Movies

Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story (2005)

Starring: Emile Griffith Synopsis: Documentary explores the first live telecast of a championship boxing match that ended with the death of one of the boxers. Before the fight, one of boxers had called the other a faggot. Directors: Ron Berger and Dan Klores The story of the six time world champion Emile Griffith, a young man who came from the Virgin Islands in search of a better life in the United States and in the process of creating greatness by realizing the ‘American Dream’, he finds himself in controversy, wrapped in the harsh political driven agendas that wanted to cease boxing.

Running With Scissors

Starring: Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alec Baldwin, Joseph Cross, Jill Clayburgh, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gabrielle Union, Patrick Wilson, Kristin Chenoweth, Colleen Camp Synopsis: This is the film adaptation of gay author Augusten Burrough's memoir of growing up the only sane person in a collection of oddballs, beginning with his mother. It features an all-star cast and terrific performances. Based on a 2002 memoir by American writer, Augusten Burroughs. As a “gay” film, Running With Scissors seems oddly ambivalent. It will no doubt become a favorite with gay audiences, especially for its strong cast and writing. And yes, as Augusten finds himself in an abusive life situation, surrounded by mental and emotional misfits, his gayness provides him with just enough aloofness and alienation to see him through.

Shortbus

Starring: Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Peter Stickles, Jay Brannan, Justin Bond, Bitch, Daniela Sea, Miriam Shor, Jonathan Caouette Synopsis: Gay filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell's second film takes an in-depth look at sex in the city with this unique and funny film where nothing is hidden from view. John Cameron Mitchell gained fame for bringing his drag queen stage hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch to the big screen. Now he presents us with a group of New Yorkers trying to figure out the connection—if any—between sex and love.

Some Like It Hot

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe, Joe E. Brown, George Raft, Pat O'Brien Synopsis: Two muscians witness a Chicago mob boss killing a man and decide the best way to hide from him and his goons is join an all-woman band headed for Florida. The exceptional film was the all-time highest-grossing comedy up to its time, one of the most successful films of 1959, and Wilder's funniest comedy in his career. The film was inspired by director Kurt Hoffmann's German movie comedy/musical Fanfares of Love (1951) with a similar plot element that writer/director Wilder borrowed. Only a few other cross-dressing comedies have come close to approximating the film's daring hilarity: Tootsie, La Cage Aux Folles, and Victor/Victoria. Some Like It Hot also inspired the Broadway musical Sugar that opened in 1972.

Southern Comfort

Starring: Robert Eads, Lola Cola, Maxwell Scott Anderson, Cas Piotrowski, Corissa Anderson Synopsis: Robert's a man, Lola's a woman. They're a cute, southern couple. Only Robert was born a woman, Lola a man. Robert's dying. Of cervical cancer. And nothing else is as it scenes. A mindbending (and genderbending) look at a subset of the population you probably didn't know existed. Transsexuals living in the good-ol'-boy Deep South? It's true, and it's one of the more compelling documentaries in recent years.

That Certain Summer

Starring: Hal Holbrook, Martin Sheen

Synopsis: (1972) directed by Lamont Johnson

A landmark TV movie for the time it was made Hal Holbrook stars as a middle-aged divorced man, whose son Scott Jacoby cannot fathom the reason for his parents' split. During a summer visit, Jacoby meets his father's much-younger "best friend," Martin Sheen. Holbrook hedges, but finds he can no longer hold back the truth from his son: Sheen is Holbrook's male lover. Hope Lange costars as Holbrook's ex-wife, who struggles to come to grips with her former husband's sexual preferences, and who encourages him to reveal all to his son. Originally telecast on November 1, 1972, That Certain Summer was the first TV film to take a mature and non-remonstrative approach to the subject of homosexuality and like many "firsts," the film seems a bit timid when seen today.

The Boys in the Band

Starring: Michael Douglas, Audrey Landers, Vicki Frederick Synopsis: The Boys in the Band is a 1970 American drama film based on the off-Broadway play of the same name. The film is set in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where seven of Harold's closest friends are throwing him a birthday party. One of his presents is "Cowboy," an attractive but obviously unintelligent male prostitute, since Harold, increasingly morose about losing his youthful looks, claims he no longer can attract cute young men.

The Childrens Hour

Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner Synopsis: (1961) directed by William Wyler Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine accused of being lesbians Best friends Karen Wright and Martha Dobie are headmistresses at a successful private school for girls in New England. Mary Tilford, a spiteful, angry child, is caught in a lie and punished. In retaliation she tells her grandmother, a matriarch in the town, that Martha was "jealous" of Karen's relationship with Dr. Joe Cardin, and tells that Martha's Aunt Lily thought those feelings were "unnatural." Grandma believes her and pulls Mary out of school. The word quickly spreads and within days Karen and Martha are faced with empty classrooms. Joe is fired from the hospital for siding with the teachers. Karen and Martha sue for slander in a case that makes national headlines.

The Color Purple

Starring: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey, Willard Pugh Synopsis: Epic drama of an African-American woman's struggle to overcome poverty, adversity, and a marriage to brutal husband and eventually find her dignity in a period that spans over forty years from the turn-of-the-century. It took nearly ten years for the longest-running Broadway musical of all time to make it from stage to screen, and although director Attenborough's film version has a couple of pleasant numbers which serve as oases amidst the dullness, it really hurts for those who remember the dazzle and emotional depth of the let's-put-on-a-show original.

The Event

Starring: Parker Posey, Don McKellar, Sarah Polley, Jane Leeves, Brent Carver, Olympia Dukakis. Synopsis: An intense relationship drama that takes the form of a mystery, The Event centers around a series of unexplained deaths that occur among the gay community in New York's fashionable Chelsea district. Nick, a district attorney investigating the most recent case, a suspicious apparent suicide, and her interviews with friends and family of the deceased trigger extensive and intricately interwoven flashbacks that reveal surprising facts about the man's life and death. The AIDS epidemic here in the United States, swept under carpets and mired in politics, is projected as more a Third World problem than our own. Thom Fitzgerald's The Event, while not so physically graphic as, say, mainstream Philadelphia, emerges as a better take on the issue, dealing with emotional and psychological consequences and, in particular, with the effects on those who surround the sufferer -- the families, friends and lovers who must watch and then keep memory and honor alive.