Bruce Willis is a problem too.  Lucy Liu helps Josh (who wouldn't?).  I thought Lucy's character was a bit silly, she's been better, but I like her so much.  Very entertaining flick.

The gay content was present throughout a very large part of the movie, and the light was actually neutral, nothing really good or bad was said of the gays.  But the characters talked about the subject very naturally.  Fantastic.

Our gay was played by Michael Rubenstein.  He is one of the non-hotties in the movie.  Great! Gays don't have to always be all hot and sexy.   He played Ben Kingsley's son. 

In one scene, Lucy Liu wonders how ironic it is that a gangster has a gay son.  The name of the gay son in the movie?  "Yitzchok, The Fairy."  Awesome.  When we first hear of him, Morgan Freeman is telling Josh about Yitzchok The Fairy, and Josh wonders why he is called "The Fairy," whether he has wings and flies around with magic dust and all.  Morgan Freeman sort of rolls eyes and goes: "no, he is a homosexual."  All done in a great way.  Josh even has a date with Yitzchok!  Josh is not gay so don't expect much, but the date is not a problem at all! 

Gays, flood the theaters.  Best of all, Focus on the Family got it all wrong.  Go see this movie and the additional pictures of the hotties after the jump!

Love is the Devil (1998) - Shipwreck 4

Bad Movie.  This is what you get for watching a movie just because you know some actor, who became famous after the movie, is naked. I mean frontal.  Having said that, if seeing a bad movie is not a problem for you, this is the movie to rent.  Daniel Craig spends the entire flick in his underwear, and the bathtub frontal is candid.  Keep reading.

The movie tells us the story of a famous Francis Bacon's affair and the work that resulted from it, the George Dyer portraits.  Bacon is played by Derek Jacobi.  Daniel Craig plays Bacon's boyfriend George Dyer.  They meet while Dyer is trying to rob Bacon's place.  Nice, huh?  They are both crazy.  You will not see Francis Bacon's work in the movie.  How about that?  So here's one of my favorites Dyer:

Bacon is one of my favorite painters.  Dead on April 28, 1992, he was a genius.  Like all geniuses, he was a wreck in his personal life and the movie flaunts it.  Even though he was a genius, and an artist, I still think the light for the gays in the movie was negative.  Hence the Shipwreck score.  In the movie, gays are promiscuous, unreliable, gamblers, drug addicts, the works.  Awful.  The score is not lower because, again, all the crazy stuff usually goes along with geniality.

There were some cute moments:

 

And here's a good one:

Enough with the suspense, right?  Fleshbot and PAYOR have the pictures you really want to see.  Not safe for work though.

Loggerheads (2005) - LightShed 10

Excellent movie. 

Loggerhead is a type of sea turtle that the character played by Kip Pardue is obsessed with saving.  It plays well with the tagline for the movie: "One son. Two mothers. Three endangered lives." 

Here, Kip Purdue reminds us AIDS is still an important issue.  Tess Harper is a minister's wife consumed with letting her gay son run away from them.  Bonnie Hunt is a car rental agent who goes on a quest to find out what happened to a son she gave up for adoption.  All in North Carolina.

This is not a typical gay movie.  It's a heavier fare with excellent acting.  Bonnie Hunt was the only one I knew, but everyone is great in it, especially Tess Harper.

I do wish the minister, played by Chris Sarandon, would have learned a harsh lesson for discriminating against his son and gay neighbors, but the movie has a pace which I think requires a few things to be left unsaid.  I went for it.  It made sense, but I almost didn't give it a LightShed 10 for that (lack of lesson for the Minister).

Also, there is not much skin for a gay movie.  This is pretty much it:

But you'll be glad skin was pretty much left out.  Enjoy the great plot and film making instead.

You can watch the trailer here.  The movie is out on DVD already, and will be available March 28 on Netflix.com.  Queue it up now!

The Libertine (2004) - LightShed 6

I saw it Friday night.  The movie is excellent.  Here, Johnny Depp is John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, a poet / playwright consumed with himself and life.  Samantha Morton is his favorite actress.  He falls for her big time. 

The acting is superb, Johnny, Samantha, and Rosamund Pike (she plays Johnny's wife in the movie) are truly great.  John Malkovich was the king who kept asking for Johnny Depp's favors, he was ok. 

The movie is grainy, artsy, dark.  Everybody is ugly (except for Rosamund, she is sassy), I guess to reflect the living conditions in the 1600s.

Right in the beginning of the movie there's this awesome monologue, and Johnny Depp warns the ladies in the movie theater that they should not want to mess with him lest they be put through a sex ritual which is too intense for them to take.  He provides the same warning to the men in the theater.  Yay!  Less clear is Johnny Depp's relationship with one of his male actors (played by Rupert Friend).  He caresses the actor at one point and is seen in his arms in one scene, but no real man-on-man action though.  Get out now, go see it.

Last Holiday (2006) - No Gay Content

Here Queen Latifah (she is so likable, I will see pretty much anything with her) is a death bound woman who quits her job to enjoy her last days.  LL Cool J is her love interest.  Great feel good movie, you know?  You wanna get out of the theater and do something cool.  Go see it.

Layer Cake (2004) - Shipwreck 4

The movie tells the story of Daniel Craig's character (yep, the actor is the new 007, coming up with a new movie soon), a gangster looking to do his last gangster job (drug dealing in this case) before retiring.  Tired of that?  We have seen that in Sexy Beast (for which Ben Kingsley was nominated for an Oscar) and countless other gangster movies.  Surprisingly, a lot of those movies are good.  This is one of them.  A good movie.

However, the gay content could be nicer.  In one scene, Daniel Craig's character is asked: "You are not gay are you?" As if it was a bad thing.  The question was pretty gratuitous too.  Daniel Craig says he is not gay, but without disgust or big surprise (this is good, right? hence the high Shipwreck score).  In another scene one gangster wonders whether this other gangster (who committed suicide) is gay (although this scene was pretty neutral).