My flatmate and I had another one of our Thai take away and DVD nights last night. I went and collected dinner and chose the movies. We are always keen to give gay cinema a chance but it so routinely craps all over itself. Last night was no exception. I hired three DVD’s, two gay ones, one of those French, the other from the US. The French one was just a shambles. A guy comes out, then for some reason sleeps with his now ex-girlfriend, who then bitches that he doesn’t look at her the same way he look at the guys he shags. No shit sherlock! The U.S. movie was so filled with cliches it was ridiculous. The over-the-top party boy slut, the very earnest and quiet monogamous couple, who are so boring it hurts, the fag hag, the lying rent boy, and the serious colleague who tries to challenge everything the slut believes in. It’s so good that we are making such progress in our portrayals on film. No wonder we have right wing religious folks condemning us to hell… it’s actually because of our bad cinema.
The third movie was an Australian movie called Gabriel. About Arch Angels coming to earth to fight it out with the fallen dark angels. It tried to be the matrix. It tried to be underworld, it tried to be intellectual. It was none of those things. It did however have Andy Whitfield as Gabriel in the lead role. He was far from the worst actor in the movie and damn if he wasn’t hella pretty to look at. The former model was the best thing in the movie, but sadly that’s not saying much.
Update: Sorry Yani, good point. The French one was called “You’ll get over it” or something and yes he had a brother who was a boxer. The U.S. one was “Four letter word”. The only good thing about that one was seeing David from Someone in a Tree in the nude yoga scene.
So, how was the Thai takeaway and what did you bring home?
Yeah I want to know that too. We had Thai last night and it was delicious! Having Indian tonight.
You know, it helps when you actually tell us what the bad movies are called so we can avoid them :P
Although I think maybe I saw the French one… he had a brother who was a boxer?
I also couldn’t agree more about Gabriel… crap movie, cute boy (blue eyes!!!)
Damn, I have just got four letter word for my own similar take-out and film night tonight. I’ll still see how it goes,
Ack! Did you know it was me in the film ahead of time or is it that obvious? I still haven’t seen the film.
Thankfully it’s bad enough that everyone I know hasn’t seen me starkers on the big screen. What was I thinking?
Hey thanks for the heads up on the Four Letter Word.
I agree some of the best GLBT movies come from out of the USA.
I agree about it being a crap shoot renting gay themed films. Too many times the cover doesn’t match the film. Some great gay fliks I’ve seen lately though: Shelter, Latter Days, Beautiful Things, A Love to Hide (German). If you check them out hope you find them worthy of your own standards. PS..dig your site and keeping up with your adventures. Peace, M in st. pete fl
See Shelter – a fresh look that is not perfect but breaks away from the angst ridden homilies that plague so many gay productions. No screamers, no queens, on torturous self discovery – nice closely focused love story between two guys, made me feel good. Best thing devoid of BS.
I recommend Shortbus, by James Cameron.
Me and my partner really enjoyed it (we both thought it would be a pile of pants) lol