Gaywatch: New Year’s Entertainment Resolutions 2: Electric Boogaloo
By Tim Parks
Hello dear readers and fan, we last left off on Part One of this exciting look – well, it is for me, so there – at how to have a steely resolve in an entertainment sense for next year. So, why the multi-part approach to TV, movies and, spoiler, music?
It’s just that 2012 had to be broken down. You know, like Kirstie Alley at a Krispy Kreme promising herself to just look at the glazed doughnuts. Mmm, glazed doughnuts.
And we’re back on target…
OK, stop me if you’ve heard this one before…the upcoming year’s movie calendar is comprised of a good majority of superhero movies during the summer. I told you to stop me! Since you didn’t, I won’t address them right now; oh you got served!
Please to enjoy a looksie at what 2012 has in store for you.
Schwing Dancing
First and foremost, all you really need to know about what will get your butts into your local Cineplex’s seats are two words: Magic Mike. Here’s six more: Joe Manganiello as Big Dick Richie. You may know him better as True Blood’s studly werewolf Alcide and he may be appearing full frontal…now where is my train of thought? Oh, it got derailed by a visual and the hope that no prosthetic penis will be used ala Boogie Nights, even though Marky Mark is involved in the project.
Oh, you want to know what the movie is about. Where are my manners? This no-sex-in-the-champagne-room tale about male strippers also stars Channing Tatum in a life-imitating-art-imitating-life role – yes, he was a shake your moneymaker back at 19 – as he takes a younger dancer (Alex Pettyfer) under his thong, umm, wing. But, wait there’s more, if you act now we’ll also thrown in Adam Rodriguez (Ugly Betty and CSI: Miami) as a fellow stripper. Rodriguez turned down a role in The Dark Knight Rises because it conflicted with him getting a cinematic rise of an altogether different nature.
Oh yeah, Matthew McConaughey is on board, but not as a bump and grinder, since his T-rex arms couldn’t pick up any dollars showered upon him if the ladies make it rain. If you need me, I’ll be in line pitching a tent – I mean…no, pitching a tent pretty much covers it – in front of a local theater. June 29.
Reel Life
There is absolutely nothing funny about the subject of bullying and its effects on those being subjected to it, whether its individuals or a community as whole, so please go see The Bully Project. We now return to Gaywatch already in progress. March 9.
Diva Watch
Since Hollywood has mandated that Madonna is no longer allowed to appear on the big screen, for evidence please refer to any movie she was in except Desperately Seeking Susan, Dick Tracy, Truth Or Dare, A League Of Their Own and Evita; so what’s a Material Girl to do?
For the answer, check out her writing and directing on W.E., which has garnered the Queen of Pop’s look at King Edward VIII’s romance with American Wallis Simpson two Golden Globe noms, including Best Original Song for her song “Masterpiece” that plays at the end credits.
However, said track for the film’s soundtrack is rumored to not be in the running for possible Best Song inclusion come Oscar time, as they don’t go for the back door approach, meaning that in order to be eligible a song should play in the beginning of the film. February 3.
It looks like two women who achieved #1 status with “I Will Always Love You” are making a return to the big screen after a many years absence. If you guessed it was Gloria Estefan and Britney Spears, you are not only sorely mistaken, but need to turn in your gay card, stat!
First up is Dolly Parton joining Queen “I Haven’t Met the Right Man” Latifah for Joyful Noise, which is not a long form infomercial for Beano and its ability to make one not-so-flatulent.
Rather it’s an “Ebony and Ivory” type of story in which a black girl (Keke Palmer) and a white boy (Jeremy Jordan) get along in perfect harmony, as they join musical forces to possibly win a national choir competition. I really hope Dolly is playing the boy’s Auntie or Grandma and not his mother…talk about a late-in-life kid. January 13
Seeing as Whitney Houston has gotten her act together – cough, cough sure she has – it’s a perfect time to get her acting out of rehab, err, moth balls and return to the Silver Screen for the first time since 1996’s The Preacher’s Wife.
Wow that is a long stretch between roles; 16 years to be exact. Hopefully there wasn’t anything personal going on in between her role as Julia and her upcoming one as Emma in Sparkle.
Well, there was a slight professional detour because crack was as wack as she let on that it was; and Sparkle’s plot involves a trio of sisters in a successful singing group and their subsequent dealings with fame and – wait for it – drugs. This potential celluloid comeback could spell O-S-C-A-R as ole Whit Whit could bring a lot to the role, and she’s really done her research. Then again, it could be a flop like Burlesque. August 10.
Cut. Print. That’s A Wrap!
Well, there are some 2012 film offerings that will have a certain gay Wessonality, oiling us up and easing us into the New Year with the promises of what’s to come. You really can’t take me anywhere. Until next time, that’s all of the news that’s fit to print.
Tim Parks Media Ho 