Movies in the Fall of 1985: Tim Curry Plays Straight, Michael J. Fox Plays Homophobic, a Teen Nerd Bulges, and a Gay Couple Splashes

 I already covered the years 1984-85 and 1986, so this is filling in the blanks.  I move to West Hollywood in June 1985, found a small apartment (actually a one-room cottage) and three part time jobs, and began the whirl of life in a gay neighborhood: gay church, bookstore, supermarket, gym, laundromat, cookie place.  Apparently I had not yet been socialized into the rule of never setting foot outside a gay neighborhood, if you can help it, so I left often: 11 movies in theaters, as many in six months as I would see in a whole year later on.

August: Weird Science. Two nerds use weird science to build a woman, who becomes a big sister rather than a sex toy (not to worry, they both meet the Girls of their Dreams).  Lots of male nudity, including an underwear scene with Ilan Mitchell-Smith, who would go on to become a history professor.

August: Teen Wolf.  I had just met Michael J. Fox, so I was curious to see if there were any gay subtexts in this story of a boy who "comes out" as a werewolf.  Nope: "I'm not a fag, I'm a werewolf."

September: After Hours,  which would become one of my favorite movies. Griffin Dunne (previously seen in American Werewolf in London) get swept up in the bizarre, surreal world of New York City after hours.  Gay characters are presented matter-of- factly, and even kiss.  I guess the producers thought it would be ok if they only inhabited an underground night world.

October: Dreamchild.  The elderly Mrs. Hargreaves, who inspired Alice in Wonderland when she was a girl, deals with reporters, tabloids, and her conflicting memories of Lewis Carroll.  I went with a guy who had no idea what was going on, since he never heard of Alice in Wonderland.  How is that possible?  (He also didn't know that the Wizard of Oz movie was based on a book series.)

October: Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. It was nice to be able to go to a gay-themed movie without having to drive 50 miles to a theater in a different city.  Unfortunately, this one closets the gay novelist, making his obsession with muscles irrelevant to his heterosexual identity. 

October: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.  Obviously the producers were expecting a blockbuster, followed by numerous sequels and an action hero as iconic as Rambo.  But Fred Ward (Remo) was no Sylvester Stallone. Hint: have him take off his clothes!

October: The Silver Bullet. I may have seen this one on tv later.  Teen idol Corey Haim, in a wheelchair, fights werewolves and wins the Girl of His Dreams.

November: My Beautiful Laundrette. A gay couple in modern Britain fight homophobia, racism, and culture clashes.  I don't remember much about it; maybe I was planning to see it, but didn't, for some reason.

November: Bad Medicine. Steve Guttenberg (sigh) goes to med school in a racist-stereotype Central American banana republic, butts heads with the evil Dean, and wins the Girl of His Dreams. It's hot down there; why doesn't he take off his shirt now and then?

December: Clue: The logical-deduction murder-mystery game brought to life, with six strangers played by recognizable 1980s stars.  All have dark secrets, and of course Mr. Green's dark secret is being gay (except, in one of the three variant endings, he turns out to be a straight undercover cop).  Tim Curry plays the butler Wadsworth, who is also straight.

December: Legend: In a fairytale world, a princess and a bad boy (Tom Cruise) fight a demon played by Tim Curry.  Why did we keep expecting him to play gay characters?  He was obviously trying to disassociate himself from Rocky Horror by playing as many straight/masculine guys as possible. 

10 Things I Hate About the Wizard of Oz

From 1959 to 1991, The Wizard of Oz, was shown on tv every year, on CBS until 1968, and then on NBC.

Nazarenes weren't allowed to go to movie theaters, but watching movies on tv was fine, so our parents sat us down every year and forced us to watch the "beloved children's classic."

Apparently it was shown in November or December, but I remember it in the springtime, one of the traumas of the end of the year.

It's old-fashioned, outdated, incomprehensible, and...well, horrifying.

1. 10-year old Dorothy, played by 16-year old Judy Garland, the queen of angst, lives a horrible life on a Depression-Era Dustbowl farm in black-and-white Kansas. Her parents are dead; her elderly Uncle and Aunt appear to be raising man-eating pigs.

 Her only source of joy is her dog Toto, but the evil Miss Gulch is planning to take him away and have him killed.  So Dorothy dreams of going to a place where there "isn't any trouble."

2. A giant tornado destroys her home and zaps Dorothy off to Oz, where at least things are in color, but the main residents are disturbing munchkins.  They look like little adults with mouth deformities, and walk like they have cerebral palsy. Could this be the place with no trouble?

3. Dorothy has accidentally killed the dictator of Munchkin land and stolen her ruby slippers, which apparently are powerful.  The Wicked Witch of the West, the dictator of Winkie Land, shows up.  She thinks Dorothy is hot ("I'll get you, my pretty")  But she wants to kill her anyway, get the slippers, and take over Munchkin land.

In Oz five minutes, and Dorothy has already started a war and gotten a death threat. No wonder she wants to go home to Kansas.

4. She goes on a journey through an empty postapocalyptic Oz to get to the Emerald City and ask the assistance of the great and powerful Wizard.  Along the way she picks up adult male companions, mutants with their own quests: a brain, a heart, the "noive."

She's uncomfortably intimate with the Cowardly Lion.

Meanwhile the Witch burns, poisons, and otherwise terrorizes the group.  I hated the poppy field -- that's opium poppies, the source of heroin -- where Dorothy and company are almost smothered to death.

Incomprehensible: when the Scarecrow's body is torn up and scattered around, the Tin Man says "That's you all over," punning on a 1930s slang phrase meaning "That's just like you."   Who makes a joke about a friend being torn to pieces?

5. At the Emerald City, where the bourgeoisie live in glorious excess and ignore the deprivations of the proletariat, Dorothy and company enjoy a spa day.  Dorothy asks about getting her eyes dyed, which is disgusting.  There's an incomprehensible reference to "a horse of a different color": another pun on a 1930s slang phrase meaning "that's different."

6. After trying to terrorize the Fellowship of the Ring for awhile, the Wizard says he'll help, but only if they steal the Witch's broom.

They undertake a second long and perilous journey to the Witch's castle, where they are captured.  The flying monkeys are horrifying, as is the hourglass that counts out the minutes Dorothy has to live.  Nightmare time!

After almost being murdered, Dorothy melts the witch, frees her slaves -- at least in The Wiz, they were hunky guys in speedos -- and brings the broom back to the Wizard.

7. Who has no power at all!  He's a complete fraud!  He sent her on the quest assuming she would be killed, and his secret would be safe. Too cowardly to commit your own murders, Wiz?

The Wizard suggests that, instead of real skills, the companions defraud their way through life.  For instance, the Scarecrow gets a diploma he didn't earn and spouts some gibberish that sounds brainy but isn't.  He'll probably become a math professor.

Unfortunately, Dorothy can't defraud her back to Kansas.

8. Glinda the Good Witch, the dictator of Gillikan Land, shows up and, with an infuriating smirk, tells Dorothy that she always had the power to go home.

Why not tell her this before she went through all of the agony and terror, you sadistic jerk?

Were you trying to get her to do your dirty work for you, assassinate two world leaders so you could consolidate your power?  Were you the brains behind this whole trip?

And why is the matra that takes you back to Kansas "There's no place like home"?  That is, don't stay in Oz.  Is Glinda worried that if Dorothy sticks around, she will be a threat to her power?

9.  Upon arriving back in Kansas, Dorothy discovers that it was all a dream that occurred when she hit her head during the tornado.  All of that trouble, pain, betrayal, fraud, and behind-the-scene machinations for nothing.  Besides, the plot about Miss Gulch taking away Toto is never resolved. Dorothy's life is still horrible.

10. After all that, there are no same-sex relationships, and there's no beefcake. Where's the gay content?  (The "dandy-lion" line doesn't count.)

Oh, well, here's a picture of a shirtless guy.

See also: The Wiz; The Boys and Men of Oz