The Big Gay Musical

Call me cliché, call me gay, call me what you like, but I quite enjoyed this movie. Contrary to other reviews I read before deciding to give this film a chance, I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Big Gay Musical.' Having seen many movies with a gay theme - many of which I will never miss seeing again - I was happy to spend several hours of my precious free time on this one.

I though the casting choices were very good, and the quality of the acting was commendable. The reality is that for someone looking in from outside the gay culture there is a tendency to focus on key plot points of the story line - call them cliché - and review them negatively. Unfortunately this only underlines a lack of understanding, and misses the important messages of the sub-plots to the people for whom this movie has ultimately been made.

The Broadway style vocals and musical styling were a true reflection of what I would expect from a modern off-Broadway musical. Although there were variations in the appeal of the featured music, there were several songs and performers which were inspiring. The love song delivered by Michael Schiffman's character Charles was uplifting, as was Liz McCartney's performance of "As I Am."

All in all it's an entertaining story about that old gay cliché about musicals. The use of numerous gay clichés throughout the storyline was amusing, and sometimes thought provoking.

I don't believe this is the type of film intended to communicate deep philosophical messages about the gay world. It's a film that's supposed to challenge your beliefs about gay stereotypes and profiling whilst also making you feel good about yourself. And it did.

This movie is superficial in every way possible. Characters completely undeveloped. Story non existent. As for the script, it's possible to hear more meaningful dialog between two drunks after 2:00am in the most looser laden gay dive than in this shallow attempt at a musical. Speaking of music, it's terrible in this "musical". It begins and ends as a meaningless parade of gay stereotypes and cliché plot points: Cue the promiscuous sex, AIDS panic, and familial redemption.

A few unsuccessful shots are taken at religion but with nothing more than over done makeup and southern accents they just fall flat. There's a lot of skin and sex between guys, which for porn might be enough but for a feature length "film" seems a little out of place since there is basically no established characters with any depth or a plot line with any interesting detours. It's possible to tell this story in a meaningful way and even put it too song. But this movie falls flat in every possible way, bad script, bad music, bad acting, and wistful Broadway type vocals. It's actually difficult to comment on this movie because it's barely worth the effort. Bottom line, when a movie doesn't give you any reason to care about anything or anyone in it then there's, nothing to see here. Move along...

Superficial and stereotypical. No substance of any kind. Not up to date with the times. As someone else wrote. Move along. The musical numbers should never long and boring, especially in something billing itself a musical. Not what people want to see these days. When the acting is so-so, not the storyline indeed nothing can hold interest. Stereo types be it southern accents or whatever ... and such cannot save what could have been a worthwhile venture. If it had only sought to distinguish itself in some way that modern audience could relate to. That's not to say there is not a small niche audience. There clearly could be an audience for a collection of show tunes done by unknown or little known artists. But this would be quite small. Those expecting something truly 'big' will be disappointed? Too much emphasis on bodies and hook-ups moves any movie away from something to be taken seriously and into just an excuse to show these things. That is never a good thing to project to the serious movie going public. In a musical, singing and dancing should be first rate, the story should be engaging and if in fact it is based on cliché, at least it could be original in scope and context, not the same tired venues and story lines that someone would expect from similar projects 20 years ago. If you are looking for a musical that is significant to life in the 2000s, then you may better off looking elsewhere.

This is a story behind the making of a gay musical called "Adam and Steve: Just the Way God Made Them". It follows the backstage lives of Adam/Paul (Daniel Robinson) and Steve/Eddie (Joey Dudding). Paul wants love and commitment but seems to only find guys who want meaningless sex. Eddie is gay and still a virgin and hasn't told his parents he's gay--but they want to see him in his first big role. Throughout the film we see songs and numbers from the musical itself.

OK--this technically doesn't deserve 10 stars. The acting isn't that good, some of the actors REALLY overdo the gay stereotypes and a lot of the back stories are woefully underdeveloped (especially the one with Eddie and his parents). However all the songs are good, everybody can sing and even the dancing is GREAT (the tap dancing angels were just incredible). Also the leads are attractive (especially Robinson who's all pumped up), the chorus boys are all good-looking and muscular and there's some REALLY hot guy on guy sex here (nothing hardcore though). Also gay porn star Brent Corrigan pops up (and is very good) as a hustler and Michael Schiffman is incredibly charming as Charles. Also there are happy endings all around. AND the movie is unapologetically gay and goes after the Catholic Church, the Bible and homophobes but in a kind manner. A very gay, very sexy and just great gay musical. I give this a 10!

An off-Broadway musical-in-the-film vaudeville, the musical is called"Adam and Steve, Just the Way God Made Them", so the skeletal story, one could effortless divine is a blasphemous entertainment, aftr Adam and Eve failed to achieve what God's expectancy to blossom in the Eden (thanks to the forbidden fruit), he instead dabs in molding a gay couple, the new Adam and Steve, but the film has no consistence in promoting the musical, since its absolutely small- scale theater and its episodic occurrences only methodically adjusts itself to be the perfect foil in mirroring two leading actors' mundane lives, nevertheless the musical parts are arguably the redeeming features with a patchwork of the angelic dancing routines (the angel Dorothy is horridly over-the-top), corrective therapy to cure gayness and the Catholic kitsch sermons, which are partly insanely funny, partly inanely tedious.

There are no single ugly boys in the film, eye-candies are permeating, but the two leaders are considerably capable of doing more than just meet the eyes, Daniel Robinson gives an edge in his both physical movements and emotional thrust, (after a sudden and completely unexplained disappearance of his 3-weeks boyfriend, the once-believed-in-love boy decides to go wild), his rendition of "I WANNA BE A SLUT" is the crest of the entire film. Joey Dudding, who is dealing with the virgin coming-out cliché (with a bluff of HIV-panic), has his own moment in some strip- dancing solo presentation, but compared with Robinson's go-slutty transformation, his section has barely any praiseworthy flickering.

By and large the film is as kitschy as any of its peers, thinking it too much is plain pointless and it is a timely reminder of us to cherish the day.