Looking (new HBO series that seems like Girls but with gay men instead)

I had high hopes when I heard about it because the guy behind Weekend is involved but after reading more about it, my expectations have gone down a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0g-YokWb4M

Let the thinkpieces begin.

this is prob gonna be stupid but there should at least be some bare ass

solitary posts etc

I will get v excited abt this and prob become extremely disgusted with it 5 minutes into the first episode

There hasn't been a single show about Gay Life on cable that hasn't made me want to make lascivious remarks to the first chick I see.

Weekend was an entirely respectable film and kinda bored me.

J0rdan possibly otm

Best case scenario is I guess something like I Want Your Love.

They did quite a bit of shooting in my neighborhood.

A series set in 1996 gay SF would be more interesting (since the '70s have already been done with Tales).

New trailer with actual footage and stuff:

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

Hm, there's a chance this might not suck.

for my sins i liked both of those webseries Hunting Season and The Outs. I'll probably watch anything along these lines. The Outs was better and the main guy was much cuter but Hunting Season had cocks and i like seeing those too.

fwiw i thought Weekend was the irritating wish fulfilment fantasy of a gay man who chases straight men. There's no way the main guy in Weekend was gay, It just wasn't believable. I mean the guy was mega hot so whatever.

Glad to see Russell Tovey is in this.

fwiw i thought Weekend was the irritating wish fulfilment fantasy of a gay man who chases straight men

Ughhhh do not want to open up the question as to why the main guy in Weekend wasn't believably gay because that's the kind of thinking that might doom something like Looking, or any queer-centered narrative, that there are innate qualities to being gay and male, beyond being attracted to men

But I guess I just opened it up

we should at least mention that Sean Hayes is back to playing gay parts, i wonder why

there are innate qualities to being gay and male, beyond being attracted to men

I'll even do you one better. There are innate qualities to being gay and male, without being attracted to men.

Either way, "believably gay" irked me.

Well, the actor is straight. I know actors act and his performance us decent in most ways but there's not a scintilla of actual gayness about him. I simply didn't believe it. He's a fantasy figure of completely straight man who is actually gay.

There are innate qualities to being gay and male without being attracted to men.

Just in case, you're partly serious, no. The British scholar-writer Mark Simpson made me an absolutist on this in the '90s. ie, "What I have in common with you lot is a taste for cock, full stop."

I am fully serious.

Full stop.

so, what are these qualities?

It need not be anything so prescriptive and you don't need to make a list if qualities imo. Suffice to say that of the many thousands of gay men I've met I've actually been surprised to discover someone is gay a total of maybe 3 or 4 times yet you only have to look at online dating profiles to know how pervasive the fantasy of a gay man without any discernible gay qualities actually is "straight acting only"! "no camp guys"! For the most part It's not even a case of seeking a straight man who has sex with men but of seeking a straight man who'll have sex with *you*.

well my old joke is ya can't be straight acting with a dick in your mouth.

And you can be without one in your mouth. How is this a complicated concept?

bcz mine (ok, not specifically that, but you get me) is the defining quality.

OK, I'm going to do us all a favor and divest from all the gay threads that don't involve cherishing disco and All About Eve.

just BDSM and Husker Du for me

white white white?

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-hbo-looking-gay-men-diversity-20131115,0,6241978.story

i guess this is going to be a typical fencesitting post for me, but I hear both sides.

I think the gay longing for straightness is complicated, and swirls together all kinds of emotions and desires that aren't just self-hatred, but I do grasp why it would be "irritating" to see that dynamic play itself out: overfamiliar, political retrograde, mildly embarrassing. Because it does look like a kind of self-deligitimizing move to lose desire for someone as you soon as you see that they are in the very category in which you already belong (more or less, no one ever fully feels this without some dis-identification too).

I dunno. The affair I had a few years back with a dude who up to that point had only had sex with women (and who since our thing has gone back to women) kind of changed my mind about this whole issue. I don't think people are as predictably locatable as I once did. I think at the time I was turned on by his "straightness", even though that very straightness was being undone by what we were doing. So I get the idea that that can be appealing, and that it gives an edge (in fantasy) to real experience.

As for acting, it's frustrating to think of this kind of isometric one-identity-per-customer model in which people can't act across orientation without worrying about minstrelsy or phoniness- are we that confident in our gaydar? What do people here make of, say, John Hurt's performance as Quentin Crisp? Or Heath Ledger vs Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback for that matter?

reminds me of how long it's been since queer as folk was on (the us version). has it really been that long since there's been a dedicated series about teh gays? L Word I guess.

white white white?

Nope, nope, nope.

And this is decidedly not Weekend, insofar as it centers around anything remotely like a specious straight archetype. It goes too far in the opposite direction for my taste maybe, but I'm not going to panic that this isn't my life. Weekend wasn't either.

To clarify, the "opposite direction" I'm referring to isn't that the characters are the opposite of a "straight archetype" (i.e. super femme gay or something like that), but rather that they are too wholly defined by their sex drives. Thus far, anyway.

As in, the only str8 person in sight is an archetypal fagh -- uh, fruitfly?

Well, no.

Just that none of these characters are sheltered except for Patrick, who's beyond openly gay but doesn't seem ready to act on it.

"sheltered"? This is another word with a new meaning I don't know, maybe?

when does this debut?

This Sunday after Girls.

cheers.

Don't know if it's because of low expectations or what, but I really liked the pilot.

Eric wrote something really good about it. He should post it here.

I'm slow to post links of my own stuff, but since you asked: http://www.slantmagazine.com/tv/review/looking-season-one

I'm not certain what I'll think about this as they flesh out the story lines more but I'll give it one thing; the versimilitude is excellent. It feels very much like the SF I live in.

It's telling of the state of Art For Gays in 2014 that one of the criticisms of Looking that I've heard more than once (whether from Rich Juzwiak, whom I've grown to trust less and less on anything as time goes on, or from that awful Esquire post I'm not linking to) is that it's boring. It's the most pointed example that nothing about the community they portray can be enough for everyone in that community, not like I'm complaining about that complaint (since there are valid criticisms to be made of this show). I dunno, it's "damned if they do, damned if they don't" cause like, someone seriously suggested that they would have rather had a "gay SATC"? And, besides how there's probably something like that on Bravo/Logo already, I could already imagine the backlash if they made that their approach.

Sorry for the parentheses, etc.

(also, I would consider myself a fan of SATC though not the movies, just to be clear)

good pilot, i'm on board for S1

never seen an episode of SATC

1st 2 seasons of SATC weren't utter bullshit.

I feel like the Esquire guy only likes his gays to be flamboyant. One of the things I liked about the pilot was how it felt like SF and not a stupid sitcom. It's only boring if you treat gay men as a camp commodity to be ignored when they're doing boring ordinary stuff like 'looking', dating, you know, being human.

i liked this... there was some nitpicky stuff i rolled my eyes at (a scene ending with "i can't even with you" & A HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR SONG) but the acting was really good and the episode was well constructed.

i thought the first date scene was especially great

If the characters were as unbearable as Girls I wouldn't go near this (LD & Co being hets is the saving grace)

the holiday/sightseeing episode that ends with "Everyday is Like Sunday."

I just saw this one, and since Haigh wrote and directed it (he doesn't do em all) it was kind of like Weekend but shorter.

The one that ended w/ the Golden Girls theme made me verklempt

(no comment)

Only one of the two last posters are someone I'd like to hang out with.

when does therapy start?

Dom is narcissistic, extremely superficial, and opportunistic

Well he's a waiter, all those people are fucked up.

like bitches whose soft spot is any implied or actual criticism of their fave childhood sitcom. or Brian dePalma.

anyway, Scott Bakula as the Voice of Reason: "Some of us aren't on our phones 24 hours a day."

the holiday/sightseeing episode that ends with "Everyday is Like Sunday."

I just saw this one, and since Haigh wrote and directed it (he doesn't do em all) it was kind of like Weekend but shorter.

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 6, 2015 12:53 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really great essay on that episode that eric posted upthread:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/bent/looking-at-looking-things-we-learned-about-patrick-in-the-series-best-episode-yet-20140216

yeah, that's good.

The thing about complaining that Patrick is self-absorbed -- well that's how the show presents him.

The last 2 episodes of s1 were fairly strong. Never recognized Julia Duffy as his mom, excellent performance.

EXCEPT FOR THE GOLDEN GIRLS SHIT, STOP WITH THE FUCKING GOLDEN GIRLS SHIT.

(seriously the jokes in every clip i hear from that show are goddamn awful)

There are signs all over lower Haight neighborhood saying that the special is being filmed on Nov 3.

Did 45 years get a U.S. Release? I missed it in the theatres.

Damn I loved this show. Watched it on demand over a few days with my wife.

One thing that I didn't like about it, and this may just be my chip on the shoulder anglophobia : I mistrusted and disliked Kevin the whole time and felt like Patrick was an idiot for not just choosing Ritchie.

I felt like Richie had a narrow escape from a pretty dull guy.

still not out on Netflix -- grr

again, i think Patrick's idiocy was sort of presented as a given.

Movie in july

looking fwd

(no terrible pun intended)

i don't get the pun. but yes i'm happy this is going to be tied up. it was frustrating at times but i liked it a lot for the most part and it was a beautiful looking show, always amazingly well photographed. and i have a huge crush on raoul castillo, which i'm sure i've mentioned multiple times on this thread.

I don't have my Sky subscription anymore, so I thought I'd buy the DVDs of this in advance of the film, and then buy that when it comes out. But the DVD of the second season isn't coming out till July 2017. WTF? That can't be right, surely.

hope they mean '16... it makes sense to promote the wrapup

I'm rewatching this w/ my boyf so we can discuss it (he never watched it). We just finished S1 and I still think all of the main characters are terrible and, in retrospect, surprised that Andrew Haigh or whoever like actually thought these characters were likable and that we are supposed to care abt them or their lives. Also, holy mother of god, you have two seasons of a show abt gay men in San Francisco and you don't have a SINGLE trans character? Sheesh...

Likability is not his strong suit see also Weeeknd, one of whom was not likeable and another who was likable but not believable as a gay man. He was more like the fantasy of a v chill straight mate we'd lust after, probably. See also Richie in Looking who was only gay because we were told he was.

Any thoughts on the movie? The show (and movie) are extremely well made from a technical PoV.

Moustache/restaurant guy is fairly likeable, no?

fortunately Haigh has proven himself a good director (i.e. 45 Years)

Agreed. Very skilled.

lol apparently I said this last March and still feel completely 100% the same way

Dom is the person I would loathe the most; he is everything I hate about gay men (seemingly nice but actually really smug and arrogant and will be a dick to you if they see nothing to gain from interacting with you)

like Dom is absolutely the type of person who will only talk to ppl who he thinks are a) hot b) beneficial to him in some way. Dom is the type of person who a mutual friend wd introduce me to in a group setting and the wd ignore me the entire time and give me one-word answers to all of my attempts at conversation.

good god that movie was terrible!! No narrative arc, horrible pacing, a parade of awkward dialogues that just referenced or wrapped up a bunch of things from the show (a lot of which coulda just been left unresolved?), no conflict, just saccharine nostalgia. It's like they had no idea what to do, also everyone inexplicably became like a mature decent person in a rly improbable way. What a pointless exercise.

never watched the movie, feel like i needed to rewatch the series to get to it. Sorry to hear it was a "couldabeen" fest

Season Two finally out on DVD.

i will watch that, then write me some Raúl Castillo-Adam Driver slashfic.

S2 >>> S1 (>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the movie) imo

yeah I'm fine w/ never watching the movie

Weekend? You guys are nuts.

Judging by the second and third epsisodes, Season Two has "Queer as Folk"/"Melrose Place"-level insight.

no, we're referring to the Looking finale movie.

oh lord

maybe u should watch it with the sound off

or turn up the vacuum cleaner

now that's an outdated euphemism

richie is too good for patrick

yep. richie is the best thing about the show.

not just the character, raoul castillo is a brilliant actor.

I loved Richie, and Looking felt like the TV show closest to my own life

haven't seen the film yet

Yeah, I had no clue how Patrick didn't just propose marriage to Richie like 2 minutes after meeting him.

Truly, this was the greatest of all gay friends in town threads.

Still haven't seen the movie, still never will probably, but I loved the series a lot.

movie is ok. doesn't really need to exist tho.