GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Gay
Life
 
In Memory Of 
Mike
Maffei |
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There's an old saying that goes: there's no place like home. This appears to be the underlying theme of Hollywood, Je t'aime, the debut feature film from writer/director Jason Bushman. Like The Wizard Of Oz, his movie is bookended with a framing story that is filmed in black and white. Eric Debets plays Jerome Beaunez, a Frenchman who decides to spend Christmas in Los Angeles. He also dreams of finding work as an actor. Mimicking Dorothy's arrival in Oz, Jerome steps into a new world filmed in vibrant color. This charming slice of life also stars Chad Allen as a good natured pot dealer who takes Jerome under his wing. |
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| Brokeback Mountain is the Citizen Kane of queer cinema. Some films make an impact on their first release only to be forgotten later. This one has lost none of its raw power. It takes a lot for a movie to make me cry and that scene with the shirts still reduces me to a slab of Jell-O every time I see it. Brokeback Mountain was the breakthrough film that we awaited for decades. It was an exquisitely crafted movie, a critical and commercial success, and a surprise crossover hit. Conservative pundits and the family councils all went into apoplexy, jokes were made by comedians, and the mythology of the American cowboy underwent a major revision. But, above all, Brokeback Mountain was a love story that resonated with audiences both gay and straight. | |||
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| Oral histories are important. Swimming With Lesbians, a radical documentary by Rochester filmmaker David Marshall, chronicles many of the important voices that have emerged from my native Buffalo, NY's eclectic gay, lesbian and transgender history. The film's Mistress of Ceremonies, Madeline Davis, is one of Buffalo's leading players on the GLBT stage. She is the founder and curator of the Madeline Davis GLBT Archives Of WNY. Davis made history when she addressed the 1972 Democratic National Convention at the age of 32, identified herself as a lesbian, and demanded the inclusion of a gay rights plank. Folks, it didn't all happen in New York City and San Francisco. | |||
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| It took a long time for Kiss Of The Spider Woman to finally come out on DVD but it was worth the wait. Two men, of vastly different demeanors and ideologies, share the same cell in a brutal South American prison. Louis Molina (William Hurt) is a flamboyant homosexual window dresser who is imprisoned for corrupting a minor. His cellmate is Valentin Arregui (Raul Julia), a journalist jailed for his leftist political activities. To alleviate the day-to-day drudgery, Molina entertains Valentin by retelling the stories of his favorite movies. | |||
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According to popular
legend, playwright Tennessee Williams underwent psychoanalysis in 1957
to "cure" his homosexuality and the play Suddenly
Last Summer
was the result. This is inaccurate; the truth is much more complicated
than that. Many view Suddenly
Last Summer,
especially the film version, as being one of the ultimate artistic
expressions of a self loathing queer. The inclusion of a negatively portrayed
homosexual is hardly proof of this; Williams' fiction is populated with
far more grotesque examples of heterosexuals. |
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| Edwardian
England was not a good time to be gay. The climate was so bad that
noted novelist E.M. Forster began writing a book with a homosexual hero
in 1913 that he never published in his lifetime. That book, of course, is
Maurice
and, in 1987, Merchant Ivory Productions adapted the book to the screen.
The film
features superb performances and a meticulous attention to period detail.
It is a rich filmgoing experience and one of the most beautiful films in
all of queer cinema. |
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