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No, after you mentioned it on here, I did see it. I just didn't put that together when I first saw it. I was thinking instead about Lee's other movies and how similar it was to those. But of course, I see what you mean about Idaho.Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirt
If any of you ever watch that 1982 Harry Hamlin/Michael Ontkeen movie Making Love... there is a scene where a frantic Kate Jackson is tracking down Ontkeen, and she inadvertently visits one of his anonymous tricks. There in that guy's apartment, next to the bed is a big jar of vaseline.Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirt
That was the way it was then, folks.
http://www.labnet.com/oldthink/new2/makinglove.jpg
Oh God! .... just looking at that picture is a refreshing reminder of how far we've come along in the United States regarding how gays are portrayed in the movie cinema.
Steve
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Originally Posted by desslock
I never even saw the Vaseline on the guy's nighstand. How funny! LOL!
Making Love was not perfect, but at least it wasn't Cruising. At least in Making Love, they attempted to tackle the topic with earnestness and honesty. And the men had a VERY hot love scene. When I was a kid, I used to jerk off to that like it was porn. To me, at age 12, it was! :)
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Originally Posted by desslock
LOL the world is what we make of it. Soon enough our generation will be in power.. what happens then?
Could you imagine a mouth full of Vasaline? WTF :nowords:
LOL I used to jerk off to David Lee Roth in his spandex, and his spunky brother on the drums... Then the hot guy in American Warewolf in London... then my best friends brother with his washboard abs and curly blond hair playing hacky sack... damn :kelly:Quote:
Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirt
For me it was all about Christopher Atkins in The Blue Lagoon. Then, later, apart from the Making Love sex scene, it was the scene of Tom Cruise jerking off in Risky Business and the scene of Judge Reinhold jerking off in Fast Times that used to get me hot. And, of course, Christopher Atkins again in A Night in Heaven. It's amazing how much I could stop, rewind and replay those scenes so I could get off. :)
i haven't seen the movie but my gay friend asks me to see it.
For those who have been following the backlash against Brokeback, here is a link to the "for/against" piece that I contributed to for Frontiers' coverage on the film's controversy.
I don't necessarily agree with all the things written by the guy who didn't like the movie (I think he's far too stuck in the semantics of gay sex versus straight sex for his own good), but his thoughts are intelligently executed.
As you can see, I used some of my commentary from this very thread. :)
http://www.frontierspublishing.com/m...rt&article=273
Ken
Well, Ken... sorry.. but I agree a LOT more with him than you there.
It's such a piss off that people think I didnt' like it because it didn't have a happy ending. I didn't like it because I didn't really like it... thought it was just a variation on the theme of "Gay men can only be acceptable to straight audiences if they're miserable and die".
And I have to say that this whole arguement I'm hearing that "You're not smart enough to like it" is really starting to make me wanna break femurs. (Which, to be fair, you didn't acutally say, but seemed to be hinting at at one point)
Yeah, but after having so many happy gay movies that did pretty well at the box office and on video (ie Birdcage, Jeffrey) can't we make any kind of movie now? In the past straight people liked gay tragedies because they got to watch something scary and foreign get destroyed, but in today's world don't you think some things have changed? I think seeing the characters in brokeback go through what they go through is quite different than watching Shirley McLain hang herself in The Children's Hour. The straight audience saw that as her getting what she deserved, while in Brokeback most people will see this as the tragedy of not being true to yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jasun
You don't have to like the movie. I haven't even seen it yet and will probably wait until it comes on video. But dislike it for what it is, not becasue of the political atmosphere surrounding it. If we stay away from tragedy because of the way we think others will take it, then we are not being true to our art. Not all movies need a happy ending. I mean, Dancer In The Dark was one of the most depressing movies I've ever seen. If they had though twice about making it so sad because of the way Iclandic people might be percieved or because they were worried about CD sales of the soundtrack then we would not have such a beautiful movie.
you thought the Birdcage was "happy"?
Man, we have a different definition of that word, I guess.
I thought that a son telling his parents that although they had raised him and cared for him that they were just too humilitaing to be his parents, so he destroyed their relationship to be more palitable to his stupid fiance and her ignoramous parents who weren't told they had to change a thing about themselves.
In the end of the movie, the senator is JUST as much of a hateful fuck, but we get to see him be totally huminiated for a second before he goes back to Washington and votes for the DOMA.
Meanwhile, the family knows how much the son hates them, and nothing changes.
yeah.. real "Happy".
It's kind of as if gay people feel like they are an authority of the actual gay identity, and therefore insist on a certain portrayal. Happy / sad / good / bad. Is this the same way some blacks were offended or upset by they way they saw Danny Glover treat his wife in The Color Purple?Quote:
Originally Posted by DonMike
Don - I like it when you talk about movies. That is a great point about the Children's Hour.... yet another one of those movies that you will never see unless you are up at 3am watching a remote movie channel. That writer in Frontier Magazine has to quote some real old chestnuts (Vito Russo) to marshall criticism on BB Mountain. Old movies did portray homosexuality badly..... but those were movies in the 1950s showing gays in the 1950s. BB Mountain is a movie in 2005 showing gays in 1963.Quote:
Originally Posted by DonMike
That is not viscious. That's like condemning Merchant / Ivory for making Maurice and portraying gays as unhappy in Edwardian England.
Steve
um... but there was dancing. :vanish:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jasun
I think the son realized by the end what an ungrateful fuck he was. At least that's how I saw it. People do stupid shit when they're in love. Just like Patrick in Auntie Mame getting engaged to that snooty bitch and making Mame have to deal with her redneck family.
Besides, if he wasn't such a turd there would be no movie. It would have been 90 minutes of Nathan Lane and Robin Williams living thier daily life and having an uncomfortable dinner. Besides, no matter how you prepare your child and try to make them as open minded as possible, they may get into situations where they will have to out themselves as the child of a gay parent, and who's really prepared for that. It's their own coming out as well. I'm not saying the son was right in his actions at all, but given the choice that he might not be allowed to marry the woman he loved because of her parents' views of his family's lifestyle, and given the short amount of time he had to deal with this, made him go a little crazy. It was a comedy and most comedy comes from a fucked up situation.
You know, I loved The Celluloid Closet so much that over the years I have been going through all the movies that were mentioned that I had not seen and that was one of them. I wrote Logo and suggested they do a Celluloid Closet marathon. There are a lot of other classic gay movies that I've never seen, Maurice being one of them. I think I need to pick up Mr. Vito's book and check out some of the movies that didn't make it to the documentary.Quote:
Originally Posted by desslock
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Originally Posted by Jasun
I definitely see your point, Jasun. It IS too bad that most of the gay-themed entertainment sold to the mainstream does feature some kind of miserable outcome, but as the other writer said (not in these words), "Perhaps that is an unfair reason to judge the film by." Now that is something he wrote that I can agree with. It IS unfair to judge Brokeback along those lines.
Apart from what I believe to be the movie's implicit societal message (Love of all kinds is a good thing; gays are as deserving of love as the rest of the world), I love Brokeback, first and foremost, as a film. A glorious, beautiful film with some of the most amazing acting I've seen in ages and a lyrical, gentle and often serene pacing that feels like poetry to me. It's elegiac, and I love the simpleness of the narrative. And the story--not the "political" story, not the "gay" story, but just the story itself--is, to me, beautiful.
I said this in the piece I wrote, but again, it's also a movie that is very similar to some of the greatest tragedies in Hollywood's history. If you look at the film along those lines, you will see that the gays in this movie get the same treatment as many of Hollywood's greatest heterosexual love stories. (Equal, not special.) I think the movie shows that gays HAVE arrived at the point where our stories can be told in the same fashion as those of heterosexuals. There is absolutely nothing that seperates this movie from Romeo and Juliet, Titanic or Casablanca. And again, just b/cuz the characters are gay, the movie should end happily?>>> As a writer whose job it is to tell all kinds of stories, I honestly find that notion absurd and deeply insulting. The funny thing is that nobody seems to want to address the double standards at play in that kind of notion. Honestly, aren't we past the point of treating the gay community with kid gloves?
I stand by my belief that, b/cuz it is the first major gay love story sold to the mainstream, it is being judged far too harshly by the gay community. The movie is doing far more good than evil, and, b/cuz it is more of a "period film" set in a different time in history, I seriously doubt that people will view it and say, as the other writer suggested, "Doesn't it suck to be gay?"
I see all the points of those who criticize the movie, but I think they are missing the bigger picture here. Brokeback is an extremely important film b/cuz it is hopefully opening the door for other gay-themed projects to get made. Again, it has come along at just the right time in history as well, especially in light of the 2004 election results. I guarantee you that there will be people who see this movie and think, "You know, I think next time I have to vote on whether or not to legalize gay marriage, I may have to rethink voting no."
I honestly see all your points, Jasun, and I think they definitely have some merit. I can even agree with you on some of them. I have my own issues with Brokeback (though, admittedly, they are rather small and trivial, and have nothing to do with politics), but I really think the movie's pros outweigh the cons. It's such a well-intended film, and I prefer to embrace it for those intentions and what it has managed to introduce to the world at large. And I'm not afraid to stand behind the situations or the characters in the movie, b/cuz they are all very true-to-life and, to a certain degree, they reflect my experience as a gay man. In short, I'm very proud of this movie for telling it like it is, not how it should be.