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CP: I went through the 2005 book "101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men" and noted I have seen 59 of them. You?
RN: Fifty-five. Most of them were easy. What's that expression, shooting fish in a barrel? I mean, who hasn't seen -- and committed to memory -- "Valley of the Dolls" and "Parting Glances"? Still, I'm not entirely convinced of author Alonso Duralde's inclusion of "Moment by Moment," "Xanadu," "Mahogany." Yeah, they're high-camp stink bombs, but Hollywood is full of those.
CP: I loved that he named "Hedwig," "Female Trouble" and "Beautiful Thing," with that Mamas and Papas music. I wasn't sure if I should feel culturally superior for having seen so many of Duralde's picks, or deficient for scoring just over half.
RN: Same here. Maybe that makes us only three-fifths gay.
CP: What is it about our people and the film industry? I endorse this hortatory line by poet Frank O'Hara: "Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on!" Is there greater joy in life than phoning friends (or texting them) to recite great lines from movies, old and new?
RN: I know. For years, my friend David and I used to play dialogue from "All About Eve," "Moonstruck," "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills," "Rich and Famous" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" into one another's answering machines. I loved coming home and hearing Bette Davis screaming, "Cut, print it. What happens in the next reel? Do I get dragged off screaming to the snake pit?" And I had the voice of Elizabeth Taylor drawling, "Why can't you get ugly, Brick? Why can't you please get fat or ugly or something so I can stand it?" on my voice mail so often that I could do it better than she could. Maybe that's a divide between gay and straight men. The former can recite every word Joan Crawford uttered on celluloid. The latter does "You talkin' to me?" over and over like a dime-store De Niro.
CP: I used to get some of those messages, which were brill. One great thing about watching movies at home is the ability to pause and replay, until the killer line ("I wish I knew how to quit you") is committed to memory. I still tend to forget them, alas. Now, thank goodness, I can check quotes at IMDB.com.
RN: What is a gay movie, anyway?
CP: Good query, dearie. The Duralde book includes "Carrie" as a must-see movie. No gay plot or characters there, but the gays love that film because they identify with Sissy Spacek's outcast character.
RN: Yes, the misfit. We seem to identify with them the most -- it's all about discovering that you're the only boy in the eighth grade who subscribes to Vogue, right? -- and these film characters don't have to be same-sexers for us to worship them. I know this will come as a big surprise to you, but I lean toward the musicals: Liza in "Cabaret." Jennifer Hudson in "Dreamgirls." Even Tara Morice in "Strictly Ballroom," although that isn't strictly a musical. And the queen of them all, no pun intended: Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl."
CP: I was wondering when you were going to drop her name.
RN: Or Barbra in "The Way We Were." Ka-Ka-Ka-Katie! What about this proliferation of gay-themed movies, seemingly aimed at the relatively narrow gay audience? Most of them stink. For every "Latter Days," a person has to sit through "Adam & Steve."
CP: A lot of those movies go straight to video for a reason. Or they limp through a week at the Lagoon, then poof! But "Shelter," the heartfelt indie gay-surfer movie I just saw at Lagoon, was worth $9.
RN: I guess a gay movie is any one that we love.
CP: Or one that stars Jake Gyllenhaal.
Click on W.G.'s weekly podcast at www.startribune.com/withering. E-mail W.G. at witheringglance@startribune.com.
