Amazon Prime's Gay Movie Bonanza

 

Amazon Prime's recommendations this morning are surprisingly gay-inclusive.

1. From Zero to I Love You:  A gay guy (left) falls in love with a guy with "a perfect wife and children."  Gay Theme

2. Complete Strangers: A gay guy returns to his home town and falls in love with a local. Gay Theme

3. Akron: Two college football players fall in love.  A lot of that going around. Gay Theme

4. A Needle in a Time Stack: The trailer shows a man (Leslie Odom Jr.) and a woman kissing a lot, so probably not.  And no time travel.

5. The Carmilla Movie: Some sort of sequel about two ex-vampire girlfriends living in an apartment in Toronto. Gay Theme

6. Gehraiyaan: A South Asian woman apparently falls in love with her cousin's boyfriend.

7. The Late Bloomer: A man enters puberty in his 30s.  The trailer shows him kissing a woman for about 5 minutes.

8. Crazy on the Outside: Tim Allen is released from prison, gets a job as a pirate, and kisses a woman for about 10 minutes.

9. Boys: Two high school runners fall in love.  Do you know how many movies are entitled "Boys"?  A lot.  This one is from the Netherlands, so its original title is Jongen, which helps narrow it down.  The Boys are Gijs Blom and Ko Zandvliet. Gay Theme.

10. Priest: The priest is "a secret homosexual."  The use of the h-word is a telltale sign of homophobia.  The Wikipedia plot summary: whew, all "homosexual" all the time.  But I'll count it. Gay Theme.

11. Mulligans. Dad (Dan Payne, left) falls in love with his son's college buddy, and all hell breaks loose.  Whew, every single person in his family is a rabid homophobe. At least the Wikipedia summary doesn't use "homosexual" all the time.  Gay Theme.

12. Scenes of a Sexual Nature:  I think  I reviewed this.  Seven couples, including a gay one, discuss sex and relationships in a London park.  One out of seven doesn't count.

13. The Voyeurs: Heterosexual couple spies on the neighbors and become obsessed. Ben Hardy plays one of their obsessions.  As far as I can tell, there's nothing gay here, or even bi.

14. Alienated: A guy falls in love with a female space alien.

15. The Crime of Padre Amaro: The description tells us that his crime has something to do with "sexual passions," so maybe he's gay.  Nope: Wikipedia tells us that he dates a girl.

16. Bad Cupid: The trailer makes no sense.  Looks like a heterosexual couple having an adventure involving gangsters?  According to the Roger Ebert review, it features an actual cupid: a nasty, drunken, abusive lout. His clients are all heterosexual.

17. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.  From 1970.  Is this the one where Holmes explains "Watson and I have been together for several years.  Women...are not our cup of tea."  Nope, but director Billy Wilder did state that he was trying to portray Holmes as "a repressed homosexual."  There's that H-word again.  Gay Theme.

18. I am a Dragon.  A Russian movie about a girl who falls in love with a boy dragon.

19. Just a Gigolo.  From 1978.  After World War I, a soldier (David Bowie) becomes a hustler in a brothel run by Marlene Dietrich. Sounds campy, but the reviews said "interminable," "clumsy," "a debacle," and "a flop."  He's got a closeted gay friend, but not enough for a "ay theme."

20. Jonathan.  Two "brothers" inhabit Ansel Elgort's  body (actually it's just a guy with multiple personalities).   Then they fall for the same woman.

7 out of 20, or about 30%.  Not bad. None of the gay-themed movies seem particularly compelling, but it's a lot better than endless dead wives and Girls of His Dreams.