S/D: Gay movies of arty qualities

i enjoyed it!

Another gay arty short I've seen tons of enthusiasm over: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-taking-of-jordan-all-american-boy/

I really liked Passages too. Must've been the Ira Sachs thread that I posted on.

Ira Sachs has quietly created an intelligent little gay oeuvre

he really has

He’s one of the under-the-radar directors whose films I’ve recently enjoyed getting to know, like Celine Sciamma (who was not talked about much until the last few years), Eliza Hittman, and Jessica Hausner. I don’t think any of those directors have taken a wrong step yet. All of their films have been very understated but also interesting

I would put Ulrich Seidl in that category as well, and maybe some others. His films aren't gay as such but have a very queer sensibility

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/t-magazine/gay-villains-white-lotus-ripley.html

I watched Weekend (2011) tonight. Pretty good!

Well, except that Weekend is still within the last 10 years and I know it's too normcore and hetero for the room but fuck off and enjoy it.
― "Minneapolis" (barf) (Eric H.), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 11:32 PM (five years ago)

ibid

I really loved Passages - Franz Rogowski is a force of nature.

I also loved L'immensita, a semi-autobiographical Italian trans coming of age story by Emanuele Crialese, which has got otherwise mixed reviews. Everyone has focused on Penelope Cruz, but the non-actor kid in the central role is sensational.

I agree with everything, except I also liked Penelope Cruz in that movie.

All of Us Strangers splitting my arty gays about as much as Passages did. When was the last arty gay movie that got universal arty-gay praise?

The majority of arty gays are wrong about All of Us Strangers btw. I loved it.

why didn't the arty gays like Passages?

A sampling:

What’s worse, the ego of the filmmaker in the movie or the ego of the filmmaker making the movie?

is this person hot enough to justify their horrible behavior?: the movie

This is a major problem for contemporary film culture in which actors are hired for their social identity and limited to it. Gay actors are bamboozled into invasive, distasteful postures the same way black actors are bamboozled into defensiveness. They are forced to find their way through politicized stereotypes according to the era’s fashion — where their humanity and creativity have been traduced and politicized.

This desolate view of hapless people is extreme, consistent with Sachs’s interest in sexual compulsion (The Delta, Keep the Lights On), but it also smacks of humorless, radical progressivism. Pedro Almodóvar’s self-critical Pain and Glory was also emotional, erotic, and funny, with a wonderful, fully fleshed performance by Antonio Banderas and a range of lovers holding on to their humanity. But instead of bringing his characters close, Sachs brandishes topicality: After Thomas and Martin’s last squabble over infidelity, Sachs features a West Hollywood rainbow-flag poster that blares,“No More Abuse of Our Rights, Dignity,” “Police Officers Not Storm Troopers,” “Blue Fascism Must Go,” and “Stop Illegal Search and Seizure.”

Those slogans are clearer than the relationships in Passages. These progressive libertines are miserable yet smug. Sachs salutes their headlong independence in the closing sequence where his camera tracks alongside Thomas’s bicycle ride across Paris. It’s also smug, recalling Woody Allen running through New York streets at the end of Manhattan but without the Chaplinesque payoff. Sachs has not perceived or created recognizable people in Passages but is selling politicized sexual types — perhaps, ultimately, a misperception of homosexuality. It’s like an adult version of Disney’s grooming agenda. Is this a harbinger of social propaganda to come?

OK you got me, the last one's 4rm0nd

Disney's grooming agenda

of the three samples eric posted: first one i don't get (sachs is hardly the fassbinder type?), second one is weaksauce "critique" (someone was horrible? in a movie???), third one is...well, armond

I also liked All of us strangers - hard to resist if you grew up in the 80s suburbs listening to Pet Shop Boys. Kind of a queer spooky sibling to Eternal Daughter.

Mescal and Scott did a q&a at my screening and their mutual affection was almost as moving as the film!

i recommend paul b. preciado’s new godardian recasting of woolf’s orlando into the current-day trans milieu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpGFplNRUmc

Def my favorite key art of the year

Man, Saltburn sounds awful

promising young woman was godawful, guess we’re in for more

It's definitely less than the sum of its parts. (Its parts being Brideshead Revisited, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Gormenghast.) Great casting, lovely main location, song choices that a little TOO obvious at points.

But basically I forgot I saw it within a couple of days. I was thinking "Wait didn't I see a movie this past Monday...oh yeah right."

didn't really have any interest in seeing saltburn till I saw Ned's post that added gormenghast to the brideshead/ripley comparisons had already heard - now sounds gloriously bad and i wanna see

Barry Keoghan could make a great Steerpike. This attempt at a variant, well...

Silverlake Life if "arty" = "gritty, lo-fi mid-80s documentary"

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, September 22, 2005 8:07 AM (eighteen years ago)

gygax! OTM, absolute doomwatch that turned entire cinemas into weeping masses

I've got a chromosomal aversion to gay films of arty qualities infused with a special pleading, so I'm still thinking about my response to All of Us Strangers /

You're not alone in that, but it worked a treat for someone like me

Paul Mescal, though! I thought he was a wan little thing. Every time he chortled and looked at Andrew Scott I wanted to -- well.

First reasonably mainstream movie to feature one man cleaning up his own, er, mess from another man's chest?

I finally saw Saltburn. And I wish I had stayed home and rewatched Teorema.

something i’ll say for saltburn is i’ve never felt completely uninvolved in something “trashy” before

anyway, very bad! gorgeously lit but no one behind the camera is making images out of this gorgeous lighting! script is obviously intended to be Hilarious but it isn’t funny???? (rosamund pike doing her best)

https://t.co/k5HoOU1NLv pic.twitter.com/abH1tYD0tD

— Larry Fitzmaurice (@lfitzmaurice) December 27, 2023

Not much discussion here of Rotting in the Sun. I watched it last week and liked it, actually found it fairly affecting at the end. Won't say much because it starts out seeming like one kind of movie and becomes quite different.

There are individual scenes in All of Us Strangers that I found really affecting, and the performances were uniformly excellent, but as a narrative I'm not sure what to make of it.

I watched the trailer and determined it wasn’t for me.

Ha, I watched the trailer and determined no movie has ever been more for me.

Y'all should watch Winter Boy, a gay film of arty qualities released last year that covers some of the same ground yet is funnier and lighter.

I don’t think All of Us Strangers was meant to be light

That's the problem.

There really should be more light, funny films about grief

My problem mostly has to do with the ending.

There really should be more light, funny films about grief

― Wack Snyder (Eric H.),

I recommended one!

Hard pass then

Short read: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/all-of-us-strangers-bottoms-queer-storytelling-1235784736/