Movies: 2007 in Review—Gay is Not the New Black - 5062 - Gay Lesbian Bi Trans News

Two years ago, when Brokeback Mountain was winning awards and, more importantly, turning a sweet profit, we thought Hollywood, which never saw a hit it couldn't clone, would start cranking out queer films by the dozens, filling those multiplex screens with A-list stars in same-sex liplocks. Gay was going to be the new black.

So what has 2007 brought? Jude Law and Michael Caine in an ill-conceived reimagining of Sleuth; Heather Graham discovering she loves her brother's wife in Gray Matters; and Woody Harrelson as an anachronistic gay stereotype in The Walker. Total combined North American box office? Less than a million.

John Travolta appeared in drag in Hairspray but also starred in the year's most homophobic movie, Wild Hogs. Secret lover Peter Dinklage outed the deceased in Death at a Funeral. There was eye candy galore in 300, thanks to the soldiers' ridiculous battle garb, but we never saw them do what we know Greeks did, thanks in part to the mess Oliver Stone made of Alexander.

There were the traditional ( i.e., pre-Brokeback ) movies with token gay friends ( Bug, You Kill Me ) , gay relatives ( The Jane Austen Book Club ) and trendy gay chatter ( P.S. I Love You ) . Ray McKinnon played twins—one of them gay—in Randy and the Mob. A male-male rape in The Kite Runner is so obliquely presented the movie got a PG-13 rating, yet the young actors had to flee Afghanistan because of death threats.

The year's gayest mainstream movies were Reno 911!: Miami, with Lt. Jim Dangle ( Thomas Lennon ) leading the campy fun; and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, with Adam Sandler and Kevin James as straight men pretending to be gay.

There were gay pretenders in queer films, too. Sam Huntington was straight-playing-gay in Freshman Orientation ( with lesbian actress Heather Matarazzo in a straight role ) and gay Jim Verraros was gay-playing-straight in Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds.

As usual, the best queer films came from abroad, but even they were in short supply this year. Israel gave us Eytan Fox's The Bubble, with gay and straight romances but the Romeo and Romeo story taking precedence. Gus Van Sant's gay love story was one of the 18 shorts in Paris Je t'Aime, and a couple of others had some gay content.

With Here! and Logo TV offering increased distribution opportunities on cable and DVD for queer independent films you'd expect to see an increase in quality as well as quantity. Sadly, that's not true. The numbers may be rising but most of the narrative films ( e.g., Boy Culture, Itty Bitty Titty Committee, Colma—The Musical, Puccini for Beginners ) are still pretty mediocre. They may be OK for movie nights at home or in the communal context of a festival, but when you consider the superiority of many straight indies on the market you have to wonder what happened to our famous creativity.

This year's festivals didn't offer much hope for the future. One of the best queer dramas I saw, The Houseboy, should have been released to theaters for the holidays, as it's a gay variation on It's a Wonderful Life. Maybe next year.

As usual, documentaries outshone narrative films. Among the year's best were For the Bible Tells Me So, practically a remake of Arthur Dong's Family Fundamentals; The Life of Reilly, an autobiographical performance piece by Charles Nelson Reilly, who passed away this year; and Jessica Yu's Protagonist, in which one of the four personal journeys we follow is that of a gay man turned 'ex-gay' turned gay again.

As for movies in general, ticket buyers proved to be a bunch of idiots in 2007!

I don't mean you personally, of course. If you have enough taste to read this column you're not one of the people who started the year by making huge hits of horrible movies ( Norbit, Ghost Rider, Wild Hogs ) , then stayed away when the 'serious' pictures started arriving in the fall.

Everything came in batches all year: great actresses ( Julie Christie and Marion Cotillard ) and failed 'torture-porn' sequels in the spring, threequels in late spring/early summer, vigilante thrillers and Jane Austen-related romances in late summer, anti-Iraq War movies in early fall, African-American holiday movies in late fall. Whatever you liked, there would surely be at least one more just like it opening soon.

The studios continue making a self-fulfilling prophecy of the idea that awards go to late-year releases by saving their potential contenders at least until September, then flooding the market with them. It's worth noting that most of my Ten Worst opened in the first half of the year, so I don't forget.

After eight months of crap, can the public really be blamed for not flocking to Eastern Promises, Reservation Road, Things We Lost in the Fire, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Lions for Lambs and Martian Child, some of which weren't very good anyway; or for confusing Dedication and Delirious, Rendition and Redacted, The Hoax and The Host, In the Valley of Elah and In the Shadow of the Moon, September Dawn and Rescue Dawn or We Own the Night and 30 Days of Night?

As disappointing as many of the films themselves were, more disappointing was when one the masses should have enjoyed ( e.g., Shoot 'em Up ) got lost in the shuffle. At this writing the box-office jury is still out on those year-end releases that are supposed to make the wait worthwhile. You'll see several of their titles in the 'Best' list below and on many other lists of nominations and awards. But will you go to see them when they're up against sequels to Alien vs. Predator and National Treasure?

Oh, you will, but what about all those other idiots?

As usual, some of the films listed are platforming and haven't arrived here yet, or were test-marketed and sent directly to DVD.

Top Ten:

1. Atonement

2. The Kite Runner

3. There Will Be Blood

4. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

5. Juno

6. No Country for Old Men

7. The Lookout

8. Michael Clayton

9. Lars and the Real Girl

10. Golden Door

Honorable Mention ( listed alphabetically ) :

Away from Her

The Bourne Ultimatum

Charlie Wilson's War

Death at a Funeral

Hairspray

The Host

In the Valley of Elah

Knocked Up

Rocket Science

Shoot 'em Up

—Best Foreign-Language Film: The Kite Runner; Runners-up: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Golden Door

—Best Documentary Feature: Protagonist; Runners-up: The Life of Reilly, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

—Best Animated Film: Ratatouille; Runners-up: The Simpsons Movie, Paprika

—Best Director: Joe Wright, Atonement; Runners-up: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men; Sean Penn, Into the Wild

—Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose; Runners-up: Julie Christie, Away from Her; Jodie Foster, The Brave One

—Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood; Runners-up: Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah; Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Lookout

—Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone; Runners-up: Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There; Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

—Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men; Runners-up: Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton; Alan Tudyk, Death at a Funeral

—Best Original Screenplay: Judd Apatow, Knocked Up; Runners-up: Diablo Cody, Juno; Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl

—Best Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton, Atonement; Runners-up: Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson's War; Sarah Polley, Away from Her

—Titles I Hated to Leave Out but They Wouldn't Quite Fit: Across the Universe, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Black Book, The Bubble, For the Bible Tells Me So, The Namesake, No End in Sight, Rescue Dawn, Rendition, Sicko, Superbad

—People I Hated to Leave Out but They Wouldn't Quite Fit: George Clooney, Michael Clayton; Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart; Ben Kingsley, You Kill Me; Sidney Lumet ( director ) , Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; Laura Linney, The Nanny Diaries; James McAvoy, Atonement

—Movie that Made Me Feel Best about Being a Human Being: Lars and the Real Girl

—ROFLMAO: Death at a Funeral, Knocked Up, Superbad, Blades of Glory, Reno 911!: Miami

—Best Creature Feature: The Host; Runner-up: The Mist

—Breakout Actor: Justin Timberlake ( Alpha Dog, Black Snake Moan, Southland Tales, Shrek the Third ) ; Runners-up: Homayoun Ershadi ( The Kite Runner ) , Michael Cera ( Superbad, Juno )

—Breakout Actress: Amy Ryan ( Gone Baby Gone, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Dan in Real Life ) ; Runners-up: Dana Fuchs ( Across the Universe ) , Saoirse Ronan ( Atonement )

—Rediscovered Geezer: Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild; Runner-up: Andy Griffith, Waitress

—Unstoppable Geezer: Vanessa Redgrave ( Atonement, Evening ) ; Runner-up: Max von Sydow ( The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Rush Hour 3 )

—Return to Form: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men; Runners-up: Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; Brian DePalma, Redacted

—Top & Bottom: Philip Seymour Hoffman ( lead in The Savages and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; supporting in Charlie Wilson's War )

—Runner-up: Tommy Lee Jones, ( lead in In the Valley of Elah; supporting in No Country for Old Men )

—She's Everywhere!: Margo Martindale ( The Savages, Rails & Ties, Paris Je t'Aime, Rocket Science, Feast of Love, TV's The Riches )

—He's Everywhere!: Terrence Howard ( Pride, The Hunting Party, The Brave One, August Rush, Awake, The Perfect Holiday )

—Best History Lesson: The Great Debaters

—Worst History Lesson: 300

—A Nine-Year Break Can Be Healthy: Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

—A Ten-Year Break Can Be Deadly: Francis Ford Coppola, Youth Without Youth

—Worst Daypart ( Tie ) : Night ( We Own the Night, 30 Days of Night ) ; Evening ( Evening, Starting Out in the Evening )

—If I Go Down I'm Taking the Picture with Me!: Robin Williams, August Rush; Runner-up: Nicolas Cage, Ghost Rider

—If One Line Could End a Career... ( a.k.a., the No Wire Hangers Award ) :

'I am the super mother bug!'—Ashley Judd, Bug