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Boys To Men

2001, Movie, NR, 75 mins

Boys To Men: Review

BOYS TO MEN
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A compilation of four recent gay-themed shorts that range from the raunchy to the sweet. It's uneven, as compilations always are, but there isn't an outright amateurish film in the bunch and the acting is unusually polished — gone are the days when short films were invariably cast with the filmmaker's willing but less-than-able friends and relatives. In Phillip Bartel's gentle Crush, 12-year-old Tina (Ema A. Tuennerman) becomes infatuated with 16-year-old Robbie (Brett Chukerman), who shares her passion for boy bands, teen idol Jason Hewitt and the nighttime soap "High School High." What he doesn't share are her romantic feelings — surprise! — but they manage to salvage their friendship nonetheless. Duncan Tucker's The Mountain King pairs a rather uptight straight man (John Sloan) and a free-spirited gay hustler (Paul Dawson) who meet on a deserted beach and spend an eye-opening night together to the strains of Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. Dan Castle's super-short "...lost." chronicles a few hours in the life of a heedless young hustler (Wayne Danner), and Carl Pfirman's The Confession examines an aging couple, Joseph (Bert Kraemer) and Caesar (Tom Fitzpatrick), who've weathered 35 years together and are now coping with debilitating illness. Joseph wants to confess to a priest, and the callow cleric (Christopher Liebe) who comes to counsel him stirs up a hornet's nest of unresolved issues. Though Dan Castle claims he made "...lost." as a "response to the current wave of complacency regarding safe sex sweeping... the gay community," the sex- and drug-fueled vignette doesn't really work as the wake-up call he intended: Its nameless protagonist is clearly a mess, but the larger ramifications of his behavior are unstated and, frankly, if you need to be told why unsafe sex and concealing your HIV status are bad news, you need the message spelled out. Crush, on the other hand, has the air of a very special Afterschool Special, which might be more off-putting if the young cast weren't so winning. The Mountain King and The Confession pack considerable emotional nuance into their short running times — Tucker and Pfirman direct actors with a skill many more experienced filmmakers would (or should) envy. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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