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.