My top 10 gay movie list ... what are yours?

[Smiles]

The thread just below about the Oscars got me to thinking about which "gay"-themed movies I've seen over the years are my favourites.

I must admit to enjoying Brokeback Mountain very much, but quite honestly I cannot see it as a "Best Picture" winner (IMHO of course). When comparing it to Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet, for me 'Brokeback" comes of in second place, not first. I simply thought The Wedding Banquet to be a better film ... though certainly less dramatic and spectacular.

At any rate, here is a list of my personal top 10 gay films ~ in order of preference.

ALL these films are terrific, but Happy Together is arguably heads and shoulders above the rest . . . in terms of both quirky film making and the strangely invigorating-yet-despressing overall mood.
As you can probably tell, I am a great Stephen Frears fan ( Prick up Your Ears and My Beautiful Launderette). Some years after making these 2 smallish films listed below, he directed the mesmerising Les Liasons Dangereux.

How about sharing your own list . . . ?


The last photo in this group is from a small made-for-TV film for which I could not find a poster, so I copied a still shot from the movie itself. It's called Doing Time on Maple Drive and is unexpectedly excellent. It starts off as a fairly typical "coming out to the family" movie, but is filled to the brim with fine acting, some wonderfully fleshed-out characters, meandering story lines (the Gay Comer-outer ~ the kid in the middle of the family photo ~ is not the only drama here), and a VERY early turn by a VERY youthful Jim Carrey, who can't live up to either his father's expectations, or match the news of his brother's gayness.


Cheers ...

One of my complaints is that so many "gay" movies (not about AIDS) are so gawdawful - however I do have some faves

In addition to Beautiful Thing, Brokeback Mtn, Idaho and Maurice, at the top of my list is:



which is shot in Montana - which makes the beautiful scenery of Wyoming - found in Brokeback - look like the slums of Camden, New Jersey

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Also on the list



Which has a great cast of attractive reasonably well-known actors in a story that is by turns touching and also angst-y.

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A bit more controversial is



which does deal with adolescent sexuality and pedophilia (actually ephebophilia) without being exploitative and creepy like in a Larry Clark movie

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From an excellent eye-candy perspective



Ewen McGregor prances about with his cock flopping, Jonathon Rys Myers looking ethereally beautiful and Christian Bale doing a very creepy turn

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I couldn't leave out



which I grant is Fillipino rather than Thai gogo - but it was one of the first gay-themed movies I ever saw - and certainly the one that unleashed my inner rice-queeniness. It is definitely erotic - but does not try to glamourize the harsh lives of these boys

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The movie that (I think) opened the closet door for gay-themed films with actual budgets




This is a genuinely funny film - with then-unknown Sean Hayes going on to play Jack in Will and Grace and introducing Brad Rowe as the Brad Pitt look-alike, who doesn't really have to do much besides be a Brad Pitt look-alike

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A very powerful movie is



which has themes of relgion and intolerance, self-loathing and ultimately, love - plus two very sexy guys!

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A real surprise to me was



Which I knew nothing about before seeing it - and while I usually prefer my favorite movies to have something to hit rewind for - this one, while lacking in erotica, is rich in good acting and an intriguing script

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I am including this one as a *Gay* film



because the screen-writers, actor Anthony Perkins (Psycho) and the god of the Amercian Musical Theatr Stephen Sondheim (West Side Story, Gypsy, Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Assassins etc. etc. - see my Avatar) are both gay - and there is a gay character. It is a brillaintly plotted murder mystery penned by two puzzle fans.

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and lastly, one that rang true with some of my own experiences growing up gay



not a great film - but the young actors do a fine job, and the story is a not-always-generous look at two best friends who have openly explored their adolescent sexuality together, and et whos ultimate attractions go in different directions.



OK - maybe it is disingenuous for me to bitch about crappy gay movies, and then pop out an additional ten to the list above - but there are 20 crap films for every good one!

The Children's Hour: Shirty McLaid and Audrey Heartburn.
Gilda: There is a gay bit but, if you blinked you missed it--And again in:
Inside Daisy Clover: Redford's character was gay.
?... The one with Bacall & Bogart: The art dealer & his boyfriend...etc.
Suddenly, Last Summer.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. (The 'gay business' was expunged from the movie, but we knew.)
Reflections in a Golden Eye...Liz, again.
Midnight Cowboy.
Taking Care of Mr. Sloan. Pure camp.
La Cage Funnier in French.

The worst--Gay, straight...whatever...movie of all time, not even good camp; the leather-lesbian, Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill! And I sat through the whole damn thing...What one will do on a rainy Saturday afternoon in a strange town and you see a theater you heard is a grope-show. So I left there ten minutes into the second feature: an almost-as-bad Andy Warhole thing I can't remember the name of, and went off to see my first gay porn flick--And the manager asked me to leave: because I laughed so hard --Not at the movie but all the hats and rain coats bobbing up-and-down! he took me to his office for discipline--His--So it wasn't a total waste.

I think that might have been "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" but it was the 1960s when I saw it and it is said that anyone who remembers the '60s, wasn't there. Perhaps it spawned a spoof.

Sorry Smiles but I found "Happy Together" very implausible and too depressing. Some of the films made earlier by the same loose alliance of Hong Kong filmakers are quite homoerotic and my favourite of those would be "Days of Being Wild". I'm particulary fond of Alex To in this.

If one stickes to gay themed films the Hong Kong film named after a Japanese schoolgirl fad "Bishonen" is great but I can't really evaluate it as I kept seeing people I knew from the HK scene of the 1990s. The star of course is adorable and all those policeman's uniforms ... nuff said.

The Asian gay themed film that rings truest for me though is Japanese. "Like Grains of Sand" in English. Tasteful and sensitive.

I think that might have been "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" but it was the 1960s when I saw it and it is said that anyone who remembers the '60s, wasn't there.

Yes, right on both counts: I saw it on late-night television: the movie--And the 60's.

There is only one worth mentionng:

Victim

1961

Director: Basil Dearden

Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms

www.imdb.com/title/tt0055597/

www.outrate.net/outratevictim.html

[Smiles]

" ... Sorry Smiles but I found "Happy Together" very implausible and too depressing. . . . The Asian gay themed film that rings truest for me though is Japanese. "Like Grains of Sand" in English. Tasteful and sensitive... "

Hi Northstar, yes "Happy Together" takes no prisoners and you either love it or hate it. You are not aIone. I know quite a few gay friends who left the theatre shaking their heads and muttering what that was all about. But that's why I think it such a great film.

Thanks for the thoughts on "Like Grains of Sand". I missed that one somehow (as in, never heard of it) but will attempt to find it. But I live in a small town just around the corner from where Brokeback Mountain was filmed! ``:colors: Hard to find stuff here.

Cheers ...

"Like Grains of Sand" is a Japanese rites of passage film. More on it

here.

OK Ill bite.
In no particular order.

Brokeback

Boys Don't Cry

Beautiful Boxer (can't believe no one mentioned it yet)

La Vie en Rose

But I'm a Cheerleader

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Victor Victoria (Julie Andrews is one sexy boy!)

The Crying Game (I did NOT know the "secret" when I saw it. I let out a yelp in the theater when it was revealed)

La Cage aux Folles (French version)

Some like it Hot

HONORABLE MENTIONS (since the rule is 10 only)

Taboo (Gay samurai boys)
Mulan (yes, the Disney movie!)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (saw the premier at the Castro in San Francisco and the crowd went wild)
Beautiful Thing (fond memories of this movie)
Lawrence of Arabia (there's just something about this movie that makes me HOT every time I see it)

Edith, are you thinking of "Maltese Falcon" with Bogart? Sydney Greenstreet was the art dealer Caspar Gutman and Elisha Cook was his "boy" Wilmer. Its not an easy subtext to get but Peter Lorre was an obviously gay Joel Cairo with his curly hair and perfumed handkerchiefs.
Bacall wasn't in that one, it was Mary Astor. (sorry to nitpick)

The Boys in the Band

This was adapted from an excellent stage play, and the movie was a nod to the then-emerging nationaladmission that homosexuals exist.

If it was made today then GLAAD would condemn it for its "negative gay stereotypes" due to the portrayals of screaming, bitchy, catty, campy queenies...although the film adaptation of Terrence McNally's Love, Valour, Compassion didn't seem to raise that many hackles

probably becasue it wasn't a very good adaptation