Largely based on reccommendations from various people on my flist, I've been trawling through a lot of LGBT cinema lately. In some ways, it reminds me a lot of any number of 'black owned' cinema--which is to say, the studio dollars aren't behind these productions, which means that the production values, acting and writing are generally not great. But, as with 'black owned' cinema, if you want to slake your craving, this is what you have to work with. OTOH, that doesn't mean that the movies can be totally dismissed as worthless just because they don't have the glitz and glamor of a Hollywood blockbuster.
The best movie of this bunch was recommended to me by
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merepersiflage--Boy Culture. I just watched this one yesterday and I knew about halfway through it that it's one I want to own at some point. It's shot in the same kind of no-fourth-wall, in-your-face confessional style as Billie Piper's Secret Confessions of a Call Girl and it also similarly features a hustler as it's centerpiece character.
Derek Magyar plays X, the hustler in question. It also features
Darryl Stephens as one of his roommates/love interest. I was familiar with him from viewing Noah's Arc and, after having come away from that show with one impression of Stephens and his acting, it was really interesting/enlightening to see him play something more seriously and less over-the-top. There's also a B plotline with X involving
Patrick Bauchau, who I've loved since The Pretender.
So. Really, this movie could've been made for me. You have a prickly, uncommunicative protagonist. Who is
ALSO A HUSTLER (see prediliction for hookerfic, PT's). Who has crazy UST with his equally beautiful roommate. Who is black, which would make it an interracial relationship. And they both live with an adorable barely legal twink who keeps trying to seduce X in adorable ways. And then there's a side dish of Old School Queer with a dash of May-Decemberism and romantic parallels thrown in for lagnaippe. I'm serious. CUSTOM MADE FOR ME.
But wait! There's more! In most movies that have just the ONE black character, you generally learn not to expect the writers to get The Blackness (for lack of a better term) right. If it's good, you can ignore it and if it's bad, you wince, cringe (and possibly bitch and whine to your Cabal in email about it) and try to move past it. But you don't expect them to get it right.
THIS MOVIE GOT IT RIGHT. There's a hilarious part where Andrew (Darryl Stephens) is going home to come out to his family and he takes X with him and the interactions between X, Andrew and Andrew's family is both hilarious and heart-warming. Even The Fiance agreed and he locks himself in the bedroom when I watch my LGBT media! So that was a pleasant and unexpected plus.
I also liked the way they avoided some of the more common Afterschool Special cliches of this kind of story. It's not a masterpiece of innovation; at heart, it's a romance and there are certain conventions of romance that I wouldn't even want the movie to circumvent, but it was a deeply enjoyable and deeply SATISFYING movie that I highly reccomend. Has anyone else seen it? Would you like to squee about it with me??
The next three movies I saw recced somewhere on my flist, but I don't even remember where, now, sadly enough. Though the movies are narratively unrelated, I think of them as a triptych because they're made by the same production company (IIRC) and have some actor swapping between them. All three star
Matthew Montgomery, who has an understated acting style of the Keanu Reeves variety (though not nearly as good. Take that how you will.).
( Back Soon, Gone But Not Forgotten & Long-Term Relationship--not spoilery, just cutting for length. ) Cut-Sleeve Boys was mostly a bore. The premise is that, after the death of a closeted friend, two (gay) best friends start to reexamine their lives. Again, the acting got in the way of this one, but I also feel like there just wasn't ENOUGH plot to carry the whole movie and so there were a lot of scenes that seemed and felt pointless and I never really cared THAT much about any of the characters to care about their HEAs. There were some interesting threads going through it; I think my favorite plotline was that of cross-dressing Ash, but I liked Mel's pretty boytoy, too...but I didn't feel SATISFIED by the end like I wanted to.
I'd seen an ad for Fat Girls on...Dante's Cove or the Lair, because it's also by heretv and all I have to say is that the ad was much better than the movie. The central metaphor is that being gay is a lot like being a fat girl--hence the title--and the story revolves around gay boy Rodney Miller and his best friend Sabrina. This one just didn't seem to have much of a narrative arc going for it. Which is fine, if you enjoy that type of story. It just so happens that I don't. It's supposed to be a coming of age story, but my problem is that there didn't seem to be much coming of age, just a series of random events strung together in movie form. I was vaguely interested in Rodney's torch-singing, cross-dressing drama teacher (and the potential relationship between them), but it was such a small, underplayed part of the overall story that it wasn't enough to make for the rest of the time that I sat there waiting for something interesting to happen.
It's been a while since I've seen (or mentioned these) but I suppose I should also mention the Donald Strachey Mysteries. These movies have the highest production value and acting talent of ANY of the movies mentioned so far. They star Chad Allen (gnnngh) as the titular (gay) private eye and Sebastian Spence (DOUBLE gnngh) as his adorable prim husband Timmy (see my icon). The first two movies, Third Man Out and Shock to the System, came out a couple years ago and I mentioned them BRIEFLY before (though not significantly enough to link back to). AT SOME POINT SOON, the next two, On the Other Hand, Death and Ice Blues should be coming out. They're based on some (mostly out of print) books written in the eighties by Richard Stevenson and, obviously, all the stories revolve around the gay community in some form or fashion. The movies are considerably updated from the books and I really enjoyed the first movies a lot and I'm bouncing in my seat for the other two. The relationship between Strachey and Timmy is just ADORABLE and romantic and all a little slasher's heart could want.
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