'None of That'

I popped by the famed Oscar Wilde Bookstore in the West Village yesterday afternoon and was excited to discover that Bill Sherwood's landmark film "Parting Glances" was out on DVD. Shot in the mid-'80s as an antidote to the depressing, misrepresentative films about people with AIDS, "Parting Glances" holds up beautifully some 20 years later. The story revolves around the lovers Michael and Robert as they prepare for Robert's impending departure for a two-year work assignment in Africa. Michael is coping with his rock star ex-lover's battle with AIDS as well as his own ambivalent feelings about his relationship with Robert. The smart and clever dialogue makes you feel like you're hanging out with a bunch of people you know — and the cast has some fun surprises, including a very young Steve Buscemi, Kathy Kinney (Mimi from "The Drew Carey Show") and hunky co-leading man John Bolger, who is The Scarecrow Ray Bolger's great-nephew. I first saw this movie back in the day when I was a teenager living in Arizona (wishing I was a New Yorker with a gay lover of my own). Seeing it again (as an adult New Yorker with a gay lover of my own), "Parting Glances" was everything I remembered and more.