The best career guidance books say that to achieve true job happiness, one should take his hobby or passion and find a way to make money off of it. Journalist and self -described lifelong film nerd Alonso Duralde, then, must be in orgasmic occupational heaven, having recently released his 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men, published by Alyson Books.

Originally from Atlanta, Duralde is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and works as the arts and entertainment editor of The Advocate, the national gay and lesbian newsmagazine. In his late 20s, he served as the artistic director of the USA Film Festival/Dallas for five years, programming one of the nation’s oldest and largest film festivals.

The book’s inspiration, however, came far more than solely within. Working with numerous college-age interns at The Advocate, though sharp and witty they may be, Duralde says they seemed to have missed a good amount of what he calls "essential queer movies." Duralde also found himself serving as a human search engine for friends requesting recommended lists while en route to Blockbuster down the street or, more lately, to Netflix down the information superhighway. His "big, giant list" eventually became the book.

He also credits a close-knit group of friends, all working within the entertainment industry, as "enablers" who served as a sounding board for the book.

Watermark chatted with Duralde about the movie-going experience, what didn’t make his list, last year being the year of gay cinema, and on Oscars past and soon-to-be present.

ALONSO DURALDE: Are you going to complain to me about Steel Magnolias not being on the list?

It’s not your fault – we were raised on Sesame Street, and we just want it all faster, faster, faster.

Plus, it’s the whole group experience thing. When I saw Brokeback Mountain I had to yell at these three bitches who decided that every time Jake and Heath got naked, they needed to film it on their cell phones.

Part of me loves the idea of movie-going as a communal experience, but lately I’d just as soon be Howard Hughes and sit there by myself. People have gotten so incredibly rude in their movie-going habits that it’s appalling.

Well, The Birdcage especially, but I find both films fairly appalling because I don’t think they’re all that funny, for starters. From a gay perspective, you have a gay couple that pretty much demonstrates no affection towards each other at all. La Cage aux Folles kind of gives me the creeps. It feels like it’s a gay movie made by straight people who are handling the gay material with tongs.

You know ... (sighs) … God, In & Out feels so lowest common denominator gay. It feels so safe and lukewarm, plus it was a big hit, so it’s not like I need to tell people to go see it. Any gay person anywhere probably knows about it. There are hundreds of better movies to see than that one.

Oh, fucking Steel Magnolias. It’s a movie that doesn’t work for me at all. I love tearjerkers and I love sassy women comedies but … it’s a sitcom. This is The Golden Girls where one of them dies.

I can tell you, though, whose accents are super-phony. But here’s the thing: In no way do I suggest that this list is empirical, it’s completely subjective. It’s not that I’m saying there aren’t gay people who love those movies. It’s just that I don’t, and it’s my book. (laughs)

There’s a lot going on – the question is to see if it’s just a bump or if it’s the beginning of a trend. One of my coworkers said after the Supreme Court gave George W. Bush the presidency back in 2000, "At least it’ll be good for the arts." When you have a repressive, Right Wing president in office, it inspires the people on the other side to tell stories and to make their mark in the world. I think that’s why we’re seeing a lot of this stuff now.

If I were writing the book now, Brokeback Mountain and Capote would certainly be in there, and I probably would have also written about Mysterious Skin, Transamerica, Breakfast on Pluto …

Even outside of these awards movies, there’s a lot going on. I think the more stories we can tell the better. By the law of averages, the more gay movies there are, the more good ones there will be.

There’s any number of them. We’re still waiting for the Harvey Milk movie, which looks like it might be happening. There’s (another) documentary on the history of queer cinema coming soon, and one producer talks about wanting to make a movie about the affect of AIDS on artists and on the community in general; I think that’s a story that hasn’t been told yet. There are all kinds of minority stories, women’s stories. We’ve just scratched the surface and we’ve got a long, long way to go.

I think there should absolutely be a 101 Must-See Movies for Lesbian Women and I think a lesbian should write it. But I have a category in my book called, Would It Kill You to Watch a Lesbian Movie? I include Go Fish, Bound, I’ve Heard the Mermaid Singing, and Sandra Bernhard’s Without You I’m Nothing.

Worthy? Absolutely. But I don’t see a lot in store for the Oscars – I’ve been hurt too many times. Too many films have been beaten out by far inferior films. Giving too much power to the Oscars can be a heartbreaking experience. But Brokeback was my favorite film of 2005 and I’d love to see it win. If it doesn’t, it will join a pantheon of great movies that didn’t win Best Picture.

There have been some real stinkburgers that have won. Braveheart leaps to mind, Gladiator … have you tried to watch Gandhi lately? And Forrest Gump, does anybody really want to watch that again?

I didn’t hate Chicago, but there have been much better musicals before and since. And I liked Rent better than a lot of people. Any problems I had with Rent the movie were the same problems I had with Rent the stage play. Namely, that after Angel dies it’s not that interesting anymore. And The Producers, well, that was pretty appalling.

(Laughs) That’s sweet. It’s definitely his films, but it wasn’t until Chasing Amy that I became a big fan. It was the first movies I’d seen by a straight guy that really felt true to me as a gay guy in terms of how gay men and straight men relate to each other, how straight people deal with gay issues. Kevin just gets it.

I just interviewed him at Sundance because he executive produced this great documentary called Small Town Gay Bar, and he introduced himself as a "bi-curious bear wannabe from New Jersey." It was very funny. W