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.

The short "small straight play" intro with Michael Musto was so fresh and funny that I was really excited to see the Big Gay Musical that followed. Unfortunately, the Big Gay Musical was even worse than the small straight play: a lot stupider, a lot more irritating, and a whole lot longer. Within about five minutes I felt just like Musto, except what I wanted to scream was, "Bring back Michael Musto and the small straight play!"

While the small straight play was cleverly dumb, the Big Gay Musical was just dumb, grossly overblown, and so strident, shrill and heavy-handed in its anti-God anti-Bible theme that it almost made me want to turn on Pat Robertson just to clear my palate. Hatred is hatred, and I'm sorry, but gays hating Christians is no better than Christians hating gays. I am happily gay and I love musicals and I love gay movies in principle, but this one promised a lot and delivered just a sour taste in my mouth. If it was supposed to be lighthearted satire, it failed miserably.

The off-stage story was better than the on-stage musical, which is why I gave the movie three stars instead of one. If the Big Musical had not been so heavily, excessively obnoxious, I might have liked the Gay Movie that went along with it.

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.

Although ultimately well intentioned, the film depicts a rather depressing image of what it means to be gay. If the film is to be believed, being gay means a life filled with religious-based bigotry, disease, a de-humanizing dating scene, low self-esteem, rejection from family and obsession with the body.

As a gay man living in a big city and working in the theatre, I can tell you that there's more to gay life than that. There are gay people in happy long-term monogamous relationships. Most gay people I know are involved with community activism and have rich, rewarding lives.

I belong to a gay Christian church, and I know that God loves everyone and that anti-gay bigotry is not consistent with Christ's ministry.

As a film, "The Big Gay Musical" is passable entertainment. The acting, writing, directing and music are average.

I enjoyed this, and lord knows I didn't expect to. It's exactly what it says it is, a musical about being gay, stereotypes and all.

The premise is a show within a movie. The off-b'way musical in the movie maintains that god created adam and steve because he found adam and eve boring. Adam and steve are transported to modern times and have to deal with Christian guilt and self-hate. There's a lot of that. Maybe a tad too much.

The characters who play the leads in the musical have problems of their own, mirroring, to a degree, those of the characters they play. Well, one of them does, anyway. And, yes, the leads are gay stereotypes, as are most of the other characters in the movie.

But you know what? Stereotypes are based on truth. What that means is that the actors playing the stereotypical roles have to work a little harder to make the sell. I think they accomplish that in this movie.

The singing and dancing is all perfectly competent. The choreography blends a lot of trademark routines from hit shows of the last 40 years. It's kind of funny, actually. You just wish they had a slightly larger stage to work on.

Unlike the other reviewer here who hated the music and lyrics, I thought they were just fine. I found the songs pleasant, if not particularly memorable. So if you approach this not expecting Sondheim, you might find that aspect tolerable and maybe even entertaining. I did.

Plus the boys are all adorable.