Author: Jason Wright

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Test (2013)

2022 Entry #008 01-28-22 “Test” is a 2013 American drama film written and directed by Chris Mason Johnson (“The New Twenty”). Set in 1985 San Francisco, after the launch of the first HIV blood test, the film depicts the effects of the HIV / AIDS crisis on a professional dance company based in the city, as Frankie (Scott Marlowe), the central gay understudy, hopes for his chance to go on-stage.

This is another film that I only learned about in 2020, when I started collecting LGBTQ+ inclusive movies again. I added it to a list and I’ve finally gotten around to seeing it.

The acting was great. The locations were beautiful. The subject matter illuminated the past while remaining immediate and relatable. The music often brought on waves of nostalgia. And the choreography was breathtaking. This was a treat! And I loved the ending. ❤

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200 American (2003)

2022 Entry #007 01-28-22 “200 American” is a 2003 romantic dramedy film which was written and directed by Richard LeMay (director of “Naked as We Came”, “Whirlwind” and producer of “Children of God”). The plot mainly focuses on the increasingly complicated romantic & sexual entanglements of a gay NYC CEO named Conrad (Matt Walton) and Ian / Tyler (Sean Matic), an Aussie hustler.

I purchased this title around the time it was originally released to DVD; I’d never seen it before but I’d started collecting LGBTQ+ DVDs by that point and I’d seen it in a TLA Video catalog. I watched it once. I remembered that the actors were attractive but that the movie looked like it had been recorded on video; it looked cheap, but that I had mostly enjoyed it…despite the acting being hit or (mostly) miss. I also remembered (SPOILER) that the seemingly gay-for-pay hustler came out in the course of the film, which I liked. The only thing that really changed for me this time around, despite me not having remembered most of the film, is that having moved to NYC in 2012, I now recognized a lot of the scenery in a first hand way. Also, for a movie that is focused on gay sex and the relationships that are centered on it, there’s a surprising lack of sex or nudity in the film. I don’t think I cared the first time I saw it, but this time I found it odd, dishonest and slightly frustrating. In the film’s favor…I will offer some light praise: I did occasionally find glimmers of potential, though they were fleeting, and late in the film, when I felt I’d really just like the movie to be over, a dumb joke made me laugh out loud for a good 30 seconds.

I’ve seen LeMay’s “Naked as We Came” and I remember enjoying it much more than this but I will have to revisit it as part of this LGBTQ+ viewing project. I also watched “Children of God” last year, which I loved, and I own a copy of “Whirlwind”, though I’ve never seen it. And though I didn’t hate this film, I can’t really recommend it either. I’d urge anyone interested in Lemay’s work to try the other titles I listed instead.

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Foxfire (1996)

2022 Entry #006 01-28-22 “Foxfire” is a 1996 American teen drama film directed by Annette Haywood-Carter and is a modernized adaptation of the novel “Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang” by Joyce Carol Oates, which was set in the 1950s. This version moves the setting from upstate New York to the Pacific Northwest, centers the story on suburban families rather than the novel’s working class and changes the duration of the story from 3.5 years to just several weeks. This was the first film that I ever saw Angelina Jolie in and just like the film’s narrator, I fell in love with her, despite our sexualities not being the most compatible. 😉

Basically, Jolie’s heavily implied to be lesbian character shows up like the classically cool, archetypal drifter who saunters into town and shakes everyone up. Now, she doesn’t physically get the girl in the movie, but they clearly love each other by the film’s end.

I rented this movie when it was a new release; I watched it on April 5, 1997. I know this because I wrote a poem titled “Charming”, about the film’s characters, as soon as I finished viewing it. I liked it. It’s not a great movie in my opinion. It’s not life changing. But it’s good. I think the performances are what make it worth seeing, while I find the script to be weak at times. Oh. And I like (and own) the soundtrack.

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Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)

2022 Entry #005 01-14-22 “Bedrooms and Hallways” is a 1998 comedy-drama film which was written by Robert Farrar (“Sunday Morning”, “RuPaul’s Christmas Ball”, “Courts mais GAY: Tome 6”) and directed by Rose Troche (“Go Fish”). The plot follows Kevin McKidd (“Nicholas Nickleby”, “De-Lovely”) as a gay man named Leo, who at the suggestion of a straight friend, join a men’s group, where his declaration of homosexual lust causes some unforeseen complications.

I’d seen this entry once before and I had vague memories of Hugo Weaving as a guy that likes to have sex in other people’s homes…but I also remember that this was a subplot, and for the life of me, I could not remember the main storyline of the film. I think part of that is because it’s just a very odd film. I also think that when I saw it the first time, I probably didn’t enjoy it, but that I enjoyed it more this time. It’s still a very strange movie with some odd pacing issues and some tonal problems but it features a very impressive cast and I think it makes a lot of interesting choices.

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How to Survive a Plague (2012)

2022 Entry #004 01-07-22 “How to Survive a Plague” is a 2012 American documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. It was directed by David France (“The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”, “Welcome to Chechnya”), a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings. The film is dedicated to the director’s partner Doug Gould, who died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1992.

A breathtakingly powerful documentary which covers familiar ground I’ve seen in other documentaries and narrative films, yet this managed to provide me with valuable information that I had somehow been deprived of until my viewing experience. Several similar works have been made over the years but they usually rely mostly on present day interviews to paint their stories, while this piece was produced using more than 700 hours of archived footage which included news coverage, interviews as well as film of demonstrations, meetings and conferences taken by ACT UP members themselves! Effectively and responsibly edited, this work is a treasure trove / time capsule that would be impossible to replicate without these valuable resources. Director David France has stated that they knew what they were doing was historic, and that many of them would die. And though the subject may seem treacherous, the story, as revealed here, is actually inspiring & hopeful, rather than bleak and depressing – with many untold or rarely shared stories of perseverance, success & triumph.

Highly recommended.

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Four Quartets (2018)

2022 Entry #003 01-03-22 “Four Quartets” is a 2018 11 minute short that was written and directed by Marco Alessi. The story covers a night out in a club as Raf (Laurie Kynaston) struggles to find his place among the crowd and learns that everything will fall into place if he just lets himself go with the flow.

This was cute. But I had misread the title as “Four Quarters” and kept waiting for the quarters to come into play! Lol Then, reading the title again, everything made much more sense, although I felt like a moron.

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Jermain and Elsie (2017)

2022 Entry #002 01-02-22 “Jermain and Elsie” is a 2017 21 minute short which was written by Ashley Campbell and Adele Silva; directed by Leon Lopez (“Soft Lad”). The short focuses on the unexpected friendship between a sexually ambiguous caregiver and his racist elderly invalid client. Jermain, the caregiver, is practically saintly, but has his own troubles, which reveals hidden depths in Elsie.

I liked this well enough. I was entertained.

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Caught Looking (1992)

2022 Entry #001 01-01-22 “Caught Looking” is a 1992 35 minute short which was written by Paul Hallam and directed by Constantine Giannaris. The story is somewhat confusing but features a man sitting at a computer and he logs into what seems to be an interactive sexual game called “Caught Looking” and then guides his virtual self through various scenarios. At least, I think that’s what was happening. It’s a bit of early 90s queer cyberpunk.

I watched this short over a 24hour period in which I was struggling with a horrible migraine. I’d been unable to receive my medication which had curtailed most of my migraine symptoms for several years and they all came rushing back at once, including scary visual manifestations. In addition to the migraine struggles, the audio for the film was split; the dialogue and music were in one ear while just the music was in the other, making it difficult to understand the dialogue so I ended up listening with just one headphone…so it was a bit awkward. When I later resumed the title I used a mono speaker system which helped.

At varying times I found this piece to be hypnotic, impenetrable, impressive, disappointing, inspired, sexy, dull and a whole host of other contradictory things. YMMV.

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From July to September

It is September 4, 2021
and I’ve decided that
I’m taking a break today.

I’m at Riverview Campground
and I’m missing my mom.

This is the hardest hitting day
because the memories are Little Jason’s;
our mother wasn’t perfect…
but she had graceful, beautiful,
quiet, unrecorded moments,
which are all I am remembering today…
1 day after what would have been their 39th anniversary.

At times, our mother seemed psychic.

She begged me not to take Jamie to the theater
to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show;
she told me that something terrible was happening
and though Jamie never forgave me,
I knew that our mother believed what she was saying
and I broke my promise and left Jamie at home…

Later, Paul (who I had seen Rocky with the previous year)
called to say that he had been raped across the street from Oz.
She knew. Somehow she knew.

And she knew about Katie.
And she knew about other things…

Back in my memories and
my mother is looking out
across the low green field,
storm rolling in toward our backyard –

I’m a small boy child,
clinging to her mysterious silence,
her wary hypnotized gaze is exhilarating
in its graceful stillness…

The emerald sky sparks
and forms tear drops
over Janet Lynn forest
years before that tragic coupling
will leave me forever scarred
and always haunted;
a dark harbinger of things to come.

Could she see all of that then?
I’ve never imagined that she could…
but who is to say what stirred within her?

“The shameful secret she never shared.”

Written by Jason Wright
September 4, 2021

For Myra Canell

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Children of God (2010)

2021 Entry #050 (02-06-21) “Children of God” is a 2010 Bahamian romantic drama film by director and screenwriter Kareem Mortimer, based on his 2007 short film “Float”. The film was produced by Richard LeMay (director of “200 American“, “Naked as We Came” & “Whirlwind”).

The film tells the story of two young Bahamian men who fall in love with each other, portraying homosexuality / bisexuality along with homophobia and its various consequences in Bahamian society. It was one of the first feature narratives from the Caribbean to address homosexuality; the Bahamas had banned the film “Brokeback Mountain” in 2006, yet “Children of God” was the opening night film of the Bahamas International Film Festival.

While Mortimer, a gay Bahamian himself, initially conceived his movie in purely romantic terms, it took a darker turn following the murders of five gay men over a few months in 2007 and 2008. He has said:

“Two of them I knew personally. One was the subject of a documentary I produced — he had AIDS and was killed very violently near where I live. He was almost decapitated. Another guy, a fashion designer, was stabbed multiple times in his house. I felt really afraid. I can’t even express how I felt, and one politician said things like ‘the only good homosexual is a dead homosexual’ that went unchallenged in the country. Bahamians are very generous, loving people, but it was an act of great shame.”

I loved almost everything about this film. I’ve wanted to see it ever since I learned it existed and I finally broke down and rented it on Amazon Prime. Part of me wishes I’d done so sooner, but really I’m just glad I saw it and it was a great movie to watch during Black History Month. I loved the characters in this movie; even the ones I didn’t agree with. These are complicated depictions and though I was sad to see the bleaker elements of the film, the movie does find a way to find some semblance of a happy ending, without diminishing the sense of tragedy.

The film made its International Premiere at the Miami International Film Festival and has premiered at over 100 film festivals around the world, winning at least 17 awards. “Children of God” was named one of the top ten films of 2010 on BET.com.

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