The mysteries continue in the "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" trailer

I just finished reading D. Gerrold's The Martian Child and though the character is bisexual he identifies himself as gay.  In the movie it seems (haven't seen it) that he's hetero.  Maybe you should have an article about how authors feel about the degayzation of their work--if there are enough around. 

I'm new at this and sent it twice; this is an "edit." 

Assumed it went straight to video.

 

The trailer starts by being all about Sienna Miller before switching over to Sarsgaard. I'm betting what we see of Teh Ghey in the trailer is all we get in the finished film.

Yes, Art Bechstein's gay lover Arthur Lecomte seems to have vanished entirely from the film version. The character isn't even listed in the cast at IMDB.

The novel was OK but not great. Despite the usually reliable Peter Sarsgaard I won't be racing to see this. 

 

It's seems sad to me that the book, which was written in the late 80's, delt freely with the subject of gay and bisexual people, but the movie made twenty years later still avoids the issue.  One wonders why Hollywood wanted to adapt the novel if they clearly felt squeamish about the content. 

as a pittsburgher, I was privy to a special advanced screening of this movie over the past winter.

i had been following the progress of this movie since its inception. I love the book to pieces, i read it during a summer in college living in pittsburgh with my best friend, so the book really captured the feel of that time of my life and connected with me.  I realize the book has it's weaknesses, though.

That said, after seeing how long it took to release the movie I was pretty much assuming that it was going to suck terribly, and the removal of Arthur, who was maybe the most pivotal character in the whole book, didn't help my opinions much. 

But i love peter sarsgaard, so i was gonna give it a shot.

Well, let me say, the movie didn't suck TERRIBLY.  But it wasn't that great either.  It sorta reminded me of 'Garden State' Lite, but not so clever and with much less interesting cinematography. And Sienna Miller isn't fit to be the gum on Natalie Portman's sneaker.  Also, I think they wasted the opportunity to get some great shots of pittsburgh, which is a really beautiful city. 

As for the gayness: it's still there, but it seems like an afterthought. It kinda just happens without warning, and then its kinda over. I didn't buy it.  I guess I didn't buy a lot of this movie. It felt forced.  But Mena Suvari was fun as eccentric drama-queen Phlox.

If they wanted to cut a character they should have cut Sienna Miller's Jane and focused a lot more on Phlox.  And personally, I think a clean-cut Sarsgaard (a la the Dying Gaul) would have made a perfect Arthur Lecomte. 

Basically, don't expect much and you won't be dissapointed.

 

As the moderator of the Official MOP Film Boycott (www.myspace.com/mysteriesofpittsburgh), I've been warning folks against this so-called adaptation since October 2006 when I first read the screenplay.

Like I've said, it's not a bad script.  I'd probably even be into seeing the movie had it NOT been called THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH.  But to completley remove Arthur Lecomte--the catalyst for everything that happens in the life of Art Bechstein and everyone he meets--is absolutely ridiculous!

Without Arthur, Art would never get up the nerve to speak to Phlox.  It is also Arthur who introduces Art to Jane and Cleveland.  The random way the trio meet in the film is just that--random.  And making Cleveland bisexual just to satisfy the gay-quotient is another joke.  Did writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber NOT read Michael Chabon's novel?

On p. 204, Art Becstein clearly states of his relationship with Cleveland: "The speed and the roar and the nothing that isolated us were more exciting, more true and intimate, than anything I ever felt that summer with either Phlox or Arthur; there was no shadow of sex to mar or deepen it. There were only laughing fear and my hands, like so, on his hips.  We were friends."  

BAND FAGS! by Frank Anthony Polito

Kensington Books/ISBN: 978-0-7582-2265-7/$15.00

www.bandfags.com