The Art of the Gay Film: Where Does Porn End and Cinema Begin?

Red, White, and Royal Blue

One of the oldest and most provocative questions in art history is what counts as art? That question becomes even more layered when we look at gay-themed films. Are they art? Are they pornography? Or something else entirely?

Last week, in my post “Can Gay Porn Be Considered Art?”, I explored how even pornography can rise to the level of art when it’s created with intention, craft, and meaning. This week, I want to turn to films—particularly gay-themed ones—and ask: where do they fit on the spectrum between art and pornography?

Let’s start at the beginning: Are films art?

The answer from an art historical perspective is a resounding yes. Cinema, from its very birth, was hailed by some as the most modern and democratic art form—capable of bringing storytelling, image, sound, and emotion into a single, immersive experience.

But when sex enters the frame, things get complicated—particularly for films with queer themes. 

Red, White, and Royal Blue

Consider Red, White & Royal Blue, which generated considerable buzz in the gay community for its romantic and tender love scenes. The two leads engage in intercourse—though we see no frontal nudity or penetration, and most of the actual sexual act is in the facial expressions of the two main characters. The narrative focuses on their emotional and political stakes as much as their physical passion. 

Shortbus

But compare that to Shortbus, the groundbreaking 2006 independent film featuring gay and straight characters exploring sexuality, intimacy, and loneliness. It famously includes unsimulated sex scenes—autofellatio, rimming, ejaculation, and more—woven into a story about connection in New York City. Despite its graphic imagery, many critics and audiences hailed Shortbus as an art film because the sexual content was in service to its humanistic and narrative vision. 

Minx

Then on the other end of the spectrum are campy, sex-forward comedies like the Eating Out series or Another Gay Movie, which parody and revel in gay hookup culture with winks, nudity, and humor. These films are explicitly about sex, but in a light, comic, self-aware way—not quite pornography, but certainly not subtle. In the same vein, we might put certain HBO shows (The White Lotus, Euphoria) or Minx (on HBO/Starz), which features an extraordinary amount of male frontal nudity but uses it to explore the 1970s porn industry with a feminist and comedic slant.

So, where do we draw the line between art and pornography?

It’s not always clear—and, as you pointed out, it may well be “in the eye of the beholder.” In general: 

• Pornography tends to have a singular, utilitarian purpose: sexual arousal and entertainment. It doesn’t usually ask its audience to reflect, empathize, or wrestle with deeper meaning. However, even pornography can be considered art, as I wrote about in last week’s post, “Can Gay Porn Be Considered Art?”—and I think it can be. When crafted thoughtfully, with aesthetic intention and emotional resonance, even porn can rise to the level of art. 
• Art, even when explicit, usually serves a broader purpose—telling a story, exploring vulnerability, interrogating social norms, or celebrating intimacy. 

That doesn’t mean art can’t also be arousing—just as Mapplethorpe’s photographs or Greek kouroi might still thrill us centuries later. The difference lies in intent and context.

Many of these films (and TV series) deliberately blur the line. Shortbus was attacked by some as pornography precisely because it showed real sex acts, but defended as art because it was about loneliness, connection, and what it means to be human. Meanwhile, Red, White & Royal Blue was criticized by some for being too tame, choosing romantic convention over sexual candor—but it, too, is art, in the sense that it tells a story about love and identity.

Another Gay Movie

Even campy comedies like Another Gay Movie or series like The White Lotus are part of this conversation—using nudity and sexual humor partly to titillate, yes, but also to satirize and expose cultural hypocrisy.

Personally, I tend to agree that much of what we call pornography is shallow and transactional, whereas even the most sexually explicit arthouse films still aspire to say something about the human experience. Then again, as I’ve also noted, some modern “art” (abstract or otherwise) can feel just as empty or pretentious to some of us as porn can.

We as gay viewers—long denied honest representations of ourselves—have often sought out films that blurred the line between art and eroticism, because sometimes that’s where we feel most seen. Cinema remains, perhaps, the most widely consumed art form in the gay community—precisely because it can contain beauty, sex, tenderness, and critique all at once.


What do you think? Have you seen a film (Shortbus? Minx? Another Gay Movie?) that you felt crossed a line—or one that made you feel understood? Does the presence of graphic sex diminish a movie’s artistic value for you—or enhance its honesty?

Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments. 

Two Hours

Jokes about porn dialogue and acting ability are not in short supply, but every once in a while, there are some golden lines, even if the lines delivery is terrible. Gay porn dialogue has gotten better in recently and some even have a “plot.” Yeah, I know, it’s hard to believe l, right? Through the years, there have been a few porn movies with a definite plot. Top Secret (2000) starring Corey Summers in two roles had a pretty decent plot, but if there is a plot in most porn movies, it’s barely there. Ok, I’m getting off track.

Vintage gay porn dialogue can be intentionally quite humorous at times. Of course, most of the time it is not intentional. I recently watched My Best Buddy (1988), which was most definitely short on plot. Basically, it is about two “best buddies” traveling separately across the country to spend the summer with one of the guy’s brother. The final scene is with Chris Williams (pictured above) and the aforementioned brother (I don’t know this actor’s name) they are going to stay with. So here’s the setup for the movie’s final scene:

Chris arrives first and the brother is not home. He’s let in by the apartment manager, who, of course, propositions him, but Chris says he just wants to take a shower to get the travel grime off him and take a nap. Cut to Chris getting undressed down to his white briefs and flopping down on the bed.

As he’s dozing off, the brother comes home, and Chris pretends to be asleep. The brother remarks that his brother’s friend “sure has grown up.” Then, creepily, begins to run his hand over the butt of the sleeping friend before pulling down the guy’s briefs and beginning to rim him. During all of this, Chris is awake but feigning sleep. 

Chris finally decides to wake up, and utters one of my favorite lines I’ve ever heard in porn, “I don’t know who you are, but you have about two hours to stop doing that.” I’m pretty sure you can figure out yourself what happens next. The movie ends with Chris and the brother naked post coitus in bed discussing plans for dinner when the other brother arrives. The two guys jump under the covers as the brother walks into the room and looks shocked that his brother and best buddy are naked in bed together. Then, fade to black.

The only thing about vintage gay porn that you have to suspend belief about is that so many of these guy’s died during the AIDS epidemic. Sadly, Chris Williams was one of those young men and died in 1992. 

Section 31

Friday, Paramount+ released the first of their Star Trek movies, Section 31. In the Star Trek universe, Section 31 is a nefarious group introduced in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine when they tried to recruit Dr. Julian Bashir. Since its first introduction as an autonomous shadow organization tasked with protecting the Federation at all costs, the organization has appeared in Star Trek Into Darkness, Enterprise, and Star Trek: Discovery. The organization has always been portrayed as an evil organization that would stop at nothing to fulfill what it believes its mission to be. Some Star Trek fans hate the idea of Section 31 because they say it goes against Gene Roddenberry’s utopian ideals for Star Trek, but let’s face it, while the Star Trek universe gives us hope for a better future, the Federation has never been a perfect society. Even Gene Roddenberry understood that utopia would have its cracks in its foundation.

Since Michelle Yeoh departed Discovery there had been rumors of a Section 31 series. Then, Yeoh won an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once, I assumed the series development had been cancelled. I did not believe an Academy award winning actress would headline a Star Trek series. So, I was surprised when they announced that Paramount+ would be making what they called an “event movie” about Section 31 starring Michelle Yeoh.

Every new version of Star Trek since the original series has had a love/hate relationship with Trekkies. Many Trekkies hate anything that is not the original series. Even Next Generation which has become a much beloved show was hated when it began. Deep Space Nine was basically hated through its entire seven seasons, Voyager always got a mixed reception, and Enterprise seemed to put a death knell in Star Trek spinoffs when it only lasted five season. Then, Discovery was released on CBS All Access, and the hatred truly began because it introduced an African American female as the lead character, had a gay couple, transgender and non-binary characters, and a host of other perceived faults. There are many Star Trek fans who never understood the social commentary that Roddenberry established in Star Trek back in the 1960s. It was always groundbreaking, but even Star Trek fans are not immune to the racist, the homophobic, and the ignorant, no matter how much those beliefs go against all Roddenberry’s utopian ideals for Star Trek.

So, it’s no surprise to see Section 31 get terrible reviews from some of the fans. Plus, internet trolls are everywhere including among Trekkies. They are going to be critical and hate everything and never give anything new a chance. I won’t claim that I thought Section 31 was a masterpiece. I believed that it would be a good movie because I really didn’t think at this point in her career Yeoh would be part of a project that she didn’t believe would be good. There were certain surprise elements to Section 31 that I enjoyed, but I knew from the beginning that this would be a darker version of the Star Trek universe. All in all, I was entertained by the movie. I always like seeing anything Star Trek. I even gave Prodigy a try, and it’s the only entry in the series that I could not watch. When it was on Paramount+, I watched it, but I never enjoyed it. That might have had to do more with it being a show for kids than with anything else. I certainly was not going to resubscribe to Netflix to watch it.

So while Section 31 was not my favorite of the Star Trek franchise, it wasn’t too bad. I was entertained, and that’s what really matters to me. So, if you are skeptical, I suggest you give it a try. If you have already seen it, what did you think?

If Only…

If I didn’t have to be at work today, I’d be back in bed. I went to bed last night with an intense migraine, and I woke up with a migraine, though thankfully not as severe as the one I had when I went to bed. I stayed up a little later than usual last night. I’m usually in bed by 10 pm every night. 

Last night though, I’d stayed up to see Victor/Victoria (1982) on TCM. It’s a film I haven’t seen in a long time, and I’ve always been a fan of Julie Andrews. If you’ve never seen it, the musical comedy is about a female singer down on her luck who dresses as a man who dresses as a woman to perform in Paris nightclubs in the 1930s. It’s an interesting movie because of its positive portrayal of gay men. It’s a film worth watching.

After watching the movie, it took a little while to get settled and go to sleep. I wish I’d been able to sleep a little longer this morning, but whenever I wake up with a headache, it’s hard to fall back to sleep. So as I write this, I still have a migraine. I took my medicine, so hopefully I’ll feel better before I head into work. Sometimes, a nice hot shower helps.

I hope everyone has a great week!

1946

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

—John 1:1

 

Today’s post is going to be a little bit different because I want to recommend a movie to you, the documentary, 1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture. In this documentary, researchers and scholars delve into the 1946 mistranslation of 1 Corinthians 6:9 and explore how it fueled the Christian anti-gay movement that still thrives today. Homophobia did not originate in 1946; the vast majority of religions have been attacking LGBTQ+ people since the beginning of time. In my opinion, religions need numbers to survive and to get those numbers they need more than proselytizing; they need procreation. For the most part, the LGBTQ+ community stands in the way of this. However, homophobia received a huge boost with a mistranslation of the biblical text.

 

1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture hinges its premise on the fact that the word “homosexual” appeared for the first time in the Bible in 1946, in an apparent mistranslation of the ancient Greek words malakoi – defined as someone effeminate who gives themselves up to a soft, decadent, lazy and indolent way of living – and arsenokoitai – a compound word that roughly translates to “male bed.” While people could take it to mean man bedding man, within the context of the time, scholars believed that arsenokoitai alluded more to abusive, predatory behavior and pederasty than it does homosexuality.

 

The director and producer Sharon “Rocky” Roggio documents the journey of the Christian author Kathy Baldock and Ed Oxford, an advocate and gay man who grew up Southern Baptist, as they dug through archives at the Yale Sterling Memorial Library. There, they discovered correspondence between the head of the translation committee and a gay seminary student in which the committee head conceded with the student’s point about the mistranslation. In the next translation in 1971, the committee changed the translation from homosexual to “sexual perverts” – but by then the damage was done. Hundreds of millions of Bibles with the wrong translation had been published, and conservative religion and conservative politics soon banded together to push an anti-gay agenda.

 

The documentary first premiered in 2022 and has won numerous festival awards. It is available to rent online but sadly, only through today (1/14/2024). A dear friend who I’ve talked to many times about being Christian and gay told me about its availability, and I watched it Friday for the first time. As I heard Roggio’s story and Oxford’s story of how he began to research to understand what the Bible was actually saying about Christianity both parallel my own. Roggio melded this research with her own personal story. When she was a teenager, her pastor father discovered that she was a lesbian and responded with a letter full of Bible verses imploring her to repent and forsake her identity. Her story mirrors mine in a way. We are roughly the same age, and her father discovered she was gay and confirmed his suspicions by reading her diary. My mother discovered I was gay and confirmed her suspicions by reading my email. Like my mother, her father won’t listen and continues to cling to a small section of the Bible because it fuels their prejudices. Like me, Oxford delved into research to understand the Bible better, and I still look to the Bible to guide my values of Christ’s love.

 

With the documentary, Roggio filmed her father attending talks by Baldock and overall standing by his belief that the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin. “I can’t compromise conviction,” he says in the film. “Prior to even knowing about the 1946 mistranslation, I was led to it because I knew I needed to use scripture to be able to have a conversation with my parents to affirm my reality and my identity,” Roggio said. That didn’t make it easy for her. “I knew what my dad was going to give us,” Roggio said. “I have been around for a while and I’ve been dealing with this for a while and I’ve put up enough armor to be able to go back and have those conversations. And it was extremely painful, just as I’m sure it was painful for my dad.”

 

The documentary goes beyond this very personal story of Roggio and her father by focusing on academia and research, featuring interviews with language experts and biblical scholars to provide context not just for the mistranslated verse, but also the other “clobber” verses that have been cited by the Christian right as a condemnation of homosexuality. They explore Sodom and Gomorrah, and the historical context behind the Leviticus verse denouncing when “a man lies with a male as with a woman;” scholars believe the verse is not alluding to homosexuality but to ritual pagan prostitution. “What we need to do is see that this is a text that is time-bound, that is determined by the culture in which it was written, and that our sense of God, our sense of the Holy Spirit, isn’t time-bound,” the Rev. Dr. Cheryl Anderson says in the documentary. “We have to ask ourselves again: what’s the word of God for this time and this place? We’re not used to doing that, but that’s the task because that is what the Bible does. It’s reinterpreting itself.”

 

Between the research, however, Roggio wove in the emotional repercussions for all members of the LGBTQ+ community – showing what it meant to feel as if they had been declared an abomination by sacred text and to grow up hearing that even God doesn’t love you. Oxford has a poignant moment in the film where he admits that even as outspoken as he has been on the topic of religion and sexuality, he has not been able to allow himself to experience intimacy with anyone. “I don’t get depressed about damaging theology anymore,” he says. “I have been damaged and I get depressed over how that affects me today, the here and the now.”

 

Because for gay Christians like Roggio, this mistranslation means everything. It means that “no one can dictate your relationship with God,” she said. “We’ve been told how we have to live as Christians, by putting away our identity, a part of ourselves. But you can totally be gay and Christian.” But the film’s findings also hold significance beyond Christianity. “Whether you’re Christian or not, or whether you’re religious or not, the Bible impacts you,” said Roggio. “It’s the most published book in the world, translated into multiple languages for millennia.”

Red, White, and Royal Blue 🇺🇸❤️🇬🇧

It’s been quite a while since I have been excited about a movie’s release. I’ve been excited for television shows, mainly Star Trek shows on Paramount+, but not many movie releases get me excited these days. However, I have been anticipating the movie Red, White, and Royal Blue since I read the book and heard they were making it into a movie. I’ll be honest, I was a little skeptical about the movie being made by Amazon’s Prime Video, but I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially once I saw the trailer for the film. As with any book adaptation, I was also worried they’d would completely screw the whole thing up, but again, the trailer made it seem that it was keeping mostly to the story in the book. However, I have learned over the years that a book can be great and the movie can also be great without being completely compatible with the book. 

I’ve read Red, White, and Royal Blue several times. When I don’t have a new audiobook to listen to, I have a few standbys that will go back and listen to again. Red, White, and Royal Blue is one of those books, therefore I am very familiar with the storyline. Also, I read it again this week in anticipation of todays release of the movie, which by the way was actually released at 8:00 pm ET last night. I finished the book on my way home yesterday, and at 8 o’clock, I was in front of my TV with a bowl of popcorn. I enjoyed the movie. As with most adaptations, they combined some characters, removed or changed others, and tightened up the story some. The audiobook is over 12 hours long. There had to be some judicious editing to make it a two hour long movie.

I’m not completely happy with all the sacrifices the movie made. A few of my favorite scenes from the book are not in the movie. However, I do think they did a great job of keeping the meat of the story there. There will be people who really love this book that are not going to be happy with the changes made, but I’ll forgive the movie for that. It was a good, entertaining, and enjoyable movie, and I’ll probably watch it again (maybe even today). I’ve gotten into the habit of watching something new all the way through once, and if I really enjoyed it, I’ll watch it again because there is always something that I missed the first time.

So, what did I like about the movie? Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz, the first son, and Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry were very well cast. I think they captured the energy and the personalities of the two main characters. The sex scenes were pretty damn hot, and quite honestly, these were not gratuitous sex scenes because the passion and horniness of two guys in their early twenties is a major part of the book.  Think they captured that as well. Alex and Henry are the main protagonists, and everyone else in the movie were basically window dressing. The other standout is Sarah Shahi as Zahra, who has great lines in the book and the movie. I also liked Aneesh Sheth as Alex’s Secret Service an agent Amy. Sheth doesn’t have as big of a part as Shahi, but I felt like she stole the scenes she was in, which almost makes up for her not being portrayed as a transgender woman.

I have three criticism I’ll make of the movie, though there are other things I could say good and bad. However, Uma Thurman as the first female president and from Texas is one of the weakest parts of the movie, and Thurman is almost unrecognizable in my opinion. She looked terrible, not the more sophisticated and well put together woman I felt she was in the book. She does have some good moments though. I can forgive the movie makers for combining the characters of Alex’s sister June and his best friend Nora into just Nora, but when they removed Rafael Luna and Henry’s mother Princess Catherine, I think they did the film a major injustice.

As I said, overall, I enjoyed the movie and will watch it again. I’d give it 4.5/5 stars. If you watch it, I’d love to hear your thoughts, and if you’ve also read the book and watched the movie, let me know what you thought of the adaptation.

Bros Review

As I mentioned on Friday, I went to see Bros, “A Boy Meets Bro Love Story,” as the tagline says. The consensus on Rotten Tomatoes was that “Bros marks a step forward in rom-com representation -- and just as importantly, it's a whole bunch of fun to watch.” I wouldn’t go that far. It was worth it to see Luke Macfarlane, who I love as an actor. If you look at his Instagram, you’ll see he’s a bit of a “gay bro” in real life. There were certainly parts that were fun, but there was a whole lot of angry speechmaking by Billy Eichner’s character. A little bit of an angry rant on occasion can be funny, but not when it’s 75 percent of the movie. I realize it’s the part he was playing, but give it a rest. I was really hoping for a lighthearted romantic comedy. Yes, it should have a little angst, but that should be between the main love interests, not Billy Eichner vs. the World. There were enjoyable parts to the movie, such as when they are in Provincetown. The actual love story is also nice, but it gets a little bogged down by Billy Eichner’s constant rants.

 

I would still recommend you go see it. After looking at the reviews, I can only assume I am in the minority. Sadly, it also flopped at the box office this weekend. My friend and I were literally half the audience at the theater. The movie sold $4.8 million in tickets, about 40 percent less than expected. As the New York Times said, “There is no easy way to say it: When the reviews are this sensational, the marketing support is this substantive and the theatrical footprint is this wide — and ticket sales are nonetheless this low — it suggests outright marketplace rejection.” I think if the movie had been a less angsty rant and more romantic comedy, it might have done better at the box office.

 

With that being said, I got mostly annoyed with the subplot about the LGBTQ+ Museum. Eichner’s character is supposed to be the museum’s founding director, though his background is not as a museum professional. The real executive director of the American LGBTQ+ Museum is a lovely man named Ben Garcia, who I saw speak at a conference back in May. He is a much more likable person than Eichner’s character, Bobby Lieber. The movie’s portrayal of a National LGBTQ+ Museum is a disgrace. It was meant to be funny but horrifying from a museum professional’s opinion. Then there is one of my greatest pet peeves with LGBTQ+ pop history. They always want to portray Abraham Lincoln as the first gay president (if he was LGBTQ+, then he was bi), but Lincoln would not have been our first gay president. That honor goes to James Buchanan, who no one wants to acknowledge because he, up until TFG from 2016-2020, was considered the most failed and disgraceful president. Buchanan is responsible for letting the Civil War get started and doing nothing to stop it. Yet, he had a well-documented, more so than Lincoln, love affair with America’s 13^th Vice President William R. King. A few letters between the two survive, and Buchanan never married. During their lifetime, Andrew Jackson called King "Miss Nancy," and Buchanan's Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown referred to King as Buchanan's "better half," "wife," and "Aunt Fancy."

 

My pet peeve is that Lincoln was very doubtfully gay. Though it is wishful thinking and a historical stretch, it pops up in Bros. It’s a comedic plot, but the whole idea of Lincoln being gay is history taken out of context. The rest of the museum is absolutely cringe-worthy. You’ll know what I am talking about if you see or have seen it. The museum is not the only thing I found cringeworthy in the movie, but it did drive me a little crazy. It might have been more enjoyable had it not been for the museum subplot. At least it did get a little publicity for the coming American LGBTQ+ Museum, but I wonder if it was good publicity. I hope the real museum is nothing like the one in the movie.  As the New York Times wrote in its review, “As a partial answer to these questions, the board creates a Hall of Bisexuals where Amy Schumer and Kenan Thompson play goofy, grinning holograms of Eleanor Roosevelt and James Baldwin. Let scholars argue about the display’s accuracy. It accomplishes what ‘Bros,’ like every other rom-com, aims to do: charm audiences with a spirited, corny facsimile of life.”

 

I hope if any of you saw the movie that you enjoyed it. I’ll admit that I did not go into the movie in a good mood. Going to Olive Garden beforehand was a major mistake. They were out of more than half of the menu. Also, the food and staff were subpar. So, the night was not off to a good start. Therefore, my mood may have influenced how I reacted to the movie. There were a few places where I did laugh out loud, part of that was due to Dot-Marie Jones’s character. For a movie with a nearly all LGBTQ+ cast and crew, it’s a beginning for what I hope will be better things in the future, but with the box office receipts that it got this first weekend, I’m not seeing a bright future for another gay romantic comedy anytime soon.

 

Now that you have read my Billy Eichner-size rant, did any of you see the movie? If you did, what did you think of it? And a question for BosGuy, did you spot Sergio as an extra? 

Lafayette Escadrille

I was off work yesterday, so I decided to watch a movie I’d DVR’d. A few weeks ago, I was getting ready to DVR some Cary Grant movies on TCM when I saw that Lafayette Escadrille was going to be on. Some of you may know that the First World War is one of my historical specialties, especially Americans in World War I, so when I saw that a move about the Lafayette Escadrille, a French Air Force unit composed of American volunteers, was coming on, I knew I wanted to see it. Besides, it stars Tab Hunter, who, in my opinion, is one of the sexiest men to have ever lived, and he looks really good in a French Air Force uniform and an American Army uniform later in the movie. Of all the military uniforms I’ve ever seen throughout history, the WWI era American uniform is my favorite, but I’m getting off track.

Tab Hunter came out as gay in his 2005 autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential, which was also made into a documentary by his husband Allan Glaser. Hunter had long been rumored to be gay and was basically outed in 1955 when his agent fed a story about him being arrested for disorderly conduct at what the magazine called a “limp-wristed pajama party.” His agent had been Henry Wilson, who also represented Rock Hudson. It has always been believed that Wilson leaked the story to Confidential in order to keep a story about Hudson being gay out of the magazine. However, Hunter was such a heartthrob and was also protected by Jack Warner, not to mention “dating” Natalie Wood, that the story had little impact on his career at the time. Lafayette Escadrille was made three years later.

Lafayette Escadrille is no cinematic masterpiece, but it was mildly entertaining since the movie stars some very handsome men, including Jody McCrea, known for playing Deadhead in all the seventies Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello beach movies,  and a young Clint Eastwood. It was worth it just to see Tab Hunter in his prime. In nearly every movie he was in during the 1950s, Tab Hunter is seen shirtless at some point, and his beauty will take your breath away. After I watched Lafayette Escadrille, I watched the documentary Tab Hunter Confidential. Hunter passed away in 2018. Even as an older man, Tab Hunter still had a beautiful smile and was still good-looking. He spent his later years focusing on his beloved horses.

Anticipation

Sometimes, we can describe things as "highly anticipated," i.e., an event we eagerly anticipate and expect will be very good, exciting, or interesting. Sometimes, those highly anticipated events live up to their hype. Sometimes they don't for one reason or another. I anticipated seeing Firebird, as was apparent in yesterday's post. Then, yesterday morning while I was eating breakfast, an aura (flashing or twinkling lights or zigzag lines, which typically precede migraine headache) appeared in my vision. I usually see twinkling lights, and this is what I saw yesterday. While I don't always have an aura before headaches, I always have a headache beginning in the next 24 hours after I see an aura. Today's was a particularly dramatic aura that went on and on for about a minute. They usually only last a few seconds. By the time I got to work, I had a progressively worsening migraine, and it progressed throughout the day. I went home at lunch. I knew if my headache did not improve, I would not be going to see the highly anticipated Firebird, no matter how much I wanted to see it. Eventually, it will be released on one of the streaming services, and I can then watch it on the small screen. So, bummer number one, I did not get to see Firebird.

 

Another example is my post-op appointment with the doctor who did my endoscopy. It was supposed to happen this week to discuss our next step since I was not an ideal candidate for the Inspire device. I had still not heard from my doctor's office by Wednesday, so I called. They could not schedule an appointment to see the doctor until May 26, not exactly this week, is it? Anyway, I am anticipating what I will hear from her when I can have the post-procedure conversation.

 

Those two highly anticipated events proved to be disappointments, not because the movie was terrible or because I got bad news from the doctor. They were merely disappointments because they did not happen. Two other events were highly anticipated: the second season finale of Star Trek: Picard (PIC) and the series premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds(SNW). Since I first saw Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike and later heard rumors that he would be given his own show that would feature him as the captain of the USS. Enterprise. If you know your Star Trek lore, you know that Pike was the captain of the Enterprise before James T. Kirk was captain of the famous starship. I was excited to see what they might do with the Enterprise in the years before Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and I was also excited to see more of Anson Mount as Pike and Ethan Peck (the grandson of actor Gregory Peck), both of whom I have major celebrity crushes on. Both men are very sexy and handsome and play to both types of men that I find myself most attracted to.

 

I will not give anything away about the series premiere, but I do have a few things to say. Sometimes, highly anticipated events, especially movies and television shows, turn out to be highly disappointing, and sometimes, highly anticipated events exceed all your expectations. Of course, there are also times when it does neither or is what you expected or not as bad as it could have been. SNW exceeded all my expectations. To say it was phenomenally good would be an understatement. The only time I have enjoyed a Star Trek series more than the first episode of SNW was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), which I have watched the complete series numerous times. 

 

Rod Roddenberry, son of Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek) and CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said of SNW, "Saying nothing bad about the other shows, but this is the one I'm most excited about. It's going to go back to the formatting of the original series. It's the kind of thing we need to get out there to give us hope" I hope SNW does get back to the hope and spirit of the original Star Trek. Discovery and Picard have often shown us a darker version of the future, and while I still enjoy them, I love DS9, and it was the darkest of all the first generation of spin-offs, I think at the heart of Star Trek is a message of hope.

 

This brings me to my last highly anticipated event, the season finale of Picard. The finale of season one left me unsatisfied and maybe even a little upset or disturbed. It had some great parts, but the very end just did not sit well with me. The second season has been more entertaining and, I guess, less heartbreaking. Season two's finale lived up to the expectations we've seen throughout the series, and I found the finale interesting and satisfying. A lot happens in the episode, and there could have easily been two additional episodes, as they crammed a lot into the 45-minute runtime. I'm interested to see where the third and final season takes us.

 

I guess two out of four ain't bad, especially when the two exceeded my expectations. The other two were just disappointments that will resolve themselves in the future. Right now, I’m just looking forward to where Star Trek: Strange New Words takes us. Hit it!

Firebird

I’m not sure when I first heard about the movie Firebird, but it was sometime last year around the time it was first released. I’ll be honest, what I noticed first was the two main actors, Tom Prior (left) as Sergey and Oleg Zagorodnii (right) as Roman. Both men are incredibly handsome. Prior co-wrote and produced the film. So, yes, the first thing I noticed about the film was how attractive the two main stars are, then I read what the movie was about.

Synopsis: Sergey is a troubled young private, counting the days till his military service in the Soviet Air Force ends. His life is turned upside down when Roman, a daring fighter pilot, arrives at the base. Driven by curiosity, Sergey and Roman navigate the precarious line between love and friendship as a dangerous love triangle forms between them and Luisa, the secretary to the base commander. Sergey is forced to face his past as Roman's career is endangered and Luisa struggles to keep her family together. As the walls close in, they risk their freedom and their lives in the face of an escalating KGB investigation and the fear of the all-seeing Soviet regime.

I have been desperately wanting to see it since then.

Firebird had its world premiere at the 35th BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival on  March 17, 2021. The film also screened at the 45th Frameline: San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival on June 27, 2021, where it won an honorable mention for Best First Feature. I have been waiting for it to get a wider release and expected that I’d have to wait until it was released on one of the streaming services. Then, I saw last week that the film was to be released in cinemas internationally on April 29, 2022. I went to the website to see if it was playing anywhere near me. I’m in Vermont, so I believed the likelihood was slim to none. But, lo and behold, it opened last Friday at the Roxy Theater in Burlington. I already had plans last weekend for Saturday night (seeing Matteo Lane) and was not keen on driving back to Burlington on Sunday.

The schedule for the theater only ran through today, so a friend of mine who was also interested in seeing it once I told her about it, called yesterday to see if it would still be playing this weekend. Tonight’s 7:00 pm showing will be its last showing in Burlington. So even though I have to work tomorrow and would not normally go to Burlington during the week, we are going tonight to see it. I am not about to miss my opportunity to see this film. I’ll let you know tomorrow what I thought of it. I hope it lives up to its hype.

I "Dare" You to Watch This

In the early 2000s when I first came out, I read every gay book and watched every gay movie I could get my hands on. I think I watched every gay movie that Netflix (back when they sent you a DVD instead of streaming) had in its library. I will admit, most of the movies were independent movies and were decidedly bad. The production value was low, and the acting wasn’t great, or even good in some cases. The books I read fared better than the movies, but there were a few duds there too. However, gay literature has always been a step above the gay movie genre.

 

I did have a few favorite movies. For comedy, my favorite is probably the 2003 movie Mambo Italiano, a movie about the son of Italian immigrants to Canada who struggles to find the best way to reveal to his parents that he's gay. While this is probably going to get me some comments from my Canadian readers, one of the lines that always makes me laugh comes from Paul Sorvino’s character, Gino Barberini, the family patriarch. At one point, he describes how his family came to live in Montreal, “Nobody told us there was two Americas: the real one, United States, and the fake one, Canada. Then, to make matters even worse, there's two Canadas: the real one, Ontario, and the fake one, Quebec.” It’s a cute movie, but not great cinema. Few of these movies were.

 

In drama, my hands down favorite is Latter Days, a 2003 movie about a gay relationship between a closeted Mormon missionary and his openly gay neighbor. While many might point to Brokeback Mountain as a pivotal moment in gay cinema, I will always believe that Latter Days was a much better movie. While not great cinema in any regard, my other favorite is the 1997 movie Defying Gravity. In the movie, two fraternity brothers have a secret affair. One wants to maintain just a superficial relationship with his all-gay boyfriend, but his feelings begin to change when his boyfriend gets seriously wounded in a gay bashing. It is a heart wrenching movie, but there is one scene where one of the characters says, “Oh, man.” That little line gets me every time.

 

Because gay movies have never gotten the budget of more mainstream movies, there were also a lot of gay short films made. In 2005, I came across a short film that was getting a lot of attention in gay media called Dare. In the 16-minute-long movie, a high school senior, Ben, secretly lusts after bad boy classmate Johnny. After Ben gives Johnny a ride home one night, the boys end up in Johnny's swimming pool and have an encounter that is filled with a lustful teen crush and forbidden gay love in high school. Dare played at over 50 film fests and was released as the lead film on gay short DVD compilations and eventually became a Sundance feature. I either watched it on my computer screen or I got one of those DVD compilations from Netflix. The short film has always kept a special place in my heart. You can watch it here:

Saturday night as I was winding down and getting ready for bed, I was watching some TikToks, which is how I often wind down at the end of the day. I came across a clip from this short film, and I looked it up intending to watch it again. What came as a surprise is that writer and producer David Brind and director Adam Salky have done something unprecedented. They’ve brought back the very same cast and creative team from the original short film 15 years later for The Dare Project, a continuation of Ben and Johnny’s story. Yes, I am behind the times on this, since The Dare Projectwas released in 2018. I’m not sure how I missed this news. Once I saw that there was a sequel, I knew I had to watch it, and I did. Usually, sequels come far short of the original, this is not the case. It was just as good as the original.

Writer and producer David Brind describes best why this movie made such an impression on most people who saw it. “When I first wrote the Dare short in film school in 2003, I had no fucking clue what I was doing,” said Brind. “My professor told me to write from the heart and the gut. So, I wrote about ‘Johnny.’ Everyone in the world has their own ‘Johnny,’ the elusive one that seemed untouchable, that made you feel so intensely you thought you would die. ‘Johnny’ existed for me.” There is more to that quote, but it gives too much away of the original short film, and I think would ruin it if you haven’t seen Dare yet. Like Brind, I had my “Johnny,” but we never had an experience anything like in the film.

 

Brind said that after understanding the fan base that the original Dare had developed over the years, he decided to try and continue the story he had begun. “Fifteen years later, I decided to revisit this world with The Dare Project,” Brind added. “Our legions of fans—13.5M views on YouTube while being suppressed from search by them, but that’s another story—demanded a sequel. They wrote Instagram messages. Like Jack from a small village in Ireland. Jack is 17. He’s gay. He’s suicidal. He wrote to tell me that he watches Dare over and over when he’s feeling like he doesn’t want to live. Because it brings him hope. And that’s more worthwhile than any Netflix or HBO deal could ever bring me.”

After fifteen years, Brind made the decision to try and put together a sequel. In The Dare Project, Ben and Johnny, now in their early 30s fortuitously run into each other at a party in Los Angeles after not seeing each other since high school.  Of the sequel, Brind added, “Ben isn’t 17 anymore. And he’s a lot more like me now. He’s good at what he does. He’s successful in his way. He’s more confident. He’s out. But he’s still been unable to find intimacy in a real way. A real and constant struggle for LGBTQ people, especially in the age of Grindr (which is in the new film) and Instagram ‘influencers’ aka hot guys in underwear.”

 

“Johnny isn’t 17 either,” Brind continued. “And he’s no longer the arrogant bad boy of high school hallways. Life has gotten more complex. And when Ben and Johnny meet for the first time since high school, they talk about it all. And of course, they get back in the pool…”

 

There also seems to be an expanded full length 2009 version of the original short film. The feature-length version, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, stars Emmy Rossum in a story about how "three very different teenagers discover that, even in the safe world of a suburban prep school, no one is who she or he appears to be." The film has been described as a cross between Pretty in Pink and Cruel Intentions. While I have always liked Cruel Intentions, possibly only for the pool scene with Ryan Phillippe, I watched the trailer for the feature length version of Dare, and I have no interest in seeing it. However, to add a little to The Dare Project’s ending, there was a “video call” between Ben and Johnny at the beginning of the pandemic, that is, in its own way, just as sweet as the previous versions:

To watch The Dare Project, it is available on Vimeo on Demand. There is the option to rent The Dare Project at a cost of $2.99 for 48-hour streaming period or buy it for $5.99 to stream and download to watch anytime. The $2.99 was worth every penny. I think Dare will always hold a special place in my wide variety of gay cinematic experiences. It is thirty-four minutes I will never forget, and I hope you will enjoy it as well.

Caligula: The Worst Movie Ever Made?

 Esquire Magazine recently published an article, "Caligula Wasn’t Supposed to Be a Porno.” In the article, critic Chris Nashawaty discusses how the movie was so bad that Roger Ebert walked out two hours into the movie and did not stay for the rest of the 156-minute film. Nashawaty describes Caligula as, “A film that was so inept and god-awful he (Ebert) had to get up and walk out of the theater.” In Ebert’s review of the film, he said:

‘Caligula’ is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty. Disgusted and unspeakably depressed, I walked out of the film after two hours of its 170-minute length. That was on a Saturday night, as a line of hundreds of people stretched down Lincoln Ave., waiting to pay $7.50 apiece to become eyewitnesses to shame. I wanted to tell them...what did I want to tell them? What I’m telling you now. That this film is not only garbage on an artistic level, but that it is also garbage on the crude and base level where it no doubt hopes to find its audience. ‘Caligula’ is not good art, it is not good cinema, and it is not good porn.

If you are not familiar with the 1979 movie, Caligula is an erotic historical drama film focusing on the eponymous Roman Emperor Caligula's rise and fall. The film starred Malcolm McDowell in the title role, alongside great actors like Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, and John Gielgud. It is the only feature film produced by the men's magazine Penthouse. Producer Bob Guccione, Penthouse magazine's founder, intended to make an explicit pornographic film with a feature film narrative and high production values. Guccione signed Gore Vidal to write the screenplay. Vidal was paid $200,000 and wrote the script as a debauched and homoerotic allegory about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Vidal naively believed that his screenplay about the mad, monstrous emperor who became synonymous with cruelty, insanity, and megalomania would be a relatively classy affair. There was no initial indication that the film would become a pornographic monstrosity. 

 

While Vidal was naïve to think this would be a reputable movie, he had reason to believe that Guccione did want to make something respectable. After all, Caligula was not Guccione’s first foray into filmmaking; he had already helped finance a handful of major-studio productions such as Chinatown (1974), The Longest Yard (1974), and The Day of the Locust (1975). As Nashawaty points out:

Caligula wasn’t supposed to be a porno movie. Not exactly. Yes, there would be ample nudity of both the male and female variety. And sure, Guccione had personally flown a bevy of his magazine’s voluptuous Penthouse Pets to Italy to appear as horny extras. But it didn’t start out as the hardcore film that would end up playing in theaters. 

However, when the movie’s budget grew to over $17 million, Guccione became a little nervous. Guccione sensed he would not be able to recoup the film's costs; so, he decided (unbeknownst to anyone involved with the project) that he needed to take control of the film back from director Tinto Brass. Guccione snuck onto the set late at night and secretly shot hours of graphic pornographic inserts to splice into the film. The result was an odd jumble of scenes of unsimulated sex scenes and orgies.

 

I always loved teaching Ancient Rome, especially the mad emperors Tiberius (Reigned 14–37 CE), Caligula (Reigned 37–41 CE), Claudius (Reigned 41–54 CE), and Nero (Reigned 54–68 CE). It was always one of my most popular lectures. I read a lot about the emperors, especially Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars. So, back when Netflix still mailed out DVDs, I requested Caligula to see what all the talk was about. While it’s a terrible movie, it is by far not the worst that I have ever seen. I have seen many independent gay movies that were atrocious and barely watchable. However, I used to (with a disclaimer) allow my college students to watch and review Caligula for extra credit, along with dozens of other much better historical movies. Only a few took me up on the offer to watch Caligula, and those who did were all shocked. It is a shocking movie; how shocking depends on whether you watch the 1981 105-minute R-rated version without the explicit sexual material or the original 1979 156-minute version.

 

If you’ve never watched the original version of Caligula, you might think Guccione’s post-production edits and additions might have turned the film into the sexy, high-quality pornographic film Guccione intended, but you'd be sadly disappointed. The spliced scenes of endless orgies and graphic close-ups, complete with a graphic castration sequence, fisting, and oral sex, are so strange and out of place in this strange attempt to portray Caligula's debauchery. Honestly, most of the film is just boring. Although contemporary reviews were overwhelmingly negative, Caligula is now often considered a cult classic by some, and its political content is deemed to have some merit. I think we have all seen cult classics that are so bad that they are good. Nashawaty Esquire article states that Caligula is not in this category. Amazingly, McDowell, O'Toole, Gielgud, and Mirren emerged from the ignominy unscathed, considering how bad the film was. As for Vidal, he cashed his six-figure check and told Caligula war stories for years.

 

Have you ever seen Caligula? Did you see the full version or the edited version? What was your opinion of the movie? If you haven’t seen it, are you tempted to watch it? Warning: It is graphic!

Some Favorite Gay Movies

On Thursday, Miss Coco Peru will be hosting her Christmas special, “Very Merry Casa Coco.” I’m not sure I will tune into it, even though I love Coco Peru, and she’s been around for nearly 30 years. I was telling a straight female friend of mine who loves drag queens about the Christmas special, and I was also telling her that I first saw Peru her role in the 1999 independent film Trick, a movie I particularly enjoy. It is one of my top five gay independent films of all time. Trickstarred Christian Campbell, John Paul Pitoc, Steve Hayes, and Tori Spelling. Tori Spelling is probably the most familiar name, but even her bad acting couldn’t ruin this movie for me.

 

Back when I was coming to terms with my sexuality, I would go to the Blockbuster in Montgomery and rent any gay film I could get my hands on. Most of them were foreign films, such as Beautiful Thing (1996—British), Come Undone, aka Presque Rien, (2000—French-Belgian), and Wild Reeds, aka Les Roseaux Sauvages, (French —1995). I enjoyed all of these movies, but I wanted to see more. In 2000, I moved to Mississippi, and while I continued to rent from Blockbuster’s lackluster selection of gay movies, I discovered Netflix. With them sending a DVD each time you sent one back (and they had a much more extensive selection), I watched many more gay movies. I was finally able to get my hands on some American films, mostly independent films.

 

Independent gay movies have always been hit or miss. If they’d been a genuinely great movie, they might have been picked up by a major studio and had the money for production and casting, but as independent movies, filmmakers made do with what they had. Some were bad; some made it to the list of my favorite movies. One of those movies was, of course, Trick. The acting is not always great in these movies, but sometimes the stories made them worth the mediocre acting. Occasionally, the acting was pretty good. But if you watched many independent gay films in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, you watched a lot of terrible movies. But like I said, there were some gems.

 

I remember seeing Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss and wondering how Sean Hayes continued to refuse to say publicly that he was gay when it was so incredibly obvious. Also, I fell in love with Brad Rowe. Besides Trick, the movie that I have watched numerous times because I love it is the 1997 movie Defying Gravity. This movie's love story was so sweet, even if the film did not include the best acting. However, there was a hospital scene when Griff says, “Oh, man,” to Pete that I just can’t describe the feeling of what it’s like for me hearing this line. It’s not a great line; it’s almost corny, but it gets me every time. My heart breaks, and it soars at the same time. I can still hear that line in my head as I am writing this. I also enjoyed the 2000 film The Broken Hearts Club. Since he played Superman, I have had a thing for Dean Cain, too bad his politics are so fucked up.

 

In 2003, Latter Days was released, and it became one of my all-time favorite gay movies. As some of my friends can attest to, I have made them watch this movie with me. I love the two main characters, and while there are parts of the story that could have been done better, the airport scene is magical. Speaking of magical, I also loved the gay take on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 2008, Were the World Mine was released, and I just loved it. There have been other movies, and I am sure I am forgetting some of the foreign gay films that I loved and some independent films, but these are just some of them.

I also have a few honorable mentions that were more mainstream films. I think the first gay film I ever saw was either The Birdcage (1996) or In & Out (1997). More recently, I enjoyed the movie Love, Simon. I have refused to watch Call Me by Your Name because I know how it ends. Then there were a few movies that were less apparent as gay films, such as Fried Green Tomatoes and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Fried Green Tomatoes ranks up there with Casablanca and Auntie Mame as movies in my top three favorites. I can’t tell you how many times I have watched those three movies.

 

By the way, I did not include Brokeback Mountain in this list of favorite movies. Although, in my opinion, it is responsible for allowing more gay mainstream movies to be made, it is just not one of my favorites. To be honest, I don’t like movies without a happy ending. The same is true of the books I read. I have enough in my life to make me sad; I don’t need someone else making me sadder with a movie or a novel. I read and watch movies to escape not to fall deeper into depression.

 

So, these are a few of my favorite gay movies. What are your favorites? What have I missed? Is there a movie you think I should watch (I may have seen it, but tell me anyway)?

Love, Simon

I have been wanting to see this movie since it came out. I finally got to see it on the plane from Chicago to Burlington. I happen to love romantic comedies, and I love gay movies. This is the perfect combination. The Hollywood Reporter said, “Love, Simon, a sweet, slick, broadly appealing YA adaptation (Becky Albertalli’s 2015 novel was called Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda) touted as the first major-studio-backed romantic comedy with a gay teen protagonist.”

There are two things in the movie that I loved. One is the process of coming out. It is different for everyone. For some it is easy, others it’s hard. For some it’s accepted, for some it’s not. The coming out process in this movie is not one of the easiest ones, but it’s not so difficult either. It definitely pulls at the heart strings.

The other thing is the love affair over the internet. You can get to know the most intimate things about a person online when it’s anonymous than you often can in person. Some people feel freer to talk online with someone than in person. It can bring two people very close. The internet can surprisingly bring an honestly that is amazing. I know sometimes it’s the opposite, but when you truly find a good person, the honesty can be so rewarding.

Star Wars

I'm going to see the new Star Wars movie today. I'm more of a Star Trek fan than a Star Wars fan, but I still enjoy seeing the Star Wars movies. I'm hoping that this one will be good. I haven't heard much about it, so I'll form my own opinion after I see it. At least it gets me away from family for a couple of hours.

Rogue One

 

I went to see Rogue One yesterday. My first impression was that it was good, but not great. Honestly, the more I watch Star Wars movies, I am convinced that the original three were by far the best and all the others just can't compare.

The more I thought about the movie, the more disappointed I was in Rogue One. The ending was dissatisfying. Such a disappointment. I like a movie with a happy ending.  Not to give this one away but it has a happy ending and at the same time doesn't. This movie leads up to right before Episode IV begins, so you know ultimately good comes from it, but it was still disappointing and overall depressing.

Ghostbusters

I had put off watching the new Ghostbusters movie for quite a while because I was such a fan of the original when I was a kid. I've seen movies with Melissa McCarthy in them and she can be quite foul mouthed at times and I was afraid she might be in this movie as well, but she was a delight. I enjoyed seeing the cameos from the original cast as well. That was a real treat. Overall, I really liked the movie, maybe not as much as the original, but the original is such a classic. There are a lot of references to the original which I found funny and nostalgic. One other thing, Chris Hemsworth is sexy as hell in this movie. He doesn't need to take off his shirt, but he's got this whole Clark Kent look going that is just adorable. I loved when he's in that white t-shirt and dancing. He could dance like that for me any day.

Stonewall

The other night, I watched the movie Stonewall, a completely fictionalized account of the Stonewall Riots. While there is very little historical facts in the movie, I found it quite enjoyable to watch. The best part of the movie is the gorgeous Jeremy Irvine.  Stonewall is a drama about a young man caught up during the 1969 Stonewall riots. Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine) is forced to leave behind friends and loved ones when he is kicked out of his parent’s home and flees to New York. Alone in Greenwich Village, homeless and destitute, he befriends Ray (Jonny Beauchamp) and a group of street kids who soon introduce him to the local watering hole The Stonewall Inn; however, this shady, mafia-run club is far from a safe-haven. As Danny and his friends experience discrimination, endure atrocities and are repeatedly harassed by the police, we see a rage begin to build. This emotion runs through the entire community of young gays, lesbians, drag queens and trans people who populate the Stonewall Inn and erupts in a storm of anger. With the toss of a single brick, a riot ensues and a crusade for equality is born.

If you haven't seen it, it is currently available on Amazon Prime Video. It may also be on Netflix, but I watched it on Amazon Video. It's well worth watching.

Happy Halloween Movie Review

Dark, twisted tales that feed our need for revenge. Sexy scenes with hunky young bucks all desperately yearning to get laid. Gory sights and demented deeds that are so over-the-top they border on camp.

These are the staples of fright flicks, and though society may suspect that gays shy away from horror and violence, the truth is that we love it in films that speak to our unique sensibilities. So in honor of Halloween I compiled a list of our 13 favorites.

So sit back, cuddle closely with your man (or bestest girlfriends) and enjoy the show.

Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

It's the weird and wonderful as newly engaged couple Brad and Janet encounter a problem when they car halts in the rain. They both look for contact only to find themselves at the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter a transvestite. A place to stay is offered, but will Brad and Janet want to remain there? Especially when a large group of Transylvanians dance to the 'Time Warp', Dr. Frank-N-Furter builds his own man and a whole host of participation for the audience to enjoy. This movie is high camp horror at its best.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Mortimer Brewster is a newspaperman and author known for his diatribes against marriage. We watch him being married at city hall in the opening scene. Now all that is required is a quick trip home to tell Mortimer's two maiden aunts. While trying to break the news, he finds out his aunts' hobby; killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar. It gets worse.  Who could not love this movie?

Rope (1948)

Inspired by real-life convicted killers (and lovers) Leopold and Loeb, Rope is Alfred Hitchcock’s gayest film ever. It features a gay couple (played by John Dall, and bisexual Farley Granger at his most luminous), a dinner party, witty repartee, and a body hidden in a stylish piece of furniture. Sounds like summers in Fire Island to me.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Cast two gay icons—Bette Davis and Joan Crawford—as crazy / tragic protagonists, then have them abuse one another while performing at level 10, and you’ve got one of the most camptastic movies ever made. The dialogue is deliciously mean, the hatred between these two actresses leaks off the screen, and because the characters’ bitter back-story creates a strong foundation you have a solid film rather than one of those “so-bad-it’s-good” features gays love so much.

Best served in a crowd of drunk gays who can truly appreciate the dark humor.

Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

If Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? makes the list, this movie is also a must.  Charlotte Hollis, an aging recluse deluded into a state of dementia by horrible memories and hallucinations, lives in a secluded house where, thirty-seven years before, John Mayhew her married lover, was beheaded and mutilated by an unknown assailant.  Plus, there is always the back story behind why Joan Crawford refused to make this "sequel" and the why Vivian Leigh refused the role (Leigh famously said "I can just about stand to look at Joan Crawford at six in the morning on a southern plantation, but I couldn't possibly look at Bette Davis.")  Also, Agnes Moorehead is in this movie, not only was she the mother on Bewitched, but she was also a well-known lesbian.

Carrie (1976)

Along with Baby Jane, Mommie Dearest and Showgirls, Carrie is one of the films with dialogue most quoted by gay men. Gems like “I can see your dirty pillows,” to a screeching “They’re all gonna laugh at you!” and “They’re called breasts, and every woman has them...” have become part of the secret language of gays. And Carrie’s prom night-mare has become pop culture shorthand on TV shows from Ugly Betty to RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

New Line Cinema’s second schlep up to Elm Street is bursting at the seams with homoerotic imagery and undertones. It features openly gay actor Mark Patton as Jesse, a teenage boy Freddy Krueger tries to possess in order to leave dreamland and continue his killing spree in the real world.

Even before the film’s writer, David Chaskin, admitted to including the screenplay’s gay subtext in the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, Nightmare 2 had been herald as the ultimate homo-horror flick for years by countless fans.

A film about a boy struggling to repress “something” inside of him would have been enough to brand Nightmare 2 as an obvious gay allegory. However, it’s the moments following Jessie’s trek into a gay leather bar—where he discovers his P.E. coach—that rank this film among the gayest of all time. After all, tying up your coach in the locker-room showers and snapping his bare ass with a towel before you kill him from behind will earn you that kind of reputation.

Beetlejuice (1988)

Aside from featuring Alec Baldwin at the height of hotness, Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice has enough camp to be welcome at any homo-Halloween haunt. The film’s quirky style has held up amazingly well since it debuted over 23 years ago, and Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz is a queer cinema classic. From the interior decorator played by the late openly-gay actor Glenn Shadix to outrageous musical numbers, there isn’t much about this film that isn’t gay.

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988)

The Queen of Halloween’s first feature film has become a gay camp-classic for all the reasons that made Elvira one of the biggest gay icons of all time. Over-the-top in every way possible, from the costumes and sassy one-liners to the big musical number ending stuffed with hunky shirtless male dancers, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark is the Showgirls of Halloween movies.

Check it out.

Hocus Pocus (1993)

This poor film has a bad reputation, and some of it is deserved. The movie is about time-displaced witches who fly on vacuums and sing songs, and the kids who must set things right. But it’s also a delightfully fun bad movie, comes from Disney and director Kenny Ortega (famous for the High School Musical franchise), and stars gay faves Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy (fresh of her stint in Sister Act). No, it’s not brilliant filmmaking, however it works for babysitting, if you’re in the mood for something light, and if you can mix a potion of vodka and… well… anything… to go along with your screening.

The Covenant (2006)

Abercrombie & Fitch goes supernatural in this good warlock vs. bad warlock fantasy/horror flick starring models-turned-actors Steven Straight (10,000 B.C.) and Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights), as well as a pre-shag Chace Crawford. Between that and this picture, do you need any further explanation on why you should rent it?

Hellbent (2004)

Two gay men on a date are murdered the night before Halloween in West Hollywood, California. Eddie and his friends Joey, Chaz and Tobey are going out the following night to the West Hollywood Halloween festival when they encounter the psycho, who sets his eye on them. The killer stalks them through the festival as Chaz parties, Joey chases his jock crush, Tobey tries dressing in drag, and Eddie pursues Jake, the bad boy he wants to get to know better. Not until the very end do you find out who dies and who survives their night of terror.