|
|
Post by I Love Melvin on Dec 3, 2022 0:34:55 GMT
I was happy to finally see it. I opted out of going to a theater so I was part of the disappointing box office I guess. It was maybe partly a marketing problem because it was hyped as both a gay rom-com and a gross-out movie like Bridesmaids. It actually is both those things, but gross and gay in the same movie could have caused at least some of the potential audience to take a pass. I never thought that the inclusion of the "Remember straight people? They had a good run" line in the trailer was a good idea; it sounds really dismissive. I doubt I'd want to see a movie if I heard "Remember gay people?". But the movie itself is fairly sharp and it's politically incorrect enough to make it really interesting. The script reminded me of Paul Rudnick, who delighted in knocking down iconography, and Bros takes some pretty wide swings. A lot of the humor centers on the in-fighting and squabbles among the board members for a proposed LGBTQ+ museum and the resulting edifice is an insanely funny take on the kind of compromise necessary for any effort requiring large infusions of cash. I won't wreck it by saying too much. If it's something you think you'd like, you probably won't be disappointed.
|
|
|
|
Post by ando on Dec 9, 2022 18:00:12 GMT
I was happy to finally see it. I opted out of going to a theater so I was part of the disappointing box office I guess. It was maybe partly a marketing problem because it was hyped as both a gay rom-com and a gross-out movie like Bridesmaids. It actually is both those things, but gross and gay in the same movie could have caused at least some of the potential audience to take a pass. I never thought that the inclusion of the "Remember straight people? They had a good run" line in the trailer was a good idea; it sounds really dismissive. I doubt I'd want to see a movie if I heard "Remember gay people?". But the movie itself is fairly sharp and it's politically incorrect enough to make it really interesting. The script reminded me of Paul Rudnick, who delighted in knocking down iconography, and Bros takes some pretty wide swings. A lot of the humor centers on the in-fighting and squabbles among the board members for a proposed LGBTQ+ museum and the resulting edifice is an insanely funny take on the kind of compromise necessary for any effort requiring large infusions of cash. I won't wreck it by saying too much. If it's something you think you'd like, you probably won't be disappointed. Thanks. Saw a copy sitting on my local library shelves. But I remembered this review which confirmed my suspicions and left it. |
|
|
|
Post by I Love Melvin on Dec 14, 2022 15:39:01 GMT
Even though this was a thoughtful and extensive review, I think they may have missed something important by saying it should have been done as a parody and that it wasn't satirical. Much of it was parody, some of it so surgically precise that I suppose it could have been missed or simply taken at face value. It's what I liked most about the movie, that some of the more tenuous sacred cows within the gay "community" were treated with the kind of gentle (and sometimes less so) disrespect which can hopefully keep them from ever being fully enshrined as doctrine. From the moment early on when Kristen Chenoweth stepped onstage in an absurdly overdone rainbow frock with matching headgear to present the award for cis white male at one of those self-congratulatory award shows, I felt like I was in pretty good hands. I felt that this wasn't just going to be some bland appeal for acceptance to a larger (ie: straighter) audience, it was going to be an invitation to that audience to take an up close and personal look at what goes on in our world, the ridiculous as well as the sublime. That puts it in the company of forebears like The Boys in the Band, Torch Song Trilogy and Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey, movies (and plays in each case) which had the courage to take a confident self-reflective stance and invite closer inspection without begging for it. Rudnick in particular, as I mentioned above, left no gay stone unturned while mining for humor, and Bros takes a similar no-hold-barred approach.
Eichner himself seemed to be a sticking point for the two reviewers and it doesn't seem like they're alone. I've always had trouble with Billy on the Street, not only because of his unwarranted aggression but also because of his unwillingness to accept no for an answer. And yet I think he's found a more moderate and appropriate tone, both as a writer and as an actor, for this movie. Yes, he spends some of the movie yelling, but he's the kind of upsetter who can be useful to any community to help weed out the self-righteousness and complacence which can sometimes settle in unawares, and I think that's a lot of his intended function here.
The movie's not perfect and this isn't a full-throated endorsement, but I very much like what it was going for. I also bought into the romance more than the reviewers did. It felt hard-won to me and the obstacles each had to get around, mostly self-imposed, felt real.
|
|
|
|
Post by ando on Dec 17, 2022 22:08:32 GMT
Ok, I'll check it out tonight!  |
|
|
|
Post by ando on Dec 27, 2022 10:35:08 GMT
Even though this was a thoughtful and extensive review, I think they may have missed something important by saying it should have been done as a parody and that it wasn't satirical. Much of it was parody, some of it so surgically precise that I suppose it could have been missed or simply taken at face value. It's what I liked most about the movie, that some of the more tenuous sacred cows within the gay "community" were treated with the kind of gentle (and sometimes less so) disrespect which can hopefully keep them from ever being fully enshrined as doctrine. From the moment early on when Kristen Chenoweth stepped onstage in an absurdly overdone rainbow frock with matching headgear to present the award for cis white male at one of those self-congratulatory award shows, I felt like I was in pretty good hands. I felt that this wasn't just going to be some bland appeal for acceptance to a larger (ie: straighter) audience, it was going to be an invitation to that audience to take an up close and personal look at what goes on in our world, the ridiculous as well as the sublime. That puts it in the company of forebears like The Boys in the Band, Torch Song Trilogy and Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey, movies (and plays in each case) which had the courage to take a confident self-reflective stance and invite closer inspection without begging for it. Rudnick in particular, as I mentioned above, left no gay stone unturned while mining for humor, and Bros takes a similar no-hold-barred approach. Eichner himself seemed to be a sticking point for the two reviewers and it doesn't seem like they're alone. I've always had trouble with Billy on the Street, not only because of his unwarranted aggression but also because of his unwillingness to accept no for an answer. And yet I think he's found a more moderate and appropriate tone, both as a writer and as an actor, for this movie. Yes, he spends some of the movie yelling, but he's the kind of upsetter who can be useful to any community to help weed out the self-righteousness and complacence which can sometimes settle in unawares, and I think that's a lot of his intended function here. The movie's not perfect and this isn't a full-throated endorsement, but I very much like what it was going for. I also bought into the romance more than the reviewers did. It felt hard-won to me and the obstacles each had to get around, mostly self-imposed, felt real. Checked out right after that first grindr hook-up. The movie was already on a trajectory with a character I found typical and unfunny. And it wasn’t a failure of tone comprehension but of exasperation with schtick (gay or otherwise). It seems to have found its audience, though, and for that kudos! And I enjoyed reading your take. Thanks! |
|
|
|
Post by I Love Melvin on Dec 27, 2022 13:45:27 GMT
The movie is definitely on a trajectory (that tried-and-true rom-com formula) and if you found it unfunny then you were right to bail. I bought into the schtick because to me it was refreshing to see a little irreverence around matters where there's usually so much brittleness and "correctness". The last thing I want is for a general movie audience to be afraid to be curious about gay life. The grindr "mishaps" reminded me very much of similar material in Rudnick's Jeffrey, which chronicled the problematic nature of looking for sex in the midst of AIDS, and that was well over thirty years ago, so not a lot of ground broken there. I'm glad you gave it a shot, so thank you, but I'm also glad you knew your own mind enough to trust your instinct. My personal recommendation would still be that people give it a chance, but your experience should be an equally compelling counter-balance for them in making that decision.
|
|
