yet more queer cinema part ii

The Queer Cinema viewing continues...

You'll Get Over It

This movie really needs to make up it's mind what it's called. The cover on the box is You'll Get Over It... the French title is Because of a Boy (which actually makes more sense and they should have kept it), but the translation of the title reads as You'll Get Over It, You'll See.

It's a more realistic movie than yesterday's Curiosity of Chance... painfully so in some parts, but it's (yet) another coming out story. And it was originally a "made for teevee" movie too, which is a little surprising in some ways, but when I think about it, it does have a little bit of that kind of feel to it.

I'm also wondering if the fact that the main character is a swimmer is only so we can see fairly cute boys in Speedos... but it doesn't feel that kind of pervy... there's not really very much nudity in it, and what there is is handled very "Frenchly"... they're naked because they're naked and it's not "ooooooooh nudity".

I'm SURE that I've seen the main boy, Julien Baumgartner, in something else, but nothing in his resume looks familiar, which doesn't mean I haven't seen it, it just wasn't that memorable.

There are a couple of moments that did bug me... the interaction between the main character, Vincent, and one of his teachers towards the end which just felt off tonally, like they were trying for dark comedy and slightly missed... and also the fact that everybody seems to take the coming out so well (from his immediate circle anyway)... and the portrayal of some incidental, yet openly gay characters isn't flattering.

It makes me wonder exactly who the intended audience for this movie was...

The Lair

Okay... so a teevee series about "gay vampire witches who run a sex club", brought to you by the same people responsible for Dante's Cove... you just KNOW it's going to be bad.

And it was... mostly because the writing is so incredibly bad. Like really, really, really bad. And at least partially recycled from the first season of Dante's Cove too... or it felt that way. Add to that some really questionable acting (somewhere between overacting and wooden acting... in fact some of it was wooden overacting) and everything that's eye-roll-worthy about Dante's Cove is even more eye-roll-worthy about The Lair.

Oh and the incidental music... somebody needs to break the keyboard player's fingers... this same annoying little riff happened every time something dramatic yet sensitive happened, and there seemed to be far too much incidental music over the top of scenes that didn't necessarily need it.

I like vampire stuff... really... but this is probably one of the worst vampire stories I've ever encountered (and that's saying something)... I mean they've mixed up vampires and witches and added in some Portrait of Dorian Grey in there... and then made it so that a vampire can be killed (in a puff of purple smoke of all things) by removing his necklace and giving him a shove. I mean, c'mon...

They've also tried to roll it into the same universe as Dante's Cove... which seems like a big mistake, since they're not even filming in the same location, so The Lair looks like it's in a big city, whereas the Cove is very much beachy and islandy. Weird. Added to that they have all the additional baggage from the other show that they have to use. Granted a couple of the characters did crop up in episodes of Cove, and there is a slightly similar place in a couple ofCove episodes (well, it's a sex club where hot extras have sex with lots of leather strapping on red satin cushions... but that's about where it ends really)... but they should have distanced the two shows.

The cast isn't bad... if you don't count the bad acting (but I have to wonder how much of that is caused by the appalling writing)... they're mostly cute, but I found myself having a soft spot (so to speak) for "token blonde" vampire Colin, played by former porn star Dylan Vox. Initially I thought his acting was really really bad, but he just seemed to be the only one not really taking himself seriously and he grew on me.

I was also distracted by the head vampire, played by Peter Stickles, when he and Dylan got all naked and soft porn groinal because he's got a seahorse tattoo on his bicep...

Speaking of the sex scenes, there seemed to be less sex in this than in Dante's Cove... whether that's because they had (way too much overly complicated and really stupid) plot to get through, or what, I don't know... and a lot of the sex there was seemed to be "extras sex" which got somewhat boring after a while because the people involved didn't even have names. Granted the whole vampire/sex thing does bother me, but I was willing to make allowances for a show like this.

But then I knew it was going to be a really bad show when I picked it up...

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