Gay Sex in the 70s
Wolfe Video | Release Date: November 4, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The director, Joseph Lovett, wants us to ask if there's such a thing as too much freedom, and he has the sobriety to say yes -- and no. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Lovett's film is a finely balanced and loving work of history, which never tries to sugarcoat elements of the explosion of gay sexuality three decades ago that may seem excessive or disturbing to some contemporary viewers. Read full review
80
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
An engrossing piece of social history, a lively, astonishingly well-documented excavation of that period. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Some four decades after the birth of the gay-rights movement, the excess and sexual abandon of gay life in the '70s seems more an aberration than an accurate picture of out-and-about gay life at the end of the 20th century. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Yet despite the retrospective sensationalism, Lovett's 70-minute documentary is a sobering anti-erotic cautionary tale. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Lively, impassioned, well-structured documentary. Read full review
70
VarietyRonnie Scheib
Magnificent photographs, archival news footage, and location-shot porn add texture and immediacy to Joseph Lovett's fascinating memoir of the sexually explosive 12-year period (1969-1981). Read full review
70
The New York TimesLawrence Van Gelder
Within that narrow framework, the film is quite successful, using archival photographs, clips from pornographic films and television commercials, and interviews to evoke the period between June 1969, when the Stonewall riots brought homosexuality out of the shadows, to June 1981, when the AIDS epidemic began. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyErnest Hardy
It's fair to assume that most viewers likely to see the film, whose title is the very definition of truth in advertising, already own the knowledge being sold. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
A rich sense of the dawning of gay liberation. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's often a vivid film and paints its small niche well, but only in the final passages, when AIDS changes everything, does it feel full-blooded. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneRobert K. Elder
Largely male gay sex, with nary a lesbian in sight, or in mind. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Lovett's history is heavy on hedonism, but he does deliver a succinct perspective on this celebratory era - between the sad bookends of repression and loss. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle Smith
The conclusion is that in this bare-chested band of brothers, what really matters is camaraderie. "Having friends," remembers one guy, "that was the best part." As he says this, the décor behind him features a pair of handcuffs. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderAlbert Williams
Survivors of the 70s may find their memories stirred by tales of cruising Studio 54 and the Saint, of abandoned piers and empty Allied vans; younger viewers may be fascinated by the contrast between these balding middle-aged men and their black-and-white snapshots, showing them in tight jeans, flannel shirts, long hair, and Zapata mustaches. Read full review
50
Village VoiceEd Halter
Lightly entertaining, but--not unlike the cheap action it chronicles--leaves one wanting something much more substantial. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleSteve Davis
A documentary with a decidedly prurient slant, Gay Sex in the 70s isn't for everyone – it's definitely aimed toward the older gay crowd who somehow lived through the experience and the younger one who might wistfully wish that it had. Read full review
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