Nonureva
Really Surprised!
Buffronioc
One of the wrost movies I have ever seen
Sammy-Jo Cervantes
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Payno
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
SnoopyStyle
Government action against homosexuals leads to the 1969 Stonewall Riots in NYC. Danny Winters is a runaway from Indiana. He is befriended by Ray and his group of gay friends. They struggle to find a place in the world.Everybody is played over the top including the flat doe-eyed Danny. There is only so many Danny jaw drops that I can take. It's overwrought at almost every point. I want to say it's unflinching but it's more like pulp fiction. There are hints of artificiality which are the flat notes of this historical drama. The struggles of the fictional Danny Winters in his home town could be a compelling story by itself. Roland Emmerich's insistence of tying it to the Stonewall Riots is questionable. It's like saying the history cannot be comprehended without a white middle America protagonist. Ray is a more compelling character. The plot is also overstuffed which sidetracks the story and drags the pacing. This is problematic especially considering the needs of this important history.
Fiman
This is a full blown Roland Emmerich film. Technically great (as all Emmerich's films). But also VERY respectful to those of us who suffered - and still suffers - oppression due to our sexuality. It is certainly an utterly historically inaccurate film. Things happen - that could not - and did not happen.But hey: Do you remember the small child with cancer - saved in the last minute in 'The Day after Tomorrow'? And the American president - that has to lead the attach on the spaceship in 'Independence Day'? Far over the top! But so much over the top that it is obviously just the director playing with all of us. And I love it.The film is loaded with quite beautiful scenes with characters you either hate or love. I understand their feelings and actions. For a gay man like me, it is sometimes very emotional, not at least due to some great acting. Yes: these people actually do exist in the real world! So watch this film as an Emmerich experience. It does not show how it was - exactly. It may not be adored by the 'political correct' gay community, this film is far too mainstream in it's access to historical accuracy. But it is a great and very entertaining and beautiful movie. Far, far too underrated!
ClusterOfCells
I went into this movie with no expectations considering the horrible reviews it received and was pleasantly surprised by an excellent movie. The plot finds all the right notes, the actors own their roles and the interactions between the characters simply feel 'right' with a few scenes hitting quite close to home. The movie simply tells the coming-of-age story of a gay man from rural America in the 1960s, interwoven with the events of the Stonewall riots and I can find no fault in either storytelling or acting.There is one scene which doesn't quite sit right and may be - given the limited historical sources there are - inaccurate, but otherwise this movie is of quite surprising quality considering the director's other work. It is very, very unfortunate that it seems to have fallen prey to a bandwagon effect.Recommended without reservation.
Gene Bivins (gayspiritwarrior)
Roland Emmerich's biggest mistake was calling the movie "Stonewall" and marketing it as if it were the actual story of the rebellion. It gave people the wrong expectation. It's not a movie about Stonewall. It's a movie about a Midwestern gay man whose story takes place on Christopher street at the time of the riots. It's also in part the story of the first person he meets in New York, played by Jonny Beauchamp, who steals the movie. It's basically a very oddball romance and coming-out story. People wanted an accurate historical epic about the importance of the riots, and the movie isn't that and was never meant to be. For what it really is, it's a very good movie. Like most "historical" movies there are inaccuracies. The worst distortion is giving Danny the "first brick." That's upset a lot of people, but in the dramatic structure of the movie it's as much about Danny's becoming himself--a gay man throwing away his shame--as it is about the situation he finds himself in. The police are depicted as "bad" in the black-and-white morality of an old-fashioned hero-versus-villain Saturday morning serial. But beyond those inaccuracies and the impossibility of recreating Christopher Street as it was (which seems to be especially upsetting to some New York viewers), the movie is as faithful to its surrounding event as any Shakespeare history play to its, including sympathetic depictions of a very diverse neighborhood of LGBT types. As a long-time gay activist, I liked the movie a great deal. It feels real as I remember things to have been 46 years ago. I felt a genuine emotional rush during and after the riot. The movie ends with typical historical clean-ups, telling us what became of the real people, like Marsha P Johnson and others who appear in the movie, and mentioning the additional nights of rioting and how they went on to be regarded in LGBT history. For me the saddest thing about this film is the divisions it's exposed among various components of the LGBT community. This history belongs to all of us, black, brown, white, gay, lesbian, transgender, drag queen, troll, twink, and so on; if we can't honor it in all of our variations, no one else will either. Go to see it as a good story well told, not as a factual documentary. I write this knowing some of you won't be able to, some of you won't want to, and some of you won't believe me. I wish there were something I could do about that, but there isn't.