InSearchofAdam Wrote:Hey, Mike! Thanks for your kind words. I agree with your thoughts on "Free Fall". All the seduction and how it happened sort of made gay sex seem slutty and absent of love or deeper feelings. Of the films you mentioned I've seen almost all of them. I've watched a good amount of gay films. When I was closeted, gay films were some of my only outlets. I'm going to check out your other suggestions. Thanks for all of your responses! I appreciate it. We should start a film watching group.
If you have not seen "Weekend" yet, see it! It is on NetFlix streaming. It's one of my favorites.
Yes, I did watch "Out in the Dark" and "Weekend," see post #18 in this thread.
Since then I've watched
In The Name Of,
House of Boys, and (on DVD, not streaming)
Kill Your Darlings.
As I said, I'm not very good at writing movie reviews. I don't 'analyze' films -- it is more of a general feel. If the acting is good to passable, the story more or less interesting and well presented, the camera work and editing not totally amateurish, etc., I just let myself get immersed in the story and see where it takes me.
Not being Catholic (or even Christian), "In The Name Of," about a gay priest struggling with his vows of celibacy while in charge of a group of undisciplined orphaned boys in rural Poland, didn't sound promising. However, it was done well enough. This is a 'dirt under the fingernails' kind of movie. I haven't looked into it but I suspect some of the boys weren't "actors," but just kids being 'themselves.' They reminded me of some of the "shit for brains" antics I grew up around in rural Indiana over a half century ago. This film is not about the sexual abuse of children but the theme is 'toyed' with in a sense as the priest is struggling with his sexual and romantic urges on one hand and his sense of morality on the other. It is a watchable film, flawed in some respects but I'm not really qualified to say what those are exactly.
House of Boys is a gay cabaret film set in Amsterdam at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. To me it was kind of disjoined, full of stereotypes, and not very helpful in understanding the characters. I actually found myself irritated with it, TBH, especially as it moved from the flamboyance of the cabaret setting to the trauma of loosing a lover to AIDS. Perhaps it just brought back too many painful memories.
Of the three, the one I found most interesting was "Kill Your Darlings." Set in 1943-4, it is a fictionalized account of historical events involving
Lucien Carr,
Allen Ginsberg,
William S Burroughs, and
Jack Kerouac in their very early years; Carr and Ginsberg being students at Columbia. Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac are very well known literary figures credited with establishing what became the "beat generation" of the 1950s and further influencing the 'cultural revolution' of the 1960s. Carr is less well known but was an emotional and intellectual motivating force for all of them, especially Ginsberg.
Ginsberg first crushes on and then falls headlong in love with Carr but the relationship is complicated both by Carr's emotional (and perhaps sexual?) unavailability coupled with his relationship with an older man, David Kammerer. Kammerer has been stalking Carr since he was 14 years old. So, at base, this is the story of a love triangle between Ginsberg, Carr and Kammerer, that also involves Burroughs and Kerouac. Both the latter become "accessories after the fact," (by not going to the police, and helping Carr hide evidence) after Carr murders Kammerer one night in New York's River Side Park. Even Ginsberg is implicated (having suggested to Carr rather early on that they "get rid of him"). To me it is fascinating that these historically prominent literary figures knew one another and were all (more and less) involved in a gruesome murder centered around an out of control homosexual love triangle. It's also an interesting look into homosexual life in the 1940s. This one I highly recommend.
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