"The Celluloid Closet" doesn't play like a documentary; instead, it's more like an extended installment of "Entertainment Tonight", with funny, bitchy commentary and mostly bright, lively film clips (it doesn't dig too deep). Made in 1995, an extension of the cult book by Vito Russo, the most revealing thing about "The Celluloid Closet" is how little Hollywood's perception of gays has changed in the intervening years (with the exception of "Brokeback Mountain", we still get the proverbial gay best friend, gay co-worker, gay villain). There's been very little growth since on the movie screen, and the film--while insightful--is perhaps too light and non-threatening. Lily Tomlin narrates, with remarks by Quentin Crisp, Susan Sarandon, producer Daniel Melnick (who tells a story about a screening of "Making Love" that is funny and harrowing at the same time), Gore Vidal, Tony Curtis, Tom Hanks and Shirley MacLaine. The early clips are best, showing filmdom's initial acceptance of "the sissy" as a punchline--and in subsequent years as the psychotic--but a few of the movies spotlighted here don't really seem to fit into any gay mold (I never thought of "Rebecca" or "Calamity Jane" as having lesbian overtones). By the '70s, with violence prevalent in movies, it just stood to reason that gays would become the targets, and scenes from "Freebie and the Bean" and "Cruising" are just sad examples of human ignorance (yet many ironies aren't pointed out; the fact that William Friedkin, who made the landmark "The Boys in the Band", was also responsible for "Cruising" isn't acknowledged). The filmmakers aren't shallow, but they tiptoe carefully through Hollywood history, walking on eggshells, and when they run out of relevant sequences they resort to showing the same old stuff. Still, there are several pointed passages here, and comments worth savoring, but perhaps an updated version is now due. **1/2 from ****