Queer Eye music video shoot.
IT'S A QUEER EYE
CHRISTMAS AFTER ALL ...
The Fab 5 all got new contracts, they have their own calendar, a new music video —you know the song—and Carson is even the first to step out on his own as a solo columnist (for US Weekly, I think, but don't quote me).
If that weren't enough, The Fab 5 are 'one' of BARBARA WALTER'S TOP TEN MOST FASCINATING PEOPLE OF 2003!
See The Fab Five all over the dial this week:
FAB 5 WEDNESDAY 12/17
THE FAB 5 WITH OPRAH 'AFTER THE SHOW' (Oxygen, Wed, 6:30 p.m., 9:30 p.m.)
BARBARA WALTERS TOP TEN FASCINATING PEOPLE OF 2003 (ABC, Wednesday, 8 p.m.) Includes The Fab 5 and Roy Horn.
WHAT'S THAT SOUND? THE MAKING OF THE QUEER EYE MUSIC VIDEO (Bravo, Wed., 9:30 p.m. and Sat., Dec. 20 at 1:30 p.m.) A sure hit! 'All Things Just Keep Getting Better'
FAB 5 THURSDAY 12/18: A VERY QUEER HOLIDAY (Bravo, Thursday, 9 p.m.) The Fab 5 revisit some of their previous Straight Guys——yes, including adorably sensitive urban cowboy John! Repeats Fri at 7 p.m., and Sat at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
THE L-WORD DEFINED: A SNEAK PEEK SHO, Saturday, Dec. 20, 6 p.m. A behind the scenes look at showtime's lesbian drama. Must-see.
WITHOUT A TRACE: GAY BAR STORYLINE (Thursday, Dec. 18 at 9 p.m.) 'Coming Home' A well-liked family man (Jeremy Garrett) vanishes after delivering a speech at his high-school reunion, and the team suspects he was living a double life—in gay bars.
CSI's GAY BALLISTICS EXPERT: Thursday's at 8 p.m. on CBS, Gerald McCulloch plays gay ballistics expert Bobby Dawson on C.S.I.
LIZA'S FINALE ON ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (Sunday, Dec. 21, 8:30 p.m.) Liza has made a winning guest star stint with her three-episode cycle as Lucille 2! Buster's torrid secret affair with his mother's arch nemesis (Liza), causes him to distance himself from her.
GTV REPEATS WORTH CATCHING:
SCRUBS (Thursday, Dec. 18 at 8:30 p.m.) A gay patient's relationship with his boyfriend stirs conflict between J.D. and Turk.
SEAN HAYES ON DINNER FOR FIVE (Saturday, Dec. 20, IFC, 6:30 p.m.) The cast of Pieces of April, featuring Sean Hayes, Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson and Oliver Platt.
GTV PERSONAL COMMENT: WHY ANGELS IN AMERICA DIDN'T SPEAK TO ME: 'I'm cold, I'm tired and I'm very angry. I'm sorry you're psychotic ... BUT JUST MAKE AN EFFORT! ... Tell me how to get to Brooklyn!' — Hannah Pitt (Meryl Streep) to a homeless woman as she arrives in New York from Utah, only to find that her closeted Mormon son has not met her at the airport as promised.
Angels was a triumph of High Art and Event Programming, but as a gay person with AIDS, I have to say Angels didn't really speak to me.
While portions represented the reality of gay PWA's lives in 1983-'85—and in those portions, it did achieve the quality of the 1989 film Longtime Companion, an admirable shoestring-budget triumph—all real usefulness of the film was lost, I felt, in its mishmash of angels, people coming back from the dead, and an entirely unnecessary portrait of Roy Cohn (Al Pacino). WHO CARES ABOUT ROY COHN? JUST LET'S ALL BE GLAD HE'S GONE.
I didn't like the spiritual rhetoric of the film, either. As a gay PWA, I am not a hero, I am not a prophecy, I am not hoping to meet angels, nor have I met any along the way. I certainly don't want to have sex with one, as one character was shown doing.
I have met mostly pain, torpor, and sleeplessness, all admirably shown in the Reality Portions of the film. I have met many wonderful supporting warm human beings—these are not angels ... they are real human beings.
Most of them were African-American C.P.N.'s who took my vital signs regularly and held my hand when I needed to cry during a recent first hospital stay. None of them looked like Emma Thompson, and none would claim to be angels. They're too real.
Angels is a triumphant work of High Art ... it's just that gay PWA's don't need High Art right now. They need medicine, care and honesty. My point—and like Ellen, I do have one —is that AIDS in America today, is NOT about angels. It's simply about the depth of PWAs' human pain and struggle, the reality of it, and the caring they find and fight for. Angels portrayed these things brilliantly—but, as I said, clouded it and ruined it with the spirituality and angels mumbo jumbo.
HBO did launch a massive promo campaign which was largely effective. While the alternative L.A. Weekly devoted not a word to Angels opening week, USA Today made it the cover story of Life Dec. 4, with a recap of films about AIDS—and a subhead clarifying the importance of the film's timing: 'amid declining AIDS coverage in media.'
It was nice to see Justin Kirk, who played blind Bobby in Love Valour Compassion. It was also nice to see Longtime Companion co-star Mary-Louise Parker, as an under-pressure wife who discovers her Mormon husband is gay.
The biggest shock and surprise, though, was watching the opening scene. To discover that the elder male rabbi delivering a eulogy ... to find out at the credits ... that HE was Meryl Streep. If only TV movies could be eligible for an Oscar. She deserves it.
Bottom line: for $60 million, HBO could have produced innumerable films of the caliber of Longtime Companion. Let's hope they turn the topic into a mainstay of their original programming, rather than just an Event.
gayboyric@yahoo.com
