And I'm not picking on indies. It's entirely possible to have a classy independent film on a low budget: Priscilla, Big Eden, Latter Days.
To the producers, directors, screenwriters: Know your audience! Most gay men have attended college and some of us have advanced degrees. Stop insulting our intelligence!
Three words of advice: Character driven plots.
Get Your Stuff: This movie is misleading. Start with with the cover art. We see two hunky guys frolicking poolside. I'm sick and tired of gay filmmakers pandering to us with shirtless hunky guys. Note to filmmakers: We, the viewing public, have caught onto the fact that eye candy does not make a good or even watchable film. Plus the cover has absolutely nothing to do with the film itself.
Modern Family Values? Gimme a break! Phil and Eric live in Beverly Hills where the only real family value is greed. They don't have a clue about how to relate to each other let alone how to raise kids. They seem to think, and want the audience to believe, if you and your troublesome charges tinker with the car and splash in the pool that the brats will magically transform from little monsters to perfectly acceptable young men. Nothing futher from the truth!
The only situations that were remotely accurate were the character of Gloria and the initial attitudes of the two boys. ("We're too old to be adopted," the older boy tells his brother.)
Add in some abysmal production values (all the interior scenes sound as if they were shot in an echo chamber) and you've got a film that jumps more sharks than Discovery Channel during Shark Week.
Get Your Stuff and get out of the theater!
Chuck and Buck: I'm an intelligent man but I simply don't "get" this movie. I've seen it described as a black comedy. Sure, if you find emotional retardation and stalking funny. Both Chuck and Buck are so unlikable I had a hard time caring about the outcome of these characters. Chuck because he's so creepy and Buck because he's so selfish, abusive, and abrasive. As a storyteller, you've got to be very careful about making your central characters as unlikable as these, unless they have some sort of redeeming characteristic. And neither Chuck nor Buck have any.
There's some pretty poor production values here, too. Just because a film has a limited budget doesn't mean it has to look and sound like it. To wit: Adventures of Priscilla, Big Eden, Latter Days.
I think part of the buzz surrounding this film is that it got some praise at Sundance. If this is the future of gay cinema, Goddess help us all.
Now, show me a movie where Chuck enters some intense therapy, grows up emotionally, learns to function as a normal human being and how to function in society as a gay man. THAT would be a movie I'd want to see.
9 Dead Gay Guys9 Reasons not to watch this film.
Silly. Offensive. Unfunny. Dubious. Plotless. Charm-free. Boring. Worthless. Stupid.
I think the last one pretty much covers it all.
200 AmericanWe viewers have been inundated with gay hustler movies lately, to the point where it's becoming a cliche. What is the endless fascination? Frankly, I'm sick of them. This movie did nothing to break out of the gay hustler cliche. The acting is acceptable and the actors pretty to look at but the dialog is unbelievably bad. ("Hello! One Life to Live called. They want their dialog back.") I admit that I did chuckle at the stuck elevator scene. Sad that some seemingly talented actors couldn't have been given some better dialog.
The plot has no real story arc or climax, in fact seems to change focus halfway through the film.
The characterizations are sloppy. Even some of the minor characters such as Ted and Emily and the foul-mouthed models are as likable and funny as fingernails on a chalkboard. Ian is pretty well-developed but the screenwriter doesn't seem to know where he's going with Conrad. Is Conrad a jerk? Are we supposed to feel sympathy toward him because of his recent breakup? He comes across as petty and vindictive (the blanket incident described in the elevator) and that's a dangerous position to place a major character in. In any storyline, if you have an unlikeable character as a lead and you want to engage your audience, you'd better make sure s/he has some redeeming quality. And Conrad has none.
The character of the grandfather was one of the few bright spots in the film.
In the end, the movie never really answers the question posed in its tagline: "What are you worth?" It would have been a much better movie if it did.
SugarQuestion: What do you get when you mix a bad screenplay with no plot, unbelievable situations like the little sister, bad production values and scenes inserted only to shock (pardon the pun) like the servicing of the 500 lb. woman? Answer: Sugar!
Cliff has an identity crisis. Big deal. So what? Which one of us hasn't at some point turned to drugs and hustling to figure out the meaning of life? I know that was my chosen path of enlightenment.
Unlikable characters, flimsy plot, bad production values (everything is so dark I had to adjust the brightness on my monitor) and situations that are so far-fetched they are more appropriate for a comic book. This trashy film asks us to suspend disbelief so often you'll feel like you were hired by your local electric company to string power lines.
Other reviewers have called this film gritty. It's gritty, all right. Gritty like sand in your sugar.
Lie Down With Dogs"Woof woof bark bark ruff ruff yap woof woof bark bark." What Rover is trying to tell us is that when you Lie Down With Dogs, you get fleas. Neuter it before it reproduces!
Go lay down!
CircuitI'd like to help the Director Dirk Shafer and the screenwriter Gregory Hinton make this a better movie.
This movie took me to a place I am unlikely never to see; the world of circuit parties. Some reviewers have praised this film for it's honesty and unflinching look at circuit parties. WHO CARES? If I wanted to learn about circuit parties, I'd tour the local sewage treatment plant.
Mr. Shafer and Mr Hinton, you can't seem to make up your minds if this film is supposed to be a fictional account or if it's a documentary. It fails miserably at both. The film tries to show the shallowness, danger and narcissism of the circuit lifestyle and becomes shallow and narcissistic itself. The plot is razor-thin (pardon the pun) the musical montages are wincingly bad. Worst of all the characters are cardboard cut-outs moved from scene to scene. We never really see any motivation let alone any growth. And in place of redemption Shafer offers a cheap and easy out: death.
I make these suggestions, Mr. Shafer, because I think -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that you were trying to make a fictional film. Because if you were trying to make a documentary you would have partnered with Ken Burns and gotten funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The best movies have character-driven plots. My .02 Mr. Shafer: you really missed the boat with the main character. John leaves Illinois because he's been outed at work as a police officer and is led into the vacuous and empty world of the gay circuit party. Allow me to make some suggestions. Why doesn't he get a job as a cop in LA -- or at least attempt to? That would have lead to all sorts of interesting developments. How do his new coworkers feel about his sexuality? How does he deal with the demands of his job after a hard night of partying? How do the other characters such as Hector react to John's getting a job? Cop in LA --let's see...corruption, Rodney King...lots of opportunities there.
One last suggestion. Instead of having John leave Illinois couldn't he move to that big city up there by Lake Michigan? What's the name of it again? The city that beat LA as the USOC candidate for the 2016 Olympics? Oh yeah -- Chicago. But, silly me, gay men only live on the two coasts and the middle of America is simply a vast wasteland to be flown over.
And treated with the utmost contempt.
10 AttitudesYa want attitudes? I got 10 of them for this movie: Disgust. Contempt. Dismay. Insulted. Reviled. Bored. Disrespect. Stupid. Shallow. Sense of Humor-ectomy.
Sideline SecretsI should have known from the pretty shirtless boys on the cover. For low-budget indie films that's a tipoff that the filmmaker (and in this case 'filmmaker' is a very generous term) is going to try to substitute soft-core porn for any semblence of a real movie. Which is fine if that's what you want. I didn't. Call me wacky but I expect more from my moviegoing experience; hmm...let's see...a plot would be nice, some continuity, some decent production values, and some acceptable acting.
I've said it before: Just because a film is low-budget doesn't mean it has to look low- budget. The wardrobe department of Adventures of Priscilla bought most of the costumes at K-Mart on a 15% employee discount and they took home an Oscar for Best Costumes!
Too bad there isn't an Oscar for posing because that's all the actors in this film can do.
Know your audience, Mr. Vasquez. Many gay men have attended college and some of us have advanced degrees. This piece of trash is insulting to our intelligence.
Sideline Secrets should have remained both on the sideline and a secret.
Speedway JunkyDon't care that it's produced by Gus Van Sant. All the more reason not to watch it as far as I'm concerned.
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