Gay Best Friend: Sammy Gray in Reality Bites (1994)

In this series by Christopher James we investigate the 'Gay Best Friend' trope in movies.

We're introduced to Sammy along with the whole crew of main characters on the roof after their college graduation, two minutes into the movie.

At last, it has come to this point. This marks the first week where I’ve covered a “first watch” for the Gay Best Friend series. Thanks go out to Julian who suggested Steve Zahn’s clean cut Sammy in Reality Bites, a 1994 Gen-X classic. As a proud, card-carrying millennial, Reality Bites had been a movie I had always meant to watch, but never gotten around to. The Winona Ryder fan in me was excited to use this column as an excuse to rectify this blind spot. Overall, the film left me a bit wanting. The characters and situations were a great encapsulation of the confusion you experiences the first years after college. It’s easy to see the lineage from this film to movies and TV shows I love and relate to (namely Girls on HBO and Frances Ha). However, the plot always felt less developed than the characters and performances. The movie exists now as a museum piece encapsulating post-grad life in the 90s. That’s not meant to be a dig. Plenty of movies from the '00s and '10s will feel the same way in 10-20 years. In fact, it speaks to why this modest love triangle from 1994 has endured for twenty-six years in the cultural conversation...

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Review: Aubrey Plaza in "Black Bear"

by Matt St Clair

Though her trademark had been deadpan comedy, Aubrey Plaza has shown a recent knack for giving bold dramatic performances as obsessive women. Three years ago, in Ingrid Goes West, she immersed herself into the role of Ingrid Thorburn who was not unlike a female Travis Bickle on Instagram. In Black Bear, Plaza is on a career-best level as Allison, an actress-turned-filmmaker with possibly ulterior motives as she stays with an unsuspecting couple in an isolated cabin...

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Showbiz History: Star Trek transforms, Little Women opens, Nicholas Hoult strips

You spoke and asked us to keep doing this series but we have to simplify so it won't be as deep divey. We still hope it's fun for you -Editor

4 random things that happened today, December 7th, in showbiz history

1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture opens in movie theaters, the first major move in transforming the shortlived 60s tv show into an undying franchise. 

1990 Mega-blockbuster Home Alone was enjoying its fourth (of an astonishing twelve!!!!!!) weekend atop the box office charts while two future classics and two of the best films of the year opened in limited release...

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Weekend box office: "The Croods" sequel in theaters, "Mank" at home.

U.S. weekend box office (though we still won't have theaters any time soon for some cities) 

 

1. The Croods: New Age $4.4 ($20.3 cum)
2. Half Brothers $720k *new*
3. Freaky $460k ($7.7 cum)
4. All My Life $350k *new*
5. The War With Grandpa $329k ($17.6 cum 

The Croods sequel is also doing well overseas as Deadline shares in a global box office report . That report also notes that Japan will soon have its highest grosser of all time since the animated film Demon Slayer the Movie is now approaching the numbers of its all time champ, Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (having already surpassed the previous #2, Titanic)

Home Viewing? This week we rewatched The Man Who Cried (2000/2001) of all things for Murtada's Sundays with Cate podcast as well as Citizen Kane (1941) which is as marvelous as ever and finally finished The Queens Gambit (2020) which was so so satisfying. On the Rocks on Apple was a pleasant if uneventful sit. We also took in Mank  on Netflix and a preview of News of the World (in theaters at Christmas) both of which were lush and great-looking but would have been infinitely better on a big movie screen *cries* where they could totally envelop your senses and thus your mood. What did you see this week? 

Top Ten season begins with John Waters... as ever

by Nathaniel R

Butt Boy - no, really, that's the name of the movie

Infamous former* filmmaker John Waters has released his annual Top Ten List in ArtForum and it's as completely entertaining and performative as ever. He kicks things off with two movies about people putting things into various orifices that don't belong there (Butt Boy and Swallow, the latter of which we've discussed before) and ends with a double-feature of courtroom docu-dramas (Trial of the Chicago 7 and Mangrove) to keep you guessing. You should read it but here are two brief spotlights just for fun...

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