Red, White and Royal Blue On Amazon Prime August 11

[Marc in Calif]

4 minutes ago, dutchal said:

You would be correct, sir.  The dog got me up at 4:00 a.m.

Just as long as he didn't eat your homework! 😃

[+ stevenkesslar]

On 2/12/2024 at 11:33 PM, BSR said:

Did we see the same movie??

 

On 2/13/2024 at 7:29 AM, sync said:

Yes, just differently.

Of recent movies that have been commented on extensively here, I think the interesting comparison is between RWRB and Saltburn.  For me, Saltburn is a celebration of cynicism and excess which, like many others, I did not like.  I loved RWRB for what I think both the book and film were meant to be:  a sweet and positive LGBTQ fairy tale. 

And mind you, it's not a Gay fairy tale.  The woman who wrote it wanted to be clear there's a B in LGBTQ.  These PC queers are insufferable, aren't they?  🙄  But I know some people didn't like the movie because it was so PC.  Perhaps being a possibly closeted homosexual (or sociopathic bisexual?) stalking a rich party boy is more interesting?  Who knows.  If I want The Talented Mr. Ripley, I can get a much better version of it.  By watching The Talented Mr. Ripley.

That said, there is no competition in one sense.  Taylor and Nick were stingy.    Yes, there was that dreamy look in Nick's eyes as he was penetrated. 

But only Jacob Elordi offered us an opportunity to lick his cum off the bathtub.  That counts for something.

Here's a third film to compare and contrast:  All Of Us Strangers.  Arguably, it is darker than Saltburn.  But only in the sense that, unlike Saltburn, it evokes real emotions about the Gay experience that anyone the age of the director or older can immediately relate to.  Like having to worry about bullies who dislike queer boys.  Or, worse, being the queer young man dying of AIDS.

Watching All Of Us Strangers, which is elegant and finely acted cinema in a way RWRB is not,  helped me realize why I really did love RWRB.  For the reasons I think the writer and director intended.  It is a positive story about the power of love.  And how we won, based on our willingness to fight for our love. 

You kind of get that from All Of Us Strangers.  You can have a really interesting debate, which director Andrew Haigh also intended, about whether and how Andrew Scott won his love at the end of the movie.  In RWRB, there was no question about who won who, and why. Like Heartstoppers, it's a wildly optimistic hug that now even The Gays acn win the love they truly want.

Happily, these days the kind of open and committed queer love portrayed in RWRB actually seems like real life, not a fairy tale.  And All Of Us Strangers feels like the true and real ghost story from the less fantastic LGBTQ past that will always haunt many of us.

The Queer Kids Are All Right. And Now They’re Making Me Better.

I'll end with that article.  I hope the hyperlink works.  It's a shared article someone posted on a different website.  It mentions RWRB, All of Us Strangers, and a lot of other recent LGBTQ movies. 

I like the author's idea that one function of these movies is that they offer a sort of "emotional reparations" for the double doses of love and support a lot of us did not necessarily get growing up.  Fellow Travelers certainly comes to mind, too, as a recent example of making wrongs right.  At least in cinema.   Of course, I understand why "reparations", even of an emotional sort, might not be a welcome idea among many.

Edited February 15 by stevenkesslar