Liberace Project Rated as Too Gay and Goes to HBO [Archive] - Sawatdee Gay Thailand the oldest and most popular gay forum on Thailand and South East Asia

Neal

January 7th, 2013, 05:52

Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh says his upcoming film about Liberace is airing on HBO instead of getting a theatrical release because studios thought it was "too gay."

The upcoming "Behind the Candelabra" has Michael Douglas in a compulsively watchable performance as the celebrated pianist, Matt Damon as his young lover and Soderbergh directing. It comes, in other words, from a trio of A-listers. So why isn't it a theatrical release?

"Nobody would make it. We went to everybody in town," the "Traffic" and "Ocean's 11" director told TheWrap on Friday, at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. "We needed $5 million. Nobody would do it."

Wait a minute, we said. Let us get this straight: No studio would budget $5 million for a movie with Damon and Douglas?

"They said it was too gay. Everybody. This was after 'Brokeback Mountain,' by the way. Which is not as funny as this movie. I was stunned. It made no sense to any of us."

Soderbergh has a theatrical movie coming out in February, "Side Effects," a thriller starring Channing Tatum and Rooney Mara. But the director said he's glad the Liberace film ended up on HBO.

Also read: Side Effects' Trailer: Channing Tatum, Rooney Mara, Jude Law in Prescription Love Triangle (Video)

"They're great and they're really good at what they do, and ultimately I think more people will see it, and that's all you care about," Soderbergh said. "Studios were going, 'We don't know how to sell it. They were scared.'"

OK. But seriously: He was able to get a theatrical release for "The Girlfriend Experience," starring porn actress Sasha Grey, but not for one with Damon and Douglas?

"Well, for a million-and-a-half bucks," he said, referring to the "Girlfriend Experience" budget.

But that's not that far from $5 million.

"Yeah, I was surprised," he said.

HBO also announced Friday that it will air another gay-themed project that was once planned for theatrical release. The network said that it will air Ryan Murphy's adaptation of Larry Kramer's play "The Normal Heart," starring Julia Roberts and Mark Ruffalo, next year.

Also read: Soderbergh Not Ready to Retire Yet; Open Road and Annapurna Releasing 'Side Effects'

"Behind the Candelabra" premieres this spring. After that, Soderbergh has vowed to retire. Maybe HBO can persuade him not to.

dab69

May 26th, 2013, 04:32

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movi ... chael.html (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2013/05/behind_the_candelabra_steven_soderbergh_s_liberace _movie_starring_michael.html)

Behind the Candelabra
A macabre Hollywood love story in the tradition of Sunset Boulevard.
By Dana Stevens|Posted Friday, May 24, 2013, at 5:44 PM
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Matt Damon and Michael Douglas in HBO's Behind the Candelabra
Photo by Claudette Barius/HBO
After you've seen Behind the Candelabra, come back and listen to our Spoiler Special.
I wish I could summon up Simon DoonanтАЩs enthusiasm for Behind the Candelabra, Steven SoderberghтАЩs HBO biopic about the affair between the uber-fabulous pop pianist Liberace and his 40-years-younger lover and houseboy, Scott Thorson. (Hell, IтАЩd be happy to summon up Simon Doonan levels of enthusiasm for anything.) While the lead performances are exceptional and the d├йcor and costumes to die for, for me Behind the Candelabra never lived up to the promise displayed in its first half. This seductively opulent movieтАФmuch of it filmed inside LiberaceтАЩs actual mansion, with the showmanтАЩs glitzy original furnishings painstakingly recreatedтАФinvites us in with a grand wave of its ermine sleeve, then leaves us trapped in the mansion without quite enough to do.
Of course, thatтАЩs more or less exactly how Liberace (Michael Douglas) treats Scott (Matt Damon), a young hunk who, when they meet backstage at one of LiberaceтАЩs Las Vegas shows, is working as an animal trainer for the movies and living with his foster parents (Jane Morris and Garrett M. Brown), after a troubled childhood bouncing from home to home. (The movie blurs ScottтАЩs age a bit; in real life he was a less-than-legal 17 when he and Liberace met, but even this movieтАЩs superb makeup team canтАЩt make the 42-year-old Damon look much younger than his early 20s). Scott and тАЬLeeтАЭ (as Liberace is known to his hermetic inner circle of mainly paid employees) begin a five-year relationship thatтАЩs a disturbing mix of the sexual, the professional, and the parental. (тАЬI want to be your father, brother, lover, and best friend,тАЭ Lee murmurs to his beloved in one particularly smothering pillow-talk session.) In addition to putting Scott on the payroll as a personal assistant, Lee outfits him in a rhinestone-encrusted chauffeurтАЩs costume and has him drive onstage every night in a Rolls Royce. The two of them sip Champagne together in a bubble bath and go on extravagant shopping sprees for matching floor-length fur coats. When heтАЩs going under the knife for a spruce-up face-lift, Lee insists that Scott get some face work done as wellтАФin order to look more like the young Liberace. For some of us, this might be a red flag in a relationship, but Scott sticks around the mansion, being ritually humiliated by the staff and eventually developing an addiction to the тАЬdiet pillsтАЭ pushed on him by LeeтАЩs louche, perpetually drunk plastic surgeon (hilariously played by a scenery-munching Rob Lowe, whose scarily snug facial skin I can only pray is the work of the aforementioned canny makeup team).
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LoweтАЩs grotesque comic turn aside, most of Behind the Candelabra isnтАЩt played for camp at all. Though Michael DouglasтАЩ Liberace is as swishy as they come, he never comes off as a tragic drag-queen stereotype; heтАЩs nobodyтАЩs victim. If anything, the movie playfully affirms the pleasure Lee takes in material and sexual excess: тАЬToo much of a good thing тАж is wonderful,тАЭ he coyly tells a rapt audience in the closing fantasy sequence, and Soderbergh seems to agree. Even LiberaceтАЩs status as a closeted gay man forced to live a lie in public is treated without tendentiousness or sentimentality. In bed with Scott, Lee mocks the tabloid rumor he himself started about his undying love for the ice skater Sonja Henie: тАЬPlease. Those thighs?тАЭ
Though the vast power differential between them dooms Lee and ScottтАЩs relationship from the start, there are moments of real love between the two. The movieтАЩs best scenes all come in the first hour, as the two men loll around in the bathtub and in bed, making unwise promises and revealing (strategically) their innermost selves. Douglas and Damon so fully inhabit their roles that the audience soon habituates to the novelty of seeing two such traditionally macho actors cast as gay lovers. The stunt-casting factor fades, and we start to experience Behind the Candelabra less as a gay-themed drama than as a macabre Hollywood love story in the tradition of Nathanael West or Sunset Boulevard. (There is an oblique reference to the same-sex marriage issue, though, in a scene where Liberace considers legally adopting Scott as a way to ensure his future financial security.)
In the second half, as Scott spirals into addiction and is forced to pawn the jewelry Liberace gave him while Liberace ponders a new model of boy toy, the plot arc starts to feel familiar from too many movies about the rich going off the rails. (ThereтАЩs even a scene where a furious Scott destroys a roomful of precious artifacts, ├а la Citizen Kane). The movie loses focus, spending too much time on addiction clich├йs like an out-of-focus montage meant to suggest ScottтАЩs inner experience (we get it, heтАЩs high). By the time Liberace re-enters the picture, heтАЩs become the object of ScottтАЩs bitter palimony lawsuit, which occupies the last quarter of the movie without bringing us much new insight about either the menтАЩs relationship or what happened between them legally (though Dan Aykroyd, as LiberaceтАЩs seen-it-all manager, brings some snarly comic relief to this draggy last act).
Even if Behind the Candelabra never fulfills the mirrored-piano promise of its early scenes, itтАЩs more than worth seeing for the superb performances of Douglas and Damon, who vault over the taboo about typically macho straight actors playing flamboyantly gay characters like it ainтАЩt no thing. Douglas, in particular, turns what could have been a mincing stereotype into a beautifully subtle portrait of a lonely, gifted, narcissistic artist; itтАЩs the most IтАЩve ever seen Douglas transform himself physically and vocally for a role, yet he never overplays it. The casting of hetero leading men like Douglas and Damon in whatтАЩs sure to be one of the flaming-est mainstream movies of 2013 isnтАЩt just a stunt on SoderberghтАЩs part; itтАЩs a statement. When Jason Bourne and Gordon Gekko can visit a gay-porn emporium together in matching ermine coats, we know our society must be making strides toward progress.