Eleven Men Out (Strákarnir Okkar) (Iceland 2005)

The Gist:

Ottar Thor, a star football (soccer) player comes out of the closet during a magazine interview in order to improve the odds of his being the cover story. He gets the cover, but is also kicked off the team as well. While dealing with the repercussions, he joins a gay amateur football (soccer) team and soon enough they will play an exhibition game against his old team, on gay pride day appropriately enough. 

Not really spoilery comments: 

While from the description it sounds exactly like the "Outted athlete joins a gay team to victory" sub genre of gay movie I've joked about before, this doesn't quite exactly follow the path laid out for it. 

For one thing, for a sports movie, very few games are actually played. Another reason, an unfortunate one, is that it spends quite a lot of time with how other people, his friends and family, deal with Ottar's announcement of being gay, rather focusing clearly on him. Unfortunate, because it was a bit annoying watching his parents and others freaking out about how his being gay would negatively affect their lives.

The division of time spent on Ottar's vs everyone else also means that by the end of the movie, he remains the same vague and undefined jerk as he is at the beginning. 

Interestingly, this is not a romanticized view of Iceland. As seen here the entire country is cold, dark, and wet from near constant downpours, and there is little to do other than get drunk. Not exactly a tourist board postcard view. 

In the end it's not a bad movie, just one that ends up being a little boring. 

Women: 

Yes

People of color: 

Some

Gratuitous nudity:

Locker room shots

• Director: Róbert I. Douglas
• Writer: Róbert I. Douglas
• Actors: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Helgi Björnsson, Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson
• 85 min
• IMDB

KickOff (UK 2010)

The Gist:

A gay 5 man Sunday football (soccer) league team, whose members all have issues to deal with, are about to play their first game. Unfortunately it's against the toughest bad rep team in the league (whose members also all have issues to deal with).

Comments:

The movie has many elements that should have made me love it: a large multicultural cast, varied sexuality, it's loud and bright, and sharp yet playful. Instead I just thought it was barely ok. 

Unfortunately instead of coming off as natural and a reflection of the real world, it  feels formulaic and kind of preachy. Every footballer has an issue to work through, and each one is given time to do so, leading to a story juggling drugs, internalized homophobia, questions of paternity, metrosexual-phobia, and more, and more, and more, to the point that the repetitiveness of looping subplots gets a little exhausting. So much is going on (and quickly resolved) that it's difficult to care about anyone.

Still, it's not a bad movie, just a really weak one.  Rikki Beadle Blair is the best thing in it, although in the end, watching him play a fey, gay dad of an angst-y teen made me wish I were instead watching him play a fey, gay dad of an agnst-y teen in Metrosexuality (a great British TV show).

Women:

Yes

People of color:

Yes

Gratuitous nudity:

One joke scene

• Director: Rikki Beadle Blair
• Writer: Rikki Beadle Blair
• Actors: Duncan MacInnes, Ian Sharp, Ludvig Bonin, Rikki Beadle Blair
• 99 min
• IMDB

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend (U.S. 1999)

The Gist:

An up and coming actor is about to marry his girlfriend, much to the annoyance of his boyfriend. A bumbling straight man is convinced to play gay as an excuse to skip out on the aforementioned wedding without facing dire consequences from his boss / girlfriend. A would-be paparazzi photographs something she shouldn't have. Which all mixed together doesn't add up to the sum of it's parts. 

Comments:

The movie wants to be a witty "Oscar Wilde-ian" farce by way of a Rock Hudson/Doris Day movie with a light dose of slap-stick comedy. While good to be ambitious, the people involved unfortunately don't manage to pull it off, and instead ended up with a slap-stick comedy that is not as "smart" as it thinks it is. 

It is also, despite being included in various lists of gay flicks, not exactly a "gay movie." The (frankly unlikable) gay couple are actually minor characters here. The real protagonist is the clumsy straight man, and thus this is actually a hetero love story, where the setting happens to be a marriage between a closeted actor and his unsuspecting bride.

If doors hitting people in the face knocking them unconscious is your kind of comedy, this might be worth watching. If that's not the definition of hilarity for you, then this is probably not worth the effort.

Women:

Several 

People of color:

None

Gratuitous nudity:

None. Though there are scenes with women in nighties if that's the way you "roll."

• Director: Kenneth Schapiro
• Writer: Kenneth Schapiro
• Actors: Deborah Gibson, Sean Runnette, Jill Novick, Valerie Perrine, Chris Bruno
• 81 min
• IMDB