“The Imitation Game is far from a brave movie in any way when it comes to Alan Turing’s personal life,” says The Daily Beast‘s Tim Teeman in 2.3 article called “The Imitation Game‘s Big Gay Lie.” “It backtracks on his sexuality, and for [the film to] to now wear its gay-pride badge to get liberals on side for Oscars votes is laughable and ludicrous.

“To boil it down: fantastic campaign, but the most cowardly, wrong-headed film to hang it on.”

The Weinstein Company release “focuses on the cornerstone of Turing’s work, cracking the German Enigma Code of World War II,” Teeman notes, “[but it] barely addresses Turing’s sexuality. We see no relationships, no trysts, no sex — and this from a film that now wants the repeal of convictions of men like Turing persecuted under a law based around gay sex.”

I also find the Weinstein Co.’s Phase Two decision to suddenly play the gay-pride card a bit disingenuous, but it’s hard to get worked up about a film that has absolutely no chance of taking the Best Picture Oscar. The race is strictly a Birdman vs. Boyhood thing, and I would argue that it’s not even that much of a race at this stage…although I might be reading the wrong Tarot cards

I’m wondering if Teeman and others who are offended by the Weinstein Co. billboard campaign that says “honor the man, honor the film” are aware that most of the admirers of this film, particularly the older Academy members whom this campaign is aimed at, are fully comfortable with if not relieved by the film’s failure to “address Turing’s sexuality,” as Teeman puts it. The Imitation Game is a tidy Masterpiece Theatre movie about an especially brilliant British fellow and some other almost-as-brilliant fellows doing what they can to help dear old England win the war against Hitler. Nobody, trust me, wants to see Turing blow some guy or vice versa.