The Projectors

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

It’s time to say goodbye to this month’s theme, MOVIES ARE GAY, but we won’t be so cold about it like a department store purging all of it’s rainbow displays a day after the percieved profiteering window. We all know, deep in our hearts, that movies will always be gay. At least a little bit. We send off our theme with a movie that has an abundance of what so many modern movies lack, charm and charisma. We have an Honest-to-God, Gay Rom-com from 1985 and the layered commentary of race and class in Margaret Thatcher’s England doesn’t overshadow the romance with overt seriousness. A first generation Pakistani (Omar) reunites with a childhood friend turned racist street thug (Johnny) and they both revitalize a struggling launderette and rekindle a love for one another. It also happens to be Daniel Day-Lewis’s breakout role. We watched Stephen Frear’s “My Beautiful Launderette” and it’s a breath of fresh air and the perfect movie to end our Month with after all this sad shit we’ve recently watched. It’s on MAX if you want to check it out.
 
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Mysterious Skin (2004)

WARNING: THIS MOVIE AND DISCUSSION REFERENCE CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE
Folks, we’re in the final week of MOVIES ARE GAY and if you thought we were gonna settle on Rainer Werner Fassbinder for our sad boy fix then you were very much mistaken. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (JoGoLe as his closest movie reviewer friends call him.) really went hard in the 2000s, and this movie he starred in alongside Brady Corbet was perhaps one of the starkest examples of the results of childhood sexual abuse ever put to film. One of JoGoLe’s best performances here in Gregg Araki’s 2004 flick “Mysterious Skin”. It’s fucked up. NGL. We promise to end MOVIES ARE GAY on a more upbeat note but this movie is incredibly sincere for its intensely descriptive subject matter. Unique and challenging. It’s worth your time if you can handle it. Hear us tell you all about it.
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Pillow Talk (1959)

As you probably know by now, MOVIES ARE GAY. While this movie doesn’t necessarily have a lot of gay subtext, it does star Rock Hudson The hunky Hollywood star who lived a closeted Hollywood life and sadly passed away of AIDS in the mid 80s. We reflect upon the late movie star and analyze his first hit film with close friend and on-screen partner Doris Day in Michael Gordon’s 1959 romantic comedy “Pillow Talk”. The duo have plenty of charm and there’s even an ironic gay reference along with an absolutely horrid original song sung by Doris Day that is truly obnoxious. The song didn’t even chart but this movie made gobs of money. By modern standards this movie made around 190 million. About 18x over its budget. Tony Randall is also in it and why the hell isn’t that diner scene readily available on YouTube as a clip? It’s weird as hell. He slaps Doris Day and gets punched in the face. Rock Hudson is gay therefore this movie is gay. Just go with it.
 
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Fox and His Friends (1975)

We keep on going down the yellow brick road because this month MOVIES ARE GAY and  today we dive into a bleak and brutal selection from the prolific gay German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. A young working class gay man, Fox, wins the lottery and becomes targeted by a couple of upper class gay cons into falling in love and spending off all of his winnings. Twisted emotions, brutal relationships and layers of class within gay life are examined in Fassbinder’s “Fox and His Friends”. That’s the English title anyway. The German title read something like “The Law of Freedom”. MOVIES ARE GAY and a lot of gay movies are sad but Fassbinder’s 1975 film finds some brutal character well beyond the surface identity that modern movies so easily congratulate themselves for. Honestly, we love sad shit like this.
 
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At the Movies - The Flash (2023)

Time to get to the movie theater once again for a superhero movie that is being dragged in the media for making a mere 130 MILLION DOLLAR OPENING WEEKEND. Yeah, it cost around 200 million but it seems like more people are just willing to wait for streaming and who can blame them? Yes, we watched “THE FLASH” by Andy Muschietti and starring the controversial Ezra Miller alongside some classic and contemporary DC movie actors. Somewhere within the nostalgia dump, the low chemistry and the questionable CGI choices lives a heartfelt, focused, story that was ultimately never meant to rise above the mediocrity. DC and Warner Bros. has done far worse, admittedly. Is it at least fun? Hear us out.
 
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The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

The more we look back on early Hollywood, the more certain we are in declaring that MOVIES ARE GAY. Movies Are Gay not just in June but 24 seven, 352 days a year. Cultural repression of adult sexuality is a terrible thing but sometimes we can look back with modernity on our side and realize what many likely missed when they first watched Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester in James Wale’s 1935 sequel “Bride of Frankenstein”. What they might have missed was that this movie is very very gay and also very very fun. From the baddie bey, Doctor Septimus Pretorius to The Bride who rejects her arranged union, this movie has a lot of subtext. At least that’s what we projected onto it. Shout out to Minnie, the goofball baddie and Valerie Hobson, the 28 year old 17 year old. We belong dead.
 
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Tangerine (2015)

Don’t think just because Sean Baker did some shit with three iPhone 5s and Final Cut that you can just whip out your phone and make something this good because you can’t. Maybe some of you could, but most of you? No way.  MOVIES ARE GAY this month and we keep on truckin’ with a crafty and clever tale of two transgender sex workers on the streets of West Los Angeles. Hilarious and human, movies don’t often feel this real. Nor should they for the most part, but when they do feel real it can be rewarding. Of course we’re talking about Sean Baker’s 2015 film “Tangerine” starring Katana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor and Karren Karagulian. Check this shit out if you haven’t, it’s genuinely funny and don’t fall in love with your pimp for God’s sake.
 
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Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

It’s time for our MOVIE ROULETTE REVIEW and last time we hit on an offbeat romance category and, from there, randomly selected David O. Russell”s 2012 romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook” starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro & Jacki Weaver. This also happens to be our very first movie discussion of a flick that was produced by The Weinstein Company (we think) and boy will Jennifer Lawrence never fully shake name-dropping Harvey Weinstein in award show speeches. It wasn’t just her. Many stars did over the years. She was just more recent. That guy will die in prison. This movie is pretty good though. We select our next Movie Roulette selection at the end of the episode.
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Mädchen in Uniform (1931)

It’s time to get historical up in this piece because MOVIES ARE GAY this month and we got some early lesbian erotica on film and it comes from 1930s Germany of all places. It also features our earliest feature film discussion directed by a woman. We’re talking about Leontine Sagan’s German film about love in a girls school and the authoritarian forces that loom over it. No wonder the Nazi’s banned it. The United States actually banned it before that. Manuela’s genuine glow from her love for the most beloved Headmistress in her school shined through a little too hard, perhaps. We’re talking about the 1931 pioneering classic, “Mädchen in Uniform” and it was about a half a century ahead of its time. A lot of the extras in this film likely didn’t make it through the Second World War. Many fled. There’s a link below where you can watch it so you better catch up on your MOVIES ARE GAY history!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s0WWmx3J0U
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My Own Private Idaho (1991)

We keep things going for this month’s MOVIES ARE GAY theme with a film that was a turning point in the popularity of modern queer cinema. We’re talking about Gus Van Sant’s 1991 classic “My Own Private Idaho” starring the late great River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in one of his earliest acclaimed roles playing street hustlers. Mikey (River Phoenix) is desperately coping with the intense loss he has felt in his life and the trauma has left him narcoleptic. There’s some Shakespeare stuff here, as well. Also, Mike’s brother, Roger, is definitely also his dad. We interpreted that scene differently and lightly debated it but it’s literally the fucked up thing they said. Damn. This movie is also very funny. I swear.
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