10 Entertaining Gay Flicks That Try To Do Something Different

Starring: Chris Stafford, Andersen Gabrych, Tina Holmes Director: David Moreton Year Of Release: 1998 Plot: It’s the summer of 1984 in Ohio and teenager Eric is slowly coming round to the idea that he’s attracted to men. Getting a job at a local theme park restaurant, Eric allows himself to be seduced by college-aged co-worker Rod, which leads Eric on a journey of discovery into gay life and the inevitable moment when he has to tell his parents he doesn’t like the ladies.

A few months ago I wrote about how it’s almost easier to get a gay movie distributed than it is a straight one, purely because while there’s a glut of the latter hoping to find someone to put them in cinemas or on DVD, there are fewer of the former. The result is that a lot of not very good gay movie get released, and because there’s comparatively little coverage on them, it’s often difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff without just diving in and finding out if it’s any good or not.

As that article proved pretty popular and saw quite a few people contacting me about their thoughts on gay film, I thought it might be worth putting together a list of 10 gay flicks I reckon it’s worth checking out, which are entertaining but try to do something a little different from usual. The list concentrates on those films that unlike Milk and Philadelphia didn’t get a major mainstream push, and which show the breadth of what gay cinema has tried to do over the years, from horror movies and musicals to roms coms and animation.  So here we go...

Un Chant D’Amour (1950)
While due to its taboo nature and illegality in most countries, explicitly gay films were rare before the 1970s, that didn’t put off Jean Genet, who was the enfant terrible of gay cinema before there was a gay cinema to be an enfant terrible  of (although he’s primarily known as a playwright). His 25-minute film, Un Chant D’Amour, is all about the forbidden lust and passions of a bunch of prisoners, with the prison bars being an obvious metaphor for the situation most gay men found themselves in at the time. It’s surprisingly explicit, and due to its nature was initially only made for distribution as limited edition prints for private collectors, until it finally got a wider audience in the 1970s.

The Boys In The Band (1970)
More an interesting document than a truly good movie, The Boys In The Band was Hollywood’s first attempt to make a film with predominantly gay characters, and it stands as a testament to life during the transition between homosexuality being hidden and illegal, and it coming out into the open. A group of friends gather for Harold’s party, with their self-deprecating humour taking a nasty turn as they get increasingly drunk, and they start to reveal how much they hate themselves. Although to modern eyes it comes across as a lot of stereotypical bitchy gay people being horrible to one another and loathing themselves, many have said that at the time life for many homosexuals was pretty much like that, making Boys In The Band an interesting way to see how far gay life has come.

Latter Days (2003)
Although a gay rom com shouldn’t be particularly of note, the interesting thing about Latter Days is it’s a rare case of a gay film that feels as if it could have been made by a Hollywood studio, even though it’s actually a low budget indie effort. Writer/Director C. Jay Cox had just finished writing the Reese Witherspoon movie Sweet Home Alabama when he embarked on Latter Days, the story of a young Mormon who heads to LA to be a missionary, but gets more than he bargained for when the new neighbour brings out feelings he’d tried to keep hidden. It may get very melodramatic at the end, but it’s well worth checking out.

Were The World Mine (2008)
Although a gay musical might not seem that unusual (some would wonder if there were any other kind), there aren’t as many as you’d think, and ever fewer as good as Were The World Mine. Made on an almost non-existent budget, it tells the story of a gay teen who’s used to being picked on, but finds the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream coming to life when he creates a potion that makes someone fall in love with the first person they see. What the film achieves with so little money is impressive, and the score is utterly sublime. It’s one of the best gay flicks of the past five years.

The Laramie Project (2001)
An intriguing film that surprisingly moving, The Laramie Project is as interesting for its genesis as for the film itself. Following the homophobic murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998, members of Tectonic Theatre Project went to the town and interviewed the locals, including those who knew Matthew, and then created a play based on those interviews along with their experience of going to the town to gather them. After a successful run on stage, it was then filmed, becoming part recreation of the events following the murder and partly about the effect on the town. It’s a fascinating little film, with a cast including Laura Linney, Peter Fonda, Clea DuVall, Steve Buscemi, Christina Ricci, Janeane Garofalo, Joshua Jackson and Ben Foster.

Third Man Out (2005)
One of the problems with gay characters is that in film it’s generally seen that there has to be a reason for them to be gay. If the lead in a film is queer but it’s largely irrelevant to the plot, a lot of the audience will wonder why they bothered to make the character gay – even though technically it shouldn’t matter. However in Third Man Out and its sequel, Shock To the System, they do just that, with out actor Chad Allen playing gay detective Donald Strachey, who investigates crime and murder in full-on thriller fashion. Although the plots of both films touch on the gay community, in most respects the character’s sexuality is incidental to the action, which makes it a refreshing change. After all, how many other detective movies can you think of that have a gay lead character?

Hellbent (2004)
Although its claim to be the first gay horror flick may be debatable, it’s certainly difficult to think of another slasher film that’s so deliberately designed for a gay audience (the abysmal Gay Bed And Breakfast Of Terror notwithstanding). It’s Halloween in LA West Hollywood district, and when a group of gay friends head off to the evening’s festivities, they get targeted by an unhinged maniac, who likes nothing better than murdering a bit of man meat. It is all admittedly a bit silly, but Hellbent certainly deserves kudos for trying something different, and not making the whole thing too tongue in cheek and camp (although it is a little bit).

Queer Duck: The Movie (2006)
Queer Duck, which started as a series of animated internet skits by Simpsons writer Mike Reiss, ended up as the world’s first animated gay TV series when it moved to television in 2002. Then, in 2006, it got its own movie – which was, yes, the first animated feature-length gay film. It follows the adventures of Adam Duckstein, an anthropomorphic duck who works as a nurse, and his friends, including Openly Gator, B-Polar Bear and Oscar Wildcat, with the movie focussing on Queer Duck wondering whether he’d be happier if he was straight.

Trembling Before G-d (2001)
While much is written about homosexuality and religion, little of it focuses on gays and lesbians trying to reconcile their faith with their sexuality. It’s what makes the documentary Trembling Before G-d all the more interesting, as not only does it look at this subject, but it manages to do it through the eyes of the normally relatively closed off world (to most people anyway) of Orthodox Jews. Often shot covertly because most participants were terrified of their community finding out about them, it’s a fascinating documentary look at a range of people, some of whom have almost completely shed their former orthodox lives, while other continue to try to live within the rules of the religion, even marrying when they know they’re living a lie.

Another Gay Movie (2006)
Although by no means a masterpiece, this one’s worth including purely because amongst the raft of gay rom-coms, dramas and comedies, this one tried something a little different, which was to take the American Pie style of film, gay it up, spoof it and take it to the extreme. The result is a bizarre mix of gross-out comedy, sex and silliness, about four gay teens desperate to lose their virginity, which is refreshing for just how unabashed it is. It certainly succeeded as it’s since spawned a sequel.

TIM ISAAC

PREVIOUS: Easy Rider - How Dennis Hopper Changed Hollywood Forever And Destroyed His Career In The Process
NEXT: Elephant - Does Winning The Cannes Palm D'Or Help Or Hinder A Movie?

CLICK HERE to see the index of 909 films and TV shows the Movie-A-Day Project will be covering
CLICK HERE to find out more about the idea behind The Movie-A-Day Project
CLICK HERE to follow Movie_A_Day on Twitter