The greatest movie ever made..!

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The murder of young gay man Matthew Shepard shocked America in 1998. Less noted immediately was the response of Laramie's populace. Moisés Kaufman's play "The Laramie Project" focuses on this. The play consists of interviews conducted with citizens of Laramie in the wake of the murder and subsequent prosecution of the perpetrators.Kaufman also directed the movie version. It shows how the people of Laramie had never wanted to think of their town as a bastion of hate, but it is now known almost exclusively for Matthew Shepard's murder. One of the most revolting instances during the ordeal was when Fred Phelps brought picketers to shout "God hates fags".* All in all, this should serve as an example not only of the horrendous things that hate can drive people to do, but also of how no person can every totally know his/her community. I definitely recommend it.In a more recent development, attacks based on sexual orientation are now legally classified as hate crimes.*More recently, members of the Westboro Baptist Church picketed the funeral of Christina Green, the girl killed in the assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords.

Matthew Shepard was about two months short of his twenty-second birth when he was robbed, beaten, tied to a fence post and left to die in a rural area of Wyoming. The man who found him at first thought he was a scarecrow. Rushed to Poudre Valley Hospital at Fort Collins, he died on 12 October 1998--and when Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney were arrested for the crime they resorted to a defense known as "gay panic." Matthew Shepherd had propositioned them, they said, and they were so horrified that they killed him in response.The gay community and numerous civil rights watchdog groups were outraged by the defense, and as more and more facts came to light it seemed that the crime was somewhat more complicated than Henderson and McKinney wanted the public to know. Witnesses stated that Henderson and McKinney had specifically targeted Shepherd because he was gay. After much legal wrangling, Henderson pled guilty and testified against McKinney, who was convicted; after still more legal wrangling, and at the request of Shepherd's parents, McKinney escaped the death penalty but has no chance of parole.The case made headlines from end of the United States to the other and prompted numerous calls for Hate Crimes legislation, which had long been stalled both at the state and federal level. And in the midst of the confusion, chaos, and controversy, Moises Kaufman and the members of The Tectonic Theatre Project arrived on the scene, interviewing more than two hundred people about their thoughts and feelings on the case. These were shaped into THE LARAMIE PROJECT, a drama that debuted in 2000 and which has since shocked, impressed, and deeply moved audiences from coast to coast.On the stage, THE LARAMIE PROJECT is played by eight performers who enact the numerous interview subjects in a three act, three hour performance on a largely bare stage. When filmed by HBO in 2002, it was reduced in length by about half and each interview subject was performed by a different actor--some of them members of the Techtonic Theatre Project, some of them well-known actors such as Laura Linney and Peter Fonda. The result is indeed powerful... but not as effective as the stage version, for on film it tends be a series of readings by "talking heads," a sort of pseudo-documentary, rather than as a cohesive whole.That said, the great difference between the film and the original script is one of balance. On stage, THE LARAMIE PROJECT takes no sides per se; it simply sets forth the words and allows the audience to judge. On screen, it is distinctly slanted, cutting much of the commentary that gave the original such remarkable balance. Even so, and although far outstripped by the stage version, it is a powerful voice for equality, tolerance, and simple human decency. Recommended.GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I live in Cheyenne, WY, a short 45 minute drive from the beautiful small town of Laramie. Unfourtanitly, after the murder of Matthew Sheppard, we are seen as a heavily Conservative hate-state. This is absolutely false. We are, for the most part, a very accepting and tolerant state. While we do have a very Conservative/Republican population, as well as a large Mormon population, we are not a hate state.With that said, this was an eye opening film. It truly shows the problebms we have with tolerance and hatred towards homosexuals these days. If we can learn anything from these tragedies, it should be that tolerance towards homosexuals is of utmost importance. Also, love can heal every would. Mrs. Sheppard's foregiveness towards the murderes is a great example.By the way, I am a Catholic. Jesus did not hate anyone. Keep that in mind.

I have just recently moved to Denver, Colorado from Boise, Idaho. We drove all the way down here, and as we entered Wyoming, or sometime before we left it (I cannot remember which) I saw the town Laramie on the sign. I had heard the name before but couldn't remember exactly the significance of the town.It wasn't until after I had seen the movie Hostage with Bruce Willis in it, and had checked who the actor who played Mars Krupcheck was also in The Laramie Project. I remember my friend Ricky telling me about the Laramie Project, that it covered the story of the gay boy who had been savagely beaten to death there.Matthew Sheppard was a college kid attending the University of Wyoming. He had left the Fireside Bar with two other boys. They had hit him in the back of the head with a pistol and tied him to a fence post, beat him some more, stole his shoes and money, and left him for dead. This scene is never depicted in the movie. In fact, Matthew Sheppard does not make an appearance, even in a photograph.Being a homosexual myself, this movie held a great amount of significance for me. Sitting through, and watching the information presented to the audience through Sheppard's families and friends, of the religious figures in the movie... all of it hit very close to home. I cried almost all the way through this movie. I didn't just feel sorry for Matthew and his family. ((I felt sorry for the perpetrators, sorry for what they had allowed themselves to do.I've always been pro-death penalty, and I still am, but I think that if I had been in Matthew's position, I would not have wanted those two boys killed.))((Edit: 10 years later, things have changed. I no longer support the death penalty, and I feel like 'feeling sorry' for the perpetrators is nothing more but an indulgence encouraged by those who would take away our rights to encourage pathos for the two attrocious creatures that made the decision to leave Matthew tied to the fence that cold night. Let them rot.))The movie, while slightly off at times, is amazingly touching. I can't stress that enough. If you have ever pondered what it's like to live in a town that is defined by a crime, if you've ever wondered what it was like to go through such a situation, this is the right movie. We may have had nothing to do with the events in Laramie, or we may have even been there the day it happened. What is important is that we, the audience, suffer with the people depicted in this movie, and that we are better because of it.