JoshS

More frustrating than anything. Distractingly implausible plot, stupid dialog, badly done stereotypes for characters, as much straight sex as gay sex, and a straight main character combine badly here. There are some hot guys, especially the main character, but this would have to be hardcore porn for hotness to excuse the rest. Inventory of skin/sex: brief though quite nice full frontal; frequent shirtlessness with some very nice abs; a little foreplay; a (mercifully vague) straight sex scene; a MM scene with a woman on the phone talking to the straight guy; some kissing at the end.

Quite decent for a gay movie. "X" is a clever, cynical, gay prostitute. He narrates a magazine column detailing his romantic past throughout. Unfortunately, X is a rather crappy writer, as his pen name demonstrates. His relationship with reclusive client Gregory and their character flaws make up the best, most interesting parts of the film. I found myself wondering, "what makes him tick?" for both characters, and Gregory's actor deserves special praise for elevating the film's emotional impact with his excellent delivery. Sadly the big romance is with underdeveloped roommate Andrew, while second roommate Joey provides drama. This was the weakest part of the film for me. It was extremely predictable, I didn't find Andrew's acting particularly good, and I never felt chemistry between the two "romancers" despite X's narrated protests to the contrary. As for Joey, he was an annoying, overdone stereotype who didn't add much to the film except its two brief nude scenes (butt only; Joey seems to be a bottom, like X--this is probably meant to symbolize their incompatibility, considering Andrew is a top; that's the type of movie this is). Nevertheless, I myself found X highly attractive and could at least stare at him through the weak parts, though YMMV. As for skin there's a long list of brief encounters with muscular young men in various states of undress. The extras are all extremely hot in the completely unrealistic, standard way gay movies have of presenting gay men physically. The sex scenes are pretty chaste and again brief. I would have liked a big sex scene at the end with lots more X and lots of passion from Andrew, but, alas, no. One particularly good comic relief sequence involved meeting Andrew's family--that sequence probably saved the film from feeling overlong. All in all, Boy Culture is quite decent for a gay movie, but if none of the roommates really does it for you you might need a distraction to get through their staid interactions.

Really funny, judging from my audience's reaction--that's the best part. The script uses time travel and a "new" character--Young K (Josh Brolin)--to mix up the formula from the last two. The Big Baddie, Boris the Animal, is probably the weakest part. He's just angry and kinda dumb with no interesting features. Boris is basically a rehash of MIB1's Bug but somehow worse. MIB3 is a little worse than MIB1 mostly because it's just not "new" anymore, though the writing is probably technically better here and this one is much funnier. Way, way better than MIB2. If you liked the first one but hated the second, it's still worth a watch.

The doorman must turn gay guys away from the club since none ever materialize inside. The film could have used more gay--for realism, to appeal more to gay men (I was the only one in my audience), and because, as I understand it, straight women find man-on-man hot. The "gayest" character is a bi female stripper we meet briefly and never see again. She's most likely thrown in because straight boyfriends find girl-on-girl hot. Every 20 minutes or so the script throws them a bone--some boobs here, an I-imagine-hot woman there--but it's easily ignorable. Anyway, aside from that odd and unnecessary omission, the movie was much better than I expected. The plot was decent--maybe a little slow and trite--the characters were somewhat interesting, and the guys were hot to really hot. I didn't find the dancing, especially Tatum's, particularly erotic, but it was well-choreographed and your mileage may vary. As for skin, there are numerous nice butt and torso shots; no full frontal unfortunately (and a lack of crotch closeups come to think of it) but it's not porn and not meant to be. It does what it's supposed to and does it well.

Lots of plot holes, like forgetting about Zach's father in the wrap-up and the implausibly compressed one-month timing of the relationship. The characters are oversimplified--Gabe, the girlfriend, and Shaun are perfect in every way (supportive, accepting, hot, good with kids, ...) while Jeannie is flawed in every way (homophobic, depressed, drug abuser, bad mother, unattractive, ...). Zach is deeply in the closet which causes him to be horrible to the perfect three above, but none of them care that he's gay and Shaun's gay anyway--so most of the drama is baseless. It's like the screenwriter forgot to add motivation and the director was hoping nobody would notice. A lot of the film is like that. The two leads have chemistry and look good, which is a plus, though by the end I wanted Shaun to have at least one character flaw for interest's sake (he doesn't get any). The first half has a good amount of skin (no nudity), but the second half has almost none. In a movie like this there should be at least one good shot of an attractive shirtless man every ~10-15 minutes, and this movie failed there--but I digress. The love scene is cute. It could have used another, especially considering the script's many flaws. As I write this, this is the lowest rating here. I don't know why everyone else likes this movie so well. The guy I watched it with shared my opinion. We later watched the original Starsky and Hutch which has a far better male-male relationship (and offers so many "Ho Yay" opportunities!); we enjoyed it much more. We're both kind of bummed about the lack of good, happy, gay male movies since this one seems to top the lists and yet neither of us liked it.