And Here's Yet Another COVID-19 Movie Review

 

I so missing doing movie reviews during this pandemic that I will go to such wild extremes to do so.   Here's another one of those times.

Okay, truth be told, I have never previously been exposed to the late (as of last March) Mart Crowley's "The Boys in the Band."   I know it originally opened as a play back in 1968.   They turned it into a movie.   Then it was brought back to Broadway in 2018 for its fiftieth anniversary.   And that cast ultimately did this new movie version which you can find on Netflix.

Got that?

With all those editions, you would have think I saw it at some point.  Nope.  Largely, because I sort of knew what to expect.   A group of gay friends gather for a birthday celebration.  They start to play some hurtful party game.   Insults are traded.   Punches are thrown.   Hips are sashayed.   And everybody has some sort of epiphany at the end.

Watching the new Netflix edition, guess what?   A group of gay friends gather for a birthday celebration.  They start to play some hurtful party game.   Insults are traded.   Punches are thrown.   Hips are sashayed.   And everybody has some sort of epiphany at the end.

Oh, it can be funny.   It can be powerful.   It can be annoying.   My friends are like that, too, regardless of their sexual orientation.  But, as I watched "The Boys in the Band," I couldn't believe how dated it all felt.   Given it is set in 1968, yes, times have changed since then.  As a result, I still feel that this is all road that has been traveled many times in the past ten years.   Sheer laziness at work.  Perhaps, I should not be surprised.  Ryan Murphy is one of the producers and he hasn't had an original thought in over fifteen years.

"The Boys in the Band" now registers as nothing more than nostalgia and does not offer any really new ideas.   My overwhelming reaction to the movie directed by the guy who also helmed the recent Broadway revival, Joe Mantello, was......

YAWN.

The acting is good.   My attention was held.   But, when it was over, I couldn't help but think that I had seen it all before.   Even if I did not.

One additional word about one of the cast members.   Jim Parsons plays the host of the birthday party.  I have seen him in a few roles post-Big Bang and I am stunned how much of a limited acting range he possesses when he is not playing Sheldon Cooper.  Everything he plays now is a mincing stereotype of an aging homosexual and it's so incredibly one note.   If Parsons does not branch out, he will eventually be doing nothing else but assuming the Charles Nelson Reilly seat on some new version of "The Match Game."

The difference is that Reilly was a much better actor than Parsons ever will be.   

LEN'S RATING:  Two stars.

Dinner last night:  Salad.