Exuberant, eye-opening movie that serves up a dazzling hundred-year history of the role of gay men and lesbians have had on the silver screen. Film contains fabulous footage from 120 films showing the changing face of cinema sexuality, from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist triumphs of the 1990s.
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Classical in form, epic, nostalgic and earnest.
- classical in formformally daring
- intimateepic
- contemporarynostalgic
- earnestironic
- gravecomic
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- CinemaSerfon TMDB · Nov 20257/10
Ok, so perhaps some of the claims made in the narration about some of the stars featured here are a bit optimistically speculative, but it still manages to use some very well researched archive and the benefit of hindsight to portray a sort of “Hollywood Babylon” approach to a century of gay Hollywood film-making. Starting way back, pre-code, with films from the likes of Cecil B. DeMille, it presents and engaging analysis of cinematic history that includes some of the talked-about regulars like Greta Garbo, Dame Judith Anderson, Rock Hudson and Monty Clift, but instead of reverting to the gossip columns of the likes of Louella Parsons, it sees contributions from the likes of Tony Curtis, Shirley MacLaine and particularly Gore Vidal to shine some spotlights on the subtly of messages like the censored oysters and snails scene from “Spartacus” (1960) that did actually make it past those implementing the Hayes code. Some of the commentaries quite potently focus attention on the innate conservativeness of an industry that either in content or via it’s highly paid and profiled personalities was unwilling to rock the boat of an America that viewed any semblance of same sex relationships w
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Cast
- Lily TomlinNarrator (voice)
- Tony CurtisSelf
- Susan SarandonSelf
- Gore VidalSelf
- Whoopi GoldbergSelf
- Antonio FargasSelf
- Shirley MacLaineSelf
- John SchlesingerSelf
- Armistead MaupinSelf
- Arthur LaurentsSelf
Crew
- Rob EpsteinDirector
- Jeffrey FriedmanDirector
- Armistead MaupinWriter
- Nancy SchreiberDirector of Photography
- Carter BurwellOriginal Music Composer
- Jeffrey FriedmanEditor
- Arnold GlassmanEditor
- Caroline SpryProducer
- Jeffrey FriedmanProducer
- Rob EpsteinProducer
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