Between Something and Nothing (U.S. 2008)

The Gist:

Small town boy Joe goes to a famous art school in Providence on scholarship and befriends fellow student Jennifer. They cope with the ever growing ridiculous demands of school by constantly partying. Also, Joe has a secret life where he is obsessed with a local hustler and becomes a hustler as well. 

Comments:

It seems that art school is filled with self indulgent, rich, pretentious, asshole kids who are terrible people, who are taught by self indulgent, incompetent, pretentious, asshole teachers who are terrible people incapable of actually teaching. Also, Providence is filled to overflowing with male prostitutes who are assholes. The only sane response to all of this assholery is to drink heavily, do drugs, become a hustler, have sex with as many men as possible, act like a jerk, and use these experiences to fuel your art. 

From reading up a little about him, director Todd Verow tends to create somewhat aggressively stylized movies featuring stories that are neither hollywood standard nor gay / romance / drama cliche. He also revisits themes such as sex and injects autobiographical elements from his life into his movies, such as when he attended art school and apparently worked as a hustler.

Many "hustler movies" tend to feel forced and emotionally manipulative and while this doesn't quite escape all of the traps of the tragic gay hustler trope, the autobiographical feel (that it has some sort of resemblance to reality) combined with the use of digital video (which makes it feel more "personal" than film would have), and the somewhat drifting narrative helps makes this a better movie than many of its brethren. 

It's an interesting movie, well done, and I must admit rather sexy (once Joe gets a Mohawk and loses his ability to wear non-ripped shirts he goes from cute boy next door to smoking hot). 

While I think it's good, actually recommending it would depend on your reaction to experimental movies. While not totally "out there" (it does have a plot and is told in a fairly straightforward manner), it could seem boring and rambling if you're uninterested in the story or the way it's told. 

Women: 

Yes

People of color:

Yes

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes

• Director: Todd Verow
• Writers: Todd Verow, Jim Dwyer
• Actors: Tim Swain, Julia Frey, Gil Bar-Sela
• 105 min 
• IMDB

Horror in the Wind (U.S. 2008)

The Gist:

Two oddball scientists are attempting to become rich by creating a pest control "formula" that eliminates rat's sex drive. President Pat Robertson hears of the project and steals it to spray over the entire world as part of his war against premarital sex. Unfortunately the "formula" doesn't actually stop rats (and people) from having sex, it just changes your sexual orientation, threatening to turn the entire world gay. While all this "science" and "intrigue" is going on, the two oddball scientist's wives do a lot of nude yoga together. 

Comments with major and unimportant spoilers: 

The movie pretty much fulfills all the stereotypes of terrible low budget movies. Everything from acting to plot to technical issues and special effects is bad. Worse, it also fails at humor, so instead of the farce with comments about religion, homophobia, and politics that the premise sets it up to be, it's just boring. 

Also slow. There are so many montages going on. "We are doing science" montages, "we are fishing" montages, "the entire world is now gay and loving it and having sex but we aren't" montages. That last one counting as character development I guess, because despite having been turned gay and falling in love the two goofy scientist leads are moody and wishy washy about moving their bromance up to next level of actual sex even though everyone else in the world appears to be reveling in gay as the new norm. 

Put short, it's not good. 

Women: 

Several 

People of color:

Barely

Gratuitous nudity:

One quick partial male butt, and lots of female baldy parts during the female nude yoga scenes (because nothing says gay movie like female nudity?)

• Director: Max Mitchel
• Writer: Max Mitchel
• Actors: Perren Hedderson, Morse Bicknell, Courtney Bell, Jiji Hise
• 90 min
• IMDB

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

Ornaments (U.S. 2008)

The Gist:

Three friends and their assorted significant others have spent the Christmas holidays together for the past eight years. This year that means a self-centered woman who is indifferent to her girlfriend's desire to be a mother; a depressed man who is antagonistic to the fact that his new boyfriend is in love with him; and a sappy man whose wife is so newly pregnant, no one has been told yet. Over the course of the get together people act terrible to each other, testing love and friendship to the breaking point. 

Mildly Spoiler-ish Comments: 

There seems to be a train of thought that the holiday season isn't depressing enough on its own, so Christmas movies should be sad to lend a helping hand in making everyone even more miserable. Although in this case the Christmas setting is inconsequential. Any holiday or date of note that friends would use as an excuse to get together would have served, spring break, thanksgiving, a birthday, a graduation reunion, even Arbor Day would have been equally fine.

The issue of holiday aside, we have people leading sad lives, and facing issues that will quite likely end their friendships and relationships. Happy times. 

On the positive side, the acting is more or less ok (with a couple dips into over-dramatic). A larger sized man is cast as the depressed self-destructive gay man, so if nothing else, he is not the standard actor you'd expect for a gay role. 

Also, the story isn't uninteresting. It's just massively depressing. Additionally several of the characters are written to be incredibly unlikable, to the point that I didn't care about the terrible things they were going through. If anything, it quickly turned into "Oh that horrible person just had a bad thing happen to them? Good."

If movies where you actively want people to end up divorced and alone is your kinda movie, this was tailor made for you. 

Women:

Yes

People of color:

One boyfriend

Gratuitous nudity:

Nope

• Director: Brian Samuel Davis
• Writer: Brian Samuel Davis 
• Actors: Mattie Spradlin, Arthur Spradlin, Julie Tolman
• 92 min
• IMDB

Arizona Sky (US 2008)

The Gist:

Deciding that he needs a break from his hectic unfulfilling life, Jake returns to the small Arizona town he grew up in. When he had left 15 years prior, he and his best friend Kyle were teenagers in love, but too afraid of the consequences of being gay. When they meet again as adults, will they still have the deep connection they once shared, and if so, will they be able to do what they could not as kids and build a life together?

Comments with minor spoilers:

I liked the movie though I'm not entirely sure why, since when examined it's not so much good as barely ok. 

The basic premise could be interesting, two people not quite able to get over their fears of coming out when teenagers, meeting again as adults. Throw in some commentary on what it means to be gay in a small town and it should be good. But instead of good, this is heavy handed and weepy. 

Despite liking it, the best thing I can say about the movie is that it is a sweet natured story, and that the acting and execution isn't terrible.  

However, start looking at the negatives, and problems quickly pile up. Why do the actors playing young Kyle and adult Kyle speak nothing like each other? Young has a generic American accent, while adult has a mumbling heavy "Hick" drawl. 

The movie has one of the worst stage punches I have ever seen, and secondary characters appear to exist not to add to the story, but instead merely so the main characters would not be talking to themselves in long monologues. Also, unfortunately for a romance drama, the adult actors have next to no "chemistry" with each other. Which does not help my (admittedly cynical) suspicion that despite the movie's attempts to portray them as soul-mates, after 15 years apart, these two guys have so little in common they would not last long as a couple.

On the other hand, going back to positives, while the adults have no chemistry with each other, the teenage actors play very well off each other and are believable in playing love/desire/angst.

After writing this and trying to think it out, I'm still unsure of the exact whys of why I liked the movie. Regardless, it is not something I would exactly recommend, at least not without a warning to approach it with low expectations.

Women:

Two. An advice giving aunt (and one of the better actors in the movie), and a woman who as mentioned above seems to exist solely so the leads don't spend the entire movie talking to themselves. 

People of Color:

None. 

Gratuitous nudity:

No actual nudity, just occasional flashes of skin as characters change clothes.

• Director: Jeff London
• Writer: Jeff London
• Actors: James McCabe, Eric Dean
• 92 min
• IMDB

Patrik, Age 1,5 (Sweden 2008)

The Gist

Göran and his husband Sven move to the suburbs in preparation for adopting a baby and living a life of Swedish family values. Unfortunately no country is willing to let a gay couple adopt a child. When an opportunity to adopt unexpectedly comes, they jump at the chance, only to find that due to a typographical error, 1 ½ year old Patrik is actually a 15 year old homophobic hoodlum. The rest of the story is fairly predictable, and yet…

Comments with a technically major spoiler or two

In an earlier entry I joked about the plot points that a  “gay couple + kid makes a family” story must cover and this movie hits nearly every single one. Kid is a homophobic ass? Yup. The gay couple’s relationship is strained by the stress of adapting to the kid? Yup. Happy ending? Yup.

The movie is very predictable, and yet, it is also good.

The production as a whole is well done. It is nice to look at, showing us a Swedish summer that is sharply colorful. The acting is good as well. In some of these gays with kids movies, you never buy into the idea that the adult actors even like children. However in a scene where Gustaf Skarsgard looks at a man with his young son you truly believe that he is someone who longs for fatherhood. 

  

Even though large chunks of the story are predicable, there are pieces that are somewhat surprising, as the movie touches on both the positive and negative aspects of suburbia, and doesn’t shy away from the casual homophobia the men face, both from their community and their “liberal” government.

Definitely worth a watch. As long as you don’t mind subtitles (or speak Swedish) that is.

Women:

Family, co-workers, neighbors, bureaucrats; these men do not live in a world where half the population is conveniently missing.

People of Color:

I tend to not find a sea of all white actors quite as annoying when taking place in a stereotypically homogeneous place such as Sweden. Interestingly, a line of dialogue makes it clear that the “other” for these people are Polish immigrants. Even so, the movie is not quite 100% blue eyed blond Swedes, just 99% or so.

Gratuitous nudity:

Nope.

• Director: Ella Lemhagn
• Writers: Michael Druker, Ella Lemhagen
• Actors: Gustaf Skarsgard, Torkel Peterson, Tom Ljungman
• 103 min
• Swedish
• IMDB