Bonus video! The lost queer films of the early 2000s
Hello there!
For this week's bonus video, I'm recovering from a bit of laryngitis but that can't stop me from chattering away about some intriguing queer films that you almost definitely have never heard of! As I've mentioned before, there are around 100 queer and queer-ish films, produced between 2000 and 2010, that vanished into a black hole due to some monkey business with a distribution company. The good news is that many of them are now available to watch online, which means that it's now possible to at least partially fill in a long-standing cultural void. Here's a rundown of a whole bunch of them, with links to where you can find them online.
Plus! A sneak peek at a new project I've just started, and that's already yielded a fun discovery. And a heads-up about something new that I'll be trying with the upcoming video about the movie Straight Jacket.
Here are links to watch the films that I talk about in his video:
Beautiful Boxer: A biopic about a trans boxer in Thailand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4FGTDDZ4Lc
Breakfast with Scot: A gay couple experiences parenthood and hockey. https://watch.sling.com/1/program/38f55880df8ed7e89bd71e2b440e1275/watch
Cthulu: A Lovecraft adaptation with a gay lead. https://watch.plex.tv/movie/cthulhu?autoplay=1&utm_content=5d776844f59e58002189a4de
Cut Sleeve Boys: Two Asian men explore the gay scene in London. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ffhrv
Eleven Minutes: Jay McCarroll prepares for a fashion show after winning Project Runway. https://tubitv.com/movies/543949/eleven-minutes?start=true
Freshman Orientation: An edgy college sex comedy. https://watch.sling.com/1/program/802562f9a3a3d63bae4e6bcd8356826e/watch
Hellbent: A slasher set in in West Hollywood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmaxVnHVN9A
Holding Trevor: A drama about a young man trying to get out of a bad relationship. https://vimeo.com/243226384
I Can’t Think Straight: Two women from Palestinian and Indian backgrounds are drawn to each other. https://tubitv.com/movies/631183/i-can-t-think-straight?start=true
Ice Blues: A gay mystery! https://watch.sling.com/1/program/81f503a8e04fdf8b8758135d90a08cee/watch
Leather Jacket Love Story: Very indie, very 90s love story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shBvFw8Ax7E
Little Ashes: A love story between Dali and Lorca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyrq7JvfTLk
Margaret Cho: Assassin: A very political standup special: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ge1si
Naked Fame: Colton Ford goes from adult films to a music career: https://tubitv.com/movies/631182/naked-fame?start=true
Nina’s Heavenly Delights: A lesbian couple opens an Indian restaurant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAyx4CTsBao
No Regret: A love story about South Korean men in a violent world of escorts. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8e7du8
On the Other Hand, Death: Another Donald Strachey mystery! https://watch.sling.com/1/program/f21bbc59fa44d245aae5ebd6831d291b/watch
The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela: A sex worker starts over in Paris. https://pluto.tv/en/on-demand/movies/5ff38061eff9b2001a7f74a2
Shock to the System: Strachey solves another mystery! https://watch.sling.com/1/program/98e031acffaad57698b3dfa829e61c0d/watch
ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway: An incredible look behind the scenes of the 2004 Broadway season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyg9Zq2InmA
Summer Storm: A German drama about coming to terms with being gay and in love with a teammate. https://tubitv.com/movies/711303/summer-storm?start=true
The World Unseen: A lesbian love story set in 1950s Capetown. https://watch.sling.com/1/program/ffbdaf3aa56cd1df8bc166eb174f4ae0/watch
Bonus video! The lost queer films of the early 2000s (YouTube)
Comments (24)
Not so lost but definately did not get much publicity, Touch Of Pink (2004). It is a little gem simply for Kyle MacLachlan's impersonation of Cary Grant
ONLY I would look at a list of movies and end adding a bunch more BOOKS to my Goodreads Want to Read list! >_< Seriously though, thanks for all the digging you do!
Not Early 2000’s but if you wanna see Daniel Craig pre Bond in a queerish movie based on true events, “Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon” it’s him and Derek Jacobi
I heard of Cthulu from hbomberguy's (excellent) video on H. P. Lovecraft and have been wanting to watch it! Glad to hear it's resurfaced along with all these other films, I really should check them out
That's amazing, thank you for doing this <3
I have seen Beautiful Boxer and I think the copy I'd seen was in English ; Possibly sub-titled. I saw it back when Netflix was still sending out DVD's Great film and full of queer truisms.
Yeah those DVD repositories really preserved a lot of culture -- we lose so much as it gets harder and harder to find physical media.
“Holding Trevor” is so poignant. I love Jay Brannan, he’s got a great wit , & a phenomenal singing voice. He was also in “Shortbus”. 🤓
I'm discovering so many movies to watch through this research!
love the magazine scanning project, too much has already been lost. consider uploading the scans to the internet archive when you're capable!
That's the plan!
I have a DVD copy of Beautiful Boxer with English subtitles.
If someone has not already pointed this out, there are english subtitles available for 'Beautiful Boxer'. https://subdl.com/subtitle/sd22905/beautiful-boxer
Oh wonderful, thank you!!!
There is a Spanish movie from 2004 called "Bear Cub" (or "Cachorro", it's Spanish title). It's a comedy/drama about a gay man (and bear) who agrees to look after his nephew for a few weeks, only to have the arrangement become permanent. I tried watching it a few years ago, but stopped after about 20 minutes. That had nothing to do with the quality of the movie; I just couldn't keep up with the subtitles and rapid-fire dialog (late night + a couple of martinis too many). IMDB claims it's available for "Rent/Buy" on Amazon, but I only see it available for purchase. Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/Bear-Jos%C3%A9-Luis-Garc%C3%ADa-P%C3%A9rez/dp/B0007XG01S/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1XJIEIKZ9XE7M&keywords=bear+cub+movie&qid=1704673385&sprefix=bear+cub+movie%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-1
Sellout! Nah, totally kidding. Do what you gotta do to keep these videos coming. I'm super excited about the magazine scans. Did you say where/if they were going to be available for the public at some point? I love flipping through things like that.
I'll probably put them on Issu or Scribd, and then figure out how to get them to the Internet Archive as well.
This makes me remember a film that’s a tad older, Lilies 1996. It made a very big impression on me at the time. No idea how it holds up today. I hadn’t seen it anywhere for a long time but a Revry add on thru (US) Amazon says they have it straaming.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilies_(film)
I remember some of these names! I had no idea they were so inaccessible lately!
I remember getting Summer Storm off some LiveJournal community back in maybe 2006. It was very lucky that there were so many queer people in those fandom spaces on LJ that were making us aware of the existence of movies we'd otherwise have zero knowledge of.
The majority of movies I watched was through Netflix DVD (this was before streaming or when streaming was in its infancy).
Oh my god, I got to the see the Little Ashes one to see Robert Pattinson's performance, and I see that movie came out the same year as Twilight.
Did you just sort through my DVD closet? I feel like you just sorted through my DVD closet. Well done. Think I'll go watch some Chad Allen!
I've seen a few of these, including all 4 Donald Strachey movies.