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Stonewall | 2015 | R | - 7.5.10

In the late '60s parents kick out their teenage son (Jeremy Irvine) when they discover his sexual orientation and he moves from the Midwest to New York's Greenwich Village, where he witnesses the discrimination and homelessness that are plaguing the LGBTQ community. He throws the first brick during the 1969 Stonewall riots to start the Gay Pride Movement. Also with Ron Perlman, Matt Craven, Jonny Beauchamp, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Joey King and Caleb Landry Jones. Directed by Roland Emmerich. [2:09]

SEX/NUDITY 7 - Two teen boys meet behind a barn in a rural area and one boy gets into the car of the other boy, who kisses him on the cheek and neck, then on the lips; the second boy asks if they are sick and the first responds with "No" as we hear the second boy unzip his and his friend's trouser zippers below the screen and see arm motions from both when the second boy bends the first boy's face down to his groin area and we see the back of his head move up and down slightly and hear sucking noises (the first boy leans his head back, gasping and moaning; two other teen boys in a car drive up, one pulls open the driver's door of the first two boys and they jump and gasp (no flesh is seen) as the driver speeds off erratically with screeching tires and one of the second two boys asks twice, "What was that?"
 In a dark alley in an opened storage unit two male couples have sex (both couples are clothed): we see one man standing with his back in a corner and the man in front of him faces the camera and wears sweatpants in which we see his penis bulging as the man behind him thrusts several times and the pelvis of the man in front moves toward the camera; in another corner, a man stands behind a bent-over man, thrusting toward his buttocks and a gay male teen sees both couples from the alley and cringes.
 A gay man arranges with an older man to pay a new gay friend $25 for sex; the newcomer follows the older man behind a water tower, where the older man places a newspaper on the grass and kneels on it, then unzips the younger man's trousers and pulls them down (we see some bare abdomen, bare upper thighs and briefs in close-up, but no genitals or a bulge), then lowers his head and the camera cuts to the standing man's face as he gasps and grimaces (oral sex implied).
 A club owner kidnaps a young man and has him taken to an expensive hotel where an old man looks the young man up and down, then gives the club owner several large denomination bills presumably to pay for sex with the young man; inside the suite, the young man sits on a couch and the old man leaves the room and a drag queen wearing a sleeveless dress and a wig, makeup and jewelry appears; he quotes John 15:14 about friendship, says he is a friend, and unzips the young man's trousers, pulling them down fast (we see a close-up of his briefs, but no bulge, and some bare skin at the waistband and at the upper thighs) and the drag queen bends over to perform oral sex (the fire alarm sounds and the telephone rings, ending the potential sex encounter).
 Two men in a dimly lit apartment bedroom are seen on a bed; one shirtless man leans over and kisses the other shirtless man's chest (we can see all four bare lower legs) and the bottom man leans his head back, moans and the scene ends (sex is implied).
 In three scenes, male couples kiss briefly on the lips. On a sidewalk, two men hug and talk with their groins pressed together. Men openly flirt with other men, smiling, giggling, and touching one another's arms and shoulders. Drag queens blow kisses at each other. A young man kisses another man, a drag queen, on the cheek and says, "I can't love you, but you'll always be my sister." Two men lie in bed, shirtless, but no sex or touching occurs.
 Transvestites are shown wearing glittery women's clothing. In two gay bar scenes, two men wear only tight gold lame short-shorts and we see bare abdomens, navels and legs to the thighs as they dance in close-up. Several men in a gay bar wear makeup, jewelry, scarves and mini-dresses that bare legs up to the lower or upper thighs. A dozen gay men sleep on the floor in a flophouse room, clothed in briefs; we see a close-up of two of the men pulling off their trousers, revealing bare stomachs, navels and upper thighs and underwear-clothed buttocks (no genitals or bulges are visible) along with the bare chests and abdomens of the other men. Two young men wear sleeveless undershirts that bare shoulders. A man wears a sleeveless dress that shows underarm hair. A junior high school girl wears shorts that reveal her bare legs from ankles to the top third of the thighs. A man makes a dress from a sheer gold curtain; he wears it with makeup on the street and harassed by a police officer, bends below the frame, rises with small white underpants (gender indeterminate) in one hand and throws them away (we see the man's bare center chest, and bare shoulders and arms). Men in women's clothing leave a gay bar and put on a short, impromptu fashion walk on the street, snapping fingers and swinging their hips in mini-dresses that reveal knees, and in tight bell-bottom pants and halter-tops, revealing bare abdomens. A pregnant woman shows a very large belly when wearing a dress that hits below the knees.
 In a gym locker room a young man with a long towel from the waist down and bare chest, shoulders, arms and back asks another young man why he never showers; the second young man says he does not sweat.
 After two officers kick and beat a young man with clubs, one officer asks the young man five times if he wants to perform oral sex on him (using crude terms), and then says the young man is disgusting with a mouthful of blood (we see it) and he no longer wants the young man to perform oral sex (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
 Several drag queens solicit for prostitution, enter men's cars along a street and in an alley and drive off (sex implied). An elderly man dressed as a woman enters a diner, asks a teen boy at the counter if he wants a third hotdog (sexual suggestion) and the boy declines; another man with a woman's hairstyle and a woman's blouse open at the neckline to show chest hair, enters and tells the first man to desist, then he tells the teen that the old man will tie him to a chair and pour sticky pancake batter all over him and that it would be sticky, but fun.
 A teen boy finds a derogatory term for homosexuals written on his locker door as male and female students stare at him in the hallways. A line of drag queens and gays dressed in men's clothing form a chorus line in the street and sing, "We wear no underwear, we show ['sell' in another verse] our pubic hair" in a few scenes. A drag queen lying on a bed wearing briefs cries, "No one wants me!" (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details) as a male friend holds him. An older gay man tells a young gay man at a meeting, "You cannot be homosexual and work for the government"; we see banners and campaign buttons declaring, "Gay Is Good." We hear that a gay man was tricking (prostituting himself) at age 12 in Times Square. A high school health class film warns students that homosexual men hide in washrooms, waiting to attack young men and a male student calls out a derogatory term for gays and laughs; in the hallway, a girl says that she does not understand the film and two boys make sexually explicit remarks. A junior high school girl tells her parents that her class cannot see a Truman Capote film, because Capote is homosexual. A man visits a high school friend with whom he had homosexual sex and finds him married, saying "I'm not like you (homosexual)"; they shake hands, embrace and say goodbye.
 A teen boy finds his suitcase on his bed at home (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details), opens it and finds several copies of the gay publication "Drum" lying on top of his clothing (men wearing swim trunks appear on the covers). A young man sees his partner in a bar, dancing with and kissing another man on the lips; he becomes angry, shouts and moves out of their apartment. An eighteen-year-old boy befriends a man who uses a female name and dresses in handmade dresses and blouses; in a flophouse room among several other gays, the man tells the teen, "You're handsome" and suggests they leave NYC and live together where the man can take care of the home and shop for groceries and the other man can be a pharmacy technician while they spoon on blankets (both men are shirtless, wearing briefs and we see legs and bare chests). A drag queen wearing a mini-dress that reveals legs from ankles to upper thighs asks a young man to dance and he turns him down but dances with a man dressed in men's clothing; the drag queen becomes tearful and angry.

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A police officer hits a young man hard on the arm with a nightstick, causing the young man to scream and hold his arm as a second police officer slams a nightstick into the young man's stomach, doubling him over; one officer holds the young man as the other officer punches him in the face and stomach, causing screams of pain and the two officers kick and beat him with clubs, one cop asking the young man five times if he wants to perform oral sex on him (using crude terms), and then says the young man is disgusting with a mouthful of blood (we see it) and he no longer wants the young man to perform oral sex (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details).
 Vintage footage shows glimpses of the 1969 Greenwich Village riot; we see police wearing heavy helmets, holding shields and nightsticks as a crowd of people has fists raised in a "power" salute and men with metal bars smash storefront windows as a caption reads that homosexuality was officially a mental illness and it was illegal for gays to congregate and be served alcohol.
 During a raid detectives barricade themselves into a bar while gays outside throw bricks, beer bottles, and rocks, break windows and set fire to the building with lighter fluid and cigarette lighters, then pull out the phone lines and disable the electricity; a bus full of SWAT-type officers arrives and they wear helmets, carry shields and nightsticks and beat a cadence on the shields as they march and the gays pour lighter fluid on shields and set them afire, then throw rocks and debris at the police, who beat a few people with nightsticks (we see a little blood) and a detective tosses an A/C unit out a window and escapes to call the fire department; the camera cuts to morning, when the entire block of the city is shown thoroughly trashed and a young man says, "I'm too mad, I like being mad. It feels good."
 A man punches a drag queen in the face, drawing some blood and then chokes him. A man mentions a drag queen's dead 17-year-old male friend, who may have been murdered and the second man breaks an empty beer bottle and holds the jagged edge against the first man's throat. A man threatens an older male club owner with telling a detective that the club owner was the last person seen with a young man alive. A young man comes home to find a drag queen friend in a fetal position on a bed, crying about his bloody face; the drag queen says that gays get beat up by clients occasionally, and this must be accepted, because many drag queens have no families and no other way to make a living than prostitution.
 A football coach calls for his team-member son to come to his office and accuses his son of aggressively seducing another football player and using drugs; he demands that his son asks for help for his "sickness," shouting, screaming and pounding the desk with his open hand and the son becomes angry and stalks out. A teen boy asks a teammate why he lied about their relationship and the second teen asks him to please leave and closes the door, then walks to the foyer wall and punches it leaving no damage; the first young man arrives home and finds his suitcase packed and on his bed (his parents kick him out of their home). A mother, her young teen daughter, and her older teen son all cry when the boy's father insists he leaves the home. In a later scene, the boy returns to visit and his mother and sister cry. Walking to town on a two-lane road, a teen boy's father passes in a pickup truck, stops, and then drives away as his son approaches.
 A drag queen throws a brick through a storefront window and steals a flowered hat; he and his friends run, then form a chorus line in the street, dancing and singing (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details). Several drag queens and form a chorus line and taunt a cadre of SWAT officers with the same song and dance.
 Several police raids occur at a gay bar: lights come on suddenly, police officers arrest a few men wearing dresses, and a woman wearing men's clothing each time and receive a payoff off-screen; men and women shout in these scenes as the arrested individuals are loaded into a police van and a woman wearing men's clothing complains that she has children and a husband and fears arrest. A gay bar is raided and the detectives let most of the clientele go, and question one drag queen at headquarters to get intelligence on the club owner's illegal activities; we hear that the club owner is with the mob and kills kids (teens), and that Interpol is investigating missing security bonds connected to the club. Police handcuff a man to a drag queen and put them in a police van, but they escape; they run to a nearby bondage bar, where men wearing leather trousers and straps across their bare chests unlock the handcuffs; the drag queen slaps the other man and the bondage employees pull out baseball bats to protect him and the man leaves. Someone pulls a fire alarm lever in an expensive hotel and two gay men rush out (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details), allowing a young man to escape an unwanted sexual encounter.
 A detective shows a man pictures of a dead young man's face and we see that it is gray, covered in dirt and small red wounds.
 A man tries to pickpocket a young man sleeping on a bench, but the young man awakens and shouts. A man crosses a street and a cab almost hits him, screeching its breaks. A man calls his parents and his father immediately hangs up on him.
 A man tells another man in a bar that there is no running water, so don't drink anything except bottled beverages because the risk of hepatitis is high. A man says that his mother is dying of cancer.
 End credit captions read that a club owner disappeared and later resurfaced as an advocate for LGBTQ people, a drag queen was found dead, likely murdered for founding a gay advocacy group and sodomy laws were repealed in several US States, but being gay is currently illegal in 77 countries.

LANGUAGE 10 - About 76 F-words and its derivatives, 8 sexual references, 21 scatological terms, 18 anatomical terms, 13 mild obscenities, 12 derogatory terms for gays, name-calling (sick, sexual deviants, little street gang, dyke, pimp, sugar-faced fool, sugar daddy, hustler, freak, stupid, dumb, dumbest, weird, pathetic creature), exclamations (shut-up), 4 religious profanities (GD), 16 religious exclamations (e.g. God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ, a prayer before dinner).

SUBSTANCE USE - A man tells another man that a drag queen's nickname is "Miss Tillie" because she steals a narcotic called Tulanol from people's medicine cabinets, a man in a club places a tablet in another man's mouth and after a few minutes the second man becomes dizzy and sits in a booth (the scene around him becomes blurry, with men wearing women's clothing and dancing around him), a man says there are drugs and booze at a party (we don't see the party), and we hear that Judy Garland died after having addiction problems. A man pulls a partially filled beer bottle from a trashcan and drinks it, a man takes a small glass of tea into his living room after dinner and it looks like whiskey, a man in a café drinks water while a friend drinks a glass of beer, teen boys drink bottles of beer at a convenience store, men and women in a bar drink from beer bottles, a man drinks a short glass of whiskey and another glass of whiskey is shown alone on a corner of the bar, a sleeping man holds a bottle of whiskey in bed, a glass of wine is shown untouched on an apartment side table, and a man pours two coffee mugs of whiskey and drinks from one mug. Several men smoke on tenement steps and in doorways as well as on sidewalks and while standing in a street, a man holds an unlit cigarette in his lips while another man smokes a cigarette and a third man rolls a cigarette, a teen boy smokes in a car and several teen boys smoke outside a convenience store, two other teen boys smoke in a car, a burning cigarette is shown in an ashtray at the front desk of a hotel, several men and a few women smoke cigarettes in a tavern, a detective lights a cigarette for a drag queen, and a man buys a pack of cigarettes for another man.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Anti-homosexuality laws, sodomy laws, conservative values, bigotry, mental illness, inequality in the workplace, determination, courage, sacrifice, relationships, friendship, love, respect, trust, justice.

MESSAGE - The Gay Pride Movement resulted from a fight against injustice and discrimination, and expanded every year since the 1960s.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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