SPF 2000

Long before the advent of remastered DVDs which were able to bring the kitschy European sex romps from the 1960's and early 1970's to the home theaters of today's cult film fanatics, was the era of late-night cable TV in the early 1980's. It was an era of sleep-deprived nights for me - all of 10 years old and fighting sleep in order to catch the R-rated adventures of continent-hopping EMMANUELLE, the carnal appeal of THE SENSUOUS NURSE and the desires of MS. DON JUAN. This is not to say I had sought these films out just to see how far the R-rating was going to be pushed - far from it, actually. My chosen genre was the (then) buzzing horror genre with its wild, violent special effects and cookie cutter teens-in-peril plots. In between viewings of such films, cable offered the next best thing to the forbidden lure of R-rated films: the untapped appeal of the European sex film. Looking back, those films are actually quite tasteful compared to the lengths current hardcore sex films and, surprisingly, popular cinema has gone to excite audiences. I was curious to see just who this Sylvia Kristal person was; just how far Ursula Andress would take things more than Bo Derek. This is not to say such films persuaded my sexuality. Far from it. Such films remain a staple of my youth...a much beloved staple to be exact. Imagine my surprise in 2001 (the week of 9/11) I chose to play my VHS of BOYS IN LOVE 2, a compilation of gay-themed films, for the very first time. Yes, chosen just to get my mind off the(then) horrible headlines that 9/11 brought forth to the world. Imagine my pleasure at being taken back to a time when life was generally innocent and daring at the same time. Patrick McGuinn's short film SPF 2000 played itself out on my TV at 2:45 a.m. with welcome abandon. Suddenly, it was 1980 for me all over again: the worn filmstock, the tinny-sounding dubbed soundtrack, the grooooooooovie music, the absurd situations...only this time instead of a stunningly beautiful nurse, we get two randy young men pining over a young guy who happens to be having a picnic with his mother... No, you haven't smoked too much 420 and you won't need to. Just watch the events in this (criminally) short film unfold. Nothing makes sense and it doesn't have to. Director Patrick McGuinn knows what made those crazy, original films work and he applies their appeal liberally here. It's almost jaw-dropping how close this film comes to actually resembling a product of the era its homaging. Were it not for the "surprise" ending (which, to be honest, is more at home in the home movies of some Roswell fanatic) you are there, in 1980, watching Showtime on a Saturday night at 2:45 a.m. (long after the parents are asleep) - hoping to see something forbidden, but witnessing something surprisingly unjaded, innocent and, yes: kitschy.

If you are wondering what ever happened to plain, wholesome, sardonic and bitchy camp, SPF 2000 is a beacon of hope. This flick could almost be the anthem for the so-called "post-queer" intent on recycling the myths of the Cold War HOMOsexual. When there is not impossible angst, there is always the unbearable lightness of superficial romance to fall back on. But it is difficult not to be seduced by this cross-dressing, homosexual reinvention of early-sixties Italian beach flicks. Let's see, is there enough of a plot to relay? This was the genre where style was everything and content tedious. Drag mama and her boy go to the beach. Or was "he" really a "she"? True love is just down the beach in the persona of a studly young man. Soon the courtship begins and mama is forced to deal with the existential angst of her little one leaving the nest. The rest is history - well sort of. But is this supposed to be the netherworld where romance and soft porn meet? SPF 2000's core statement is how this "location" (to use the cliché) is so flaccid as to verge on exhausting.

When two gay boys encounter an overprotective mother and her teenage son, things start to heat up. Although mom has brought along her SPF 45 its soon a question of who gets to slather who.

Just when the boys think they've gotten on mom's good side an interloper arrives.