The Christmas Setup - a Gay Holiday (Christmas) Romance Where a Mom Tries to Set Up Her Grown Up Gay Son With the Guy He Crushed on Back in High School

Another movie I watched and really enjoyed over break was The Christmas Setup on Lifetime. 

Here's the synopsis:

New York lawyer Hugo (Ben Lewis) who heads to Milwaukee with his best friend Madelyn (Ellen Wong) to spend the holidays with his brother Aiden (Chad Connell) and his mom Kate (Fran Drescher), who is also in charge of the local Christmas celebrations. Ever the matchmaker, Kate arranges for Hugo to run into Patrick (Blake Lee), Hugo’s high school friend and secret crush, who has recently returned after a successful stint in Silicon Valley. As they enjoy the local holiday festivities together, Hugo and Patrick’s attraction to each other is undeniable and it looks as though Kate’s Santa-style matchmaking is a success. But as Hugo receives word of a big promotion requiring a move to London, he must decide what is most important to him.

And here's the trailer:

 

After a lifetime of watching hetero romance holiday movies, this was so cool and affirming - and really sweet!

Enjoy,
The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

The Prom - A small-town teen wants to attend Prom with her girlfriend. The PTA cancels prom to stop them. Enter four down-on-their-luck Broadway actors to save (screw up) the day!

Directed by Ryan Murphy, this adaptation of the Tony-Award nominated musical, itself inspired by real-life anti-queer prom shinanigans, is on Netflix. 

I watched it over break, and really loved it. With some great performances, heartfelt moments, and songs I'm still singing along to days later, check out The Prom. 

  

Here's the trailer:

   

 It's a fun way to start the new year! 

Enjoy!  

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

Grace and History: Moonlight is The First LGBTQ Film To Win The Best Picture Oscar

The Oscar awards show last night was loooong, and when La La Land was announced as the winner of Best Picture (3 hours and 38 minutes into the broadcast), I thought the whole thing was over.

It wasn't.

After three speeches, Jordan Horowitz (Producer of La La Land) approached the microphone and said, ""I'm sorry. No. There's a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture."

Then he held up the card for the cameras:

In what was truly a moment of grace, Jordan raised the Oscar statuette he had been mistakenly handed, and said,

"I'm going to be really proud to hand this to my friends from Moonlight."

And then the actual winners for Best Picture, the Moonlight team, took the stage, stunned, not sure if they could believe it...

Barry Jenkins (Director and Co-Writer of Moonlight) said:

"There was a time when I thought this movie was impossible."

It's an historic moment - Moonlight is the first LGBTQ film to win the Oscar for best picture.

And when, earlier in the evening, Moonlight won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney dedicated his win

"to all those black and brown boys and girls and non-gender-conforming who don't see themselves" in film.

Grace, and history. Here's the trailer for Moonlight:

Geography Club - The Movie! (A Special Saturday Post)

I'm pretty excited about this movie, based on the book by Brent Hartinger.

Here's the trailer:




I received a screener copy of the film from breaking glass pictures, and watched it this week. It's the kind of movie that would have rocked my world to see it as a teen, and there are some sweet, bitter, and bitter-sweet moments that are still with me.

The film is out this weekend, and you can find out more info here at the Geography Club website.

Have you seen it yet?  Add your review of the film in comments!

Namaste,
Lee

A Gay Valentine's Day Present For You

My giant thanks to Alex, for sharing this with me.

And my love to my husband. You give me goosebumps, too.

Namaste to all,
Lee

LOVE SUCKS! Good News for Gays and Vampires... And what would a gay vampire think of the movie "TWILIGHT?"

It's the question on everyone's mind, right?

Well, in honor of Valentine's Day (that's in red to remind you of hearts) and Friday the 13th (that's in red to remind you of blood) being back-to-back in the same week, here's my Second Video Blog ever.

And hey, the scoop on "TWILIGHT" is Free! In fact, the whole thing's free!

Enjoy...






Namaste,

Lee

High School Musical 3: Big Enough For 2 Sequels, Latino Teens, Black Teens, Overweight Teens, Jocks, Nerds, Rich, Poor... But Not A Single Gay Teen?!?

Oh, "High School Musical 3" was yet another frolic with

Zac Efron as Troy,

Vanessa Hudgens as Gabriella,

Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay,

Corbin Bleu as Chad,

Monique Coleman as Taylor,

Olesya Rulin as Kelsey, and...

Lucas Grabeel as Ryan.

Oh, Ryan.



It's 2008. Do we really have to have the "wink-wink-he-might-be-gay-from-all-the-clues" character?

Some "clues:"

Ryan dresses nattily. (And he'd know what "nattily" means - he's got his own style.)



Ryan's a "dancer/choreographer."



Ryan's pretty much always a smiling, trying to do the right thing, nice gay.
I mean, "guy." Nice guy. (He can't even go along with his mean sister, he's just too aw, shucks... nice.)





And in this episode - whoops- sorry about that - in this sequel, Ryan ends up taking lovable, bespectacled composer Kelsey to the Prom.



And it was at that moment that I wanted to SCREAM.

Okay, this movie has so little conflict, that I think if you timed out the moments when we were really concerned things might go wrong (the Wildcats might lose the game, Gabriella and Troy might not "work it out," the senior musi-cal might be a huge flop) I think you'd be hard pressed to find 10 minutes of tension in the entire 14 hour epic. (It wasn't 14 hours long? Really? I could have sworn...)

All the conflict (such as there was) was internal.

Inside me.

Watching this.

Wishing, hoping, that Ryan would come out, kiss the goofy is-he-going-to-graduate-or-not boy, and we could experience some actual diversity that included us.

I wanted to love this movie as much as my five year old daughter next to me, jigging and jiving and dancing along to every musical number.

But all I got to watch was the reheated leftover conflict of Troy's basketball dreams versus his theatrical ones, and the same old heteronormative love story:



Will Troy and Gabriella find a way for their love to survive moving away from home and going off to different colleges?

The Big conflict for me was, and remains: Will Disney ever include us - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, or Gender Non-Conforming Teens - in the defining stories of our age?

Now, don't get me wrong. When I say "the defining stories of our age" I don't think they're defining love for Teenagers. That was done by the Princess mafia - you know, the stories Teens today (and adults today) grew up on.

Belle's opposite gender Beast,



his transformation into a handsome Prince, and their happily-ever-after.




Jasmine's up-from-the-gutter Aladdin, and their magical adventure to boy-girl happily-ever-after.



Cinderella's from rags to riches love for her Prince, and their happily-ever-after.



Need I go on, or can you fill in your favorites yourself?

These patterns are BURNED into our psyches from the time we get our first Disney stuffed animal.

And even the animals are part of the heteronormative march-in-step!

Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse.


Donald Duck and Daisy Duck.


Chip and Dale (HEY! Wait a minute... Just what is their relationship???)




Now I know that the main audience for High School Musical 1, 2, and 3 is basically girls between the ages of 3 and 9 - I'm not sure how many 4th grade or older girls were in the audience, but I can tell you the Kindergarteners were in FULL attendance!

Would it have destroyed their franchise to let Ryan be gay? I'm not asking for some half-naked wrestling session in the school gym that ends up in him having wild gay sex. It could be as sweet and "G" rated as Troy and Gabriella's love:




which basically has them kiss with barely any physical parts of their bodies touching except their lips.

I could have been happy even without a guy-on-guy kiss, if there had been a romantic interest for him and some shared looks, a sweet flirtatious smile - anything but the closeted "beard" move of taking the nerdy girl with glasses to the prom.

And doesn't Kelsey deserve someone who will love her for herself???? Is it any girl's dream to go to the Prom with the closeted gay guy? Isn't that kind of a nightmare scenario?

Doesn't Ryan deserve to be gay???



And if Ryan isn't gay (a question perhaps only Lucas, the actor playing him,


would know for sure), don't we Gay people deserve a little inclusion in this technicolor musical of High School Life today?

Does East High have a Gay-Straight Alliance?

Don't you wish they did?

Don't you think, maybe, we should help them form one?

Sing with me...

Wild-cats! G-S-A! Some-one here has gotta be Gay! Wild-cats' G-S-A, Let's show the world - Whoop!