Stonewall (2015)

This is a full blown Roland Emmerich film. Technically great (as all Emmerich's films). But also VERY respectful to those of us who suffered - and still suffers - oppression due to our sexuality. It is certainly an utterly historically inaccurate film. Things happen - that could not - and did not happen.But hey: Do you remember the small child with cancer - saved in the last minute in 'The Day after Tomorrow'? And the American president - that has to lead the attach on the spaceship in 'Independence Day'? Far over the top! But so much over the top that it is obviously just the director playing with all of us. And I love it.The film is loaded with quite beautiful scenes with characters you either hate or love. I understand their feelings and actions. For a gay man like me, it is sometimes very emotional, not at least due to some great acting. Yes: these people actually do exist in the real world! So watch this film as an Emmerich experience. It does not show how it was - exactly. It may not be adored by the 'political correct' gay community, this film is far too mainstream in it's access to historical accuracy. But it is a great and very entertaining and beautiful movie. Far, far too underrated!

A movie that talks about an historic event ignoring history and the people who started the movement they talk about. No transgenders, black or white, in the movie. Only focus is Gay people, ignoring not only transgender issues, but the LGBT movement in general. And even without the cis and whitewashing, its still a poor movie, with no charisma and lacks emotion. It at least can bring people together, be straight, gay, cis or trans, everyone can dislike this movie together.

I watched Stonewall last night and did not find it to be the horrible film I expected. It was not a great film either, a solid 6 out of ten. It was visually interesting, the dialog was a bit awkward and a little boring but IMO it accurately portrayed the feeling of 1969/70. Most of the characters were poor LGBT runaways living on the streets who were POC, transgender, dykes/lesbians and a variety of ethnicities. All the cops were white, mostly portrayed as assholes. Was the movie flawed? Absolutely. Perhaps the biggest flaw was calling the film Stonewall. Still I think it is worth seeing. If you can get past expectations of it being a historically correct documentary and watch it as a coming of age/out story about a young man from the country running to the city (which many did), at the end you can get a real reminder why we celebrate LGBT Pride today.

I think the Little Rascals could have produced a better backyard play then the crew behind this god awful mess of a movie. First off, this movie is NOT the story of the actual Stonewall riots of 1969, that movie has yet to be made. If you think the trailer looked bad, wait to until you see the whole movie all 129 vomit inducing minutes of it.The cast looks like extras from "Fame". In fact I kept expecting them to start dancing to Irene Cara as they threw rubber bricks at the cardboard set. The film is basically the telling of an all American blond boy (played by a brunette British guy with a triple process) leaving the horrible heartland of America after getting caught chomping on some beef-stick in the boys room. After being run out town on a rail, he takes that Greyhound bus to the big apple. (insert Midnight Cowboy theme here)Once in NYC our protagonist, Danny, immediately finds himself in the East Village. Which for some reason looks like a cheap Warner Bros back-lot set, well anyway, there he meets the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys. A place of cardboard one dimensional characters just itching for a song to sing and some windows to break. Throw in some shady mob characters straight out of "Whatever Happened to Roger Rabbit", horrible stock lines like "Gay Power!" and "I'm too angry to love anybody!" and well I think you get the picture.The whole movie is basically about Danny and Danny getting laid, Danny being forced into prostitution, Danny leading the poor Black and Latino folk to stand up against the man! Danny Danny Danny! All this story is, is a fictional tale of some twink coming to the big city, being a whore with a heart of gold and the Stonewall Riots just happen to occur during this pivotal time in Danny's life. The title of the movie should have been "Danny portrait of a male prostitute" and shown on ABC at 4:30 in the afternoon. Except ABC has higher production standards. Even after reading all of the harsh reviews I thought it could not be that bad, well it was worse, I only stayed until the end because I at least wanted to say I saw the whole thing and I had already lost $12.00. The worst movie and one of the biggest failures of a great opportunity to tell an important story. Hopefully this film will disappear quickly and never been seen or heard of again.