The Second Coming (U.S. 1995)

The Gist:

In the near future the United States is speeding towards fascism, and a bullied gay high school student named Carlos joins the youth resistance movement, creating videos exposing the truth of the take over of the government by Right Wing Christian Terrorists. 

Comments:

The plot explanation makes this seem like an exciting action adventure flick, which it is not. Art film with all the implications of style being much more important than production quality, acting skills or plot is a more acurate description. Though to be fair, there is an actual plot here. A very thin plot involving conspiracies, but it is there. 

One of the conspiracies involves REX 84, a plan to suspend the constitution and declare martial law.  If you're old enough to remember Oliver North and the Iran Contra hearings, or have heard talk of FEMA concentration camps, REX 84 is this idea of herding up dissident citizens, feared as true for the extremes of both the paranoid far left and far right. 

In addition to conspiracies, the movie compares the homophobia and racism of modern day (mid-1990's) American culture to the rise of power of the nazis in Germany. Sadly, an analogy that is still relevant, even more so given that I'm writing this in the final days of the 2016 presidential elections with Donald Trump being embraced by the KKK and right wing nationalist groups.

Despite having interesting elements, the story told in such a art movie / experimental / movie school "Who cares about quality as long as I get to the TRUTH" manner that most of the movie is barely watchable and ends up  something I wouldn't recommend without a huge mile long list of caveats. 

Women: 

Yes

People of Color: 

Yes

Gratuitous nudity: 

Yes, although given that it occurs alongside violence I'd accept that the intention was not salacious but rather a desire to shock.  

• Director: Jack Walsh
• Writer: K.M. Soehnlein, Jack Walsh
• Actors: Al Giordano, Jeff Constan
• 55 min
• Black and White 
• IMDB

If Dad Only Knew (Original title: Outing Riley) (U.S. 2004)

The Gist:

Bobby, an Irish Catholic "straight acting" closeted gay dude who lies about being straight to the point he even has a "beard" (a fake girlfriend), decides to come out to his brothers after their father dies. They don't believe him.

Comments: 

This movie is proof that gay sensibility exists, because it totally lacks one. A roundabout way of saying that the creators are straight and it shows. Not because Bobby is a "straight acting" bro who is so straight acting that he likes looking at naked women. Rather it's because of what works vs what doesn't work in the movie. Bobby and his brothers being privileged over aged frat boys is more than believable. What doesn't work is pretty much anything about "the gay." Except for one thing that is. The eldest brother, a catholic priest having issues with Bobby being gay, does make sense. 

There is no rule that a straight person cannot make a "gay movie," but if you are going to make something outside of your first hand experience and knowledge, it would help if you learned about the subject and didn't approach it half heartedly. In this case one aspect of half heartedly means topless women treated as sex objects, presumably there to compensate for this being a gay flick. Thing is, with that word "gay" you'd expect men to also be sex objects, at least when gay Bobby is involved. They're not. The only time men's bodies are acknowledged, it's for comedy. 

Given the large focus on Bobby's family coming to terms with his being gay, this is arguably not a gay story for actual gays, but rather a 'regular' movie with a gay storyline for 'straight' audiences. But even if this is the case, they've gone overboard in making it 'palatable' so we are now actually catering to bro dudes. 

Another problem is Bobby's habit of breaking the fourth wall and talking to the camera. It fails not only because it's not interesting, but also because of the way it's done, framed as "I wish my life were a movie" so his monologues could be him acknowledging this is just a movie, or it could just be that he has an overactive imagination. Like the gay aspects of the movie, it feels like they didn't fully commit to the idea. 

Ignoring the how's of what is being told, what is being told is a simple coming out story where the protagonist's family has issues with acceptance. The 'wrinkle' being that his family doesn't believe him at first because he's "normal." The problem here is that having a 'regular dude' gay lead is not as unusual as the the people involved making the movie seem to think it is. 

The acting and production are acceptable resulting in a movie that is 'whatever.'

In the end I guess my primary issue is that despite supposedly being a gay coming out story, it's actually a straight teen sex comedy. Only with thirty and forty something year-old adults who act like teenagers, no sex, a lead who is gay, but not too gay, and with lady boobs tossed in to make up for that miniscule amount of gay. Not really a combination of words I'm interested in. 

Women: 
The protagonist's plot-moving-forward sister and his fake girlfriend.

People of color:
"In story" everyone in Chicago is white.  During a breaking the fourth wall sequence however, one of the crew members is African American. 

Gratuitous nudity: 
Yes. Topless women and a couple of male butts, though as mentioned in the comments, in this movie women are meant to be ogled, while men's bodies are things to laugh at.

• Director: Pete Jones
• Writer: Pete Jones
• Actors: Pete Jones, Nathan Fillion, Stoney Westmoreland, Julie Pearl
• 99 min
• Note: I found no explanation for the title change from 'Outing' to 'Knowing.' Admittedly I did not spend much time looking for an answer. Presumably the newer title, being more 'heartfelt' would attract more viewers, as well as being less obviously "gay"
• IMDB

All The Others Were Practice (U.S. 2015)

The Gist:

Jorge, pronounced George, coasts through life, work, and romance; living, working, and dating.

Comments with a big spoiler that isn't much of a spoiler:

We have a movie where not everyone is white, nor gay, nor male, with a non-traditional gay lead, i.e., he's neither white nor thin. More so, when focusing on his love life, his dating problems are the standard "dating is hard" issues that you'd expect from any romcom, not the "no one will date me because I'm fat!" storyline usually used when the protagonist isn't a skinny twink. 

All a good start. Unfortunately it is immediately is hobbled by the difficulty making an interesting story about aimless people living somewhat boring lives. Jorge is described as a commitment-phobe, except he doesn't seem actively afraid of relationships, just passively "meh." The same attitude he has about everything in his life, which does not make him the most engaging of characters.  

On top of that there is a similar problem in that the secondary characters are pretty much all aggravatingly boring.

There's also an issue with the conclusion of the story, in that there isn't one. Not really anyway. This counts as spoiler, but given the setup of a dude having a string of dates and hook ups that don't lead anywhere, and also considering the movie's title, you'd expect the movie to end with him learning a lesson and being ready to build a life with his new (final) boyfriend. 

This doesn't happen. Not really anyway. The pieces are there and put into place, but there's no real reason to believe Jorge's learned anything at all, or that final dude will not just be yet another man who will come and go from his life with no impact or lasting effect. 

This list of negatives makes it sound like I hated the movie. I didn't. I actually liked it. It's not terrible, it's just... not very interesting. 

Women: 
Yes

People of color: 
Yes

Gratuitous nudity: 
No

• Director: Brian Tolle
• Writer: Brian Tolle, John Hancuff
• Actors: Charlie Ballard, Kimberly MacLean, Bennie Bell
• 88 min
• IMDB

The Coffee Shop (U.S. 2014)

The Gist:

Various mostly, though not entirely, related events take place at a gay coffee house: a bisexual man has dating problems, a young woman comes out to her mom, a gay male employee acts slutty, the drag queen coffee shop owner needs to find a new employee, vampires stop by for a drink, etc..

Comments:

I've found very little information about the movie, so I don't have an explanation for why it is so odd. Is it a movie intended to be a series of shorts using the same setting to pull them all together? A compilation of various episodes of a web series? A film school project with other short stories added to bump up the time to full movie length? 

Whatever the answer, the result is a movie that doesn't work. None of the shorts are particularly interesting, well acted, or funny. It is also borderline offensive, or at the very least annoying in dealing with bisexuality. The expected standard when you have your main characters telling offensive phobic jokes is to take a position that they're wrong. Something that doesn't happen here. Jokes are made about the bi dude, and nothing is said or done to show this is wrong. So by implication bisexuality really is wrong?

The best thing about the movie is that not everyone in it is a young gay white man, so it almost resembles the real world. Unfortunately, other than that, everything else is pretty much wrong. 

Women: Yes 

People of color: Some

Gratuitous Nudity: No 

• Director: A. J. Mattioli
• Writer: Many people 
• Actors: Blanche Baker, Keith Collins, Edvin Ortega, Julia Weldon
• 90 min
• IMDB

Leather Jacket Love Story (U.S. 1997)

The Gist:

Young eighteen year old, privileged, pretty boy Kyle decides that his 'artificial' West Hollywood lifestyle is hampering his ambitions of becoming a poet, so he moves to the bohemian neighborhood of Silver Lake where life is "real" and poets abound. Once there he promptly meets and falls for an older leather man named Mike. Will Kyle succeed in becoming a "real" poet? Will he convince commitment-phobe Mike that romance and monogamy are worthwhile pursuits? 

Comments:

I saw the movie many, many years ago on VHS after it first came out and had totally forgotten just how "porn adjacent" the movie was. Meaning that there is a lot of casual full frontal nudity and many sex scenes. So many sex scenes. Apparently it's a major selling point, that it was the first gay movie to treat nudity and sex the same way straight movies did. I'm not entirely sure that's accurate though. Both in not being the first gay flick to feature naked dudes sexing each other up everywhere, nor that this level of nudity and sex was really that common at the time in non-gay movies.

Beyond the sex, the movie was both better and worse than I remembered. 

The better than I remembered part of the movie is that the production level is pretty good and there's a drag queen trio who are pretty cool in action, if not acting skills. 

The worse than I remembered part is the story of Kyle and Mike's romance, or rather Kyle's idea of romance, that the two men should immediately become boyfriends in a committed monogamous long term relationship after spending one night together. In a movie where nothing comes off as particularly realistic, their destined fate is total fantasy. The characters don't have anything in common so the romance doesn't come off as particularly believable. 

Another issue is that they conveniently ignore that Mike is already in a relationship. Granted an extremely open and casual one where both men get to do whatever / whoever they want. A fact that apparently nullifies its existence, since after being mentioned once, everyone, even Mike, forgets he is not actually single. 

Romance aside, while largely fluff, it isn't that bad a movie, and it does offer a look at what gay life in Silverlake in the past aspired to be, if not what it actually was, making the movie a sort of fictional-historical documentary, since changing populations, economics, and gentrification has made the 'raw' and funky, non-affluent, leather - bohemian - queer world our leather lovebirds live in a thing of the past. 

Women:

A few. 

People of color:

A few.

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes, very much so. Gratuitous sex scenes as well.

• Director: David DeCoteau
• Writer: David DeCoteau, Jerry Goldberg
• Actors: Sean Tataryn, Christopher Bradely, Mink Stole
• 85 min
• Black and White 
• IMDB

Curious (Australia / U.S. 2006)

The Gist: 

After a huge fight with his fiance Beth, Ryan accidently ends up in front of a gay club and enters to satisfy his curiosity, and now must decide if he is perhaps not actually straight. 

At least that's more or less the synopsis of the movie I've found online. A more accurate description would be: Dude goes to a gay bar, does drugs, gay soft-porn sex happens, people are jerks, then he leaves the gay bar. 

Comments with unimportant spoilers:

The reason spoilers are unimportant is because there is no "real" movie here. While advertised as a movie about a man realizing he's gay and what that means for him and his fiancé, it is actually just an essentially plotless, gay, soft-porn flick, consisting of a series of overly long porn scenes featuring men touching each other's chests and arms while moaning and making strained orgasm faces. The closest it comes to a story is through the use of voiceovers at the start of the movie explaining the dude had a fight with his girlfriend, then again at the end once the sex scenes are over explaining that yes he is gay. 

While I don't have an issue with porn, the misleading description of the movie made it a disappointing / annoying view. Beyond the misdirection, the other major problem is that it's bad. The acting is terrible and there's an over dependence on voiceovers to explain what is happening rather than just showing it. Worst of all, it's dull. A problem faced to an extent by all soft-porn movies I guess. An hours worth of men doing nothing but rubbing each others chests and arms and not much else gets boring rather quickly. 

The best thing in the movie is a scene where you get to hear a go-go boy's thoughts as he makes lusty faces at himself in a mirror, rubbing his chest and arms, while thinking about how much he loves being ogled by his customers. You can tell the scene is artistic because it's shot in black and white. It's so over the top serious, it ends up unintentionally hilarious. Unfortunately it, like all the other porn scenes, goes on for too long and so quickly becomes as boring as the rest of the movie. 

So in the end, as a regular movie, there's nothing there. As porn it's dull. Not worth watching. 

Women:

One 

People of color:

Maybe? 

Gratuitous nudity:

Is nudity gratuitous in a porn movie? Surprisingly, or not, while there is a lot of skin, butt shots are about as risqué as it gets

• Director: Jaime Hendrix
• Writer: Jaime Hendrix
• Actors: Tristian Hamilton, Libby Butler, Paul Peredes, Kieth Hamilton
• 74 min
• Color, and Black and White
• Note: The actor playing the lead, Tristian Hamilton, is apparently better known as porn star Rogan Richards
• IMDB

Boystown (Chuecatown)(Spain 2007)

The Gist:
In a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Madrid, a real estate agent deals with the lack of available properties, and an overabundance of elderly people, by killing old women thus freeing up their apartments for him to sell to trendy yuppie gay couples. As old ladies are dying left and right, a gay couple, the ‘wrong’ type of gay that is (uncouth blue collar bears), attempt to deal with problems in their relationship as the overbearing terrible mother of one the men attempts to break them up.

Also two police detectives, one of whom happens to be the overbearing terrible mother of the other, are on the case to solve the murders.

Comments:
The movie is a murderous farce where gentrification is literal murder. There are also subplots involving a bear couple consisting of two goofy men, the terrible mother of one of the men, and the two cops who are also a terrible mother and her son. A bizarre mix and tumble of adjectives that should have resulted in me loving the movie. Instead I merely think it’s okay.

A minority opinion, since from what I found online, most people love it, but for whatever reason it didn’t really grab my interest. Rosa Maria Sardà of All About My Mother does a great job as the crazy mother half of the police detectives, and I did perk up when I saw Spanish performer La Prohibida briefly singing in the background of a scene set in a gay bar.  But for the most part I was mildly disinterested. Even the final chase scene, which takes place in a bathhouse filled with assorted near naked Spaniards didn’t really perk my interest.

My meh attitude towards the movie aside, the movie is arguably good. It’s funny, well-acted, and does a good job of being wacky crazy. I just didn't care.

Women:
Yes

People of color:
No

Gratuitous nudity:
Some quick butt shots

• Director: Juan Flahn
• Writer: Felix Sabroso, Rafa
• Actors: Pepon Nieto, Carlos Fuentes, Pabo Puyol, Rosa Maria Sardà 
• 101 min
• Spanish
• IMDB

Straightman (U.S. 1999)

The Gist:

After two best friends end up single at the same time, they move in together to save on rent, and their lives continue on as normal with its frustrations and small joys until one of the men admits he is gay. After his announcement, their lives continue on as normal with its small joys and frustrations. 

Comments:
First off, if you look at the movie credit info below, you'll see a repeating pattern of names in director, writers, and actors. Not usually a good sign. That said, I found this to be an interesting movie, though one with too many issues for me to consider it good. Beyond easily ignorable technical issues involved with having a minuscule budget, the main problem is one of writing/editing. 

It feels like a lot of the movie was improvised. I haven’t checked if this is the case or not, but there's a sort of rambling dialogue that doesn’t usually come from strictly following a script: people talking over each other, and wobbly conversations that feel real rather than rehearsed speeches. while it works for a few scenes, most of the time is doesn't resulting in conversations that are a bit too real, going on for too long, directionless. 

The two leads do a good job with their roles more or less, though oddly, not with each other. Their best scenes involve them dealing with other people. When just the two of them together it feels like the only thing they do is talk on and on and on and on at length about nothing and it gets a bit dull. 

Switching to a positive, the movie deals with people not usually seen in “gay” stories.  These guys, specifically the gay dude are "average" people unconcerned with the trappings of gay culture. The story doesn't seem a critique or rejection of ‘gay life,’ rather it's just that such a life is outside these guys experience. 

All in all, I suspect that with heavy editing, and a lot more money than the handful of change it seems to have been made with, there could be a good movie here. But that's a what if. What it actually is, is again, a movie that has a few too many issues going on for me to suggest watching it. 

Women: Yes

People of Color: One of the speaking roles is a guy named Carlos

Gratuitous Nudity:

The are a couple of scenes with nudity, mostly female, but it is so incidental and presented in a unsensational manner that it doesn’t feel gratuitous.

• Director: Ben Berkowitz
• Writer: Ben Berkowitz, Ben Redgrave
• Actors: Ben Berkowitz, Ben Redgrave
• 101 minutes
• IMDB

Men to Kiss (Männer zum Knutschen) (Germany 2012)

The Gist:

Ernst and Tobi are the classic opposites attract couple. Ernst being a bit of a square while Tobi is a wild free spirit. All is well (more or less) In their lives, until Ernst's best friend Uta moves back to Germany, and she and Tobi immediately hate each other. Crazy plots, wacky hijinks, and (comedic?) threats of death to defeat their "enemy" and "win" Ernst for themselves ensue.  

Comments: 

This movie is a sequel of sorts to another one I've discussed here, Alex and Leo. "Of sorts" because the leads of the other romantic comedy, the somewhat boring and not entirely believable as a couple, Alex and Leo, have broken up and are only very minor characters here, having been replaced as the focus of story by their best friend Tobi and his new boyfriend Ernst. The two new men are also not entirely believable as a couple, though at least they have the benefit of not being boring. 

In the previous movie, Tobi was an campy queen whose major character trait was that he was  flamboyant and mean. This time around however his personality has been slimmed down, losing being an asshole in favor of merely being outrageous. 

Other differences between this movie and previous one is that this story is more interesting and marginally better. Which is not really praise since that means that instead of bad, it's only okay. It starts off well enough, amusing and engaging, but the frankly weak story very quickly runs out of steam. The insane antics as Tobi and Uta work to get rid of their opponent should be funny and keep the story engaging, but instead it started feeling like work to sit through it instead of entertainment. 

Women: 

Yes

People of color: 

One 

Gratuitous nudity: 

Some

• Director: Robert Hasfogel
• Writers: Juergen Hirsch, Andre Scheider
• Actors: Frank Christian Marx, Udo Lutz, Alexandra Starnitzki 
• 83 min 
• Note: Dialogue is in German with occasional lines in English
• IMDB 

Dream On (U.K. 2013)

The Gist:

In 1988, painfully shy, teenager Paul is dragged along by his overbearing mother to a Welsh campsite. There he meets his polar opposite, loud, brash outgoing teenager George, who has parental problems of his own. The two boys have an immediate deep connection and make a pact to return to the campsite one year later to run away together. A year passes and Paul returns in search of George. 

Comments (with minor spoilers):

This movie was adapted from a play, although unlike some other play-to-movies I've seen, this one makes the transition fairly well. It's not overly obvious that it wasn't a movie to begin with; no long heart-bearing monologues directed at the camera/audience, or other oddities that work better on stage.

So we have two teenage boys who fall in love during a summer holiday, which sounds like an overly sweet romance story. This isn't that. It's actually a somewhat depressing melodrama. Lots and lots of drama stemming from the (obvious and not too spoilery) fact that both boys, though mainly George, have a lot of baggage to deal with. 

Frankly the over the top nature of the melodrama was a bit too much for me. It quickly gets exhausting. Other negatives included not always being able to understand dialogue due to thick accents, the somewhat slow pace of storytelling, the two lead actors looking more than a touch older than sixteen, and the fact that the older I get the less I believe in the idea of true immediate, soul-mate, type love, at least not when said true love involves teenagers. 

If that last bit hasn't happened to you yet, you can look forward to someday deciding that Romeo and Juliet is not the greatest love story every written and is is actually a cautionary tale about what happens when two drama queen teenagers who fall in love at the drop of a hat, meet and disaster ensues. 

Back to the movie, on the plus side, it is more or less an interesting story of a teenager working his way towards adulthood, discovering who he is as a man. Granted an overly soap opera style DRAMA filled one for my taste, but still, in the end even if I didn't overly enjoy it, I can admit that it is, if not actually a very good movie, it is at least an okay one. 

Women: 
Yes

People of color:
No 

Gratuitous nudity: 
A butt shot 

• Director: Lloyd Eyre-Morgan
• Writer: Lloyd Eyre-Morgan
• Actors: Bradley Cross, Joe Gosling, Janet Bamford, Emily Spowage
• 94 min
• IMDB

Alex and Leo (Alex und der Löwe) (Germany 2010)

The Gist:

Timid Alex and subdued Leo, who have just broken up with respectively, a boyfriend and a girlfriend, meet and are obviously attracted to each other. Alex introduces Leo to his group of friends, two women and an annoying gay man, who are all wacky when not being morose. Will Alex and Leo do anything about being obviously attracted to each other such as immediately jumping into a serious long-term relationship before the dust settles from the disasters of their last relationships? 

Comments (with obvious spoilers):

The movie is a romance comedy that doesn't quite work. There are low budget issues and 'meh' level of acting skills, but even ignoring those, it doesn't solve the movie's main problem, that it's kind of boring. 

There's some very minor character development, mainly in the leads becoming slightly less meek by the time the story ends, but other than that, not much really happens other than Alex's friends alternating between being weird and kooky, or hungover and morose. Unfortunately neither extreme is interesting. To qualify, the women are kooky and or morose; the annoying gay friend is just written as an asshole. So much so it's not clear why anyone remains friends with him. 

The other not clear thing is just why Alex and Leo are so into each other. That's partially due to the actors having no 'chemistry' with each other, but also due to the way the characters are written. That's not to say they would not have had sex. That's totally plausible. It's the falling in love and wanting a relationship that didn't ring true. 

The movie is also somewhat disappointing in that sexuality is rather rigidly limited here. Leo, who has spent the past four years in a relationship with a woman, isn't allowed to be bisexual, fluid in his preferences, flexible, not strictly heterosexual, or just "unlabeled." Instead there only two options, 100% gay or 100% straight, so being with a man means he must be gay and his prior relationships with women all lies.

On the positive side, there are some funny bits, and there's a certain raw charm to the story. I guess for some folks it would also be a plus that Marcel Schlutt who plays not-straight Leo has done porn. He doesn't actually get full on naked though and he's only okay as an actor, so if that's the only draw, it's not worth it. 

I intended to write that the movie was okay even if it was not worth seeking out, but given all the words I'm using here, from poor acting to boring to disappointing, I guess okay is too positive an adjective. 

Women: 
Yes

People of color:
One person has one line

Gratuitous nudity: 
Sort of. There's a sex scene that nearly, but doesn't quite show butt

• Director: Ives-Yuri Garate 
• Writer: Andre Schneider
• Actors: Marcel Schlutt, Andre Schneider, Sascia Haj, Udo Lutz
• 96 min
• Dialogue is in German
• IMDB

The Last Straight Man (U.S. 2014)

The Gist:

After a drunken bachelor party, the groom-to-be and his best friend, a closeted man with a secret crush on the groom, end up having sex. They spend the next decade or so meeting up yearly in the same hotel room on the anniversary of their first encounter, with the intent of "merely" hooking up again, which of course is not quite what happens. 

Comments (with minor unimportant spoilers):

This is an interesting movie. While there are several low budget issues, they are mainly technical in nature, and don’t negatively affect the story too much. Things like occasional wonky sound or the fact that the hotel room our leads have met in for over a decade has apparently never been redecorated. 

I looked around online for reviews and opinions about the movie out of curiosity over reactions to the use of nudity and sex in the movie, because the movie makes generous use of both. Not surprisingly opinions tends to fall along expected lines, that the nudity and sex was too distracting / the movie went too close to being actual soft porn; or that because the movie has naked men in it, it was best thing ever. 

I don't fall into either position. While I've complained in some of these write ups that throwing pointless nudity into a movie for the sake of having nudity detracts from the story because it pulls you out of the story, that is not what is happening here. The story is about a decade long passionate emotional and physical affair, and actually showing some of that passion serves rather than detracts from the movie. As is, it's not the entirety of the movie as more time is spent with our leads talking about their lives then sexing each other up.

So yes, I like the movie. Even though there are story details that don't make too much sense if thought about too much, such as how the married man is able to continually sneak away for a yearly trip on the eve of his wedding anniversary. 

Regardless, overall it is better than not and is interesting enough that it is worth checking out, with the caveat that nudity and implied sex don't bother you, or a second caveat that a movie where characters spend more time talking then being nude or having implied sex doesn't bother you either. 

Women:

Yes, one maid has a couple of lines. Perhaps not that bad, given the very limited cast. 

People of color:

Yes, same one maid who has a couple of lines. Perhaps not that bad, given the very limited cast. 

Gratuitous nudity:

Nudity yes, but as I discuss above, given the way the story is told I wouldn’t describe it as gratuitous.

• Director: Mark Bessenger
• Writer: Mark Bessenger 
• Actors: Mark Cirillo, Scott Sell
• 90 min
• IMDB

Eighteen (2005 Canada)

The Gist:

Young Pip has run away from home after an incident involving his father and brother. As he tries to survive on the streets he listens to his eighteenth birthday gift from his grandfather, an audiotape where his grandfather describes his own eighteenth birthday as a British soldier in World War Two.  

Comments (with no real spoilers):

First off, despite being included in lists of "gay" movies, it isn't really a "gay flick." While it does have gay characters and some subplots are driven by homophobia (and astonishingly bad parenting), the two leads are straight. Which means the actual gays are minor characters and the focus of the movie is to parallel hetero Pip life as a homeless runaway against that of his hetero grandfather trying to survive the war.

I looked around for reviews of the movie and didn't find many professional reviews, but I did find lots of regular people gushing over it, loving this movie to death. I didn't. Which is not to say it's bad. Parts of it are good and while there are some problems here, it at least tries. More so it attempts to be ambitious, which frankly is not too common. 

One of my issues is of simple suspension of disbelief. Basically, while he more or less does a good job with the role, the idea that the actor playing Pip is just barely eighteen pushes credibility beyond the breaking point. Even characters on a TV show where young thirty-somethings play high school kids would look at him and wonder what the heck was going on. As is the guy playing hustler Clark is also far too old for his role. 

The other issues I have are a bit subjective. The movie is too soap opera melodramatic for my taste and there is a lot of story / points to cover crammed into its running time, so some if not most things don't get quite enough time to be dealt with properly. 

Women:
Yes

People of color:
One scene has one guy with a couple of lines

Gratuitous nudity:
I saw the movie last week and have already forgotten if there was any nudity, so um, maybe? 

• Director: Richard Bell 
• Writer: Richard Bell
• Actors: Paul Anthony, Brendan Fletcher, Ian McKellen (voice only), Alan Cumming
• 106 min
• IMDB