How on Earth did I go thirty years without seeing the Al Pacino film, Cruising? It looks HILARIOUS. How is a movie in which Pacino plays a cop sent undercover to investigate a serial killer within the gay leather scene of 1980's New York NOT in the canon of great American films? GOD. The year 1980 gave us so many good things.
And, just because I'm obsessed right now, please enjoy Hunx and his Punx's "Cruising."
While I never had a problem with Boys in the Band, this film annoyed me. There was something incredibly mean spirited by the conflation of gay sex with murder that I could just never get with.
That said, there are some hysterical moments in it--Al Pacino sniffing poppers and suddenly becoming a DISCO FREAK and the interrogating cop in the jock strap and some of the lines "Hips or Lips?" Seriously, if that was NYC in the 70s, I would laughed my ass off if anyone came on to me that way.
Posted by: Alejandro | April 01, 2011 at 09:35 AM
Alejandro, I was so surprised that this was William Friedkin. It looks so homophobic, and that's what I was thinking seemed funny about it. Not that homophobia is funny, but sometimes straight people's explicit fear of teh gay can be.
Posted by: Josh | April 01, 2011 at 09:38 AM
Josh, I wouldn't have minded a serial killer movie set in that scene, but it was Friedkin's decision to change the actor who played the killer in every scene (and use previous victims to play him at that!) and then to imply Pacino got "infected" with teh gay/serial killer disease annoyed me.
I think it could have gone an entirely different way and still have been a good thriller.
I did ask an older friend of mine if the Anvil and the Mineshaft looked like they did in the film (the image of the guy ordering a drink while smoking a cig while um "enjoying the attentions" from the guy grinding away behind him shocked me). He said it was exactly like that.
I clutched my pearls.
Posted by: Alejandro | April 01, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Pacino signed up for another movie, but it was changed a lot mid filming according to producer Marty Bregman, and BOY was Pacino PISSED! He has said he nearly quit film making altogether after this. He didn't do press for the movie and hates it very much, and I can't blame him. Whatever, he's still a genius and the best actor in the world.
Posted by: Cate | April 01, 2011 at 11:22 AM
I can't believe you haven't seen this. It's amazing. On so many levels. I've written soooo many papers on it. See it immediately.
Posted by: Michael Seth Novick | April 01, 2011 at 02:11 PM