My Beautiful Laundrette

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) - Directed By: Stephen Frears

Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a young man living in 1980s London. His father, Hussein (Roshan Seth), is a Pakistani journalist who lives in London but hates Britain and its international politics. His dissatisfaction with the world and a family tragedy has caused his alcoholism to take over, so that Omar has to take care of him. By contrast, Omar's paternal uncle Nasser is a successful entrepreneur and an active member of the London Asian community. Omar's father asks his uncle to give him a job and, after working for a brief time as a car washer in one of his uncle's garages, he is assigned the task of running a run-down laundrette and turning it into a profitable business.

At Nasser's, Omar meets a few other members of the Pakistani community: Tania (Rita Wolf), Nasser's daughter and possibly a future bride; and Salim (Derrick Branche), who traffics drugs and hires him to deliver them from the airport. While driving Salim and his wife home that night, the three of them get attacked by a group of right-wing extremists shouting racist slogans. Among them, Omar recognizes an old friend of his, Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). Omar asks Johnny to resume their friendship. Johnny decides to help with the laundrette and they resume a romantic relationship which (it is implied) had been interrupted after school. Running out of money, Omar and Johnny sell one of Salim's drug deliveries to make cash for the laundrette redecoration.

The laundrette becomes a success. At the opening day, Nasser visits the store with his mistress, Rachel. They dance together in the laundrette while Omar and Johnny are having sex in the back room. Omar and Johnny are almost caught by Nasser, but Omar claims they were sleeping. Tania confronts Rachel about having an affair with her father, Nasser. Nasser and Rachel leave the laundrette and fight, Rachel storms off. She later falls ill with a skin rash apparently caused by a potion made by his wife, and decides to leave him.

Omar proposes to Tania, but she decides to leave. She drops by and asks Johnny to go away with her; he refuses because he does not want to leave Omar, and she departs. Omar's father also stops by and appeals to Johnny to persuade Omar to go to college, unhappy with his son running a laundrette. Omar decides to take over two laundrettes owned by a friend of Nasser, with the help of Salim. Salim drives Johnny and Omar to view one of the properties, and he expresses his dislike of the British non-working punks. Salim attempts to run over the group of punks who had previously attacked Omar's car and injures one of them. The group of working class punks decide to wait for Salim around the laundrette. They ambush and attack him, until Johnny decides to save him, despite their mutual dislike.

The film cuts to Nasser visiting Omar's father, and their decision about his future. Nasser sees Tania at a train platform while she is running away. Meanwhile, Johnny's friends decide to attack him for supporting the Asian community, and beat him savagely until he is saved by Omar. Omar proceeds to clean up his wounds, and the two bond. The film ends with them playfully splashing each other with water while topless, implying they are continuing their relationship.

The Children's Hour

The Children's Hour (1961) - Directed by:William Wyler

Former college classmates Martha Dobie (Shirley MacLaine) and Karen Wright (Audrey Hepburn) open a private school for girls in New England. Martha's Aunt Lily (Miriam Hopkins), an aging actress, lives with the two of them and teaches elocution. After two years of engagement to Joe Cardin (James Garner), a reputable doctor, Karen finally agrees to set a wedding date. Joe is related to wealthy Amelia Tilford (Fay Bainter), whose granddaughter Mary (Karen Balkin) is a student at the school. Mary is a spoiled, conniving child who often bullies her classmates, particularly Rosalie Wells (Veronica Cartwright), whom she blackmails when she discovers her stealing another student's bracelet.

When Mary is caught in a lie, Karen punishes her by refusing to let her attend the weekend's boat races. Furious, the young girl exacts her revenge by inventing a story about Martha and Karen being involved in a lesbian relationship, a tale based on fragments of a quarrel Mary's roommates accidentally overheard. She tells her grandmother she observed the two women kissing each other, and the woman immediately informs the other parents, who rapidly withdraw their daughters from the school, leaving Karen and Martha mystified about the sudden exodus. When one father finally explains what is happening, Karen angrily confronts Mrs. Tilford, together with Joe and Martha. Mary repeats her story and coerces Rosalie into corroborating the lie. The two women sue Mrs. Tilford for libel and slander but lose their case.

When the story is circulated by the local media, the reputation of the two teachers is destroyed. Only Joe keeps in contact with them, and he offers to take them away and start a new life. However, his trust in Karen is shaken, and he asks her if the rumors are true. In the ensuing quarrel, Karen ends their engagement, claiming she needs time to think everything over. When Martha learns about the break-up, she confesses she always had felt more than friendship for Karen and, upon hearing the false accusation, she finally realized she loves her.

Rosalie's mother (Sally Brophy) discovers a cache of stolen items, including the bracelet Mary used to blackmail her, among her daughter's belongings, and the two girls are questioned. Mrs. Tilford learns that the story was a fabrication and visits the two teachers. She apologizes for her actions and assures them if the court case is reopened, they not only will be cleared of all charges but will be well-compensated for the trouble she caused. Feeling the damage to their lives cannot be undone, Karen refuses to accept the apology.

Afterwards, she briefly talks to Martha about their future, and suggests going somewhere far away to start a new life together. Martha tells Karen she would rather talk about it in the morning and Karen leaves the house to take a walk. In her absence, Martha hangs herself. At her funeral, Karen walks away alone, while Joe watches her from the distance.

Brokeback Mountain

"Brokeback Mountain" - Directed By: Ang Lee (2005)

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger & Anne Hathaway.

Brokeback Mountain is the story of ranch hand Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), two men who fall in love on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963. The film documents their relationship over the next twenty years.

Ennis and Jack meet when they are hired by Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to herd his sheep through the summer. After a night of heavy drinking, Jack makes a sexual pass at Ennis, who initially rejects, then allows Jack's advances. Although he warns Jack that it was a one-time incident, they develop a physical and emotional relationship. Shortly after learning their summer together is being cut short, they briefly fight, during which each is bloodied.

After Jack and Ennis part ways, Ennis marries his long-time fiancée Alma Beers (Michelle Williams) and fathers two children. Jack returns the next summer, but Aguirre, who witnessed Jack and Ennis on the mountain, does not hire him. Jack meets, marries and starts a family with rodeo rider Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). After four years, Jack visits Ennis. Upon meeting the two kiss passionately, which Alma accidentally witnesses. Jack broaches the subject of creating a life together on a small ranch, but Ennis, haunted by a childhood memory of the torture and murder of a man suspected of homosexual behavior, refuses. He is also unwilling to abandon his family. Ennis and Jack continue to meet for infrequent fishing trips.

The marriages of both men deteriorate. Alma and Ennis eventually divorce. Ennis sees his family regularly until Alma finally reveals her knowledge of the nature of his relationship with Jack and has a violent argument with Ennis. Lureen abandons her rodeo days and becomes a businesswoman with her father and expects Jack to work in sales. Hearing about Ennis's divorce, Jack drives to Wyoming hoping they can live together, but Ennis refuses to move away from his children. Jack finds solace with male prostitutes in Mexico. Ennis meets and has a brief romantic relationship with a waitress, Cassie Cartwright (Linda Cardellini). Jack and Lureen meet and befriend another couple, Randall and Lashawn Malone.

At the end of a fishing trip, Ennis attempts to push back their next meeting. An argument erupts over Jack's frustration at seeing Ennis so infrequently and Ennis blames Jack for being the cause of his own conflicted emotions. Jack attempts to hold him and there is a brief struggle, but they end up locked in an embrace. A flashback of Ennis saying goodbye to Jack during their summer on Brokeback Mountain fades back to Jack watching Ennis drive away.

Sometime later, a postcard Ennis sends to Jack is returned stamped "Deceased". In a telephone conversation, Lureen tells Ennis that Jack died when a tire he was changing exploded; while listening, Ennis imagines Jack being beaten to death by a gang. Jack's actual fate is left "deliberately ambiguous". Lureen tells Ennis that Jack wanted to have his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, but she does not know where it is. Ennis travels to meet with Jack's mother and father (Roberta Maxwell and Peter McRobbie), where he offers to take Jack's ashes - but the father refuses, preferring to have them interred in a family plot. In Jack's childhood bedroom, Ennis finds the bloodstained shirt he thought he lost on Brokeback Mountain, realizing that Jack kept it hanging with the bloodstained shirt Jack himself wore during that fight. Ennis holds them up to his face, breathing in their scent and silently weeping. Jack's mother allows him to keep the shirts.

Later, 19-year-old Alma Jr. (Kate Mara) arrives at her father's trailer with the news that she is engaged. She asks Ennis for his blessing and invites him to the wedding. Ennis asks her if her fiancé really loves her, and she answers "yes". After Alma's departure, Ennis goes to his closet. Hanging on a nail pounded into the door are the shirts, with a postcard of Brokeback Mountain tacked above. Now Jack's shirt is tucked inside of Ennis's. Ennis fastens the top button of Jack's shirt, and with tears in his eyes mutters, "Jack, I swear..." while straightening the postcard, before closing the door and walking away.

Beautiful Thing

Beautiful Thing (1996) - Directed by: Hettie MacDonald

Jamie (Glen Berry), a teen who is infatuated with his classmate, Ste (Scott Neal), has to deal with his single mother Sandra (Linda Henry), who is pre-occupied with ambitious plans to run her own pub and with an ever changing string of lovers, the latest of whom is Tony (Ben Daniels), a neo-hippie. Sandra finds herself at odds with Leah (Tameka Empson), a sassy and rude neighbour who has been expelled from school, does several drugs, and constantly listens and sings along to her Mama Cass records. While Jamie's homosexuality remains concealed, his introvert nature and dislike of football are reason enough for his classmates to bully him at every opportunity.

Ste, who is living together with his drug-dealing brother and abusive, alcoholic father in the flat next door, is one night beaten by his brother so badly that Sandra takes pity and lets him sleep over. In the absence of a third bed, Ste has to make do with sleeping top and tail with Jamie. On the second night they share a bed, after a massage and a conversation, the boys soon change sleeping arrangements and Jamie kisses Ste for the first time.

The next morning, Ste panics and leaves before Jamie awakens, avoiding him for days. Jamie works up the nerve to steal a "Gay Times" magazine from a newsagent, apparently starting to accept his sexuality and affection for Ste. Jamie finally spots Ste at a nearby party and confronts him; they prepare to leave together. The party ends badly, with Sandra taking vengeance on Leah for gossiping, who then threatens to 'spill the beans' about Ste and Jamie and confesses to having covered up for Ste in front of his father and brother. Ste reacts poorly, angrily rejecting Jamie and running away.

Slowly, Ste accepts Jamie's love and their relationship begins to develop as they visit a gay pub together. Sandra follows them and discovers their secret, and the film reaches its climax as a bad trip by Leah (on an unnamed drug) precipitates Sandra's breakup with Tony; the news of Sandra's new job comes out; and Sandra confronts Ste and Jamie. Sandra comes to accept her son's relationship.

The film ends with the two boys slow dancing in the courtyard of their council flats to the Mama Cass song "Dream a Little Dream of Me", while a guarding Sandra dances defiantly at their side with Leah as the local residents look on; some of them shocked, some of them enjoying the moment themselves.

Changes To My Project......

I have changed my films and question/statement......AGAIN!!!!


My question/statement is now: "How american and british cinema represent ideologies on homosexuality"


...And the films I am now studying indefinitely are:


Beautiful Thing (1996)
The Children's Hour (1961)
My Beautiful Launderette (1985)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)


...Wish me luck!....

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" - Directed By: Jim Sharman (1975)

Starring: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien

In an overture, a pair of giant red lips recounts classic science fiction films of the 1950s and 60s ("Science Fiction/Double Feature"). The story, narrated by a criminologist, tells the tale of newly engaged couple ("Dammit Janet"), Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, who find themselves lost and with a flat tire on a cold and rainy, late November evening ("Over at the Frankenstein Place"). Seeking a phone with which to call for help at a nearby castle, Brad and Janet discover a group of strange and outlandish people who are holding an Annual Transylvanian Convention. They watch, still wet from the rain, as the Transylvanians, servants, and a tap dancing groupie dance the "Time Warp", the film's signature song.
They are soon swept into the world of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a bizarre and self-proclaimed "sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania" ("Sweet Transvestite"). The ensemble of convention attendees also include servants Riff Raff, his sister Magenta, and a groupie named Columbia.
Frank claims to have discovered the "secret to life itself". In a scene inspired by the classic Frankenstein films, his creation, Rocky Horror, is brought to life ("The Sword of Damocles"). The ensuing celebration ("I Can Make You a Man") is soon interrupted by Eddie, an ex-delivery boy, partial brain donor to Rocky, and Columbia's implied lover, who rides out of a deep freeze on a motorcycle ("Hot Patootie - Bless My Soul"). In a jealous rage, Frank corners him and slaughters him with an ice axe. He then departs with Rocky to a bridal suite off of the laboratory ("I Can Make You a Man-Reprise").
Brad and Janet are shown to separate bedrooms where each is visited and seduced by Frank, who poses as Brad and then Janet in order to trick the real Brad and Janet into a sexual encounter. Janet, upset and emotional, wanders off to look for Brad, whom she discovers is with Frank via a television monitor. She then discovers Rocky, cowering in his birth tank, hiding from Riff Raff, who has been tormenting him. While tending to Rocky's wounds, Janet seduces him, while Magenta and Columbia watch from their bedroom monitor ("Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me").
After discovering that his creature is missing, Frank, Brad, and Riff Raff return to the lab, where Frank learns that an intruder has entered the building. Dr. Everett Scott, Brad and Janet's old high school science teacher, has come looking for his nephew, Eddie, but Frank suspects Dr. Scott of working for the government investigating UFOs. Upon learning of Brad and Janet's connection to Scott, Frank suspects them of working for him.
Rocky and the guests are served dinner ("Eddie's Teddy"), which they soon realize has been prepared from Eddie's body. Janet runs screaming into Rocky's arms and is chased through the halls of the castle by a jealous Frank ("Wise Up, Janet Weiss"). Janet, Brad, Dr. Scott, Rocky, and Columbia all meet in Frank's lab, where Frank captures them with the Medusa Transducer, transforming them into living statues. They are then forced to perform a live cabaret floor show ("The Floor Show").
The performance is interrupted by Riff Raff and Magenta, who stage a coup and announce their plan to return to the planet of Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania ("I'm Going Home"). In the process, they kill Columbia, Rocky, and Frank. They release the humans, Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott, and then depart by lifting off in the Castle itself ("Science Fiction/Double Feature-Reprise").

Cruising

"Cruising" - Directed By: William Friedkin (1980)

Starring: Al Pacino

In New York City during the middle of a hot summer, body parts of men are showing up in the Hudson River. The police suspect it to be the work of a serial killer who is picking up homosexual men at West Village bars like The Eagle's Nest, The Ramrod, and The Cock Pit, and then taking them to cheap rooming houses or motels and stabbing them to death after tying them up. Officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) is sent deep undercover to the urban world of gay S&M and leather bars in the Meatpacking District in order to track down the killer. He rents an apartment in the area and befriends a neighbor, Ted Bailey (Don Scardino) a young, openly gay, struggling playwright. Burns' undercover work takes a toll on his relationship with his girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen) due to his refusal to tell her the details of his current assignment and due to him building a close friendship with Ted, who himself is having relationship issues with his dancer boyfriend Gregory.

Burns mistakenly compels the police to interrogate a waiter, Skip Lee (Jay Acovone), who is intimidated, beaten, and forced to strip and masturbate in front of four detectives in order to provide them with a semen sample. Burns is disturbed by this police brutality, and comes to believe that the police are merely motivated by homophobia. Outraged, he almost quits his job. However, he is convinced by his boss (Paul Sorvino) to continue with the investigation. The semen sample clears Lee (though obviously decades before DNA testing, the medical examiner had previously determined that the killer was sterile) giving Burns another motive to continue, since the killer is still at large. In the end of the film, Burns thinks that he has found the serial killer, a gay music student, who attacks him with a knife in Morningside Park. Burns brings the man into custody, but shortly afterward, the severely mutilated body of another victim, Burns' friend Ted, is found. The police dismiss the murder as a lover's quarrel turned violent and put out an arrest warrant for his boyfriend Gregory, whom Ted had earlier described to Steve as controlling and possessive. With the police under the impression that the murders have been solved, Burns moves back in with Nancy. In an ambiguous finale, Burns begins shaving his beard in the bathroom while Nancy secretly inspects clothes that he left on a chair: a leather peaked cap, aviator frames, and a leather jacket that all look very similar to the outfit the killer wore. Burns, meanwhile, wipes off his shaving cream and looks directly at the camera.