Leather Jacket Love Story (U.S. 1997)

The Gist:

Young eighteen year old, privileged, pretty boy Kyle decides that his 'artificial' West Hollywood lifestyle is hampering his ambitions of becoming a poet, so he moves to the bohemian neighborhood of Silver Lake where life is "real" and poets abound. Once there he promptly meets and falls for an older leather man named Mike. Will Kyle succeed in becoming a "real" poet? Will he convince commitment-phobe Mike that romance and monogamy are worthwhile pursuits? 

Comments:

I saw the movie many, many years ago on VHS after it first came out and had totally forgotten just how "porn adjacent" the movie was. Meaning that there is a lot of casual full frontal nudity and many sex scenes. So many sex scenes. Apparently it's a major selling point, that it was the first gay movie to treat nudity and sex the same way straight movies did. I'm not entirely sure that's accurate though. Both in not being the first gay flick to feature naked dudes sexing each other up everywhere, nor that this level of nudity and sex was really that common at the time in non-gay movies.

Beyond the sex, the movie was both better and worse than I remembered. 

The better than I remembered part of the movie is that the production level is pretty good and there's a drag queen trio who are pretty cool in action, if not acting skills. 

The worse than I remembered part is the story of Kyle and Mike's romance, or rather Kyle's idea of romance, that the two men should immediately become boyfriends in a committed monogamous long term relationship after spending one night together. In a movie where nothing comes off as particularly realistic, their destined fate is total fantasy. The characters don't have anything in common so the romance doesn't come off as particularly believable. 

Another issue is that they conveniently ignore that Mike is already in a relationship. Granted an extremely open and casual one where both men get to do whatever / whoever they want. A fact that apparently nullifies its existence, since after being mentioned once, everyone, even Mike, forgets he is not actually single. 

Romance aside, while largely fluff, it isn't that bad a movie, and it does offer a look at what gay life in Silverlake in the past aspired to be, if not what it actually was, making the movie a sort of fictional-historical documentary, since changing populations, economics, and gentrification has made the 'raw' and funky, non-affluent, leather - bohemian - queer world our leather lovebirds live in a thing of the past. 

Women:

A few. 

People of color:

A few.

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes, very much so. Gratuitous sex scenes as well.

• Director: David DeCoteau
• Writer: David DeCoteau, Jerry Goldberg
• Actors: Sean Tataryn, Christopher Bradely, Mink Stole
• 85 min
• Black and White 
• IMDB