"There's a nothing quite like feeling sorry for yourself."

Even with the stellar setup, The Boys in the Band misses a mark. I expected something but got a different story instead. The movie has an all-star cast with great performances, with the exception of two a little too over-the-top actors, and a story that should be a good time. What comes is strange tonal shifts and not enough emotion to care as much as we should. The experience of watching is fine but what follows is a mainly forgettable movie.

Mart Crowley met Natalie Wood on the set of "Splendor in the Grass" and they became friends. During the years when they worked together, he used his free time to write a play about the homophobia that gays internalized in the years before the Stonewall Uprising. With funds provided by Wood (a friend of Hollywood's gay community),Crowley debuted "The Boys in the Band" in 1968, taking the title from a line in the 1954 version of "A Star Is Born". (full disclosure: I've never seen the play)

The play got revived in 2018 for the 50th anniversary, marking the first time that it had played on Broadway. The cast included Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto and Matt Bomer, with direction from Joe Mantello and produced by Ryan Murphy. And so now, they've brought it to Netflix. What a show! Everything about this movie is perfect. Obviously a lot of things have changed for the gay community since 1968, but it remains as important as ever to understand the self-hate that they had back then. Definitely see it.

Since Jim Parsons co-stars with Zachary Quinto, I like to think that means that Sheldon Cooper has gotten to meet Mr. Spock.

Much has been made of the fact that this one of the few times in American cinema that an ensemble gay cast has been the entire subject of a movie - and whist that is a good thing, the film isn't. Jim Parsons is birthday boy "Michael", who invites a few of his "friends" to his apartment for a few drinks. What follows is your typical bitchy, angry, collection of queers with secrets whose characterisations reflect just about every stereotype imaginable from the gamut of camp, closet, alcoholic - you name it. Except, possibly, for Matt Bomer ("Donald") they all come across as rather self-obsessed, odious individuals with little to redeem them - and when they alight on the party game from hell which involves ringing up men with whom they have had (or do have) a relationship to admit there love or to apologise for being a twat at some previous stage in their lives; the whole thing descends into a mire of booze-driven self pity and viciousness that appears entirely for effect and for little beneficial purpose. It has a very theatrical (largely single scene) production style to it, which certainly aids with the intensity and both Parsons and Andrew Rannells ("Larry") play their roles well, but Zachary Quinto ("Harold") just came across as a poor Elliott Gould and the others seemed there to make up the numbers. The 1970 version had much more to it - perhaps a less starry cast helped it cut through, but for a man exposed to the delights (and disasters) of European gay cinema for the last forty years, this is just a dull, dreary, effort trading on what it might/should have been, rather than what it is.