Fest Selects: Best Gay Shorts, Vol. 1 Review

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(More customer reviews)I saw several of these shorts at a film festival and hoped I'd eventually find them on iTunes or one of these comps, but in watching the entire collection, I'm now more of a fan of the ones I hadn't yet seen!
AFTER - 7/10 - Not gonna lie, if the object of the three guys affection was a little hunkier, I'd have maybe made this an 8/10, but I can totally identify with crushing on str8 jocks in school and I enjoyed this one more for not being so melodramatic at the end.
BEDFELLOWS - 10/10 - This one was such a knockout in terms of its visuals and its acting. I think its the first time I've ever cried watching a short film and yet by the end, I was grinning ear to ear. The soundtrack also really swept me along as a rather hypnotic dream sequence unfolded in a gorgeous way. Excellent, excellent stuff.
CURIOUS THING - 6/10 - I remembered this one a bit different from when I saw it first. I liked it again but the emotional reaction I had to it wasn't there this time, maybe because I had just watched After which is rather similar. A good film but it went by pretty quick.
GAYBY - 9/10 - Had seen this one and it holds up on 2nd viewing. The one film with a legit female character, and she really serves it in a great comedic performance, while her hot male counterpart is pretty funny too. The scene on the roof was very meloncholy and it was a great touch after making us laugh so much during the bedroom scene.
GAYSHARKTANK.COM - 7/10 - Another film that I remembered differently that maybe didn't feel the same on 2nd view. Really funny at times, but for whatever reason I felt there were moments where it dragged (no pun intened). Highlights were wife looking for her husband on the site and the trans hooker who offered 'parties!'
MY NAME IS LOVE - 6/10 - The one film I'd have maybe skipped. I guess I can understand if people like this kind of film but felt a bit too slow, the only one over 20 minutes. Also have to say that trying to make one of the characters' major indiscretions seem pitiable turned me off, plus the film just sort of ends in an odd place. Take it or leave it.
MOUSE'S BIRTHDAY - 7/10 - I watched this one twice just because it went by so quickly. Avant-garde stuff in queer films is always a welcome thing for me, it's where queer films started, and this is the queerest of the films on the DVD. Intriguing visual style, and it's better than the standard mindless gay comedies for sure.
STEAM - 8/10 - This is maybe the one film in the collection that seems groundbreaking, but yet its flawed as well. It is political, it is philosophical, and yet its sexy as well. The ending came out of nowhere and yet I was wondering what the director meant by it (is he/she straight??). But the fact that it makes me think about it after I watched it means the director came up with something weightier than a standard gay short, and we need more of those vs. the same.

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Diary Of A Sex Offender (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)Want to see some girls really ACTING??? These girls go above and beyond while getting some real on-screen DIGITALS!! Thats right you heard it here first. Nice girls and some perfect low budget horror.....A B Movie masterpiece.

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On the Downlow (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)1. THERE'S SOMETHING HERE THAT DIDN'T SURPRISE ME. In a lot of the scenarios, the straight Blacks had some clue about the DL brothas. One guy said when his girlfriend and he broke up, she screamed, "You like hot dogs anyway!" But yet she later took him back. When one guy came out as bisexual, his military father said, "I had been hearing stories of that." A straight female friend said to one DL man, "I knew that!" The Black community is my own community and I do think that sometimes it's not that brothas are hiding; it's that straights are willing to ignore the facts because they don't want them to be true in the first place. This DL thing is not fool-proof.
2. THERE'S SOMETHING HERE THAT SADDENS ME OR MAKES ME EMPATHIZE WITH STRAIGHT WOMEN. First, one brotha is dancing in sexy rhythm with his girlfriend, then later he comes out to her while his boyfriend is at the same table. The woman asks, "Does this mean this is the end of you and me?" and the DL guy affirms that. The sista bows down her head in sadness. I think a whole bunch of straight female viewers are going to get teary-eyed at this. This woman did not ask that her man be gay. She lost what she thought was a good partner through no fault of her own. The documentary does not pursue the issue further and some may feel that this short-changes her unfairly. But this scene reminds me of Dina Matos-McGreevey's autobiography and Liza Minelli's comments about the legitimate pain of straight women who find out the real deal about their male partners. Perhaps someone could make a documentary about how they suffer too. Those interested in this from a Black woman's perspective may want to read LaJoyce Brookings' autobiography.
3. THERE'S SOMETHING THAT ANNOYED ME. A lot of the people filmed had their faces blurred. The camera purposely used blurry movements so the viewer couldn't see some of the actions taking place by people in the camera's range. The DL brothas speak in low, mumbly tones so you could barely hear what they are saying. From an aesthetic perspective, this may have given a visual imagery to a topic that is meant to be so secret. But if you are a viewer that likes to be given all the facts and have a better chance to come up with your own conclusions, then you may hate a lot of this.
4. MISCELLANEOUS STUFF. Other discussions of DL have implied that DL brothas avoid openly gay men like the plague. The four men here never suggest that being gay and being DL are mutually exclusive. In a lot of ways, "down low" just means "closeted." In "Boundaries of Blackness," Dr. Cathy Cohen said the MSM term is frustrating because MSM often get busy with openly gay men. Remember when J.L. King said to Oprah, "Will & Grace and Queer as Folk don't matter because they concern whites, not blacks!"? Some say that DL brothas get down only intraracially. Some say DL is a response to not just Black homophobia, but also to white gay racism. The legal book "Hybrid" makes mention of this. In other words, DL may come from the thought that "White gays exclude us and Black straights would punish us if they knew the real deal, so this is how we'll negotiate those two things." Here, there seemed to be more interracial action that one might imagine. Don't get me wrong: this wasn't like the infuriating "Brother to Brother" where no Black male couples were present. There are brotha-loving brothas here. It's just that there are more whites here than some may imagine. Finally, I think bisexual activists may have a lot to say about this. These men never suggest that liking men equates to not liking women. They never say, "I'm so proud and excited that others don't know the real me!" They seem to be suggesting that liking men may prevent them from getting with women, so they just keep that side of them under wraps. If there were more acceptance of bisexual males, then maybe DL-ness would not be so widespread.

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Score (Uncut & Uncensored) Review

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(More customer reviews)Yowza! "Score" is a product of it's times, the early 1970's, and it explores the sexual freedom spreading through society during that period with great insight. But be forewarned, the uncensored version took me by surprise. Radley Metzger adapted a New York City stage play about multiple seductions and transposed it to a Mediterranean setting. The acting, the camera work, and the setting combine to make a great looking product, without a doubt the best 'sexploitation movie' I have ever seen, and I've seen a bunch.
"Score" is a fast paced comedy about the interactions between two couples, and things eventually get pretty down and dirty without ever being X rated. Even better, the Blu-Ray looks magnificent, and there is a long interview with actress Lynn Lowry, behind the scenes footage featuring Radley Metzger in action on the set, and best yet an audio commentary by the reclusive director, all items alone worth the price. But the icing on the cake is that the movie is finally uncut for the first time in over 35 years.
I have seen the VHS of 'Score" and it was obviously the censored version. The interplay of dialogue and characters was there, but 15 minutes of man-on-man love making was missing. While not explicit, it is pretty graphic and I was shocked. If you are a homophobic male or think such images might upset you, STAY AWAY! However, if you truly want to see the 1970's swing in all directions, this is the best possible movie available in terms of acting, script, and direction.
Radley Metzger is generally considered the one true auteur of the sexploitation movies, and he consistently produced superior work even after drifting into porn. "Score" is perhaps his best work, literate, funny, and incredibly daring. Even 38 years after it was shot it still caught me off guard! If this sounds interesting, you can find no better document of the Sexual Revolution than 'Score".

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Shortbus (Unrated Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)I will admit, One of the main reasons I wanted to see this movie was because of the buzz about it being one of the most sexually explicit movies ever made in the non-porn industry. I didn't really expect to find the movie interesting, I just wanted to see what everyone was talking about.
The first minute or so was nothing but explicit sex and I almost turned the movie off thinking it was going to be pointless, that this was all there was to the movie, but I had nothing better to do so I kept watching.
This movie is not porn, nor is it erotica. This movie IS an uncensored look at the truth about love and sex, and is probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. It is brutally honest, thought provoking, intense at times, and funny at others. These are characters that we can relate to, because they are real.
I can not say enough positive things about this movie, it is art, it is truth, it is exceptional.
It will definitely be a part of my DVD collection.

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From the director of ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch' comes SHORTBUS, an exploration into the lives of several characters living in present-day New York as they navigate the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex. Male and female, straight and gay, the characters find one another – and eventually find themselves – when they all converge at a weekly underground salon called "Shortbus," a mad world of art, music, politics, and polysexual carnality.One of the true sensations of this year's Cannes Film Festival, presents sex and sexuality as never before seen in mainstream entertainment, and promises to be one of the most talked-about films for months – and years – to come.

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I Love You Phillip Morris (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)"I Love You Philip Morris" tells the real life story of Steven Jay Russell, who in 1998 received an unprecedented 144-year prison sentence for fraud, conning, impersonating, and multiple escapes from Houston's Harris County Jail. The film shows us sequences that seem utterly impossible, but in fact actually happened, which only goes to show that truth really is stranger than fiction. No, I will not describe them to you. Enjoying the film depends on the audience's reaction to Russell's actions. It's a little like a magician revealing his secrets; the trick itself is a lot of fun, but seeing what went into making the trick work can be quite fascinating, especially when you realize just how much effort goes into making something look simple. The apparent ease with which he executes his schemes is equally mind boggling.
Jim Carrey's portrayal of Russell is a delightful bag of contradictions. He's funny but touching, exaggerated but believable, contemptible but justified, caring but manipulative. There are times when it seems like he's thinking of no one other than himself, and there are other times when it's clear that he does what he does out of love. It's a daring, complex performance, and it's for reasons other than the fact that his character is gay; it establishes that Carrey is capable of something deeper than outlandish personalities and extreme physical comedy. His take on Russell is engaging, although it's not necessarily understandable. This isn't a criticism. Sometimes, it's preferable for audiences to figure out characters for themselves, for them to put their own spin on why certain people are they are way they are.
We're given a small glimpse of his childhood, in which he learns that he was adopted. We then flash forward to his early adult years; he's married to a woman who's a bit too religious and perhaps a little ignorant but sweet nonetheless, he has a delightful daughter, and he's the manager of a Texas food service company. But after surviving a car accident, he decides to live his life as an openly gay man, and he leaves his family behind for Miami. It's there he realizes that living a gay lifestyle is more expensive than his salary as a sales manager will allow. So he does what any man vowing to live authentically would do - he becomes a conman. After relatively simple schemes like feigning slips and falls in public places, he plunges headfirst into various types of fraud, including credit card, passport, and insurance. He even sells bad tomatoes.
Unfortunately, his crimes catch up with him, and he's arrested and sent to jail in Texas. He learns the ropes quickly; everything essentially boils down to a choice between paying someone off, learning how to fight, or giving someone oral sex. He knows who to talk to and where to guide someone should they need something. He spends all his free time in the library, where he reads nothing but law books. Into his life enters Philip Morris (Ewan McGregor), a soft spoken gay man who was tried and convicted for theft of service. He wants to see if there's a legal way to help an AIDS patient lying in the infirmary. Russell lies and tells Morris that he's a lawyer. The two immediately hit it off. Over the next few weeks, they form their own little slice of heaven in a jail cell, oblivious to the yard beatings and the cell searches.
At this point, I'm going to stop describing the plot, for I want you to be surprised by the lengths Russell will go to be with Morris. I will say that what the film, in its own offbeat way, is surprisingly sweet. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's screenplay, based on Steve McVicker's book "I Love You Philip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, and Prison Breaks," reveals a delicate and finely crafted balancing act between humor and drama; it's funny, though it never resorts to desperate slapstick or gross-out vulgarities, and it's heartfelt, yet it steers clear of broad, contrived sentimentalism. It's bold and appealing - a romantic comedy that refuses to follow the rules of a romantic comedy.
Apart from Carrey and McGregor, I was pleasantly surprised by Leslie Mann, who appears briefly but is no less important as Russell's ex-wife, Debbie. Even after learning that he's gay, even after they get divorced, even after he gets sent to jail, the two remain on fairly good terms. This is amazing coming from a woman perpetually hung up on what the Lord does and does not intend to have happen. She believes that Russell is a man who doesn't know who he is and is always searching for something. I guess that makes sense. Why else would he be so reckless in his attempts at pretending to be what he isn't? Part of what makes "I Love You Philip Morris" such a good movie is that it presents Steven Jay Russell without forcing us towards any definite conclusions about him. True, he may be serving an unusually long jail sentence (in solitary confinement, no less), but you have to admit, he is a romantic.

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Jim Carrey stars in the 'outrageously funny" (Rolling Stone) true story of a spectacularly charismatic con man's journey from small-town businessman to flamboyant white-collar criminal, who repeatedly finds himself in trouble with the law and on the lam - all in the name of love. Costarring Ewan McGregor, I Love You Phillip Morris is an unbelievably true comedy that's being called 'the best performance of Carrey's career" (Village Voice).

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