August

I was a nice portrait of lost love The hurt The missing The Lust The Affection The crazy person who you can never get over with, I mean never. Movie started of with lost lover troy coming back to L.A cause he misses his old life, and for love of his life Jonathan. And Jonathan is living with his lover Raul, who's is an immigrant. And he's married to one of Jonathan BFF Nina. Movies takes is turns and kinda of slowly in the middle, but I enjoy the end feeling of the movie. And movies gives you a feeling that love never die that easy, and its never easy to let go for the person who you long for, the person who hurt you so much still does matter. And all you left is hurt, its a feeling that we never wanna let go.

A boring movie about love affairs made for teenagers with lots of blank spaces.

Jonathan, a shortish, homely-ish, 29-year-old, minimally employed nebbish in LA, has a tall, gorgeous (but shallow and manipulative), 40-ish ex-boyfriend, Troy - who dumped him five years earlier but for some reason has moved back from Barcelona just to get him back. BUT... Jonathan has an even MORE gorgeous (breathtakingly gorgeous) twentysomething current boyfriend, Raul - who is not only gorgeous but sweet, strong, sincere and totally devoted to him. Right away you say to yourself, this is just like real life, just like me and the two incredible hunks who can't get enough of me. What's a homely nebbish girl to do? That's the dilemma in this movie that I really wanted to hate but can't.

It's the actors' fault: they're very, very good - TOO good for this unbelievable story. Unfortunately, the weakest actor is the one playing Jonathan, who brings no sensuality or charisma or other hot quality to the role to compensate for his nebbishy homeliness and explain WHY the two hunks are so irresistibly attracted to him.

He was much more believable in Postmortem, the short this movie is based on (available on the compilation DVD Boys Briefs 3 in the US or Boys On Film 4 in the UK). Opposite the same actor as Troy (but a much less gorgeous actor as Raul, in an almost negligible role), he was sexy, and the attraction between him and Troy in Postmortem was palpable and totally believable; it's not in this movie (but Postmortem was set in sexy, dynamic NYC, not in sterile, boring LA, which may have a lot to do with it).

Self-defeating compulsion is the only motivation either Jonathan or Troy shows in this movie, which may be intentional. August is a lot grittier and more complex (and therefore more interesting) than Postmortem was, which is why I'm giving it six stars despite the lackluster performance by Daniel Dugan in the key role as Jonathan. He was great playing the same character in Postmortem, but he'd lost the fire or something when August was made; since that character is central in the story, August suffers for it.

The moment the producer of this film introduced this film is a full length feature version of the short 'Postmortem', I was super excited because I had no idea. That had been one of my most favorite shorts and for some reason had stuck with me. I was super excited to watch a feature version and when I saw that 2 of the principal characters were retained from the short, it was all the more better, The actors just suited the part so well in the short that I would have hated to see someone else play those parts. I would strongly recommend the short also to people to watch it.

Jonathan and Raul are a very happy couple of few years. They practically live together though Jonathan still has his apartment. Raul is married to Jonathan's best friend so that once the immigration goes through, they can have Raul stay in the country so that they both can live happily. Enter Troy from Spain who is planning to move back to LA. Troy and Jonathan were ex-lovers and apparently Troy broke Jonathan's heart and left for SPain. It took a long time for Jonathan to get over him. Troy is trouble and naughty. We can see that all he wants is Jonathan back. Jonathan is also not completely over Troy and they have a sexual tension between them. They meet for coffee after Troy comes back but something takes Jonathan back to Troy's house and after initial reluctance on their second meeting, they end up sleeping. Raul suspects something but doesn't say much. He expects a mature man like Jonathan should know what he is doing. This goes on for a while. Jonathan doesn't really know whom he really wants, Troy trying to get back to Jonathan and Raul's dilemma when he knows and pretends to ignore what is going on. Finally on Jonathan's 30th birthday, Raul encourages the 3 of them to get in a 3way because they are drunk and stoned but Raul knows exactly what he is doing. He wants to see the extent of their passion. This incident outs some sense in Troy's head. He decides to move back to Spain leaving the 2 men to deal with each other on their own.

The director and editor of the film have very excellently used time jumps and creatively edited the film. The scenes going between past and future add a different feel to the film. We have all seen many love triangle gay movies but this one is handled very differently. Raul's character is the most complicated because he is going through various emotions to decide what o do with jonathan, try to make him understand. He had to speak a lot with his eyes and I must say he did an excellent job. Jonathan and Troy acted very very well too. here is something about Jonathan that makes him very charismatic, at least for me. The film shows how at various points in our life we always keep looking for true love, have to make some very tough decisions to get through the phases in our life and how compassion and passion can make us stop looking at things in a more logical way. Special mention to the background music. It was mostly middle eastern which for some reason fitted so well with the theme and the mood of the film. It was excellent. I wish I could get my hands on the music of the film. I really really loved this film. It is hard to describe in words but the way some of Jonathan's actions are showed are interesting because he thinks what he is doing is OK but from Raul's point of view, he is trying to show that he still has a thing for Troy and as we all know that Troy is trouble.

I strongly recommend this film. An excellent example of how direction and editing can do wonders to a film. I so wish our US based directors who make all kinds of bad film in the name of gay cinema can learn something from this.

I hate to disagree with the previous reviewers but I feel this story is all about Troy thinking he is going to find is lost youth by going back to L.A. and seeking out Jonathan!

What Troy fails to realize is that Jonathan went on with his life and found a like soul in Raul ... until Troy comes back on the scene. Jonathan is captivated by Troy and their memories and is willing to give him what he wants while not realizing Raul is incensed by this behavior.

This is a complex story as Raul has two things to possibly loose, Jonathan is crossing over into his 30th years and needs to grow up and Troy will never know what he wants in his life.

The story is expertly told with sudden short flash backs of what happened just before the scene we are watching. It's a movie that one must watch attentively - an expert job of editing and writing. It will leave you wondering just what will happen with Raul & Jonathan!