No way. This was purely Platonic.
Posted on 03/01/2006 3:15:51 PM PST by SirLinksalot
Mar 01 5:27 AM US/Eastern
The awards success of a posse of Oscar hopefuls led by frontrunner "Brokeback Mountain" has made gay okay in Hollywood, where once-skittish filmmakers are embracing same-sex love.
In what has been billed Oscar's "year of the queer," the romancing cowboys of "Brokeback" are joined by "Capote," the story of gay US author Truman Capote, and "Transamerica," the moving tale of a transsexual in the process of becoming a woman, starring Felicity Huffman.
And as this year's pink contenders for Sunday's Academy Awards have been warmly embraced by both awards show juries and audiences, at least two more gay-related films are already in the works.
"Infamous," also about Capote, stars Gwyneth Paltrow and James Bond star Daniel Craig and is due for release this year, while a top producer last month bought the rights to Peter Lefcourt's novel "The Dreyfus Affair," about a major league baseball player who falls in love with his second baseman.
"Before 'Brokeback,' Hollywood wouldn't touch gay love stories, no-one wanted to spend the money or weather the criticism," said author Patricia Nell Warren who published "The Front Runner," a novel about two gay track athletes, in 1974, and followed it with a story about gay cowboys two years later.
"A number of projects have been out there for some time but everyone was too scared to touch them. Now Hollywood is seeing that you can make money with a film about gay people, and it's opening the door to other projects," she told AFP.
In addition to the rash of gay-themed films, country legend Willie Nelson has issued a single about gay cowboys called "Cowboys are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)."
And more than 30 years after "Frontrunner" shocked US readers unwilling to believe that athletes could be gay, Warren says she is seeing renewed interest in her book, as well as speculation of a movie version with Paul Newman.
"My book was back on the Amazon best-seller list shortly after 'Brokeback,'" she said.
"Brokeback's" popularity is so widespread that the catchphrase uttered by cowboy Jack Twist to his secret lover of 20 years, "I wish I knew how to quit you!," is being bandied about in offices and bar-rooms across America.
The film leads the Oscars posse with eight nods including best picture, best director for Ang Lee and best actor for Heath Ledger, while Capote has five, including best picture and best actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
"Transamerica" scored two nods including best actress for Huffman, while all three low-budget movies, while not in blockbuster-style release, have been generally well received by audiences.
But only 24 years ago, director Arthur Hiller's drama "Making Love," about a married doctor who discovers he is bisexual, caused movie-goers to leave theatres when the lead character kissed another man in 1982.
And while films such as the 1993 AIDS tale "Philadelphia" with Tom Hanks and 1999's "Boys Don't Cry" touched on gay issues, they never tackled the love stories and were never nominated for a best picture Oscar.
Now that Hollywood has finally opened its arms to gay stories it will continue pursuing them, awards expert Tom O'Neil predicted.
"Gay people still suffer discrimination because of who they are and Hollywood now feels its important to keep fighting that battle, especially with a conservative administration in power in Washington," he told AFP.
Gay groups applauded the recognition that the crop of gay-related movies has given the homosexual community on screen, saying Hollywood is finally catching up with reality.
But Larry Gross, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications, said that a few films with gay characters did not mean Hollywood was ready to come out of the closet.
He pointed out that all the actors playing the gay or transgender characters in "Brokeback," "Capote" and "Transamerica" were avowedly straight, while there are few, if any, A-list Hollywood stars who are openly homosexual.
He pointed out that the explosion of quality black roles in Hollywood that many industry observers predicted when Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won the best actress and actor Oscars in 2002 has not materialised.
"Gay stories are making money this year, but I'm not sure Hollywood's really ready for widespread gay content in films yet," he said.
And just 10 years later he died in Venice.
No way. This was purely Platonic.
I always thought musicals were gay.;)
God doesn't have to lay waste to anything; humans are doing that just fine all by themselves, thank you.
Here's the box office totals:
Brokeback Mountain: 12 weeks, $75.4 million
Transamerica: 13 weeks, $4.8 million
Capote: 22 weeks, $23.4 million
Total: $103.6 million
One hundred four million dollars is a decent take for a single movie, but for three? Even if you factor in left leaning movies such as: Munich, Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana, the total still only reaches $229.4 million.
Compare that to:
The Chronicles of Narnia: 12 weeks, $288.2M
King Kong: 11 weeks, $216.7M
Harry Potter: 15 weeks, $288.7
Heck, Cheaper by the Dozen II which got really poor reviews made more than Brokeback Mountain over 10 weeks($81.5 million). The gay themed movies have made fair to poor money. The notion that gay themed movies can make money is nothing more than wishful thinking on Hollywood's part.
The movie Death in Venice was a good adaptation.
Did people put up a fuss when that came out?
European films get a pass. I didn't think it was a good adaptation at all.
Or ... and I am just guessing ... Hollywood saw an inexpensive film make a large profit, and is now going to attempt to relive that success as many times as possible. That does not mean that any of the carbon-copy Brokebacks will be any good. I am reminded of Blair Witch Project in many ways. It, too, was an indie film that went mainstream mainly on the basis of an excellent marketing campaign, and convinced Sony-Columbia that low-budget horror was the way to go for the next few years. It put the final nail in the coffin of Ghostbusters 3, but that's another rant.
Ultimately, perhaps due to Blair Witch, the horror market has bifurcated into two major camps. The remake camp, going back to classics of old and retelling them poorly, and the shock camp, doing pretty much what it has always done. Gay romance will probably also develop into two camps as it careens towards direct-to-video. On the one hand, you'll have the safe metagenre, with retellings of classic stories like romantic comedies and Romeo and Juliet tragedies. They will not be remakes per se, just riffs on the oldest of tales (boy meets girl,...). On the other hand, there will probably be a shock camp inclined towards social messages; we'll get a gay Thornbirds, a gay Kids, a gay Lolita, a gay Clerks, etc. I'd watch a gay Clerks, but the rest of my prognostication (worth exactly what you paid for it) doesn't sound too appealing.
You do know Rock Hudson didn't die of AIDS, right? He died of food poisoning.
Specifically, he ate a bad weenie.
It was either that or a drug overdose -- getting ahold of some bad crack.
Funny..I thought that she/he was a tranny./sarc
Only hardened cinemaphiles will go see it.
Do you read German?
I never cared for Mann, but a beautiful German chick once told me that you have to read him in German. Then it's like poetry. And when beautiful German chicks talk, I listen.
Anyway, for not liking Mann, I thought it was fairly decent film.
Nope. German doesn't translate well though. Even Goethe from what I am told.
Remake the Good the Bad and the Ugly, A story about a threesome with,Eleonor Clift, Hillary and Cindy Sheehan.
You have to pick your own good out of this mess.
Translations are like women:
If they're beautiful they're not faithful and if they're faithful, then they're rarely beautiful.
I could be wrong though, I read that in translation.
It does not have to be a physical laying to waste as in the Old Testiment, but a societal laying of waste. And with that my eventually come their own physical laying of waste.
I also absolutely love 24 and will take that over any theatrical movie.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now THOSE movie titles are really funny.
Since homosexuals lack a lot of kids,there is more disposeable income and they can just go buy the tickets frequently and pass them out for free.
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