get out the shoe polish, boys

We're at the end of a long, dark year.  As far as this years horror movie selections, we were pretty much left alone without a flashlight like that blonde girl and her little gay brother on Jurassic Park.  But just as that girl somehow found the will to get up off of her little diesel behind and run that fancy computer system to save the day, the show must go on.

Strap on your snowsuits, dolls.

It's time, at last, for the FaggotyassAwards Nominations Spectacular!!!

Best Actress:

Ali Larter - Resident Evil: West Hollywood

Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Rooney Mara 

(for pretending to be Kristen Stewart pretending to be Heather Langenkamp pretending to be Nancy Thompson)

Max Thieriot - My Soul to Take

Emma Bell - Frozen

Best Film:

Monsters

Let Me In

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

Suspiria 2: Black Swan

Guys I'd Go Gay For:

Patrick Fabian - The Last Exorcism

MaleDren - Splice.

Adam Scott - Piranha 3D

Benjamin Millepied - Black Swan

Best of luck to all the nominees.

You decide the winners, so vote to your hearts content in the comments section (Yes, Ali, you can even vote for yourself, doll...and, yes, your babies can vote too).  Like last year, my favorite voters will receive a fantastic, FaggotyAss Gift Basket that is sure to induce envy and rage from all your friends and neighbors.  Exciting!!

La Dolce Moore

Hello, snow angels!  While I try to never brag, keeping the lines between my journalistic obligation to expose our rightful place in the hallowed tomes of horror history and my personal trials and tribulations as a gay working in said industry strongly defined, if you know me at all then you surely know that I have the best friends in the world!  Just in time for the holidays, one of my oldest and dearest has graced us with his presence.  Mister M.A. Fortin - proprietor of This Movie Exists has stopped by the manse for a cup of egg nog and he's brought us all a gift (hint: it may or may not be Gucci and it is obviously wrapped in an sumptuous, red velvet bow).  I give the faggotyass floor to Mark...
 

YOU GUYS. Why is Julianne Moore not more of a gay icon?

I mean... okay, she sort of is. She meets a lot of the requisite pre-existing conditions: she cries hysterically in every movie, she plays gay a lot, she's played some of the WORST mothers in film history, and she's a Todd Haynes muse. She played Carol in Safe, for Chrissakes. Yet I don't see the real outpouring of pink support that she deserves on the internet (despite a recent honoring here on this very website). Is she just too normal? Maybe she's just too grounded-- she doesn't look like the type of woman who could possibly end up in a hit-and-run or an insane custody battle or be found sleeping in a neighbor's backyard.

Whatever. J-Moo is very much a living, breathing gay-icon, whether drag queens dress up as her on Halloween or not, and Ridley Scott's batshit fantasia Hannibal (2001) proves it! 

"I always figured him for a queer."

Hannibal is a gay movie. Whereas The Silence of the Lambs was in every way a straight movie about aberrant gay desire, its sequel is framed with the light whimsy of a fairy tale-- and has a fairy tale's perverted ability to do WHATEVER THE HELL IT FEELS LIKE, WHENEVER IT FEELS LIKE IT. You know how Silence was (and remains) one of those movies that feels controlled to perfection? Well, Sir Scott (and screenwriters Steven Zaillian and David Mamet) apparently decided that careful plotting and things like, I dunno, logic were irrelevant to theirproceedings. No, Hannibal is pretty much the one movie you can find that features Julianne Moore (by most accounts a terrific, thoughtful, and focused actress) looking like she has no idea what she's signed up for. It's hard to believe that Hannibal exists-- but I guess this is what happens when you get carte blanche from Universal and Dino DeLaurentiis. Where to begin?

"This town is full of corn pone, country pussy."

Everything in the Thomas Harris universe has a faintly homo-unfriendly tinge to it. Hannibal starts with Julianne stepping into Jodie Foster's roomy, sensible shoes as FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling, now out of Quantico and going to fish markets to have accidental shootouts with HIV-positive, automatic-weapon-wielding drug queenpins with children strapped in their Baby Bjorns. Oopsie! Panic ensues for J-Moo as she tries to hose off the baby covered in "tainted" blood post-shootout-- and OK, while you can't automatically link anything HIV-related in a movie to being necessarily "gay," I feel like this is just a soupcon of the wild, evil sissy panic that Hannibal has in store for us: an overture of distaste before the first act of pure, uncut WTF.

Following this upsetting interlude, J-Moo goes home and cries. I like to think that Julianne is crying because she was realizing that taking this role was a losing battle-- and that she cannot make any sense of the script. But J has to dry her eyes right quick because she needs to run off and get back in the saddle to catch Hannibal Lecter, the world's most crypto-queer cannibal psychiatrist! Girls, let's face it, and own it: Lecter is the gay world's Freddy Krueger. She cooks, she LOVES to stir up drama and ask inappropriate questions, and she knows everything about antiques and opera. I dunno about you, but I've certainly met Miss Lecter in a gay bar on an off-night once or twice in my life (fact: white wine spritzers are a helpful tool to enable a sly, discreet escape). 

Anyhoo, back to Julianne: during her quest to find Lecter (who's roaming free now in Florence, Italy), Julianne is forced to head to a huge (and I mean obscenely huge) home to visit with Hannibal's resident evil queen, a man who makes Lecter look like Pat Buchanan when it comes to filling out the faggoty checklist. This lady has:

a) an antique-laden (yet childless, barren and empty) home;
b) a dedicated and resentful manservant;
c) TONS of money.

Yes, kiddies: Julianne must meet with TOM FORD.

No. Wait, that's not right. It's Mason Verger (played with icky relish by an uncredited Gary Oldman), a former patient of Lecter's who had the hots for him. See, years ago, Verger (who likes to diddle little boys-- disgusting "gay" character trait #1 established: molester) went home with Lecter to get it on, and Lecter offered him the use of some "poppers" (disgusting "gay" character trait #2 established: druggie). Well, that bitch shoulda checked the label, 'cause whatever was in that bottle wasn't amyl nitrate. It makes Verger go batty, and cut her own face to ribbons-- and then Lecter feeds the pieces to a dog (disgusting "gay" character trait #3 established: gay sex is gross). Now Verger's confined to a wheelchair and has a face like a squashed tomato. She's dying to find Lecter to get revenge-- and her plan for that involves having Lecter eaten alive by wild boars. I've heard of pig play, but this bitch is one sick lady.

"She will spit and bite if she's cornered, so you should watch it."

Fast forward: Julianne really goes through it in this movie. She not only has to deal with this sicko homo, but then she gets suspended by the bureau, sexually harrassed by Ray Liotta, and gets a mash note from Lecter. Oh, and in the interim, Lecter's been getting cruised HARD by this distinguished, older Italian gent who just CAN'T stop looking at pictures of Lecter online (girl, we've all been there)! This man ends up hanging by his intestines in a piazza. I like to think that Lecter punishes this dude because he's already married. To a woman. And if there's one thing a self-respecting gay can't tolerate, it's the DL.

Nor can any self-respecting gay tolerate any behavior that abuses children (hence Verger's initial flashback punishment). I guess this is why we, the gays, need to embrace Lecter more as our own: because he's an avenging angel of sorts with exquisite taste who can't tolerate bad manners. He's like Martha Stewart's fever dream fantasy come to life. Maybe I'm reaching, but in the rococo, baroque landscape of crazy known as HANNIBAL, a girl needs something to hold on to. Just ask Julianne.

Seriously, ask her. Because by now she's tracked Lecter back to Verger's home, rescued him from the hungry, insatiable pigs (girl, we've all been there), and subsequently shot. Lecter rescues her himself to bring to a cozy lakeside cottage, but not before stopping at Gucci (again, I'm sorry, but Tom Ford is in here somewhere) to get the comatose Julianne a hot little number to wear.

It's around this point that it looks like Universal execs were watching dailies of the movie and collectively decided to fire Ridley Scott and give the movie over to that nice Nancy Meyers. The film's truly insane last act takes places at Ray Liotta cottage, where Lecter has both him and Julianne hostage (I mean, for the weekend!). Remember how in Something's Gotta Give, Meyers lingered grotesquely over appliances, furniture and whatnot to create a movie that's the equivalent of a throw-pillow? Well, her touch is at work here in spades. Julianne wakes up, drugged out, and hoping that this whole movie was a horrible dream and that her handsome hubby Bart Freundlich is already downstairs making egg-white omelettes. But no: J-Moo is still in Hannibal, and Julianne, ever the trouper (she was in Body of Evidence, you guys), stumbles downstairs to find that Lecter is about to torture Liotta for dinner (in divine copper cookware, of course). That's what you get for fucking with his Julianne. Lecter doesn't want to bang her-- I think he's just her bestie and will sass anyone who disrespects her. Of course, "sassing" and "sauteeing and feeding a man his own brain" are different responses entirely, but we must keep in mind that the gay community is wide and diverse and therefore we mustn't judge.

In the end, Hannibal ends up somehow being both meretricious and totally hysterical. It's a hard film to take seriously, yet it still has some sort of power. Whatever the reason, we gays love our embattled ladies-- and the trials of Julianne in this flick should be enough to anoint her a gay saint for life. 

every gay deserves a lesbian bestie...

...and mine is going to be Amber Heard!

We've been following your progress for quite some time, Amber.  But going to the GLAAD awards with your girlfriend has officially earned you the crown.  You are the greatest Scream Queen of our generation!  Congratulations, babydoll.  You have made us all proud and your grapefruit basket is in the mail.

Now hurry up and come over, I need you to drive me to the Home Depot and show me how to use a belt sander.

...a monster what takes his time.

"Everyone has to earn a living."

In honor of NASA discovering a man-made life form (unquestionably harkening the eminent destruction of us all), I am pleased to announce the second best film nomination in this year's FaggotyAssAwards:

Monsters! 

(I added the exclamation - people don't actually shout in Monsters.) 

Set a couple of years in the future (well after the NASA lake monsters have fully developed and decimated most of our population), this movie chronicles a hispter photographer and a hipster trust fund girl as they become trapped in a Mexican war zone with no passports.  White people problems.  Its working title was "America hates Mexicans"...but that's better left for Arianna and her crackerjack team at Huffington Post to cover. 

Loathsome hipsters aside, this is surely my favorite of the Jurassic Park sequels; at it's best, Monsters patiently explores intimate nuances of human interactions in the face of atrocity.  This is the rare horror movie that chooses to linger on human interactions and well-shot locations over cheap effects and jump-scares.  Get into it.

do you really want to hurt me?

In case you dolls haven't noticed, strange things are afoot in movietown.  A painful transition is afoot in which perfectly lovely movies are left rotting on the shelf while soul-crushing dreck winds up with at least three trailers and an international distribution.  Major studios don't seem to understand that we're perfectly content to stay home and watch movies streaming on our monster-Black-Friday-purchased-on-credit-flat-screen TVs rather than shelling out nineteen dollars to see a Jack Black fart his way through a remake we never asked for.  Something's gotta give.

There are too many chefs in the kitchen and no one's buying the soup.  If no one buys the soup, the restaurants close down.  This happened to a company called Overture.  Overture made a charming and uncompromising little adaptation of a critically acclaimed foreign horror film.  By the time the movie was done, they money was gone and Overture no longer had the ability to get the film distributed.  

This movie was not lowest common denominator.  That's scary for a studio whose livelihood depends upon an opening weekend.  So, rather than spend money to make people aware of the film, Relativity dumped it.  Let Me In was released in a handful of theatres opposite The Social Network and Wall Street 2 (both major studio releases costing upwards of 100 million to make/sell to the public), and so it tanked.  It was gone two weeks later.

Luckily, my memory is long. Studio politics aside, our first nomination in this year's FaggotyAssAwards is Matt Reeve's Let Me In.

Whether you fall in love with a boy or a girl or a vampire, first love bites and its sting can stay with you for the rest of your life.  Let Me In captures that moment quite well.  Thoughtful, nuanced, and full of sequences that are sure to stick with you long after everyone's forgotten all about Wall Street 2,   Let Me In is a film worthy of our adoration and respect.  In the same manner that House of the Devil took the world by storm last year, I'm sure that this movie will have a long and happy life on home video.

an early frost

“Timing’s everything.”

Whether serving hot soup in a park or shopping at the local convenience store, it's not really Thanksgiving without the homeless.   My relationship with the local itinerants could be described as tenuous at best. One day I was leaving my CVS where I had just exchanged some change for a coke zero and dry pasta (I was between paydays), when a particularly rambunctious peasant lady asked me for some change.  I replied, "I'm sorry, I don't have any change," to which she yelled out, "You don't have to be GAY about it!" Good for her.  

Every year, despite not having a family myself, I make a gigantic turkey and all the fixing and a lot of it goes untouched because I never learned to negotiate the dark meat.  I tried to take it to the neighborhood food bank once and they explained that they can't take pre-cooked food because the tea-party people try to poison the homeless like sewer rats.  The real world is scarier than any horror film.

There’s a lot to be thankful this year. I got a cute new haircut. Sarah Palin’s wearing tank tops (to question the taste behind this would make me a member of the misogynistic, liberal media). But foremost, there’s the resurgence of long-form horror stories on primetime television. With The Walking Dead, Frank Darabont is back in the game and better than ever. But never forget how he got here.  This year, I am thankful for The Blob (1988).

Darabont is, unquestionably, the definitive cinematic translator of Stephen King’s work (even The Walking Dead often feels like we’re watching appendices of The Stand). Along with Chuck Russell, he also wrote one of the greatest sequels in horror history, The Dream Warriors. That alone would be enough to garner Mr. Darabont a Faggotyass Grapefruit Basket. But Darabont and Chuck Russell teamed up one more time to raise the bar on the re-imagining of horror movie classics. Don’t call it a remake!

"That boy doesn't need condoms, he needs a muzzle."

 

In The Blob, Shawnee Smith plays a woman in love with Donovan Leitch (Who isn't in love with Donovan Leitch?).  She gets herself all gussied up for a date-night in her best, delicate pearl necklace and the latest hairstyle from her local Walmart stylist.  Well, these two don't even have a chance to share a milkshake before they're running into Matt Dillon's brother (inexplicably dressed like a hybrid of Mickey Dolenz from the lost season of The Monkees and Kristy McNichol).  Talk about a third wheel!

They're a regular couple of Hardy Boys, these two, turning what was meant to be a romantic evening into a mission to help the local homeless.  Who says the gays aren't philanthropic? 

Shawnee doesn't seem to mind that Donovan Leitch has a lot more chemistry with Matt Dillon's brother than he does with her.  She's prepared to take what she can get. Unfortunately, before Shawnee even has a chance to freshen up her mullet, Donovan Leitch is devoured by a giant, flesh eating hot pink blob (or is it heliotrope?)!  Some girls just can’t catch a break.

I respect Shawnee Smith because she understands that when your gay boyfriend dies violently of a highly contageous, virulent disease, the only thing a girl can do do is stare in soft focus at a snow globe.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I can’t get enough of AIDS weepies. Angels in America, Longtime Companion, Philadelphia…I love 'em all!  I can watch them all day every day - they’re like fun-sized Snickers to me.  The Blob is no different. If you pay attention, this movie is full of life-lessons: 

• Never stick your hand down the garbage disposal. 
• When your gay boyfriend dies violently in front of you, go home and change outfits before getting to the bottom of it.

After Donovan gets gobbled up, the rest of The Blob is a pretty amorphous.  Shawnee somehow winds up navigating the town's sewer system with two children in tow.  Matt Dillon's brother gets captured by right-wing extremists hell-bent on using the Blob to defeat the Democrats.  Shawnee loses a shoulder-pad. It's a little hard to follow, but more fun than eating an entire greenbean casserole.

(Horror Nerd Alert: Pay attention.  The usher at the movie theatre is that gay wheeler who threw shade at Dorthy in Return to Oz.)

brown rice and vegetables...