All Over the Guy (2001)

I was pleasantly surprised about this movie. It was not full of gay stereotypes and clichés, in fact at times countered them, and yet I was not feeling sorry for the plight of love lorn gay men. Simply,it was about the struggles of relationships, both gay and straight, and the musings: if you did the right thing on the date, if you said or acted in an off putting manner. It addressed the issues of lack of communication and then brutal honesty, misunderstandings on not being able to commit, fear to communicate honestly of what is expected and needed out of relationship. The movie portrays the hard road of getting to know if you have the chemistry, friendship, sex appeal,sex, etc that all can make or break the fragile act of getting to know another. The acting was amazing. The camera angles captured the expressions of all the characters and their emotions of angst, anger, fear, joy, relief, trust, revelation. In the opening scenes of a first date the fear in the eyes of one of the characters was visceral. The use of colors; rust browns and blues, in clothing, sets, in various hues and exposures contributed to beauty and intimacy. The use of apartment walls and windows to follow the characters was neat and creative. So this isn't any longer, I just love the actors, the story, and camera work. It made it to my very picky "own" movie library. It is one of the best romantic comedies I have watched.

This film is about the rough and eventful journey of two couples until they find love.One striking thing about this film is the production. The sets, the costumes and the scenes are just like a big budget movie. It is impressive that they got a nice budget for a gay film! Another striking thing is that there are two big mainstream stars in the move: Lisa Kudrow and Christina Ricci. Lisa Kudrow's role is small and dispensible, which is a pity as it is not everyday that a mainstream star agrees to star in a gay film. Christina Ricci's role is more substantial, but still dispensible. I particularly applaud Ricci because it is not the first time she stars in a gay related film that I watched, the other being The Laramie Project.The plot itself is quite complex, with the main story with two small side plots about the two main characters telling their story to other people. A typical romantic comedy has a join-split-join setting, and yet in this film there are more split and joins that I almost lost track.It is a refreshing film, entertaining and fun. However, it is forgettable and does not leave a big impression in viewers' hearts.

This is a story about Eli and Tom, who met, fell in love, discovered that they have issues with each other, thus setting up the standard will-they-or-won't-they-live-happily-ever-after romantic comedy scenario, except that in this case it is about two men. There are many things to recommend this film, a good script, the reasonably good acting (for the most part, not sure about Dan Bucatinsky), characters that you might care about, the gentle comedy, but above all, a good heart.A number of things fail this movie however. The main thing being that Dan Bucatinsky is not convincing as a romantic lead, a wiser writer would not have cast himself as the lead. While it is obvious that for Eli it is love at first sight (or rather when he first looked into Tom's eyes), it's hard to tell what Tom sees in Eli. There is a good reason why the leads in romantic films are generally attractive people (and Richard Ruccolo is good looking), and it is to stop us asking this awkward question. The direction is somewhat patchy, with some strange changes of tone - for example, after the Tom's AA meeting and what seems to be setting up of a possible rape scene but which is then quickly dropped and then just some vague reference to getting beaten (why is the scene there anyway if the director is afraid of dealing with its full ramifications?).I love, however, the last scenes between them, touching and beautifully done. Overall, it is, if we can ignore the fact that it is also that rare thing of a romantic comedy film about two men, an above average film.Just one last word - to the guy who threw in a gratuitous comment about Brokeback Mountain, we don't know if Jack was murdered, it is all in Ennis' imagination and set out to be deliberately ambiguous. I do wish IMDb has a policy of disallowing from reviewing those who do not have the cognitive and reasoning capabilities better than those of a fly.

The characters are so full of life that in the end of the movie we have that urge to know what happened in the day after. That's how embracing this movie is. People will always be people when the subject is relationship. No matter each ones' preferences are. This movie definitely should become a sitcom. A good one, by the way. The dialogs and scenes edition are so full of rhythm that we barely blink an eye. Chemistry is the best word to define the exuberance of acting that the actors and actresses provided to us. A fun movie. Total entertainment with no aggression to the intelligence of people with good sense. Can a movie be more like LIFE itself than this one? Still waiting.