'Bros' review: Self-aware gay rom- is not above cricism - Los Angel Tim

Contents:

• LE MACFARLANE ‘BROS’: THE HOTTT MOVIE STAR OF THE YEAR IS A GAY MAN. FALLY!
• BROS REVIEW: A BIG GAY ROM THAT’S A BIG OLD MS
• 'BROS' TRAILER: BILLY EICHNER TO LEAD FIRST GAY ROM- BY A MAJOR STUD
• 'BROS' TRAILER: BILLY EICHNER DELIVERS LGHS FIRST GAY ROM-COM FROM A MAJOR STUD
• ‘BROS,’ THE FIRST BIG-STUD R-RATED GAY ROM-, IS FOR EVERYONE
• GAY ROM- 'BROS' IS LIGHT AND BRIGHT WHILE MAKG MOVIE HISTORY

LE MACFARLANE ‘BROS’: THE HOTTT MOVIE STAR OF THE YEAR IS A GAY MAN. FALLY!

The LGBTQ romantic edy stars Eichner and Le Macfarlane as a gay uple navigatg the plited onle datg world, wh a few obstacl — and people — thrown along the way. Universal Pictur proudly prents the first romantic edy om a major stud about two gay men maybe, possibly, probably, stumblg towards love. Billy Eichner took to Twter this weekend to share his thoughts on the disappotg receptn his gay rom- Bros received at the natn's cemas.

" Based on enthiastic cril reactn at the Toronto Internatnal Film Ftival, and robt social media attentn, Universal Pictur had expected Bros – which is the first gay romantic edy wh a mostly LGBTQ st to be given a wi release by a major stud — to open the range of $8-10 ln.

BROS REVIEW: A BIG GAY ROM THAT’S A BIG OLD MS

Eichner hted at broar acceptance issu, tweetg that at one pot a theater cha had "lled Universal and said they were pullg the trailer bee of the gay ntent.

'BROS' TRAILER: BILLY EICHNER TO LEAD FIRST GAY ROM- BY A MAJOR STUD

Billy Eichner, Le Macfarlane, and Bros director Nicholas Stoller exclively tell EW how they vised their groundbreakg gay sex scene Universal's romantic edy, and volved a lot of improvisatn, lghs, but also reful nsiratn of how to prent a tenr, extremely specific, and kk-iendly moment to the mass. 'Renée Zellweger 'loved the joke' of Billy Eichner namg a fake gay app after her  BrosBilly Eichner got emotnal filmg Bros gay rom- scen 'the way Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan' didBilly Eichner 'actively pursued' Symone for her Bros role after seeg her talents on RuPl's Drag RaceBilly Eichner's LGBTQ+ st shatters rom- history  Bros trailer: 'Love is love… that is bulls---!

' Bros Bros Billy Eichner leads a predomantly LGBTQ st Universal's groundbreakg gay rom- about two men fdg love unexpected plac. Bros may not technilly be Hollywood's first gay love story — films like Makg Love, Jefey and Fire Island all prece — but 's fely Hollywood's rnchit gay love story.

Capturg that aspect of ntemporary LGBTQ life is somethg that was important for the film's out gay stars, and sets Bros apart om the typil Apatow/Stoller jot, where the central uple tends to be monogamo. (Photo: ©Universal/Courty Everett Collectn)Those scen were also an tn for Stoller, who ps to beg a straight director helmg a gay rom-. The film is already gettg review bombed on IMDB by homophobic viewers, many of whom haven't even seen the movie, leadg Eichner to rpond on social how he feels about the possibily that ter trolls might claim that he's "rptg" Ameri's youth, Eichner says that ship has long sce sailed.

'BROS' TRAILER: BILLY EICHNER DELIVERS LGHS FIRST GAY ROM-COM FROM A MAJOR STUD

(Photo: ©Universal/Courty Everett Collectn)Even as Bros reprents a breakthrough for gay storytellg at the major stud level, Eichner regniz that the muny he's a part of is far more diverse than the whe uple at the heart of the film. Jon and Ldley both cred Glee wh beg one of the first mastream entertaments to expose dienc to the different lors that make up the famo gay pri rabow flag.

(Photo: Foc Films/Everett Collectn)Speakg of love stori, Bros n't rist lobbg gags the directn of one of Hollywood's most famo gay romanc: Brokeback Mounta, Ang Lee's Osr-wng 2005 drama starrg straight actors, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, as doomed lovers. "That said, Brokeback Mounta is also the poster child for the kd of tragic gay romance — one ma by a largely straight st and crew — that Hollywood has too often favored tellg at the expense of other stori. Eichner took some grief onle when he discsed the film as the first gay rom-, revisg his statement to the first mastream, major stud theatril rom-.

Given what we’re discsg—the explic sex scen and filthy, flirty dialogue between gay men that happens the new movie Bros— the next words that e out of his mouth are unexpected: “I’ve kissed a lot of women on Hallmark.

‘BROS,’ THE FIRST BIG-STUD R-RATED GAY ROM-, IS FOR EVERYONE

”Here Macfarlane and I are, talkg about how he beme part of one of Hollywood’s gayt movi to ever h the big screen, and hs me jt how much his succs means. ”Those gay men don’t have to take a tra to New York Cy’s Wt Village to see this scene, or the movie, at the one pennt cema where Bros is playg.

Macfarlane regniz how far he’s e om then, though—as well as how far media has e, terms of offerg gay men like himself somethg to pe serv up way more lectable optns for LGBTQ folks to sk their teeth to than Donahue did.

GAY ROM- 'BROS' IS LIGHT AND BRIGHT WHILE MAKG MOVIE HISTORY

As such, I n only speak as a gay man, who has both celebrated and been entirely pissed off by different exampl of LGBTQ reprentatn mastream culture, gay and of the time, the attempts lean too much to clich about promiscuy. ”Billy Eichner’s Gay Rom-Com ‘Bros’ Is as Hilar as It Is HistoricBut the stg asi, there’s somethg different about Bros, at least om my own experience watchg, I intified more wh the two romantic leads than I ever had wh any rom- character I’ve ever watched my life—and I nsir myself a historian on all matters Ephron-Meyers-Marshall (my Holy Try).

Universal PicturAbout a ago, he explas, he starred the Broadway productn of The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer, a screed about the way gay men were emed expendable by a ernment that let them die of AIDS, rather than fund life-savg rearch. I didn’t want to dimish “the first major stud movie wrten by and starrg a gay man” or spoil s Rotten Tomato sre or dance on the grave of s box-office prospects.I certaly didn’t want to attack the star of “Billy on the Street” and “Difficult People,” two of the most succsful screen adaptatns of the gay sensibily recent memory.

As Variety poted out s topsy of the film’s box office flop, s dreadful $4.8-ln take “means many LGBTQ viewers didn’t show up to see the edy theaters eher.”Do that make too the “homophobic weirdos” of Eichner’s nfoundg post-bomb tweet spiral or simply the silent Benedict Arnolds of his self-proclaimed march to the history books?“Even wh glowg reviews, great Rotten Tomato sr, an A CemaSre etc, straight people, pecially certa parts of the untry, jt didn’t show up for Bros. It is emently ldable that Eichner has ma a sexually ank stud edy featurg two gay men, and that he sisted, as wgman/-star/-producer Guy Branum not, on an all-LGBTQ st.

Its laceratg send-ups of token reprentatn Hallmark Christmas movi; the “hnted hoe of gay trma” that pop culture pass off as queer history; even Eichner’s own public persona are all a potent, knowg nod to the ongog challeng of tellg LGBTQ stori — of livg LGBTQ liv — whout simply repurposg a tired, old, straight script.Until the culmatg ame of s fal act, that is, when the image of two nventnally attractive gay men kissg is posned, lerally, as the ldatory bookend to “5,000 years of gay love stori erased om the history books.” For a film otherwise allergic to moralizg, this sure seems like “old-fashned heteronormative nonsense” to me. And yet, spe the affi Eichner and I share on paper — no, bee of the affi we share on paper — I reil at “Bros’” squanred privilege, bristle at s star’s attempt to hi s shortgs behd the veil of homophobia. It is the eedom to fight over, cricize, even ignore the artworks that claim to reprent — and, on the flip si, the eedom to keep makg and nsumg gay art whether straight people show up for or not.Ined, when I saw the film a send time this week, at a half-full weeknight screeng at the Sunset 5, what stck me most were the loust lghs and cheers, all directed at the gayt material — the slap fight-turned-sex scene, the Bowen Yang meo, Nile Kidman’s pre-roll ad for AMC.“Bros,” a film exprsly about the refal to butch up one’s voice for a straight dience, isn’t for everyone, and don’t need to be.

Billy Eichner, left, and Le Macfarlane behavg uple-y Universal Pictur’ “Bros.” (Universal Pictur) To say “let gay art bomb” is not to say “let gay art languish.” It need not mean that we stop prsg film studs and televisn works for more, and more thoughtful, LGBTQ reprentatn.

It’s simply a remr that — not only for gay art but for art, full stop — mercial failure has often been a sign of creative succs.

It is through the ph and pull of the popular and the avant-gar, the acclaimed and reviled, the celebrated and the spect, that we arrived at the place where “Bros” uld sk or swim.May the next quarter century brg still bigger swgs, still more revolutnary cursns to the mastream, still more films and TV seri “too gay, too niche” for straight dienc and not gay enough — never gay enough — for . It’s not some die or “some streamg thg which feels disposable, ” as he said to Variety, words he then clarified after they were terpreted as a slight agast fellow gay rom- Fire Island, which premiered on Hulu June. Also, ’s about 40-year-olds who fuck, not a g-out story about someone fumblg their first kiss, like roughly 90 percent of gay stori onscreen are, he clared to GQ.

Eichner has done so much work to load down Bros wh qualified historil signifince, and to sist that ’s not like those other gay movi, that ’s a pleasant surprise to fally watch the thg and fd to be sexy, msy, and joyful, and rmed ls by a sense of s own importance than by a vague uncertaty that may have arrived too late to the party. It is, after all, a eful o to a whe masc-centric gay culture that the movie unrstands to be passé and exclnary even as has been s protagonist’s whole world.

In that, as well as an appearance om Bowen Yang, has somethg mon wh Fire Island — the btersweet love story at s re is ls wh a person than wh the ia of gay muny, which s ma characters value even as they feel nsigned to s outskirts.

Still, Bobby’s the newly appoted director of the first-ever LGBTQ mm, and the movie tak pas to tablish him as the host of a succsful gay-history podst first, maly to give him an exce for a disgted monologue to the mic about how he was approached by a Hollywood producer to wre the kd of gay romantic-edy “a straight guy might watch wh his girliend. Aaron — whose tradnal masculy his some ternalized homophobia — reprents so much that loud, ant, nve-chted Bobby has rented and yet wants, and the film n’t que square his ristance wh his sire. When Bros begs, ’s hard to image how a plsible romance is gog to stggle out om everythg the movie feels mt reprent wh regard to bigotry, sirabily, beg visibly gay, and havg relatnships that don’t feel beholn to heteronormative ials.