Overall 0.5 / 5.0 (don’t bother)
Gay Inclusve? Very – mostly gay, some hetero secondary characters
Gay Positive? No – I don’t think they meant to be homophobic, but jeez…

Wow. I actually watched the whole thing, and in hindsight, how did I manage that? I feel like Superman now, able to watch awful movies in their entirety.

Here is the most positive thing I can say about this movie: the performances seem very earnest and enthusiastic, so kudos to the cast for bringing that energy to the show.

Unfortunately, it is far, far… far… from enough to save the film from its choppy editing, godawful camera shots, and aimless plot.

In theory, the movie is supposed to be a satire of a gay man (Jaime, played by Brian Campbell) looking for love and self-understanding via a search for a “straight lover who will be gay just for me.” The movie’s own blurb states, “In the end, Jaime is amazed to discover the one person he never thought he would – himself!”

That’s a stretch. Jaime comes from a background of casual, anonymous sexual encounters in the back of an adult bookstore. One gets the sense he’s never had a real relationship based on commitment and intimacy.

Meanwhile, at his job at an auto shop, he’s closeted. He develops a “bromance” with a (straight) fellow employee (Ray, played by Matt Edwards) who turns out to be a homophobe who tries to get Jaime into deep trouble in a completely contrived plot twist.

Somewhere along the course of the movie, the self-loathing Jaime tries to convince a peer from his backroom sexcapades to move to the suburbs with him and a pair of lesbians to pose as straight couples, so they can try to seduce married straight men. They detour on the way, however, with a series of bathroom encounters with gas station attendants. The film also includes an odd subplot involving a young man (Monty, Michael Gonring) with a self-professed fetish for “trolls” (older gay men). Monty is engaged to be married, and he leaves at the end of the movie for his bride.

I think I’m so disappointed in the movie because its foundational ideas are actually interesting to me. The fetish for straight men (and certainly for straight-acting) is prevalent throughout the gay community, so a satire about a gay man looking for a straight man who will be gay only for him suggests the possibility of both a lot of comedy and a lot of insight. Similarly, youth is highly fetishized in the gay community, so Monty’s subplot could have been woven into the story to enhance and reflect the main story’s theme. Alas. The script is a mishmash of barely coherent scenes and nonstarter plot threads.

My recommendation: Skip it.

Overall Quality 2.0 / 5.0 (a lot of potential, but hobbled by inconsistent storytelling)
Gay Inclusive? Very – one of the two main characters is gay, and the other is at least bicurious
Gay Positive? Mixed – these people have a lot of growing up to do, and they don’t do it in this film

An odd movie. In some ways, filmmaker Damion Dietz displays remarkable talent. The story continually defies expectation, he manages to draw some fine scenes out of his acting talent, and the script successfully forces the viewer to think about the story being told.

Weak-willed (but very handsome) Nate has recently enlisted in the army at the urging of his critical mother and self-involved girlfriend. He decides to seek out his biological father for the first time before he leaves for Iraq. Meanwhile, gay emo boy Andy is reeling from the death of his marine lover and struggling with his responsibilities as a young father (he is gay; apparently the conception was lubricated with tequila).

But. The movie is riddled with plot contrivances, the characterization relies far too much on stock clichés and still manages to be inconsistent, and the ending simply fails to satisfy.

As a result, I cannot recommend the movie without qualifications. It’s above average among independent gay films, thanks to a deep story and fair-to-good acting. It’s also a very sexy film. At the same time, all of that is faint praise – most independent gay films suck, and handsome man-flesh only compensates so much.

Regarding the gay positivity of the film, I’m puzzled by its mixed messages, which are the result of terrible and inconsistent characterization.

Andy is easily the most inconsistent character, sometimes mournfully deep, other times shockingly immature and irresponsible. He’s pining for a marine lover who died (recently, by implication); he was alternately distant and clinging with newly enlisted Nate, but rarely displayed the emotion that made sense at the time.

Nate, meanwhile, is a straight guy who enjoys one night of passion with Andy. It was hard to buy into – I never understood Nate’s journey in this film. I had no sense that either Andy or Nate had really grown as people by the end of the film.

The ending. It’s not a matter of how the relationship between Andy and Nate changes at the end. I kind of like that it defies expectation. But the conclusion doesn’t answer any questions, nor does it manage to capitalize on any of the film’s themes in a meaningful way. I get the sense the film ends the way it does because Dietz doesn’t know how to end it otherwise.

Teaser:

Overall Quality 4.0 / 5.0 (engaging and interesting)
Gay Inclusive? Very – the subject is a gay man and his beginnings in gay porn
Gay Positive? Mostly – a positive tone undercut by negative implications that go unexplored

A fascinating look into a culture and man full of unexpected contradictions.

Jeffrey Schwartz’s documentary explores the evolution of Jack Stillman – a small, unathletic child of Beverly Hills privilege – into Jack Wrangler, who epitomizes rugged male sexuality. The evolution is far from linear. Jack begins in gay porn at a time when pornography was produced for the big screen, and acting was actually expected of the stars. Sometimes adult films could even get reviews in venues like Variety.

Stillman forged Wrangler in the fire of the gay porn business in the 1960s, during the time of the sexual revolution. The gay experience was fraught with peril; the documentary largely ignores that and focuses instead on the sexual openness of the pre-AIDS period.

The documentary strikes me as a bit one-sided in this sense. In fact, with Jack as the chief narrator, the film seems more like an autodocumentary. The overall tone is self-congratulatory, although to his credit Jack seems as startled by his successes as anyone. Still, I can’t help but think there’s another side to this story not being told.

I do deeply appreciate one of the themes of the documentary: a presentation of gay men counter to common stereotype. In fact, he’s one of earliest media images that counters the stereotype of gay men as effeminate sissies; it’s interesting that his image is not just masculine, but powerfully sexualized. Jack Wrangler represents a “manly man” – rugged, handsome and sexual – who is also gay.

Which makes it so odd that Wrangler moved into straight pornography. He had his first sexual encounter with a woman on-camera. He managed to become successful even in straight adult films, including The Devil in Miss Jones 2 and Debbie Does Dallas 2.

He’s also one of the few porn stars to bridge the gap from porn to mainstream theatrical work.

Perhaps most curiously, Jack became romantically involved with vocalist Margaret Whiting, a woman twenty years his senior. They have since married.

I’m not straight, and I’m not bisexual. I’m gay, but I could never live a gay lifestyle because I’m much too competitive. When I was with a guy I would always want to be better than him: what we were accomplishing, what we were wearing — anything. With a woman you compete like crazy, but coming from different points of view, and as far as I’m concerned, that was doable. (1)

It’s a puzzling development in the personal life of an otherwise openly gay man. Watching this portion of the documentary, part of me shrugs it away: to each his own. At the same time, I can’t help but notice that it’s suggestive that gay men can “change” their sexual orientation, and that the image of a manly gay man “turns out” to be straight … or at least turns to a straight lifestyle.

The most interesting-and perplexing-event of his life is his relationship with Whiting. Wrangler is a self-professed gay man who, according to the film, can´t see himself living with another man. As a condition of moving in with Whiting, and subsequently getting married, the actor agreed to give up performing in porn films as well as having encounters with other men. He makes light of it, saying he has a healthy masturbatory life. However, for a generation of gay men who looked up to Wrangler-not to mention the era he ushered in-I have to think this is a slap in the face. Certainly there is not a list of requirements to be considered gay; what fits one person doesn´t necessarily fit another. But a out gay man married to a woman and abstaining from sex with other men? Does that even qualify as being gay anymore? (2)

Again, I return to the point that the documentary doesn’t present “another side” to the story. Despite including interviews with colleagues from his work in porn, the documentary never delves into what it all means.

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Theatrical trailer:

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(1) Brother, Job. “The Anatomy of Jack Wrangler.” The Advocate. 5 November 2008. http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid64690.asp (retrieved 30 November 2008).

(2) Vargo, Jason. “Review of ‘Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon.’” DVDTown.com. 26 October 2008. http://www.dvdtown.com/reviews/wrangler-anatomy-of-an-icon/6426 (retrieved 30 November 2008).

Overall Quality 2.0 / 5.0 (A+ for effort, but hard to really recommend)
Gay Inclusive? Very – it’s a dramatic gay romance
Gay Positive? Mostly – a few instances of internal & external homophobia pop up

From the same filmmaker (Jeff London) as Regarding Billy, we have Arizona Sky.

The movie opens with a scene between teenage Jake (Blaise Embry) and Kyle (Kyle Buckland). They have been having a secret romance, but now Jake’s family is moving away. They promise to keep in touch, but we all know how adolescent promises like that turn out.

Fast forward fifteen years, and we meet an adult Jake (Eric Dean). He’s a movie producer deeply dissatisfied with his life. His straight best friend (Brent King) calls him on it, and Jake decides to take a vacation to his home town, where he looks up Kyle (Jayme McCabe).

I was engaged by the first half of the movie. From the moment adult Jake met adult Kyle, however, the script took a sharp left into hokey and hackneyed. I was almost ready to buy into the foundational idea that maybe Jake and Kyle, even after 15 years, still had a powerful connection. But as soon as we meet the adult Kyle, it’s apparent that these two have grown into such fundamentally different men, I could not understand why they were so impassioned about one another that they would be driven into histrionics.

Maybe it has something to do with the self-indulgent script. Every scene is at least 10 or 20 percent longer than it should be, and the movie is incredibly talky. I like thoughtful screenplays, but even I was dying for something to happen.

The basic story is sweet. Most of the acting ranges from passable to competent. (Note I said “most”). A charming performance from Eric Dean is probably the movie’s highlight; I also really enjoyed the repartee between him and his straight best friend. Arizona Sky is gay-positive on the whole, a few instances of homophobia notwithstanding.

Everything shows potential, from the acting to the script. The movie just never gels. Its disparate parts are all off just enough that I spent the whole movie divorced from the experience. I never stopped being aware that I was watching a movie.

Overall Quality 4.5 / 5.0
Gay Inclusive? Very – an engaging and moving story of the gay rights movement and one of its heroes
Gay Positive? Very – although a tragic tale, it is fiercely empowering

This is the movie I wish Brokeback Mountain had been.

Don’t get me wrong – Brokeback Mountain was a masterpiece of film-making, and it was robbed of its rightful Academy Award. But I have a love-hate relationship with such movies – beautiful, moving, and important stories that are horribly tragic and unhappy. I’m glad that a gay love story finally hit the mainstream with Brokeback Mountain, but it did nothing to dispel myths like gay-love-is-doomed and bad-things-will-happen-to-you-if-you’re-gay.

Milk also brings a tragic story to the big screen: the assassination of gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk. Yet Milk is empowering in a way Brokeback Mountain was not. Instead of vaguely feeling bad about being gay, I felt inspired, charged up and ready to fight for my rights. Milk also brings to the big screen the struggle not just for equal rights but also for freedom from the physical and emotional violence that gay people have long endured.

Just this week, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee claimed on The View that gay rights are not civil rights because gay people have not been subjected to a history of violence like black people. Such a willfully ignorant statement is nothing short of appalling; and yet, it is representative of a surprisingly large swath of the population. Many do not acknowledge or do not care about the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany; the institutionalized violence against gay people by police in previous decades and by religious organizations (like the Mormons using electro-shock therapy to “cure” homosexuality); and individual hate crimes that have claimed the lives of people like Matthew Shepherd.

Thank God for Milk, and what a timely film it is. The movie dramatizes Milk’s move to San Francisco and his subsequent rise to the position of City Supervisor (after several failed attempts). Once in the position, a significant portion of the movie details his fight against Proposition 6, which would have enabled the state of California to fire any teacher known to be gay along with any teacher who supported them.

Fast forward 30 years, and Californians once again vote on a proposition of concern to gay rights – Proposition 8, which successfully banned gay marriage (after the California Supreme Court legalized it).

My only criticism of the film falls on the editing, and I’m not sure what the Gus van Sant could have done differently. He’s just covering so much territory in the space of a couple of hours that much of the story gets told in fast-forward. Nevertheless, the movie was engrossing from start to finish, and the phenomenal acting from all quarters – both Sean Penn and Josh Brolin deserve extra mention – imbues the story with life.

Please see this movie. Please take your friends and family to see it. Particularly in the aftermath of Proposition 8’s passage, a lot of people seem to dismiss the gay community’s reaction as sore losers throwing a tantrum because they didn’t get their way. They do not – perhaps because they are not willing to – recognize how a group of people have been systematically oppressed throughout even the history of a country that espouses the values of equality and the separation of church and state.

Milk is a sad tale, but one encoupled with hope. I walked out of the theater both devastated and determined. One thing can be said of Harvey Milk: his hope lives on in those of us who are willing to embrace it.

“If a bullet should go through my head, let that bullet go through every closet door”

- Harvey Milk

Overall Quality 2.0 / 5.0 (some potential, but misses the goal)
Gay Inclusive? Very – the story focuses on a gay character putting together a gay soccer team
Gay Positive? Moderately – the gays prevail, but only in the midst of rampant homophobia

The gay pathos in this movie got old fast. Maybe I’m just over it in my own life, so I don’t have much patience for it in my entertainment. I wearied of both the difficulty the main character had in coming out, and the over-the-top homophobia thrown in his face. If it had been handled better, maybe I would have been moved. I wasn’t.

The film starts with Ecki (Maximilian Brückner), a soccer (i.e., European football) player on a local team, beginning to realize he might be gay. Neither his teammates nor his father (Dietmar Bär) react well. In fact, his teammates go into homophobe-overdrive. They say all kinds of hateful and nasty things, and then they kick him off the team. Ecki says he’s going to put together a gay team, and that his gay team will kick his former team’s collective ass in four weeks.

Yeah. The whole story is completely contrived. It’s sad too – I like all of the characters, and they imbue the movie with a kind of happy charm that kept me watching. But turn after turn, the story is just forced.

As one example (out of many): the leather daddy Rudi (Jochen Stern) who suddenly turns out to have an estranged son (Marcel Nievelstein) in the 3rd grade; after the obligatory and dramatic break-up of the gay team (”oh no! what will they do now!”), the son mysteriously shows up at his father’s house and helps rally some of the team members; and then the young son shows up at the actual game, all by himself, in a completely different city. That boys gets around! His mother, almost violently antagonistic toward Rudi when we first meet her, miraculously shows up 5 minutes later, and at the end of the movie she’s cheering Rudi’s soccer success. What?

The characters (well, the gay ones, anyway) are the highlight of the film. There’s the closeted guy. The alternative gender identity person. The three leather daddies in a 3-way relationship. A hunky and effeminate gay Turk. A couple of black players (who unfortunately turn out just to be set dressing). Ecki and his down-to-earth boyfriend, a nurse.

At first, I was a bit put off, especially by the crude leather daddies, but then I thought, why not? First, all of them turn out to be more nuanced than you’d expect. Second, they’re representative of a segment of the gay community. Finally, the thing the gay community really wants – equal respect – shouldn’t just apply to the “normal” gays. If we do that, we’re missing the point of the rainbow.

Check it out if you’re a fan of gay-oriented sports films (because, let’s face it, there aren’t a whole lot out there). Otherwise, give this one a pass.

Overall Quality 3.0 / 5.0 (pleasant but unfulfilling)
Gay Content 3.0 / 5.0 (well, definitely non-straight, anyways)
Gay Positivity 3.5 / 5.0 (mixed, but more positive than not)

I’d call 20 Centimeters a pleasant diversion that never really comes together.

Unfortunately, its most unusual features strike me as contrivances designed to lend interest to the story’s main plot. With stronger writing and direction, the central story wouldn’t needn’t the help – the pre-op transsexual Marieta (Mónica Cervera) wants to have a sex-change operation, but she finds herself in a romantic relationship that wouldn’t survive the procedure. Meanwhile, she’s a sex worker who plies specific fetishes while desperately trying to break into the world of conventional, gainful employment. Those dilemmas offer plentiful drama and tension.

As it is, the script is sloppy, and the movie tries to compensate with a couple of extraneous elements. Marieta is narcoleptic, and whenever she falls asleep, she dreams of multilingual musical numbers. Visually, the song-and-dance sequences are interesting, but I found their lyrics inane. Their content reflects Marieta’s mood but in most cases didn’t seem thematically helpful to the story.

I have mixed emotions about the conclusion. I don’t want to give it away, so I’ll put it this way: Marieta has to choose between her relationship with a hot guy (Raul, played by Pablo Puvol), and her relationship with her female identity. If she takes the former path, it means she’s learned to accept herself as she is, all parts intact, and found love and happiness, but she sacrifices her understanding of herself as a female in order to be with this man. If she takes the latter route, it means she’s being true to herself, which is always a path of integrity, but she loses a great relationship because she can’t make peace with herself-as-she-is. That’s how I see it, anyways – if I possessed a female gender identity while living in a male body, one ending might stand out to me as “better” than the other.

Marieta’s relationship with Raul interests me, and I wish the film had delved deeper into it. Raul does not see himself or Marieta as “fags,” even though he loves being the sexually passive partner, and the fact that Marieta has oversized male genitals. I understand that in many cultures, a man may not identify as gay as long as he is not the receptive partner, but that’s not the case here. Raul adheres to rigid sexual roles even though both he and Marieta clearly defy convention, which doesn’t strike me as gay-positive (i.e., gay is so bad, he falls into denial). On the other hand, they are in a sexually nebulous realm, and Raul is just applying one possibly interpretation (out of many) to their relationship. It may be the only sexual reference point he knows. Marieta is more worldly, and as a result, she is more sexually fluid. Still, her identity as unilaterally “female” is very powerful, and it drives the central plot.

If you’d like to watch an offbeat foreign musical with a gay element, check out Yes Nurse! No Nurse!.

One of the musical numbers:

The movie’s trailer:

Overall Quality 4.0 / 5.0
Gay Content 1.5 / 5.0 (minor bits)
Gay Positivity 4.0 / 5.0

An incisive and biting look at the Hollywood industry. As with most of Stiller’s films, the humor is hit or miss, but fortunately hits the spot more often than not.

The film begins with several fake trailers which introduce the film’s characters.

• Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), a fading action star who’s hoping to reinvigorate his career with a new war movie
• Jeff Portnow (Jack Black), a drug-addicted comedian hoping for critical success
• Alpa China (Brandon T. Jackson), a musician and actor who has parlayed artistic into commercial success through merchandising
• Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr), a method actor so serious about his craft that he literally loses himself into his roles

The film benefits from inspired casting: each real-life actor is pitch-perfect in their portrayal of a troubled on-screen actor, each haunted by his own demons. (Downey deserves special mention: he’s just amazing in the role.) In Tropic Thunder, they come together to make a Vietnam-era war movie. In order to achieve greater verisimilitude, the overwhelmed director Damien (Steve Coogan) deposits his actors (Tugg, Jeff, Alpa, and Kirk) in the middle of a real war zone. Hilarity ensues.

Satire too. I’m baffled by the disability advocacy groups who have decided to protest Tropic Thunder because of its use of the term “retard” and its portrayal of Tugg Speedman playing a mentally-challenged man (Simple Jack) in an effort to win an Oscar. That subplot is the single most cutting indictment of the Hollywood machine in the movie; the whole point is how Hollywood exploits everything from minority groups to tragedy in order to make money and win awards. If anything, Tropic Thunder is staging its own protest of the misuse of such groups of people.

As Stiller says, “It’s sort of edgy territory, but we felt that as long as the focus was on the actors who were trying to do something to be taken seriously that’s going too far or wrong, that was where the humor would come from. [The joke is on] actors reaching for roles in terms of hopefully winning awards” (1)

Much has also been made of Tom Cruise’s over-the-top portrayal of amoral executive and financier Les Grossman. It’s definitely a departure for Cruise. I found the role to be a little one-note, but no one can deny that Cruise really throws himself into it.

The movie contains a couple of items of gay interest. First, one of the actors turns out to be gay, which then leads to a chuckle-worthy cameo at the film’s conclusion. I’m delighted to report there are no negative gay stereotypes and no negative reaction to his inadvertent revelation. In fact, one character just says, “Hey, everybody’s gay sometimes, this is Hollywood.” Another character (who’s in an, um, amusingly difficult situation, then offers all kinds of sexual favors in exchange for assistance). It’s unfortunate that the gay actor is closeted, but it’s arguable that’s just the satire making another comment on the Hollywood machine. On the whole, I’m impressed with this bit of gay inclusion.

Second, one of the fake trailers advertises a fake movie called Satan’s Alley, a Brokeback Mountain-style movie set in a monastery. Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus and Tobey Maguire play two monks falling into a forbidden relationship. I’m slightly less amused at this portrayal. Seriously, did they have to call it Satan’s Alley? What’s up with that? But the trailer is also obviously another satirical snap at Hollywood, and Downey and Maguire are pretty amusing in the spot.

Overall, recommended as a smart, funny, and entertaining satire.

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(1) Access Hollywood, “Disability Advocates Call For ‘Tropic Thunder’ Protest, Stiller Responds,” 11 August 2008, http://omg.yahoo.com/news/updated-disability-advocates-call-for-tropic-thunder-protest-stiller-responds/11875 (retrieved 1 September 2008).

Overall Quality 3.5 / 5.0
Gay Content 5.0 / 5.0
Gay Positivity 4.0 / 5.0

Homosexuality has a largely unhappy history in Western civilization. Thank God for men like Magus Hirschfeld (1868 – 1935), who stood up against prevailing conventional “wisdom,” and used science and basic respect to advance the cause of gay rights. Hirschfeld studied homosexuality scientifically; although we might disagree with some of his conclusions (he felt homosexuals were an “intermediate” sex), he dedicated his efforts to advocate on behalf of gay people.

The Einstein of Sex is a biopic which explores Hirschfeld’s life and work. The film is surprisingly engrossing. It’s fast-paced and well-acted, and it’s fascinating to watch the tension between Hirschfeld’s tireless work on behalf of other gay people with his inability to process his own homosexuality in a healthy way.

The props, set design, and cinematography also deserve special mention, especially considering the film is a low-budget independent feature. Each component contributes significantly to the film’s interest and success, and many scenes look like recreated photos from that era.

The film contains quite a bit of male nudity, but it never feels out of place. In a couple of scenes it comes close to gratuitousness, but it never crosses the line.

Unfortunately, the narrative structure undercuts the movie’s effectiveness. It’s choppy, rambling, and disjointed. “The Einstein of Sex” tries to cover too much territory:

• a biography spanning Hirschfeld’s entire personal life
• an ode to Hirscfeld’s work on behalf of gay rights
• a pseudo-documentary on the state of gay rights during that era

But this is a single movie, not a mini-series. As a result, everything gets underserved.

So while this film hasn’t earned a top-shelf slot in my DVD collection, I definitely recommend it for at least one viewing. It’s an entertaining slice of important homo-history that’s undertold.

The Gay Positivity score reflects that this movie covers a lot of negative territory ranging from gay-shame to gay-hate, but the central focus in on telling the story of someone who worked positively for gay rights with a tone of hopefulness for the future.

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For more information about Magnus Hirschfeld:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld
http://www.stonewallsociety.com/famouspeople/magnus.htm