Tuesday, July 31, 2012
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Today's film was the musical, first version which was on film
Starring the young Cnristian Bale singing and dancing. Wonderful. Directed by Kenny Ortega. Double wonderful.
Forget your anti Disney feelings for a while. This is exceptional.
I would have been luke warm for such a film but I read a glowing review on a small web site and then looked around. I haven't seen the stage show but the film, which flopped, is thought by many to be superior. One of the few examples where a stage show was made from a film. Actually not unique. It is an old Disney trick.
The dancing is wonderful. The plot is appropriately upsetting.
Based on truth, the newsboys strike and spearhead the beginning of the end of child labor exploitation.
The subject matter seems dull which could be why it didn't get seen when it came out. But somehow it has gained and gained an audience over the years. I will see it again. It is quite thrilling. A 5 out of Netflix5.
And the young Christian Bale is something to behold. We already saw him in Empire of the Sun when he was just a kid and burned up the screen.
Labels: films
Monday, July 30, 2012
I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS
It makes sense and is memorable.
It is quite realistic and actually upsetting. Constructively so.
Very well produced and I will remember this stuff.
I have often wondered what I would do but it did not boil down to a plan.
Labels: safety
ALLEGORY OR IS IT A METAPHOR
Today's Eastern Europe film was Milos Foreman's
Horí, má panenko / Firemen's Ball (1967)
This has a harder edge and got Forman in trouble. He talks about it in the excellent interview included as a feature.
It is his first color film. Huge crowd scenes as it is almost entirely filmed in the Ball itself.
Quite a victory. It is funny, acerbic and, at the end, a bit sad.
The firemen create a cavalcade of bureaucratic mistakes for which no one is responsible. The connection to the communist regime is not buried very deeply. And it is hilarious which somehow turns the satyric knife a little harder.
This is a 5 out of Netflix5. Period.
Labels: films
Sunday, July 29, 2012
SUNDAY
Not a normal day. We are going to a tea party this afternoon. Someone's wedding meeting-up anniversary.
I am not keen on tea or parties but I have been asked/told to attend, so that is that.
There seems to be an upsurge of tea which is not on my list but I will get by somehow.
Today is the first day of the drops for the left eye which gets operated on Wednesday. Instilling they call it. I still am working on using up all the drops for the right eye. Drops.
I am getting the long distance view, the same as the right, so that I will have binocular vision. The world seems flat with one eye.
The option was to get one eye done for close work, reading. Use the other one for distance.
I have been able to operate one eye-dly but it doesn't feel right to me. So, glasses for up front work it is.
I was a bit romanced by the eye-dea of no glasses at all but the gain is not there for me in the monocular.
I want stereo.
I am not good at putting the drops in. I waste a lot.
I go through spots where there seems to be not a lot to say or it is the same stuff so that even eye I a bit tired of hearing about it.
Also I have had other things to think about.
I am renovating my Netflix Queue.
Up until recently, I have been queuing up everything that scores a 70% critics' response on Movie Review Intelligence, a review compilation site that pretty much matches my taste, but then I would take the films off the queue when they got close to playing. The other thing is that I have accumulated a sizable "see it again" list and it is swamping the new ones. Given a choice, I want to re-see.
So. I am taking the less interesting ones off the queue. I just cannot see everything. I was putting more than the 4-5 a week I do watch and like all things that have more intake than out flow, the list was getting fat.
Chopping. Culling. Curating my own list.
Labels: cataract surgery, eyes, medicine, tea party
Saturday, July 28, 2012
WAY OF LIFE
Today's film was Milos Forman's
Lásky jedné plavovlásky / Loves of a Blonde (1965)
not just another Czech New Wave film. One of the best. There is also a wonderful interview with Forman as a feature.
This is about sending workers and others hither and yon to meet socialist ideals and work quotas. The damage to the people.
A lot of women in one factory town and no men. Troops are brought in to provide companionship. Riotous consequences ensue. Focus is on the blonde who finds love, not with an army man who are goobers but with a pianist with the band who comes to play at an acquaintance dance. More riotous fun on a smaller scale. Innocence betrayed. A mamas boy as it turns out.
We have been laughing at this film for a long time and, at the same time, feeling the pain of people who are isolated from their feelings and prevented from acting on any glimmer of hope. Still funny though.
This is a fiver. 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Friday, July 27, 2012
ANARCHISM
Today's Czech golden era film was
I got this because it has been unearthed and is showing at BAM in NYC.
Keerist. I am not on the wavelength. I tried, I really did.
I fell into a doze. I tried to figure it out. I pinched myself.
How fucking boring can silliness be.
For awhile I thought it was sort of in the style of a silent movie. Well it is. One that goes absolutely nowhere.
I didn't FF. So that is a 2 out of Netflix5. No more to say.
I did have english subtitles. Didn't help.
Labels: films
NO MAYBE ABOUT IT
Like a lot of other people I have been listening to this song this summer. Over and over.
Can you imagine? The YouTube number is, today, 172,428,240 views. And that is only on one of the many other sites that have mashups and their own versions.
It is a great "hit", a real guilty pleasure. And it is undeniably hot and homoerotic to boot.
Labels: fun. music
Thursday, July 26, 2012
CLASSICS
I am going to watch a few long time favorites from Eastern Europe. The Sixties.
Today's was the Criterion restoration of
Ostre sledované vlaky / Closely Watched Trains (1966)
A small Czech town is isolated from the war. A few Germans. Nothing more.
A young guy, naive and untested in life is about to take a job which, in the family tradition, pretty much guarantees that he will not have to work too hard. A train clerk.
He gets to grow up slowly and then a lot as the war comes to the town's very door.
This is a series of vignettes, beautifully rendered.
These films were made just after the War and in the middle of repressive communist regimes so they are mostly wry, humorous and sometimes mocking stories about bureaucrats and authoritarian regimes.
This is a 5 out of Netflix5 because I have seen it many times. This time was as good as the first.
A "closely watched train" is a train that has special armored protection.
Here is a preview from the time. It is about sex but far more. Sex is how they got people into the theater. Those sexy Europeans.
Labels: best films, films
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
A PIN DROPS
Today's film was the Academy Award star and NYTimes Critics' Pick
I finally saw it.
Very good. Enjoyable. Teary in spite of myself.
It has about ten minutes of fat on it but somehow that is OK.
It is quite surprising how much can be conveyed without sound and an occasional slide.
Not something I would want to see again but I could be persuaded I suppose. A near 4 out of Netflix5.
I could say more but this film has been talked to death. Showing how much silence can get other people reacting and talking. We used to teach that.
Labels: films
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
BIG LIST
I am at the end of my long period of watching gay films.
I started this project when I read the 50 Favorite listing in After Elton, a gay entertainment web site.
As I went along, I decided to add as many good gay films as I could find.
I wasn't always successful with the good but most of the time I hit the three level (out of Netflix five).
In all, I have looked at almost two hundred (200) gay films.
The have ranged from the earliest films that I remember seeing like A Different Splash David Hockney's semi-auto biographical film and A Natural Thing the second full gay feature that I saw which had an extremely positive message (gay men can find love and lead a happy life).
In later years there is a plethora of gay films by gay directors (Almodovar and others). There is also a gay niche market for special interest films.
My Fifty Favorite films would not be the same on the list. But I don't really think this way either.
If forced to say so, my current favorite would be Maurice the Merchant-Ivory film based on the Forster novel.
In the process, we also bought 23 films for viewing when we "feel like it".
Here are some of those: Plan B (Argentina). Just a Question of Love (France), Priest, Broken Sky (Mexico), Trick, Harvest (Germany), Love Songs (France), Strapped, Naked Boys Singing, Latter Days, Luster, From Beginning to End, Boy Culture, Soundless Wind Chime (China). No Regret (Korea), Were the World Mine, Shelter, A Very Natural Thing, Romeos (Germany), The String (France), Lilies (Canada) and Maurice.
And I adored many of the special innovative films by new directors. If you are gay you are avant-garde already so why not make that kind of film. Many of these films will never be seen anywhere.
It has been a great time and I appreciate the forbearance of those who play for the other team.
Next, I will be watching The Artist. What a nice change of pace that will be. I am ready to leave the ghetto.
Labels: best films, blogging, gay films
GRANID FINALE
Today's Favorite Gay Film #1 was Ang Lee's
Also a NYTimes Critics' Pick.
I have never seen this film. Perhaps the only gay man in the USA that has not.
I read the original story in the New Yorker (much smaller scale) and I did like it a lot. When the film came out I realized they had gilded the lily. Well they would have to. And I didn't want the gild.
As it stands it is a good enough story with some heartache and some filler. It is not the picture one would want to see as a positive image of gay life. Well, it is Wyoming and all.
But that is not the purpose of film.
It is a sad love story. Twenty years of a starved relationship is all sad. Twice a year. Sometimes less.
The direction is great. Ang Lee. The scenery. The side stories. The acting.
Gyllenhaal Ledger do well in capturing homoerotic longing. But it is acting. It is rather hard to forget the it is Gyllenhaal. A little less so with Ledger who acts harder and sometimes better but you can see the effort.
I know. I am nit picking. But everyone connected with this project is straight and that is the sensibility. Of course you can say that the characters are gay men trapped in straight bodies. Or straight acting personas. You could say a lot about all of this but it is still a pretty good movie. I would not want to see it again although if you had it and were showing it, I would watch parts of it again with my hand on the FF.
That makes it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Monday, July 23, 2012
TRIANGULATIONS
Today's gay film is the Quebecois' Xavier Dolan's second film
Les amours imaginaires / Heartbeats (2010)
Also a NYTimes Critics' Pick. Lots of prizes.
I think they should have translated the french title directly. Imaginary loves. Exactly.
A young gay man and his girl friend fall for a guy who gives off ambivalent signals about his sexual identity. If any.
They chase, together and apart. He teases or perhaps just enjoys the attention.
This is all amid a youth culture in which no one, it seems, can figure out how to get a relationship going. A greek chorus of young men and women tell of their own aborted loves. Funny. Very funny.
The question is which will happen first. Will Nico, the idol, pick one of them, both of them, drop out of the picture? Will the finally flush him into making a choice?
There are many laughs. Many discoveries in small gestures. Dolan wrote, directed and even did the costumes for this. He is, indeed, the gay guy, the co-star.
I love these Quebecois productions. There is less inhibition probably because the industry there is small and independent. A smaller, more appreciative audience for the native product. New French.
I liked this a lot. It has the nice feel of a new generation's hand on the wheel. And a solid grounding in the people who came before. There is a scene with three in a bed which, except for gender assortment, is iconic in the works of Truffaut and even more recently Honoré. Totally French, this small wave.
I will give it a 5 out of Netflix5 as I definitely want to see it again.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
EYE TO EYE
How am I doing with the eye you may ask. The removal of the cataract and replacement lens.
Great. In a word.
There is nothing going on with it at all which is good news. I take my drops. I have finished with one of them, there were three.
I am also getting better at integrating the "bad" eye with the new good one which indicates I will have little trouble making the left eye for closeup work and letting the right eye do the farsight.
This is done routinely for some contact wearers and lasik operations.
The key is whether it bothers me to have two different pictures as I do now between the two operations. Do I integrate them naturally? Answer appears to be yes. Especially when I am not thinking about it.
I am still taking it easy. First week. They point out that the results are so quick and successful that people tend to forget they are recuperating and need some time for rest and to stay away from any strenuous activity.
Labels: cataract surgery, eye, eyes
GENDER BENDER
Today's gay film was David Cronenberg's adaptation of the broadway play
A French diplomat falls in love with a Chinese opera star who is actually a man. And a man who is doing spy work.
Improbable but not if you see the film which takes the notion of gender and the dominance and plays with them back and forth. Who is fooling who?
The relationship occurs over a long period. The cultural revolution, Viet Nam and on and on.
This is a film of high art and is not only enjoyable to watch but also presents a pleasing puzzle to solve. Several, in fact.
Who loves who, for example.
Some have worried that it is an umovieable film and belongs as a play. Not so from my experience.
I liked it a lot and would be willing to see it again. That makes it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
LOVE AFFAIR
Today's gay film was
I included this film in the gay film series because Tom Courtney is Albert Finney's bitch.
An effeminate man, kind of in love with his uncaring boss, plays a familiar, old fashioned, for sure, submissive role in a kind of soft SM relationship.
I know. This is a lot to swallow when ostensibly the film is all about the relationship between an old hack of a star in a British rep company, on tour, and his dresser. A role which not only includes dressing but caretaking in the most intimate and expansive way.
The relationship is not sexual per se but it is definitely homoerotic and, at least from the dresser's perspective, as deeply love involved as any physical one. We are in the realm of the psychological bond.
All that having been said, boringly as it sounds, the story involves a subtle transformation and power shift. We can sit back and enjoy a backstage film which was made out of a backstage play.
Finney is glorious as the crazed, alcoholic, aging star. Courtney flits about managing him, pulling his puppet strings in an effort to help the show go on even though its star is clearly incapable of performing. Actually, he pulls it off. A star turn. Lear.
It is a great show, a 5 out of Netflix5. Any film that has the talents of Finney and Courtney is going to be a tour de force. Courtney's turn as a campy servant is priceless and, when it is not tragic, very funny. The perfect queen.
Friday, July 20, 2012
I WONDERED ABOUT THIS MYSELF
What to do About Joe Paterno's Statue?
I have stayed away from the Paterno part of the child abuse case. I never understand how anyone gets a statue before they are dead.
There is a lesson and perhaps an answer to the Paterno question in the statues of Mayor Curley, the corrupt father of Rose Kennedy. A master of the dark political arts.
Curley stands there with his pot belly and you know his story. It is a great sculpture. He was a funny, greatly beloved man, almost because of his faults. And you can see it. The rascal and the people's hero. (He is the only man elected to be Boston Mayor while he was in jail).
Venal. But beloved.
I used to sit on the bench with him from time to time.
Paterno got the statue while he was alive and a lot of money sort of twisted out of Penn State. A matter of another kind of corruption. Hero worship. The corruption of greed. Even at the end he got mega bucks. For what?
Then the scandal. The kids. Clay feet.
I like Ta Nehisi-Coates suggestion. Let the statue stand and put the full story around it. Also a pot belly if there was one.
I have not put an image of Paterno's statue here. Just the Mayor. A rascal who never covered up for a serial child molester. As far as we know.
Of course, this means that I put a grade on evil doing. I guess I do.
But there are limits.
Labels: criminal behavior
DOUBLE WHAMMY
We had two power blips yesterday and true to past experience, the AC went down.
Overheated compressor.
Gotta get the guy and he checks it out and then pours water on it for 15 minutes.
Now I know this but he doesn't and so he has to go through the full diagnostic. He came just after supper. After about 90 minutes off.
It climbed from 77 to 85 in just that small amount of town. Welcome to the desert.
He got it going, good.
This morning, I was in the freezer out in the garage to put away the frozen stuff I had bought and I realized the freezer was not running. It was up to 20F,
Shit!
John said that it might not be plugged in. Before I dismissed his input we went and looked.
Goddamn. The AC guy had been boogering around doing the checkup and knocked the freezer plug out. One problem started another.
I have taped the freezer plug into the receptacle so that next time he will have to remove tape and pull to get the same result.
I remember that the first thing Tom checked when a computer went out was the plug. A product of the cleaning crew. Same here.
THE NATURAL LOOK
I got my hair cut today.
It looks great with the no-glasses thing.
I haven't been without glasses in many years. I was in Boston and we lived at Charles River Park. I had contacts and got viral conjunctivitis (along with a thousand other people) at a mega-optician/optometrist in Cambridge.
I went to Mass Eye and Ear right near our apartment and they tried one more time, got it again and that was that. They told me it would lie in wait for me. So I got glasses.
It would have to be around the eighties. 30 years ago.
For the past couple of days I have reached for them, either to put them on or take them off and they are not there.
Habit. Strong.
I am doing pretty well. The idea is for me, this week, to see if my brain will compensate for two different images at the same time. If so, if it gives preference to the right eye when I am just seeing things and I don't notice that there is a background or other image involved then I will get the left eye as a close up lens for reading.
So far there are periods where I am not at all conscious that there is a left eye. All is clear 20/20 plus right eye. Then if I think about it, it collapses and I see both.
This is with a left eye that is totally not corrected and has the worst of the cataracts in it.
So we shall see.
Still, no pain, no complications and a lot of drops on a regular schedule.
Labels: cataract surgery, hair
Thursday, July 19, 2012
WAIT A MINUTE!
If you are inclined toward boycotting as I am then this will interest you.
A Guide To Consumer Brands Helping Bankroll Right-Wing Attack Ads
If you are not, forget about it.
I am shocked to see that some brands I support are also supporting right wing PACs or the GOP,
I wear New Balance to go to the Gold's gym.
I am delighted to have the Coachella Festival in my neighborhood. Jeez. I thought this was just some young people with time on their hands putting on a "show".
I used to stay in Marriott all the time and would still do that today even though I knew them and that they are all Mormons and give a shitload of money to anti gay causes especially Prop 8.
I m good on the other brands on the list. I would not wipe my ass with Angel Soft, the ones with babies, because for years I worked for a competitor. The one that has puppies. Now, I actually use house brand paper products at my supermarket.
So there is nowhere to hide. The New Balance shoes really really work for me and you know that I have this lifetime deal at Golds where I pay 99 dollars a year membership.
So I guess I am not a good boycotter.
I suppose that I could say I am for free speech which I am and actually, boycotting seems more of a right wing kind of thing than on my side.
Another one of those self defeating things that liberals do.
Labels: politics
ICONOCLAST
Today's gay film was the documentary and NYTimes Critics' Pick
Paul Goodman Change My Life (2011)
Because he did. I read Growing Up Absurd and was transformed. I benefitted from his work with gestalt therapy. I read a lot of his books.
Little did I know he was also radically gay and a serial seducer.
I missed that part.
He is almost forgotten today but he was a big deal from the forties on into the mid sixties when he mourned and criticized the direction and waste of the "movement" and lost his audience.
This is probably not to everyone's taste but it is a very good doc and covers a lot of ground about the period, the ideas that were the period's foundation and the life that inspired many intellectuals to become more practical, pragmatic in their leanings.
Featured are fellow gay and composer Ned Rorem wh oset some of Goodman's poems to music, and many of his family and colleagues. Now almost gone.
I will rate it as a strong 3. I won't be watching it again but I am glad that I did.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
DAY AFTER
I went for the day after post op this morning.
Dr. Ho.
They looked at the eye, checked the pressure and gave me an eye chart to read.
My vision with the new lens, which has been pretty much clear all day, was perfect. Even better than that. One line over 20/20.
It is amazing. I have to admit. I can see shit that I haven't really noticed. Detail. Colors. Sparkles on grass and other shiny objects.
It is hard to describe.
She gave me a high five.
Remaining question is whether I should opt for the other eye to be for close vision.
She will call me in a week.
I think the deal is to see how well I do with one eye working to the best possible and the other being sort of a closeup only lens. The brain has to be able to merge the signals. After a week I will get a good idea of whether that works for me or not. It is working better every hour so I suspect that is what will happen.
The left eye is already like, good in close reading, and if it didn't have its cataract in it, would probably just be left alone.
So. We shall see what we shall see when we see it.
See you later!
If I had known cataract surgery was this boring I would have done it long ago.
Labels: cataract surgery, eyes
LATER
Late afternoon and I now see out of the "fixed" eye very clearly.
So much so that I have left my glasses off and am seeing with the new lens in the right and the left kind of second rate distance eye.
The closeup reading isn't all the way there yet so I am relying on the left eye for closeup.
It works.
I am rather pleased.
I will go see Dr. Ho in the AM for a checkup.
That is it for the day.
Thanks for your comments and pictures!
Especially the photoshopped ones.
e
Labels: cataract surgery, eyes
A DIFFERENT TAKE
Today's gay film was Tom Kalin's "audacious" take on the Leopold Loeb thrill murder case
This is an avant garde film about a factual event so well known, well less so now, I suppose> that nothing new could be said. And he says it.
It is a good film about a vile and disgusting event.
It is not actually a gay film in the gay pride sense but it is a film about at least one gay man and his partner who may or may not have really been interested in the relationship as much as the thrills and notoriety.
As killers they are totally incompetent. It takes no time at all for them to be caught and then spill their own beans. But that was part of the deal. To be found out. To be outrageous.
The film is black and white and uses modern tropes to carry the story. Out takes from the real trial are also used. Clarence Darrow defended this case and it was thought a miracle that he got them off without the death penalty.
Jews. Queers. Pedophiles. All accusations of the press. Murder? Well, yes, but they should be killed for the other stuff too.
I liked it but I don't want to see it again. That makes it a 3 out of Netflix5.
BOUNCING BACK
I am home. I have an eye patch. Dr. Ho said it was a success.
THIS MORNING
It was nothing like I expected. What a surprise, huh? I still think I can predict the future.
I went in and got a prep talk, went and had the anesthesia done. Out for just a few minutes. Sleep. While they numb the eyeball.
Then into the operating room.
I was awake the whole time.
Bright lights while she is working.
Done and out.
No exercise for three days. Nothing over 25 pounds to lift for two weeks. Patch comes off at noon and stays off except for sleep.
The eye patch is not very attractive. Not a Marlboro Man kind, just a regular hospital issue held on with a swatch of tape.
Blahblahblah
Eyedrops. Lots to take. Go in tomorrow for a checkup.
It only took about an hour and a half for the whole thing.
It is an assembly line. Eight others after me.
Now I am going to go eat.
NOON
The patch is off.
As expected, sort of, it is a little blurry and slightly askew. Normal.
I am not sure if I am going to go with no glasses at all or what.
Probably none.
I have none of the oooos and aaaaaaha yet. Too soon.
No pain.
I am already somewhat accustomed to the askew part which is better.
There is no way to anticipate what this is like. None.
But I am going with it.
The eyes are sort of fighting each other. I guess they will come out in the middle somewhere.
Labels: cataract surgery, eye, health
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
EYE JOB
So I got my wish and am on first thing tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 630 AM. My cataract op, remember?
I will arrive and check in and they will prep me. At 730 the surgery will get done and I could be out of the place by 8AM but probably nearer 830AM.
The right eye only. The left will be done August 1st.
I will get a patch on for the first three or four hours then take it off and let the eye work.
I will probably be on light activity. I don't know. They tell me as I leave tomorrow.
John and Booker are taking me. They will walk around the beautiful campus of the Eisenhower Hospital.
When I get back, I will send a note. My first seeing job.
I am not worried just now. I want it over but that will happen in less than 24 hours.
Oh. I have to fast from midnight. I can do that. Especially if the thing is early.
Labels: cataract surgery, health
COME OUT COME OUT
Today's Favorite Gay Film #18 was
Juste une question d'amour / Just a Question of Love (2006)
Laurent is having trouble telling his parents he is gay. He even lives with a straight woman who is willing to pretend she is his girlfriend. Then he falls in love with a guy who has no patience with closet cases.
The shit hits the fan when his parents find out and you can then understand why Laurent didn't want to tell them. Bourgeois through and through.
This is not a comedy. It is hard to watch as it is so real. Even the ones who support the couple do not really support them.
Of course the answer is love between the two and not opinions and issues.
It takes a while to find that out and there is some broken glass before the thing is straightened out.
What is interesting is that no one can plead our cases. We have to make clear declarative statements to each other. Lovers and parents alike.
And above all, cut people a little slack.
I liked it but it made me squirm and not like people all the time.
I think that makes for good film. I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Monday, July 16, 2012
WHERE FOR OUT YOU
Today's gay film was
This is not only an all male Romeo and Juliet as in Shakespeare's time but Romeo and Juliet act it out as men.
Eight (older) boys in a military academy are reading the play. Everyone else in the academy are on an exercise, the premises are deserted.
The reading class spills over into daily life. A romance between two school factions ensues.
This sounds very precious and artificial but it is not. They really do bring it off for the most part.
I am sure that liberties are being taken with the words but it doesn't seem so. It doesn't even seem weird that they use the feminine and masculine personal pronouns. Or names.
It was very good entertainment even if it is not the real thing. I understand that all the actors are experienced Shakespeare players. Good. It shows.
The gay element fits right in. In fact, when the two principles bed it is very romantic and beautiful and somehow not as sexual as one would expect. Sort of genderless sex. Very nice.
No one else is gay and no one really acknowledges that the two principals are doing anything unusual either.
Yeh. I know that gays are not "unusual" but they are almost everywhere and never so much in a gay film.
I bet that in a few more years films will be more like this. Sex but less focused on what kind. Maybe,
I would not mind seeing this again. It is fun and enjoyable. What else can you ask from a movie?
A 4 out of Netflix5.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
RIDE 'EM COWBOY
Today's gay film was
I got this almost free with another DVD.
It is a gayed up version of 80s teen movies although few of the guys in this are much younger than twenty-something. But then those films were well beyond voting age.
What this does is to take the veil away from the closet behavior of 80s (reagan time) dudes and shows it all for what it is.
Kevin meets Cesar who is gay and out and falls for him. The rest is history, the closet falls apart. It takes a bit of time as Kevin thinks it over with his best "straight" friends who don't seem all that hetero when you think of it. "Let's go jerk off to Cindy does CIncinnati, oh could you help a buddy out?".
The best part is toward the end when Kevin and Cesar make up and become boyfriends out in the open.
It is pretty harmless sitcom stuff with some nudity and stilted dialog here and there.
They have tried to make the film look like a 80s film with some washed out colors and scratchy film effects. Not too diverting.
The heroes are buff and good looking.
Harmless fun. It will not turn the tide for young homos in the aughts. I think it was made for old guys like me. Bingo.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
COMING OUT AFTER MARRIAGE AND KIDS
This is not my story but it is close enough in feeling and outcome.
"We are all happy now"
Labels: coming out, gay marriage
APOLOGIZE? HELL NO!!
Brutal.
This came out right after the Mittster's five interviews Friday night. The worst time, incidentally, to be doing anything on teevee or anywhere else.
Labels: Re-election of Barack Obama, Romney
CHANGES
Today's gay film was the German
I was wary of this but it was so highly recommended.
A transgender F>M goes to the city to live next to his best lesbian friend and meets a gay man. This is the story of the transitioning and the relationship. How odd it seems.
And this film gets through it, over it and runs with it.
The acting is superb. The side stories are satisfying.
There is bias and condemnation and difficulty and the courage of the main character, Lukas, is undeniable.
The negative stuff all seems trivial in comparison to the spirit of this wonderful young person who is undergoing this journey.
The man with whom he falls in love is ideal for this, a bad boy, a hunk with a heart of gold.
The relationship is up and down and back and forth as all strong relationships tend to be.
Very real. Very heart felt. Very good.
I will give it a 5 out of Netflix5.
Friday, July 13, 2012
CELIBATE?
Today's film was Gay Favorite #50. I waited for Netflix to offer it when it came out in DVD but had to buy it.
It is worth the money.
God knows there are a lot of gay priests in there and they do passionately love the church as they love the men/man they are involved with. I have known dozens.
The interesting thing is that gay priests seem to have a lot less ambivalence about having sex than the straight ones do.
In any case it is not my issue.
The film is about moral choice and is best when it veers away from the canon law and just shows people's lives happening and most of all forgiveness.
The film is redeemed by its actors. Tom Wilkinson as a compassionate older priest (with a live in female companion), Robert Carlyle as the lover and the really really great looking Linus Roache as the priest in question.
Wound into the gay/celibacy thing is a situation of child abuse that comes up in confession and what to do about that?
There are stereotypically stiff necked hierarchy and some laughs.
I liked it a lot more for the human element. I am out of gas on even thinking about the hypocrisy and cruelty of the RC church and its dogma.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
The love scenes are gorgeous. So is Robert Carlyle an old favorite. Well, not old but I guess by now he actually is. 2012-1994=18. He is 51 now. A kid. He has also had work done.
What I love about the movies is the forever young part.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE
Joe Biden gives them hell. Take a few dips into this 30 minute speech.
They "booed" him when he wanted to finish his speech!
The windup is just the greatest.
Labels: Joe Biden, Re-election of Barack Obama
SLACKER ANGST
Today's sort of gay film, gayish, was the film version of the musical
I hated it. Skipped through the second half. Couldn't wait for them to die.
La Boheme.
Hasn't it been done enough now?
The gay characters were stereotypes and not very convincing or interesting.
Most of the cast was from the Broadway show and, as usual, they don't play well on film. And it was bloated. Way bloated.
A 2 out of Netflix5. I watched some of it and skipped the rest. Actually, that is a 1.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
NOT MUCH TODAY
I went and got the eye drops I will need for the right eye cataract procedure. Or is it an operation? Or is their some other name.
They were reputed to be very expensive but not too bad. 45 copay for two of them and 5 copay for the other (prednisone generic).
I got obsessive with the pharmacist over whether I could overdo it or not. She told me that the ingredients were not dangerous in any way. The clerk who was a lot smarter and knew her customer told me to get over it and not worry about too much, not enough and so on.
I could see I was doing my boring in thing and quit. It is just fear getting a workout. "They are not dangerous".
I had a couple of meetings and loafed. There are some days I can do that, huh?
So much loafing there was no time for a movie.
I am doing OK with the election so far and do not feel the need to talk over the obvious disparity between solid Democrat proposals and GOP air balls.
I think that they have Romney nailed with the Swiss bank account thing. Whether nefarious or not. There is nothing ambiguous about it. The reason people have money in Switzerland is tax avoidance. Period. That is what I believe along with a lot of other people. Whether it is true or not is beside the point.
Thought for the day.
Hot turkey sandwiches for dinner. Yo ho.
Mine will have 9 grain bread, oven warmed turkey not the wave, nice jelly cranberry sauce and fake gravy. But the idea is the same.
Oh, I wouldn't have the mash either, raw vegetables instead.
Labels: cooking, health, medicine, Re-election of Barack Obama, Romney
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
THE BITTER TRUTH
Today's gay film was a television production, HBO
A dramatization of Randy Shilts' book on the AIDS crisis and how it was "handled" in its first decade.
A bunch of stars surround Matthew Modine as a young epidemiologist who is outspoken and rebellious enough to rattle cages and get out the details of a lot of bureaucratic fiddling while Rome burned. Well, at first it was only "the gays". A lot about Reagan's silence, the lack of funding, the infighting between Gallo the head of the Cancer Institute and others as well as his obsession with the French who were early and ahead of him in the "arms" race. A prick as far as I can tell. Alan Alda who, surprisingly, can play a slick dick better than anyone. So ingratiating. So sweet.
I knew most of the story. It was good to see. The production is wonderful. But I lived through it safely (I was sexually active gay in 1973, AIDs comes into the picture in the late 70s early 80s. Many friends died.
I wouldn''t want to see this again no matter who is in it or how matter how well it was directed and produced. But it is certainly 5star material.
Monday, July 09, 2012
OLD MOVIES
Today's gay film was
with Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave. Adapted land directed by Bill Condon based on the Christopher Bram novel about the last days of the film director James Whale, one of the few open homosexual directors in Hollywood. It eventually cost him his career but not before he produced the Fankenstein pictures and many others. Showboat and The Invisible Man.
Wow. What a windup.
This is another story based on a gay/straight relationship. Very nice. Extremely well done. Got lots of Oscar noms and prizes.
The rapport between McKellen and Fraser is intense.
I had forgotten how good this film is and how affecting it becomes as it moves toward its inevitable conclusion.
It is still a strong 5 out of Netflix5.
Sunday, July 08, 2012
QUESTIONS
I think that they are on the right wave length with this.
Gibbs said today that he chooses a bank because there is an ATM in the neighborhood. Why go to Switzerland?
Now you and I know why he does this but none of the answers meet the test of a candidate for the highest public office.
At the very leasts he is not investing in America and that is enough to make the most ardent GOoPer want to take another look at their man. It sure rings the bell with Independents.
Labels: Re-election of Barack Obama, Romney
MEDIUM SHORT
Today's gay film was a short collection
A mixed bag as most of these collections are. Opinions about shorts varies widely as these two reviews will attest.
My reaction was mildly satisfied and ready to move back to some features. The shorts can only whet the appetite or make a certain point. Most are film school projects or showcases for distributors. The good ones always precede a feature where there is a lot more to say.
Not bad, not great. A 3 out of Netflix 5,
TOUCHING
I have "known" Barney Frank for a long time, all the way back to his days as an aide of Kevin White, the former Boston Mayor.
He has always been a colorful character, very talented.
His coming out was not planned though it was a very brave thing for him to do. He got caught with his pants down with a younger man and it became a scandal. Barney faced into the wind and took the punishment (a censor) along with the controversy over being gay. Two different things.
He made amends for his part in it but would not try to hide as some men have from the gay part.
It liberated him. He became the most powerful congressman. Or near the top.
Living in Boston and all, I got to hear about him in his private life. Pretty much the same as you see in public. He had boyfriends, he was seen out and about and he was always sort of arrogantly humble.
Now he is not only a gay Congressman but, setting another first, he is the only married gay Congressman.
Mr. Ready is a fascinating salt of the earth character and while loosely connected to Party affairs through his former partner he is basically a blue collar guy. And he has been at Barney Frank's side in DC and out for the last few years.
This is a very nice piece. My God how far we have come in so short a time.
Let's have a huge wedding photo.
Labels: gay marriage
Saturday, July 07, 2012
FIFTEEN
We arrived in Palm Springs this day in 1997.
It was hot. It is hot. We came on this date purposely to start hot and it was a great decision as we acclimated to the hot first and foremost. We had done the same when we scouted the city out 4 or 5 years before. We came in late May and stayed in a small resort. Pretended that we lived here. I did work. We ran around and did shopping and stuff. Stayed two weeks.
Hot.
We took over a week to get here. Planned to arrive the 9th but we got a call from the moving company (a small company run by Israelis--they were great) that they were ahead of schedule so we cancelled Yellowstone and dropped down to PS through Ogden UT, Salt Lake City UT and didn't stop for tourism at all.
The house had been bought 9 months earlier and we continued the lease of the people who were renting.
We evicted them in May and we made a trip to buy essential furniture which we did not move. A living room suite, the bed. Shelving. Some other stuff. So we didn't have to do it all the first day.
Everything worked perfectly.
And to get the house ready.
In many ways it seems like yesterday. In others, like a century ago.
We love that house until we didn't and then moved where we are now, a condo two years ago.
We have never considered moving on from PS and it is hard to imagine leaving this condo. Feet first. But I said that about the house.
As for the city, the mountains, the wild desert. Perfect.
Labels: Palm Springs
SURRENDER
Today's Favorite Gay Film #7, was Merchant-Ivory's
A classic. Two friends become lovers in university and upon graduation face the reality of a totally repressive society.
The production is lush and heavy with social detail. The usual Merchant-Ivory immersion.
Ironically or not, Merchant and Ivory were also lovers. The story was in very adept hands.
It is a great film, much like a chase, where Maurice is running to save his soul if not his life.
In the end he finds a way out and surrenders to it. Like Forster, he took his love in the lower classes where the show was not so much about how you lived your life but that you not scare the horses or be embarrassing. As it happens, Maurice is quite prepared for this as he has spent time teaching boxing in the slums and hanging out with rougher men. It is exactly what the doctor, at one point recommends.
Also full to bursting are the wonderful actors who fill in the other roles.
I loved this film when I first saw it, when it came out, and still do.
A 5 out of Netflix5.
Friday, July 06, 2012
NOT INTERESTED
I have to admit that I really am not interested in the Boson discovery.
But, I sit next to a young friend who is psyched by its possibility as the "god particle" and he wants to talk about it so I have made an exception for him.
Incidentally, as you age, be sure that you always sit next to someone younger than yourself. Maybe about 30 years younger as in this case. It will keep you intelligent and alive.
OK.
I have gotten myself pretty well up to date in the whole subatomic thing. Heisenberg. Particle physics.
I had to look up one part though. Weak nuclear theory which covers radioactive decay.
OK.
Check.
Now I am ready.
Labels: physics
LONG AND SHORT OF IT
Today's gay film was a collection of shorts
None of these is easy or comfortable.
The first is a bit of adolescent testing in a swimming pool and is, actually, very nice.
The second is a Southern Gothic piece on the style of Deliverance. Not bad but a bit disturbing here and there.
Another has a cousin visit with another older boy who has many answers for the younger one. None of this is homoerotic in a literal sense and yet all of it is in that the experiences together helped form the adult gay man. See? Loving straight kids can do a lot of good.
The fourth is longish and is based on the experiences of two closeted men in the Israeli Army. Nothing happens and everything does.
These are not the best shorts that I have seen but all of them have a unique quality all their own and no, they are not all positive goody two shoes homo films. Some bad things happen here and there. Like life.
I had seen two out of the four in the past. I wouldn't want to see it again. So a 3 out of Netflix5.
Thursday, July 05, 2012
PREACHER
You may think you know where this is going but you will be surprised.
Labels: gay marriage, gay rights, sexuality
BUSY
We had a nice and busy holiday.
The fireworks were avoided again this year as I took Booker in the car and drove us away from the noise, the lights and the crowds that hover around the condo. The 'works are set off just up the street in the park behind the baseball stadium. In other words, right over the house.
So the B and I got in the car and took off north of PS and drove along Dillon Road which is high and parallels the Valley. We saw them (and Palm Desert's) with the sound off.
He loves to ride.
This year, we had to take a rental car from the Volvo place. We are getting brakes done and as they had the brakes disassembled they discovered they did not have a particular part. So we got a little sedan at no cost.
As the escape took awhile and the fireworks started at 9:15, I got to bed about two hours late so missed the gym this morning.
EXPANSIVE
Today's movie wasn't gay.
I took a straight break. I can't speak for the actors privately but the story is straight on.
Julie Taymor's great production based on Beatle songs. Jim Sturgess and other lesser stars do a great job here with a story involving Viet Nam and the "happy" sixties. Everyone does their own singing and somehow Sturgess seems to have a bit of Lennon and a sprinkling of McCartney in his pure Sturgess delivery.
It is a wonderful film, part of the family collection so that it can be pulled out as a sub for two films that didn't get here on time. The holiday and all.
It is very good. A NYT Critics' Pick.
Sturgess is a bona fide star and beginning to get roles accordingly.
Did I say that I love this movie? A fucking 5 out of Netflix5. It has a great bonus disc which I still haven't seen completely.
Labels: films
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
VARIETY SHOW
Today's gay film(s) was a collection of short films
named for the final production, a musical about a guy who can't stay with one guy. It is an end to end musical, very well done. Neat.
The preceding shorts are all quite strong except for a teen-gay film that is about as empty as the kids themselves but then that is what it is like to be a teen-gay so there you are.
I had seen one before, a visit from an ex who is looking to relight the fire to no avail but there is a teddy bear involved which takes it beyond disappointment into, well, poignancy.
Funny bit about a guy who gets his kicks going through the airline security point. Another about two improbably matched guys who meet in a book store. Very nice.
Most interesting is the short that resulted in the full length Were the World Mine.
A great mix. A 4 out of Netflix5.
THE OTHER SIDE OF ANDY
Before he was a kindly sheriff, Griffith was a specialist in dark films.
Here is one of the most chilling.
Labels: films
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
ANDY AND THE GANG
I bet you didn't know there were words to it.
So long Andy.
And here is the ad that he did for the ACA!
Labels: fun, television
QUEENS
Today's gay film was the adaptation of Terrence McNally's play
Love! Valor! Compassion! (1997)
with all the Broadway cast except for Jason Alexander who replaces Nathan Lane. OK with me. Equally annoying.
I had trouble with this one. Like many play conversions this reeks of the theater which is OK in its way but closeups make a lot of it over the top seeming.
The other thing is that these are gay people but seriously, chronically and absolutely New York gay people. Often more neurotic than the rest of us.
Parts of it are nice. Some not. It is not the boys in the band kind of behavior but it is that all too condescending know it all kind of shit that guys off the Island of Manhattan are noted for.
Everyone here is troubled. Not every one is friendly in what is supposed to be a group of friends meeting for a weekend at a nice house of one of the group. Three holiday weekends, three acts.
I wouldn't want to see it again.
It is interesting that for a sophisticated bunch that this is supposed to be, there is a lot of corny shit in it. Even a good and an evil twin. Spare me.
The more I type about it the less I like it.
But I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5 as there is the "gay point" added which would not be supported in another similar film about any other niche of people.
Monday, July 02, 2012
THE EYES HAVE IT CONT'D.
I went for my cataract removal pre-op today.
Not many surprises.
They measured my eyes. The lens that replaces the cataract laden lens will be made for my eye and "wipes the slate clean" as far as prescriptions and all that are concerned.
I will be getting both eyes set for farsightedness. I will get OTC glasses for any close up needs. There was talk of one lens close and another far but they decided I am not a candidate for that. OK with me. The thought made me dizzy.
I won't go through the details of the operation but I will be in the place for two hours max. They will use a "twilight" drug to anesthetize me. I may be conscious for the whole thing. I just won't give a shit or feel any pain.
There are no stitches unless there are complications.
John will have to go with me to take me home and to go for the day after checkup the next morning. I will have a patch but I will take it off after four hours and will wear it during sleep for a week. They want my eye to be working and trying to see as much and as soon as possible.
The whole thing is very methodical. These people have always seemed to me to be sober and focused to a fault. There is no joking around. Their office is extremely quiet.
I had an elevated blood pressure coming in. Nervous. A considerable drop going out.
Hey. I have never ever had surgery before.
That is about it. Here is a picture of the whole thing. Cut, flush out old lens, put new one in. I love the music!
Labels: cataract surgery, health, medicine
HERO
Today's Favorite Gay Film Number TWO was
with Sean Penn, James Franco, Diego Luna, Emiel Hirsch, Josh Brolin and many other favorites. A NYTimes Critics' Pick
I have seen it several times. It is a wonderful film not because it is gay, necessarily, but because it is about a real hero of my time.
Harvey Milk really changed things. He was magnetic. He was a leader. He was very smart.
His victory over the Briggs Amendment (a proposition that would have banned gay teachers) was world shaking. For the first time, gay people were seen to as people. A lot of straight people voted against Proposition 6. Mostly in LA County, but still.
This film directed by Gus Van Sant is wonderfully done. I have not tired of it yet. There are tears from the beginning. Of happiness as well as grief. It is a 5 out of Netflix 5 many times over.
Sunday, July 01, 2012
LIKE SON LIKE FATHER
Today's gay film was the television production of David Leavitt's novel
The Lost Language of Cranes (1992)
Brian Cox stars as a closeted man whose son comes out to him.
This conflict of secrets versus openness brings the Dad out too.
I read the novel way back and liked it. The film is a faithful rendition.
There are some good scenes between lovers and there is a cold mother. Interesting that people talk about the distant father of gay men but often it is the Mom who is the toughest sell and the bitchiest about the whole thing. Same here. Same with me.
There is so much cut from the novel's story that you can see them running from cut to cut but they do a pretty good job altogether.
A 3 out of Netflix5 for me.
