Get Your Stuff

of this horrific disaster for wading through what is probably the worst script I've heard this year. The expository writing and heavy-handed directing refuse to allow you to think. The acting is so horrendously stilted (largely due to the truly awful writing)that your skin will crawl... it's not even campy bad. It's just boring bad.

The story throws every passe cliche it can dig up, gay and straight, at your face... and more than once. Let's hope this film is not the harbinger of the death of gay cinema.

I notice a couple of raving user comments... they're phoney. Those users haven't commented on anything else. This user is an avid movie-goer, and not an insider or buddy of the filmmaker. It's just an honest opinion.

This direct-to-video clunker about a wealthy, buff, Beverly Hills gay couple suddenly saddled with two abandoned kids to test their mettle as foster parents is so badly acted and written that it's painful to watch. The only actor who doesn't come off as amateurish or awkward/under-rehearsed is Kimberly Scott as the Child Services rep, but the way she just drops these kids into the couple's life is absurd and unbelievable. In fact, I didn't make it all the way through. I'm all for films that show different aspects of how gay men live, though this film still trots out the usual drag queens, etc., and the couple does live a rarified existence. Someday we'll get a good film about gay adoption, but this one isn't it.

Read the reviews here before I saw the flick, so I almost didn't watch it. It didn't turn out half as bad. In fact I rather enjoyed it. Acting and script weren't mind-blowing, but it was decent if a little wooden in parts. Worth a watch if you like something feel-good. I think it was a wrong move to market the movie as a slap-knee comedy, as they suggest on the cover, because that it isn't. Most times I was actually more holding my breath about the future of the various relationships. I think it was more of a comedy-drama. Plot-wise, the story dragged a little, but the ending is rather nice.

Oh, and the gay couple who are the main characters are really hot.

Like a wine that turns to vinegar, Get Your Stuff has not aged well. Somehow the antics of two wealthy gay men in Beverly Hills was amusing at the time; now it's over-dramatic and condescending. Did they add more footage to the DVD? You'll be sitting on the fast-forward button as the one-dimensional characters develop into... saccharin-sweet one-dimensional characters.

In an early scene, the couple decides to sleep in separate bedrooms, so as not to offend the children. Since when are successful millionaire gay men closeted?

The unbelievable plot and under-developed characters will forever live on as a reminder of how NOT to make a gay film.

The true test of a film is whether or not it still affects you a couple of days after you see it. "Get Your Stuff" is still affecting me. The film was done, obviously, with very little money and the end result was that I felt for and related to these characters more than those I saw in The Perfect Storm. What does that tell you about spending a great deal or very little to make a film? The film never lagged. The acting was tight, well executed and honest in almost every instance. The story was original and thought provoking. The direction was smart because humor was found in almost scene, yet touching moments were never overlooked or brushed over. The only negative about the film is that it could be trimmed just a bit to avoid scenes that are only saying again what we have seen before. But--I cried, I laughed, I thought, and I felt. What else could you ask for when you go to the movies?