Hey! It's Pride month! Let's make our next top 10 the top 10 great LGBT films.
(Haven't seen: And the Band Played On, Philadelphia, Bent, Maurice, Before Night Falls, The Celluloid Closet, Gods and Monsters, Boys Don't Cry, The Crying Game, The Color Purple, the Laramie Project, My Own Private Idaho, But I'm a Cheerleader, Transamerica, The Pillow Book, Vicki Christina Barcelona, De-Lovely, LIE, the Kids are Alright, Were the World Mine, Tipping the Velvet, Patrick 1.5, Borstal Boy...)
Honorable mentions: Scott Pilgrim, Birdcage, The Broken Hearts Club, Kaboom, Mysterious Skin, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, In & Out, Four Weddings & a Funeral, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Breakfast on Pluto, I Love You Philip Morris, La Mission, V for Vendetta, Bound, Fire, Kinsey, and Soldier's Girl.
Bonus Soldier's Girl video!
Okay - before the list, here is the first of my two favorite LGBT-themed quotes. From Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, Michael's Letter to Mama. I don't have space here to reprint the whole thing, but check it out over here. Here's my favorite part;
Awwww.....
Onto the list!
10. Rocky Horror. Obviously.
9. Rent. Okay - I have issues with the film, being such a fan of the musical. BUT! Gay couples! Yay! And look at this pretty rainbow banner!
8. Capote. Perhaps not a very inspiring gay film, but a very good one.
7. Velvet Goldmine. Glam rock!
Oh, Brian.. How did you make it in here?
6. Hedwig & the Angry Inch.
5. Milk.
4. Cabaret. Perhaps not quite as progressive as modern stagings of the musical, but such an INCREDIBLE film.
Obligatory Brian Kinney break.
3. Brokeback Mountain
2. A Single Man. I think it was obvious that when Tom Ford made a movie, it would be beautiful. I know I didn't expect it to be so brilliant.
1. Angels in America. And here's my other favorite quote (edited to omit the funny interlude, but you can read the passage in its entirety here.) (O HAI you can watch it here). Prior's final speech in Perestroika (pictured above):
This is my favorite place in New York City…No, in the whole universe…The parts of it I've seen, on a day like today. A sunny winter's day, warm and cold at once, the sky's a little hazy so the sunlight has a physical presence, a character. In autumn, when those trees across the lake are yellow, and the sun strikes those most brilliantly, against the blue of the sky, that sad fall blue…Those trees are more light than vegetation. They're Yankee Trees. New England transplants, they're barren now. It's January 1990, I've been living with AIDS for five years. That's six whole months longer than I lived with Louis. This angel, she's my favorite angel. I like them best when they're statuary. They commemorate death, but they suggest a world without dying. They're made of the heaviest things on earth, stone and iron, they weigh tons but they're winged. They're engines and instruments of flight. This is the angel Bethesda, Louis will tell you her story.
(Louis, Belize and Hannah tell their part of the story of Bethesda)
The fountain's not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter. Ice in the pipes. But in the summer...it's a sight to see, and I want to be around to see it. I plan to be, I hope to be. This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all. And the dead will be commemorated, and will struggle on with the living and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward, we will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now, you are fabulous each and every one and I bless you. More life, the great work begins.
(Haven't seen: And the Band Played On, Philadelphia, Bent, Maurice, Before Night Falls, The Celluloid Closet, Gods and Monsters, Boys Don't Cry, The Crying Game, The Color Purple, the Laramie Project, My Own Private Idaho, But I'm a Cheerleader, Transamerica, The Pillow Book, Vicki Christina Barcelona, De-Lovely, LIE, the Kids are Alright, Were the World Mine, Tipping the Velvet, Patrick 1.5, Borstal Boy...)
Honorable mentions: Scott Pilgrim, Birdcage, The Broken Hearts Club, Kaboom, Mysterious Skin, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, In & Out, Four Weddings & a Funeral, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Breakfast on Pluto, I Love You Philip Morris, La Mission, V for Vendetta, Bound, Fire, Kinsey, and Soldier's Girl.
Bonus Soldier's Girl video!
Okay - before the list, here is the first of my two favorite LGBT-themed quotes. From Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, Michael's Letter to Mama. I don't have space here to reprint the whole thing, but check it out over here. Here's my favorite part;
"No, Mama, I wasn't
"recruited." No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you
know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser
than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, "You're all
right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone
else. You're not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy
and find peace with friends - all kinds of friends - who don't give a
damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be
loved, without hating yourself for it."
But no one ever said that to me, Mama. I had to find it out on my own, with the help of the city that has become my home. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but San Francisco is full of men and women, both straight and gay, who don't consider sexuality in measuring the worth of another human being.
These aren't radicals or weirdos, Mama. They are shop clerks and bankers and little old ladies and people who nod and smile to you when you meet them on the bus. Their attitude is neither patronizing nor pitying. And their message is so simple: Yes, you are a person. Yes, I like you. Yes, it's all right for you to like me, too."
But no one ever said that to me, Mama. I had to find it out on my own, with the help of the city that has become my home. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but San Francisco is full of men and women, both straight and gay, who don't consider sexuality in measuring the worth of another human being.
These aren't radicals or weirdos, Mama. They are shop clerks and bankers and little old ladies and people who nod and smile to you when you meet them on the bus. Their attitude is neither patronizing nor pitying. And their message is so simple: Yes, you are a person. Yes, I like you. Yes, it's all right for you to like me, too."
Awwww.....
Onto the list!
Obligatory Brian Kinney break.
This is my favorite place in New York City…No, in the whole universe…The parts of it I've seen, on a day like today. A sunny winter's day, warm and cold at once, the sky's a little hazy so the sunlight has a physical presence, a character. In autumn, when those trees across the lake are yellow, and the sun strikes those most brilliantly, against the blue of the sky, that sad fall blue…Those trees are more light than vegetation. They're Yankee Trees. New England transplants, they're barren now. It's January 1990, I've been living with AIDS for five years. That's six whole months longer than I lived with Louis. This angel, she's my favorite angel. I like them best when they're statuary. They commemorate death, but they suggest a world without dying. They're made of the heaviest things on earth, stone and iron, they weigh tons but they're winged. They're engines and instruments of flight. This is the angel Bethesda, Louis will tell you her story.
(Louis, Belize and Hannah tell their part of the story of Bethesda)
The fountain's not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter. Ice in the pipes. But in the summer...it's a sight to see, and I want to be around to see it. I plan to be, I hope to be. This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all. And the dead will be commemorated, and will struggle on with the living and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward, we will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now, you are fabulous each and every one and I bless you. More life, the great work begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment