Sauna of the Dead: A Fairy Tale (UK 2016)

The Gist:

A bored man goes to a bath house just in time for a zombie attack.

Comments:

A short film where we have men getting together for sex turning into a zombie horror story. Considering this setup I expected the movie to turn into a metaphor about AIDS. It didn’t, which I guess says more about me than the movie, specifically my age, that my first thought was of course a story like this would use zombies as metaphor either for AIDS or fear of AIDS.   

But again, it doesn't. There is metaphor happening, but for a much more modern (or not) issue of making a human connection instead of just using each other for meaningless sex, which could count as spoiler, but I’m deciding doesn’t since the movie broadcasts this idea fairly quickly early on in its short run time. 

I’m not a huge horror person, but this is done rather well and worth checking out. 

Women:

No

People of color:

Yes 

Gratuitous nudity:

No, everyone manages to keep a towel on, even when turned into flesh eating undead 

• Director: Tom Frederic
• Writer: Tom Frederic
• Actors: Tom Frederic, Kumar Muniandy
• Short film 
• 21 minutes
• IMDB 

Walk a Mile in my Prada’s (US 2011)

The Gist: 

An obnoxious homophobe and a gay man switch sexual orientations due to “christmas magic,” teaching the former straight man a much needed lesson about not being an ass, and the former gay man an unneeded lesson about love. Will they be able to change back before the straight dude gets married or will the change be permanent? Why should the audience care?

Comments:

The movie is terrible, almost painful to watch at times. While it has some lower budget movie issues, the real problem is with the plot and how it’s handled. 

In order for “switching places” stories to work there needs to be a balance, a sense of symmetry between the “lessons learned,” wherein the switched people discover sympathy for the hardships the other person faces from life. 

There is no symmetry here. Straight dude was a homophobic asshole. Being “gay” for a few days teaches him to release the hate and be a decent human being. 

A symmetrical story would require the gay dude to be an equally massive jerk who is shocked to discover that it’s okay to be straight. A ludicrous lesson, so instead he finds out he loves his boyfriend, which he already knew. Because there's nothing to his story he only pops up occasionally in the movie for dumb pointless jokes about straight men. 

Dumb pointless jokes being another annoying thing about the movie. That switching orientations doesn’t merely mean being attracted to a different sex but rather fulfilling outdated stereotypes. Presumably jokes where the punch line is that straight men drink beer and love to leer at women's breasts, while gay men drink cosmos and know how to cook, were meant to be funny. They aren't. 

Despite whatever good intentions the creators may have had, the result is a "gay" movie that feels somewhat homophobic and insulting to the audience. 

Women:

Yes

People of color:

Yes

Gratuitous nudity:

Sort of 

• Director: Joey Sylvester
• Writer: Rick Karatas (aka Rick Sudi Karatas)
• Actors: Nathaniel Marston, Tom Archdeacon, Tom Arnold
• 87 minutes
• IMDB

Floating Skyscrapers (Płynace wieźowce) ( Poland 2013)

The Gist:

Kuba, a young man who has trained most of his life to be a professional swimmer, meets and falls in love with another man, throwing his regimented, aggressively controlled life, including his relationships with his mother and girlfriend, into chaos. 

Comments (with an unspecific spoiler that's still a spoiler): 

Set in Warsaw this is apparently one of the first Polish movies to deal with being gay which may explain why while it is contemporary, it feels very old fashioned and somewhat outdated, being a story where coming out MUST lead into a painful situation that can only end badly. 

I don't know enough to comment on the state of Polish gay culture, but it does feel like there are phases that local queer cinema goes through and if this movie is an indication, they are still in a phase where, regardless of reality, in popular entertainment at least, happiness and living openly are seen as incompatible. A phase now past for the most part in American movies. 

That aside, the story is told well as we see Kuba attempting to deal with accepting what he wants in love and life with another man verses his actual life with his girlfriend and overly dependent mother. 

The movie is also beautiful to look at, dominated by an urban landscape all grays and blues. 

It's also rather sexual in a no nonsense realistic manner. So the answer to my continual question of does a movie fill the gay flick stereotype of having pointless  gratuitous nudity, is a resounding "maybe."  There's plenty of naked bodies in gym showers and during sex scenes here, but is it strictly unneeded if it helps tell the story? Then again if it had been told without nudity would it have been the same story? 

All in all it would be worth a watch if you have not yet burned out on sad coming out stories.

Women: 

Yes

People of Color: 

No

Gratuitous nudity: 

Maybe? There's plenty of nudity, both male and female, and as I write this I consider it as an artist choice but I could see an argument against this opinion. 

• Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
• Writers: Tomasz Wasilewski
• Actors: Mateusz Banasiuk, Marta Nierdkiewicz, Bartosz Geiner
• 93 minutes 
• in Polish
• IMDB

Unsolved Suburbia (US 2010)

The Gist:

Bisexual high school student Marty and his friends try to solve the case of who shot their friend Eddie while Eddie was in a car making out with his boyfriend Thomas.

At least that’s more or less the plot description I’ve found online. The movie I saw fell more along the lines of: 

No one tries to solve an attempted murder. We eventually get told what happened by someone who wasn’t there and would have no way of knowing what happened. Characters who are supposed to be in high school and may or or may not be of legal age take off their clothes a lot for no reason. 

Comments with spoilers because I don't care: 

So we have a sort of film noir wanna-be murder mystery where there is no actual murder and no one takes on the detective role trying to solve the case of “Who tried to kill Eddie, his angry gangbanger brother or Eddie’s boyfriend’s angry gangbanger brother?" 

A movie where teenagers, both boys and girls, take their clothes off for no reason. One where character after character after character is introduced yet they all don’t seem to be in the same movie, some are in a mobster flick, some are in a high school teen sex comedy, others in an “I can’t accept my gay family member because I’m ethnic” coming out melodrama, others in a gang banger movie, and yet others are in a teen angst drama. 

A movie where characters are all written to operate in only one of two modes, weepy sad or mean bitch, and yet none of the actors have enough skill to pull either off, settling into a medium of whiny cranky. 

So yeah, this thing is a huge mess with numerous problems including an overly confusing and ultimately boring story that feels like it took several hours to tell despite only being an hour or so long. 

Women:

Yes

People of color:

Yes

Gratuitous nudity: 

Yes, both "teenage" boys and girls drop clothes for no reason

• Director: Cheetah Gonzalez (aka Steven Vasquez) 
• Writers: Jeremy Huntington, Cheetah Gonzalez (aka Steven Vasquez) 
• Actors: Johnny Lockhart, Steven Christopher, Aleksandr Dissan, David Blanco
• 65 minutes
• IMDB

4th Man Out (US 2015)

The Gist:

On his 24th birthday, a “regular” dude comes out of the closet as gay, throwing his unsuspecting close knit circle of male friends into confusion as they figure out the new status quo. 

Comments:

“Regular” guy comes out as gay confusing his clueless friends and family who all assumed he was straight because he was not feminine is not an uncommon sub-genre of gay films. Unfortunately most of them spend an inordinate amount of time avoiding dealing with the actual queer person in favor of how his news affects all the straight people around him. In other words in this type of the movie the gay man is usually only a minor character in his own movie, so it ends being all about straight angst, and boring as a result. 

This movie is better than most, because while it doesn’t avoid straight angst, it does expand the scope of focus to have two protagonists, both the straight and gay best friends, so in addition to straight angst we have a heavy large dose of gay angst as well. Which sounds like an insult but isn’t intended to be. 

This is emotional drama story time, so angst is a “good” thing here , and not forgetting the movie is actually about a gay man makes it more interesting than most, letting us see our newly out gay mechanic deal with dating men and figuring out how his friendships have changed, as well as showing his straight best friend do the same. 

The movie is totally predictable, with no surprises, and yet it ends up being fairly good, and worth a watch if you’re in the mood for warm hearted drama.

Women:

Yes 

People of color: 

A couple  of very minor roles 

Gratuitous nudity:

No 

• Director: Andrew Nackman
• Writer: Aaron Danncik
• Actors: Parker Young, Evan Todd, Chord Overstreet
• 86 minutes
• IMDB

Catalina: A New Kind of Superhero (UK 2009)

The Gist:

During a war, in outer space, a ship crashes on Earth, resulting in a man named Ben gaining superpowers further complicating his confusing life, including hiding the fact he is a transvestite from his girlfriend. 

Also other stuff happens with a cyberpunk side story about a man who is physically connected to a computer; the leader of the space people is on Earth (on vacation? in retirement? on assignment?); Ben's ex-girlfriend sings a song for some reason; and there is also a criminal mastermind with multiple personalities, except maybe the variant personalities are actually separate people she somehow absorbed into her mind? 

Comments:

If not clear from the plot description, a ton of stuff is crammed into the movie. Science fiction space opera, cyberpunk drama, crime comedy, semi-comedic superhero origin story, “real life” trials of transvestism, space spy thriller, and much more all piled and packed on top of each other until there’s nothing left but a muddled mess that doesn’t manage to succeed at being good at any of its parts. The comedy doesn’t work, the cyberpunk story makes no sense, the space opera plot is aggressively convoluted, and on and on and on. 

Besides the issue of a muddled mess of a story, there’s also trouble with terrible acting, bad editing, and cheap looking CGI in a story designed to be filled to overflowing with special effects. I’m willing to forgive a lot with low budget movies, but there are too many problems going on to ignore. The worst problem being that it is boring. 

In a addition to dull it also manages to throw out a line of dialogue insulting to gay men, where the lead’s ex-girlfriend says something to effect of “you may wear dresses but at least you’re not gay, eww.” 

A throwaway bit of homophobia in a movie that ends up on lists of LGBTQ movies due to the transvestite lead. Though as the lead ex-girlfriend states transvestite does not equal “gay.” There are some who’d agree, arguing that transvestism is not a LGBTQ issue. I’m not going to get into that other to say that it does bring up the issue of who the heck this was intended for? Who is the intended audience for a transvestite, super hero, space opera, spy, cyber punk, crime, comedy? A really bad one that is. 

Women: 

Yes 

People of color:

No (It’s possible some of the actors in “alien” makeup may not have been white... maybe) 

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes, a lone pointless butt shot 

• Director: Kenneth D Barker
• Writer: Kenneth D Barker
• Actors: Nathan Lubbock-Smith, Cleone Cassidy
• 98 minutes
• IMDB