Just A Question Of Love (Juste Une Question D'Amour) (France 2000)

The Gist:

Laurent works very hard to convince his family that he is straight, even pretending his best friend is a serious girlfriend. His school work on the other hand, does not receive quite as much effort on his part, to the point that he is danger of flunking out of agricultural college. As a last chance he is given an internship working under a researcher, Cédric, sparking events that will bring family, truth, friendship, and love to a dramatic conclusion.

Comments (with an unsurprising spoiler):

The spoiler is this, the protagonist spends the majority of the movie repeatedly saying it will not go well when his parents and family finds out he is gay. His parents and family are repeatedly shown verifying that yes, they will react badly when they find out he is gay.

Given this, it's a bit much that characters (the same ones who'd been promoting his coming out) are surprised that Laurent's parents and family react badly when he finally comes out to them. 

That aside, it's well done. Not earth shattering good, but good enough. Although given that it is not merely a romance drama, but rather a coming out romance drama, a lot of time is spent with Laurent's parents dealing with his news which can get a bit tiresome, but overall still worth a watch. 

Women:

Mothers, aunts, family, friends, so in a word, yes.

People of color:

Nope

Gratuitous nudity:

Minor

• Director: Christian Faure
• Writer: Christian Faure, Annick Laboulette, Pierre Pauquet
• Actors: Cyrille Thouvenin, Stéphan Guérin-Tillié
• 88 min
• TV Movie
• French
• IMDB

Longhorns (U.S. 2011)

The Gist:

Kevin is a Texan "good ol' boy" college student who is going through a phase. A phase that exists in certain gay porn scenarios where 'straight' college guys masterbate together,  "lending a helping hand," or more, all the while pretending that there is nothing gay about it at all. A phase that is forced to be questioned when Kevin befriends an openly gay college student named Caesar. 

Comments:

The movie quickly starts to feel like a rather timid soft porn flick, with scene after scene after scene of male characters in bed together 'banging the bishop,' 'charming the snake,' 'shaking hands the devil,' 'manhandling the ham candle,' well you get the idea. Unfortunately you can only watch so many repeats of bare chested actors lying in bed, hands under covers, pretending to jerk off before it starts to get monotonous. 

When you strip away all the pretend almost-sex scenes, you're left with a fairly short and somewhat clumsy coming out movie. One where plot and characters are much less important than ensuring every male character has one full frontal shot and ends up jerking off in bed with Kevin. 

Despite being obviously less than impressed with the movie I actually kind of like it. Not sure why when the best thing I can say about it is that given what is presumably a low budget, it doesn't look or sound too bad. The movie is certainly pointless and arguably dumb, but it isn't terrible quality wise, and there's a certain charm to it.

Very minor vaguely positive notes aside, I do not recommend seeing this unless the only thing you require from a "gay flick" is an occasional flaccid penis shot and fake porn scenes. Although if this is the case, you'd be better off just watching real porn. 

Women:

Two. Girlfriend and a friend. Three if you count a woman who doesn't really have lines as much as moans, and seems to have been hired for the size of her breasts.

People of color:

One.

Gratuitous nudity:

Full frontal for all! Well, all the male actors anyway. 

• Director: David Lewis
• Writer: David Lewis
• Actors: Jacob Newton, Derek Villanueva, Dylan Vox, Kevin Held
• 75 min
• IMDB

Issues 101 (U.S. 2002)

The Gist:

Joe is man (aged 18? 36?) who in quick succession comes out of the closet (more or less) and goes off to college (as a freshman?). Once there he meets, and falls in and out of love with a straight frat dude in less time than it takes to drink a beer. This feat accomplished, he rushes a frat and quickly ends up sleeping with his "older" frat mentor Christian. Despite Christian's habit of sleeping his way through fraternity pledges, he is "straight," or at least "straight with issues." Then again considering  Christian sets up Joe with his openly gay younger brother (despite obviously wanting Joe for himself), dumb is probably a better descriptor than straight with issues.

While all this is happening, Joe runs for student body president (as a freshman?), people are angst filled (or at least as angst filled as their acting abilities allow), male actors flash their bare butts at the camera for no reason, and you as viewer end up wondering why you're watching such schlock in the first place.

Comments: 

This movie is bad. No, that's too kind. It's terrible. This is "gay movies suck" stereotype kind of horrible. 

There's a lot wrong here. Nonsensical story, ridiculous sets (one of the frat houses seems to consist solely of a bare wall with Greek letters taped onto it), non-existent acting skills, this movie has it all. 

Even with all this going on, one of the strangest things about the movie is the protagonist Joe. It's not clear just old he is supposed to be. The story is more or less written as if he were 18-ish, yet the actor playing him is a thin haired man who looks to be in his mid-thirties (and at least 15 years senior to his "older" frat brother mentor) so it feels like he's an almost middle aged adult who've decided to go back to school to join a fraternity. His characterization is also wildly inconsistent. Depending on scene, he is unbelievably naive or a sage elder, a wide-eyed brand new baby gay or jaded old bitter queen. 

To be fair, it's not all bad. A good thing about the movie is... well, if you're into skinny white guys, there are occasional flashes of skinny white butts. Then again considering you can see much better looking bare male butts on the internet for free, this is not really a selling point. 

There's also... I guess you could watch it as a lesson on what not to do if filming your own independent movie. 

Sadly, the best thing I can say about this movie is that there are even worse ones out there.

Women: 

If you count roles with any lines at all, a few. 

If you count roles with more than a single line, then two. A mean woman running against Joe for student body president, and Christian's girlfriend who by movies' end apparently still doesn't know that her boyfriend is a total power bottom who constantly cheats on her. Somehow this is supposed to be a happy ending.

People of color:

Nope. 

Gratuitous nudity:

Yup.

• Director: John Lincoln
• Writer: John Lincoln
• Actors: Michael Rozman, Dennis W. Rittenhouse Jr.
• 90 Min
• IMDB