$30 (US 1999)

The Gist:

For his sixteenth birthday, Scott’s father gives him the gift of an hour with a prostitute (young Sarah Gilbert).

Comments 

A short film where we have a closeted boy being given a prostitute for his sixteenth birthday by his apparently clueless father. Clueless because the father has no idea about his son. The "present" is not some sort of perverse "cure" for gayness, but rather something the father feels is normal to do for his son to become a "man."

The situation is messed up and the movie acknowledged this as the kid and prostitute talk and make a connection.

It tells a lot in it's short timespan and is worth a watch. 

Women:

One (out of three roles)

People of color:

No

Gratuitous nudity:

No

• Director: Gregory Cooke
• Writer: Christopher Landon
• Actors: Sara Gilbert, Erik MacArthur, Gregory Itzin
• Short film
• 20 min
• 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

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

Why not me? (Pourquoi pas moi?)(France 1999)

The Gist:

A group of 20-something, lesbian and gay, French expat friends living in Barcelona decide to finally stop lying and come out to their parents. Further, they figure the best way to do this is at all at once at a party for mutual support, both for themselves, and their parents as well. Little do they realize that the drama they were expecting, of potential parental disapproval, would be the least of what happens that night. 

Comments:

It's a cute fun movie with a large cast. Hmm, considering we are talking about a lothario lesbian in danger of running out of available women in Barcelona, a football (soccer) playing gay man 'crushing' on a team member, a Star Wars obsessed woman, her educated-to-the-point-of-unemployable girlfriend, a "straight but not narrow" secretary, all their parents (who are another long list of attributes and quirks), and all their potential love interests, make that a very large cast. 

There's a "Almodóvar-lite" feel to the movie, with the brightness of it, strong female roles, wild coincidences, and high drama, though admittedly, not with the same quality or skill. It also plays with elements of fantastic realism, but in the end the main qualities that struck me were again, that it was cute and fun. 

It's worth a watch.

Women:

Many. 

People of color:

A couple.

Gratuitous nudity:

Extremely minor.

• Director: Stéphane Giusti
• Writer: Stéphane Giusti
• Actors: Amira Casar, Julie Gayet, Bruno Putzulu, Alexandra London
• 96 min
• French, Spanish
• IMDB