Since it is gay pride month I have been watching some of my favorite gay movies. While I was watching one tonight I decided to make a list - these are ones I have watched numerous times. They are in no particular order.
The Birdcage - Armand Goldman owns a popular drag nightclub in South Miami Beach. His
long-time lover Albert stars there as Starina. "Their" son Val (actually
Armand's by his one heterosexual fling, twenty years before) comes home
to announce his engagement to Barbara Keely, daughter of Kevin Keely,
US Senator, and vice president of the Committee for Moral Order. The
Senator and family descend upon South Beach to meet Val and his father
and "mother..." and what ensues is comic chaos.
Latter Days - Aaron Davis and Christian Markelli are the two most opposite people in the world. Aaron is a young Elder
(or a Mormon missionary) who wants to do his family proud and is quite
passionate about his religion and film. Christian is a shallow WeHo
waiter/party boy who only looks forward to bedding a new guy every
night. After Aaron and three other missionaries move into the apartment
across from Christian, his friends bet him $50 that he can't get one of
them to jump into the sack, so he instantly latches onto Aaron. There
are two problems, though - Christian is falling in love with Aaron and
the Mormons are not the biggest fans of the homosexual community. Once
Aaron is discovered, the two have to go through trials of regret, loss,
perseverance, and forgiveness if they both want to get to the thing that
matters to them most: each other.
Brokeback Mountain - A raw, powerful story of two young men, a Wyoming ranch hand and a rodeo
cowboy, who meet in the summer of 1963 sheepherding in the harsh, high
grasslands of contemporary Wyoming and form an unorthodox yet life-long
bond--by turns ecstatic, bitter and conflicted.
Big Eden - Big Eden is a tiny fictional town in northwestern Montana, as Preston
Sturges or Frank Capra might have envisioned it. Timber and Cowboy
country. This is the story of Henry Hart, a successful New York Artist,
who returns to the town of his childhood to care for the ailing
grandfather who raised him. Back in Big Eden, Henry must come to terms
with his relationship to Dean Stewart, his best friend from high School,
as well as the object of his unrequited love. All these years Henry has
been pining for a dream image of Dean from back then. This is also the
story of Pike Dexter, the shy, unassuming Native American owner of the
town's general store, who is as surprised as anyone to find himself
falling in love with Henry. The people of Big Eden conspire and attempt
to bring Henry and Pike together.
It's in the Water - In the small southern town of Azalea Springs, the country club set still
rules. Here, being a member of "The League" is a must, big hair is
still favored by the ladies who lunch, and only hair-dressers and
interior designers are supposed to be gay. The addition of an AIDS
facility in Azalea Springs has The League unsettled. And the
announcement that their charity work will include contact with "those
people" leaves them stunned. But the real frenzy begins with a drunken
comment regarding the local drinking water. Rumor has it that the water
is contaminated with something that actually "turns" people gay. Mix in
Brother Daniel's "Homo-No-Mo" meetings, the local newspaper, and a group
of rabid homophobic picketers, and you've got a recipe for panic. Heads
reel. Women weep. Mothers, hide your children! In the midst of it all,
we find Alex Stratton, a young woman dealing with a distant husband, an
overbearing mother, and the tedium of meaningless society chatter and
endless shoe critics.
The Wedding Banquet - Simon and Wei-Tung are a gay couple living together in Manhattan. To
defer the suspicions of Wei-Tung's parents, Simon suggests a marriage of
convenience between Wei-Tung and Wei-Wei, an immigrant in need of a
green card. When Wei-Tung's parents come to America for the wedding,
they insist upon an elaborate banquet, resulting in several
complications.
I Think I Do - Screwball comedy with a modern twist; instead of Kate Hepburn and Cary
Grant, it's Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Two college roommates (victims
of a mutually unrequited love) meet up again five years after school at
their housemate's wedding. With the introduction of a Bellamy-esque
soap star, the sparks, sexual and verbal, start to fly, as the
ex-roommates try to navigate their new romance.
Beautiful Thing - A tender love story set during a hot summer on a South-East London
housing estate. Jamie, a relatively unpopular lad who bunks off school
to avoid football, lives next door to Ste, a more popular athletic lad
but who is frequently beaten up by his father and older brother. Such an
episode of violence brings Jamie and Ste together: Sandra (Jamie's mum)
offers refugee to Ste, who has to 'top-and-tail' with Jamie. Hence, the
story tells of their growing attraction for one another, from initial
lingering glances to their irrefutable love, which so magnificently
illustrated at the end of the film. In deals with the tribulations of
coming to terms with their sexuality and of others finding out, in light
of Sandra's unwavering loyalty and defence of Jamie and the fear of
repercussion should Ste's family find out. The plot is set against
sub-texts of Sandra's desire to manage her own pub, and thus escape the
estate, and of her new relationship with her hippy boyfriend Tony; and
of Leah, the brassy girl next door who has been expelled from school and
spends her time listening to Mama Cass records and tripping on a
variety of drugs.
Bent - Max is gay and as such is sent to Dachau concentration camp under the
Nazi regime. He tries to deny he is gay and gets a yellow label (the one
for Jews) instead of pink (the one for gays). In camp he falls in love
with his fellow prisoner Horst, who wears his pink label with pride.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - Two drag-queens (Anthony/Mitzi and Adam/Felicia) and a transexual
(Bernadette) contract to perform a drag show at a resort in Alice
Springs, a resort town in the remote Australian desert. They head west
from Sydney aboard their lavender bus, Priscilla. En route, it is
discovered that the woman they've contracted with is Anthony's wife.
Their bus breaks down, and is repaired by Bob, who travels on with them.
Milk - Using flashbacks from a statement recorded late in life and archival
footage for atmosphere, this film traces Harvey Milk's career from his
40th birthday to his death. He leaves the closet and New York, opens a
camera shop that becomes the salon for San Francisco's growing gay
community, and organizes gays' purchasing power to build political
alliances. He runs for office with lover Scott Smith as his campaign
manager. Victory finally comes on the same day Dan White wins in the
city's conservative district. The rest of the film sketches Milk's
relationship with White and the 1978 fight against a statewide
initiative to bar gays and their supporters from public school jobs.
My Beautiful Laundrette - Much of the Pakistani Hussein family has settled in London, striving for
the riches promised by Thatcherism. Nasser and his right hand man,
Salim, have a number of small businesses and they do whatever they need
to make money, even if the activities are illegal. As such, Nasser and
his immediate family live more than a comfortable lifestyle, and he
flaunts his riches whenever he can. Meanwhile, his brother, alcoholic
Ali, once a famous journalist in Pakistan, lives in a seedy flat with
his son, Omar. Ali's life in London is not as lucrative in part because
of his left leaning politics, which does not mesh with the ideals of
Thatcherism. To help his brother, Nasser gives Omar a job doing menial
labor. But Omar, with bigger plans, talks Nasser into letting him manage
Nasser's run down laundrette. Omar seizes what he sees as an
opportunity to make the laundrette a success, and employs an old friend,
Johnny - who has been most recently running around with a gang of white
punks - to help him. Johnny and Omar have a special relationship, but
one that has gone through its ups and downs, the downs fostered by
anti-immigration sentiments of white England. Omar and Johnny each have
to evaluate if their ideals of success are worth it at all cost.
In & Out - A high school English teacher is outed as a gay man by a former student
while accepting an Academy Award. Comedy ensues in the teacher's private
life and small town where he teaches. Story rumored to be loosely based
upon Tom Hanks acceptance speech when receiving his Academy Award for
"Philadelphia".
It's My Party - "You won't leave me, will you?" Nick asks Brandon shortly after
revealing to him the results of his last blood test for HIV. "I don't
want to die alone." In spite of Brandon's protestations, the two soon
find the love they had shared for many years in ruins. One year after
their breakup, Nick is confronted with a ravaged immune system and a CT
Scan and lab values which, along with his worsening forgetfulness,
clenches the diagnosis of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy
(PML) -- a condition he has seen claim his friends and one which he vows
will not take him. Due to the aggressive nature of the disease, he has
only a few days of conscious life remaining. His plan, he announces to
family and "extended family," is to voluntarily end his life himself
before the disease renders him unrecognizable to those he loves and he,
in turn, is unable to recognize them. Uninvited to the farewell party,
Brandon's presence is greeted with jeers from those who see him as
having abandoned Nick is his time of greatest need.
Yossi & Jagger - A sociological study of two men in the Israeli army who are lovers. The
others in the unit react to their situation, suspecting, but not always
understanding. One will leave the military soon, a few months away, as a
snowy and desolute outpost is guarded from attack.
Trick - Gabriel, an aspiring writer of Broadway musicals, meets Mark, a muscled
stripper, who picks him up on the subway. They spend the night trying to
find somewhere to be alone... forced to contend with Gabriel's selfish
roommate, his irritating best friend, and a vicious, jealous drag queen
in a gay dance club. The sun rises on a promising new relationship.
Stonewall - Who could have guessed that a bunch of men in dresses would breath life
into the movement to win equal rights for gay men and lesbians?
Certainly not the police who raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular "drag"
bar in Greenwich Village. After a long history of police raids,
extortion, and brutality, a gaggle of drag queens at the Stonewall
decide they have had enough and begin to riot when the police try to
load them into a paddy wagon. Told by "La Miranda" (Hector), a regular
customer at the Stonewall Inn, the film is a recounting of events that
led up to that fateful day in 1969. "Matty Dean" is the handsome angry
young man that La Miranda meets at the Stonewall one day and with whom
she/he quickly falls in love. "Bostonia" is the self-styled Queen Mother
of the drag queens and guides each initiate gently "into the life." Her
lover, Vinnie, is the closeted proprietor of the Stonewall. His tragic
response to the suffocation he feels bearing down on him from a
homophobic world -- perhaps as much as anything else -- sparks the
riots. This is the Stonewall Riots "As Told By La Miranda".
. . . and I am adding this next movie even though it isn't completely gay but it does have a couple of gay characters and I really love this movie.
Sordid Lives - We become intimate with the "Sordid Lives" of a family in a small Texas
town preparing for the funeral of the mother. Among the characters are
the grandson trying to find his identity in West Hollywood, the son who
has spent the past twenty-three years dressed as Tammy Wynette, the
sister and her best friend (who live in delightfully kitschy homes), and
the two daughters (one strait-laced and one quite a bit looser).
