Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema

I can't say that I agree with the earlier poster who claims the film doesn't represent gay men's films. Hello, John Waters, Don Roos and any number of other participants. There are far more glaring omissions than a few enjoyable mainstream 1990s indies and "The Boys in the Band." How about the entire history of avant-garde gay cinema, pre-1960s?

Regardless, any survey this broad is obviously going to be shallow. You'd need a miniseries to cover the entire history of queer cinema across all eras, countries of origin and genres.

This being an IFC documentary, it focuses on independent cinema. That makes sense.

For a broader historical perspective, albeit a very Hollywood-focused, U.S.-centric one, check out The Celluloid Closet.

For someone who is not familiar with the history of gay and lesbian cinema, this was an outstanding introduction to the subject.

I was fascinated with the early "gay" films and the fact that they were basically pictures of muscle men. I can imagine the Governator in some of these films.

What was significant and more important than the lack of films was the fact that gay and lesbian youth did not have any role-models to tell them that they were OK in how they felt. How many suicides resulted in a lack of gay films and gay actors on television? Taking us through the early days to today and thinking about the future of gay and lesbian films, it was an eyeopening experience and a must see for anyone interested in cinema history.

Documentary purporting to show clips from landmark gay films and how they developed over the years. I'm giving it a 9 but I can't say I liked it. The movie focuses mostly on lesbian, independent and transgender films. There's nothing wrong with that--but totally ignoring gay male films is not right. Where's "Boys in the Band" or "Jeffrey" or "Love! Valour! Compassion"? Those were landmarks and the gay male films they do cover ("Making Love", "Brokeback Mountain") aren't shown in any depth at all. It should be titled "Fabulous! The Story of Independent Queer Cinema". That aside this is fascinating. It shows gay directors and actors talking about the films, how they were made and released. Some truly fascinating remarks are here. Well worth seeing but totally ignoring gay male films bothers me. I give it a 9.

"Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema" serves as an interesting introduction to GLBT cinema over the last 40 years. However anyone who is familiar with the similar documentary, "The Celluloid Closet" (1995), may be somewhat disappointed by "Fabulous!". It is distinctly less ambitious in scope and depth - it spans a shorter period in time (50-60 years) and therefore does not explore homosexuality in the early history cinema - surely a crucial part of 'the history of gay cinema'? Oddly, "Fabulous!" almost totally excludes European and World Cinema while explaining that these were almost the only sources of gay cinema in the dark days of homophobic censorship in the US. On the other hand, the treatment of different ethnic and minority groups (e.g. Asian- and African- Americans) in gay movies is explored in an interesting way.

A wide range of contributors (actors, directors and critics) give their opinions on the development of gay cinema - although this commentary often resembles the shallow contributions found on TV 'best of' compilation programs. The graphics, jumpy editing and music used also give the whole production a rather cheap and 'made for TV' feel.

Where this documentary is strongest is in gathering together a wide collection of (US) gay-related cinema, particularly from the last 20 years. For anyone interesting in exploring gay cinema further these films will provide a good starting-point. A humorous and light-hearted tone is maintained throughout meaning that the documentary should appeal to a wide audience and not just ardent film buffs.

I'm always interested in any film documentaries especially when there about the history of queer films. As a gay man I am a huge movie fan and love seeing myself in the films I love. That being said this 2006 film is just slightly disappointing. After the superior Celluloid Closet it not only lacks the information in that film but also doesn't really bring anything new to the plate. That being said it's fine but there's definitely better explorations of the topic out there.

6/10