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 movie starts out fine and has a very enticing premise: two gay guys who want to be foster parents (aren't they all waiting for an infant to adopt?) get 2 unruly pre-teen boys, but end up loving them. The trouble is that the story bogs down in the middle and goes through some strange wormholes. There are incidents, scenes and action that have no connection. It was impossible to follow a plot at all. What a shame! The scriptwriter must have had a stroke at that point and just wrote gibberish afterwards. It ruined what was otherwise a very cute movie. PS The reference to AA is quite fascinating, and could be seen as being very socially enlightening.

What do you get when you mix a successful gay couple with two foster kids from the streets? Well, you could get Get Your Stuff, a cute film about the good times and bad times that might happen if you mix the two mismatched ingredients above. Farce? No, it never reaches that state, but it is frequently funny.

The story is about Phil (Cameron Watson), a couples counselor and Eric (Anthony Meindl), a lawyer. The two want to adopt a baby (mostly it seems from the prodding of Eric's mom), and are just approved to be foster parents in the meantime. Through some coaxing and borderline blackmailing, they agree to take in T.J. and Brian for one night. That becomes one more night and one more and, well, you get the picture.

The kids are actually decent actors and, at times, out-act the adults. T.J. (Grady Hutt) is the optimistic one and tries to get his brother to straighten up so they can have a home. Brian (Blayn Barbosa), on the other hand, is not as accepting and wants nothing to do with Phil and Eric until their case worker, Gloria, talks them into working the couple to make themselves more appealing.

The film deals with all these problems with a light touch -- never wanting to truly offend anyone. So they are played up for laughs; however, the message still gets through. In fact, it takes its toll on Eric who wanted nothing more than a baby and not an entire family of problems and promptly leaves in the film's worst scene that includes Phil screaming and pulling a gun out on his clients and doing the same to Eric as he drives off.

But that type of scene is, thankfully, not the norm. Most of the picture is feel-good and enjoyable. More so when Kimberly Scott is on the screen. She plays Gloria with sass, determination and heart. The movie is made better by her tough love portrayal -- especially the scenes with the kids. There is one at the beginning of the film where the kids arrive at the house while Phil and Eric are having an anniversary party. Brian goes for the wine and argues that kids in Europe drink it. Gloria responds with, "They can also speak three languages. When you can speak three languages, then we can talk."

Get Your Stuff doesn't set the film world on fire, but it is a fun jaunt. It's something to pass the time in world that touches on reality, but doesn't actually ground itself there.

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?

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.