Not that we’re complaining. If we really wanted a heart-wrenching coming out story, we’d call our father. Save the speeches for the PFLAG meeting: we just wanna get laid. Of course, there IS a chance that your hard-earned gay dollar might land you in some depressing black-and-white rumination on the plight of cancer-plagued gays in Serbia, so we took a stroll through the catalog to try to figure out your best chances for recreating a night at the Bijou… in the Castro Theater.
Solos
It’s called Solos, okay? They might as well have called it Auditions, or Minute Men or Falcon Alone With… Sure, it purports to be the a touching story of the love-affair between a male teacher and male student in Singapore, but the press copy also boasts that it got banned in it’s home country for sexual-explicitness. Screw the popcorn and bust out the lube. Bonus: no dialogue!
The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror
Horror movies are just nudie cuties with tight shots and a little blood. Oddly the camp element may make it less likely that we’ll actually get some low-light lovemaking, but we’re pretty sure you’ll get some Kim Catrall-ish drag queen ogling a naked fratboy somewhere in the second act. It features porn star Michael Soldier in a supporting role, and as a draggish-queen at that (playing against — or with — type?), so we’d bet on a little butt action to boot.
The Lost Coast
Well, this is saying something. It’s the only the third movie we’ve looked at in the catalog and the first sentence contains the phrase “sexually charged” and it takes about fifty more words to get to “foursome.” Like a true porno, it’s non-linear.
Saturn in Opposition (Italy, 2007)
(USA, 2008)
This documentary cuts to the chase: it’s about 70s porn idol Jack Wrangler, who was butch when the phrase still applied to people other than lesbians. If anyone complains about you tugging a lug, pretend to be FTM and call them a sex-negative homophobe. (See the trailer here.)
Otto; Or Up With Dead People (Germany, 2007)
The day that Bruce LaBruce gives us a movie that doesn’t creep us out AND give us a boner is the day we stop going to film festivals altogether. Not only has he shot stuff like Hustler White and No Skin Off My Ass, he’s also shot hardcore porno. The trailer actually makes us sick to our stomachs, but if no one shows a little leg in this freakshow, we’ll blow you. (See the trailer here.)
Were the World Mine (USA, 2008)
A baby theater fag imagines starring in a Midsummer Night’s Dream at an all-male academy imagines that the rugby players are actually go-go boys.
Um, there’s more, but we don’t really have time to get into the Fun in Boys Shorts or the Filipino sex-show romance Unspoken Passion or the Italian Manhunt drama Ciao because, like, you know you’re going to get legs in the air or a twink in a bathing suit in pretty much every shot. Even that Derek Jarman is as dry as it seems, is going to have enough clips from Sebastian and “Caravaggio” to let you rub one out. Get your tickets and bring a date: you’re getting some tonight, son.
RELATED:
Otto; or, Up With Dead People: Extended Trailer
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon – Trailer
Frameline (Official Site)
Queer Cinema has taken a nosedive just as mainstream indie cinema has once HD cameras and Final Cut Pro became so affordable that now ANYone can be buy the equipment, put their hand on a dvd copy of BILLY’S HOLLYWOOD SCREEN KISS under the night sky and proclaim, “I am a director!”
But while I would love to see gay filmmakers put more thought into their movies other than how many sex scenes they show or how do I get my hot lead actor naked on screen, then in my bed, I would encourage them to continue. Yes, even though four out of every five gay indie films today star Mathew Montgomery, I’d rather see too many than go back to the days of nearly none. I just implore gay filmmakers to take their heads (and you know which one I’m talking about) in new directions.
Case in point: I recently saw two gay indies via Netflix (thank god for them, even if they treat new customers better than loyal ones). The first was SHELTER, another entry in the very tired coming-of-age dramas about a young man conflicted about his sexuality who finds himself attracted to his best friend’s older brother, a surfer played by Brad Rowe. Yes, they kiss. Yes, they have a love scene where they roll around on a bed in the dark while the shots dissolve and dissolve and dissolve and dissolve. This movie is something I would have expected and maybe even appreciated 20 years ago. Now, it’s just old hat. And not even a Borsalino.
But I was pleasantly surprised with my second choice, SOCKET. In this film, the characters’ being gay is a background trait. You could replace Mathew Montgomery (sigh) with a woman and the story wouldn’t be that different. In SOCKET, a man is struck by lightning and finds that he is now addicted to electricity. He begins a love affair with his male nurse, who introduces him to a secret group of electricity addicts who meet to “juice”. The man’s addiction turns to obsession, as he surgically implants electric plugs and sockets into himself and his boyfriend so they can plug in to each other and share their bodies’ power. When the guy gets mugged and accidently kills his attacker by draining him of his energy, a dark hunger is awakened, sending the guy out into the streets looking for more victims. Even though the film is poorly shot, there is a blisteringly great idea here, and this is the direction I’d like to see queer indie cinema go.
With gay porn getting to be more like Hollywood films every year, and XXX industry folks like Greg Osborne, Toby Ross, Wash West and Jerry Douglas already jumping over the line between porn and indies, I think we will be seeing more of this.
JBK
Hilarious! Seriously, gay film is a joke.