Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
"Friendship, friendship, just a perfect blendship
When other friendships are soon forgot, ours will still be hot!"
Yes, our theme on this week's episode of Thursday Movie Picks is Friendship. An apropos topic for me this week, as I just returned from a long weekend vacation with friends in Provincetown, MA. For those of you who don't know, P-Town is the very last city on the very tip of Cape Cod, and has long been a destination especially for gay men. It may have been the weekend before the "season" officially kicks off, but we all had a blast, and I had a lot of fun going on my first true friends-only vacation. So in honor of my friends, I have chosen the following movies about gay friend groups this week.
The Boys in the Band (William Friedkin, 1970) Gay culture pretty much started here, didn't it? The original gaggle of gay friends, Michael, Donald, Emory, Hank, Larry, Bernard, and Harold, are the quintessential catty group of gay BFFs. But in 1968, when the story takes place, one year before the Stonewall riots, LGBT people were still not "out". At least, not in the way we would think of as being "out". A lot of gay men I know find this to be VERY dated, but I still see it as an important piece of queer history: This is very much a time capsule of a specific group of people in a specific time and place, and it has a lot of value as such. But it still encapsulates how a LOT of gay men feel - full of joy and pride, but also confusion and pain.
Love! Valour! Compassion! (Joe Mantello, 1997) Very nearly an update of Boys in the Band to the mid-90s, this adaptation of Terrence McNally's play follows eight friends as they make visits to Fire Island during one summer. It's funny and affecting in equal measure, and a lot more good-natured than its '70s predecessor. But then, it takes place in a world where gay men were becoming more accepted, and where they had less reason to stay hidden. Of all three films I've picked today, this one is the least remembered, and I think that's not quite as it should be. It's a lovely film, with a great cast and a gorgeous script adapted by McNally himself.
The Broken Hearts Club (Greg Berlanti, 2000) A bit dated now thanks to its reliance on the trend-obsessed West Hollywood culture of the late '90s, Broken Hearts Club is fun, formulaic... and a little bit offensive to gay men, even though it's written and directed by a gay man and is about gay men! The characters' oft-stated ideal is to be as straight-acting as possible. Which... I mean, most of the main cast members are straight (including Dean Cain, Zach Braff, Timothy Olyphant, and Ben Weber), and are completely unafraid of playing up the more femme qualities some gay men have. But still, I have a huge soft spot for this movie, and for swoon-worthy Timothy Olyphant in it.
