GAY FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM

Another Gay Sequel:
Gays Gone Wild!

TLA Releasing
2008

Director:
Todd Stephens

Screenplay:
Eric Eisenbrey,
Todd Stephens

Starring:
Jonah Blechman,
Jake Mosser, Aaron Michael Davies, Jimmy Clabots, Euriamis Losada, Perez Hilton, RuPaul, Scott Thompson,
The Lady Bunny,
Will Wikle,
Brent Corrigan, Jim Verraros, Colton Ford

Unrated, 97 minutes

My Brain Hurts
by Michael D. Klemm
Posted online, November, 2008



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."

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????

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..."
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.

When I reviewed the original film, along with an equally ludicrous gay splatter film called Hellbent, I bemoaned a trend I was seeing that was much like the "Blaxploitation" films of the 1970s. I've seen many good films since then, restoring my faith in queer cinema, but Another Gay Sequel is a big step backwards and it makes the plays of Charles Busch seem like Moliere. Sex comedies can be sophisticated; look at Dangerous Liaisons, Bergman's Smiles Of A Summer Night or Bunuel's delightfully naughty Belle de Jour. Hell, look at some of Shakespeare! But most of Another Gay Sequel is so dumb that it isn't even entertaining. I fully realize that my opinion is probably in the minority, but somebody really let the air out of the beachball on this one. This is an open plea to Mr. Stephens: if you have to do another sequel. make one to Edge of Seventeen instead and give this frivolous franchise a rest. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think Turner Classic Movies is showing Citizen Kane.

 

More on Todd Shephens:
Another Gay Movie
Edge Of Seventeen

Scott Thompson, Jonah Blechman
and Lypsinka also appear in:

Another Gay Movie

Jim Varraros also appears in:
Eating Out

Colton Ford also appears briefly ins:
Hellbent

Brent Corrigan also appears in:
Milk
The Big Gay Musical
Another Gay Sequel

As Sean Paul Lockhart
Triple Crossed
Judas Kiss