Geography Club

You can tell from the opening scene what type of movie this is going to be and I didn't mind one bit. The handsome school jock is closeted and finding it difficult to hook up with anyone until he meets another closeted high school jock. A small group of nerdy types regularly hold meetings in a school classroom under the guise of a Geography Club, knowing such a group would surely be ignored by the rest of school. Of course they are the local gay kids hiding behind the sign. The handsome jock stumbles upon the club and is convinced to join.

I think the holding power of this movie is the lead character played by Cameron Deane Stewart. He is very good in this role, very likable and very handsome. The story line is fairly slim on drama but the movie does redeem itself in the closing scenes. I must say I went in to this movie not excepting a lot and came our surprised enough to write this review and to say give it a go. Also look out for the cool cameo by Scott Bakula (Qantam Leap and later playing gay in Looking), in a very uplifting and rewarding scene around the family dinner table.

My reproch, against me, remains being too old to real love this charming film. I discovered its title a couple years ago. I was tempted after first half of hour to renounce to see it - a film with and for teenagers , mix of sexual orientation confusion, friendship and compromises in name of it, bullying and a kiss as step to discover a not so conventional club.

But, part curiosity, part decent acting tempted me to see it and to discover a pretty coming of age story in fair - honest terms crafted, sensitive themes explored in honest manner and the play at cello as refuge, games of apparences and prejudices and a kitch wall fish.

I appreciated it for something easy to define as deep honesty about a special age, relation with others, self definition.

This film has mostly solid acting and quite high production values, but it shies away from any deep thinking, offering sentimentality instead. If you're in high school, it might provide a bit of inspiration, or it might just make you wish you lived in the movies instead of real life.

I sat down to watch "Geography Club" without having read the synopsis, just thinking this to be another one of those teen comedy movies. I was surprised when I found out what it actually was all about.

Surprised, yeah, but not in a bad way. This movie is actually rather entertaining, but at the same time it is quite compelling and riveting. This is the kind of movie that you get swept away by, because the story is realistic and the characters even more so.

The story is about Russell (played by Cameron Deane Stewart) who is coming of age and is struggling with his sexuality. Standing at a crossroad of his sexuality, facing a very difficult social situation by outing his gay sexuality. He gets into a secret relationship with Kevin (played by Justin Deeley) who is on the college football team. Caught between his own morals and his friendship to Gunnar (played by Andrew Caldwell), Russell lives a double life.

Now, don't expect to be flat out laughing yourself to tears from this movie, because it is not that kind of comedy. This movie is more of a subtle comedy that is very realistic and tied to events that we can relate to in one way or another.

The movie is nicely told and directed by director Gary Entin. But even more importantly, it is so nicely acted out on the screen by every one on the cast list.

"Geography Club" is a very nice movie that you should take the time to sit down and watch.

When everything about a movie is equally bad, it's interesting what stands out the most.

In this uniformly bad movie, it's the makeup. The actors are wearing SO MUCH MAKEUP, and there are so many extreme closeups in unnatural light and unnaturally saturated color photography, that all I see is the heavy lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow and blush on a guy who's supposed to be a macho jock and definitely is NOT supposed to be in drag. And that's on my TV - God knows what he would look like on the huge screen in a theatre, probably like the garishly made-up troll-woman on the old Drew Carey sitcom.

The heavy makeup is so distracting that it would completely sabotage any drama or comedy that's supposed to be going on, even if the writing, directing and acting weren't just as bad as the makeup. This is definitely one ONLY for dreamy-eyed adolescents and their middle-aged admirers, people who see life just as it looks in this movie - thick, cartoon-colored and all on the surface.