Gay & Lesbian

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Widescreen Edition)

Fasten your garter belt and come up to the lab and see what's on the slab! It's The Rocky Horror Picture Show Special Edition, a screamingly funny, sinfully twisted salute to sci-fi, horror, B-movies and rock music, all rolled into one deliciously decadent morsel. And now there's even more to make you shiver with antici...pation: two additional musical numbers, "Once In A While" and "Superheroes", never seen theatrically or available on video! The madcap, musical mayhem begins when rain-soaked Brad and Janet take refuge in the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite mad scientist from outer space who is about to unveil his greatest creation - and have a bit of fun with his reluctant guests! Join Tim Curry, Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon and rock star Meat Loaf in the most popular cult classic of all time.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (25th Anniversary Edition)

Fasten your garter belt and come up to the lab and see what's on the slab! It's The Rocky Horror Picture Show Special Edition, a screamingly funny, sinfully twisted salute to sci-fi, horror, B-movies and rock music, all rolled into one deliciously decade

Beautiful Thing

This absolute winner, based on a stage play by Jonathan Harvey and adapted by him, is a kind of enchanted, urban slice-of-life tale about a gay teen, Jamie (Glen Berry), who is in love with the boy next door, Ste (Scott Neal). Hampering Jamie's progress on the romantic front is his fear that his mother (Linda Henry) will find out, as well as concern over complicating Ste's existing problems. Beautiful Thing is a relationship movie, to be sure, but that description doesn't really describe the buoyant tone of this British television production. Democratic in its inclusive regard for each character (whether camera-pretty or not), the film--well-directed by Hettie Macdonald--is full of surprises. Chief among them is the terrific personality of Jamie's mum, a strong and independent woman who truly worries over and adores her son. But this is a movie involved in a kind of happy dialogue with itself: the tunes of Mama Cass, for instance, play a part in both the story and overall ambience, while a strategic placement of the Rodgers and Hammerstein chestnut "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" during an act of love is fun and exciting. --Tom Keogh

A pair of teenage boys growing up in a working-class neighborhood become aware of their homosexuality. While both were vaguely aware they might be gay, neither had ever acted on their impulses. Once they decide that they're attracted to each other, neither is sure just what to do. Winner of 4 International Film Festival Awards.

Maurice - The Merchant Ivory Collection

The second of the three Merchant/Ivory films adapting E.M. Forster novels (between A Room with a View and Howard's End), Maurice deals with a theme few period pieces dare mention--a young man's struggle with his homosexuality. It's not just a gay coming-of-age story, however. The hero wrestles with British class society as much as his personal and sexual identity.

The film opens on a stormy, windswept beach, as an older man awkwardly instructs young, fatherless Maurice Hall (James Wilby) in the "sacred mysteries" of sex. The same turbulent, wordless struggle with passion lasts throughout this slowly evolving, beautifully filmed story. Novelist E.M. Forster's brainy, British melodrama hinges on choice and compulsion, as the pensive hero falls for two completely different men. First comes frail, suppressed Clive (Hugh Grant), who wants nothing more than classical Platonic harmony... and a straight lifestyle. (Grant's performance is so convincing, one wonders how he ever became a heterosexual sex symbol.) After Clive's wedding, Maurice turns to hypnosis to cure his unspeakable longings. Unfortunately, his "cure" is interrupted by Clive's lustful, brooding, barely literate gamekeeper Scudder (Rupert Graves), a worker more at home gutting rabbits than discussing the classics. Maurice's love for a "social inferior" forces him to confront his illicit desire and his ingrained class snobbery. --Grant Balfour

Set against the stifling conformity of pre-World War I English society, E.M. Forster's Maurice is a story of coming to terms with one's sexuality and identity in the face of disapproval and misunderstanding. Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) find themselves in love at Cambridge. In a time when homosexuality was punishable by imprisonment, the two must keep their feelings for one another a complete secret, even though Clive refuses to allow their relationship to move beyond the boundaries of "platonic" love. After a friend is arrested and disgraced for "the unspeakable crime of the Greeks," Clive abandons his forbidden love, marries, and enters into the political arena. Maurice, however, struggles with questions of his identity and self-confidence, even seeking the help of a hypnotist to rid himself of his undeniable urges. But while staying with Clive and his shallow wife, Anne, Maurice is seduced by the affectionate and yearning servant Alec Scudder, (Rupert Graves), an event that brings about profound changes in Maurice's life and outlook. Sparking direction by James Ivory, a distinguished performance from the ensemble cast, and a charged score by Richard Robbins all combine to create a film of undeniable power, one that is both romantic and moving, and a story of love and self-discovery for all audiences.

The Crying Game (Collector's Edition)

The Crying Game offers a rare and precious movie experience. The film is an unclassifiable original that surprises, intrigues, confounds, and delights you with its freshness, humor, and honesty from beginning to end. It starts as a psychological thriller, as IRA foot soldier Fergus (the incomparable Stephen Rea) kidnaps a British soldier (Forest Whitaker) and waits for the news that will determine whether he executes his victim or sets him free. As the night wears on, a peculiar bond begins to form between the two men. Later, the movie shifts tone and morphs into something of a romantic comedy as Fergus unexpectedly becomes involved with the soldier's girlfriend Dil (Jaye Davidson) and discovers more about himself, and human nature in general, than he ever dreamed possible. Like Spielberg's E.T., The Crying Game was supposed to be director Neil Jordan's "little, personal movie," the one he just had to make, even though no studio was willing to give him money because the story was so unusual. Instead, it became a surprise popular sensation, thanks in part to Miramax's cleverly provocative campaign playing up the hush-hush nature of the movie's big secret. The performances (including Miranda Richardson as one of Fergus's IRA colleagues) are subtly shaded, and the writing and direction are tantalizingly rich and suggestive; you're always trying to figure out the characters' true motives and feelings--even when they themselves are fully aware of their own motives and feelings. The Crying Game is a wise, witty, wondrous treasure of a movie. Director Jordan's credits include Mona Lisa, Interview with the Vampire, Michael Collins, and The Butcher Boy. --Jim Emerson

Bent

Bent debuted onstage in 1979 with Ian McKellen starring in the London production and Richard Gere in its later Broadway version. The film version is adapted by the playwright, Martin Sherman, and closely follows his play's story of two gay concentration camp victims who are sent to Dachau and who fall in love, using their relationship as an emotional crutch in their efforts to rebuff the horror of the Holocaust. Max (Clive Owen), would rather wear a yellow star and proclaim himself a Jew than be lanced with the pink triangle that designates homosexuality. Horst, (Lothaire Bluteau) chastises him for his homophobia. Later the tables turn on Max, who finds--through Horst--the strength both to keep alive indefinitely and to ultimately embrace his sexual identity.

Initially set in a war-ravaged Berlin, Bent is directed by Sean Mathias, who first directed Jude Law in Indiscretions, and he has crafted a film that reminds one of Ian McKellen's Richard III with its spare, stylized, and stark world bombed into rubble and chic theatrical disarray. There are many poignant as well as harrowing scenes, and the result is a somber work that stands as a reminder that intolerance cannot overtake individualism and love. While Bent received an NC-17 rating for depicting Berlin's decadent, anything-goes-for-a-price nightlife, MGM opted not to edit out the tone-setting prelude and pushed to preserve the film's integrity despite a rating that is itself a kind of death for any film that bears it. --Paula Nechak

Renowned British stage director Sean Mathias directs Martin Sherman's "powerful and provocative" (The New York Times) screenplay about one man's struggle to maintain his dignity while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. Featuring exceptional performances by Lothaire Bluteau (Black Robe), Clive Owen (Gosford Park), Brian Webber, Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings: TheFellowship of the Ring) and Mick Jagger, Bent will "grab filmgoers by the heart" (Rex Reed)! Max (Owen) is a handsome young man who, after a fateful tryst with a German soldier, is forced to run for his life. Pursued and captured, Max is placed in a concentration camp where he pretends to be Jewishbecause in the eyes of the Nazis, gays are the lowest form of human being. But it takes a forbidden relationship with an openly gay prisoner to teach Max that without the love of another, life is not worth living.

My Beautiful Laundrette

With its "extraordinary cast" (Los Angeles Times) including Oscar® winner* Daniel Day Lewis and "riveting visual style" (Newsweek) this "warm compassionate and feisty" film (The Hollywood Reporter) about a young Pakistani man coming of age in London is "a fascinating eccentric [and] very personal movie" (The New York Times)!Living on the dole with his alcoholic father in a shabby South London flat Omar is a bright-eyed Pakistani teenager who wants to make something of himself. And as his papa drowns deeper in vodka and self-pity Omar turns to his unscrupulous wheeling-and-dealing Uncle Nasser to show him the key to success. But when Nasser hires Omar as manager of a seedy dilapidated laundromat Omar is forced to choose between running a squeaky-clean establishment or conducting some very dirty business!*1989: Actor My Left FootSystem Requirements:Running Time: 98 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 027616869326 Manufacturer No: 1002734

My Beautiful Laundrette, Stephen Frears's low-budget realization of Hanif Kureishi's subversively critical play, captures the contradictions of mid-'80s Thatcherism in a way that's as fresh today as when it was new. Wheeler-dealer Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey) sums it up when he says, "In this damn country, which we hate and love, you can get anything you want." He sets up his nephew Omar (Gordon Warnecke) with a rundown laundrette and the instruction to make it a success, which Omar temporarily does, with the help of his childhood friend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). When the film was first released, it was the gay content that dominated the conversation, whereas now it seems a sensitive and multifaceted summation of its decade, exploring social, ethnic, and sexual issues and contradictions. Bringing together two such different characters as Omar--Asian, ambitious, for whom success is defined by wealth--and former childhood friend Johnny--white trash, ex-National Front--was inspired. Watching their friendship develop into love, and the ensuing bitterness and misunderstanding that they suffer from friends and family, is very poignant. All the lead roles are well taken, the contradictory character of Nasser in particular. By turns, funny, touching and anger-inducing, My Beautiful Laundrette wears its age lightly and its era proudly. --Harriet Smith

Priest

Despite its title, forget about finding this controversial drama on the Vatican's screening list. The film explores a provocative checklist of religious taboos--celibacy, incest, sexual abuse, homosexuality, the debatable secrecy of the confessional--as director Antonia Bird delivers a bold condemnation of what she views as the outdated politics and harmful nature of Catholic doctrine. The story concerns the ideologically strained relationship between two clergymen, the misleading conservative Father Greg (Linus Roache) and his older and more practical colleague, Father Matthew (Tom Wilkinson). Upon arriving at his new Liverpool parish, Greg is shocked to learn that Matthew ignores celibacy and openly sleeps with his black housekeeper. Greg chooses to satisfy his earthly desires in a more secretive way. Sometimes, he likes to lose the cloth, grab a leather jacket, and pick up guys at the local gay pub. He's got other problems as well. While torturing himself with his own moral dilemma, he's hit with another, as during confession a young girl confides that her father is sexually abusing her at home. While this drags out the old "bound by secrecy" cliché of many religious melodramas, Bird uses it to bolster her theme of unwarranted secrecy in the face of faith and social scorn. Ultimately, both the priest and the girl are victims of their own fear, and must find courage to destroy it. Thankfully, Bird's wicked sense of humor keeps the film's tone from slipping into saccharine sentimentality, while Roache's intense performance and a honest, shattering finale rescue the film from swerving too far into shallow TV movie-of-the-week sensationalism. --Dave McCoy

Critics everywhere declared PRIEST to be one of the best films of the year! The deeply held religious convictions of an idealistic young priest are challenged when he must face extraordinary events within his own congregation. Soon, he is forced to make the impossible choice between keeping the faith and exposing the truth! A gripping and powerful story -- see this unforgettable big-screen hit for yourself!

Wilde (Special Edition)

Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon