Queer Beacon

Wanted (2008) - No Gay Content

Wanted kinda lost me right on the opening scene, when we can read on-screen that the movie is about a society of assassins dating back over a thousand years.  Tacky. I mean, do they really need the "thousand years ago" crap? That ticked me off, they already had a lot going on in the plot, they already had too much for us to deal with, we didn't need the aggravation.

But, once you get over that part of the plot (and that is a big part) and other silly ploys (like that dodging the bullet scene they tirelessly showed to us in TV ads or the fact that the assassins can heal super fast in these pools of candle wax -- pretty much a butched up version of a bubble bath), the movie is actually not bad.  Jolie is drop dead gorgeous. Like, you can cry when you first see her on-screen, she's so pretty (her arms were a little too thin, though -- you can see that on the movie poster above; bitch needs to eat a burger or two). 

The special effects are superb and I must say I am happy James McAvoy are getting these big roles. I think he is ugly, but he is on the normal side of ugly, and that's good for us (he makes the world think that us ugly guys can be hot too), and, more importantly, he is talented. Bitch can act.  This is not the movie you should bring your Oscar ballots to (that's a line from my hubby, who didn't really like the movie, by the way) but it's worth seeing -- you can catch McAvoy's real acting talents in The Last King of Scotland and Atonement.

No gay content.  Just loads of special effects and violence.  I'm still saying: good movie, though.

Waitress (2007) - No Gay Content

What a gem of a movie.  Waitress is excellent and you shouldn't miss it.

In Waitress, Keri Russell waits tables and bake pies at this small joint in the south.  She is married to a jealous Jeremy Sisto, she is sick of him and she wants out.  She bitches about life with her girlfriends Cheryl Hines and Adrienne Shelly (who is also the director, killed before her movie opened), and bakes great pies, all the while having an affair with her gynecologist Nathan Fillion.  This waitress story is well told.

Cheryl Hines and Adrienne Shelly deserve recognition for their work.  They are really great here. 

The soundtrack is excellent too. Waitress is out on DVD and Keri Russel is on August Rush, now in theaters.

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.

Wet Hot American Summer (2001) - LightShed 10

Bad movie.  Such a pity that a movie with such a great portrayal of the gays is so bad.  The movie is almost unwatchable (unless you're in it just to see Bradley Cooper getting it from Michael Ian Black).

In Wet Hot American Summer, we follow the last day in a camp in the summer of 1981.  Everybody is desperate to get some action before the summer ends. 

Our first gay reference comes from Paul Rudd.  He calls this girl a dyke for no reason.  Paul plays a total asshole and everybody pretty much hates him -- the movie puts us against him all the time.  A jerk using a homophobic slur is actually good for us.

But that was just the beginning of what turned out to be a great portrayal for us gays. 

The hottest guy in the camp is Bradley Cooper (pic on the left), who organizes theatrical activities with Amy Poehler.  We see Bradley making out with Michael Ian Black, who played a gay character in Partners as well (another LightShed 10 movie).

[the pic above is from Bent, where you can see more Bradley Cooper  --  I included quite a few more hot pics of that scene after the jump]

Later on, we see that Janeane Garofalo performs a hippie marriage for the two love birds.  Beautiful scene by the water.  The marriage ceremony is being watched by two guys who whisper to each other something like: "ew, McKinley [Michael Black's character] is a fag"  So we think that they are going to spread the news in a negative way.  But later, we see the two guys delivering a big Crate & Barrel box to our gays in front of the whole camp, in the cafeteria.  It could not have been better. 

We see our gays throughout the movie, they get along well with everybody else, and are great with the kids.  Yay!  Kudos!

Oh, and we have David Hyde Pierce, who might or might not be gay in real life, and Janeane Garofalo, who has no problem if you think she is a lesbian!  They are interested in each other in the movie. 

So, we have a bad movie with an interesting cast -- you may consider seeing it just to see our gays.

After the jump you get Bradley Cooper and Michael Ian Black getting it on and a few pics of a scruffy Christopher Meloni (who plays a cook in the summer camp -- you can see quite a few pics of his tool here).

The White Countess (2005) - LightShed 5

Good movie. 

Here, Ralph Fiennes is a blind American diplomat.  He opens a "bar" in Shanghai.  It is the 1930s and the Russian aristocracy had lost its power.  Natasha Richardson is a Russian countess who becomes Ralph's muse. 

Lynn Redgrave plays a bitter bitch.  She lives off of Natasha's hard work, and yet, she feels all superior, just because she doesn't whore it up.  Everybody is very good in the movie, directed by James Ivory.

We got a tiny bit of content for our gay movie review.  In one scene, everybody is ballroom dancing and we catch a quick glimpse of two girls getting quite intimate.  We don't actually see a kiss but I think the scene was enough to strongly suggest girl-on-girl action.  Nice.

White Oleander (2002) - LightShed 6

Good movie.  All tragic but good.  The movie was so sad that I couldn't cry (I had a similar reaction to Dancer in the Dark). 

In the movie, Alison Lohman is a young girl going through foster homes after mommy Michelle Pfeiffer kills a guy out of craziness, bitchiness and jealousy.  The Pfeiffer is an artist, all full of sensibility.  Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger are two of Lohman's foster moms.

The acting was very good across the board.  Lohman was the star of the movie, everybody else pretty much had cameos, even The Pfeiffer had a smaller role than I had anticipated.  She was stunning though.  Beautiful beyond belief, seriously:

Now to our gay movie review.  White Oleander did not have much gay content, but the little gay content it did have ranged from neutral to positive.  In one scene, this guy asks Lohman if she is gay.  Lohman asks why, and the kid says he thought she was gay because she did not seem to be interested in guys.  She confirms she is not interested in guys.  Cute.  Later on, she says she is not gay but she says that because she wants to kiss the guy, not because she felt the need to deny the 'accusation' or 'protect' her reputation.  That was all pretty positive, she wasn't offended because the guy thought she was a lesbian, and the guy did not look like he would have a problem if she was indeed gay.

In another scene, The Pfeiffer makes a joke about her not having much time for her art in prison because she needs to constantly "fight off sexual advances."  Light joke, pretty neutral I thought.

This post was written for the Pfeiffer blog-a-thon.  She turns 48 on April 29.  She was 44 when she shot White Oleander, can you believe it?

Check back soon for additional links honoring The Pfeiffer.

Walk on Water (2004) - LightShed 10

Very good movie. 

Here, Lior Ashkenazi plays an Israeli assassin doing justice under Mossad direction.  He becomes the tour guide for Knut Berger, who plays a German visiting his sister living in Israel.  Lior has a hidden agenda. Everybody is keeping secrets.

Our gay content is superb.  In this case though, I went back and forth between Shipwreck and LightShed a couple of times, but the light ended up being very clearly positive.

I will need to spoil some of the movie in order to make my case though.  I threw in a little nudity after the jump to lure you (I am terrible).

Read more or go rent the movie already!

War of the Worlds (2005) - No Gay Content - Well, sort of...

Good movie.  Good alien movie.  Here, Tom Cruise is a blue collar worker.  He is all messed up and doesn't seem to be a good parent.  His two kids go spend the weekend with him. All hell brakes lose when this nasty aliens descend upon his alley.  Dakota Fanning plays one of the kids.  She rocks.

I don't care much that he is such a bad actor.

The most unbelievable thing for me, though?  That a quasi trailer park trash wears $200 dollar nice and tight Paper Denim and Cloth jeans.  It did made his butt look bigger.  He doesn't have much of a butt.

Winter Passing (2005) - Shipwreck 2

Excellent movie.  It makes me really sad to see that a movie this good has a bad homophobic line.  Shame on Adam Rapp, the writer, for letting that line stay.

In Winter Passing, Zooey Deschanel is the daughter of a famous writer, played by Ed Harris.  She lives in New York -- she is trying to act; her dad lives in Michigan and still suffers from her mother's death.  Zooey goes to Michigan.  Everybody is excellent.  Zooey became one of my favorites immediately, Will Ferrel proved once more that he can really act (he did it before in Woody Allen's Melinda & Melinda).

Our bad content happens when Zooey tries to kiss Will Ferrel in this awkward scene.  Will Ferrell kind of pushes her away and she delivers: "You faggot!  You fucking faggot!"  That broke my heart.  The movie was excellent, but I was going to give it a Shipwreck 1.  I only added one more point because she sort of apologizes to Will Ferrell later, she says sorry, and that the incident was weird.  But she does not really apologize for the hateful homophobic slurs, so, she could be apologizing for the awkward almost kiss for all I care.  And don't give me the, "oh, she was a wreck" crap.  We have seen train wrecks who managed to pull out a great LightShed.  Look no further than Lisa Hamilton in Nine Lives.

And you wanna know how bad this type of name calling is?  My better half had forgotten about it right after the movie.  I concede that, maybe, my hubby is not as anal retentive and fired up as I am and that he can let things go and he is the one preventing me from pulling a Courtney Love on people's ass all the time, but I do believe that even when we forget a homophobic incident, it sticks to our unconscious.  Dangerously.  A lot of internalized homophobia comes from there, especially when served to us in such an excellent movie.  Even the soundtrack was great :-(

The Weather Man (2005) - LightShed 5

I liked the movie a lot.  Nicolas Cage is good in it.  He is a TV weather man in a midlife crisis, trying to figure out why his marriage to Hope Davis failed and his two kids are minor league screw ups (one is a pot head and the other is a fatty, no big deal).  He also has a weird relationship with his father, played by Michael Caine.  Michael Cane is a successful author, and Nicolas feels all inferior.

Our gay content here is a little of a stretch.  Elton John is mentioned as an invited guest in this TV show where Nicolas Cage wants to be employed.  Also, a shady content relates to the advances Ally McBeal's Gil Bellows makes on Nicolas Cage's 15 year old son.  Well, I really hope people are mature enough not to relate Bellows' advances with homosexuality, it's something else, and Nicolas Cage's character seems to understand that well.  No name calling or nothing, he solves the problem in a bad way, but no homophobia is used.  Nicolas also tells his son not to get into a grown up situation until he grows up.  This is good, the problem is explicitly that of the age difference, not the same sex situation.  Still, I'm giving it a low LightShed score.