Beatific Vision (U.S. 2008)

The Gist:

Michael has little time to grieve when his lover Chad dies, because "Angel Chad" (an all seeing/knowing voice) immediately comes back from the dead to cajole "guide" Michael to what dead angel Chad sees as best for him, a new unconventional family.

Comments with major spoilers:

Beatific vision is a part of Christian theology, overly simplified, it's sort of seeing /communing with god. In the case of the movie, the communing is not with god, but with the voice of dead Chad, and it's not so much communing as much as just dead Chad manipulating Michael into what dead Chad sees as best for Michael, a sexual triad relationship with two men, who have a familial relationship with two women, Michael's best friend and her girlfriend, the former wife of one of Michael's two new lovers. 

According to the IMDB plot summary, there's more details, such as dead Chad having died from brain cancer (I must have missed the line explaining this), and that dead Chad having seen Michael's future, decides to intervene. Another line of dialogue I must have missed, because from the movie I saw, it was pretty clear that controlling Michael's life was Chad's intent, even before he died. Coming back after death just made the job easier. 

It seems that the idea was to make a movie about spirituality, but what it ends up being is a weird thing, where the dead come back to control your life, which I don't think technically counts as spiritual. 

With a leather daddy with daddy issues, a newly out overly shy awkward therapist, a bold young student of human sexuality, a lesbian best friend, the newly out lesbian ex-wife of the newly out overly shy awkward therapist, and the bossy dead “angel” lover of the leather daddy with daddy issues, this movie has a lot of oddity going on, and in the end it isn’t able to make it work. Put more simply, it’s bad.  

Women:

Two (out of a cast of five).

People of color:

All the men. Well, all the living men anyway.

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes

• Director: Sountru
• Writer: Sountru
• Actors: Joe Higachi, Norm Munoz, Marianne Shine, Michael Vega
• 70 min
• IMDB

10 Attitudes (U.S. 2001)

The Gist:

Josh finds out his boyfriend has been cheating on him, and subsequently ends the relationship, or is dumped. It’s not exactly clear which is supposed to have happened, since one is shown but the other is said in dialogue. Regardless, not taking his newly single status as a 30-something “regular guy” very well, he threatens to leave California and go back home to Ohio.  A friend makes a bet that he can find Josh a new boyfriend within 10 dates and that if this doesn't work, he can give up and head back home. Ten dates, the ten attitudes of the title, ensue. 

Comments with mostly obvious spoilers:

Being very kind, the movie hovers at the edge of bad and just barely okay.

There are several problems here. It feels as if the dates (at least the dates that were not dialogue free montages) were just exercises in improvisation, with the sole rule being that the date has to quickly go bad. I haven't bothered researching to see if this is true, but it is an issue, because if this is the case, several of the actors aren't very good at improv, and if they weren't improvising and had actual written dialogue, then there was a major problem with writing and acting skills. 

It is also at just under 90 minutes, far too long. Much of this length is taken up by an overabundance of montages. Besides dating montages, there are location establishing montages, as well as ones to show that this is a topical "current" movie by showing people doing topical "current" things like talking into their flip cell phones while standing in line for coffee. Besides adding unneeded time, it makes the movie feel badly dated. 

I get that it is supposed to be an amusing critique of the Los Angeles / West Hollywood dating scene, but it never reaches the point of being funny, a fatal flaw for a comedy. Instead of humor it just rambles along aimlessly, showing dates both good and bad (never bothering to explain why the good dates don't lead to anything more), before finally coming to the slightly unexpected ending.

Okay, never mind the idea of it being just barely okay. It’s just bad.

Women:

A few, including Judy Tenuta as a wacky (and largely incompetent) therapist.

People of color:

One of the dates and a couple of minor characters. 

Gratuitous nudity: 

Nope

• Director: Michael Gallant
• Writer: Michael Gallant
• Actor: Jason Stuart
• 87 min
• IMDB

Sister Mary (U.S. 2011)

The Gist:

In a small town overflowing with closeted gay men, someone is killing off the members of the openly gay boy band "Ex-Altar Boys" and it's up to an angry (and probably closeted) homophobe cop and his new partner, a "fabulous" openly gay cop from Los Angeles, to try to stop the murder spree. After not being particularly competent at this task, a wacky openly gay FBI agent comes to town to assist in the murder investigation. 

Comments with spoilers:

A murder-mystery, gay, slapstick comedy, slasher flick is a lot of adjectives to pull off successfully. In order to work it would need to be fast paced, witty, and funny. This movie is slow, not smart, and almost all the jokes fall flat. In a word, it's terrible. 

Nearly everyone is a walking talking gay stereotype, which doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing if used as the start of a joke commenting on stereotypes or as an attempt at being transgressive, but the movie does neither, and it ends up just feeling like lazy writing, where the joke is merely "Look a gay guy is sex obsessed! Isn't that hilarious!" 

Besides gay stereotypes the other ongoing overdone joke is that everyone is wildly incompetent at their job, from cops to boy band members. At least I think it's supposed to be a joke. Anger prone abusive cops who can't do their jobs sounds like a lazy joke similar to the sex obsessed gay jokes used, but it's not entirely clear if the the fact that the boy band members can neither dance nor sing is supposed to be funny, or if perhaps it was just that the actors hired for the job couldn't do either. 

As a comedy, it's not funny. As a murder mystery, it's pretty obvious. As a slasher flick, it's neither suspenseful nor gross. As a gay flick cliche it's boring. 

As far as bad movies go, unfortunately It's not bad enough to be interesting, and not really worth the time to watch. 

Women:

Judy Tenuta in a serious role as angry nun (odd, given this is supposed to be comedy), a female police officer with a couple of lines, and actors in a "fictional" soap opera that some of the characters watch. 

People of color:

A couple

Gratuitous nudity:

Nope

• Director: Scott Grenke
• Writer: Scott Grenke
• Actors: Ant, James Vallo, Bruce Vilanch, Judy Tenuta
• 99 min
• IMDB