homosexual Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Call it performance art, savage prank behavior or audacious social satire. Call it whatever you want, but there's no question Sacha Baron Cohen is at it again. As Erik reported back in March, the Borat star began surfacing as his Bruno alter-ego in a variety of absurd situations likely intended for the movie starring the effeminate European character. Wearing chains at a Kansas church? Check. Weirding out Ben Affleck? Check. Airport dancing? Yep. Now, bizarre reports of a cage match in Arkansas, where attendees paid for admission expecting to watch a fight and instead witnessed two men get naked and lock lips, suggests Cohen is still at it, more than three months down the line. Not only that, but he appears to have pulled the stunt twice: First on June 5 at the Four States Fair Grounds in Texarkana, then again at Fort Smith's convention center, where a character named "Straight Dave" apparently selected a planted audience member to challenge him.

Whether or not you agree with Cohen's brash style -- he claims to take inspiration from Michael Moore's stunts --
the actor definitely constructs his gags with very specific ideas in mind. Borat took a stab at American stereotypes of foreign cultures, but Bruno looks like it's geared more towards attacking homophobia -- specifically as it manifests in middle America. However, it's hard to say whether or not such excessive spectacles will manage to correct misinformed perspectives or reinforce them.

Adam Sandler's movies haver never represented the apex of cultural awareness, but they do tend to grapple, if somewhat brashly, with the finer points of human relations. In his latest raunchfest, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, the insolent comic creates "his stupidest character ever" (as an audience member muttered five minutes into last night's New York preview screening), but it's also his most symbolic one: Sporting a hyperbolic flair for disco music and using hummus as toothpaste, hardened Israeli soldier Zohan is a bloated creature of Semitic extremes.

Overall, however, the movie uses metaphors more than stereotypes. When Zohan and a furious Palestinian terrorist (John Turturro) use paddles to bat a live grenade back and forth, the result is a lowbrow editorial cartoon.

James posted earlier today about Annie Proulx's scathing bitch-slapping of the Academy Awards. Say what you will about whether old Annie is full of sour grapes; she's always been full of what my grandmother would have admiringly called "piss and vinegar", and she is one of my personal heroes as a writer. James called her piece "scathing, coarse and wrathful" and I suppose it is all those things; more than that, however, Proulx is unflinchingly honest in revealing a side of the glittery, sparkling, Oscars that you won't see depicted on E! or anywhere else. She totally de-glamorizes Hollywood's most gratuitous event, rather like someone revealing that the elaborately decorated cake you can't wait to have a taste of is display-window dressing - nothing more than a cardboard box underneath.

The most revealing bit in Proulx's piece, however, was not her vitriolic attacks on Crash and the merit of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's acting skill - it was her description of protesters at the Oscars, "hordes of the righteous, some leaning forward like wind-bent grasses, the better to deliver their imprecations against gays and fags to the open windows of the limos". I read that line and my initial reaction was - huh?!? There were protesters at the Oscars - people yelling about "gays and fags", waving signs about? I watched every single moment of the Oscars, from red carpet to the E! after party coverage. The picture accompanying this piece is from the protests at the 2003 Oscars; I couldn't find any pictures of the protests this year. Nobody - nobody - reported on the presence of people protesting Brokeback Mountain.Which begs the question, why?

 

It takes a special kind of man to have his penis compared to Jane Mansfield's breasts, but that's how John Waters describes gay icon Peter Berlin in a clip from That Man: Peter Berlin, which opens today in New York City. Berlin, a pornstar who spent the 60s, 70s, and 80s starring in porn films, modeling, and getting photographed by the likes of Warhol and Mapplethorpe, was the inspiration for Owen Wilson's character in Zoolander. The "legend," now 63, also created his own clothing to accent some of his body's more "impressive" features. I understand why he would want to flaunt it, but at the same time I think I'd feel uncomfortable being too exposed. I imagine some scenario where I'm suddenly being chased by a moose and have to leap a barbed wire fence to save myself. I'm just saying I'd like to be better protected in that instance. That probably doesn't happen in NYC very often, but still, one has to be cautious. Berlin's next project, he claims, will involve numerous video tapes he's created of himself having sex. Also, tapes of himself watching himself have sex on tape. He has lots of sex, I think that's what we're supposed to derive from this.

Ian says it's great, but Rupert isn't so sure. What exactly? Coming out as gay or lesbian in Hollywood. Ian McKellen claims his career took off when he announced to everyone without gaydar that he was in fact a homosexual. Rupert Everett, however, doesn't think Hollywood is quite as accepting just yet. He claims he was unable to reach the "next stage" of his career after he came out. Having heard these arguments from both actors, I wonder how much being gay really had to do with their career arcs. It seems McKellen, right or wrong, is simply getting better roles than Everett, and I'm not entirely sure how significant sexual preference is in this particular instance.