Rock Hudson's Home Movies (U.S. 1992)

The Gist: 

'Dead Rock Hudson' uses clips from movies he starred or acted in to argue that the closeted actor was actually out as a gay man in his screen roles, if you knew how to  properly 'read' his roles and dialogue that is. 

Comments:

This is a rather odd movie with an odd sense of unreality, both in casting a man who looks nothing like Rock Hudson to play him, to having the actor play 'dead' Rock speaking to us from beyond the grave. 

Besides being several steps away from reality, it's also a documentary, well, maybe not so much documentary as much as filmed essay. The thesis being that Rock Hudson played with his audience by teasing he was actually gay through the roles he played, by use of plot and dialogue. This is “proved” with clips from his movies. Showing his characters having questionable relationships with women, questionable friendships with men, how he was often treated as a sex object by the camera (as women usually were/are), and of course, from his Doris Day comedies where twice he ended up playing "gay" in order to get the girl. 

It's an interesting argument, though I'm not sure how much merit it has. The movie acknowledges, in a quick throw away line, the main counter-argument that Hudson was writing neither plot nor dialogue, nor to an extent had control over which roles he was offered, so he had no real power over his character’s actions. Actions that supposedly prove he was gay. 

If the idea is valid that his dialogue or plot points in his movies have a queer subtext, I'm not sure how much of that due directly to Rock Hudson or if these queer subtexts were (are) common in Hollywood movies.  Rock Hudson is not exactly the first actor to play an arguably questionably straight role, or even the first closeted gay actor to do so. 

That said, given how well he was known and how due to his death from AIDS he became for a long time "THE" image of closeted gay actor, the movie's points do end up making some sense. At least it does until it gets to the end and the movie switches to arguing that Hudson predicted his own death, which is a bit odd.

Thesis/point of the movie aside, it's more or less as technically competent as you'd expect for a low budget cheap indie flick that consists almost entirely of medium to low quality clips of other movies. 

While I don't entirely buy into the movie's argument, I personally thought it was an interesting watch and it shows how oddly ‘queer’ hollywood male roles in action and westerns movies can get. As for recommending it? It would probably only be worth it if you were a fan of Rock Hudson or at least a fan of his movies. If not, I suspect it would be boring. 

Women:
N/A

People of Color:
N/A

Gratuitous nudity:
N/A

• Director: Mark Rappaport
• Writer: Mark Rappaport 
• Actor: Eric Farr
• 63 minutes
• Note: As it’s a documentary of movie clips I didn’t bother with my usual metric of casting choices and such
• IMDB

Red Ribbons (U.S 1994)

The Gist:

It's 1994 and an avant garde indie New York theater director/writer has just died from AIDS. His lover and friends have an impromptu gathering to mourn / celebrate him as his lover waits for the dead man's disapproving mother to show up and throw him out of his apartment as it's under the dead man's name. 

Comments:

For a long while there was a joke that all gay themed movies had to deal with AIDS and for a long time it was more or less true. Understandable given the impact the disease had on the community and the resulting need to process and deal with this impact. Meaning that this movie is much a product of its time, in sorrow at least if not in anger, since unlike other AIDS themed movies there is no fury at the 'system' failing us as people died.

So in the story we have a dead man who we still get to see thanks to the conceit of video diary entries he made while still alive and the impact his death (and life) has had on his gathered friends. 

The movie isn't horrible. That said, the acting is largely mediocre, the story is not overly engaging, and despite his presence on the poster Quentin Crisp is barely in it (and not in a particularly interesting role). 

Unless you absolutely need to see every AIDS related gay movie there is, this one is more than skippable.

Women: 
Yes

People of Color: 
No, only white people live in New York

Gratuitous nudity:
No

• Director: Neil Ira Needleman
• Writer: Neil Ira Needleman
• Actors: Robert Parker, Christopher Cappiello, Quenton Crisp
• 62 min
• IMDB