Outing Riley

It's raw, powerful and hilarious. Director Pete Jones takes risks here- no compromises! He lets it ALL hang out! He draws upon deep personal stuff here from his youth. This is the type of material that you need to see to believe and then you still don't believe it so you have to see it again and again and again!

That's why it's called ACTING? HELLO? I loved this film! I thought it was well done. WTF is wrong with people? I thought it was a typical macho straight family response to act the way they did, and 'OF COURSE' a family member who is a priest is going to act the way he did. Yes, there were a lot of stereotypes in this film. Hell, stereotypes have got to come from somewhere, right? I know many queer people and gee, we're all one big diverse family just like the rest of the world!

Too many GLBT people are shunned by their family when they 'come out'. Many gay and lesbian bi and trans people lose all contact with family and may end up committing suicide. Especially people under 25. Everybody needs to know that they are LOVED.

Please don't shut GLBT family and friends out of your life.

I loved this movie!

I don't think there was a single gay person working on this film...and it showed. This is not a gay film, it is what a straight guy, who has probably never seen a gay film, thinks a gay film should be. Like Brokeback Mountain, which was made almost entirely by straight people, I never felt the sincerity of the gay thing. However, unlike Brokeback, this didn't have the story, the scenery or the strong acting to keep me entertained (even if I never fully believe that Jake and Heath were in love.) I knew nothing about this film, or writer/director/star Pete Jones, yet after watching it I was absolutely sure that he was straight and probably not all that familiar with gay people. As it turns out, he is straight and in one interview he admitted to very limited exposure to gay people. No surprise there. But I was further disappointed to read his kissing-a-boy-is-icky interview where he talks about how nervous he and everyone else was when they filmed the kiss in bed. He talks about it like it was so difficult and it was some big deal that they made it through the scene. Ugh. You didn't cure cancer...you touched lips with a guy. Stop acting like it was some huge achievement. All of these straight actors doing gay films need to take a lesson from Patrick Swayze who did some wonderful interviews after To Wong Foo and didn't turn into a giggling fifth grader when he talked about playing gay. Also Hilary Swank -- great interviews on playing queer. So, while this is not the worst film I've ever seen (not even the worst gay film) this film did nothing for me and I do not recommend the rental.

Watch the movie for what it is: A low budget Indie comedy about a man coming out to his Irish Catholic family. There are no deep meanings or inspirational messages. It is not a "Gay" film, and it never attempted to be one. It is a comedy about a Gay topic. More "Will & Grace" than "Citizen Kane." Seems that most people who didn't like the movie were looking for a deeper meaning. If you are looking for a life affirming movie, or one to truly give you insight as to what it is like to grow up Gay in a straight world, this is not your movie. If you want a light hearted look into coming out to your family where you can shut your brain off and just laugh a little, then give it a shot.

Here's a novel idea: a movie about a closeted gay Irish-Catholic whose sexual preference is really secondary to his general personality as a sloppy, stupid grown man who acts like a child. With three brothers (one a priest) and a sister, Pete Jones' Bobby Riley finds he has to use a lesbian as a beard and make lots of small talk about women around his siblings (except for sis, who knows the truth). Thirty minutes into the movie, Bobby is up on a neighbor's roof ogling the female resident as she spreads lotion on her legs, while his voice-over informs us he was a voyeur long before a homosexual. So what was writer-director Jones before he was a pseudo-filmmaker? Offensive to just about everyone (gays, lesbians, Irish-Catholics, priests, women in general), this low-budget effort is filled with innuendo-crazed dialogue and a sniggering familial unit by way of a TV sitcom ('funny' scene example: Riley, after sneaking into his priest-brother's confessional booth, pretends to be a little boy who spies on his grandma in the shower). This is just the thing is kill off cinema (not just Queer Cinema, but ANY cinema) forever. Pure drivel. NO STARS from ****