Knight at the Movies - Archives
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A year with not many highlights on the GLBT movie front, a thrilling start in the mainstream arena
This was not a good year for GLBT movies, an easy deduction to make when one glances over the list of 2007’s mainstream
releases. There was no Brokeback Mountain, Shortbus, Capote, or D.E.B.S. Instead we got I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and a slew
of movies that used gay sexuality as the subtext for their comedy or drama: Blades of Glory, Reno 911: Miami, Evening, Eastern
Promises, and Sleuth among them. Many of these movies were terrific but didn’t really focus on our lives.
The Walker, Paul Schrader’s film about a gay social bon vivant in Washington D.C. mixed up in a murder case did feature Woody
Harrelson playing gay in the title role but the film’s justifiably lukewarm critical reception found it relegated to so few theatres it
wasn't easy to find (though not great it’s worth a look – especially the first half hour). For overt visibility we again turned to indie
and queer cinema where the results were often spotty at best. Boy Culture, Cut Sleeve Boys, and Gray Matters were just three of the
okay but not great highlights of the year in queer cinema though Color Me Kubrick (with its pixilated lead performance by John
Malkovich) and The Bubble (from gay Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox) were definitely a step up.
Musicals – the queer in all but name genre – did boast three stellar additions to the canon: Dori Berinstein’s informative and
entertaining backstage documentary ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway, Hairspray, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street are a trio of must see movies for any self-respecting showtune queen. For the adventurous, queer director Todd Haynes
returned with his lyrical, contemplative homage to Bob Dylan, I’m Not There with its gender bending performance by Cate Blanchett
that’s sure to end up in the Oscar circle. I was also a huge fan of the offbeat documentary Zoo, a visually hypnotic film that offered
insight into the world of fringe sexual practices and For the Bible Tells Me So won points for tracing the longstanding abhorrence
evangelicals hold for Our People and trying to make sense of it through individual coming out stories. Turner Classics Movies’
excellent series Screened Out presented a month long film festival during Pride that illuminated much of our gay history on film in a
mainstream setting while Queerborn & Perversion, a fascinating documentary by filmmaker Ron Pajak did the same for Chicago
history. This last was the highlight of this year’s gay and lesbian film fest, Reeling. Other highlights of the festival (perhaps coming
to a theatre or to DVD in 2008) also included Itty Bitty Titty Committee, Outing Riley, and Starrbooty.
The best GLBT film of 2007 for me was Before I Forget, which played at the Chicago Film Festival. The third in a trilogy, the French
film was written by its director Jacques Nolot who also stars as Pierre, a 58 year-old ex-hustler entering the autumn of his life with no
regrets and not a trace of sentimentality. The movie beautifully illuminates the “gay lifestyle” and issues specific to our community
as Pierre goes about his everyday life in Paris. The film is tough, flinty, emotionally honest, and, I think, a masterpiece. My runner
up would be another French film, The Man of My Life (which you can still catch at the Siskel Film Center through January 3rd). The
elliptical film centers on the life changing events that occur when a happily married French couple make a casual acquaintance with
their gay neighbor and the husband finds himself subconsciously attracted to the man. I would also like to point readers toward yet
a third French film: The Page Turner, a thrilling yet extremely subtle movie in which a complex revenge plan is enacted by a young
woman whose artistic ambitions had been thwarted as a child by a celebrated classical pianist. A heavy lesbian undertone is present
in the relationship between the young woman and her intended victim, the now anxiety ridden pianist.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
While not a good year for GLBT themed movies, the same can’t be said for the year as a whole. It’s been a month and a half of
one terrific movie going experience after another and the new year begins with one more. Boogie Nights-Magnolia writer-director Paul
Thomas Anderson has now written and directed There Will Be Blood based on the Upton Sinclair novel “Oil.” It’s the story of
Daniel Plainview, a fictitious oil wildcatter who is portrayed by a sensational Daniel Day-Lewis. Lewis’ performance as Plainview, who is
at once seductive, charming, mesmerizing, and supremely evil, is one of the greatest ever captured on film. I’ll go so far as to say
it ranks up there with Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc, Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront,
Bette Davis in All About Eve, and Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice.
Lewis channels the voice and mannerisms John Huston brought to his portrait of supreme evil as Noah Cross in Chinatown and
develops them even further. There Will Be Blood follows the character from prospector to magnate who in all that time seems only to
love oil itself. Nothing else – money, sex, power, or any kind of human interaction, truly seems to interest Plainview or distract him
in his quest to draw more and more oil from the earth. Certainly not Paul Dano as a religious zealot who it appears for a time might
be Plainview’s one true nemesis. Anderson’s canvas – the sweep of the harsh western plains (with Marfa, Texas filling in for the
frontier) – is as large as that captured by Terrence Malick in Days of Heaven (Marfa was also the primary location for George Stevens'
Giant). But in Anderson’s movie the vast panorama doesn’t dwarf Plainview or deter him for a second. It’s a thrilling, entertaining
movie aided greatly by Jonny Greenwood’s dissonant, symphonic score (also the year’s best) that underscores the contrast between
the surface beauty of the characters and the land and the ugliness and rot ready to bubble up just underneath.
releases. There was no Brokeback Mountain, Shortbus, Capote, or D.E.B.S. Instead we got I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and a slew
of movies that used gay sexuality as the subtext for their comedy or drama: Blades of Glory, Reno 911: Miami, Evening, Eastern
Promises, and Sleuth among them. Many of these movies were terrific but didn’t really focus on our lives.
The Walker, Paul Schrader’s film about a gay social bon vivant in Washington D.C. mixed up in a murder case did feature Woody
Harrelson playing gay in the title role but the film’s justifiably lukewarm critical reception found it relegated to so few theatres it
wasn't easy to find (though not great it’s worth a look – especially the first half hour). For overt visibility we again turned to indie
and queer cinema where the results were often spotty at best. Boy Culture, Cut Sleeve Boys, and Gray Matters were just three of the
okay but not great highlights of the year in queer cinema though Color Me Kubrick (with its pixilated lead performance by John
Malkovich) and The Bubble (from gay Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox) were definitely a step up.
Musicals – the queer in all but name genre – did boast three stellar additions to the canon: Dori Berinstein’s informative and
entertaining backstage documentary ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway, Hairspray, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street are a trio of must see movies for any self-respecting showtune queen. For the adventurous, queer director Todd Haynes
returned with his lyrical, contemplative homage to Bob Dylan, I’m Not There with its gender bending performance by Cate Blanchett
that’s sure to end up in the Oscar circle. I was also a huge fan of the offbeat documentary Zoo, a visually hypnotic film that offered
insight into the world of fringe sexual practices and For the Bible Tells Me So won points for tracing the longstanding abhorrence
evangelicals hold for Our People and trying to make sense of it through individual coming out stories. Turner Classics Movies’
excellent series Screened Out presented a month long film festival during Pride that illuminated much of our gay history on film in a
mainstream setting while Queerborn & Perversion, a fascinating documentary by filmmaker Ron Pajak did the same for Chicago
history. This last was the highlight of this year’s gay and lesbian film fest, Reeling. Other highlights of the festival (perhaps coming
to a theatre or to DVD in 2008) also included Itty Bitty Titty Committee, Outing Riley, and Starrbooty.
The best GLBT film of 2007 for me was Before I Forget, which played at the Chicago Film Festival. The third in a trilogy, the French
film was written by its director Jacques Nolot who also stars as Pierre, a 58 year-old ex-hustler entering the autumn of his life with no
regrets and not a trace of sentimentality. The movie beautifully illuminates the “gay lifestyle” and issues specific to our community
as Pierre goes about his everyday life in Paris. The film is tough, flinty, emotionally honest, and, I think, a masterpiece. My runner
up would be another French film, The Man of My Life (which you can still catch at the Siskel Film Center through January 3rd). The
elliptical film centers on the life changing events that occur when a happily married French couple make a casual acquaintance with
their gay neighbor and the husband finds himself subconsciously attracted to the man. I would also like to point readers toward yet
a third French film: The Page Turner, a thrilling yet extremely subtle movie in which a complex revenge plan is enacted by a young
woman whose artistic ambitions had been thwarted as a child by a celebrated classical pianist. A heavy lesbian undertone is present
in the relationship between the young woman and her intended victim, the now anxiety ridden pianist.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
While not a good year for GLBT themed movies, the same can’t be said for the year as a whole. It’s been a month and a half of
one terrific movie going experience after another and the new year begins with one more. Boogie Nights-Magnolia writer-director Paul
Thomas Anderson has now written and directed There Will Be Blood based on the Upton Sinclair novel “Oil.” It’s the story of
Daniel Plainview, a fictitious oil wildcatter who is portrayed by a sensational Daniel Day-Lewis. Lewis’ performance as Plainview, who is
at once seductive, charming, mesmerizing, and supremely evil, is one of the greatest ever captured on film. I’ll go so far as to say
it ranks up there with Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc, Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront,
Bette Davis in All About Eve, and Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice.
Lewis channels the voice and mannerisms John Huston brought to his portrait of supreme evil as Noah Cross in Chinatown and
develops them even further. There Will Be Blood follows the character from prospector to magnate who in all that time seems only to
love oil itself. Nothing else – money, sex, power, or any kind of human interaction, truly seems to interest Plainview or distract him
in his quest to draw more and more oil from the earth. Certainly not Paul Dano as a religious zealot who it appears for a time might
be Plainview’s one true nemesis. Anderson’s canvas – the sweep of the harsh western plains (with Marfa, Texas filling in for the
frontier) – is as large as that captured by Terrence Malick in Days of Heaven (Marfa was also the primary location for George Stevens'
Giant). But in Anderson’s movie the vast panorama doesn’t dwarf Plainview or deter him for a second. It’s a thrilling, entertaining
movie aided greatly by Jonny Greenwood’s dissonant, symphonic score (also the year’s best) that underscores the contrast between
the surface beauty of the characters and the land and the ugliness and rot ready to bubble up just underneath.
Let Us Now Praise:
2007 Best GLBT Films-There Will Be Blood
Expanded Edition of 1-2-08 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
2007 Best GLBT Films-There Will Be Blood
Expanded Edition of 1-2-08 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
