Sadly Over-hyped

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Fine if you want to watch the clips, Hudson had a surprisingly large body of work.Misleading at first, the narrator (who is indeed creepy) suggests that he is presenting Hudson's words that he himself wrote. After 15 minutes I realized not a chance that he wrote this drivel.The creator of this so called documentary doesn't have much/any respect for the audience and their judgement, or for Hudson himself it seems.And the premise of people being 'shocked' at his sexuality is a myth. I honestly don't know anyone who reacted in that way. Hudson was a good entertainer in the vehicles he appeared in, not many of which were high brow. But he enjoyed his work, and flashed his lovely smile frequently to show that.It is senseless to denigrate his life by trying to reduce him to a sexual stereotype, There is a danger in suggesting Hudson was laughing at the general public for being so easily duped. I just don't think he was like that.

Writer-director Mark Rappaport and actor-narrator Eric Farr lead us through selected clips of actor Rock Hudson's movies from the 1950s, '60s and '70s, highlighting the subtext in the dialogue passages with gay conjecture. An amusing idea, but not enough research was done. For instance, there's far too much coverage of the Rock Hudson-Doris Day-Tony Randall comedies--what about 1965's "Strange Bedfellows", which had some dandy lines rife with innuendo? There's some amusing footage of an unnamed movie where Burl Ives (in a bath towel) acts like Hudson's jealous lover (it was 1962's "The Spiral Road"), and the film-ballet of scenes involving Hudson removing his shirt or putting on his pants (usually in front of other men) is funny. Unfortunately, the film clips appear to be third-generation, VHS-recorded sequences that look even worse when they're freeze-framed for emphasis, and Farr's wilted delivery doesn't bring out Rappaport's intended sting. *1/2 from ****

This is one man's adolescent self-involved riff of what he imagines to be all things gay hidden in the films of Rock Hudson, narrated as if he is Rock Hudson speaking in the first person. Criterion has inexplicably included this on the DVD & Blu-ray of "All That Heaven Allows", as if it's assumed the target audience for this film must have an arch camp sensibility that primarily appreciates Douglas Sirk (or Hudson or Wyman, or who knows? Agnes Moorehead?) from that angle. This is offensive and insulting to anyone who really likes this film or the people involved. It is disrespectful to the memory of Rock Hudson and a joke to gay people, film students, and any true lover of cinema. I used to think Criterion and others included supplementary material and audio commentaries of more abstruse scholars with the intention of being cutting-edge and providing an intellectual platform for further discussion. With "Rock Hudson's Home Movies" I wonder now if the purpose isn't just to include space for whoever can display the most spectacular masturbatory display towards the subject. There is nothing remotely intellectual or even intelligent in this supplement. Finally, I can't imagine who would actually enjoy watching this, outside of some stoned skateboarder steeped in "Cruising" while dressed in a poodle-skirt. Yeesh!

This film is unwatchable... The picture quality itself is very poor (2011 DVD). The title is misleading... there are no Rock Hudson home movies... This is a selection of poor quality video clips from Rock Hudson films with an actor supposedly speaking for Rock. I very much doubt he would have agreed with ANYTHING this so called documentary has to say (it says nothing about Rock but speaks volumes about the director of this garbage).I bought this as I thought it would give an insight to Rock Hudsons private life and thoughts, it does nothing for the man or the actor. He was a man of his time and should be appreciated for the roles he created on screen... Avoid this nonsense.