Note to Self, or How can all the gay lurkers please stand up!

Seriously. This posted pic of Academy Award Winner and hunk du jour Dustin Lance Black was responsible for a whopping 900% increase in my daily traffic! So, being as shameless as I am, I'm reposting and inviting every gay lurker who finds himself here long enough to stick around after copying the pic for their own purposes, to click around! 

Best Lead Actor, or How 'Man' is the Word

A Blog Next Door's Oscar coverage 2009: for the lit theory junkie in me and the Oscar watcher in you.

Best Lead Actor: 'Masculinity Crisis'

A Nominated Leading Man is a Nominated Leading Man is a Nominated Leading Man. Bored yet? Well, that's what Leading Men tend to be for me. Maybe it is because 'Men' are so boring but lumping them into one theoretical framework is much easier than with the ladies: how else to describe the Leading Men but to explore the lineup as a continuum of masculinity? Or better yet, as experiments in different models of (albeit, American) masculinity?

Nixon, Randy, Harvey, Benjamin and Walter are all models of contemporary masculinity. Oscar seems to be asking: which one are you?

Frank Langella - "Richard Nixon" in Frost/Nixon

I am a political man.

Where else to start? Here is a man's man - only not a fighting debonair one, but a political bureaucrat (he doesn't even dare try and wear loafers - in Kevin Bacon's words, they're very effeminate). Nonetheless he sees most things as a duel - as a fight. Add to that the fact that Mr Nixon cannot distance himself from his political image (as a strong anti-Communist man, all the time brushing a chip off his shoulder in being compared to the 1960s political beau: Kennedy) and that he is put in a position of always needing to prove himself and it is hard to see Langella's Nixon as anything other than a man in crisis.

Mickey Rourke - "Randy the Ram" in The Wrestler

I am a fighting man.

Randy is a man's man: he fights, he fucks. Here is the brass, American masculine ideal taken to the ultimate degree (and subsequently mauled and aged accordingly). What to say of a man who we seldom meet outside of a strip bar or a fighting ring, who is utterly uncomfortable playing the subdued, 'domestic' role of a grocery store aid and whose last moments are a gasping for air and bravery to seemingly face his death in what can only be described as a coming together of hubris and catharsis - though ultimately engineered by notions of 'masculine' roles? Exactly.

Brad Pitt - "Benjamin Button" in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I am a passively young-ing man.

But probably the most controversial of the models presented by this lineup is Ben Button. He is the epitome of passivity - indifference would be too strong a word, but appropriate nonetheless. Benjamin is an observer of life, love and even sex (at least he finds a tutoress in Ms Swinton) who seems to have no agency: he inherits, he travels, he sails; but never do we experience that Benjamin is capable of any action. This is the model of a man whose life is a series of events that pass him by and willingly submit to them. Indeed, the film seems to exult this to the degree that the film itself is so captivating and visually lush that it suggests Fincher, Miranda and Roth have concocted a vibrant world for Benjamin only to have him inhabit it without ever doing anything with it.

Sean Penn - "Harvey Milk" in Milk

I am a gay man.

How captivating that if we were to pick out the most wholly practical and praise-worthy masculine model we go to the 'gay man': Harvey is a late bloomer who finds his footing well into his life and when seeing imperfection in the world around him all he can think to do is act. If Benjamin is a model of passive agency (so seldom revered in masculine figures), Harvey is a man who can't stand still when faced with the world around him. He's like an action hero; or like an activist hero.

Richard Jenkins - "Walter Vale" in The Visitor

I am a frustrated man.

Throughout our cinematic encounter with Walter, we find that he is living an unfulfilling life - his book is nowhere near completion, he's seemingly detached from his work. In a way we could Walter as an academic version of Randy; here is what every want would want (a job, economic stability) but we have none of the satisfaction.

See? Even the write up bristles with dull and boring language and little or no deep analysis; these boys just don't do it for me...

Next up: Desire and the Supporting Ladies

Dustin Lance-Black or How Vogue Hommes sexies him up

It's not only the actresses who show some skin to get to the golden boy, thank god!

Here's Milk's Dustin Lance-Black shot by Milk's Gus Van Sant.

[source]

Best Supporting Actor 2009 or How 'Madness' is the Word

A Blog Next Door's Oscar coverage 2009: For the lit theory junkie in me and the Oscar watcher in you.

Best Supporting Actor 2009: 'Madness and Civilization'

We all know that Oscars are about many things, least of 'em being anointing what is 'actually' the Best of the Year. They celebrate 'careers' (LMS's Alan Arkin), achievements (NCFOM's Javier Bardem), a wonderful year (S's George Clooney). But mostly they also celebrate great characters and in any given year we could ask: what is it about these characters that gets AMPAS all riled up? To take the list of men vying for Heath's er... I mean the Supporting Actor Oscar is to be immersed in a Foucaultian World. (I told ya I'd be tapping into my inner Academic; y'know, what I actually do for a living!)

The Joker, John Givings, Dan White, Father Flynn and the 'dude playing the dude disguised as another dude' are all men at the fringes who explore and enact what it means to inhabit a body that is over and over branded as Other.

Heath Ledger - "The Joker" in The Dark Knight

You are what we are not, Gotham declares.

Gotham's scariest villain is as much a product as he is a symptom of the ailing world that Batman is trying to salvage. Where Batman is order, The Joker is chaos. Heis himself the fringe, the limit and with his scars, his cackle and his relentless cruelty he showcases everything we seemingly purge from society but by his very being Heath's Joker reminds us that we have never escaped our own bruised society. He may seem like a force of nature, but he's ultimately the suppressed culture coming back to claim the center of society from which he has been banished. 

Michael Shannon - "John Givings" in Revolutionary Road

You are not what we want to be, Suburbia pronounces.

Suburbia's most threatening force finds it's home in the mental patient John Givings who spouts truth wherever he goes but because society (pristine, pure and orderly as April's dresses, Mrs Givings yard and Milly's snacks) has decided it is unseemly to say sun things, John's words are lost in the deluded void that is his father's hearing aid and his mother's natural deafness to truth. His mental health is as much a lie and a construction as April and Frank's ideal home, but while a 'normal' society sees the Wheelers as a necessary aspect of life, John and his kin are labelled and discarded into the 'Mental Institution' where they're words can be sanitized with the language of Science. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman - "Father Flynn" in Doubt

You are not what we are about, sentences Sister Aloysius.

Father Flynn is a curious case becuae of the relentless ambiguity of Shanley's script (though sadly not his direction). Here is a man conflicted by the accusations headed his way and potentially by a sexuality that his own Church deems deviant an therefore imperfect. It is thus why we get the sermons on Doubt and Gossip and why sideway glances at young boys are so suspect even for us as an audience. But in a religious world that requires moral certainty, Father Flynn has no place. But more importantly thy Sister Aloysius cracks Father Flynn's facade with hollow accusations and a made up phone call only bring to the forefront the double world of Father Flynn. This is a world that does not take him for who he is, nor for who he fashions himself to be. 

Josh Brolin - "Dan White" in Milk

You are what I am not, says Dan to Harvey with a couple of shots to the chest.

Dan White is also a curious character because just as Father Flynn he has internalized a set of rules and 'Thou Shall Not's that disable him from full-fledge happiness. In Harvey he sees everything he wishes banished from his own body (remember that sad moment of him naked and desolate). As Harvey's self-apointed foil he cannot function without seeing what he could (have) be(en). And so begins a cruel derailment into violence - the only way he sees as an escape from that cultural iron cage which society has built and nourished for him. 

Robert Downey Jr - "Kirk Lazarus" in Tropic Thunder

You are not what we are, but we'll gladly watch it and award you for it, says Kirk's audience.

And then we have the performer of the crowd: Kirk Lazarus playing Sgt Lincoln Osiris. But compared to the deranged and damaged souls of Gotham, Suburbia, the Church and (hetero)Society, what to make of this ironic blackface performance? In a way it returns us to a more racially tinged version of the other characters. Physically transforming himself into Osiris, Lazarus is at once enacting and commenting on the hierarchical race relations of America. All the actors in Tropic Thunder to an extent shine a light on the way the 'fringes' of society are easily sanitized and commodified (I'm looking at you Simple Jack), churning out Hollywood Oscar-bait flick after Hollywood Oscar-bait film. It isno wonder that the 'performer' in the crowd offers the meta commentary on the Foucauldian project that I see (quite glibly) taking shape in the Best Supporting Actor Category. 

Next: Freud and the Leading Ladies

Milk, or How Van Sant and Penn serve it up well

Milk

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Written by Dustin Lance Black

Starring: Sean Penn, James Franco, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, Victor Garber, Alison Pill and Diego Luna.

To watch Gus Van Sant's Milk is to be immersed in the world of Castro St in the 1970s. When the film starts, we are welcomed by archival footage of the political world on the streets, where homosexuals were arrested for no reason - it almost suggests to me that if Van Sant had had his way, he would have shot the entire film in a way that looked as if it were all archival footage (he finds ways around this: having pictures come alive, shooting some scenes up so close and so grainy they look old and dusty). If nothing else Milk needs to be the movie everyone who cares about Prop 8 and all other anti-gay laws passed this Nov 4th sees and recommends as widely as they can. For, unlike that other Oscar-baiting 'gay' project that was robbed of its statuette to that horrid Paul Haggis "film," Milk is unabashedly about the out, campy, in your face, 'we're here, we're queer' activist world of the 1970s civil rights movement (with man on man sex, drugs and blowjobs included!). Not something you see everyday on 'mainstream' movies, but which comes at a timely moment in this nation's (cultural) politics.

There are many things to love in Milk, many of which are its performers who so convincingly inhabit the characters they portray. Penn, who I've never really cared for is a revelation as the campy, strong-willed Harvey, and along with Franco he portrays one of the most realistic and (shall we say it?) ordinary gay couples I have seen on-screen. We feel for their relationship because it feels so 'lived in' and this is mostly due to Franco and Penn's performances, whose furtive smiles, annoyed looks and witty dinner table talk sell us on their relationship. Also worth singling out are Hirsch and Brolin, the former for its sunny persona as Cleve Jones (oh to dance and be caught in a dark room with him!) and the latter for embodying the slowly boiling turmoil he reveals with tight fists and crunched teeth. The only person I couldn't stand throughout was Diego Luna - maybe it was his hair, his facial hair, his accent or just his overall demeanour but god I just wanted him out of the frame every time he was on (a testament to how well he played the character? Maybe... but annoying nonetheless).

It may be a paint by the numbers biopic (and there's only so many ways you can make that interesting) but Van Sant's gritty direction, Danny Elfman's score and Harris Savides documentary-style cinematography make the film resonate in a way that exceeds its oh-so Oscar-baity and politically "liberally progressive" message. A

Milk, or How the Trailer has arrived

I can't name you one Sean Penn movie I like... leafing through imdb.com I'm left wondering if I've seen him in anything other than on that NBC sitcom white people (and me!) like playing Ursula/Phoebe's love interest. (Mystic River, I am Sam, The Interpreter, Dead Man Walking and All the King's Men are movies that I keep thinking I should watch but never get to...)

Also, other than Good Will Hunting, that vignette in Paris, Je t'aime and (ugh) Finding Forrester, I have not forayed much into Gus Van Sant's filmography.

That said, the supporting cast alone has got me excited for Milk:

- Emile Hirsch looking like a crazy cool 1970s gay
- James Franco looking like a hot 1970s gay flirt
- Lucas Grabeel looking like a campy crazy 1970s gay
- Diego Luna looking like a hot foreign 1970s gay... well, you get the picture.
(Also Mr Diane Lane - while not quite umping the gay quotient of the film, keeps me interested after American Gangster and No Country for Old Men)

Watch the trailer here:


If nothing else (and hopefully distracting me from Sean Penn - who, despite my little exposure, has always seemed like one of those people that take himself a wee bit too seriously as an actor) the Danny Elfman score has me intrigued and that - added to the Franco nudity, will get me to buy tickets opening weekend.