LGBT FILMS IN THEATRES OR ON DVD
by Glenn Bishop
Vol. 17 Issue 19 November 11, 2010

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“Bear City”

While planning a recent get-together, post Milwaukee LGBT Film Festival, many amongst Glenn’s nearest and dearest laid down the law: no tragic endings. Period. End of discussion!

  Well, with so many screeners and yet so little time, what better film to choose than director Doug Langway’s upcoming DVD release, BearCity? Focusing on a community of NYC bears and their ardent admirers, BearCity held great promise for many of Glenn’s closest acquaintances, a large group in which a t-shirt emblazoned with “Real Men Wear Fur” would hardly warrant even a second glance from the most fervent PETA supporter?

  How curious to discover that the central character in BearCity is neither bear nor cub. Tyler (Joe Conti) is a cute, rather cherubic “bear-curious” twink hiding a great big (not to mention hairy) secret from his sweet, flaming roommate Simon (Alex Di Dio). As is often the case in stories such as this, while his roommate Simon pines unrequitedly away for Tyler, Tyler lurks, under the cover of night, on hot bear porn sites identified merely as “boy4fur21.”

  After one such online encounter, Tyler ventures out, a virgin visit as it so happens, to the Ramrod, a place where big men go to let their fur down. Tyler is welcomed with open arms (and then some) and can’t help looking like the proverbial kid in a candy store. So warm is his welcome in fact, Tyler very quickly finds himself not only a new place to live but a whole new set of friends including Tyler’s soon to be new roommates: the bearded and seriously cuddly Fred (Brian Keane) along with Fred’s gently acerbic, totally monogamous boyfriend Brent (Stephen Guarino). Taking the role of Mama Bear in this hairy fairy story is Michael (Gregory Gunter), an obese, unemployed and desperate bear blessed with Carlos (James Martinez), a red-hot wildly jealous significant other.

  And by the very next morning, Tyler has even gotten a new job as a barista at The Bear Café, a bears-only coffee shop where many of the fat and fabulous guys he met at the Ramrod also happen to hang out. Yes, yes, this is all sounding very familiar to Glenn: think Mary Ann’s arrival in San Francisco (Tales of the City) or Dorothy landing in Oz (The Wizard of Oz).

  Well, Tyler doesn’t need a house to fall on him not to realize that he’s got a good thing going.

  Tyler might not know a Cappuccino from a Frappuccino but he’ll manage a-okay at The Bear Café as long as he’s a smile and snappy comeback at the ready, which thankfully, he does. Then into this furry madness enters Roger (CSI’s Gerald McCullouch), less a bear really than a hunky Silver Daddy who is rugged, randy and totally confident. Think Brett Favre wearing his favorite Open-Fly Wrangler jeans. Not so much boyfriend material, Roger seems more the “f*ck ‘em and forget ‘em” type.

  One sight of Roger leaves poor Tyler totally tongue-tied – really a blessing in disguise, thinks Glenn.  When Tyler does managing to regain some semblance of composure, he attempts to bring the gang their round of coffee drinks. Big mistake. A glimpse of Roger’s sounding set finds Tyler weak-kneed and suddenly wearing his tray of (fortunately iced) coffee drinks.

  Glenn couldn’t help but ponder how this virginal stud-muffin recognized the dazzling to the eye tool kit as a sounding set?

  From here Doug Langway and Lawrence Ferber’s screenplay, in turn, fleshes out each couple’s story. Unemployed Michael must decide if radical weight-loss surgery will provide him with sufficient self-esteem to get hired, even if the consequences include losing Carlos in the bargain. Even as Fred is tempted by young Tyler, he seeks to persuade a decidedly dubious Brett that their relationship needs some spicing up. The final subplot requires moviegoers to believe that after a few furtive looks and a heated game of bowling, unlikely lovers Roger and Tyler find themselves learning to accept their May-December relationship and shout out that they fallen truly, madly, deeply in love.

Buy it, rent it, or just forget about it . . .

BearCity left Glenn’s unofficial (to say the least) focus group split right down the middle. A Sex-in-the City for the fabulous furry set, thought some; shamefully evoking the excesses of The Boys in Band, many others countered.
 
Glenn, as often happens, split down the middle.  On one hand, Glenn found it refreshing to learn that just like the rest of the known gay universe; bears can be bitchy, campy and think only of sex. And let’s give credit to director Doug Langway’s determined (and for the most part successful) attempt to eroticize the bodies of bears. Carlos vigorously tonguing Michael’s flabby, hairy bellybutton proves a powerfully intimate scene. Less clear is why these bears (and admirers) are friends. For no other, perhaps, than the fact they are bears (and admirers); in much the same way the boys in The Boys in the Band are friends simply because they are all gay and therefore must be. Indeed, Brent and Fred’s relationship difficulties recall those of Hank and Larry, only Mart Crowley, would surely find the preposterous shower room three-way, nothing short of horrifying, as did Glenn.

  Even more perplexing to Glenn is Tyler’s role in Langway’s narrative. It is surely breaking new ground for BearCity to offer a cute young kid who is attracted to big, burly men and if he’s got a hairy back, so much the better. But just as surely it is a step back or two to then have Tyler in turn become the center of so much attention. His arrival at the Ramrod immediately ignites a virtual sexual frenzy; later Fred is on the brink of ravishing the slumbering (passed-out?) twink even as Brent is in the kitchen ordering Chinese. Why don’t any of the hot, hairy bears end up with another hot, hairy bear?

Just the facts…

BearCity is in English and has a running time of 105 minutes   BearCity is available on DVD on Tuesday, Nov 23 with a SRP of $19.99 Look for more of Stephen Guarino (Brent) on The Big Gay Sketch Show

BearCity offers a wealth of DVD extras including a featurette: Out of the Woods: The Making of BearCity, director commentary tracks, a music video plus English subtitles for the hearing-impaired. 

Volume 17 Issue 18
“Plan B”

Okay, here’s the set-up. There are a couple of really hot young guys in the locker room at the gym; both freshly showered. One puts on a t-shirt promoting a popular TV series. The other bemoans the fact that his TV is dead and he won’t be able to watch the show’s sure-to-be exciting season finale. A connection is made; an invitation extended. Fade to black.
 
Who knew it could all be so simple? Not Glenn, whose favorite Golden Girls hoodie these days merely elicits giggles at the gym.
 
Yet such is indeed the premise for Argentinean filmmaker Marco Berger’s highly touted debut feature of two straight guys in love, Plan B.
 
Let’s start with a bit of the backstory. The horribly quaffed Bruno (Manuel Vignau) is truly, madly, deeply in love with Laura (Mercedes Quinteros). Or so he claims. Meanwhile Laura, saucy wench that she is, seems to have decided to spread her affections elsewhere. Enter the ravishingly handsome Pablo (Lucas Ferraro). Sounds awfully like a classic heterosexual love triangle to Glenn.
 
Now imagine for a moment, as Glenn did, that this were 1950s Hollywood; where Cary Grant might have played Bruno or better yet, Montgomery Cliff. How about a young Rock Hudson as Pablo. As for Laura; would Doris Day have been to cutsy?
 
Perhaps you’ll forgive Glenn for beginning to wonder if he’d been given the screener for Plan B by mistake.

That Bruno and Laura still manage to find plenty of time to meet between the sheets is certainly curious. Also confusing is that Laura’s apartment boasts a picture of Bruno but bearing the name of another of her exes. Strangest of all is the fact that Bruno had actually broken it off with Laura, not vice versa; seems that he was bored. Now that’s she’s involved with Pablo, he’s done a 360: Bruno wants her back. But how to do it?

The plan, his ‘plan b’ is to seduce her new boyfriend. Of course, it was so obvious!

Glenn’s not really sure how this outlandish ploy is supposed to work but once Bruno decides on a course of action, there’s no going back. After getting together to watch their favorite TV show, Pablo and Bruno immediately begin to spend (all?) their free time together.. Berger’s rather languid screenplay finds Bruno and Pablo often sleeping together with just their skivvies to protect their virtue. Oh, and they take plenty of long walks allowing them ample time for heart-to-heart conversations. Often the two fantasize about being 12 years old again.
 
From here it is quick work for Bruno to begin introducing Pablo at parties as his boyfriend. Cue: two drunken straight guys kissing on a dare. Next up is an even more absurd pretense: claiming he’s up for a role in a TV commercial where he has to kiss another guy, Bruno convinces Pablo to practice kissing with him. Only sober this time.

Okay, here’s the point where Glenn paused the DVD and wondered if he needed to go back and start again. What was going on between Bruno and Pablo? Is Bruno merely conning the gullible, albeit ravishingly attractive, Pablo? Perhaps in Pablo Bruno is really beginning to find real friendship and maybe something rather more.

Despite boasting (falsely as it turns out) prior gay experimentation, Pablo initially appears rather uncomfortable when Bruno repeated claims that they are boyfriends, especially since Bruno can’t keep his hands off of him. Even more awkward is the practice session where Pablo, worried about being labeled a fag, requires some serious persuasion before he’s willing to attempt a (sober) lip-lock with Bruno. Nonetheless Pablo’s growing attraction to Bruno is evident.

Decidedly less clear is Bruno’s story. As his seduction of Pablo progresses, Glenn increasingly questioned whether he was really falling in love with Pablo or simply bound and determined that ‘plan b’ succeed, regardless of the consequences.

A love letter is sent; worse, Bruno’s plan is discovered. And thus the stage is set. Who will end up with whom? Does Laura decide to take Bruno back? Have these two straight guys fallen in love?  

Buy it, rent it, or just forget about it . . .

Simply put, Plan B left Glenn both puzzled and confused. Did Glenn somehow mange to nod off? After bemoaning the lack of gay romances in a recent review, here Glenn found himself faced with a love story of two straight guys? What’s up with that? Where are the movies where the two gay guys ride off into the sunset? Should Glenn be thinking about making his own gay love story?

Director Marco Berger is evidently intrigued by the notion of fluidity in sexual attraction yet burdens his screenplay with repeated, heavy-handed examples of ‘gay panic.’ Perhaps this taps into current Argentinean culture but which still left Glenn increasingly frustrated. Never, for example, did Glenn entirely understand the lengths Bruno was willing to go just to win back Laura, a young woman who happily cheats on her new boyfriend with one of her exes. Can Bruno really believe she never cheated on him? Really? Nor did Glenn find Manuel Vignau’s Bruno either appealing or particularly sympathetic. As Pablo, Lucas Ferraro creates an attractive, confused young man who seems to be falling in love with Bruno faster than he realizes. No matter how Bruno’s Plan B turns out, he deserves better than either Bruno or Laura.

On the plus side and surely with an eye towards the potential gay market, Berger does pad Plan B with shot after shot of the two scantily clad young men. Time and again we see the two of them just in their briefs sleeping, often curled up together. So often in fact Glenn almost cried out, “Get a room, already.”

Just the facts…

 “Plan B” is in Spanish with English subtitles, running time is 103 minutes  
“Plan B” is available on DVD with a SRP of $19.95
The only extra feature “Plan B” offers is the film’s theatrical trailer.