User Reviews

Fast paced and amazing footage of this gay anomaly of a place, this film helps me to understand why so many friends continue to talk about their days at Fire Island Pines in the 70's and 80's. This documentary goes back to the beginning (in the early 50's) and is brimming with amazing videos, interviews and photographs displayed perfectly to entertain and educate.

It is gratifying to see how this small Petri dish of a place grew with gay and straight members of the community working together (for the most part) to create magic, drawing gay men by the droves, inspiring drag queens to invade and proving so enticing that the likes of Carol Channing, Judy Garland and many other celebrities braved the ferry ride to experience Fire Island.

The film's pace hits an intended and beautifully timed snag in 1980 when "gay cancer", GRID or as we know it now AIDS first comes on the scene. Laced with present day interviews with Larry Kramer and other contemporaries, the film is a living testimony of how the little island endured Nor' Easters and fires and was shut down as people were afraid the new disease that was killing gay men in New York might somehow be linked to Fire Island. The pace picks up quickly as we watch the community fight back to raise money and create organizations that remain critical to the fight against AIDS today and ultimately rebound to reemerge as one of the great iconic gay destinations in the world.