Taking a break and awful movies

Warning:  This post contains spoilers for a movie that is so poorly written that there are not enough letters in the alphabet to give it a sufficiently low ranking.  If you don't want me to spoil the movie for you, then you may want to stop reading htis post when I start talking about it.  But if you want my advice, the movie is spoiled, full stop, and you'd be doing yourself a favor by jut reading what I write about it here and skipping it.

I didn't do any writing (Note: I don't count blogging as writing) last week.  I decided I wanted a break.  I figure I'm over 40,000 words on the novel, I deserve a break.  Plus, I have two more months to get the rough draft done.

Granted, I'm a little nervous about my choice.  Whenever I take a break, I worry that I won't start back up again.  It's pretty silly at this point, as so far, I've always gone back to writing.  Granted, sometimes I've scrapped a current project to start a new one in the process, and I don't want to scrap the novel I'm working on now.  But a week break is just that, and the ideas are still coming to me for this particular project.  That's a good sign.

I may have to quickly finish up my current scene and jump ahead to a new one, however.  I'm just not sure what to do with the current scene.  Well, that's not true, or I'd just scrap it altogether.  I just don't know how to write it right now.  So I'm thinking I may just put in a brief placeholder or barebones skeleton and move on ahead.  After all, I alread know I want to edit this over the summer.  I can add stuff then.  Editing isn't limited to just deleting or revising.

I spent a good bit of time watching stuff on Netflix this weekend.  It was a "badly made movie" weekend in many ways.  It started out when I watched "A Little Bit Zombie," which was a neat idea but poorly executed.  And that ending?  What was up with that?  Did Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman write the script?

A screen shot from "A Siren in the Dark."  As sensual as
it is, the story about these two characters is horrifyingly
creepy.

But the movie that absolutely disappointed me was "A Siren in the Dark."  To be honest, part of the reason I watched this movie was that Netflix's description of it (Something like "a psychic cop talks to a gay teen about his lover's disappearance and ends up exploring something really hinky") made it sound like a movie that had managed to escape the gay movie ghetto.  In a sense, it had.  Except that about the only thing the movie had going for it (other than a neat premise that was poorly executed then strangled) was that it had a bunch of scenes with young guys being naked with each other.

First of all, the movie was told almost entirely as a flashback, where Danny told Cameron the cop what had already happened.  I admit I don't like that story-telling device.  Flashbacks are meant to relay key pieces of information about the past that is relevant to the story's plotline.  So when Danny finished his story, I was like "finally, we can get to the action moving forward."  Then the closing credits started rolling thirty seconds later and I was like, "What the hell?"

Add to this the fact that the movie kept repeating scenes and not everything was told in order.  It almost felt like someone was trying to pull the whole Memento effect without having any reason to do that in the movie.  No one's perception was messed up by short term memory loss or anything like that.  So in this instance, it made the movie unnecessarily confusing (whereas in Memento, the confusing nature was intentional and necessary to the point the movie was making.)

Then there was the whole fact that they never really explained the purpose or nature of the relationship between the woman (who they kept calling a "girl" despite the fact that she was obviously at least in her thirties) at Harvest and Joshua.  Nor did they really explain the (admittedly hot) scenes with Cameron's brother and the other boy he was talking to via webcam other than to mention that Cameron has a deeply troubled past due to sexual abuse (which was hardly referenced during the rest of the movie, so why even bring it up?).  And how did Danny survive when the woman from Harvest stabbed him?  How did he eventually get home?  Or was his interview with Cameron not real and some sort of psychic thing?

Then you have the bit at the end of the movie where Cameron is giving Ariel a ride home (the scene was actually repeated at the start of the movie).  It turns out that Ariel is actually Joshua simply trying to lure in a straight victim rather than a gay one this time around.  That would have been a cool idea, if the whole movie wasn't a complete waste up until that point.

I'm serious, this isn't a "B" movie.  This isn't even a "Z" movie.  There isn't a letter far enough down any alphabet to describe this movie.  I've seen better stories used as segues between scenes in porn.  In a lot of ways, I think that's what this "story" was, a bunch of very short (30 second or less) sordid scenes of sex and drug use with bits of poorly done "story" strewn around them.

Blog Note

Posts are going to be a bit sporadic this week.  Between throwing my sleep schedule out of whack (will I ever learn?) and having a somewhat busy schedule, it's going to be difficult for me to find the time and energy I need to write, let alone manage to have both at the same time.

In the meantime, if you've never seen it before, I highly recommend you check out the 2001 movie "Friends and Family."  It's available for streaming via Netflix.  I watched it this weekend and thought it was hilarious.  Tony Lo Bianco plays a rather convincing Mafia Don, giving the part an air of understated authority and dignity.  Also, the way that the movie plays with stereotypes (imagine a group of stereotypical "Wise Guys" learning to "queen it up") is actually humorous, something I find rare these days.  I have no idea how this movie came out in 2001 and I only discovered it in 2013.

Thoughts on "Latter Days."

Note:  This blog posts contains spoilers for the movie under discussion.

Yesterday, I pulled out my DVD copy of Latter Days and watched it again.  I love that movie, and it seems like every time I watch it, I notice something new.  One of the things I noticed this time was when Keith (the guy Christian brought food to) grabbed Christian's arm and said all he saw was snow.  During that scene, Keith interpreted it as snow on a blank television screen.  However, I couldn't help to think of the upcoming scene outside the Salt Lake City Airport.  After all, it was snowing in that scene (and was a key point of the dialogue) and that scene was an extremely pivotal moment in Christian's (and Aaron's) life.  I don't know if the writers intended for me to make that connection, but I found it an interesting one to make, all the same.

See?  Snow!  Keith was right!

I also noticed how good some of the non-verbal acting was, this time.  Like Aaron's mother's body language and facial expressions after Christian returns the pocket watch.  She expressed so much emotion without uttering a word in those few seconds.  Or the expression on Lila's face when Aaron mentions his "brief but disastrous affair (encounter?) with a sharp object.  She communicate that perfect sense of suddenly being sure how to respond to such a revelation.  (Of course, I also like her "he's a great tipper" explanation to the two patrons who witness Christian's and Aaron's reunion.)

Of course, there's the one part of the movie that always troubles me when I see it.  It's Christians story about being rescued in the snowstorm.  I understand the scene and I know it's not meant to imply anything untoward or encourage people to infer the worst.  However, it still troubles me and in many ways wish the writers had left it out or at least done something different (not sure exactly what) with it.

Of course, given my own religious upbringing -- which was admittedly not nearly as strict as Aaron's portrayed (or many other guys' real) experiences -- let's me identify a great deal with the movie.  I get that religious tension.  I get -- though not to the severity displayed -- the idea of "giving up so much" to be with someone you love because your family and closest community considers that love to be a sham or even demonic.  I suppose that's why I cry whenever I watch the movie.

That and it's just a total emotional roller coaster of a story with an awesome ending.

Get Personal With Me: Movies and Memories

What movies evoke a sense of nostalgia for you?  What makes those movies so memorable for you?  Do they evoke certain memories, either about subject matter of the movie or about the first time you watched it (or anything else)?

Eating Out and Gay Community

I am a major fan of the whole "Eating Out" series of movies.  One of the thing I love best about the third movie is how it tackles the topic of gay community.  Here's a video of Casey, the main character, giving a speech toward the end of the movie about his experience with the gay community:

Personally, I think that's perfectly expressed.  I've known some people -- including other gay men -- who are very much against the gay community.  I have to wonder if they're talking about the same community I see, because they're descriptions of it are way too simplistic and one-dimensional.  I hope that some day, like Casey in the movie, they might come to see a broader and more diverse spectrum of people in our community.

Busy Day

Channing Tatum didn't do anything this steamy.

I got up this morning, started some laundry, then went out to watch "Magic Mike" at the theater.  I think I was the only guy in the half-full theater.  It was an okay movie, though I'm glad I got a good deal on the tickets.  There's more story-line to the movie than I expected, which was nice.  It could have been developed more.  As for the eye candy aspect of the movie, it was pleasant to see a bunch of mostly naked men gyrating their hips on stage and seeing Channing Tatum's naked ass was pleasant enough.  However, having watched hot and sensual scenes in movies like Eating Out 3, the scenes in this movie seemed relatively tame and cheap.

After that, I ran to the store to pick up a few necessities and come back home to throw the laundry in the dryer, which I forgot to do before leaving for the theater.  Once that's done, I plan on pulling a favorite shirt out of the dryer, changing my clothes, and heading out for a small social event that's part of Pride Week around here.  (Yes, my city has Pride Week in July rather than June for some reason.  Go figure.)

Just another busy Sunday for the Colorful One.

Let's Move Beyond The Gay Movie Ghetto

Today, I ended up reading a couple blog posts by Max (whose blog I just found and already adore) in which he talks about introducing the guy in his life to various gay-themed movies.  I threw out a few other titles that Max didn't mention of movies that I thought were well worth introducing Brandon to.  As is often the case, this got me in the mood to watch a few of my favorite movies in the genre, myself.  As such, I powered up the Wii, logged into Netflix, and started doing a search of some of my favorite titles.

Alas, Netflix doesn't stream the movie I really wanted to see, "The Broken Hearts Club," so I ended up settling for the first and second movies in the "Eating Out" series.  I suppose that's just as well.  I was tired and far more willing to let myself fall asleep during those movies than I might have been if I had been able to go with my first choice.  And since I adore that entire series, I was perfectly happy to watch (or doze off through) those movies.

There's no rule that says these two
can't be gay lovers who unleash
the next mummy's curse.

But as I got thinking about gay-themed movies, I got thinking about how they're all so much alike in a sense.  From where I sit, I can count the twenty one movies in the genre that are sitting together on a shelf -- and as I can immediately think of other titles that are not among that group, I know I have even more such movies than that -- it occurs that every last one of them (okay, "Jeffrey" is slightly different, given how much it focuses on the issue of dating in a world where HIV exists) is a story centered on somebody coming to terms with their sexual orientation, two people (usually men, though I do have a couple titles that are about lesbians) try to find love together (and because "Jeffrey" still fits this pattern, I only give it partial credit for being "slightly different"), or both.  It occurs to me that in many ways, Hollywood -- even the smaller movie studios that focus on "gay themed" movies -- are failing us by keeping us locked in a certain type of movie.

I want a different kind of gay movie.  I want a movie where a hero happens to be gay, but whose heroism is defined by something other than his (or her) sexual orientation.  I want a movie about Wyoming Smith, who faces the same kind of perilous traps and adrenaline-inducing fights and escapes that Indiana Jones faced, but rather than drawing beautiful woman closer in triumph, runs a hand along the well-muscled arm of his local guide and companion, says, "I couldn't have made it through without you," and gives him a passionate kiss.  I want a comedy where zany things happen to Tim at the office, and he comes home to tell his husband Bruce about it.

You see, heterosexual protagonists get to do all kinds of things in their movies.  They get to be adventurers.  They get to be down on their luck and trying to make a comeback.  They get to discover the massive conspiracy which forces them to run for their lives until they decide to fight back.  And they get to have all this while kissing women (or men, in the case of the rare female protagonist) or have a thirty second scene of steamy sensual foreplay (and presumably sex, though I'm usually spared actually seeing that part) as a brief interlude before the driving action of the main plot resumes.

I want that for gay protagonists.  I love my protagonists who spend entire movies building romances and/or coming to terms with their sexuality.  But I think it's time that Hollywood enables those protagonists to branch out and become romantically and sexually active gay protagonists that also do other amazing and story-worthy things.

Fire and Ice gets steamy?

Fellow Geek and I got talking about animated films and particularly Japanese anime while at Home Bar Sunday night.  He mentioned a film from 1983 that I had never seen before, "Fire and Ice."  So last night, I decided to find it on Netflix.  It turns out that Netflix has the movie available for streaming, so I sat down and watched it.

I enjoyed it and thought it was a fairly good film.  The plot wasn't terribly complex and the characters were underdeveloped, but given the fact that I felt the movie was trying to go for that fairy tale adventure style, those are understandable failings, to the point of not really being failings.

What surprised me, however, was what I felt were some pretty strong homoerotic undertones.  I don't know if that was intentional or merely my own warped imagination.  So I went on YouTube, found the whole movie in a single video, and decided I'd share it with my readers to see what all of you think.

Here are some of the things that jumped out at me:

At 8:00:  Larn is laying on the ground, surrounded by subhumans.  The camera shows an up-close and personal shot of his crotch and then very slowly pans up his body to his face where he opens his eyes.  Total eye-candy moment.

At 10:00: As Larn tries to climb the tree, the dying subhuman rushes up to him and does a full-on caress of his lower back and ass.  All shown close up and personal so you get to see as the hand rubs against that firm globe of man-flesh.  Yeah, I know the rationalization is that the subhuman is still trying to catch Larn in his dying throes, but come on!

At 51:00:  Juliana presents Teegra to Nekron, stating that she intends for the captured woman to be her son's mate.  Nekron spurns the captive and throws a downright hissy, insisting he has no need for a mate or heirs.  This isn't erotic, mind you.  But if the writers and directors didn't expect me to see Nekron as a major queen at this point, I don't know what they were thinking.

At 58:27:  The big battle between Nekron and Larn starts about here.  Granted, Nekron first has to paralyze Larn and have his subhumans bring the intruder over to him.  Quite frankly, with that "You interest me" line, I would not have been surprised if the swords they dueled with were made of something a bit softer than iron (though I'm sure they would've been steel-hard).  And the whole battle just strikes me as sensual and intended to be more like foreplay than an actual battle to the death.  Maybe a battle to see who gets to top.  (Though, honestly, I suspect Nekron would secretly throw that fight.)

Beyond those specific points, I just find the whole idea of a movie where a bunch of lithe, nearly-naked men run around in a manner I find somewhat sensual to be somewhat less than innocent.  I mean, sure, Teegra was half-naked the entire film too, and they certainly showed enough booty-shots of her too.  But the whole movie struck me as an opportunity for a gay boy to have a huge drool fest.

Plus the other thing that I'll note is that most of the men in this movie -- including Larn -- did not fit the more stereotypical "manly man" pattern of such movies.  They weren't overly muscled mountains that moved like lesser beings better dive for cover.  They were lithe and moved with a certain animalistic quality to them.  I suppose the style of movement was intentional, since the story is supposed to take place after the last ice age.

Alas, if only Nekron had sent the defeated Larn to his personal chambers instead of the dungeon.