Nuovo Olimpo - a New Gay Film on Netflix

 Leon and I watched Nuovo Olimpo on Netflix yesterday. An Italian film but you can choose the English audio which is very well done.

This is a gay love story, but a somewhat different kind of love story. It explores the various kinds and depths of love/attraction that individuals might experience and what happens when "space and time get in the way".. I won't say more than that. There is some very nice nudity, but it's not gratuitous. The three men in the film, the main characters, are almost too good looking...but well, I guess that's one reason for watching.

The story begins with two men, Pietro and Enea meeting at the cinema Nuovo Olimpo in Rome in the 70s. The cinema is a gay meeting/cruising place. Pietro and Enea begin a relationship and frequent the cinema as a rendezvous location. It happens to be in the vicinity of a major political protest against fascism and when the protest becomes violent the police raid the cinema and the two men become separated. (not exactly sure why the police target the cinema - perhaps I'll have to watch it again!)

All the characters are believable and realistic for the time period and culture. I was impressed with the fact that even the cinema's cashier, Titti, was portrayed with dignity and depth of character. I want to say more but don't want to give away too much of the story.

Good Grief

 We just watched “Good Grief” on Netflix. Good grief! Starring Dan Levy of Schitts Creek (a TV show I found forgettable) as a gay artist whose famous writer husband died in a car accident. It takes him a whole year before reading the Christmas card his husband left him on the night he died which revealed that his husband had a boyfriend (and a luxury apartment) in Paris. 

That could have been a workable story line but what the movie turned into was improbable dialogue among/between pretentious artsy characters that was often difficult to understand. I found none of the characters likable; which is to say I didn't like any of them. Ruth Negga's character could have been speaking Greek for all I got out of it.

It was like someone’s failed thesis on existentialism with privileged characters constantly experiencing angst and little if any genuine grief. It almost gave me a headache trying to follow the dialogue and plot (not sure the word “plot” is accurate). Throw in an extraneous stranger at a London bar who just happens to be from Paris...and a few other characters who appear with no rhyme or reason...and some improbable circumstances...

Too bad it was such a dud because there are so few gay or LGBTQ dramas out there.

Look, I can cry watching Magnum, P.I. But I had dry eyes during this entire movie and it was supposed to be a tear jerker, I think.

It might have been OK if it were about Charlie Brown and Lucy and Linus.

A Little Dance Music

 Hubby put this Dinner Time Jazz on the little Bluetooth Bose just before dinner.

 

We were both standing there near the speaker in the dining room when I took his hand and started to slow dance with him. We both got into it, however briefly as dinner was about ready. It was sweet. 

We held each other close and danced like it was our first date. 

I cannot recall the last time we danced, if ever. Before we met I would do the disco thing at Gay Bars or attend dances sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian organizations back in Connecticut. Leon and I might go to a gay club now and then, but he was never one to go out on the dance floor. 

And I can't remember ever slow dancing with Leon in our 35 years together. We need to do it more often.