only good queer flick ever made

Ummm...exactly HOW was John Cusack gay in Con Air. LOTs of gay stuff going on in that flick...but Cusack? I don't think so...

Interesting choice of examples, wmjgas. There are other films that follow the same path, and even if we don't always agree on specific characters , scenes, symbols, etc., we do find common ground in wanting to avoid sentimental crap or gratuitous stereotyping. The comments of the guy who started this thread are excellent, for example.

I urge you to find a copy of "Plata Quemada" and watch it through two or three times strictly as a movie. Then, if you want, buy the book and see how Pineyro probably convinced Piglia to cut out the clinical stuff of the book and concentrate on cinematic development of the characters from beginning to end. What emerges from the darkness of a really bloody and nasty real event is a clear, compelling, and ultimately classic tragedy that keeps you guessing and hoping in a dramatic sense even as you know that the characters are doomed.

I also like another film from Latin America known in English as "Our Lady of the Assassins." I hope there is some way "Angels in America" will make it to the big screen as well.

B24

Huh?

My first post dates from June, I think. The film was featured on the Sundance channel several times that month, then again recently. I am not obsessive, but I admit to watching it about a dozen times so far on my dvd. I can follow most of the Spanish by now, which makes it easier to concentrate on the action visuals.

You are so right about gay syereotypes in public media. My view is that more mature characters will eventually be written, and not necessarily all winding up either in some crappy sentimental ending or in some gratuitously violent death. It's all about money to fund productions, when you get right down to it. There are serious novels and plays out there, but they need backers who aren't afraid of losing mass audience. I recently reviewed "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" for imdb so it is fresh in my mind. The book is unstintingly honest, but Eastwood turned the movie into a sideshow of freaky gay types. So much for that.

Have you seen "Bent"? How about "Common Ground"? Or for fun without pandering, "Trick"? Some older films with serious but closeted gay subtexts are interesting, like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." I intend to write a critique of the 1946 film "Gilda" one of these days, suggesting that the Rita Hayworth role should have been male, as a few people have already noted. I lack only an original script to go through without the diversion of having to think of Hayworth's dynamite performance.

I could go on talking about technical aspects or the specific appeal of "Plata Quemada," but this is too confining a place to write in. The only other contributor here and I are doing it by email.

It is a Harold Arlen song called "Ill Wind." Very film noir and appropriate to this flick.