Overall 0.5 / 5.0 (don’t bother)
Gay Inclusve? Very – mostly gay, some hetero secondary characters
Gay Positive? No – I don’t think they meant to be homophobic, but jeez…

Wow. I actually watched the whole thing, and in hindsight, how did I manage that? I feel like Superman now, able to watch awful movies in their entirety.

Here is the most positive thing I can say about this movie: the performances seem very earnest and enthusiastic, so kudos to the cast for bringing that energy to the show.

Unfortunately, it is far, far… far… from enough to save the film from its choppy editing, godawful camera shots, and aimless plot.

In theory, the movie is supposed to be a satire of a gay man (Jaime, played by Brian Campbell) looking for love and self-understanding via a search for a “straight lover who will be gay just for me.” The movie’s own blurb states, “In the end, Jaime is amazed to discover the one person he never thought he would – himself!”

That’s a stretch. Jaime comes from a background of casual, anonymous sexual encounters in the back of an adult bookstore. One gets the sense he’s never had a real relationship based on commitment and intimacy.

Meanwhile, at his job at an auto shop, he’s closeted. He develops a “bromance” with a (straight) fellow employee (Ray, played by Matt Edwards) who turns out to be a homophobe who tries to get Jaime into deep trouble in a completely contrived plot twist.

Somewhere along the course of the movie, the self-loathing Jaime tries to convince a peer from his backroom sexcapades to move to the suburbs with him and a pair of lesbians to pose as straight couples, so they can try to seduce married straight men. They detour on the way, however, with a series of bathroom encounters with gas station attendants. The film also includes an odd subplot involving a young man (Monty, Michael Gonring) with a self-professed fetish for “trolls” (older gay men). Monty is engaged to be married, and he leaves at the end of the movie for his bride.

I think I’m so disappointed in the movie because its foundational ideas are actually interesting to me. The fetish for straight men (and certainly for straight-acting) is prevalent throughout the gay community, so a satire about a gay man looking for a straight man who will be gay only for him suggests the possibility of both a lot of comedy and a lot of insight. Similarly, youth is highly fetishized in the gay community, so Monty’s subplot could have been woven into the story to enhance and reflect the main story’s theme. Alas. The script is a mishmash of barely coherent scenes and nonstarter plot threads.

My recommendation: Skip it.

Overall Quality 4.5 / 5.0
Gay Inclusive? Very – an engaging and moving story of the gay rights movement and one of its heroes
Gay Positive? Very – although a tragic tale, it is fiercely empowering

This is the movie I wish Brokeback Mountain had been.

Don’t get me wrong – Brokeback Mountain was a masterpiece of film-making, and it was robbed of its rightful Academy Award. But I have a love-hate relationship with such movies – beautiful, moving, and important stories that are horribly tragic and unhappy. I’m glad that a gay love story finally hit the mainstream with Brokeback Mountain, but it did nothing to dispel myths like gay-love-is-doomed and bad-things-will-happen-to-you-if-you’re-gay.

Milk also brings a tragic story to the big screen: the assassination of gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk. Yet Milk is empowering in a way Brokeback Mountain was not. Instead of vaguely feeling bad about being gay, I felt inspired, charged up and ready to fight for my rights. Milk also brings to the big screen the struggle not just for equal rights but also for freedom from the physical and emotional violence that gay people have long endured.

Just this week, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee claimed on The View that gay rights are not civil rights because gay people have not been subjected to a history of violence like black people. Such a willfully ignorant statement is nothing short of appalling; and yet, it is representative of a surprisingly large swath of the population. Many do not acknowledge or do not care about the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany; the institutionalized violence against gay people by police in previous decades and by religious organizations (like the Mormons using electro-shock therapy to “cure” homosexuality); and individual hate crimes that have claimed the lives of people like Matthew Shepherd.

Thank God for Milk, and what a timely film it is. The movie dramatizes Milk’s move to San Francisco and his subsequent rise to the position of City Supervisor (after several failed attempts). Once in the position, a significant portion of the movie details his fight against Proposition 6, which would have enabled the state of California to fire any teacher known to be gay along with any teacher who supported them.

Fast forward 30 years, and Californians once again vote on a proposition of concern to gay rights – Proposition 8, which successfully banned gay marriage (after the California Supreme Court legalized it).

My only criticism of the film falls on the editing, and I’m not sure what the Gus van Sant could have done differently. He’s just covering so much territory in the space of a couple of hours that much of the story gets told in fast-forward. Nevertheless, the movie was engrossing from start to finish, and the phenomenal acting from all quarters – both Sean Penn and Josh Brolin deserve extra mention – imbues the story with life.

Please see this movie. Please take your friends and family to see it. Particularly in the aftermath of Proposition 8’s passage, a lot of people seem to dismiss the gay community’s reaction as sore losers throwing a tantrum because they didn’t get their way. They do not – perhaps because they are not willing to – recognize how a group of people have been systematically oppressed throughout even the history of a country that espouses the values of equality and the separation of church and state.

Milk is a sad tale, but one encoupled with hope. I walked out of the theater both devastated and determined. One thing can be said of Harvey Milk: his hope lives on in those of us who are willing to embrace it.

“If a bullet should go through my head, let that bullet go through every closet door”

- Harvey Milk

Overall Quality 2.0 / 5.0 (some potential, but misses the goal)
Gay Inclusive? Very – the story focuses on a gay character putting together a gay soccer team
Gay Positive? Moderately – the gays prevail, but only in the midst of rampant homophobia

The gay pathos in this movie got old fast. Maybe I’m just over it in my own life, so I don’t have much patience for it in my entertainment. I wearied of both the difficulty the main character had in coming out, and the over-the-top homophobia thrown in his face. If it had been handled better, maybe I would have been moved. I wasn’t.

The film starts with Ecki (Maximilian Brückner), a soccer (i.e., European football) player on a local team, beginning to realize he might be gay. Neither his teammates nor his father (Dietmar Bär) react well. In fact, his teammates go into homophobe-overdrive. They say all kinds of hateful and nasty things, and then they kick him off the team. Ecki says he’s going to put together a gay team, and that his gay team will kick his former team’s collective ass in four weeks.

Yeah. The whole story is completely contrived. It’s sad too – I like all of the characters, and they imbue the movie with a kind of happy charm that kept me watching. But turn after turn, the story is just forced.

As one example (out of many): the leather daddy Rudi (Jochen Stern) who suddenly turns out to have an estranged son (Marcel Nievelstein) in the 3rd grade; after the obligatory and dramatic break-up of the gay team (”oh no! what will they do now!”), the son mysteriously shows up at his father’s house and helps rally some of the team members; and then the young son shows up at the actual game, all by himself, in a completely different city. That boys gets around! His mother, almost violently antagonistic toward Rudi when we first meet her, miraculously shows up 5 minutes later, and at the end of the movie she’s cheering Rudi’s soccer success. What?

The characters (well, the gay ones, anyway) are the highlight of the film. There’s the closeted guy. The alternative gender identity person. The three leather daddies in a 3-way relationship. A hunky and effeminate gay Turk. A couple of black players (who unfortunately turn out just to be set dressing). Ecki and his down-to-earth boyfriend, a nurse.

At first, I was a bit put off, especially by the crude leather daddies, but then I thought, why not? First, all of them turn out to be more nuanced than you’d expect. Second, they’re representative of a segment of the gay community. Finally, the thing the gay community really wants – equal respect – shouldn’t just apply to the “normal” gays. If we do that, we’re missing the point of the rainbow.

Check it out if you’re a fan of gay-oriented sports films (because, let’s face it, there aren’t a whole lot out there). Otherwise, give this one a pass.

Overall Quality 4.5 / 5.0 (fun, engaging story)
Gay Inclusive? Moderately – two secondary (but important) gay characters
Gay Positive? Very – both characters are well-rounded and fully fleshed-out

A supernatural (or urban fantasy) mystery adventure. Mercy Thompson is a sassy, free-spirited, and no-nonsense walker – that is, a shapeshifter who can transform easily from human to coyote, thanks to her Native American heritage. She lives in a world shared by werewolves, vampires, witches, and the fae (fairy spirits, ranging from gremlins to ogres to mythological monsters).

She has an uneasy but generally congenial relationship with the werewolf pack next door. In fact, she finds herself torn between the pack’s Alpha (Adam), and a former werewolf flame (Samuel). The romantic triangle is not resolved in this book – in fact, it’s not resolved until the end of Book 3.

The romance takes second place to the main story – a mysterious attack on Adam’s pack that leaves Adam on the verge of death and his (human) daughter Jesse kidnapped. Who would perpetrate such an attack? And why?

Briggs brings a lot of strengths to the book, including great characterizaton and a well-conceived alternate universe in which magic and supernatural creatures are real. The world-building (seeing how the supernatural elements fit into the “real” world) was just as interesting to me as the main plot. Briggs even manages to work a little social commentary into her world-building. The fae, for example, have recently been outed to the public, and most of them have been moved onto reservations.

Gay-wise, Adam’s pack includes a gay werewolf named Warren (who was a cowboy before he was turned), and his boyfriend Kyle. They are close friends of mercy’s, and both of them are sensible and helpful fellows with meaty parts in all three books.

A brief explanation why I included the negative stereotypes of heterosexism and gay without agency. The werewolf world is apparently even less accepting of gays than the normal world, and apparently Warren had a hard time of it until he was finally welcomed by Adam. Well, a harder time of it, because some of Adam’s other werewolves still do not deal well with him. It’s great that Adam is not prejudiced, and it paints his characters nicely, but it’s frustrating to see a gay man requiring a popular straight man’s “approval” to be accepted by the rest of the group.

I don’t weight these factors heavily, however. Yeah, I would have preferred if gayness were no big deal in the werewolf world. But even so, Warren and Kyle are two great characters, and Briggs (through protagonist Mercy) clearly cares about them. Major kudos to Briggs for writing them into the story, making them such great characters, and giving them some substantive scenes.

Story-wise, a minor complaint: the story weakens near the end. In part to increase tension, and in part to conclude the novel’s central mystery, the plot becomes convoluted and twisted as it winds to a conclusion. It’s a little hard to follow, and it throws the novel’s pacing off. Still, the author manages to end the book with a bang, and how’s this for a recommendation: I finished the book and immediately went out and bought the next two.

Overall Quality 3.5 / 5.0 (recommended)
Gay Content 4.0 / 5.0
Gay Positivity 3.5 / 5.0

The Curiosity of Chance is an 80’s flashback movie. The titular character Chance, played by Tad Hilgenbrink, has transferred to a new international school in Europe (his father, Chris Mulkey, is apparently stationed overseas). Chance must defend himself against the bully jock (Brad, played by Maxim Maes).

Yeah, the film suffers from several weaknesses that prevent it from truly shining. Most of the characters are completely one-note, and the plot is both contrived and meandering. “Edge of Seventeen” (1998) did this genre with a deeper, more moving script. (As a side note, Hilgenbrink bears a striking resemblance to Chris Stafford in “Edge of Seventeen“).

A couple of minor twists help: Chance is already out, and his father’s reaction is repeatedly unexpected. I kept expecting his military dad to fall into stereotypical “No son of mine is going to be a fairy,” but he never does. Refreshing.

On the whole, I like this movie, though. It’s entertaining and pleasantly positive. Tad Hilgenbrink is fantastic: he carries this film. He breathes life into a cardboard character, and he has the absolute best sense of comic timing of anyone in this film.

I also like Brett Chukerman as good-guy jock Levi … or maybe I mean I like looking at Brett Chukerman … He ably imbues his character with crucial likability, but he did stronger work as Marc in “Eating Out 2″ (2006).

Having said that, Chukerman’s character represents a great and innovative twist in the movie. The viewer spends most of the movie wondering if he’s gay, and if he’s going to get together with Chance. For myself, I was torn.

On the one hand, I like the idea of a really cool straight jock who’s totally gay-friendly. On the other hand, I wanted Chance to get together with the hot jock. I don’t want to give anything away, but the movie tries to have it both ways – and largely succeeds! Some viewers might feel the ending was a cop-out, but I found the ambiguity well-handled.

The Curiosity of Chance is an entertaining and amusing diversion with some really great, and gay-positive, twists. Don’t expect great cinema, but it’s good fun.

Lehmkuhl has penned a surprisingly readable account of his experiences under America’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) military policy.

The narrative is well-presented with simple, conversational prose. It helps that Lehmkuhl details most of his experiences in a dramatic way (showing, not telling) through dialogue and action. This brings his stories to life for the reader, and yields a book that is well-paced and well-structured.

He starts with his youth and adolescence, but the main thrust of Here’s What We’ll Say focuses on his time in the Air Force Academy as a gay man. The multilayered account reveals interesting facts not just about gay life there, but also simply about the world of a military academy. I have very little exposure to the military world, and I enjoyed learning about a strange and unfamiliar universe.

Lehmkuhl’s account sometimes veers into steamy. He doesn’t shy from writing about sexual experiences when appropriate. I found that information to add another layer of nuance, but I’m glad it doesn’t go over the top. This is not an erotic account of a string of sexual encounters in the military.

The author intersperses commentary and philosophical consideration amid his recounted experiences. Who knew Mr. Lehmkuhl has such depth? He writes about the implications and effects of homophobia in general and DADT in particular, and I found his arguments well-reasoned and well-spoken. Yes, of course, I’m biased to agree with him because I already believe DADT is homophobic, but it still says something that he’s able to marshal his arguments in a highly articulate and thoughtful manner.

Nevertheless, Here’s What We’ll Say suffers from some weaknesses.

First and foremost, Lehmkuhl includes a disclaimer at the beginning that some of the experiences he recounts, especially in the last few chapters, belong to other people. While I appreciate his reasoning for taking this approach, it damages the book’s internal validity and external usefulness. Specifically, it renders the book less reputable as a source document. How can I refer to it as a work of pure non-fiction when it’s been fictionalized, and there’s no way for me to tell what’s true and what’s not? I can’t help but think there’s another approach that would yield the same value while helping maintain a greater degree of journalistic integrity.

Additionally, the beginning (his youth and adolescence) goes on a little too long, while the end comes too fast. The finale glosses over many of Lehmkuhl’s more recent and better known accomplishments.

Lehmkuhl seems to have a reputation as an attention whore. This book does not support that assertion. In fact, I wish he had spent more time on his later adventures. Regardless of his relationship with the media, he’s enjoyed some fascinating experiences. I would have loved to hear more about his experiences with Chip; the television show The Amazing Race; and dealing with such a high level of visibility as an out, proud gay man in a committed partnership. And of course, I would have been interested in hearing more about his relationship with Lance Bass. But then, they were still encoupled when this book was published.

I scored high on the Gay Positivity Scale. Clearly, DADT is not gay-positive; but Here’s What We’ll Say is a work of (sort of) non-fiction exploring the issue. I can’t fault the book’s positivity because of a government policy. Rather, I admire Lehmkuhl’s self-confidence and empowered response. The book reveals a man who makes the best of living in a virulently anti-gay atmosphere, and that is very positive.

Maybe one step above a Lifetime movie of the week, “Hate Crime” tells a more complicated story than the title first suggests. The hate in this movie flows in more than one direction and from more than one source; so too the crimes.

The ostensible hate crime is the vicious beating of Trey (Brian J. Smith), shortly before his marriage (okay, well, “commitment ceremony” – this film does take place in North Texas) with partner Robbie (Seth Peterson).

The movie benefits from (a) a thought-provoking treatment, particularly the last act; (b) an absolutely fantastic cast; and (c) the sweet, almost idyllic (virtually unusually so) presentation of the Robbie’s and Trey’s relationship.

From there, the movie drifts into the realm of made-for-television crime procedural with a moral – although it’s not entirely clear what that moral is. The movie spends most of the build-up trying to spell out that religious fundamentalism is bad and destructive. Not that I disagree, but I was unimpressed with the caricatured and vituperative approach. Certainly, I don’t want to lend credence to anti-gay viewpoints; I don’t think they have any credence.

But neither do I want to treat them the way they treat me; how am I then any different from them (1)? Ah, but those are the exact questions the film raises in its last act, which helps redeem (in part) the heavy-handed approach earlier. If anything, the film makes clear there are no easy answers.

The director (Tommy Stovall) owes many thanks to his talented cast for bringing the story to life; they help smooth over the one-dimensional bits and infuse the rest with power and interest. Seth Peterson as lead protagonist deserves particular kudos; I am extremely impressed with his emotional, nuanced performance. Bruce Davison also does a fantastic job, managing to convey unexpected depths in an otherwise poorly written and stereotypical role (I almost expected his character to spontaneously sprout a mustache so he could twirl it while laughing, “Mwa-ha-ha-ha!”).

The American Psychological Association has produced an interesting and thorough article on hate crimes, which says about anti-gay crimes, “Ideology assailants report that their crimes stem from their negative beliefs and attitudes about homosexuality that they perceive other people in the community share. They see themselves as enforcing social morals” (1). That clearly describes the villain(s) in “Hate Crime.”

Unfortunately, the subplots tend to drag the rest of the story down. They’re poorly scripted, more like half-hearted attempts. It’s as if the director couldn’t decide: Did he want to take a thorough, comprehensive look at the fallout from a vicious attack? If so, where’s the media? Where’s the public response? The police detectives would be subject to greater pressure than just internal prejudices. Or did the director want to focus on the more immediate devastation wrought on those closest to the victim, and thus tell instead a powerful, personal story? At the end, some of the subplots even go unresolved.

Regarding the gay content and positivity of the film, I have a fairly multilayered reaction, ranging from positive to negative. For one thing, I feel frustrated. Robbie and Trey are a really cute couple, and I love seeing them portrayed in such an engaging, sympathetic way. It’s devastating to see their family broken by a vicious attack.

So, on the positive side, I really like the positive portrayal of the characters and their relationships with each other and families. This also means that I’m emotionally engaged in the movie, and the crucial plot point of the gay bashing has a big impact on me. That’s exactly what a good film wants to do.

But. As I said, one of my reactions to this film is frustration. Because there are so many images of broken gay families, destroyed either by outside forces (as in “Hate Crime”) or by internal dynamics reflective of negative stereotypes (i.e., the inability to gay people to form lasting relationships).

Where are the films with Robbie and Trey – these great, engaging guys in a loving, committed, successful relationship – where they live happily after ever?

Kudos the filmmakers behind “Hate Crime” for crafting a suspenseful, important story with engaging characters. But the story’s resolution, while interesting and satisfactory on one level, doesn’t leave me feeling good or gay-positive.

Does the movie really succeed in condemning hate crimes, given the way the crime is ultimately answered?

(WARNING – MAJOR Spoiler Alert where I discuss the problematic ending in more detail)

When the hero kills the villain, I have the sense of much greater meaning behind the scene than just one person shooting another. Rather, it’s killing someone who stands in as a symbol of every anti-gay sentiment. There’s a kind of schadenfreude or catharsis in that scene.

And yet, does killing the villain bring back the victim? Does it redeem the loss, or reduce the hero to the villain’s level? I like the question as a thematic device; but for the emotional experience of watching the film, as I said, it doesn’t leave me feeling good or gay-positive.

Consider the words of Malcolm X: “You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” Substitute the word “patriotism” with a sense of isolation and victimization by social homophobia, and we come to the same moral conclusion.

And where does that leave the gay positivity? I frequently complain that the images of gay people in the media (such as film) fall into one or both of two basic categories: if you’re gay, either you are bad, or bad things will happen to you. It’s not intrinsically wrong for a film to include portrayals like this. The difficulty arises because of the lack of positive counter-images. “Hate Crime” compromises its important social message by throwing a little of column A in with a lot of column B; it certainly loses some gay positivity points from me.

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(1) American Psychological Association Position Paper on Hate Crimes, 1998, http://www.apa.org/releases/hate.html (7 September 2007).

On the whole, I like this movie. Despite its many flaws.

The film benefits from some great acting. Certainly, it enjoys a caliber of talent unusual for an independent feature. Jacqueline Bisset as Lila, despite the schlocky role, gives a performance that provides an emotional heart to the movie. Steve Sandvoss is pitch perfect as the sweet, conflicted, not-quite-naive Mormon (Aaron). Rebekah Johnson brings a feistiness that brings the stock fag-hag character (Julie) to life. Wes Ramsey as protagonist Christian does a good job as well, with the exception of a couple of overwrought monologues. But the monologues were written that way, so it’s hard to blame Ramsey too much. (Wait until he tells the story of getting left behind in the woods. You’ve got to be kidding me.)

The character of Christian irritates me. It’s like the writer (C. Jay Cox) said to himself, I want this person to be Gay Everyman. But his version of Gay Everyman happens to encompass a whole lot of stereotypical behavior. Meanwhile, the character of Aaron was very engaging: sweet, kind, and sincere. I really wanted Aaron to find happiness. Probably the filmmakers intended the central conflict to hinge on whether Aaron and Christian got together. But in watching the movie, I cared about that only insofar as it meant Aaron was able to exorcise his personal demons. Although I did appreciate Christian’s rather dramatic personal growth over the course of the film.

I have mixed emotions about the character of Keith (Erik Palladino), the gay man suffering from advanced AIDS. I always have mixed emotions about HIV/AIDS in gay-themed films: I tire of the association of disease, HIV/AIDS in particular, with the gay community, so I get frustrated easily when it seems like every other film throws in an HIV+ character for some kind of street cred.

On the other hand, HIV/AIDS is an important part of the history of the gay community, and remains a continuing concern. Especially since many young gay people nowadays don’t seem to take HIV/AIDS seriously.

But Keith’s role in the film is just over-the-top in a film already brimming with negative gay clichés. Christian finds meaning and depth by getting to know this gay man, who used to be like Christian, until AIDS enlightened him to the true meaning of Christmas.

That character is indicative of what’s fundamentally wrong with the movie. I can value having a guy in the movie who has AIDS, who has actually stopped and looked at the events of his life (including but not limited to the disease) and actually managed to squeeze out insight and wisdom. Consider the HIV+ character of Ben (Robert Gant) in “Queer as Folk.” But that’s not exactly how Keith’s character is portrayed; he’s too one-note, with too many one-liners, to have the depth needed for his role.

The movie is simply too heavy-handed without having the depth of character or thematic goods to back it up. One scene portrays an argument Christian has with some random trick that sleeping together is much more intimate than sex, and how the preference for the latter over the former is an unhealthy reversal of priorities in the gay community. That experience apparently helps Christian to appreciate the value of the depth and moral center that Aaron offers. It could have worked, had it been written and directed with any subtlety or nuance.

And then there’s the treatment of the Mormon Church.

In a lot of ways, “Latter Days” is an uncomfortable film. It benefits from an underlying sweetness, which mostly originates in the performances (especially Lila and Aaron). And the lead characters, unoriginal though they may be, are basically likeable – that helps a whole lot.

But the charm is undercut by a hateful edge: at the same time it’s trying to be a gay love story, the film is also attacking the Mormon Church (and, by extension, any organized religion which considers homosexuality sinful). The filmmakers have the right to make whatever kind of movie they want; and if they want to attack the Mormon Church, so be it. I’m not a fan of Mormonism, based upon what I know if it, so I have no argument with that. But using the medium of film to attack something lends a certain ugliness to the feel of the work. Trying to be a sweet love story and an assault on a particular group of people at the same time makes for a strange viewing experience. Even being unfamiliar with Mormon missionary work, I had the sense that certain facts were distorted or dramatized in order to highlight the condemnation of Mormonism. Ryder (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is too much a caricature of intolerant evangelism to really take seriously.

Consider the thoughts of reviewer and commentator Eric Snyder on this subject:

“Cox is allowed some poetic license, of course; he never claimed he was making a documentary. But I have to question his motives. As a former church member, Cox knows how missionaries really talk and act, and he knows how the church really operates. He is skewing the facts either A) because doing so helps his story progress, or B) because he wants viewers to dislike the church as much as he does. I hope it is option A, as that only makes him a bad filmmaker — good filmmakers use the facts of the world as they actually are to tell their stories, and don’t resort to making stuff up — while option B would make him something worse. Intentionally distorting the facts so your opponent looks more evil than he is smells like propaganda — which, again, is Cox’s right as a filmmaker, but which makes him seem like a guy with an ax to grind, not a guy with a story to tell” (1).

I did wonder myself about whether the filmmakers had an ax to grind, but I was equally confused by the mixed messages in the movie, because there’s just so much gay negativity.  And not just around the conflicted Mormon boy. Of course, Aaron is the most tortured of all the characters. Sometimes literally: wait until the scenes from the prison, er, hospital trying to “fix” him following Aaron’s attempt to “fix” himself, in a manner of speaking.

The film portrays a society which persecutes and literally tortures gay people because of unyielding, unthinking homophobia. Aaron persecutes and tortures himself because he has internalized that perspective. But what is the alternative presented, the other side of the story?

Is it someone like Gene Robinson or Mel White, well-known gay men committed to spiritual work in the world? No.

Or even someone like the aforementioned Ben from “Queer As Folk,” who certainly suffers from his own inner demons but is still a person of impressive depth and learning? No.

It’s a promiscuous (even when he’s pining for Aaron, he still brings tricks home!), theatrical, superficial flake who is held up in the film to represent openly gay life. What does that say? It’s an odd juxtaposition, at the least. Take the worst of the anti-gay world and the most clichéd of gay life, and throw them together!

As stated, I like this film. It benefits from a basic sweetness and an engaging exploration of the universal human longing for affection and understanding and the peeling away of the protective emotional layers we wrap around ourselves. Some of the scenes are fantastic. I especially enjoyed the penultimate scene, the emotional climax of the movie. Even if the plot that led us to that moment was contrived and forced, it’s still a great moment.

But keep your expectations low – the film suffers from a heavy-handed approach to theme and a cookie-cutter approach to characterization and plot that prevent the film from truly shining.

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(1) Snyder, Eric. “Latter Days,” EricDSnider.com, March 2004, http://www.ericdsnider.com/movies/latter-days (17 August 2007)

“Prom Queen” is a Powerful, Meaningful Melodrama with a Message. I capitalize those words because that’s obviously how the filmmakers intended the movie. Well, I don’t suppose that they intended it to be so melodramatic.

Quality-wise, “Prom Queen” is merely competent in every respect, except in the sub-par script. Even though it’s based on a true story, the writers (Michael MacLennan and Kent Staines) manufactured much of the drama. At the end, the film even treats the viewer to the disclaimer that entire characters and situations have been fictionalized to make the story more humorous. And yet, didn’t.

Marc Hall (Aaron Ashmore) was a student at a private Catholic school in Ontario. He wanted to take his boyfriend Jason (Mac Fyfe) to the prom, which the school would not allow, so he took his case to the courts.

The script, in its attempt to be cute and sweet, does the story a disservice. In fact, I don’t find the question raised by this situation to be automatically clear cut. When basic, equal human rights contrast with religious orthodoxy, which trumps the other? Certainly, I believe in equal rights, and I disagree with the Church’s stance on homosexuality. But this is a private Catholic school. Is there a mutually satisfactory way to solve the impasse, or is it a zero-sum game where one side must necessarily lose to the other?

The film presents the basic premise as a foregone conclusion: the Church is wrong, and Marc is right. Certainly a justifiable conclusion, but I wish we had seen more exploration of the theme before having the verdict pronounced to us.

But it’s a thin script all the way around. Most of the characters are caricatures or stereotypes, and only a handful of the actors are offered roles with the slightest juice. Marc’s parents Emily (Marie Tifo) and Audy (Jean Pierre Bergeron) seem more like set decoration than active participants. In fact, in an effort to keep things light, the movie skips some scenes that would have been most dramatic, such as a confrontation between Marc’s mother and the school’s principal (Dave Foley), as well as several scenes between Marc and his father.

The film also shies away from any true intimacy or physicality between Marc and his boyfriend. Which is just as well: the actors had no on-screen chemistry. On the plus side, Ashmore’s performance was competent and even charming, in his better moments, and I think stories like this are supremely important to tell.

As for the gay positivity, the story is unreservedly sympathetic to the gay participants, and the film has a happy ending in that good wins over evil…er, well, something like that. On the downside, the basic premise is gay-negative: being gay is such a struggle that we face hate and discrimination for such little things. May be true, but that doesn’t make it gay-positive.

And the title. Before I watched the movie, I thought it was a cute play on words. In the film, one gay man used the phrase with another, but instead of friendly and sassy the usage had an uncomfortable edge. And consider how difficult and emotional this event must have been for Marc, and how important his victory. I thus find the title to be vaguely insulting, as well as exemplary of the filmmakers’ attempt to lighten up a serious story but instead bleaching it of impact and meaning.

Overall, instead of portraying a real-life, important human drama, the movie covers a valid thesis statement (gays should be treated equally) with a heavy-handed, moralizing script presented unsuccessfully as a drama-lite pseudo-afterschool special. I do appreciate the positive, progressive message conveyed (I assume) to an adolescent audience, but it’s not enough to make up for the other deficiencies.

This movie is called “Adam and Steve” (ha-ha, get it?), but “Trying Too Hard” would have been more descriptive. The film is uneven in almost every way – the humor and script, direction, editing, and acting. Don’t get me wrong: I laughed. But a lot of the humor was dumb enough that I consciously wondered, “Why am I laughing?” And a lot of the humor, well, wasn’t funny.

Adam (Craig Chester) and Steve (Malcolm Gets) meet in the late 80s at a dance club. Steve is a hard-body dancer with a terrifying creature posing as a hairdo, and Adam is a Goth-boy whose makeup adds ten years to his age. They both succumb to the temptations of cocaine cut with baby laxatives, which leads to a romantic encounter interrupted by gross-out bodily functions.

Fast forward 17 years, and the two men meet again. Now Adam is a charmingly neurotic recovering alcoholic junkie, while Steve is an OCD promiscuous psychiatrist. At first they don’t recognize each other, and it’s love at second sight. A relationship develops, and after a year – just as Steve is about to propose to Adam – they realize who the other is. Steve takes off, humiliated by the memory of the event.

On the plus side, the movie is refreshingly gay-positive (though I did score down thanks to some minor stereotypical elements). The leads are both neurotic but still engaging and enjoyable, and it’s a cute film. It helps that the movie never gives in to pretension or pretends to be more than it is: gay fluff. Parker Posey was great. Her humor missed as often as it hit (that unevenness thing again), but in a way it fit her character, a stand-up comedienne who just doesn’t quite get it. Her absolutely deadpan delivery smoothed over many of the misses. Interestingly, both of the leads are openly gay

On the other hand, the movie frustrates. I appreciate the basic story writer-director-actor Chester has crafted. But he needed sharper writing to refine the script, and a shrewd editor to maintain momentum in the face of humor that’s either dumb or just misses the mark. Instead, the movie feels like a first draft.

Some of the gay-specific humor falls flat. Every time Adam shows same-sex affection in public, someone throws a beer bottle at him. A homophobe partakes in several scenes and then gets his comeuppance in a it-would-be-disturbing-if-it-weren’t-so-loopy scene near the end. I like that “Adam and Steve” offers a positive portrayal of gay men in a romantic comedy, but it seems to assume the intended audience will give them bonus points for that. An uneven film is still an uneven film.

The final portion of the film particularly needs work. Really, it doesn’t even make sense. First, Adam tries to go after Steve. To do so, he engages in a two-step dance duel that comes out of nowhere. But then, when he seems to have won Steve over, Adam pulls back and says he doesn’t know if it will work. So Steve must win Adam over by bashing a gay-basher (!) and singing show tunes. I found my head spinning: “Who wants what again?”

And frankly, the whole source of the drama stretched credulity. I can understand Steve’s embarrassment once he remembers his first encounter with Adam. But for an embarrassing incident to shatter their relationship, after it had been going so well for a year, crosses the line of believability and becomes a transparent plot device intended simply to keep the drama going.

On the whole, “Adam and Steve” is a charming film that could have been so much better. The movie resounds with echoes of “All Over the Guy,” but (thankfully) goes further into a happy ending with its epilogue. Check this out if you’re in the mood for a cute, fluffy, gay romantic comedy. It’s not worth full price admission, though.