● "Guys our age are sexually and emotionally immature.I want a seasoned older gentleman who can fuck all night and then discuss thefilms of Shelley Winters in the morning."
Friends of mine whose playtime is usually spent in thecontrapuntal reverie of a Richard Wagner opera recently found themselves havingto choose between Strangers with Candyand The Devil Wears Prada at aBrooklyn multiplex. Sadly, they made the wrong choice. If only they could havetraded that candy for Another Gay Movie, playing the Castro Theatre from August 4-10.
In his director's statement, Todd Stephens declares that hehatched the story for Another Gay Movie(with boyfriend Tim Kaltenecker) still smarting over the shabby treatment hefelt his second film, Gypsy 83,had received, especially the jibe that it wasn't gay enough!
One of the reasons AGM worksso well is its pitch-perfect core cast. Andy, a sweet-faced anal virgin, whospends the movie trying to insert the contents of his strict mom (played withdeadpan ferocity by Lypsinka)'s kitchen up his tender but terribly tight butt,is given a lovely, sympathetic treatment by newcomer Michael Carbonaro. MitchMorris steals all his scenes as Griff, a bookish strawberry blonde whodesperately tries to trade his impossible nerdy ways for a killer bubble-buttand the heart of a cute baseball scholarship dude, who just happens to be hisbest friend, Jarod. Jonathan Chase, as Jarod, has his heart set on topping anAbercrombie and Fitch preppie; while Jonah Blechman, as Nico, tries to squeezethe baggage of bad hairdos, a blind girlfriend and a taste for older guys intoa workable lifestyle.
Writer/director Stephens takes aim at both the relativelysophisticated teen sex comedy of American Pie and the coarser, buffoonish frat-boy, fart-joke-fueled Porky's. In the former case, Carbonaro and gay comedy iconScott Thompson do a nifty parody of the Jason Biggs/Eugene Levy goofy son/dadsex talks, taking the overly-helpful dad joke into new and hilarious territory.In the latter, Blechman's Nico does a fart-joke-to-end-all-fart-joke sequencewith gay Survivor winner RichardHatch, which goes to show just how silly and humiliating is the fate of astarfucker.
The movie's best cards are the veteran cast of celebrityguest stars, especially British TV personality Graham Norton as a visitingprofessor from a former Muslim Soviet province. Graham's Mr. Puckov, who runs avery severe, discipline-laden master/slave live interactive webcam site, isgiven a hypercomic identity somewhere between American Idol's Simon Cowell and former Jimmy Carter advisorZbigniew Brzezinski. This routine, involving a bicycle horn instead of safetywords for the hapless Andy, and a most improper use of a high-techglass-and-steel table, has to be seen to be believed, and is as funny as itneeds to be.
While not totally abandoning the safety net of politicalcorrectness — Noah's Arc's lovelyhomeboy Darryl Stephens gets a bumpy but never rude bed shuffle, and AshlieAtkinson is given sufficient screentime to get sympathetic laughs as Muffler,the impossibly aggressive butch dyke cheerleader chick-magnet — AnotherGay Movie tries to anchor all theimpossible zaniness of real gay life to a political agenda that combines fullacceptance and honorary badges with parts of the American sexual "WildWest" that not even its strongest devotees can always sort out. It'shealthy to see NAMBLA coexisting in a comedy universe with S/M Muslimprofessors extracting symbolic revenge on anally virgin, prime-grade Americanboy butts.
Stephens is reportedly planning a sequel to Edge of 17 — the best American coming out movie ever made— and Gypsy 83 — hisneglected bittersweet road adventure teaming a gay Goth boy with a fag hagStevie Nicks wannabe.
It would be a crime against celluloid if this sublimelytalented filmmaker, who employs out gay actors, didn't get a big box officeboost from this splendid, sexy spoof of a summer movie. Joins Clerks II,Ethan Green and Little MissSunshine among this season's awesomequartet of gay-friendly laughfests.
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