Monster Pies

I've been watching lighthearted movies all week, and IMDb suggested this one as similar to a movie I'd just finished. I didn't realize this was quite the opposite of lighthearted, and got sucked into the movie, not caring what direction it took.

The two leads are your regular highschooler types; impulsive, wondrous, and at the same time, guarded. You could tell Mike finally had someone to reach out to, though Will was far too guarded at first. And when they finally got on the same page, that made for magic.

The chemistry between the two leads was undeniable, and I should have seen the inevitable conclusion, giving that the class assignment was about 'Romeo & Juliet'. It still caught me off guard, though.

Yes, it's a sad movie - but in sadness, where you can find hope and not despair, you know that you've connected with your audience. And that's just what this movie does.

I know this won't be much of a review. I'm actually still trying to process the movie in my head.

The storyline was absolutely touching, and it's rare that a film actually leaves me in tears at the end, and this has to be the hardest I've cried after a film. Sure the acting could have been better most times, but everything else made up for it. It was such a job well done.

I really do appreciate the fact that an indie film has had such an impact on me. This is definitely something to add to my favourites to watch again in the future.

Again, I have never been so touched by a movie like I have by this one.

I cannot believe that some "critics" awarded one or two stars to a lovely, enjoyable but ultimately sad film. What do you not like? It was shot on a limited budget with two untried actors who gave their most. It had humour, pathos and eventually sadness. I just don't understand how anyone could be unmoved with a film that exposes all the emotions that so many gay men feel unable to express. It was a lovely film, and I do hope the main actors go on to even greater fame. Thank you Australia for a beautiful film.

Like anyone who has gone through an experience like this, like me, no no never can totally understand what's going on in this movie. While some scenes seem disjointed, the base of the story made me want to watch this movie multiple times. The horrifying ending of the story unfortunately happens way too often in this world. Without giving away the story I can say that I could not stop crying after seeing this. Even if you're not gay, this is a good story to watch to kind of understand what goes through people's mind and how awful things can get for them.

Monster Pies is the story of two average, slightly nerdy guys in high school who fall in love and experience practically everything guys have experienced in gay movies since The Boys in the Band - in other words: too much. Too much for THIS movie, anyway. Robert Altman could have juggled this much melodrama, but this is a small movie that staggers under an unnecessarily heavy load.

It's as if Lee Galea, the movie's writer-director-producer-executive producer-editor-etc, had a long list of things he felt compelled to include in his one shot at a feature-length gay movie, and most of them just get shoehorned into the story in places where they don't fit. The result is a painfully clumsy movie, in which the viewer gets slung around from one trauma to the next, with no sense of continuity or understanding of why all this stuff is happening. It's arbitrary, it's tiring, and it makes it very hard to care about these kids, since they live in some slightly skewed universe in which nothing makes sense.

So... why did I give this wreck of a movie five stars? Because of the two kids. Five or six times in the course of this disaster there is such sweet, strong, simple and pure affection between them that it makes all the other crap worth suffering through.

It's like gentle magic. You're wrestling with this movie, trying to enjoy it but finding that an impossible feat, and then Will and Mike look at each other, and say something so tender and so lovely that you can't help loving them.

Only when the two guys are alone together is this movie worth watching, and not always even then. Those few magical scenes last a total of maybe fifteen minutes, and they're scattered through the movie almost at random, like diamonds in a landfill. They make Monster Pies well worth watching, but it's rough going in between.