CinemaQueer / Gay Film Reviews / Reviews Of Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Cinema


GAY FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM

The What, Where, & When of Gay Buffalo Serving Western New York Home To My Reviews Since 1998 Publisher: Tim Moran Click To Search This Site In Memory Of Mike Maffei 3/20/53 - 12/28/06 Mike was a beloved figure in Buffalo's local folk music/coffeehouse scene. Mike lived for almost 17 years with AIDS. His activism was widely admired and to know Mike was to feel inspired. more	Cinemaqueer.com is a collection of over 350 gay themed film reviews that I penned from 1998 - 2015. Many were originally published in Buffalo’s monthly gay newspaper, Outcome. Over the last years, my output has dropped drastically - largely due to my night job that has infringed on all the free time that I used to devote to watching new queer films. My final review (season three of Old Dogs & New Tricks) was posted over a year ago. I feel that I am out of touch with queer cinema’s latest trends; there is too much out there now to keep abreast of, considering the limited time that I have. And so, while I might still occasionally pen a new review if the mood strikes me, I have decided to officially “retire.” Over the years, I've discovered I have been quoted in academic dissertations and it pleases me that people find my site to be a useful research tool. Therefore, I am not retiring the site, and my writings will remain online. I do not consider myself to be the last word on the subject, but my insights are based on personal observations that date as far back as the late 1970s. I have watched the development of queer cinema for almost forty years and I like to think that I bring to my writings a historical context that is severely lacking in much of the online film criticism that I read today. Therefore, I hope that the LGBTQ community will still enjoy the extensive content available on Cinemaqueer.com. Michael D. Klemm August, 2016











	*Brokeback Mountain* is the Citizen Kane of queer cinema. Some films make an impact on their first release only to be forgotten later. This one has lost none of its raw power. Brokeback Mountain was the breakthrough film that we awaited for decades. It was an exquisitely crafted movie, a critical and commercial success, and a surprise crossover hit. Conservative pundits and the family councils all went into apoplexy, jokes were made by comedians, and the mythology of the American cowboy underwent a major revision. But, above all, Brokeback Mountain was a love story that resonated with audiences both gay and straight.

	According to popular legend, playwright Tennessee Williams underwent psychoanalysis in 1957 to "cure" his homosexuality and the play Suddenly Last Summer was the result. This is inaccurate; the truth is much more complicated than that. Many view Suddenly Last Summer, especially the film version, as being one of the ultimate artistic expressions of a self loathing queer. The inclusion of a negatively portrayed homosexual is hardly proof of this; Williams' fiction is populated with far more grotesque examples of heterosexuals.

	Edwardian England was not a good time to be gay. The climate was so bad that noted novelist E.M. Forster began writing a book with a homosexual hero in 1913 that he never published in his lifetime. That book, of course, is Maurice and, in 1987, Merchant Ivory Productions adapted the book to the screen. The film features superb performances and a meticulous attention to period detail. It is a rich filmgoing experience and one of the most beautiful films in all of queer cinema.