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(More customer reviews)The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green brings to life Eric Ormer's long-running comic strip of the same name. Although it took a lot of choices to create an eighty-eight minute movie out of sixteen years of comic strips, the result does capture the social whirl, the promise, and the despair of Ethan Green's life.
Ethan Green (Daniel Letterle) is a 26-year old gay man who has joined with lesbian Charlotte (Shanola Hampton) to rent a house from Ethan's old heart-throb Leo (David Monahan). Ethan has just started a fling with a married, just-out-of-the-closet baseball player, Kyle (Diego Sorrano). When Leo decides to sell the house, Ethan gets a suggestion from cute 19-year old Punch (Dean Shelton) to use the services of depressed Sunny Deal (Rebecca Lowman) to delay any sale. Ethan and others get advice from Ethan's mom (Meredith Baxter) and the two Hat Sisters (Richard Riehle and Joel Brooks). Meanwhile Leo may have developed an interest in a Log Cabin Republican, and Kyle may like Jason Chang. Ethan's tendency to push people away if they get too close sets yo-yo relationships into action. It all resolves happily enough, although Ethan has the opportunity to spoil things enough to generate a sequel.
Since this is a lower-budget production, there was little opportunity to illustrate the science-fiction sorts of themes that were in the strip. To offset this, Eric Ormer was able to create an animated cartoon sequence illuminating one character.
The acting was pretty good overall. I thought the Hat Sisters and Ethan's mother were exactly as they were in the comics. Ethan here is nicer and more passive than in the comics. He is cruised but doesn't cruise, he can resist having sex even when his angel allows it, and he relies on advice to initiate action. In the strip, Ethan is frequently depressed or hostile; in the film Ethan slows down some to consider matters but doesn't get into a funk, other than one scene with Charlotte where he repeatedly calls his own behavior self-destructive. The movie is happy with a dash of farce. It's not a problem or unprecedented, just a choice.
Skin shots are plentiful. Ethan has the most, but Kyle, Punch, Leo, and Juarez (Ramon de Ocampo), an ex of Ethan living with his mother, get to show off too.
The extras are a commentary track by the director, screenwriter, and executive producer, an alternative opening scene with optional commentary, the trailer, a short featurette by Eric Orner giving the history of the comic strip, and some other trailers. You might check out Orner's Ethan Green comic books in the book section too.
The film is able to link many of the traditional brief strips together into a coherent story arc. Fans of the comic strip need not hesitate. People not familiar with the strip will not be disadvantaged. Go for it.
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The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green (2005)This hilarious gay romantic-comedy follows Ethan Green, an adorable 26-year year old professional assistant looking for love in all the wrong places. A self-proclaimed serial monogamist, Ethan finds that no boyfriend is really "the one". -Based on the popular cult comic strip by Eric Orner, published since 1990 -Loaded with laugh-out-loud bonus features
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