Birthday Cake (U.S. 2013)

The Gist:

In Los Angeles, Studio City to be specific, two men who both work in the “Industry” (i.e., “Hollywood”), prepare to throw their baby daughter a birthday party. Because they live wacky hijink filled lives, the party will be swamped with wacky relatives, crazy friends, clowns, and a documentary film crew. 

Comments:

The conceit of the movie is that it is a documentary about two gay men and their family as they prepare to throw a birthday party for their baby daughter. What this means is we as viewer get treated to a series of fast comedic skits, all apparently improvised rather than tightly scripted. Unfortunately the quality of the skits/scenes vary from okay to meh to boring.  

The movie almost works when it doesn’t forcefully try to be funny, focusing instead on "honest" moments between the couple and daughter. Too bad that rather slim core of almost good is surrounded by numerous scenes of uninteresting “Industry” jokes and people aiming for wacky but hitting boring instead. 

The movie is a sequel to a short film Groom's Cake (which I haven't seen and have no comments about).  

Women: 

Yes

People of color: 

Some

Gratuitous nudity: 

No

• Director: Chad Darnell
• Writer: Chad Darnell
• Actors: Chad Darnell, Rib Hillis
• 85 min
• IMDB

Chef's Special (Fuera de Carta) (Spain 2008)

The Gist:

Maxi, an out gay chef focused on getting a Michelin star for his restaurant has his life thrown into chaos when his children from a failed marriage move in with him right at the same time a rather famous and handsome football (soccer) player moves in next door. 

Comments:

Poking around online it seems that some people are annoyed by the movie's politically incorrect humor and/or by the fact that protagonist Maxi is far from butch. 

The main, though not sole, issue people seem to have with the humor is that the protagonist's father spends the entire movie continually telling crude homophobic jokes. It's used as proof of his being an asshole, but even so the joke wear thin pretty quick. 

As for the fem lead, well, not every gay dude is a mountain of stereotypical masculinity. Gay equals sissy can get problematic if a single character is meant to represent the entire community, the whole wide spectrum of "gay" to the exclusion of everyone else. Something that isn't going on here. While some of the humor does come from the fact he's a bit swishy, for the most part it is not a joke, but rather just who he is. 

Following the "rules" of gays plus kids equals family storylines, Maxi's children, well, at least the older brother, spends most of the movie being a bratty jerk, though the writing is good enough that unlike other movies with similar storylines, the boys behavior actually makes some sense. 

Despite what seems to be a growing list of problems, I actually likes the movie. It's not exactly great cinema, but it is fun and manages to make some well used worn out storylines entertaining,  if you don't mind non-PC humor that is. 

Women: 

Yes

People of Color: 

No

Gratuitous Nudity: 

No

• Director: Nacho G. Velilla
• Writer: Oriol Capel, David S. Olivas
• Actors: Javier Cámara, Lola Dueñas,Fernando Tejero
• Spanish
• 111 min
• IMDB

Bear Cub (Cachorro) (Spain 2004)

The Gist:

Pedro, content his life of friends and lovers, and most importantly no serious commitments, agrees to help his sister by taking care of his nephew Bernardo for two weeks while she is in India for a trip. When circumstances require Bernardo to stay longer, the boy's grandmother comes into the picture threatening to break up the new found bond between uncle and nephew and their fledgling family. 

Comments:

I've mentioned the "gays plus a kid makes a family" subgenera here before. This is sort of the same idea, but with a determinedly single man in place of a troubled gay couple and without the cliche of having the kid be a homophobic jerk. Actually, several gay flick cliches are avoided, resulting in a movie dealing frankly with sex, drugs, and AIDS amongst other issues. 

It's well done and worth a watch. Especially so if you're into bears of the big hairy man variety.

Women:

Family, neighbors, schoolmates. In other words, it does not ignore half the population. 

People of color:

Nope

Gratuitous nudity:

The movie starts off with a rather revealing "bear on bear" sex scene, so yeah, there's definitely skin of the big hairy man variety.

• Director: Miguel Albaladejo 
• Writers: Miguel Albaladejo
• Actors: Jose Luis Garcia Perez, David Castillo
• 99 min
• Spanish
• IMDB

Surprise, Surprise (U.S. 2009)

The Gist:

A middle aged, closeted, TV actor deals with his recently disabled (and much younger boyfriend), his very weepy best friend, and the discovery that he has a teenage son.

Comments (with a couple of minor unimportant spoilers):

Considering that large sections of the movie are long monologues, where an actor bares his or her soul to the camera/audience while crying crocodile tears, it's a bit obvious that this was a play turned movie. One that can be summed up by a line of dialogue, where the actor, in talking about himself and his boyfriend, yells at his son: 

"We are lovers, no threat to you or anyone else!"

In other words, overly melodramatic, yet oddly timid in its defense of being gay. 

Ignoring the weirdness of timid melodrama, this is more or less a standard "Gays plus kids make a family" kind of movie. One element of this kind of story involving a kid who starts off a jerk, but turns into a good kid by the end. Unfortunately the movie went overboard with making the son an ass. By the time you get to the section of the movie where you should be sympathetic to the child, you still think he's an obnoxious idiot. Well, at least I did. 

In the end, it's the kind of movie where you spend more time wondering if the lead actor is also the writer/director/producer than you do paying attention to the movie.

Women:

Two. Best friend, and the kid's grandmother. 

People of color:

None. 

Gratuitous nudity:

None... well, at least I think it was none. I started only paying half attention to the movie halfway through so I guess there could have been entire monologues done in the nude that I only listened to instead of watched as I dealt with bills. 

• Director: Jerry Turner
• Writers: Travis Michael Holder, Jerry Turner
• Actors: Travis Michael Holder, Deborah Shelton, John Brotherton
• 83 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

Violet's Visit (Australia 1995)

The Gist:

A 15 year old girl, Violet, aka Scooter, runs away to Sydney in search of her father. Who turns out to be in a relationship with another man and very comfortable in his child free very gay life. Can they all work out how to be a family or will Violet/Scooter have to go back to her unhappy life of putting up with her mother's ever changing parade of boyfriends?

Definitely spoiler filled comments:

The “Gay couple and kid(s) become a family despite themselves” sub-genre of cheap gay flicks is not exactly a highlight of queer cinema. To tell the story you just plod along all or most of the following outline:

GAY COUPLE: We have no kids(s) and are super gay, YAY!

GAY COUPLE: We now have kid(s) because:

                             Adoption (but not the baby we wanted)

                             Friend or relative kicked the bucket

                             One of us had a kid(s) before coming out

GAY COUPLE: Having a kid(s) means we can’t be super gay any more, pout;

KID(S): You guys are fags, pout;

ALL: Let’s have a “we are learning to get along” montage;

GAY COUPLE: Oh no, despite the montage, things are not going well and we will:

                             loose the kid(s) and

                             break up as well, pout;

ALL: Never mind, thanks to another montage, things worked out and we are a family now, YAY!

Toss in some variables such as acting and directing skills mix and stir and for better or worse you’ve got yourself a movie; in the case of Violet’s Visit, for worse.

I rented the movie from Netflix where the reviews range from glowing positive “best movie ever” to complaints of thick Australian accents. I fall into the complaint crowd. Not for the accents, but rather because it was just not very good. 

It starts off as if a sappy after school special about a gay couple and a girl learning to be a family then halfway through, suddenly turns into a sappy gay themed soap opera about a man dealing with both his boyfriend of 8 years and daughter leaving him.

The daughter running away when things get tough makes sense at least as running away from trouble is one of her few established characteristics. What makes no sense is the boyfriend who had been championing the idea of the three of them living together as a family suddenly changing his mind and leaving. I can only guess this it was done to add drama to the story. However, instead of drama, having him flip his position 180 degrees out of the blue just makes everything confusing.

Beside the plot issues there is poor acting and broad stereotypes. To be gay in Australia means being into drugs, gym, poppers, gym, leaving porn magazines strewn across every available surface of your home, and gym.

All in all, not really worth the time. 

Women: 

There is annoying Violet/Scooter, her annoying mother who shows up for one scene, and a crazy homeless gal who hangs out in the background of one scene and has no lines. 

People of color:

I've a tendency to be less potentially annoyed by foreign films if they end up being all white. Then again, Sydney in the 90's would probably have had more nonwhite people than a single lone homeless, crazy, Asian woman. 

Gratuitous nudity:

There's a brief "don't really see anything" shot done for comedic purpose. As far as just showing off skin, the would-be dads spend a lot of time being relatively undressed.

• Director: Richard Turner
• Writer(s): Andrew Creagh, Barry Lowe
• Actors: Graham Harvey, David Franklin, Rebecca Smart
• 84 min
• IMDB