TOO GAY

Rating: 1/10 (5 December 1998)

I too was a huge fan of Haynes, until I saw this film. From Superstar to Safe there's not a lemon in the bunch, but this SUCKED. Bi-sexuality was a theme of the glam era, NOT homosexuality. In creating an admittedly beautiful, excessive film along the lines of TOMMY, THE WALL, etc, (or even CABARET) Haynes trips, stumbles and eventually falls flat due to his own intellectual precociousness. The Oscar Wilde/Citizen Kane crap was tedious and pretentious. Haynes made a 'gay' film with no irony whatsoever, sucked in by his own self indulgence. Up until this point Haynes was doing some meticulous, subversive work that reached a broad audience. So what happened? This is a film designed to appeal to a very narrow audience of 30-something urban gay men who cherish their liberal arts degrees and think Focault is the greatest thing since flavored condoms. The first rule of making a musical is to shoot for a universal audience, and Haynes breaks this rule with his opening shot. Overlong, misguided, and TREMENDOUSLY DISAPPOINTING.