GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Another
Gay Sequel: TLA
Releasing Director:
Screenplay:
Starring: Unrated, 97 minutes |
My
Brain Hurts
Perhaps I should keep my old copy of Roget's handy in case Microsoft Word's built-in Thesaurus doesn't have enough synonyms for "infantile." Where do I start? Last year, I reviewed Another Gay Movie, a truly intolerable comedy that was billed by its makers as being the first "gay Porkys." As if this was a good thing. The Advocate, and most of the gay media, embraced this mindless movie and viewed it as a wonderful sign that queer cinema had become so mainstream that we now had our very own gay raunchy teen sex comedy. Well, isn't that special? Right. Unfortunately, now we also have a sequel - creatively titled: Another Gay Sequel, with the subtitle, Gays Gone Wild! We knew it was coming because a sequel in Fort Lauderdale was announced by the film's characters during the original's final minutes. The same thing happens at the end of this movie too when the lead character screams that "part 3 takes place in Outer Space!" I suppose we can now look forward to an endless series of straight-to-DVD sequels like the American Pie movies. |
 Another
Gay Movie (2006) was
the story of four gay, horny, high school grads who made a pledge to lose
their virginities by the end of the summer before going away to college.
Now, a bit older and wiser, (cough cough), the frolicking foursome has landed
in Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break just in time for the big "Gays Gone
Wild!" contest. The winner is the one who gets laid the most. Let the games
begin! |
|
 Another
Gay Sequel
begins with a dream sequence in which several men are having sex and one
gets decapitated and another is electrocuted - a rather bizarre way to start
a sex comedy if you ask me. Nico, the most fabulous member of the entourage,
wakes up from his nightmare for a lame take-off on the ending of The
Wizard of Oz and tells his friends, Andy, Griff and Jarod, that "you
were there and you were there..." and "there's no place like Lauderdale!"
After their plane almost crashes, they arrive in Florida and one of our
boys remarks, "So many men, so little lube." At this point, while taking
notes, I wrote: "It's only been 7 minutes. I don't think I can take much
more of this." |
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 Like
the first movie, Another Gay Sequel
features numerous irritating cameo guest stars. The list includes Perez
Hilton, Scott Thompson, RuPaul.
Lady Bunny, Jim Varraros
and Lypsinka. I may have recognized
a porn star or two in some of the beach scenes. Hilton, playing himself,
has some kind of epiphany while having sex with a singing priest (Varraros)
in the airplane's bathroom and turns into a religious zealot who rails about
sin on the beach. In one ridiculous scene, he becomes the mother from
Carrie. As for Scott Thompson, I long for his glory days with The
Kids In The Hall. |
|
 The
film is, naturally, loaded with beefcake so there is at least some fine
scenery to watch. Shot in widescreen cinemascope, it has the look of a Frankie
Avalon-Annette Funicello beach movie crossed with a Brady Bunch episode.
A waterskiing scene is appropriately filmed in front of a deliberately fake
back-projection screen. The hotel's decor is technicolor 60s kitsch. The
music is annoying, beginning with Nancy Sinatra's reprise of the first film's
bouncy theme song, "Another Gay Sunshine Day" and finishing later with a
tune that actually begins with the lyrics: "So come follow me / Where the
Manatees swim free / Under the golden sea..." |
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 I
know, I should lighten up, but my tolerance for juvenile fratboy humor has
its limits and it is beyond my comprehension that an adult wrote
this. We're supposed to outgrow this sort of thing when our teens are over
with. It is possible to do raunchy humor and still have a little
class. Consider this scene from Barry Levinson's Diner. Mickey Rourke
has bet his friends that he can get his new girlfriend to "touch his pecker"
on the first date and, when they all go to the movies, he inserts his penis
through the bottom of a box of popcorn. Not only is the scene funny, but
it is even suspenseful as his clueless date repeatedly reaches into
the popcorn box. Okay, the scene is hardly Noel Coward, but it displays
a subtlety and sophistication that is completely absent in Another
Gay Sequel - where the soundtrack is filled, like its predecessor,
with amplified sucking and farting noises again, where we are twice treated
to the sight of a big, red buttplug falling out of Scott Thompson's derriere,
and Nico stars in a flashy production number about golden showers. |
|
 To
be honest, in between all the nonsense are a few good character moments.
Andy's romance with a hot Latino virgin is sweet without being maudlin.
Griff and Jarod, a committed couple, have monogamy issues around joining
the "Gays Gone Wild" game though each really wants to play. There is a humorous
sequence where they decide to write some "rules" and we watch the number
of rules jump from 1 to 12 to 564. They finally agree on a threeway and
they have a pretty hot romp with Colton Ford for a few minutes before the
script returns to business as usual with that idiotic, not to mention vicious,
SuperGlue joke. |
|
 Am
I being too hard on this movie? After all, it's just meant to be mindless
entertainment (and it certainly is). The film doesn't even take itself
seriously. But it is possible to do a teen comedy without it being
so puerile. Writer/director Todd Shephens did so himself with his delightful
script for Edge of Seventeen back
in 1998. Also look at Tennyson Bardwell's
Dorian Blues for a really offbeat, different and funny
approach to the gay teen flick. Another Gay
Sequel may be a spoof, in the Scary Movie vein, but
it's not a very good one. Using bodily fluids as the dominant comic motif
is taking the easiest way out. A few less stereotypes would have been nice
too. Camp has its place, but some just take it too far. It speaks volumes
that Jonah Blechman, the actor who plays Nico, is the only one of the four
leads who is back from the first film. Somebody must have knocked some sense
into the other three. |
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More on Todd Shephens: Scott Thompson,
Jonah Blechman Jim Varraros also
appears in: Colton Ford also
appears briefly ins: |
I
am not a prude, but I feel as if my brain has been under assault. Was
I hallucinating, or did I really watch Griff and Jarod have a threeway
with former porn star Colton Ford and then get stuck inside each other
because the film's bad guy put SuperGlue in their lube? Did I also watch
this same bad guy (who wants to win the "Gays Gone Wild" contest himself)
give his henchman trainee electric shocks in his crotch? Were those large
plastic crabs on strings being pulled up the bed that all four friends
shared? Did I imagine that prolonged projectile vomiting interlude when
Andy discovers that the man in a dog costume who he just had sex with
(don't ask) is really his father? And what was with Nico falling in love
with a Merman named Stan????
When
I reviewed the original film, along with an equally ludicrous gay splatter
film called