By Roy Rogers Oldenkamp, West Hollywood, California (July 15, 2010) - Continuing this weekend, Wehoans and their admirers can catch two more films celebrating the city’s 25th Anniversary with two very different themes. The first film Is It Just Me? gives us a comic romp through the bedrooms, bars and coffee houses of Boystown, as seen through the eyes of Blaine. 
Continuing this weekend, Wehoans and their admirers can catch two more films celebrating the city’s 25th Anniversary with two very different themes. The first film Is It Just Me? gives us a comic romp through the bedrooms, bars and coffee houses of Boystown, as seen through the eyes of Blaine. WeHo News. |
Blaine’s the guy who thinks he’s a Rodney Dangerfield in a land of male strippers in a go-go bar. Ably played by the talented and handsome Nicholas Downs, Blaine takes us on a tour of WeHo and it’s subculture of young gay men and their at times stereotypic behavior, from casual sex to stuffing bills in dancer’s jockstraps on bartops as house music throbs ceaselessly.
Even in this environment, Downs gives Blaine an honest sincerity and so we care that he might triumph in this update of a classic rom-com plot from the 40’s. David Loren as Xander is the perfect crush for Blaine, a pea-pickin’ good hearted rube with a heart o’ gold and a killer smile. And we want them to match up as, self-doubt, unexpected consequences and a series of misunderstandings cloud the sky.
Is It Just Me? doesn’t stray far from the realm of Outfest gay cinema. It is, however, one of those films that just feel right. The scenes of two men kissing seem almost routine and uneventful as it may not have just a few years back.
In a way, the story just happens to be about two men chasing love: it could be any gender combo and still be equally warm and heartfelt. That it is two young dudes and takes place on and off Santa Monica Boulevard just add to the fun for us locals.
Really, any dvd that thanks Baskitwear and Ginch Gonch, Gay.com and Frontier Magazine probably has the vibe right. Writer/director JC Calciano keeps things tight and moving. This one is screening in the giant, gorgeous outdoor venue of the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre so make it a night out and have a laugh, followed by a dance and drink at an after-party TBA in Boystown to cap the night. It’ll seem kinda nineties and also might seem just right.
Nicholas Downs as Blaine takes us on a tour of WeHo and it’s subculture of young gay men and their at times stereotypic behavior, from casual sex to stuffing bills in dancer’s jockstraps on bartops as house music throbs ceaselessly in “Is It Just Me?”WeHo News. |
The other of the four films in the series, An Ordinary Couple, posits that two married gay men are just like anyone else in the U.S., regular folk, albeit with an overly upholstered life and a social strata somewhat limited to the elite of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Not a bad thing, perhaps: certainly amusing to watch.
A documentary that follows Orin Kennedy and Bernardo Puccio as they commemorate their over 30-year relationship by commissioning a marble mausoleum to themselves and their cat (!) at the eccentric acreage known as Hollywood Forever Cemetery, An Ordinary Couple opens as the duo invite their best one hundred friends to a "living funeral".
The fete ostensibly is to watch a clip of their faboo life together as guests ooh and ah. What would be narcissistic and creepy is a bit of both yet tempered with the Zsa Zsa-esque aspect of their over-the-top lives. Just when we think they couldn’t become any more indulgent, we find a side to them that makes it all okay: they become freedom fighters against the odious Mormon financed Prop 8 anti-gay marriage California initiative.
Directors Jay Gianukos & Susan Barnes give us the back story and flesh out both Orion and Bernardo with a caring that makes you feel the directors came to really, really admire the couple. And yes, they are an ordinary couple, with all the attendant bickering and squabbling balanced by an intensity of joy and mutual love and respect that a successful pairing aspires to be. Worth your time and money, make a trip to the Sunset 5. Hurry over, now. Or Bernardo will throw a fit!
Outfest Presents An Ordinary Couple Thursday July 15, 2010 5pm Laemmle Sunset 5
8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 90046 - $13
Is It Just Me?Friday July 16, 8:30 Pm Ford Amphitheatre. Details www.outfest.org
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