ANNUAL GAY/LGBT FILM ROUND UP

Gerald Grant and Calvin Culver in Score

As this is Gay Pride Month in New York and elsewhere, it's time for my annual round-up of gay-themed films. Gay-oriented movies have proliferated incredibly in recent years, although many of them seem to be sit-com style independent comedies. However, there are literally dozens if not hundreds of films to choose from,  everything from camp-fests with cavorting drag queens to serious romantic stories to sobering or uplifting documentaries. This week I look at the groundbreaking seventies film A Very Natural Thing, the spicy, ambisexual romp Score, documentaries on gay life both before and after Stonewall, a recent theatrical film about that very event -- which was both controversial and little-seen -- and others.

A word about Score. It is not my policy to review "adult" films here, not because of any squeamishness or priggishness on my part, but because of a general lack of interest. However, Score, in spite of its hardcore sequences, is an example of the kind of erotic movie that began to proliferate in this period, ones in which there were more complex plots, longer running times, more interesting characters, and naked people who could actually act even when their clothing was on. Eventually these movies became out-dated as the increasingly graphic sexual nature of both films and TV shows pretty much made a lot of porn obsolete. I imagine that "adult" films today are back to focusing on the sex act and little else.