The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Shelter: The "gay surfer movie" (it's so much more!). See it now and discuss it!
injest:
--- Quote from: DavidInIndy on April 30, 2008, 01:41:30 am ---I THINK they mean nothing overly graphic Jess. I can't speak from experience though. They won't show it where I live. >:(
I've been wondering if they will EVEN let us see it on DVD around here. God FORBID they show it in a Hoosier movie theater! ::) >:(
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hmm....I wonder if there is a SOLUTION to that...hmmmm......
mvansand76:
--- Quote from: shakestheground on April 28, 2008, 07:23:06 pm ---Here is Brad Rowe talking about the gay thing:
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1DBFHN-mO4[/youtube]
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Brad Rowe is so much cooler and cuter than the person he's being compared to looks-wise, Brad Pitt! I would love to see more of him in movies. In the scene w/the walkie-talkies at the end in the garden, he shows so much with just his facial expressions! Exit Brad Pitt, enter Brad Rowe! :D
Nevermore:
SPOILERS!
I would definitely recommend this--it's no cinematic masterpiece a la Brokeback Mountain but it is a fun, well-crafted little film with believable characters, well-played by actors who imbue them with depth where they could easily have been the usual stock figures. It's a love triangle of sorts, but not in the sense you'd expect--the main character, Zach, is torn between his sense of obligation fun-loving, irresponsible single-mom older sister and his attraction to his best friend's older brother Sean, who reappears in his life at a point where he has become resigned to giving up his dreams of being an artist to play Dad to his young nephew.
There's also a longtime best girl friend/sometime girlfriend in the picture, and you can just taste the bittersweet ease of "settling" tugging at him--marry the girl, the part-time "find yourself" job becomes permanent, and one day he wakes up and realizes he's forty and hasn't really gotten anything he wanted from life. It was especially poignant for me because the "sense of place" that was so resonant for the westerners in Brokeback was present for me with Shelter: it was shot in my hometown, San Pedro, California, the blue-collar harbor town that is the port of Los Angeles. I grew up with a lot of Zacks and Jeannes, and most of them are still there, living their lives in the shadow of the Vincent Thomas Bridge that is a central (and wee bit obvious) motif.
If there's a weakness, it's that Zack's dilemma seems like such a non-dilemma--move in with the handsome Prince Charming or stay on as permanent babysitter for young Zack will big Sis Jeanne plays away with a succession of losers? It's a legitimate criticism, but I would answer that it's difficult to overestimate the power of family obligation, and also, Sean's seeming perfection might raise suspicions that he's a little too good to be true. The character is supposed to be from the chi-chi Palos Verdes peninsula (though it looks like Malibu standing in for PV), bringing out Zack's working class defensiveness, which rings true enough to those of us who lived "down the hill."
It is, I repeat, not a masterpiece, more of a particularly thoughtful Afterschool Special, but none the worse for that, and though I firmly believe a story should stand on its own merits and not the value of the "lesson," if I were a middle school teacher with a student questioning his sexuality, I would be glad to have the DVD in my arsenal of resources.
On the sex: it's there, it's unobtrustive, and though there is actually quite a bit more of it than in Brokeback, it's of the tasteful variety, maybe a little too tasteful (a shot of the boys in shorts in circumstances where I doubt they'd be clothed) and one rather silly slapstick discovery scene that was probably the weakest thing in it. But all in all, it held up to a second viewing.
Shakesthecoffecan:
--- Quote from: Snork on April 30, 2008, 03:50:49 am --- Exit Brad Pitt, enter Brad Rowe! :D
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Wow, never thought I would say this, but, AMEN! :laugh:
Shakesthecoffecan:
--- Quote from: Snork on April 29, 2008, 04:38:45 pm ---Wish I had it on DVD already so I could watch it on our new big plasma TV! :P
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Will it be in the European format too? Is there a European format anymore?
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