S/D: Gay movies of arty qualities

i'd love to see the Genet film. is it available on DVD?

Taxi zum Klo
A Thousand Clouds of Peace...

Jed, that's PARTING Glances, and nothing in it approaches Steve Buscemi's level.

'finding forrester'?

whatshisface from TLA, who literally wrote the book on gay/queer cinema(and it's a fascinating book), always put together really cool bills for the gay film festival in philly every year. there is SO much out there. and yeah, some is horrible, but that is true of everything.

Tho some might say 'not gay enuf,' I would mention Jenni Olson's "The Joy of Life," which has played in far too few cities.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0436457/

Farewell My Concubine
Beau travail (it's not just a "gay film", but the gay theme is very strong, though mostly under the surface)
Half of Almodovar
Gods and Monsters
Lilies
Family Pack
Replay (La Répétition)
Surrender Dorothy
Suddenly (Tan de repente)

Or as teh Scarecrow said to Dorothy, "Some people go both ways."

* Homosexual
* Independent Film
* Gay Interest
* Abandoned Building
* Adolescent
* Art Collector
* Brutality
* Childhood Friend
* Christmas
* Cruising
* Desert
* Domestic Violence
* Drag Queen
* Forest
* Gay Bar
* Gay Bashing
* Gun
* Highway
* Interview
* Kennedy Assassination
* Lake
* Male Nudity
* Memory
* Movie Theater
* New York City
* Prostitution
* Rape
* Same Sex Situation
* Same Sex Union
* Semi Autobiographical
* Small Town
* Truck Driver
* Violence
* Water
* Hitch Hiker
* Non Linear
* Pay For Sex
* Pick Up
* Porno Theater
* Sexual Imagery
* Sun Bathing
* Male Prostitute
* Depression
* Sadomasochism

search..uh.. Midnight Cowboy? The Conformist? Dog Day Afternoon? I guess those are just movies with gay people in them, though haha

I watched most of Latter Days with my last roommate. He didn't seem to find it all to, er, edifying, so.. destroy.

this site is funny:

http://campblood.org/

http://www.tlavideo.com/templates/results_list.cfm?v=0&sn=1&pid=8358

"It all starts when the lead singer of a boy band just doesn't fit into the team anymore. So they do what all good boy bands do, the underwear-clad studs gather round the singer and suck his blood dry. To replace the lead singer the band, and their manager played with calm poise by Adrienne Barbeau (the actress, currently on "Carnavale" on HBO, is known for creating the role of Rizzo in Grease and playing Maude's daughter in the '70s TV show) decide to hold public concerts. Creating a sort of reality TV situation they select three contestants and invite the hunky boys to their private island where they will select the new singer. Immediately, there's friction with a girlfriend, a hero boy with a guitar on his back and lots of 6-pack abs and raised shirts. When the "good" contestant Shawn finds a secret cave with voodoo dolls, tons of candles, a torture rack and mysterious band photos, there's hell to pay."

OMG! That reminds me of a movie whose credentials as arty or gay are on probation, but Sleepaway Camp is the best slasher movie!

First gay fillum per se is Basil Dearden's Victim, starring Dirk Bogarde as a homo barrister in the days before Wolfenden, being scared to shit because bad men were bribing him with cottage photos. It's amazing. It's also on PBS affiliates about once every year, usually in a season with The Servant and other class-based dramas.

Also Paris is Burning seems to speak to/about the years I lived in NYC.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FP2YR2/102-1063953-7028925

still hstencil OTM about Anger, the epitome of gay "artiness"

Parting Glances
The Living End
Wild Reeds
The Opposite of Sex
Gods & Monsters
Bad Education

I want gangster movies where EVERYONE is gay!

oh, i think that a bare-chested henry II whipping himself to a bloody pulp at beckett's tomb is pretty not-subtle if you ask me.

http://www.fantoma.com/fantoma.html

george/mike kuchar
kenneth anger
jim hubbard
tom chomont
lawrence brose
james broughton
joel singer
jerry tartaglia
jack smith
willard maas
chantal akerman
su friedrich
barbara hammer
marlon riggs
john greyson

Mala Noche
My Own Private Idaho
Naked Lunch
Wild Reeds
Water Drops on Burning Rocks
Tropical Malady

very puzzling that this is the only (wrongheaded) mention of todd haynes on this thread. don't pretty much all of haynes' movies fit exactly this description?

http://slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=2552

Kenneth Anger in person at an hourlong screening of his 'essentials' next Saturday night at the NY Film Fest (tix still available):

http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/program/avantgarde/kennethanger.html

I am thinking of Presque Rien (studenty bloke has failed suicide attempt and thinks back to holiday gay romance that lead him to it), Le Clan (hot brothers have various types of angst), Wild Side (pre op tranny brings her two boyfriends to help look after her sick mum) etc. They are all quite slow and elliptical but worth watching

xpost

New print of Becket about to show in NYC.

Le Clan was pretty ridiculous in the amount of nudity in it, not that I was complaining. Agree that Full Speed was pretty meh

Presque Rien is probably the best of the ones I mentioned and also stars that same actor (Stephane Rideaux?).

That other Ozon film about the bloke dying of cancer (Time to Leave) = another arty gay type film

the bit with Jeanne M was the only bit that made me feel a bit tearful

A quick look at wikipedia and Stephane Rideau appears to be straight (he has a girlfriend and a kid at any rate)

Fair enough, that is why I didn't want to recommend any "coming out fairy tales". I thought Shortbus had a lot of "arty qualities" though, even if it wasn't an art film per se. As for total art films, Beau travail is still essential if you haven't seen it.

So, I don't know if I've helped at all.
if you want examples, I can give them..

cuz I just got Fantoma's Kenneth Anger Vol 1 DVD and it is sweet. Never read the excerpts from Anais Nin's diaries about the making of Welcome to the Pleasuredome before (I didn't even recognize her in the movie - d'oh)

http://www.strandreleasing.com/In_Theaters_Details.asp_Q_id_E_215

Marlon Riggs, Tongues Untied

a Bright Lights article, "Glancing, Cruising, Staring," covers Female Trouble, Paris Is Burning, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Death in Venice and Haynes:

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/57/queer.html

Destroy: Broken Sky

I like watching 20-year-old Mexican guys kiss and hump as much as the next fella, but... PONDEROUS

so Tearoom is part of the Whitney Biennial...

http://www.williamejones.com/collections/about/11

Dancing: Ballroom not mentioned? Ararki cited, but not Mysterious Skin?

De Vierde Man!

HellBent and Hard are pretty arty, as slasher films go.

Rosa von Praunheim, anyone?

http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2008/04/homos-in-distress-two-from-film-society.html

Even though I am an "aging homosexual," I really couldn't hook into this film thoroughly:

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006390.html

Hoberman on making of Flaming Creaures:

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/up-on-the-roof-20090312

In June, Rosa von Praunheim retro at NYC's Anthology Film Archives!

Early Paul Verhoeven, The Fourth Man:
Gerard's homosexual relationship, shown at the beginning of the film, is of an unsupportive, bickering nature with violent overtones. Gerard is portrayed as an alcoholic, a shoplifter, a voyeur and contemptuous of his readers. When he sleeps with the petite Christine, he flattens her breasts with his hands and exclaims "you look like a boy in his glory; so slim, tender!" When Gerard flirts with Herman, he puts his hand on his thigh and says, "I could tell you stories. There's one bigwig bastard, when he throws a do. All the neighbors lock their kids up behind locks so thick. Children of six or seven years old, girls and boys, no difference. Find that fun? Little boys!" He seduces the heterosexual Herman by a surprise fondling of him from behind.

i love too much here.

- Guy Maddin
- Noam Gonick
- Ryan Trecartin

oh also:
The Line of Beauty three-part miniseries adaptation by the BBC is quite good in its way-- very faithful to the book, in fact a bit more interesting.

Wm E Jones retro in NYC this weekend/next week -- i've only seen Finished, which is compelling, and the OK Morrissey-fan doc:

http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/schedule/search/search-result/?program=THE%20FILMS%20OF%20WILLIAM%20E.%20JONES

http://www.indiewire.com/article/2011/09/07/george_kuchar_filmmaker_and_provocateur_who_inspired_john_waters_dead_at_69

George Kuchar's Thundercrack was a regular feature at the Scala cinema. Must have seen it a few times on double bills (with Lonesome Cowboys and Querelle I remember)

he co-wrote and appeared in it; Curt McDowell directed.

One of those scathing Armond White articles made me watch El Cielo Dividido (Broken Sky) by Julian Hernandez and I have to say that I liked it. There is nothing artier than slow fancy camerawork showing Mexican twinks gazing at each other all over the DF for 140 minutes with no dialog whatsoever. Liked the second half of Tropical Malady? You need to watch this right now. He has a new one that (from what I have read online) seems to be a Latin version of Apichatpong's queer classic.

try A Thousand Clouds... by him. a lot less enervating to my eyes.

probably not arty enough, but does anyone remember that movie where john hurt falls in love with jason priestley

it was like death in venice with a dash of 90210

Oh no. I love the Kuchar brothers. I got on this thread to suggest Thundercrack. :(

A rundown on Weekend:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/andrew-haighs-weekend

I'm about where Uhl1ch is on this one.

At the NYFF tonight they showed an intro George Kuchar recorded at the hospice for the two videos they showed. "It's a one-way ticket here," he said, worrying about his lighting.

search search search: luther price! saw a handful of his films last night, inc. 'sodom', which is mentioned in this good overview of his work from 2000:

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/29/lutherprice.php

Werner Schroeter, anyone? Looks like only xyzzzz has posted much about him in the past. Anyway, cherished by Fassbinder, and subject of what looks to be a complete MoMA retro soon:

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1271

Looks sort of Peter Greeenaway-ish?

haven't seen a thing, could be.

here's a preview piece:

http://brooklynrail.org/2012/05/film/shock-opera-the-first-north-american-film-retrospective-of-werner-schroeter

so, again:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/werner-schroeter-1945-2010

I saw The Death of Maria Malibran last night, and Jarman is a closer comp than Greenaway, but not really.

Candy Darling lip-synching "St Louis Blues" in brownface :o

the queer canadian filmmaker john greyson has been jailed in egypt for over a week:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/30/john-greyson-tarek-loubani-canadians-egypt_n_3842458.html

watched his 'fig trees' the other night - astonishing (if a tad overlong) documentary/opera about AIDS activism, gertrude stein, and...albino squirrels

So I saw this last night, won't be released in NY til Jan 24 so there was no year-end rush anyway:

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-nyff-2013-alain-guiraudies-stranger-by-the-lake

I was intrigued during the cruising scenes how a handful of people tittered when an old or overweight man was seen staring at our twinky antihero; I guess they are people who haven't been in such scenes and aren't aware that it can be a real age-and-shape melting pot, with an often rigid hierarchy of hotness, of course. (In the Q&A there was a question about whether this was "a period piece," as OF COURSE this doesn't go on much anymore, right? lol. Answer was basically "It does in France.")

Also the writer-director emphasized that it's not a psychological thriller, he wasn't interested in that. The metaphor, about AIDS but other dangers too, was almost overstated in one dialogue scene ("You people have a strange way of loving" -- not to do with plumbing, but impersonality and objectification).

RIP Peter de Rome, pioneering filmmaker of gay erotica

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jun/26/pete-de-rome-gay-film-maker-gielgud-warhol-bfi

looking fwd to the new Julian Hernandez at Newfest NYC tnite

(not safe for Facebook)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7e8tUqT19Q

A search turns up absolutely no discussion of Lilting, and frankly I can see why. Tasteful, pleasant and dull, the kind of gay film you could show to your parents. The (non-sexual) scenes of the new Q in bed with his lover were rather beautifully intimate, though; the film could have used more of them.

I don't think people have called it a gay movie, but Greenaway's latest, Eisenstein in Guajanuato, is def an arty film about a gay relationship, with copious amounts of male nudity. And it's also one of his best, though I'm prob not the right to judge, as I kinda don't like Greenaway.

S: sadie benning

on Ron Peck’s Nighthawks (1978) and Derek Jarman’s Will You Dance with Me? (1984), "two essential documents of gay London"

http://artforum.com/film/id=51679

Has anyone seen Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent? It is a beautiful and arty film, and there's a whole subtheme about the development of gay culture in the late sixties/early seventies. Bonello will apparantly have a retro in NY in a few days, I think.

Eastern Boys was pretty good. Did not really expect to see a gay Make Way For Tomorrow and now a gay Taxi Driver released within the same year.

i see what you're saying re TD but it never occurred to me while watching EB.

Didn't care for EB becoming a hotel melodrama.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/bent/readers-poll-the-50-most-important-lgbt-filmmakers-20150615

Top 10:

01. Pedro Almodovar
02. Todd Haynes
03. Gus Van Sant
04. R.W. Fassbinder
05. John Waters
06. Derek Jarman
07. Lisa Cholodenko (tie)
07. Lee Daniels (tie)
09. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
10. Xavier Dolan

Pasolini at #13; Visconti at #21; Warhol at #24; Davies at #33.

well i'm glad Visconti and Pasolini arent alive to read that

Most Important LGBT Film (According To You): "Ally About My Mother" (1999)

howling

I love most of that top 10 but I just do not get Almodovar. I don't hate his stuff or anything - and I've sat through a bunch of them - I just don't find anything engaging in them to latch onto, the melodrama does not appeal.

(well, more like top 5 - past that I don't care so much)

and I would've put Anger near the top

it's not straight melodrama, Shakes

and where is Tsai ming-Liang or Rosa von Praunheim?

Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Most Important LGBT Film (According To You): "Querelle" (1982)

yes, ie the one that demonstrates maybe he died a few months late

perhaps I should clarify - I do not care about the characters and their problems

fascinating

clearly you are not an actressexual

do you care about Gael Garcia Bernal in wet briefs?

lol @ actressexual

Is Tsai ming-Liang officially out?

clearly you are not an actressexual

ya got me

apparently he has been for awhile, but no one ever talks about him and lee Kang-sheng.

xp

7 (tie). Lee Daniels
Born: 1959 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Debut Film: "Shadowboxer" (2005)
Most Important LGBT Film (According To You): Daniels hasn't really made a "LGBT film" per say, and didn't get any votes on our list.

where are Mitchell Leisen and George Cukor and James Whale?

They qualified the list as "post-Stonewall" era.

I can understand cavils about Almodovar, especially when after 1999 every movie got over the top praise despite being better than every one of his nineties movies.

these days I get excited most about I'm So Excited, which no one much liked.

I can't stand them, personally. I find them shrill and boring.

do gays know you feel this way about them?

VG

Bad Education, Talk to Her, Law of Desire, and Volver may be boring but "shrill"? Come on now.

And/or

I fucking loved I'm So Excited and cannot fathom why it was so critically panned when it was such a great return to form

my man

i'm usually won over by almodovar but i can see how the appeal is limited. kewl that tsai is gay. what time is it there? and goodbye, dragon inn are two of my favorite films ever. i would take him, joe and fassbinder in a pinch and be ok with leaving the rest of the top ten, or whatever. mainly i just want to see more tsai films, and the new joe film.

on balance, liked more gay directors in the closet

"Masc only, plz."

masked

cf Adam Brody Damsels speech

Mouthing the words of a closeted man.

sez you!

obv it's not a blanket statement, but Gregg Araki is living with a woman now, Christopher Munch has vanished, and X Dolan is kind of an idiot.

better dolan than nolan

but his hair, his hair!

There is nothing more to say. You're all insufferable clods.

do you care about Gael Garcia Bernal in wet briefs?

The recent-ish, Armond White-approved Last Summer seems to want to be a queer variant on an early David Gordon Green pic--All the Real Boys, perhaps?--but too often confuses adolescent banalities spoken in laconic voiceover for profundity. I like that it isn't about coming out or homophobia, despite its Deep South setting (a copy of Flannery O'Connor on a bookshelf is eager to let you know that the filmmaker has done is homework!), but then again it isn't really about much of anything else, either.

anyone familiar w/ video artist Vika Kirchenbauer?

http://onlocation.dirtylooksnyc.org/nyc-oct-4

i caught lan yu and thought it was okay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lan_Yu_(film)

take this with a grain of salt though its coming from a straight

Jack Smith's Normal Love is playing downtown tonight... YT version is unwatchably poor quality, but you can get an idea of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNI9OgICJHk

so there's this 'collective' of queerish/pansexual American-European filmmakers who are getting screened in NY this week... Fort Buchanan is pretty good/wack/like a Fassbinder-meets-Lifetime soap; with Palaces of Pity it might help to know more Portuguese history than I do. A History of Mutual Respect is the artiest "bro" satire you may ever see...

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-friends-with-benefits

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/gabriel-abrantes-daniel-schmidt-benjamin-crotty-alexander-carver/

strangely missing from thread: Joao Pedro Rodrigues. Along with Guiraudie's new one, seeing JPR's The Ornithologist at NYFF tonight. Strand has snapped it up.

http://variety.com/2016/film/global/joao-rodrigues-the-orinthologist-strand-releasing-1201883663/

Andre Téchiné's Being 17 was overwhelming.

I liked it as well, though perhaps not as much as you. Found it good, but rather conventionally made.

I've seen two other arty gay films. Alain Guiraudie's followup to Stranger by the Lake, Staying Vertical, is unfortunately a big disappointment in my view. Luckily Joao Pedro Rodrigues' The Ornithologist is everything Staying Vertical should have been, a mishmash of landscapes, myths, times, and places, with identity a big factor, and a lovely sex scene on a sunny beach.

Lionel Soukaz in NYC

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/46748

Being 17 on DVD/streaming at Netflix.

^I liked it fine, probably AT's best since The Witnesses, but didn't love it. The dad in the military, we all saw where that was going from the first, yes? It wasn't at all obvious, or even plausible, that Thomas reciprocated Damien's feelings til well into the last act though.

Excellent performance by Corentin Fila as Thomas, also strikingly beautiful. (The kid who played Damien was jug-eared enough to be little Serge Gainsbourg in that biopic a few years back.)

Damien had been eyeing him Thomas since the first frame; it's hard to separate condescension from desire, especially at that age. Also, living in close quarters exacerbated it, which is why I don't think their attraction is a particularly deep one. Techine is subtle enough to suggest the relationship, born of conflict and breathing the same air, will dissolve soon enough. With his usual deft, glancing touch, he flirts with the idea that Thomas could have easily gone for Damien's mother had she confessed and tried to kiss him like Damien did.

As for the dad? He was marked for death like partners in cop films.

him

I've got a list

misread thread title as 'gay movies of anitiquity'

i.e. The Women

I don't get My Own Private Idaho. There, I said it.

Falling houses, Henry IV Pt 1, River Phoenix, Udo Kier lip syncing -- what's not to get?

great list, but you wrote "rainer maria fassbinder" twice

where is Fight Club?

I'm assuming the reason it isn't on there is because it sucks.

musta been suckin' good every time I saw it

anyone seen 4 Days in France?

When it opened here a few months ago, the reviews were sufficiently lukewarm that I decided to wait.

I assumed this thread revive was for Guadagino's Dolan quote

Which was absolutely delicious.

like a peach is delicious?

here's the quote for those who don't know:

I’m a bit suspicious of Xavier Dolan, for one reason: he does too many films. I do not believe in hyperactivity. I like the idea of reflection,” he told Purple Diary. “I think ‘Mommy,’ for instance, is a typical post-Almodóvar female drama, shot in the clever, intelligent way of today, with an awareness of the iPhone generation. Is it a gimmick having to do with the tool? Or does the tool affect the way the images are put together? I was very upset when ‘Mommy’ — what a title! — was awarded the Jury Prize in Cannes. It basically contradicted Godard’s lesson that such an orgy of images is the end of language and then was rewarded for being an orgy of images.”

Apparently the quote(s) are 2 years old? xp

https://theplaylist.net/luca-guadagnino-xavier-dolan-20171004/

Both of them have made some very annoying films, tho LG nothing as bad as Mommy.

(I should say, the last 2 Guadagnino films, as that's all i've seen, til 6pm)

and Guadagnino hasn't made a film as good as Heartbeats.

There's no way that's possible.

but then I only feel the need to defend the good 50-60% of Laurence Anyways

I'll concede ethat no Dolan film has a scene as necessary as Matthias Schoenaerts and Tilda Swinton writhing in mud.

Heartbeats was Reality Bites with slightly better music.

Yup

The title and cast of his next movie give me the fear

Heartbeats was Reality Bites with slightly better music.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius)

And script. And manflesh.

I liked Mommy fine and the play adaptation I...wouldn't recommend to skeptics.

If you distrust people who make too many movies surely you shouldn't be quoting Godard? Two to three a year during his 60's prime!

Godard's career is its own special case.

is this for nu movies only? Bcz I just watched Fox and His Friends and wowwww

It certainly looked better after its Criterion restoration.

I just caught up with it a few months ago as well, and I second your "wowwww."

relentlessly cruel. reminded me of "Dancer in the Dark" and "Funny Games"

except by a great filmmaker.

Not bothering to post a link that'll get clicks, but J3ffr3y W3lls' singularly idiotic review of 120 Beats Per Minute is a thing of blunder:

As I noted last May, Robin Campillo‘s BPM (Beats Per Minute) (The Orchard, 10.20) is an impassioned, oppressively didactic period film (i.e., early ’90s) about Parisian ACT UP members battling bureaucratic indifference and/or foot-dragging in the battle against AIDS. It’s a tough, well-made, humanist thumbs-upper, but at the same time the relentless political-talking-points dialogue gradually numbs you out, and then drains you of your will to live.

At the risk of sounding insensitive or uncaring, Campillo’s hammer-focus on the French medical establishment’s slow-to-act response to the AIDS scourge is airless — it doesn’t breathe. BPM is a 144-minute gay agenda movie that says the right things, feels the right things and clobbers you over the head with its social-activist compassion and sense of life-or-death urgency. I for one staggered out of the Grand Lumiere theatre when it ended, gasping for breath and overjoyed that the lecture had finally ended.

I like my gay movies to feel swoony and speak softly — I want them to feel mellow and cultured and graced with the aroma of fine wine, fresh peaches and tall grass on a warm summer’s day. No offense but BPM is on the other side of the canyon, enraged and odorous and generally obnoxious. Thanks but no thanks.

What a story!

JW badly needs an axe to the cranium

I think the only movies I've seen from the last like decade are Weekend and Stranger by the Lake. What are 5 top-tier canonical definitive important gay movies of arty qualities from the last decade that I should watch? Is God's Own Country one of them?

yes, it is.

BPM (Beats Per Minute)
anything by Guiraudie
The Ornithologist

I'm v keen to see The Ornithologist because of how beautiful the actor is. It looks like it owes a lot to Joe though.

Blue is the Warmest Colour, From Afar, Heartstone, The Ornithologist, Carol

I'm not sure how much The Ornithologist owes to Joe, Joao Pedro Rodrigues made the kinda similar O Fantasma back in 2000.

God's Own Country is NOT very arty, it's like a '70s Ken Loach film w/ a rather sentimental (but good) gay romance added

I actually agree with Alfred's list. And it kills me.

Well, except that Weekend is still within the last 10 years and I know it's too normcore and hetero for the room but fuck off and enjoy it.

I actually agree with Alfred's list. And it kills me.

Not until every drugstore has sold its last pill.

Call Me By Your Name ain't arty either, but it's enjoyable, so watch it too, Stevie.

Loach style social realism is an arty quality.

especially set against Love, Simon.

ya I def plan to see Call Me By Your Name because it has been so polarizing among ppl whose opinions I value

ok so Eric and Alfred, I've already seen a Guiraudie so I've got BPM and The Ornithologist to watch, what are a few more of yr faves?

"Arty" as in indie: Test

"Arty" as in subtitled: Being 17

honestly i'm satisfied with "Arty" as in quality

The Duke of Burgundy
Eastern Boys
The Handmaiden
Tangerine
Bad Hair
Vic+Flo Saw a Bear
The Last Time I Saw Macao
Keep the Lights On

Vic+Flo Saw a Bear and Keep the Lights On also qualify

oh Morbs beat me lol

Second The Duke of Burgundy, for sure. Wish I'd liked Eastern Boys better.

oh yeah Tangerine!!!

Swedish film Something Must Break as well.

4 Days in France was determined to be the dullest cruising film of all time, and probably came close. Some good single-scene supporting performances, but I don't think a Mr Bean lookalike was the right lead.

S: sadie benning

― slam dunk, Sunday, April 19, 2015 9:53 PM

Went to Lincoln center last Friday night to rewatch about eight of her Pixelvision shorts, and damn, maybe 20 ppl were there. I onder if many have ever even heard of her who didn't see the stuff in the '90s.

http://www.vdb.org/artists/sadie-benning

Sat-Mon in NYC

http://metrograph.com/series/series/173/jack-smith

Worst gay films of no qualities.

Can't really agree with including A Fantastic Woman on that list - I liked it a lot.

Tom Ford's A Single Man, I'd agree isn't a good film - but there are still elements of it I really like such as the use of colour and the photography, and the scene with Julianne Moore. The main problem for me is that Colin Firth just doesn't feel right in the role.

Saw Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience yesterday, which I think is late reaching London. It's a bit slow and dragging, but did convey the claustrophobia of very tight-knit communities and a quality of surburbaness - and stays with you afterwards. The love scenes were quite nicely done, though not especially 'arty'.

From Alfred's 'good' ist, I personally can't abide either High Art or Death in Venice.

One of Moore's poorer performances, and Ford neutered the novel for the sake of sentimentality (the phone call scene, from which the film never recovers).

Before I saw it again a couple years ago DIV might've gone in the bad pile.

good thing none of us has ever seen that Rex Harrison-Dick Burton movie

For years, I'd only heard of that movie because Ebert included his review in his collection of most hated movies. Then I remember reading something a few years back where Armond White called it a landmark queer classic or something, which tells me all I need to know.

On Alfred's shit list, I've seen A Single Man, Threesome, J Edgar, Get Real, and Tea and Sympathy. I may have seen Suddenly, Last Summer at some point, or I'm just remembering scenes from it that were included in The Celluloid Closet or something. The only one I remember sort of liking is Get Real, though not enough to mount any kind of defence of it (I remember Beautiful Thing being better anyway).

Worst gay movie I've seen might be Latter Days, which trivializes homophobia and suicide for the sake of a surprise happy ending (yeah yeah spoiler yeah yeah yeah).

Suddenly Last Summer is my kinda Tennessee Williams.

only if Monty Clift had eaten me

Moonlight is a well-acted and beautiful-looking terrible film.

So I read Myra Breckenridge, and I liked it as much as I like anything Gore Vidal has written (he's fine, sure), and didn't know anything about the film version, and I popped it in one afternoon when I was staying over at a friends and had nothing better to do. I loved it, it felt like a proto-"Natural Born Killers" except about sex instead of violence, with all the other footage intercuts, and a hammy-and-great Rex Reed performance. Minutes after it was over, I googled about it and was surprised to learn it was widely loathed, that Gore Vidal disowned it, that Rex Reed hated it, and so on, and so forth. Am I crazy? I think it's totally a great movie

A friend asked why I hadn't included it. I wasn't as enthused as you, goon, but its maladroit understanding of the novel is real fun.

Included on your dud list, you mean? Maybe I should watch it again, I just remember thinking it was very funny

I'm also curious Alfo if you've seen Hail The New Puritan and your thoughts on it

After the failure of this film, [director Michael Sarne] was never asked by an American studio to direct another film. Upon learning that Sarne was now working at a pizza restaurant, Gore Vidal is said to have commented that this was proof of God's existence.

I very much doubt Mike Sarne ever worked in a pizza joint fwiw. Funnily enough I saw him recently in a crappy early 60s British teen movie and he was the best thing on it.

... actually, having just checked his IMDB page, he did disappear for about 10 years after Myra Breckenridge, plenty of pizzas could have been served in that time.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/70/Come_Outside_Mike_Sarne.jpg

i made my mind up recently to read then see Myra, but it's surprisingly difficult to get hold of the book -- it doesn't circulate in the NYC library (Brooklyn either).

Well worth the read.

If first heard of Parker Tyler from reading Myra Breckenridge.

highly related:

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-then-1970/

Baby Doll is my kinda Tennessee Williams (as straight as possible).

Michael Koresky looks back at Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied and the political furor around it.

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-then-1991/

I'd fallen out of the habit of checking these ... I sincerely hope this becomes a book someday:

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-then-1997/

starting at NYC MoMA next week:

MoMA’s film collection includes significant holdings by lesbian and gay filmmakers, especially in the period ranging from avant-garde celebrations of queer culture on film to the tragic resolve of the AIDS crisis on home video. Featuring a selection of classic, forgotten, and newly preserved landmark films of the movement, “Now We Think as We Fuck”: Queer Liberation to Activism explores the ways that queer moving-image artists defined and inspired their marginalized community. Works in the series demonstrate how those in the movement rose to heroism in a time of crisis, acting to change the course of history.

https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5186

a rare opportunity to say "one for Sextool" at MoMA

Surprised @ no mention of Barbara Rubin's 'Christmas on Earth'

Koresky on Flaming Creatures (last column if FC doesn't return)

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-then-1964-jack-smith-flaming-creatures-jonas-mekas/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASN_qGMUREY

(Just kidding.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Stucker#/media/File:Stephen_Stucker.jpg

That being said, Benediction looks promising.

Fire Island doesn't look good, obviously, but I don't see why contempo gays don't deserve a Spring Break or a Where the Boys Are '84 of their very own.

Spring Break was already plenty queer.

(Spring Breakers)

https://worldfilmgeek.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/springbreak-still.jpg?w=816

OK, that looks gayer.

A gay Netflix series of non-artful qualities, Heartstopper, is the best gay thing I've seen in a while.

I was curious if that was worth a watch ... I prefer the Hulu show Love Victor (more or less) to its major motion picture antecedent Love Simon.

I just read the first volume of the Hearstopper graphic novel, and have the other three on hold at the library. I'm not sure how much the first season of the series (or is it a "limited series?") covers, but I'm thinking I should hold off on starting the series until I finish up the books.

It covers the first two volumes. A friend praised the fidelity to the source.

What'd you think? As I wrote on Facebook, I grinned from ear to ear by the time I reached the last episode's revelations. Nice to see bisexuality given a boost too: no equivocations, no this-is-just-a-way-station bullshit.

I also appreciated how Nick Nelson might be one of the few recent genuinely nice characters successfully presented.

The first volume was really sweet. It may border on slight--although I am told the series eventually moves beyond just two boys making goo-goo eyes at each other--but I nevertheless appreciate its (relatively) angst-free presentation of queer joy.

Except for Nick's mom (nicely played by Olivia Colman) the parents are non-entities; however, Charlie's friends are fully fleshed out.

hoooooly shit I just watched ZERO PATIENCE (1993), a very wacky and surreal musical in which noted explorer Sir Richard Burton drank from the fountain of youth and lives forever and is making a documentary about AIDS' Patient Zero? Please watch this. It's on Criterion Channel at the moment.

That's been a blind spot of mine for years and years. Will happily check out soon.

Daniel Craig plays an outcast American expat who lives in Mexico, and Drew Starkey stars as a younger man with whom he becomes madly infatuated, in Luca Guadagnino’s next film ‘QUEER.’

Filming begins this month in Italy. pic.twitter.com/jfUiDC2QAG

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) April 21, 2023

I detest cheap sentiment.

Or a book full of clippings?

Or a salted peanut.

Daniel Craig leaning into gay roles now makes good on how hot he was in Enduring Love and Munich

and Infamous, the first movie where I went hubba-hubab.

this would make for a fun movie tie-in version of the book, if that's still a thing

Passages proving surprisingly divisive amongst my Letterboxd gays

Your response?

(I watch it on Saturday)

Still on my to-watch list, sadly, but I expect it opens here before too long. Meanwhile, I'll be reviewing Rotting in the Sun soon enough.

(Oh crap, Passages has opened here. Will try to see it this weekend.)

i enjoyed it!

Another gay arty short I've seen tons of enthusiasm over: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-taking-of-jordan-all-american-boy/

I really liked Passages too. Must've been the Ira Sachs thread that I posted on.

Ira Sachs has quietly created an intelligent little gay oeuvre

he really has

He’s one of the under-the-radar directors whose films I’ve recently enjoyed getting to know, like Celine Sciamma (who was not talked about much until the last few years), Eliza Hittman, and Jessica Hausner. I don’t think any of those directors have taken a wrong step yet. All of their films have been very understated but also interesting

I would put Ulrich Seidl in that category as well, and maybe some others. His films aren't gay as such but have a very queer sensibility

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/t-magazine/gay-villains-white-lotus-ripley.html

I watched Weekend (2011) tonight. Pretty good!

Well, except that Weekend is still within the last 10 years and I know it's too normcore and hetero for the room but fuck off and enjoy it.
― "Minneapolis" (barf) (Eric H.), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 11:32 PM (five years ago)

ibid

I really loved Passages - Franz Rogowski is a force of nature.

I also loved L'immensita, a semi-autobiographical Italian trans coming of age story by Emanuele Crialese, which has got otherwise mixed reviews. Everyone has focused on Penelope Cruz, but the non-actor kid in the central role is sensational.

I agree with everything, except I also liked Penelope Cruz in that movie.

All of Us Strangers splitting my arty gays about as much as Passages did. When was the last arty gay movie that got universal arty-gay praise?

The majority of arty gays are wrong about All of Us Strangers btw. I loved it.

why didn't the arty gays like Passages?

A sampling:

What’s worse, the ego of the filmmaker in the movie or the ego of the filmmaker making the movie?

is this person hot enough to justify their horrible behavior?: the movie

This is a major problem for contemporary film culture in which actors are hired for their social identity and limited to it. Gay actors are bamboozled into invasive, distasteful postures the same way black actors are bamboozled into defensiveness. They are forced to find their way through politicized stereotypes according to the era’s fashion — where their humanity and creativity have been traduced and politicized.

This desolate view of hapless people is extreme, consistent with Sachs’s interest in sexual compulsion (The Delta, Keep the Lights On), but it also smacks of humorless, radical progressivism. Pedro Almodóvar’s self-critical Pain and Glory was also emotional, erotic, and funny, with a wonderful, fully fleshed performance by Antonio Banderas and a range of lovers holding on to their humanity. But instead of bringing his characters close, Sachs brandishes topicality: After Thomas and Martin’s last squabble over infidelity, Sachs features a West Hollywood rainbow-flag poster that blares,“No More Abuse of Our Rights, Dignity,” “Police Officers Not Storm Troopers,” “Blue Fascism Must Go,” and “Stop Illegal Search and Seizure.”

Those slogans are clearer than the relationships in Passages. These progressive libertines are miserable yet smug. Sachs salutes their headlong independence in the closing sequence where his camera tracks alongside Thomas’s bicycle ride across Paris. It’s also smug, recalling Woody Allen running through New York streets at the end of Manhattan but without the Chaplinesque payoff. Sachs has not perceived or created recognizable people in Passages but is selling politicized sexual types — perhaps, ultimately, a misperception of homosexuality. It’s like an adult version of Disney’s grooming agenda. Is this a harbinger of social propaganda to come?

OK you got me, the last one's 4rm0nd

Disney's grooming agenda

of the three samples eric posted: first one i don't get (sachs is hardly the fassbinder type?), second one is weaksauce "critique" (someone was horrible? in a movie???), third one is...well, armond

I also liked All of us strangers - hard to resist if you grew up in the 80s suburbs listening to Pet Shop Boys. Kind of a queer spooky sibling to Eternal Daughter.

Mescal and Scott did a q&a at my screening and their mutual affection was almost as moving as the film!

i recommend paul b. preciado’s new godardian recasting of woolf’s orlando into the current-day trans milieu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpGFplNRUmc

Def my favorite key art of the year

Man, Saltburn sounds awful

promising young woman was godawful, guess we’re in for more

It's definitely less than the sum of its parts. (Its parts being Brideshead Revisited, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Gormenghast.) Great casting, lovely main location, song choices that a little TOO obvious at points.

But basically I forgot I saw it within a couple of days. I was thinking "Wait didn't I see a movie this past Monday...oh yeah right."

didn't really have any interest in seeing saltburn till I saw Ned's post that added gormenghast to the brideshead/ripley comparisons had already heard - now sounds gloriously bad and i wanna see

Barry Keoghan could make a great Steerpike. This attempt at a variant, well...

Silverlake Life if "arty" = "gritty, lo-fi mid-80s documentary"

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, September 22, 2005 8:07 AM (eighteen years ago)

gygax! OTM, absolute doomwatch that turned entire cinemas into weeping masses

I've got a chromosomal aversion to gay films of arty qualities infused with a special pleading, so I'm still thinking about my response to All of Us Strangers /

You're not alone in that, but it worked a treat for someone like me

Paul Mescal, though! I thought he was a wan little thing. Every time he chortled and looked at Andrew Scott I wanted to -- well.

First reasonably mainstream movie to feature one man cleaning up his own, er, mess from another man's chest?

I finally saw Saltburn. And I wish I had stayed home and rewatched Teorema.

something i’ll say for saltburn is i’ve never felt completely uninvolved in something “trashy” before

anyway, very bad! gorgeously lit but no one behind the camera is making images out of this gorgeous lighting! script is obviously intended to be Hilarious but it isn’t funny???? (rosamund pike doing her best)

https://t.co/k5HoOU1NLv pic.twitter.com/abH1tYD0tD

— Larry Fitzmaurice (@lfitzmaurice) December 27, 2023

Not much discussion here of Rotting in the Sun. I watched it last week and liked it, actually found it fairly affecting at the end. Won't say much because it starts out seeming like one kind of movie and becomes quite different.

There are individual scenes in All of Us Strangers that I found really affecting, and the performances were uniformly excellent, but as a narrative I'm not sure what to make of it.

I watched the trailer and determined it wasn’t for me.

Ha, I watched the trailer and determined no movie has ever been more for me.

Y'all should watch Winter Boy, a gay film of arty qualities released last year that covers some of the same ground yet is funnier and lighter.

I don’t think All of Us Strangers was meant to be light

That's the problem.

There really should be more light, funny films about grief

My problem mostly has to do with the ending.

There really should be more light, funny films about grief

― Wack Snyder (Eric H.),

I recommended one!

Hard pass then

Short read: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/all-of-us-strangers-bottoms-queer-storytelling-1235784736/

2 Criterion announcements of note:

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/7581-gregg-araki-s-teen-apocalypse-trilogy
https://www.criterion.com/films/34514-all-of-us-strangers

I am fine identifying as an All of Us Strangers gay

I am fine identifying as a Gregg Araki gay

I am fine identifying as a gay.

I’m kind of a Todd Solondz gay too I guess

I watched ‘Hyacint’ (aka ‘Operation Hyacinth’) this evening. Stars absolute smokeshow Tomasz Zięntek as a cop in Warsaw in the 80s, investigating a murder of a rich gay guy, turns out to be a wild conspiracy, then he falls for his twink informant, and everything goes nuts. Honestly a good film! I didn’t know much about state repression of homosexuality in Poland, only that it existed… and since I lived there for nearly half a year, and had some rather wild sexual experiences too, it seems I should do some research.

Also tho: Tomasz Zięntek— fucking smokeshow.

Maaaaaaaybe not arty, really, but had some arty elements.

Alfred, interested in what you disliked about "Sebastian" (2024).

Is it because it portrays sex work as sad and desperate?

I mean, I honestly had a lot of fun when I was an escort, but can see where it could go pear-shaped quite quickly.

(i haven't seen the film).

It treats sex work as a gimmick: The Writer going undercover to learn Deep Truths. “Will I write a better novel as a sex worker?” he asks.

it's also lugubrious as hell

sure, that makes sense.

i was hoping it would be good because uh well Ruaridh Mollica is a smokeshow imho

my date today reminded me, in conversation, that i had never seen this, and now i have, and everyone should. (i collect vintage porn, so this is ultimately very very interesting for me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Paux2eyki10

(It's William E Jones, "The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography")

not explicitly gay, really, but pretty gay nonetheless, MONSTER was really good, i thought!!

the Charlize Theron movie?

I’m assuming table means Koreeda. In which case I agree: wonderful film.

Agree too.

While we’re at it, a lesbian film, and not especially arty (unless foreign + quiet = arty), but I really liked All Shall Be Well, currently streaming on Criterion.

I am sick, explaining my movie bingeing — I had never seen ‘Happy Together’ until just now. Incredible film. Also Tony Leung is such a smokeshow it almost hurts.

Otm on all counts

Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (on Criterion) is worth the watch

Tony Leung is so hot! He was the co-star of In the Mood for Love (2000) with Maggie Cheung, one of my favorite films ever!!! He also starred in Chungking Express (1994) and Happy Together (1997).

I really liked Kore-eda's Monster, but it seemed very enigmatic

The film by Kore-eda that I loved the most is not gay. It is an early film, Nobody Knows (2004). It stars Yûya Yagira, a teenage boy of an alcoholic, absent mother who is trying to look after his younger siblings without any resources. I think he was the youngest person to ever win the Cannes best actor award.

watched “North Sea, Texas” and “Summer of ‘85.” Both rather beautiful and sad.

Man, I can't believe I still haven't seen Summer of '84, especially since I remember liking the novel (Dance on My Grave, by Aidan Chambers) so much.

I've never heard of the other film!

Félix Lefebvre, the protagonist in the latter, is quite literally my platonic ideal of a young man.

Oh! That’s the novel that gets the boys in trouble in ‘Boy Like Me’!! I should read it.

“North Sea, Texas” does have some of the hallmarks of young queer love stories— neglectful mother, bisexual and capricious love interest, etc. But its beautiful moments are so beautiful, and the relationship ends up being rather beautiful too. Very much about “young love” and a boy coming into himself.

Summer of '85 was a much virtual cum shot in the grim fall of 2020.

*much needed, haha

The scene with them in bed definitely uh got me a little hot

Mädchen in Uniform (1931) is I think one of the earliest films to contain overt (rather than covert) lesbian references and is very much recommended.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A4dchen_in_Uniform

Assumed the thread revive would be for ‘Pillion’ which was quite brilliant and surprisingly funny. As if there weren’t enough reasons to live Harry Melling.

I think the reason I haven’t been interested in that one is that I can tell the plot from the trailer, and I don’t find any of the main characters attractive

(I also have very mixed feelings on biker and leather culture in general)

Matt, you should also check the Mexican remake of ‘Mädchen’ from the 50s if you can track it down

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_in_Uniform_(1951_film)

Doesn't seem to be a subtitled version on YT unfortunately but I'll add it to the seek list!

Watched ‘Departure’ starring Alex Lawther. Lovely film, some truly incredible camera moments

Also Lawther is a great actor!

'Heartstone' was good, sort of in the same vein as 'Close' but rather than the Belgian countryside, the setting is rural northern Iceland. Some of the shots were incredible— boys wandering fields next to cows as huge mountains loom in the near distance, desperate local chip shops where the teens gather as the site of fights, kids playing in a spring. Made me want to go to Iceland. (But yeah, fair warning: while the more sensitive/gay of the two boys doesn't die in 'Heartstone,' the ending is rather wrenching)