Slutty Summer

I watched "Slutty Summer" at the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (AGLIFF) and was very entertained. The plot has a creative premise about a young guy named Marcus that comes out of a long term relationship and gets a summer job where he meets a very different group of guys. Along for the ride is the comical token fag hag, Marilyn. These new friends bring him to grips with being a single gay guy in the big city and together all go though trials of love, sex and attempts of monogamy. The scenes were tasteful and the light comedy is done very well. Most of the acting was excellent and you really get a chance to get to know and love the characters. The film was done on a bit of a low budget as to be expected with an independent film. The entire movie was actually shot in 14 days which does allows for mistakes. The editing was done well however, and all in all, I would recommend this film to a friend.

This is an awful movie !! Full of sexual teasing, pseudo philosophical type discussions and moody, pensive poses by the male lead (who also wrote it : natch) it seems little more than a mindless vehicle for he and his friends self promotion - and of course to show us how "cool" they are. At best one might say it is all very adolescent, although it is full of clichés and badly acted on top of it all. The "profound" philosophical discussions are about as deep as a gold-fish bowl and would at least be silly if they weren't so pretentious. Portentous Wittgenstein type dilemmas like when to use "sleeping together" and when to say "f***king* and the ongoing "sociology 101 debate" of whether men are capable of monogamy are all conducted on a level that would embarrass a High School class. There is even the obligatory snide remark about people who are "fat" or "over-forty", of which you can be sure that there are NONE in this movie. This is clearly not a movie any "non-trendy" gay man is going to find himself represented in. As a movie specifically aimed at the gay market (whatever the promoters might say) I would say frankly we deserve A LOT better.

This film was shot in fourteen days. The actors are mostly friends (and the basis for the characters) of the writer/director/producer/editor/lead, Casper Andreas. This is an amateur film. Having said that, Slutty Summer is an enjoyable, cute film about five struggling (writer/model/actor) twenty-something waiters working together for the summer at an outdoor New York café. It's funny, cliché, romantic, and sexy. Yes, it's kitschy and camp, but we like that. Once you get in the rhythm (about five minutes in) you forget that the actors are still fresh. The sets are surprisingly believable. The cinematography and set design give you the feel of a bigger picture. Montages are cut and scored like any Hollywood film. The biggest surprise is the turn of the film when you realize that it's not just a romantic comedy or a gay trick film. I felt good about the way the film concluded, whether the hopeless romantic found love or the drunk found strength.

Sometimes the title of a film has connotations that put people off, preventing them from viewing a film that has a lot of good points just because the title is tacky. Such is the case for SLUTTY SUMMER. This low budget first film by writer/producer/director/actor Casper Andreas may not have the substance or finesse that other independent films have, but taken as a whole it is an entertaining outing that deserves more credit than it has received. One wonders if a different title and cover image would have resulted in a larger more attentive audience.

Summer in Manhattan and new writer Marcus (Andreas) has just terminated a relationship with unfaithful Julian (Christos Klapsis) and finds solace in his man-hungry but gay-friendly friend Marilyn (Virginia Bryan) who lands him a waiter position in a small restaurant where all waiters are various stereotypes of gay men: ex-model sleeparound Tyler (Jamie Hatchett), hopeless romantic wannabe actor Peter (Jeffrey Christopher Todd), nellie flamboyant one night stander Luke (Jesse Archer) and the obnoxious manager Kevin (Lance Werth). Through a lot of visits to bars and hangouts the crew try to soften Markus' hurt and in doing so open Markus' eyes (indeed, everyone's eyes) to the significance of relationships in the flippant world of gay Manhattan.

Yes, the story has been done before but life keeps repeating the same stories, too, and it is fine to have a different take on same sex ways of life and philosophy in the big city. For a film shot in 14 days there is a fine amount of attention paid to small details of conversations. Markus proves an economical director. The cast of mostly inexperienced actors does well, and even if they do seem to be parodies of stereotypes, they do establish understandable characters. For a first film this is a pretty successful outing. With different packaging perhaps it could have had a better chance in the theaters. Grady Harp

"Hey now, summer in the city, independent film looking dull and gritty..." It's no wonder that SLUTTY SUMMER is one tired film, it's creator Casper Andreas wrote the script, directed, edited the film, played the lead and provided the craft services. He's exhausted and distracted and it shows. He enlists his friends to play along, and the acting ranges from 'godawful' (Lance Werth as restaurant manager Kevin, in a turn that makes Charles Nelson Reilly look like Lord Olivier) to passable (Catherine O'Hara-like Virginia Bryan as the only female and resident fag hag). Andreas' only 'new find' is Jeffrey Christopher Todd as a prudish gay aptly named Peter (wink wink). Sadly - with the exception of Todd - most of these folks are not especially attractive (or at least not attractively photographed) which can be the saving grace of a lame film like this.

Production values are poor, at best, with horrible sound, made worse by noisy exterior locations and geographically untraceable accents from some of the principals, including Andreas. The cliché-ridden script breaks no new ground ("You can't fire me, I quit!") and contributes nothing to the genre. The tone ranges from high camp comedy to soap opera seriousness, without much success at either end of the spectrum. If viewing SLUTTY on DVD, go directly to the SPECIAL FEATURES section for a series of on the street interviews by cast member Jesse Archer. On the summer streets of New York's Greenwich Village, Archer (a hundred times more winning here than he ever is in the film) asks folks the definition of a 'slut' as well as some of the key questions the film's script clumsily throws out. Now, THIS would have made an interesting film - SLUTTY SUMMER: The Documentary.