The Adjuster (1992)

Insurance Adjuster Noah Render (Elias Koteas) works with people who have suffered the loss of their homes and other disasters in Canada. He gets a little too involved with his clients, taking advantage of their vulnerability to control their lives--while only having superficial interactions with his own wife Hera (Arsinée Khanjian), who secretly videotapes the porn films she watches for a government censor board. There are various other characters who come into contact with the pair and sexual fantasies are the main theme that drives the story forward. "Was this a purebred?" Noah asks a gay couple whose dog still smolders in the ashes of their apartment. When another couple, Bubba (Maury Chaykin) and Mimi (Gabrielle Rose), poses as part of a film crew who want to use Noah and Hera's house, Noah moves his family into the motel where he houses his displaced clients, bringing his separate worlds too close together. The ending quotes from "The Sound of Music" in a comic horror finale. One of the main characters--unable to "play house" anymore decides to burn down the Insurance Adjuster's house he has rented, and starts singing "My Favorite Things" as he proceeds to extinguish them all.

There is very little plot, but this sex comedy does have some very memorable characters and it has a good climax. Though initially mysterious and distanced, "The Adjuster" builds to a sense of loss and sorrow. As in his earlier films, director Atom Egoyan explores how people evade and contain the traumas in their lives. Wicked, darkly funny, sexy, it's perhaps the most successful critique of consumer society ever filmed. It's a strange, repetitious, surreal, confusing, disturbing, and hilarious film. Not all viewers like it, of course. Mychael Danna composed the original music, and Atom Egoyan wrote the screenplay and directed.

Pink Narcissus (1971)

"Pink Narcissus" is a drama visualizing the erotic fantasies of incredibly handsome male prostitute Pan (Bobby Kendall). Between visits from his keeper, or john, he is alone in his apartment and fantasizes about worlds where he is the central character. Obsessed with his own beauty and youth, he escapes the realities of street life through intricately choreographed fantasies. He portrays a Roman slave boy and the emperor who condemns him, a matador, a wood nymph, and the keeper of a male harem for whom another male performs a belly dance. Characterized by bright colors and highly stylized sets, props, and costumes, this film shows that the fantasies allow him to escape the harsh realities of his life in a creative slice of gay erotic cinema.

This cult classic is very highly regarded for its artistic production values, and less for its narrative. The movie was mostly shot on 8 mm film with bright lighting. Aside from its last climactic scene, which was shot in a downtown Manhattan loft, it was produced entirely (including outdoor scenes) in a small New York apartment over a seven year period (from 1963 to 1970) and released without the director's consent, who therefore had himself credited as Anonymous. It was not widely known who had created the movie, and there were rumors Andy Warhol was behind it. In the mid-1990s, writer Bruce Benderson, who was obsessed with the film, began a search for its maker based on several leads and finally verified that it was James Bidgood, who was still living in Manhattan and was working on a film script.

In 1999, a book researched and written by Benderson was published by Taschen about Bidgood's body of photographic and film work. The French DVD of "Pink Narcissus" includes the 2000 documentary "The Queer Reveries of James Bidgood". Bidgood's unique kitschy style has been imitated and refined by artists such as Pierre et Gilles. Written, produced, filmed, and directed by James Bidgood.

After Hours (1985)

Yuppie NYC office worker Paul Hacketts (Griffin Dunne) has "a very strange night" when he meets Marcy Franklin (Rosanna Arquette) at a coffee shop after work in SoHo, and gets her phone number. He calls her, she asks him to come over, they discuss Henry Miller, then things take a turn for the bizarre. His money flies out the cab window and he is stuck in SoHo. It turns into a waking nightmare when one mishap after another strands him in a hostile neighborhood in his quest to return home before morning. Two leather gays are shown kissing, a sure sign that there's something radically wrong. He finds himself the accused suspect in a string of burglaries in the neighborhood, becomes the object of a witch hunt by a posse of SoHo denizens, and can't find a way to get back uptown.

Paul spends the rest of the night trying to get home, dealing with angry cabbies, dead women (and their bartender husbands), clumsy catburglars, quirky sculptresses, unstable waitresses, condescending bouncers, and irate mobs led by ice cream truck drivers. The most offbeat character is neurotic Julie (Teri Garr) and the moment when Paul uses his last quarter to play Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is" and dances with June (Verna Bloom) while an angry mob searches SoHo for him is an inspired bit of lunacy. Strangely, the seemingly disconnected events are interwoven in unusual and unexpected ways.

This black comedy becomes increasingly surreal. Many will find the jokes clever and funny. Others may find the film an excruciating series of staged circumstances setting up a sadistically cruel dark nightmare of horrors. A few lines of dialogue are so poorly written they remind you how unbelievable the thin story really is. But forgive the film these few lapses--overall it's a wild, entertaining ride with great performances, including a cameo by Cheech and Chong. The film is based on a screenplay that Joseph Minion wrote as part of an assignment for a film course at Columbia University. Howard Shore composed the original music, and Martin Scorsese directed.

Bloodbrothers (1978)

This hard hitting yet sensitive film is about a blue collar family living in a working class neighborhood in the Bronx, and the ups and downs that they go through. The De Coco's are an Italian/American family with two sons. Thomas Stony (Richard Gere) is torn between being a construction worker and working as a recreational assistant at a local hospital. In the hospital Stony want's to help young children with severe emotional problems like his younger brother Albert (Michael Hershewe), who is constantly being harassed by his mother Marie (Lelia Goldoni) and father Tommy (Tony Lo Bianco).

Uncle Louis Chubby (Paul Sorvino) is a combative and drunken construction worker, following in the footsteps of his younger brother Tommy. Macho in the extreme, these guys have no time for the sensitive moral quandaries of Stony and Albert. Tommy's womanizing leads his wife to try to have an affair with weirdo Jackie (Raymond Singer), who lives in their apartment building. When Tommy finds out about this supposed affair from a phone call from Jackie's mother, he goes haywire and almost kills Marie and ends up in the hospital with an emotional breakdown.

There is a subplot involving bartender Banion (Kenneth McMillan) who cannot reach out to his gay son. He threw his son Paulie (Bruce French) out of the house when he found out that he was gay. Chubby tells his friend Banion a moving story about his own son who tragically died in infancy. Almost in tears Chubby explains how he loved and looked after his nephew Stony as the son he lost. Chubby tries to get both father and son back together later by going to Buccellati Jewelry on Fifth Avenue where Paulie works to get him to attend his father's birthday party. Paulie not only refuses to show up at the party but doesn't even want to sign a birthday card for his father that Chubby gives him. Stony decides to leave home with his younger brother Albert for good. In an attempt to say goodbye, he has an emotionally packed confrontation with his father and uncle, one of the best of many great scenes in the movie.

This overblown soap opera races from childhood anorexia to adolescent sexual trauma via wife-battering. Stony, as the school drop out who wants to be a social worker but comes up against his father, is fine, but his performance is mangled by the movie's glorification of the macho ethos. The pacing is less than ideal and the film is halfway through before it becomes clear where the story is going. Broader social and personal issues in the film are never satisfactorily developed. As an acting showcase it is good, but overall it's not so good. "Bloodbrothers" is a moving and tragic film with a great and stirring musical score that shows that there is nothing uninteresting about working people. Elmer Bernstein composed the original music. Walter Newman wrote the screenplay from Richard Price's novel, but made too many changes to its source. Robert Mulligan directed, and also recut the 116 minute film to a 98 minute version.

The Next Best Thing (2000)

Abbie Reynolds (Madonna) and Robert Whittaker (Rupert Everett) fall into an amorous embrace on a fateful 4th of July after a few too many martinis. Robert is a landscaper and gay, which complicates things. Abbie is a yoga instructor who confesses a few weeks later that she is pregnant. Six years later, Robert, Abbie, and their son Sam (Malcolm Stumpf) are living together peacefully and happily--that is, until hunky investment banker Ben Cooper (Benjamin Bratt) starts making eyes at Abbie, throwing their alternative family into disarray. The relationship of a gay man, straight woman, and child falls apart when Abbie falls in love with Ben and wants to move away with him and Robert's little boy, Sam. A nasty, full-of-surprises custody battle ensues between Abbie and Robert.

This comedy-drama was a critical and commercial flop. Madonna won a Razzie award for worst actress, and the film was nominated for other Razzies including Worst Director, Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay. Critic Roger Ebert gave the movie 1 star, stating: "The Next Best Thing is a garage sale of gay issues, harnessed to a plot as exhausted as a junkman's horse." The inept screenplay has cardboard dialogue that sounds like first-draft material--including wailing by Madonna about how she can't find a man, and a gym-buffed Everett complaining about gay male body image.

The movie stumbles from domestic comedy to custody-suit tragedy when it takes a bizarre left turn in the third act. Any statements about new definitions of family are buried underneath these events, which provide teary courtroom outbursts for both leads. Everett has a quick way with a one-liner, and Madonna is more relaxed than she's ever been in a film, but they are just in front of the camera with no help from the supporting cast. Music from the movie is a soundtrack including two songs by singer Madonna, "American Pie" and "Time Stood Still". Tom Ropelewski wrote the screenplay and John Schlesinger directed.

Velocity of Gary (1999)

Valentino (Vincent D'Onofrio) is a former bisexual porn star who is slowly dying of AIDS. He's also one third of a ménage à trois that includes his obnoxious waitress girlfriend Mary Carmen (Salma Hayek) and his boyfriend Gary (Thomas Jane). Gary, a young hustler, resents Mary, but they put aside their differences when Valentino is diagnosed with AIDS, creating a makeshift family to mutually love and support him to the tragic end.

The film opens with Gary (not his real name, nor is it ever revealed), walking through the streets of New York City, cruising to pick up a guy or two. On the way, he saves a deaf drag queen from a group of gay bashers, but regrets it when he follows him everywhere. Enter Mary Carmen, the Latina who is in love with Valentino, Throughout the movie, Mary Carmen and Gary argue over what kind of care he should be receiving, and who is going to supply that care. The real waves of emotion come when the time for Valentino's impending death becomes very short, and the three of them begin to take stock of themselves as well as their relationship with one another.

This movie has good dialogue. The line, "Gary dreams about kissing someone so hard his mouth hurts. He dreams about kissing someone so soft his heart hurts, so long his neck hurts, so deep his throat hurts. Gary dreams about kissing someone so. . . completely that nothing hurts," is genius on the part of the writers. The sexual inuendo in the film, such as the kiss between Valentino and Gary in the phone room, takes it as far as it can without going into the extreme, and the passion between characters is very evident. Searching for one's purpose in life and where life goes is underlined in this movie, which will move its open-minded viewers to tears of sadness as well as joy.

But the movie comes across like a housewife's idea of what life is like "on the edge"--teeming with drugs, wild dancing, and drag queens. There's even a deaf, transgendered, Patsy Cline-wannabe who gets hit by a car while trying to call for an ambulance. The film tries so hard to be outrageous that it's almost offensive--everybody is so busy being dangerously fabulous that nobody seems human. Peitor Angell composed the original music, James Still wrote the screenplay, and Dan Ireland directed.

My Night with Reg (1996)

Set among London's gay community in the mid-1980s against the background of the mounting AIDS crisis, "My Night with Reg" follows the ups and downs of a circle of gay friends over a period of several years. One of the group, the Reg mentioned in the title, is the center of the film, and the whole plot revolves around his sexual promiscuity and the chain reaction of deception and betrayal set off by it. The group of English gay friends get together to reminisce. They are all coming from a wake for a friend in their circle who has died of AIDS. It's that terrifying time between the outbreak of AIDS and the development of an AIDS test and as the conversation unfolds it becomes apparent that each man there has had unprotected sex with the deceased.

The group, most of them in their thirties, meet at irregular intervals, often at Guy's place. Guy (David Bamber) is a lonely man. Ever since their university days, he has had a crush on John (Anthony Calf) but he has never dared to tell him about it. Instead he lives a solitary life, which he spices up with phone sex and occasional visits to a gay pub, where he meets 18 year-old Eric (Joe Duttine), who then helps him decorate his new flat. On holiday on the island of Lanzarote, he meets a gay man who eventually forces himself on Guy and has unprotected sex with him. At his flatwarming party, he has just come back from his holiday and is still quite shocked about what happened. It is hard for him not to start crying when, as a present, John gives him a cookery book specializing in dishes for one.

The most popular man in the gay circle is Reg, who is conspicuously absent from the party. Reg has had a long-term relationship with Daniel (John Sessions), but Daniel suspects Reg of occasionally being unfaithful to him. In fact, Reg seems to be sleeping with every man he can get hold of (as it seems, even with the vicar). Eventually John, Benny (Kenneth MacDonald) and even his seemingly faithful companion Bernie (Roger Frost) have secret sex with Reg. Ironically, they all confide in Guy. It hurts Guy most to hear that John is having an affair with Reg, thus betraying their mutual friend Daniel. After his fling with Reg, Benny panics because he thinks he might have contracted HIV, but he does not confess it to his partner, Bernie.

When Reg is dying from AIDS, he is looked after by his partner, Daniel. Ironically, the next one to die is Guy, the only one who has not had sex with Reg and who seems to have been infected with AIDS when he was raped during his holiday in Lanzarote. Guy bequeaths his new flat to the love of his life, John, who somewhere in the flat finds all kinds of memorabilia dating back to their student days.

This made for TV BBC production has been described as "a poignant, beautifully written play, warm and funny, but also completely believable, with characters who are more than just ciphers or symbols and emotional themes which are more than just rhetorical window-dressing." Kevin Elyot adapted the screenplay from his own Broadway production of the London hit play of the same title. Roger Michell directed.

Love and Death on Long Island (1997)

This updated "Death in Venice" is about Giles De'Ath (John Hurt), a stuffy British widower and author who doesn't like anything modern. He reminds people that his surname is pronounced "Day-ath," Giles gets locked out of his house one day and decides to see an E. M. Forrester movie adaptation at a cinema to pass the time. He mistakenly goes into the wrong theater and, as he is about to leave the American teenager comedy "Hot Pants College II", notices young actor Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley) who immediately strikes his fancy. He then investigates everything about the movie and Ronnie. From there, we go on a journey with Giles as his attraction to the mediocre actor goes from slight interest to an obsession.

Giles travels to Chesterton, Long Island where Ronnie lives and meets him, pretending that Ronnie is a great actor and that's why he admires him. He wants to change Ronnie's career from low-brow to high-brow and start a new career in Europe. Audrey (Fiona Loewi) is the teen idol's fashion model girlfriend, considerably sharper than she first appears. Hurt's futile but brilliant attempts to seduce Ronnie under Audrey's nose is both poignant and hilarious. His meeting with him in some ways pushes the reserved writer's emotional threshold over the top. We come to see Giles as half stalker, half poète maudit, transfigured by a romantic obsession. The subtext of homosexuality is too obvious to be taken seriously, for the real subtext is something more subtle. This movie shows that the love you feel with your eyes and ears is more meaningful than anything that happens below the waist. In the diner scene near the end, Giles admits to Ronnie that he feels love. Ronnie rejects him. The few scenes after that show that Giles' life has been greatly enriched by his non-physical experiences with the heartthrob actor.

The homosexual undercurrent in this wry, offbeat comedy can play comfortably in front of straight viewers looking for humor, satire, crisp writing, fresh perspectives, and great acting. Based on the acclaimed short novel by Gilbert Adair, the screenplay was written by Richard Kwietniowski, who also directed..

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a bisexual glam rock star patterned mostly after David Bowie in the 1970s and 80s. Slade inspires teenage boys and girls to paint their nails and explore their own sexuality. Unable to escape the role he created for himself, he plots his own murder. In the end he destroys himself, but when his fans discover that the murder is a fake, his popularity declines and he is all but forgotten. Another rock star, Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor) is a genre defying performer who doesn't back down from sex, nudity, or drugs on or off stage, and who is based on Iggy Pop and Lou Reed (whose parents sent him to electroshock therapy to "cure" his homosexuality).

The story follows a British journalist, Arthur Stewart (Christian Bale), who has to search his own past when writing an article about the mysterious disappearance of Brian Slade for an American periodical. The film turns Slade's paranoia of being murdered during a concert (a paranoia that Bowie incorporated into the "Ziggy Stardust" story in the climax of the "Ziggy Stardust" album) into a career-ending publicity stunt by Slade, after which he gradually disappears from the public view. As Stewart locates and talks with people connected to Slade, trying to find out what happened, he revisits the glam-rock scene of the 70s in a series of vignettes, which recreate the stories of Slade, Wild, and others involved in their lives.

The tale strongly parallels Bowie and Iggy Pop's relationship in the 1970s and 1980s, with parallel stages in both stories. Brian Slade's gradually overwhelming on-stage persona of "Maxwell Demon" and his backing band, "Venus in Furs", likewise bear a resemblance to Bowie's similar persona and backing band, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. And like the relationship of Slade and Wild, Bowie produced records with both Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.

Although the character of Brian Slade is heavily based on David Bowie, Bowie disliked the script and refused to allow his songs in the film. The soundtrack features new songs written for the movie by Pulp, Shudder To Think, and Grant Lee Buffalo, as well as many early glam rock compositions, both covers and original versions. The title of the movie takes its name from the song "Velvet Goldmine", written by David Bowie. Lead character Brian Slade is an allusion to the 1970s glam band Slade, and the name of Slade's persona "Maxwell Demon" is from Brian Eno's first band. Curt Wild's backing band, The Rats, shares its name with one of Mick Ronson's earliest groups, and also alludes to Iggy Pop's band, The Stooges (both words are terms for someone who is an informer). "Venus in Furs" is a reference to Lou Reed's Velvet Underground song of the same name. Carter Burwell and Craig Wedren composed the original music, and Todd Haynes wrote the screenplay from his story co-written with James Lyons. Todd Haynes directed.

Opposite of Sex (1998)

On the death of her stepfather, perky 16 year-old Louisiana girl Dede Truitt (Christina Ricci) moves in with her gay schoolteacher half-brother Bill (Martin Donovan) and immediately starts coming on to his sexual partner Matt Mateo (Ivan Sergei), finally forcing him into an affair in which she becomes pregnant. She tricks him into believing he impregnated her, but in fact the father of her child is her ex-boyfriend Randy "One Ball" Cates (William Lee Scott). She and Matt elope, leaving Bill and his uptight best friend Lucia DeLury (Lisa Kudrow), the sister of Bill's deceased previous lover, to try and track them down and sort out the mess.

In the meantime, Matt's "bit on the side," Jason Bock (Johnny Galecki), attempts to blackmail Bill, claiming he sexually assaulted him while he was a student, causing much media attention. As the situation snowballs, the only person who sees what Dede is up to is the frustrated acid-tongued Lucia. The whole affair blows into a scandal exposing her school teacher brother and the true parent of the child is called into question as it is revealed that there have been a series of lovers. The film's climax is set in Canada where all of the characters finally meet up, and where Deedee gives birth to her son Randy Jr.

After the birth, Dede goes to prison for a few months, then moves back in with Bill, while Matt and Jason travel together, and Lucia marries her old friend Sheriff Carl Tippett (Lyle Lovett). Narrating the ending, Dede sarcastically concludes that sex is the opposite of what people really want, leading to kids, disease, and relationships. At the end of the film, the vignettes of the various caring relationships among the characters shows the opposite of superficial sexual gratification.

This film is a black comedy, narrated by and centered around self-absorbed, manipulative, cynical teenager Dede who manages to destroy the lives of everyone she meets. There is some heart underneath all the back-stabbing, betrayals, crime, and seediness. Janet Maslin in The New York Times called it a "gleefully acerbic comedy". Film critic Roger Ebert enjoyed the voice-over narration supplied in-character by Ricci, calling it "refreshing" and comparing it to "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Mason Daring composed the original music, and Don Roos wrote the screenplay and directed.