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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Tomorrow Night: Rare Gay Cinema at NW Film Forum

posted by on April 16 at 12:40 PM

Tomorrow night at the Northwest Film Forum, Three Dollar Bill Cinema continues its “I Love the Nightlife” series with Some of My Best Friends Are…, Mervyn Nelson’s little-seen, barely-regarded, still-unreleased-on-DVD-or-video film of 1971, tracking a dramatic Christmas Eve in a Greenwich Village gay bar.

Here’s the trailer, which eschews actual film footage for a public service announcement about how seeing this film might break your brain.

As the preview puts it, “For those who can stand the truth…it is a provocative adult entertainment.”

As Vincent Canby’s New York Times review of October 28, 1971 puts it, “At one point or another in the film, Mr. Nelson manages to discover and exploit every stereotype of homosexual literature…When most of the characters in a movie are as full of dopey sentiments, as well as of self-hatred and of self-exploitation, as the movie that contains them, it’s almost impossible to differentiate between an intentional second-rateness and serious moviemaking of no great quality.”

I can’t wait! In fact, I’ll be introducing the movie at tomorrow night’s 7pm screening. Fans of gay history, camp film, and Rue McClanahan (who plays an aging fag-hag—she was already “aging” in 1971?) shouldn’t miss it.

RSS icon Comments

1

it would be worth the price of admission alone just to see rue mcclanahan on the big screen. jealous!!

Posted by brandon | April 16, 2008 1:15 PM
2

Would love to see this in a double feature with "The Boys in the Band." Let the self-loathing nostalgia begin!

Posted by Chris | April 16, 2008 1:18 PM
3

That actually sounds wildly entertaining, and I do have Friday off work...

Posted by Abby | April 16, 2008 2:37 PM

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