Sideline Secrets

I like the attempt to blend mystery and porn; the mixed genre has a lot of potential. But you HAVE to cast a desirable lead. That dude who played Devon is a chinless, slumped, monotonous waste of space with really awful hair. There were extras in the film who had more magnetism and appeal than the lead. Another thing: People don't call out one another's name every time they greet them--especially lovers and family. All the adults were pretty dismal as well. Hollywood is crawling with good-looking, semi-decent actors, so there's really no excuse for bad casting. A lesson for all actors: Just because "exasperated" is the easiest emotion to play, don't fall back on it in every line reading.

With so many gay-movies being complete crap, sitting through another low-budget one wasn't exactly something I would take part in for fun. However, a friend invited me to the screening of the newest entry into gay-film the other night-- "Sideline Secrets", in Hollywood, CA. The film is very low budget. You will find the cast and crew listed several times throughout the credits, as they have all taken on the various tasks of bringing the film to completion. In recognition of such, the film itself is a very tight-knit piece of work. I was very impressed with it.

The movie has the basic "coming out" story intact. But, it ties it together with a very original mystery story as well. It almost feels like two different movies vying for your attention until they perfectly mesh together in a sometimes chaotic, fast paced film.

All in all, very well done.

The casting, overall is good. Watch closely and you will catch some fairly well known adult-entertainment models/actors in the film. Ahem *the Fisher Twins* to name just two! James is good. Alex is good. They work great together, I must agree with prior posts. The girl who plays Amy easily steals every scene she is in. She does serve as the comic relief and comes across totally natural in every scene. Simply put, she is very funny and doesn't even try to be. She had the whole theater laughing at her one-liners every scene.

The nudity is very tasteful. Will definitely be good for business in gaining the attention of a lot of people. This is one of the better, perhaps best, "erotic" films that I have seen in the genre.

"Sideline Secrets" is very well done. I'd be interested in seeing what the team at hand could do if they had a big budget. I think we would definitely be in for a treat if that were the case!

Overall Grade: B

Until now, the worst movie I had ever seen was Ben & Arthur. You really should check the reviews for that movie instead of this one. The review statistics for this movie have been skewed positive through a relentless and unscrupulous push by some of the people involved in making it, evidence for which is fairly easy to uncover online. At least the people who made Ben & Arthur were honorable enough to let it stand on its own shaky legs, instead of unscrupulously promoting it so suckers like me would buy it.

Everything about this movie is terrible, the script, the story, the casting, the acting, the direction, the photography, the editing, the music... what else goes into a movie? Whatever it is, here it's as bad as it gets. If it weren't so unpleasant it would be ridiculous. I kept watching it thinking it must get better, because I hadn't yet discovered that none of the positive reviews for it are reliable.

It does not take a lot of money to make a great movie, nor does a low budget mean a movie has to be bad. My favorite example of a shoestring-budget masterpiece is Gus Van Sant's amazing Mala Noche, but there are many others. Sideline Secrets—Director's Cut or original—is bad not because the people who made it had no money, but because they had gigantic egos and no talent for anything at all except self-promotion.

THIS FILM IS LAME, LAME, LAME!!!!! It takes a lot to bring me to over-exaggeration about a movie, but this movie stunk up my house!! I haven't even finished the movie yet and I had to stop to comment on how bad this movie is. I'VE NEVER DONE THAT!! As a consumer, do not spend your money on this film. Wait until it comes out on a cable channel or something. It's barely TV worthy. I REALLY HATE TRASHING A MOVIE, BUT THIS MOVIE IS TRASH! Barely above porn. Should have and X rating! Good plot, some frontal nudity (if that floats your boat), but HORRIBLE high school level acting. Don't know how this movie received distribution. (Must have been a contractual thing.) Really, if you really like watching good movies, don't waste you time with this one. From one movie lover to another. YOU WILL BE MAD AT YOURSELF! Let me say this as well, if you've been through something like this perhaps you can relate and it will have some value for you. In that case I say watch it, you may take something away from it, if not just seeing something that's happened to you being acted out by someone else (has therapeutic value).

If you have ever seen a DeCoteau movie, you will understand my summary of this movie. The difference between DeCoteau and Stephen Vasquez is that DeCoteau has a campy charm about his work. Vasquez is a hack. This film is just plain bad The acting is stilted. The cinematography is amateurish. The dialog is forced. There are far too many gratuitous sex scenes which do nothing to contribute to the plot. And, speaking of the plot, the plot is so messy that one begins to wonder what this movie supposed to be about. Devon Tyler has the perfect life. He has successful parents, a beautiful and loving girlfriend and all the freedom a teenage boy could want. OK, so his life isn't that perfect. His father (or maybe it's his step- father. The relationship seems to go back and forth and you are never sure how this relationship works.) is having an affair with the mother of one of his clients. Devon's mother is an alcoholic and his girlfriend is a nag. In the middle of all of this, while spending time with his girlfriend, Devon is busy checking out other guys. While skipping class, one day, Devon meets a girl who gives him a flyer for a new gay club which is opening. On a lark, Devon decides to go to the grand opening of the club where he meets Clitarissa Pink. Clitarissa is a boy in very bad drag and still becomes the most entertaining character in the film. Devon also meets the new love of his life, Brian. Brian is a hustler who falls for our budding ingenue. The boys have a movie night and Devon stays the night. While having breakfast the next morning, they see Devon's father with another family. At home, Devon's father assumes that Devon is gay because he was having breakfast with another person and he searches Devon's room to find the flyer for the gay bar. The entire series of events is ridiculous and it only gets more ridiculous from here. While we have all of these events happening, there is a string of missing young men in the area and the police are not doing anything to find these people because they are all "hustlers and bums." The police even go so far as to hinder an investigation by the one person looking for the missing youths. In college, I have seen a lot of student films with more professional acting. The actors are apparently trying to act out their parts but I get the feeling that I am watching a scene from another performance with intentionally bad acting. The tragedy is that the actors seem to be taking their acting "skills" seriously. James Townsend (Devon) sets off the gaydar from the moment you see him and it makes me wonder how anyone could think he is straight. Even the fact that he has a navel piercing lends incredibility to his being straight. This is a terrible film and I do not suggest it to anyone. In fact, given a choice between this film and straight porn, I will take the porn.