Proceed at your own risk

EATING OUT 2: THE BIRTH OF A NEW GAY AMERICAN MOVIE STAR?

As the gay cinema industry continues to flourish and grow, the gay porn industry may have to reassess it's business model.  A few days ago I noted that the new gay film OpenCam, a murder mystery, was little more than soft core porn--but done well with a plot and story line that actually made the sex scenes and nudity hotter.  In my experience, plots and story lines in gay porn are usually diverting and the reason god created the fast forward function.

Review DVDs of upcoming flics is certainly one of the joys of blogging and if the latest review copies to hit my mailbox are any indication of a trend, gay porn is in trouble.

Last night, I slipped Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds (trailer) into my DVD player and once again found myself violating the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Eating Out 2 opens November 22 in New York City as part of the Thanksgiving weekend celebration--all those big holiday season films.  It then opens in theaters nationwide on December 8.  The film has some extremely funny moments, the best among them is an ex-Gay meeting.  A gay romantic comedy and French farce, Eating Out 2 is light fare, a few good laughs, a few cliches but a good date movie.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Now to the meat.

Once again, this is another gay flic that delivers enough eye candy to give Oscar Wilde's long dead corpse an erection.  The film is awash in testosterone delivered by a relentlessly adorable, sexy and ab-olicious cast of men.  Among others, the movie features American Idol star, out and proud Jim Verraros and Brett Chukerman (pictured above at right,) a bad boy who could talk me into anything.

And then there's Marco Dapper.  And then there's Marco Dapper.  And then there's...

Mr. Dapper until recently was a UPS deliveryman who has gone from spending his workday in a brown uniform delivering large packages to full frontal nudity and endless scenes of nakedness--delivering large packages. (To see the bottom half of the above photo, you'll have to go see the movie.)

But Mr. Dapper also delivers an intriguing surprise.

I suspect that this pleasant little gay comedy will mostly be remembered in film history as Mr. Dapper's first film.  Mr. Dapper is the triple threat:  Eyes that would melt Mount Rushmore, a body that Brad Pitt wishes he still had and, yes, Mr. Dapper can act.  He can really act.  At the other end of the cardiovascular system that seems designed to serve nothing but his substantial genitalia and the orifices of gay men everywhere, is a brain and some talent that will likely result in stardom.

Remember that scene in Thelma and Louise with an unknown and very young Brad Pitt?  You'll remember Mr. Dapper's first two nude scenes in much the same way. 

In the meantime, even if you're not a big fan of romantic comedies, you're going to need to see Mr. Dapper in action.  And again, this flic delivers some of the hottest sex scenes I've enjoyed since, well, since Saturday.  My favorites: the couch seduction and the porta-john fuck.

And then there's Marco Dapper.

MOVIE REVIEW: OPENCAM AND GRATUITOUS STORYLINE

Our friend over at Queer Beacon likes to explore film for gay content; last night I found myself exploring gay content for a film.

But I'm not complaining.

Having made the rounds of various legitimate Gay & Lesbian film festivals, OpenCam allegedly has a plot:  "A serial killer stalking the visitors to a gay sex website targets a handsome gay artist in director Robert Gaston's tense and sexy thriller. The men of Washington, D.C.'s gay community are being brutally butchered, and when a cop (Amir Darvish) is assigned the task of protecting well-known artist Manny (Andreau Thomas), the hunter is about to become the hunted in a deadly game of kill or be killed."

OpenCam is "categorized" as a Gay Whodunit.

OpenCam is hotel porn.

For those of you unfamiliar with hotel porn, it's porn without money shots.  Orgasms abound, but they are heard and not seen.

Nonetheless, this whodunit is basically a vehicle for some of the hottest asses, cum gutters, pleasure trails and sweaty fuck scenes this side of a Falcon video.  Although the film has a little too much gratuitous storyline, the director delivers enough eye candy to kill a dozen diabetics.

And the most suspenseful aspect of this thriller is wondering if there's actually going to be a full on porn penetration shot.  There are some erections, but no full view genital to orifice contact--just like hotel porn.

In all fairness to OpenCam, I'm unusually talented at solving whodunits very early on and this film was no exception.  I pegged the killer and his motive within the first few minutes.  The only remaining question was how many eligible victims would see the nasty end of a butcher knife before the killer was caught?

Whodunits depend on thrills and tension, mounting tension to be specific and OpenCam delivers admirably on all three counts: thrills, tension and mounting--but not because of the story line.

The movie is a hot fuck fest.  Again, I am in no way complaining.  In fact, I'm grateful.  I haven't watched porn in a while.  I've been in a closed eyes/cerebral frame of mind for the past couple of years so when I found myself curled up in bed for a good whodunit, I ended up doing it.  Twice in fact.

When porn sets out to deliver a plot, I whip out fast forward; but in this case the plot enhances the sensuality and eroticism of the sex.  And I learned that porn is hotter when you're not expecting it.

One last thing,. I picked up some new rentboy trivia--which seems to be dominating our lives these days thanks to the likes of Mike Gannon and Mike Jones.  Apparently, Washington D.C. "Beltboys" charge $500 for a normal session, but $700 if the client has a cold.  So not only is OpenCam hot, it's instructive.

ALEXANDER THE HONEST

Oliver Stone is releasing a third version of his ALEXANDER epic that will comply with his original vision: an honest look at the classical world with all homosexual scenes intact.  According the Stone, the cinematic version of Alexander was butchered by the studio bosses who forced him to de-gay the world conquerer.

This new DVD version will run for three hours and 40 minutes and will at long last carry the "Q" rating that honesty demands.

NEXT GENERATION OF GAY CINEMA: THE NON-GAY GAY MOVIE?

Feel like a dose of the future where sexual diversity is as routine as doing laundry and homophobia is a distant memory?  Have I got a movie for you!

But first, a message from my ex-wife.

I love "testing" gay flics on my heterosexual ex-wife.   First off, after 18 years of marriage, we are pretty much in synch when it comes to movies.  However, when it comes to gay movies, her approach is non-political, no chip on her shoulder--unlike my own.  Her perspective helps bring me down to earth--especially when I go all political and read way too much into something.

So when I watched the British flick, IMAGINE ME & YOU and started raving and ranting, she rushed in and helped me consider another perspective.

And this was her first gay flic since Brokeback so she was mightily relieved, having been raked over the coals emotionally by that drama. You can imagine the hours we spent discussing the portrayal of the wives.

She confirmed my basic reaction to IMAGINE ME & YOU,  possibly the most "not gay" gay film I've ever seen.  But not necessarily in a bad way. She laughed, she cried and she smiled when she said, "I loved this movie, it didn't go all gay issues in my face and the fact that the two women were gay seemed pretty much irrelevant."  Now you can take that as a bad thing or a good thing, depending on your demands for reality in romantic comedies.  Initially, I took it as a very bad thing and went off on one of my political crusades, but ex-wife reminded me that this is a romantic comedy and needed to be evaluated as such.

And if you enjoy romantic comedies, and I confess that I mostly do, this one gets a B-.  If you're looking for movies that are about queers but aren't remotely queer movies, IMAGINE ME & YOU gets an A+.

And that's why it can be lovable. It definitely qualifies as a guilty pleasure: a gay love affair that treats homosexuality in an incidental and utterly romantic, Jennifer Aniston, very pretty, profoundly mainstream kind of way.  The fact that the two romantic leads were gorgeous and utterly feminine women in love with each other was barely noticeable.  In fact, labeling them as lesbians or queers would simply make no sense.  As is the hallmark of almost all romantic comedies, the two women and virtually everyone else in the movie are perfect, perfectly pretty, witty and, yup, gay--but that other kind of gay.

I'm recommending this movie the way I would recommend a Tangerine Mojito--yummy, sweet, refreshing and intoxicating.  A good dose of queer love without any challenging issues.  A romantic comedy that could easily have been a vehicle for Jennifer Aniston--in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she stars at some point in an American remake.

Obviously, if bubbly romantic comedies are not your cup of tea, do not under any circumstances, rent or buy this flic.   But if you're intrigued by the fruits of assimilation and the mainstreaming of gay, this movie is a must see.  Some of you will surely cringe: if this is our future, than count me out.  Others of you will smile and think:  this is what it's all about, a world without sexual categories and where love is love is love.

I should also add that if you loved FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL and NOTTING HILL, IMAGINE YOU & ME pretty much follows the same formula: love at first sight, true love thwarted by prior and very sensible commitments, the quirky man-child best friend,  a nice assortment of wry and eccentric British character actors, very proper British wit and an endless parade of very pretty, very well-dressed, very well-groomed Brits and a heavy dose of "...sigh...if only life were really like that...."  Also,  Matthew Goode, who plays a major supporting role could easily become the next Hugh Grant.  I even caught glimpses of acting ability when I was able to look past those dreamy eyes.  And for my straight male readers (all three of you,) the two leading ladies are your fantasy of what all lesbians should look like.

Oh, and don't be misled by the "R" rating.  This movie is definitely PG-13, but likely earned the "R" because the two lovers are same-sex.   While movies like these are mainstreaming "gay," the movie rating system remains staunchly homophobic.

The gratuitous shirtless picture of Mr. Goode is from another movie, fyi.

SUPER BAD OMENS?

No one is more excited about SUPERMAN RETURNS than little old me.  I'm not ashamed to admit it.  Superman is my mythology.  As I kid I lived for Superman gossip the way most of you live for the latest crap about Britney, Lindsay, Jake and Branjolina.  The key difference being that Superman was real.

But this morning's New York Times featured nothing less than a full page ad from Warner Bros. promoting the June 24-25 Premiere of SUPERMAN RETURNS in...I can barely get it out...Des Moines, Iowa.

I see this a bad omen, a very bad omen.  A super bad omen.  Will SUPERMAN RETURNS suck?

Has this latest incarnation of the SUPERMAN legend been created by idiots?

In all due deference to the fine folks of Des Moines, Iowa, while I understand that this is Brandon Routh's hometown, this legend is not about Brandon Routh, it's not about Des Moines and it's not about Iowa.

Yes, even New Yorkers know that Iowa is not Kansas and that Des Moines in not Smallville.  However, Metropolis is New York and no one from Metropolis, at least no one I know, is going to give up a weekend (especially Pride weekend) to travel to Des Moines, Iowa.  So why is this ad running in The Daily Planet?

To make matters worse, Warner Bros is celebrating the Iowa premiere with a fabulous contest. You can win two roundtrip airfare tickets and hotel accommodations to Des Moines for this wrongheaded event.

How many of us are trembling with excitement over the possibility of winning a sweepstakes that will sweep us away for an overnight trip to Des Moines, Iowa?

I'm guessing that if this notion turns you on, you're likely to be the sort of person who travels with your grandpappy's banjo and a spare tooth.

Enriching and evolving the Superman mythology is one thing, but trying to market SUPERMAN RETURNS by positioning Iowa and Des Moines as Kansas and Smallville?  As I said, I see this as a very bad omen.

What's next?  Moses parting Lake Michigan?  Wonder Woman cookbooks?

On the other hand, when I watch the latest trailer on the SUPERMAN RETURNS website, my heart stops.  Who believes in omens anyway?

THE EAST VILLAGE: "SAFE HOUSE" FOR GAYS

In light of what happened to Kevin Aviance outside of the East Village Phoenix Bar on Saturday night, I thought it would be worthwhile to repost this story from March 18.  On St. Patrick's Day I was "approached" directly in front of another East Village Bar, The Boiler Room.  Unlike Kevin, I was able to beat a hasty retreat to a very safe place, but for those of us who are having difficulty coming to terms with Kevin's experience in one of the most gay-friendly and gay-safe locals on Earth....

I should add that having grown up in the East Village and having lived there for almost 40 years of my life, I've been having considerable difficulty, since learning of the attack on Kevin, shaking a great feeling of sadness.

The East Village is the heartland of gay, having been the home of one of the most famous drag clubs in history, the 82 Club, the birthplace of Wigstock, the Saint, a tradition of gay bars that includes the Pyramid Club, the Cock, the original Boysroom, Save the Robots, Wonder Bar, Crowbar, Boiler Room, Dick's Bar, an art world that produced Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat and, of course two of the most famous bath houses of the sexual revolution: Club Baths and the St. Mark's Baths.

March 17 2006:

A strange day indeed and likely my most memorable St. Patrick's day ever; a tall order for someone who's in his fifth decade.  And it was also to be one of those days fraught with coincidence and even its own theme:  Homophobia, sadly.  Who could have imagined that on the day I was to see a new film about homophobia, that the hours leading up to it would be filled with some real homophobia "quality" time?

It was to be a fun day. I was heading out to the St. Patrick's Day Parade to capture endless eye candy photographs of drunken and out of control young men wearing funny green hats and three sheets to wind well before noon.   I've done this before and in the spirit of the parade and the beer and the whiskey, studly young men can be talked into doing many things for the camera.  You just have to remember to be ever on the alert for projectile vomiting.  Such is St. Paddy's day in little old New York.

GAY SEX IN THE 70s

If you were there for it and are still alive, think of this as the ultimate souvenir.  If you weren't there and you're gay, think of this as the ultimate history lesson, recalling a decade that unlike any other defines who we were and who we are as gay men today in every way, for better or worse.

And if you've already seen it, I watched it for the third time last night and found it as compelling, as emotionally and intellectually challenging and as pride evoking as my first two viewings.

I think that one of this flic's most extraordinary strengths is that it truly speaks for and to all of us, delivering brotherhood but also a very personal and unique experience.

For me, I found myself wrestling with a powerful mix of envy and relief.  As I watched GAY SEX IN THE 70s, I felt wonder, envy, relief, fear, nostalgia, revelation and resolution.

I was there and I wasn't there.  I was an observer and well aware of life in that jungle. But I was married, repressed and closeted in the 70s and as I watched the movie, I had to deal with the simple fact that all those things I so hated in fact likely saved my life.

The movie added another dimension to what I knew, to what I had seen from a distance and to what I had been told by my first gay friends when I came out in 1989 and 1990.

Of course, by the end of the 90's they were all gone. But they took me behind the doors I had never dared enter and shared with me many incredible, wonderful, funny, erotic and pornographic stories.  This film was about them, men I loved and very much miss.

During the 70's, I was always watching, always on the periphery, never crossing the  line between my world and that wonderland around me. The inhabitants of that world were like magical and distant creatures, never quite within my reach or understanding but always in touch with my soul.

I knew where to walk in those days to catch a glimpse of a muscular silhouette though the broken window of an abandoned building, glimpses of men rushing between trucks off West Street or between trees and bushes in Central Park.  I would answer the ringing pay phone in Sheridan Square.  The voice on the other end would say, "I can see you from my window.  Do you want to come up?"  And I would run. My Sunday brunch routine involved the restaurant adjacent to the Saint. My dog walking would always take me past the St. Marks and Club baths.

The boys were distant, even when they were sitting or standing directly next to me.  Some were terribly frightening, others intimidating, many were simply alien and otherworldly.

Something wonderful and big and exciting was happening all around me but I was not ready to come out so I observed, I yearned and I repressed. My energies went into my career and travel, touring every corner of the world with passion while turning my back on the one world that was just a few steps away from my apartment and the world I wanted most.

By the time I discovered the Saint it was "at large" and back rooms, which still thrived in the early 90's, sad to say, were orgies of self-destruction rather than celebrations of wild abandon and liberation.  My first White Party was at Roseland, not at The Saint, but high on a cocktail of Acid and Ex, dancing in a circle of friends I could look at their faces and sense what I had missed, but only a sense because in 1991, while their faces still beamed with bliss and brotherhood, it was mixed with an unhealthy dollop of pending death.

You simply can't NOT see this movie.  This is a DVD to own.  And I've made it easy for you: Just click here or on the movie logo and purchase it now at a healthy discount.  Buy two, Father's Day is just around the corner!

RICHARD'S DA VINCI CODE: WHICH ONE IS MARY?

The burning question that has been on the lips of every man, woman and child:  Which one is Mary?

SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT THE MOVIES

Why we really go to most gay movies:

            

BEFORE THE FALL

Yet another mediocre movie I will be compelled to see for reasons I cannot explain.