Reviews

One has to wonder why the MPAA decided that a movie with no nudity, no overt sex and no carnage should carry the "kiss of death" NC-17 rating.

Boyish teen Howie is a smitten by his knowlingly seductive buddy Gary to the point that he will follow him anywhere, even when he burgles homes of neighbors on Long Island. With his mother gone (claimed by an accident at the Dix Hills exit on the Long Island Expressway) and his father negligent and self-destructive, Gary is as close to family as Howie has, until he meets ex-Marine and chicken-hawk Big John, with his orange muscle-car Olds 442, who has already had Gary and most of the teenage boys at the local pickup spot. But "BJ" (the vanity plate on his Olds) does not know quite what to make of Howie, who is both seductive and vulnerable -- and smart.

The emotions are complicated in this film. Is Howie infatuated with Gary or with wanting to BE Gary. Why does jean-sniffing Big John mother this motherless boy rather molest him? Can Big John be both a pillar of his community and a predator of its youths?

L.I.E. is not a perfect film, but a good one. Worth seeing twice for the details you miss the first time.

I have long enjoyed John Duigan's work from Australia (Winter of Our Dreams, Sirens), but did not know that Lawn Dogs was his until the credits rolled. What a remarkable (fairy) tale Mr. Duigan has given us!

Sam Rockwell is as perfect as Trent as he was The Kid in Tom DiCillo's Box of Moonlight. At first Trent seems like any dead-end guy who might cut your grass -- until he parks his old pickup on a one-lane bridge and strips naked, stopping traffic (and a few hearts) as he executes a perfect dive into the river far below.

His at-first-reluctant relationship with the girl Devon (Mischa Barton) blossoms in so many unexpected directions, from dancing on a truck roof to Bruce Springsteen to catching a chicken. You never have any idea where you're headed, but the ride is worthwhile and unforgettable.

The ending is too good to spoil, but will someone PLEASE tell me how they filmed the water-over-the-road sequence?

Felix, a happy-go-lucky gay man, loses his job as a ferry worker (because of the Chunnel) in the north of France and decides to find his father, whom he has never met, in the south by hitchhiking through the countryside, agreeing to meet his lover, who will travel by train, at journey's end. Along the way he meets an assortment of interesting, unusual characters (one segment being called "My Younger Brother," another "My Grandmother") who reaffirm his journey.

Felix himself is gay in both senses, despite dealing with a host of pills for HIV. His humor and sunny disposition light up a lighthearted film.

Not to be missed.

Krámpack supposedly means mutual masturbation, so it goes without saying that the U.S. theatrical release would be retitled with the names of the two best friends who shamelessly do so. That said, the film is SO far removed from the typical American teen fare, like American Pie, that the unusual degree of friendship between the two boys is but a small part of the overall European-ness of the film.

The boys have known each other since grade school but are now just past puberty, and their minds are filled with sex, Nico obsessing about his Adam's Apple and his need to lose his virginity, and Dani entranced by his best friend. Dani is just plain sexy, and he knows it. At first it seems like a collision course, but as might be true for the adolescents they are, they start and end as friends. Both learn that they can be the objects of sexual desire -- and the comfort that this brings to a teenager -- but that their sexual paths are diverging.

The movie is well written and achingly sincere, more so than Trick or Get Real, both of which had a Fairy Tale (pardon the pun) quality about them. This film lies closer to the French films Wild Reeds and Full Speed than these. In Nico and Dani the passion seems real, and there is sour with the sweet.

The Spanish seacoast location is gorgeous, as are the characters, who are hardly stereotypes for the most part. The two guys are believable as 16-year-olds (even though about 20). For this reason my rating is a 9, well above the 7+ average rating that is current.

I first saw MOST of this film on a flight from New Zealand to Australia, but missed the ending when the flight ended before the film. Because I was engrossed with the fine meal and service on NZAir I was suckered into this film up to my neck.

Hints abound throughout the film that things are not as they seem. The digital enhancement of the date on a newspaper is one of the early clues, but you get dragged along by the sheer magnitude and perfection of the deception. Director Jackson did not think small! His project, like Colin Mackenzie's, was of Biblical proportions!

The Lord of the Rings trilogy may make Jackson a household name the way Star Wars made George Lucas. But this will be my evil little secret, my IQ test for unwitting friends who think they are So Darn Smart.

This is a gay film that doesn't feel like a typical gay film in that absolutely nothing seems contrived, particularly the people and the setting.

Never having been a frat boy myself, I was surprised how I warmed to the friendship displayed between frat brothers here. The bond between "Griff" and buddy Todd seems real and unforced, just as does the friction between the already out Pete and the closeted Griff who just isn't into the gay scene. After Pete is badly gay-bashed in a dark alley, Griff, who may have seen the vehicle of the perpetrators, but who has to out himself to everyone in order to see them caught, has some real soul-searching to do.

Daniel Chilton is more than convincing as conflicted Griff, and Niklaus Lange (Todd) and Todd's girlfriend Heather (Lesley Tesh) make a good looking, in-love-for-real couple who help show Griff where his heart really is, and where it isn't. The chance meeting and bonding that occurs between Griff and Denetra (Linna Carter), an equally closeted black woman, takes things in an interesting direction. The film has a well made look to it even if the aspect ratio is virtually square.

When Griff finally admits to Todd, "I've never been so sure of anything in my life," you really want to cheer. The pot takes a while to boil here, but the results are something to savor.

Like It Is is one of the better, non-comedy gay films to be released in many years. (The entire script is available on-line from First Run Features, and this may help viewers cut through some British dialect problems.)

This film, about a scrappy, gay, bare-knuckle fighter from a small industrial town who follows love to the big city, is hard hitting and very real in its plot execution -- except for two somewhat explicit gay sex scenes which seem staged and NOT like it is. Everyone puts in a good performance, particularly Roger Daltry as an unscrupulous, gay record producer whose blue eyes sparkle as he schemes.

Considering the timeframe, the characters are well developed. The conflicts within the young, chip-on-the-shoulder fighter seem real -- he beats on people who pick on him for being gay until he is reminded by his lover that he IS homosexual. It is impressive that the British will fund movies like Priest, Get Real and Like It Is. I cannot see these being made in the U.S., where gay films are usually comedies (In & Out) where a male-male kiss is a Big Deal.

The final scenes (a bare-knuckle fight) are bloody and not easy to watch, but the ending is believable.

The bleak Texas landscape is as much an actor in the movie as the cast. As I watched Ryan Phillippe act his part I could not help but think that I was seeing a new James Dean. Too bad his original part in "54" was rewritten and cut so badly. I would have liked to see what he might have done with the original script after seeing him here. But the real stars here are the boys who play his brothers. Where did they find such cute, believable youngsters? This is a movie to watch again and again, even if you are haunted by each viewing! Yes, there are flaws. Brown beer bottles in one scene are green in the next. There obviously wasn't a large budget here, but there is a lot of heart.

Thanks to Miramax, the U.S. saw a "less controversial" version of this film. In fact the video packaging fails to mention that Fr. Greg (Linus Roache) is gay, and that his gayness consumes this Catholic priest as much as the other, awful issue his oath of the confessional won't let him reveal, tearing him apart.

Some saw this as an anti-Catholic film, but the script clearly distinguishes between disparaging the Catholic religion and certain hypocritical Catholics who seem incapable of "hating the sin but loving the sinner." As the movie points out, we are all sinners, some more than others, but confession brings remission though not always in this lifetime. When the job-induced stress within him reaches the boiling point, Fr. Greg does not reach for the bottle, as some might, but he takes off his clerical collar, puts on a leather jacket and visits a gay bar where, as worldly Greg, he turns sexual predator. But he absolutely hates himself and his lover afterwards, and, with his collar firmly in place, he later refuses his lover communion. He cannot reconcile himself to be both Gregs.

Linus Roache IS Fr. Greg, and is as believably homosexual here as he is believably heterosexual in Wings of a Dove. All the supporting actors are as good as he is, too. You get the impression that The Full Monty and Brassed Off might have been filmed in this same town. The characters are comfortably familiar and real.

There is a lot of love in this film, and it ultimately saves Fr. Greg and everyone who watches his travails. You are truly callous if a tear does not well up in the final scene.

"What's your problem?" asks Steven Carter's father. Steven's "problem," as we know by then, is that he is closeted but unapologetically gay, and that he has a smashing new boyfriend, the school's top athlete, John Dixon, but he cannot tell anyone except his neighbor and confidante, Linda, who has her own problems finding someone to love her -- her driving instructor, Bob.

Ben Silverstone gives a subtle, engaging performance as Steven. Brad Gorton has the harder part as heartthrob/athlete John Dixon, who is in peak form physically, but confused and anguished mentally. Charlotte Brittain, as Steven's mate Linda, gets a lot of the best lines in a script filled with great lines. Memorable scenes include Steven's cruising of the park toilet as The Troggs sing "Love is All Around," John telling Steven of the time when he first responded to the touch of another boy on a school outing to Cornwall, and Steven announcement, to an assembly of classmates, teachers and parents, that he has been living a lie.

There isn't a weak performance in the film, and the choice of Basingstoke, England, with its almost U.S.suburbs appearance -- complete with a red Corvette -- gives it a universal appeal.

Some of the dialog passes a bit too quickly for an American ear to catch every word, but this is a minor complaint. The lush cinematography and widescreen views make for a good looking film as well. All in all a great effort that deserves wider distribution -- and better ad campaign -- than Paramount Classics has mustered, at least in the U.S.