BearCity (US 2010)

The Gist:

After accepting that what he really wants in life is a big hairy bear, a young man embraces the bear community, and is welcomed into a group of friends, each dealing with their own lives and issues. As he becomes more comfortable with his new life, our young gay (not especially bear-ish) protagonist works on getting a boyfriend, specifically the hottest, most popular (read: sluttiest), silver fox, "daddy" in town.

Comment with no important spoilers:

I wanted to like the movie a lot more than I did, but unfortunately there were a few too many issues for me to fully get into it. 

Mainly that there is just way too much going on. There are a couple movies worth of material here if not a short run TV show. In addition to the main story of protagonist chasing after his silver fox daddy; there is also an out-of-work chub guy deciding to lose weight by surgery, only to lose his hot chaser boyfriend instead; as well as gay couple deciding to try non-monogamy despite their concerns of what it may do to their relationship.

There are hints of interesting threads to follow, but not enough time to deal with them so things are dealt with only superficially or ignored. Why is the silver fox daddy so afraid of relationships?  Why is he so mean to the young guy? Will the young guy and the silver fox daddy deal with the fact that they are at least twenty years apart in age? These are just a few examples, and only from the main storyline, which is actually the least interesting of the three stories presented.

Another negative was that there were a few distracting technical/ low budget issues (jumbling day and night in the same scene always tends to throw me when noticeable).

On the other hand, the acting is relatively good and these are NOT the same stories that are told over and over again. 

At the very least this is worth a try… as long as you aren't bothered by naked, stocky, hairy men in sex scenes that is, because this movie abounds in sex scenes a la Queer as Folk (i.e., show everything but penis). 

Actually, I'd add another caveat, if the word husbear makes you cringe, this is probably not the best bear movie for you.  

Women:

Not really.

People of Color:

A couple

Gratuitous nudity:

Lots and lots of nudity and very hairy sex scenes.

• Director: Douglas Langway
• Writer: Douglas Langway
• Actors: Joe Conti, Christian Dante White, James Martines, Stephen Guarino
• 104 min
• Spanish
• IMDB

Visions of Sugar Plums (US 2001)

The Gist:

Closeted protagonist dude and his boyfriend happily prepare for their first Christmas together. Unfortunately for them things quickly break down when closeted dude admits that not only are his conservative religious bible-thumping parents coming over for the holiday, but that they don't know their closeted son is gay. So he needs to de-gay the apartment. Starting with the boyfriend. 

Will the relationship survive? Will the parents find out their nelly, unmarried son is a nelly homosexual? How badly will they react? Will the boyfriend have an affair with a random guy he meets while sulking at a bar on Christmas Eve? Does anyone care?

Comments with a couple of spoilers that don't matter since you're never going to see this:

Strip off the Christmas tinsel and you are left with a simple gay coming out movie. Unfortunately not a very good one. Extremely not good. Which leads to the question "Is it so bad that it becomes good again?"

So, reasons not to see this in no particular order:

1. It feels like the movie was shot on a video camcorder, only using the built in microphone and ambient lighting. Every time conditions are even slightly less than ideal (the majority of the time) it is muddy looking and the dialogue is barely understandable. 
2. For a melodramatic coming out story, this is REALLY melodramatic.
3. The sassy black drag queen neighbor, who depending on your attitude to the gay movie stereotype that the lone African-American gay man present must be an effeminate queen, is either boring or offensive or both.
4. Terrible overacting.

On the other hand, reasons to see the movie include:

1. The terrible overacting is funny when the mom discovers that her son is gay and yells out: “No!" "NO!" "Oh Jesus NO!" "NO!" "NOT MY SON!” Sadly, unintentional hilarity only happens the one time and the rest of the movie is just regular bad acting.
2. The movie is only a little over an hour long.

All in all, not worth watching.

Women:

Landlady and weepy conservative religious mother who weeps a lot.

People of Color:

The aforementioned landlady and a sassy black drag queen neighbor who hosts a drag show at what appears to be someone's living room disguised as a gay bar.

Gratuitous nudity:

No nudity. Just a boyfriend who appears to have been cast for his looks, so is somewhat shirt-phobic. If skin is the reason to watch a gay movie, the DVD cover art with a present strategically placed over the boyfriend's “junk” (and the closeted guy screaming at the present (because it's badly wrapped?)) is the most you will see.   

• Director: Edward J. Fasulo
• Writer: Anthony Bruce
• Actors: Edward J. Fasulo, Mark W. Hardin
• 78 min
• IMDB

Patrik, Age 1,5 (Sweden 2008)

The Gist

Göran and his husband Sven move to the suburbs in preparation for adopting a baby and living a life of Swedish family values. Unfortunately no country is willing to let a gay couple adopt a child. When an opportunity to adopt unexpectedly comes, they jump at the chance, only to find that due to a typographical error, 1 ½ year old Patrik is actually a 15 year old homophobic hoodlum. The rest of the story is fairly predictable, and yet…

Comments with a technically major spoiler or two

In an earlier entry I joked about the plot points that a  “gay couple + kid makes a family” story must cover and this movie hits nearly every single one. Kid is a homophobic ass? Yup. The gay couple’s relationship is strained by the stress of adapting to the kid? Yup. Happy ending? Yup.

The movie is very predictable, and yet, it is also good.

The production as a whole is well done. It is nice to look at, showing us a Swedish summer that is sharply colorful. The acting is good as well. In some of these gays with kids movies, you never buy into the idea that the adult actors even like children. However in a scene where Gustaf Skarsgard looks at a man with his young son you truly believe that he is someone who longs for fatherhood. 

  

Even though large chunks of the story are predicable, there are pieces that are somewhat surprising, as the movie touches on both the positive and negative aspects of suburbia, and doesn’t shy away from the casual homophobia the men face, both from their community and their “liberal” government.

Definitely worth a watch. As long as you don’t mind subtitles (or speak Swedish) that is.

Women:

Family, co-workers, neighbors, bureaucrats; these men do not live in a world where half the population is conveniently missing.

People of Color:

I tend to not find a sea of all white actors quite as annoying when taking place in a stereotypically homogeneous place such as Sweden. Interestingly, a line of dialogue makes it clear that the “other” for these people are Polish immigrants. Even so, the movie is not quite 100% blue eyed blond Swedes, just 99% or so.

Gratuitous nudity:

Nope.

• Director: Ella Lemhagn
• Writers: Michael Druker, Ella Lemhagen
• Actors: Gustaf Skarsgard, Torkel Peterson, Tom Ljungman
• 103 min
• Swedish
• IMDB

Be Mine (US 2009)

The Gist:

Mason and friends reminisce about the distant past (last year) when he was obsessed with the idea that his first kiss with a man would be perfect and lead to true love.

Comments with many a spoiler:

In the movie we have:

• The just married that day protagonist spends the afternoon with his “sassy” black gay friend (instead of his husband).
• His just married that day husband spends the afternoon with friends (instead of the protagonist).
• Flashbacks to the day the newlyweds first met, where college kids act wacky and sassy at school.
• Flashbacks to the night the newlyweds first met, where college kids act wacky and sassy at a party.
• Flashbacks to the day after the party, where college kids no longer bother being wacky and sassy.
• A subdued party on the night of the wedding where the newlyweds finally spend time together.

Keep in mind that ALL of this happens in a movie barely over an hour long. Now in addition to that hodgepodge of events and scenes, mix in several minutes worth of establishing shots, add on poor acting, inconsistent sound, odd casting (these are very old looking college kids), bad gay clichés (Sassy African-American Queen) and you end up with a bit of a mess.

Which is an overly long introduction to simply say that this is not really a good movie.

A shame, because while having the protagonist fixated on his first “real” kiss with a man is kind of saccharin sweet; there is nothing necessarily wrong with the story of an inexperienced college kid longing for romance and first love.

Unfortunately, as can be gleaned from the plot outline quite a lot of time is spent not telling that story. If that weren’t bad enough, the aforementioned “issues” multiply against each other to the point where instead of a story about a college kid looking for love, it ends up feeling like a multi-hour long saga about drunk 30-somethings crashing a never ending frat party.

In the end, not worth the (admittedly short) time to watch it.

Women:

The protagonist’s white female best friend, a “wacky” white female friend, and party guests walking in the background.

People of Color:

The protagonist’s “Sassy” African-American gay friend and maybe one or two party guests walking in the background. For a wild party, it was kind of boring and I found myself only half paying attention to the movie by this point.

Gratuitous nudity:

A quick flash of skinny dipping butt shots

• Directors: Dave Padilla, Steven Vasquez
• Writer: Jeremy Huntington
• Actors: Dan Selon, Jared Welch
• 70 min
• IMDB