yet more queer cinema

Welcome, yet again, to the results of $1 DVD Tuesday at my local Video Store.

I wasn't going to bother, since I had the audio commentaries on the Queer As Folk episodes to watch... but I figured I would just wander down and see what they had. Turns out he had a whole bunch of new queer stuff in... and I haven't been there in quite a while (which the nice man commented on... again)... and I was "forced" to borrow five movies, since while it's still $1 day, it's also a $5 minimum... so five movies it was... I'm probably going to blog about half today and the other half tomorrow...

Dante's Cove - Season 3

After watching the two previous seasons of Dante's Cove, you would have thought I would have learned my lesson... bad acting (I think some of them have actually gotten worse rather than better), soft porn sex scenes, only visible doodle from the extras not the main actors... but it's like that guilty addiction you really don't want to admit to... even though I rolled my eyes at the crappy dialogue and performances and fast forwarded through the lesbian sex scenes, I actually WANTED to see more Dante's Cove. Sad, but true. Pretty much everything I said about it the first time still holds true.

Naked Boys Singing!

Guess what this was about... yes indeed... Naked Boys Singing was all about naked boys singing. Before I put the disc in I did wonder how the hell they were going to stage it (to coin a phrase)... then it looked like they'd just filmed the stage version... but the making of feature (which is almost as long as the show itself) explained that it was slightly more complicated than that.

I'm not completely sure how well it actually works as a film to be honest. As a stage show you would have that visceral experience of being in the room with nine or ten naked men, and it's got that added feeling because they're naked in "your space" if that makes sense. But the film version is just watching naked guys on the teevee screen and, you know, I can do that any time. Granted, they're not singing songs at the time, but still.

However it wasn't a bad movie... it's not in the least bit sexual, I mean it's naughty and cheeky (no pun intended), but it's not sleazy. But on the upside (again, pun optional... there are just so many opportunities for puns with this material) it was all naked guys (although not all the time, there are actually some clothes which actually did surprise me), and the songs were pretty good... some were funny, a couple were quite touching, and at least two made me think of fellow bloggers (specifically "Jack's Song" reminded me of Large Tony... and "Perky Little Porn Star" reminded me of Brent Corrigan).

Of course with every kind of ensemble cast, and doubly so because the happen to be naked, you're always going to have your favourites. Mine were Jason Currie, Joseph Keane (who sang the aforementioned Porn Star song), Kevin Alexander Stea and very tall redhead Andrew Blake Ames. It also goes to show the vast range of types, appearance and colour of the male genitals... not to mention length and width... sometimes on the same person between numbers. And although I didn't really need any confirmation on the fact, it just backed up that I just love the penis in all it's shapes, sizes and appearances.

I'm not sure it's something I would seek out on DVD to add to my collection... but if I ever came across it (see, puns again) cheaply I might be tempted to pick it up.

The Curiosity of Chance

I'm not completely sure what I think about The Curiosity of Chance.

Partly I was bothered because it's a whole world of "gay in high school" movie cliche (not that I know how many there have been in that genre, but it has all the hallmarks of "been there, seen that")... and those things that kind of serve to make it feel different are the very things that I just kind of went "well, why did they bother?". It's set in Germany (actually, I think it's Belgium from what I've read online), but there really isn't anything that marks it as having to be set there... I mean they could easily have set it in Kansas or something and it would have been exactly the same movie. The only real reason to have it set in Europe is so that you can have occasional comedy European accents. And it's set in the 80's... which does give it that partially semi-autobiographical feel to it (and it was one of those writer/director movies, so it's possible)... but doesn't really add anything to the story, other than the choice of fashions and music.

It's also one of those movies where queer boy is just living his horrible and soul crushing high school life, big important plot happens, and then he has to "stand up" and do something to show the school he's an okay dude. It's sort of like that whole transformation from plain girl to smoking hot girl in all those teen chick flick movies. And it's the thing that never, ever actually happens in real life.

I sometimes wonder if, as gay men, a large proportion of film makers want to reinvent their own histories in order not only to make a good story with a beginning, middle and end, but also want to transform the stuff that was never going to happen to them when they were in school. Whether it was falling in love with somebody who turns out to like boys too, or triumphing over the homophobic jerk making your life difficult (or, you know, both)... it just seems to be rewriting the stuff that would never happen in real life so that you can get your fairy tale (again with the puns) ending.

On the upside, the two leads are quite cute... Brett Chukerman (who's been in quite a few gay themed projects, as well as, disturbingly, Power Rangers) more than Tad Hilgenbrink (who seems like he would be the gayer of the pair from this role but has starred in one of the later and crappier American Pie sequels as well as Epic Movie), and it does have a sweet ending (albeit stretching the realms of credibility).

Part Two tomorrow...

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