Rick & Steve, The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World, with its cast of Lego-inspired queer characters, entered our big gay consciousness in 1999 as a short film on the GLBT film fest circuit. Eight years later, creator Q. Allan Brocka (Queer Duck ) has retooled the concept into a sitcom for (who else?) Logo.
In the “Extra Frills” edition of this Academy Award-winning campy road trip adventure-romp, the cult classic gets an extra tarting-up with featurettes, a blooper reel, and deleted scenes including “How Trumpet Got His Nickname” and a “Fabulous Photo Gallery.” • 1994. Written and directed by Stephan Elliott. • From MGM Home Entertainment (www.mgm.com).
Blase DiStefano: I don’t know how many of the personalities you’ve interviewed are gay (maybe 10 percent?), but does one gay person stand out above the others?
Delightfully, this Comedy Central comedy series translates well to the big screen. Granted, the beginning is a little slow, but don’t shut off the DVD player. The laughs kick in soon enough and continue till past the closing credits.
Rick & Steve, The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World, with its cast of Lego-inspired queer characters, entered our big gay consciousness in 1999 as a short film on the GLBT film fest circuit. Eight years later, creator Q. Allan Brocka (Queer Duck ) has retooled the concept into a sitcom for (who else?) Logo.
Not since the feminist days of the 1970s has such a wonderful collection of books about women hit the shelves all at once. Reading these books, I spent a wonderful weekend re-experiencing the intellectual excitement of 21.
Various Artists
Music With a Twist: Revolutions
Fans of The L Word will recognize some of the tunes on this GLBT artists’ compilation, Goddes & She and Kirsten Price having contributed to the Showtime TV’s hit series’ fourth season soundtrack. But Ivri Uder’s “Jesse” and The Gossip’s “Standing in the Way of Control” are the big winners here. From Columbia Records (www.columbiarecords.com). More: www.musicwithatwist.com. — Review: Nancy Ford
Since the 1974 release of his multi-platinum Greatest Hits disc, Elton John’s hit-making abilities have been acknowledged in an array of domestically released compilations, including a multi-disc box set and a thorough, chronological double-disc collection from 2002. Rocket Man: Number Ones (Mercury) is the kind of anthology that Sir Elton might have wanted to reconsider, especially since he hasn’t had a “number one” since “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” in 1994. Nevertheless, the 17-track disc does boast a dozen chart-topping singles, including “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Daniel,” “Philadelphia Freedom,” the Kiki Dee duet “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (the George Michael duet version), and “Sacrifice,” to name a few. Someone must have realized that 12 tracks might appear a bit skimpy, so the disc features five “other favorites,” including “Rocket Man” and the original version of “Candle in the Wind.”
If you listen closely, you can almost hear arch-conservatives shrieking at their TV screens, squeezing the AA batteries right out of their tightly-clutched remote controls: “The gays are taking over the airwaves! You can’t even change the channel without running into something queer!”
Two new DVDs paint a very different picture of what it means to live gay in a straight world. One (The Naked Civil Servant) tells the story of a man who never knew the inside of a closet and the other (The Lost Language of Cranes) of a life spent hiding in denial.
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