Yes No Maybe So: Stonewall
Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 3:13PM The director Roland Emmerich left his preferred world of dumb fun cheesy explosions behind briefly a few years back for the crass Shakespeare conspiracy theories of Anonymous. But at least it was something different for him and we applaud stretching.
He ventures out of action movie land again for Stonewall which is about an explosion of a very different kind. Here's the poster and our Yes No Maybe So on the trailer is after the jump...
The riots at Stonewall (which, if you're not familiar with NYC, is a bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village) was not exacty the birth of the gay rights movement (there were already multiple official groups trying to make some headway) but it was the Big Bang that ignited all that came after.
So it's totally strange that there are so few movies about it. There's just one feature that I know of, also called Stonewall, a low budget indie that was released in 1996. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Here's the trailer...
YES
- Katey and Joe and I are planning to see this together at TIFF so for that forthcoming moment I am all yes.
- This subject deserves multiple films just as much as any other human rights drama.
- The cinematography and the boys looks pretty.
NO
- Is it too "pretty" with all those golden hues giving the rough and tumble actual story?
- That moment with Danny (Jeremy Irvine) and the brick. Please don't tell me that you're making the masculine white boy the "hero" who really started the riots... this story and the riots that broke out have always been tied and credited to the drag community. Can't they even have that?
MAYBE SO
- The first feature starred Frederick Weller as a white gay transplant from the midwest who rushes into gay life in the big city and Guillermo Diaz as his hispanic drag queen lover and Brendan Corbelis as his other lover, an early activist of the less 'throwing bricks at things' persuasion. Weirdly this new film seems to be repeating that central triangular relationship dynamic even though both films are fictional takes on the real event -- (white newbie in the city), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (more cautious activist), and Jonny Beauchamp (Hispanic drag queen) -- so please don't tell me we're getting the exact same story again when there are hundreds that could be told if you're fictionalizing things again.
Reader Comments (26)
I'll definitely see it but agree completely with your MAYBE SO above. This seems like a remake of the 90s film.
Looks awesome to me. I'm leaning yes, but I'll be a maybe so and wait for reviews. Beautiful trailer though. And hey - Seinabo Sey's Hard Times is such a great song!
The more I think about it - If I had to guess which LGBT film will breakout this year, I'd put my money on this one. Rather than Carol, Freeheld, Danish Girl, etc. The beginning of the trailer especially seems to be pulling in the historical significance / contemporary relevance direction that Oscar oh-so-loves.
The more I think about it - If I had to guess which LGBT film will breakout this year, I'd put my money on this one. Rather than Carol, Freeheld, Danish Girl, etc. The beginning of the trailer especially seems to be pulling in the historical significance / contemporary relevance direction that Oscar oh-so-loves.
god, I'm so tired of straight/cis people in movies where LBGTQ are supposed to be front and center. pass, thank you.
YES. Jeremy Irvine is so cute. So, so cute.
NO. Everything you said.
MAYBE SO. Pretty much everything about this trailer other than Jeremy's cuteness.
So overall I'm a "maybe so," though in this case, with this subject matter, and this filmmaker, maybe so feels a lot closer to a "who the hell knows?"
I should have guessed that this movie would put young, cute people front and center. This just makes me wish more people saw "Pride".
The trailer looks good and what else do you expect from such a commercial director like Emmerich?! YES - I will pay for a movie in which gay men kick ass.
Couldn't we have a real director, like Gus van Sant, Tom Kalin or Todd Haynes?
Roland Emmerich SUCKS, dumb-action or not.
Sigh. In full agreement with your NO and MAYBE SO. As soon as I saw the young man I rolled my eyes. I'm done with the White Savior trope. By most accounts, Stonewall is a story of drag and trans people of color. Period. Tell their stories or leave it the hell alone. In 2015 this is maddening.
Emmerich and this material seem an uncomfortable fit. This seems to be shot so much like a prestige pic. Here's hoping it has some depth. The real story and battles and time deserve it.
No (And thank you, KBJr.)
I'm a No. As cute as Jeremy Irvine is, the trailer makes it seem like the Abercrombiefication of the Stonewall riots.
Uh..... no! Sorry, it looks like a bad Oscar-bait attempt at a story that was far more interesting when there was another movie made 20 years ago, I think.
It should have been Verhoeven not Emmerich.
HARD NO.
Where is Marsha P. Johnson? Where is Sylvia Rivera? WHERE IS THE SHOT GLASS HEARD ROUND THE WORLD?
Like this feels like such an affront to the really amazing history that sparked the LGBT movement. And I know, I know we get into this discussion all the time, but this erasure of trans women of color's lives is just too dense/tone deaf for this day and age.
Not today, Satan, not today.
I'll see it, but I'm not expecting the best. Sadly. And, yes, from the moment they announced the plot it sounded just like the 1996 film.
@DaveS Doesn't it feel like Pride would be a much bigger hit this year? Still so sad it didn't connect with a broader audience, was a fantastic film. This looks like the Hollywood bastardization of what that movie did so well. However, I'm still interested enough to see it and give it a chance.
"See, there's as many Stonewall stories as there's gay queens in New York, and that's a shit load of stories, baby. Everywhere you go in Manhattan, or America, or the entire damn world, you're gonna here some new legend. Well this is my legend honey, okay? My Stonewall legend."
hey, la miranda, somebody's ripped off your legend!
i felt like i was watching the disney channel remake of the '95 version
swapping bostonia's "don't push me, mary; i am not in the mood" for some pretty boy throwing a brick?
OH HELL NO
[but it has inspired me to watch the original for the umpteenth time]
...yeah, I've pretty much always been a YES for this, even if it's utter crap, but this trailer is troublesome for ALL the reasons you mention. At least the cast looks good, but really, if the pretty white boy casts the first stone (or brick) in the riots I will be PISSED.
....Did the writers/director do ANY research about who was actually involved in this movement or.....?
Alarmed, for many reasons stated above. I'll eventually see it for teaching purposes but I'm bowing out of TIFF screening.
Any GWM defending, soft-peddling this brutal erasure of trans POC, are revoked of all rights to complain about screen depictions of rich straight white men. When the shoe's on the other foot...
Someone who read the script is telling me it actually is a remake. WTF?
Looks like 54 movie but with a message
It was so weird seeing Jon Robin Baitz (highbrow playwright) and Roland Emmerich (lowbrow action director) listed next to each other.