Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (February 23, 2007)

FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE
Before I talk about what there is to see at the box office this week, you should make sure you're sitting down. I don't want the shock of my telling you there is actually a movie of gay interest opening this weekend to cause anyone to momentarily black out. The flick in question is Reno: 911!: Miami, the big screen version of Comedy Central's cult hit and it looks to be every bit as wacky and bizarre as the show. Don't believe me? Then read our interview with the cast including the short-shorts loving Lt. Jim Dangle.

And if your lesbian best friend doesn't want to see that, then check out Gray Matters with Heather Graham.

Out on DVD this week is Cowboy Junction, the Donald Strachey Mystery Collection and Un Chant D'Amour. Cowboy Junction is a steamy potboiler about a gay cowboy, a married man, and his young wife. Yeah, it sounds like Brokeback Mountain, but I think Peyton Place is probably closer to the mark. I'm not sure two movies really counts as a collection, but that's what they're calling it when Third Man Out and Shock to the System go on sale next Tuesday. Both star Chad Allen, but I liked Shock much better than Third Man.

Un Chant D'Amour (A Song of Love), a controversial black and white short by Jean Genet, actually came out in 1950. And you thought it was a long wait for Let's Go To Prison to make it to DVD! Clocking it at 25 minutes, Song tells the story of two prisoners who manage a relationship under the watch of their masochistic guard. I think HBO remade it as Oz.

Finally, if two versions of Oliver Stones epic Alexander weren't enough to slake your historical thirst, then get ready for Alexander: Revisited. Never before seen footage has been restored including Alexander (Colin Ferrell's) leading ancient Athen's first gay pride parade, Alexander and Hephaistion (Jared Leto) trying out for an ancient reality show called Top Bisexual Conqueror of the World, and the controversial scene where Alexander calls C.R.A.Z.Y. the worst movie ever made.

Not much on television this weekend. No Brothers & Sisters or Desperate Housewives with the weirdly nice Andrew. Amazing Race: All Stars and The Apprentice: Los Angeles both have new eps. Then there is the little matter of The Oscars hosted by none other than Ellen DeGeneres. I guess that is worth watching even though I'm still ticked over Brokeback Mountain.

Monday has a new episode of The Class. May I make a suggestion? Can we have a meteor kill Aaron, Kyle's (Sean Maguire) boyfriend played by Cristian de la Fuente? Nothing against Cristian, mind you, but clearly he is moving on to something else and clearly The Class is a show driven by couples dating and falling in love. So let Kyle be single again and start dating because I'm getting real tired of watching him play the straight (gay) man to Ethan.

Oxygen offers more Gay, Straight, or Taken on Monday night. Last week's episode gave me my favorite quote of the week when Victoria said to Blu, “Honestly, experience has taught me than when a guy is as articulate and intelligent as yourself, they're usually gay.” Ouch, straight boys! See, this is why someday most women are going to conceive using Petri dishes.

Oxygen has made it almost impossible for me to figure out when new episodes of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency air, but I really don't care anyway. Another modeling show I don't care about is The Agency on VH1. Set in New York's Wilhelmina Modeling Agency, it's about a bunch of unpleasant people being unpleasant to each other. Who has the time? Speaking of unpleasant people, Real World has another new episode on Wednesday night. FYI, no Real World recap this week so if you want to know what nutty trashiness went on in Denver last week you'll have to check out a rerun. Don't worry—it's replaying at least fifty times.

I have to confess to being wrong about The Sarah Silverman Show on Comedy Central. I hated the first episode, but upon watching it again and subsequent episodes, I've revised my opinion and think it's pretty fricking hilarious. How can you not like a show with two gay guys who fly in the face of just about every gay stereotype? Speaking of Sarah, she is hosting the Independent Film Channel's Spirit Awards this Saturday at 5PM EST. They're also calling it the un-Oscars so maybe it will be un-boring.

Kenny's storyline on The War at Home has wrapped up for now, but if you missed our interview with Rami Malek (he's Kenny), be sure to check it out here!

Still nothing going on with Luke on As The World Turns, but AE reader Clara tells me that over on Passions, the closeted Chad is saying all kinds of homophobic things as he struggles with his sexuality. I meant to check it out, but wound up sitting through C.R.A.Z.Y. instead. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing! BTW, you can catch episodes of Passions on NBC's website.

As you call see, it's kind of a bleak week gay wise on TV. But if you don't mind reruns, I suggest you check out Queery.com which has every gay show under the sun listed.

BTW, the gay episode of George Lopez put an end to ABC's track record of good gay outings this year. It's not so much that show was homophobic (there were too many limp wrists though), but the whole thing just blew as a sitcom. I felt like I'd fallen into a time warp and was watching a bad show from the 80's. Lopez makes Punky Brewster look like an Emmy winner in comparison.

Something to (maybe) look forward to on the fall schedule might be Max Mutchnick and David Kohan's next project, a sitcom about two writing partners which was just picked up by CBS as a pilot. One of the partners is gay, the other straight. How on earth did Mutchnick and Kohan every come up with that idea?

And the deathwatch for Brad (I love the “F” word) Garrett's ‘Til Death marches on. It again finished nearly dead last Thursday. Michael (I can't wait to see it canceled) Jensen says “Neener, neener, neener."

One clarification from last week's column: when writing about British television I made it sound like all the good gay stuff comes from the BBC when it fact ITV and Channel 4 do lots of gay programming as well. The AfterElton crack team of Flying Monkey's regrets the confusion.

Now I'll shut up so you can have the BEST.GAY.WEEK.EVER!

That's it for this week! Check back next Friday for a new installment of Best. Gay. Week. Ever., or read previous installments here.