I had fun going through the list of wide-release movies from 30 years ago to find out what I watched in the theater back in West Hollywood. I'm not sure how much fun it was to read about it, but it was fun to research. Next up: 1993, where I saw 13 movies in the theater.
January: Matinee, because it featured a buddy-bond between monster-movie fan high schoolers Simon Fenton and Omri Katz (whom we knew from The Marshall Chronicles and Eerie, Indiana). They both get girlfriends while fighting off a movie-monster killer, but a trivial obstacle like a boy-girl fade-out kiss never stood in the way of true romance..
February; Groundhog Day. I don't remember why we saw it, since we weren't fans of Bill Murray (or any of the Saturday Night Live crew, whom we considered homophobic). Maybe the time-loop plot was sufficiently close to science fiction.
March: Swing Kids. Two guys (Christian Bale, top photo, Robert Sean Leonard) buddy-bond in a "decadent" swing club in Nazi Germany, until one is fully indoctrinated.
April: None
May: Cliffhanger. Actually a drama about mountain-climbing cops, with a dead girlfriend and a hetero-romance, but who cared? It featured Sylvester Stallone hanging from cliffs in a muscle-displaying outfit.
May (second movie of the month!): Super Mario Brothers. I never played the original video game, but who wouldn't want to see John Leguizamo with his shirt off (back when he was cute, before he got all bohemian and weird and started wearing gross rings).
June: Orlando, an adaption of the Virginia Woolf novel about a young man in the Elizabethan era who lives forever and eventually turns into a woman. It didn't make a lot of sense, but at least there was some queer symbolism.
June: Jurassic Park, because everyone saw it.
July: Hocus Pocus, because it starred the totally cute Omri Katz (see Matinee, above) fighting three reincarnated witches --played by the gay positive Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy). No actual gay content unless you include the witches' familiar, a sassy, feminine boy transformed into a black cat.
August: The Fugitive, because my boyfriend watched the original 1960s tv series about a man on the run because the cops think he killed his wife. In the movie version, Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) walks off into the sunset with Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), the federal marshall previously obsessed with his capture, and now his best friend.
August (second movie!): Surf Ninjas. Surfing and martial arts, two sure-fire ways to see beefcake. Turns out that the surf ninjas were rather young, but the oldest, Ernie Reyes Jr., was quite a hunk. Plus they have a gay -vague assistant.
August (third movie!): The Wedding Banquet, from Taiwain, about a man planning his wedding (to a woman) even though he has a boyfriend on the side. A gay theme! I think that 100% of the audience consisted of gay men.
September: None
October: The Beverly Hillbillies, because we watched the original show as kids (about noveau-riche hillbillies trying unsuccessfully to adjust to life in glamorous Beverly Hills). And because we wanted to see if the actor who plays Jethro (Diedrich Bader) takes his shirt off. He doesn't.
November: Addams Family Values, the second movie based on the macabre family that first appeared in single-panel comic strips by Charles Addams. Writer Paul Rudnick was gay, but it would mean box-office death to include anything specifically gay in the film. Nevertheless, the satire on Bush-era "family values" gave it a queer sensibility.
December: None. It's the dreaded Christmas season. Who has time?
Boomer have you seen "Top Gun Maverick" ? it's not as gay as the original but still has some subtext and lots of cute shirtless guys.
ReplyDeleteI actually never saw the original.
DeleteThe original film is one the gayest straight movies ever made
ReplyDeleteSo, the ones I saw back then:
ReplyDeleteSuper Mario Brothers was terrible and is probably a reason Brooklyn is non-canon now, but now we watch it to laugh at it. Then again, I'm not sure what to expect in a movie about a dude who jumps on turtles.
Can confirm. Everyone saw Jurassic Park, even if it made paleontologists cry.
I liked Surf Ninjas. I guess just the aesthetic. I was 10, sue me. Saw it at my favorite drive-in, which went defunct in the 00s.
Beverly Hillbillies was 100% forgettable.
Literally every Indian has memorized Wednesday's speech in Addams Family Values.