2024 Entry #59 09-05-24 “Life as a House” is a 2001 American drama film produced and directed by Irwin Winkler (“De-Lovely”, “The Wolf of Wall Street”) based on a screenplay by Mark Andrus (“As Good as it Gets”, “Otherhood”). The story focuses on a man who is anxious to repair his relationship with his ex-wife and teenage son after he is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
I’ve always enjoyed this movie, though its attitudes towards body jewelry annoys me as I have a labret piercing and I love it. lol The film is great though, emotionally, and it takes several unexpected turns. It’s not perfect, but it’s very good.
As for the queer content, early in the film, Hayden Christensen’s character is led into the world of sex workers by his frenemy and would-be-pimp, a seemingly straight guy played by Ian Somerhalder (“Rules of Attraction”, “Law and Order: SVU”) – who initiates an encounter between Christensen’s character and a john (played by Sam Robards from “American Beauty”, “Bounce”) – which is interrupted by the police – which becomes a key plot element later in the film. It’s pretty tenuous but it is there.
2024 Entry #029 01-21-24“Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives” is a 1977 documentary film featuring interviews with 26 gay men and women. It was directed by six people collectively known as the Mariposa Film Group. Peter Adair conceived and produced the film, and was one of the directors. The film premiered in November 1977 at the Castro Theater in San Francisco and went into limited national release in 1978. It also aired on many PBS stations in 1978.
I’ve had this documentary for a couple of years but I finally got around to watching it and I found it quite moving. To hear an interesting variety of queer voices from the 1970s, I was again reminded of how things might have been had AIDS halted our progress for so many years. Many of the people here seem to have come to happy places in their lives, but many of them were ridiculed along the way, ostracized and / or in many instances, tortured for living honestly. To their credit, they survived and that this work allows them to be heard by all of us now…by me, is incredibly satisfying and emotional. I was 3 years old when this was released.
Highly recommended.
In 2022, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
2024 Entry #028 “Of an Age” is a 2022 Australian romantic drama film by openly gay director Goran Stolevski (“You Deserve Everything”, “Housekeeping for Beginners”) who also wrote the film. The movie stars Elias Anton as Kol, a Serbian immigrant in Australia who enters a brief but intense romance with Adam (Thom Green), the brother of his ballroom dance partner Ebony (Hattie Hook).
This one broke me. Several sequences in this film mirrored experiences in my own life which I hold as sacred and so personal that I never expected to see them on screen unless I made the film myself. I wept more than once. But I also smiled and laughed. Nicely done. There are quite a few characters in this who are obnoxious (basically anyone who aren’t the main couple) but I think this was intentional. I’m glad I watched this, but I’m really not sure how others will react to it as my reactions were so heavily linked to my own experiences.
I’m curious to see more of Stolevski’s work. His follow-up film, “Housekeeping for Beginners” won the Queer Lion award and I’ve reacted to several previous winners, including “A Single Man”, “The Danish Girl” and “The Prince”.
I streamed this on Amazon Prime.
Edit 2026: I will also always remember that a friend of mine, after I posted this review, told me that they too had loved the film and found it worthwhile. He died suddenly on October 27, 2025 at the age of 40. I hope to revisit this film in his honor.
2024 Entry #010 01-06-24 “Mulholland Drive” (often stylized as “Mulholland Dr.”) is a 2001 surrealist mystery film written and directed by David Lynch (“Dune”, “Wild at Heart”, “Twin Peaks”, “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me”). The film stars Naomi Watts (“J. Edgar”, “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans”), Laura Harring (“Gossip Girl”, “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”), Justin Theroux (“I Shot Andy Warhol”, “Ally McBeal”, “Sex and the City”, “American Psycho”, “The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy”, “Six Feet Under”, “The Sleepy Time Gal”, Mark Pellegrino (“Capote”) and Robert Forster (“Desperate Housewives”) and was the last feature film to star veteran Hollywood actress Ann Miller.
The film seemingly tells the story of an aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Watts), newly arrived in Los Angeles, who meets and befriends an amnesiac woman (Harring) recovering from a car accident and the two become lovers. The story follows several other vignettes and characters, including a Hollywood film director (Theroux). In the final act there is a jarring change of perspectives in which many of the roles we’ve been following are altered, and the audience is left to decide for themselves what actually happened. Despite this unconventional twist, “Mulholland Drive” is often regarded as one of Lynch’s finest works and as one of the greatest films of all time. It was ranked 8th in the 2022 Sight & Sound critics’ poll of the best films ever made and topped a 2016 BBC poll of the best films since 2000.
It might surprise some (and disappoint others) that I had never seen this film before watching it yesterday. Despite loving the original “Twin Peaks” series, the prequel film “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” and Lynch’s version of “Dune”, I generally don’t think of myself as a big David Lynch fan. I saw “Lost Highway” in theaters and fell asleep, but I hated what I did see and I’ve never been tempted to revisit it.
Having said that, I found this piece to be quite moving at times, disquieting at others. In the beginning, following the opening credits, I disliked the film’s tone, which was epitomized in Naomi Watts and her performance. However, the change in perspectives (among others things) changed my response as well. I didn’t write this review right away because I wanted to spend some time with my thoughts on the film, and I’m convinced (like many others) that the final section of the film is the true tale, while everything after the opening credits up to that point is a kind of fantasy or self deception, which circles back around at the end of the film. It’s complicated, clearly. I can see why so many people both love and hate it. I think I love it. I may need to watch it again at some point. In retrospect, this feels like a masterpiece, but while I was watching it, I didn’t feel that way at all – which itself is fascinating.
2024 Entry #005 01-04-04 “Kinsey” is a 2004 American biographical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon (“Gods and Monsters”, “Chicago” & the upcoming musical adaptation of “Kiss of the Spider-Woman”), who is himself openly gay. The film features a celebrated cast including Liam Neeson (“Rob Roy”, “Breakfast on Pluto”) Laura Linney (“Tales of the City”, “More Tales of the City”, “Further Tales of the City”, “The Laramie Project”), Chris O’Donnell (“Fried Green Tomatoes”), Peter Sarsgaard (“Boys Don’t Cry”, “Unconditional Love”, “The Dying Gall”, “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh”), Timothy Hutton (“The Substance of Fire”), John Lithgow (“The World According to Garp”), Tim Curry (“The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, “Clue”, “Will & Grace”), Oliver Platt (“Three to Tango”, “Nip/Tuck”, “The Good Wife”, “Modern Family”), Dylan Baker (“Oz”, “Ugly Betty”, “Happiness”, “The Laramie Project”, “The Matador”, “The Good Wife”, “Political Animals”, “Smash”, “The Good Fight”), John McMartin (“Oz”, “Further Tales of the City”), Lynn Redgrave (“Gods and Monsters”, “The Next Best Thing”, “Unconditional Love”, “The Jane Austen Book Club”), Julianne Nicholson (“Ally McBeal”, “Keep the Lights On”), Veronica Cartwright (“Alien”, “Will & Grace”, “Breaking Fast”), Heather Goldenhersh (“Sex and the City”, “Spin the Bottle”, “Nicholas Nickleby”, “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”, “The Merchant of Venice”, “Modern Family”), David Harbour (“Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”, “Brokeback Mountain”, “Stranger Things”) and openly gay actor Luke Macfarlane (“Brothers & Sisters”, “Smash”, “Single All the Way”, “Bros”).
The film presents the life of Alfred Charles Kinsey (Neeson), a pioneer in the area of sexology. His 1948 publication, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (the first of the Kinsey Reports) was one of the first recorded works that tried to scientifically address and investigate sexual behavior in humans – including homosexuality, which is featured (refreshingly) prominently throughout the film. Laura Linney’s performance as Kinsey’s wife Clara McMillen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the film received widespread praise (it currently holds a 90% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and was featured on many critics’ top ten lists for 2004, including those working for The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, The New York Times, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, San Francisco Chronicle & The Wall Street Journal. The film won awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (Best Actor: Liam Neeson), The American Film Awards (Top 10 American Films of 2004: Kinsey) & the National Board of Review (Top Ten Films: Kinsey & Best Supporting Actress: Laura Linney).
I’d seen “Kinsey” once before when it was a new release at my video store. I remembered that the film was appropriately frank, that it featured gay, bisexual and lesbian subject matter and characters throughout, and that I had greatly enjoyed it. This proved true on my second viewing as well. I highly recommend it.
I just finished rewatching one of my all-time-favorite LGBTQ films: 1998’s “Edge of Seventeen”, directed by David Moreton, written by Moreton and Todd Stephens, starring Chris Stafford, and co-starring Tina Holmes and Andersen Gabrych. I hesitated on watching this one as I felt I maybe knew this one too well and I’ve been mostly viewing movies in my inclusive collection which I’ve either never seen or I’ve only seen once or twice…but I’d actually forgotten a lot of it, which just means I’m getting old.
The movie is set in 1984 / 1985 and is partially set at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio (though the name of the park is changed for legal reasons and long shots of the park are clearly from the 90’s as the Raptor can be seen). My family spent a lot of time at that park and the first time I went was 1984 / 1985. The soundtrack is a love letter to the 1980’s and the movie manages to capture that era in a way that many others fail to do.
For example, I watched another movie from the collection on Friday which I’d never seen before called “The Curiosity of Chance”, which came out in 2006, is set in the 1980’s in Europe and features some of the same songs…but it just feels unreal; and it’s not helped by some less successful acting choices and a muddled script. I didn’t hate watching it though I’d never put it on a top 10 list. “Edge of Seventeen” though is TOPS for sure. Take it from a bottom who knows! ❤ 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧
The LGBTQ movie pandemic lock down marathon continues…with Gus Van Sant’s 1991 masterpiece, “My Own Private Idaho”, which I’d seen many times before, but again, not in several years. And just like today’s other entry (“Edge of Seventeen”), I was surprised how much I’d forgotten of this film and I feel I noticed things that I never had before…perhaps because I’m seeing it so far removed from previous viewings? It probably doesn’t hurt that I watched it on a huge TV.
“My Own Private Idaho” was the first gay themed movie that I actively sought out. It was the first movie that I rented once I had a drivers licence and could get an account at a video store (Blockbuster). At the time I was incensed that any movie with LGBTQ material was flagged by Blockbuster as something that could only be rented by people 17 and older regardless of content…and yet I was also grateful as it made such properties easier for me to find, and I rented many other such films which had a lasting impression, even if they didn’t join the collection I’m enjoying now. Years later, I was hired at Hollywood Video and during my interview I mentioned my disdain for Blockbuster for this very reason, which impressed my new manager (DJ).
As for the film itself it was (and remains) for me a haunting, eccentric collage of tones and quirks which exhilarated me as a film fan, even as it sometimes frustrated me as someone yearning to see representations of my own experiences; something that’s faded with time and more satisfying portrayals. Having said that, the campfire scene in which River Phoenix’s sympathetic, narcoleptic street hustler Mike Waters confesses that he loves Keanu Reeves’ gay for pay Scott Favor – and that he wants to kiss him, was a breakthrough moment for me as a gay film fan, and for the actors as well – it’s cited in nearly every review I’ve read of the film…and I watched that part repeatedly.
“I watched this movie yesterday, which I’d owned for about 16 years and had never seen. It was great! I loved it. My only minor quibble with it was that they sometimes spoke very quickly so the subtitles were flashing so quickly across the screen that I could barely look at what was happening…but I suppose that’s my own fault for not knowing Spanish! I’m happy that I’m finally seeing these movies from my collection as I revisit others I’ve mostly not seen in years. ❤ 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧”
Lookin gback now, in April of 2026, I remember loving this movie but at the time I wasn’t writing in depth reviews. This is one that plan to revisit at some point and give it a proper review.
