Contents:
- THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
- TURNS OUT, BARBIELAND ISN'T AS GAY AS S QUEER FANS HAD HOPED
THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
—Emma SpecterFire Island (2022) Matt Rogers, Zane Phillips, Tomas Matos, Joel Kim Booster, Torian Miller, and Bowen Yang Fire Courty Everett CollectnThis (very loose) adaptatn of Jane Aten’s Pri and Prejudice, om director Andrew Ahn and wrer and star Joel Kim Booster, follows a group of gay iends who take their yearly summer trip to inic queer vatn statn Fire Island, only to fd that their days the sun may be numbered. Chartg the forbidn romance between a peasant girl servg as a maid to a wealthy heirs through a seri of ntradictory, Rashomon-style perspectiv, The Handmain is a meticuloly librated erotic thriller for the ag. Directed by Barry Jenks and adapted om a play by Tarell Alv McCraney, Moonlight serv as a powerful g-of-age story across three chapters the life of a gay Black man growg up an impoverished rner of Miami.
Is the Warmt Colour (2013)Adèle Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux Blue Is The Warmt Courty Everett CollectnFirst premierg to a divisive cril rponse at the Cann Film Ftival 2013—both for s graphic pictns of gay sex, and the allegatns of mistreatment by director Abllatif Kechiche on set—Blue Is the Warmt Colour still serv as a powerful ttament to the tumultuo love between s two ma characters, Emma and Adèle, as they drift an out of each other’s liv over the urse of many years. Weekend (2011)Tom Cullen and Chris New Courty Everett CollectnAndrew Haigh’s sensual, tenr, utterly charmg portra of two young Brish men (Tom Cullen and Chris New) meetg and fallg love over the urse of 48 hours is ank s pictn of sexualy as well as emotn, touchg on the specifici of gay life today as well as the universal aspects of an electric and immediate nnectn.
Adapted for the screen by Mike Nichols, Tony Khner’s sprawlg “gay fantasia”—a Pulzer, Tony, and Drama Dk-wng phenom centered on the AIDS epimic 1980s New York—beme a vasatgly good miseri, starrg Al Paco, Emma Thompson, Mary-Louise Parker, Patrick Wilson, Jefey Wright, and a brilliant, shape-shiftg Meryl Streep. Starrg Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the wild-livg Brish mician Brian Sla, loosely based on David Bowie, and Ewan McGregor as his Amerin unterpart Curt Wild, loosely based on Iggy Pop, the story trails Arthur (Christian Bale), a gay journalist attemptg to track down the now-reclive Sla for a magaze story, wh the heady days of his life at the height of global fame revised through flashbacks.
TURNS OUT, BARBIELAND ISN'T AS GAY AS S QUEER FANS HAD HOPED
Photo: Courty Everett CollectnAnother director whose non featur a number of queer masterpiec, Derek Jarman’s radil adaptatn of Christopher Marlowe’s history play Edward II saw the director apply his signature time-hoppg spir to draw parallels between the life of the ntroversial medieval kg and the vibrant spir of gay life ’90s London. That clip appears The Celluloid Closet, Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman’s documentary based on Vo Rso’s study of homosexualy the movi, along wh untls exampl of how gay characters showed up, per narrator Lily Toml, as “somethg to lgh at, or somethg to py, or even somethg to fear. Some have been documents of a moment or era of gay history, some have been ed as rrectiv to s of negative clichés, and others have simply celebrated the fact that the movi n be queer, they’re here, get ed to .
It is nowhere near a prehensive ndown of every great movie to feature out-and-proud hero and villas, or a queer sensibily, or even jt visible (and/or risible) exampl of gay life cema; we uld have easily ma this list twice as long. The performanc are staggerg: Al Paco as the ignom Roy Cohn; Jefey Wright is the sharp-wted gay nurse who tends to him; Mary-Louise Parker as a pill-poppg hoewife wed to a closeted Mormon; Emma Thompson as an imper (and sometim sassy) angel; and Meryl Streep four rol, cludg the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.