Boy Culture

OK I have to admit I thought I was going to hate this film. After reading the synopsis I was dreading it and thought...ah some cheap gay crap full of crap actors getting their kit off to fuel other gays' sexual fantasies. But I was wrong.

OK the film has clichés, clumsiness, and pretentiousness. But these flaws are mild when taken in the overall context of the film. Essentially it's a romantic film with gay interest, but the "gay interest" part can really be ignored. The story, cast, screenplay and progress of the movie works...overall! It's charming and endearing. It's never going to be your favourite film or anything wonderful... but you'll like it. It might become one of your faves! Finally, my respect to the actors. Again, not Oscar-winning performances, but certainly commendable and enjoyable.

There being only one other comment leads me to make my contribution. At no point could I see this film as being dark or depressing, unless of course once wished to 'make' any form of minority life negative in aspects. The premise is hardly romantic and uses a fact of gay behaviour: escorting and 'tricks'.I saw this film as part of the local Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and liked it very much. I believe one error is to make it factual or to align it to real life, as with most celluloid productions. I 'read' the metaphors in the film and saw perspectives that were either enhanced or exaggerated to make a story, e.g lifestyles. At the end of the day it's a romance almost. I won't go into more analysis as to do so starts to remove the simple enjoyment. Is ' Queer as folk" dark and depressing? Well it can be if one uses those elements to apply to the entire series. It only uses a premise to explore relationships and situations. I found it entertaining and enjoyable and wish it were available on DVD.

BOY CULTURE looks like it might be trash, but it really is a treasure. The saga of a male prostitute dubbed X and his falling into love with his roomie. First off, the film looks terrific. This is a smart and classy movie. Second, the writing and performances are really quite good. Even the supporting cast is terrific - I only wish there were more time for them in the story. I loved the lesbian waitress and the entire family of the roomie. The story could have easily been trite and the dialogue cliché, but it neatly avoids that most of the time. It reminded me of an upscale episode of QUEER AS FOLK (before it devolved into soap opera hysterics). All in all, this is well worth a look see - gay or straight.

I just came away from a screening of "Boy Culture" at the Seattle International Film Festival (where the director Q. Allan Brocka began his love of film), and thought "that was a very good gay film". The character acting was strong (especially the cameo part of Andrew's little sister "Cheyenne"). The audience all laughed throughout the film, which helped to ease the tension of some very powerful emotions. Derek Magyar pulled off the difficult job of being jaded and emotionally distant and yet a likable and charismatic character. "X" is part strong, silent, and manly and part Dorthy Parker with acidic observations. During the Q&A after the film, I found myself wanting to read more of the source material that Matthew Rettenmund has written in the original novel. IMDb doesn't give credits for Andrew's family but they really helped bring out his character more. While Darryl Stephens didn't have the same level of emotional non-verbal delivery that Magyar did, he was beautiful to watch and gave a strong performance. Jonathon Trent did a great job in the love triangle and made me think of the original "Queer as Folk" series.

As the author of the original novel, I think Q. Allan Brocka did a good job with the film. I have blogged about it extensively at boyculture.typepad.com and I think that my comments there capture my feelings on the subject. The director and writers kept the essence of my novel even while making some intelligent and creative changes. I can't imagine this film not being picked up by a distributor. All that said, it's very hard judging a film adapted from your own work. But I hope people like it and I'm confident that many will. There are a lot of gay movies out there that are not among my favorite films, that's for sure. But while I had feared something ridiculous might come of this adaptation, I can't stress enough that I feel the filmmakers did an excellent job.