Branden Blinn's REMARKABLE SHADES OF GAY opens theatrically at New York's Cinema Village

The second movie attempting to ride the marketing coattails of 50 Shades of Grey (the first was the faith-based film Old Fashioned), REMARKABLE SHADES OF GAY -- a new "omnibus" movie offering nine short tales of gay and bi-sexual life from a filmmaker named Branden Blinn (aka William Branden Blinn), who directs each episode, often writes or co-writes it, and occasionally edits, and usually helps produce, as well -- takes us back to an earlier era of gay movies but does it using all the accouterments of modern filmmaking. These would include actors who can handle dialog well and moment-to-moment truth, the use of decent video equipment coupled to a sensibility that harks back to television sitcoms of an earlier day.

Mr. Blinn, pictured at left, loves happy endings, whatever the particular tale might cover -- from parenting and dying to the closet, threesomes and seducing would-be straight men. (Collectively, these tales would seem to indicate that there is hardly a straight man around who isn't champing at the bit for some good, hot cock. File under: happy endings at any cost.) So, don't come here hankering for real life. But if you're in the mood for feel-good fun featuring a whole lot of hunky guys (everyone in nearly every episode is good looking) involved in inventive but unbelievable situations, here's your movie. Despite its title, expect no bondage in the film, although, unlike 50 Shades...,  this one does features occasional full-frontal, and Mr. Blinn's final episode even takes in a couple of budding erections. So, yes, you'll probably want to stay through the end. Herewith, a short run-down on what to expect in each episode:

Thirteen or So Minutes involves two young men who claim to have been straight and who've suddenly enjoyed male-on-male sex for the first time. One wants to embrace this, the other, not so much. A little tsuris and a lot of talk ensues....

Chased introduces us to two (yes, presumably straight) friends who, as they leave a bar, get into a argument with another group of guys and must hightail it on the run. This evidently sets their testosterone to raging, and later they must come to terms with the consequences of their sudden -- and extremely unbelievable -- amour....

Never or Now offers a kind of gay homage to a certain famous scene from Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, as an old and dying man in a rest home/hospital, as soon as his wife leaves for a few hours, picks up the phone and hires a hustler to visit him. Cue loads of kindness, tinkly sentimental music, and your oh-so-typical hustler who doesn't even demand his money. Sweet -- and, gosh, such uber-realism!

Triple Standard tackles guys and sports, via a gay couple, one of whom refuses to come out of the closet and, further, gets overly macho and nasty when another male dares to joke about his sexual preference. So what's his poor lover to do. You'll find out. Hint: Things just might be OK....

Without a Mom offers up a gay couple who've raised a strapping and straight hunk of a son who is suddenly having girlfriend problems. Gosh, one of the dads wonders, maybe he shoulda had a mom instead? In a movie like this one? Don't bet on it.

Life lesson after life lesson -- gay variety -- is taught us during the course of this film, and many of these lessons seem to have to do with men who profess zero interest is sex with another male -- and then suddenly come around to seeing the light. So it is in Toeing the Line, in which, during the course of coffee in a local hangout, one hot guy comes on to another by letting it drop that, yes, he a has a very big dick. Size matters, and before you can say Show Me, Please, we're off and running. This one's nicely acted but features utterly improbable behavior taking place in a public coffee shop.

A la Carte takes on a threesome -- husband. wife and the twinkie whom hubby has brought home to screw them both. Age and intergenerational sex matter here more than size, but doncha know that everything gets resolved in lightning speed and to everyone's satisfaction.

Size matters again in Truth or Dare, as two boy/girl couples decide to play the titular game one evening. But funny how girl-on-girl action just doesn't seem to raise the collective temperature the way that boy-on-boy stuff suddenly does. This one may make you laugh, at least.

Mr. Blinn saves his hottest visuals for the closing story, in which ageism and infidelity rear their heads -- and have absolutely no negative effect whatsoever. The filmmaker's rose-colored glasses simply refuse to lose their hue, no matter what, and there is nothing life can throw at these participants that can't be managed with a good long kiss and some hot sex. If only. But I have to say that Blinn, shown below with a couple of his actors, makes it all seem like lots of fun. If you're in the right mood, you might be seduced, too.

Remarkable Shades of Gay -- self-distributed and running two hours and six minutes -- began its theatrical premiere yesterday, February 27, in New York City at the Cinema Village. But you can bet it'll be available eventually on DVD and to stream.

Gay rights, Los Angeles-style, in the 1970s: Travis Fine's dark and teary ANY DAY NOW

Let's get it over with. ANY DAY NOW -- the new film directed and co-written (with George Arthur Bloom) by Travis Fine -- is a multi-hanky tear-jerker. Let's also be straight (so to speak, as this is a gay-themed movie): It earns every fucking one of those tears. Given the situation, together with the fact that this movie is very well- written, directed and acted, how could it not?

When a Down-syndrome boy, above, a teenager with a drug-addicted mother who may love him but cannot care for him, is suddenly abandoned, his neighbor, a female impersonator/singer -- along with his sudden new lover, an assistant D.A. who is for the first time giving in to his homosexuality -- decides to take the kid in and provide him, at long last, a real home. If only the legal system will allow it.

Come on: this is heart-wrenching, finally heart-breaking, stuff. What keeps it afloat, often aloft, is the utter darkness that hangs over the movie, provided by the situation, the characters and the period and place -- Los Angeles in the 1970s. TrustMovies was himself a closeted bi-sexual man who lived in the L.A. area during this time and can attest to much of the prejudice and difficulties present back then. Writer/
director Fine, shown at left, dries out those inevitable damp hankies with a lot of smart, dark humor; performances that remain true through thick and thin (thin being some inevitable clichés); and a richness of purpose and a balanced execution that render this story worth our time and tears.

Most talked about, no doubt, will be the stops-out performance of Alan Cumming (above) as the singer/impersonator who gets the story's ball rolling. Cumming is almost frighteningly real. He gives us the kind of man -- and performance -- that constantly challenges the character, as well as the viewer, to be proud (and loud) and refuse to put up with any bullshit. This is a very fine line to walk, and if Cumming sometimes appears to nearly topple over, he (along with the script, direction and the work of his co-stars) somehow achieves the necessary but tricky balance. He's got a good singing voice, too, as several soundtrack songs will prove. (The music for the film, including the great Bob Dylan title tune is well-chosen and put together.)

In the role of the D.A. lover, Garret Dillahunt (above, left) proves every bit the sturdy, studly straight-appearing male, and then softens it enough to make us believe this hunk could go for the likes of Cumming. But haven't we all seen this in life at one time or another: the odd pairing of men and/or women who thrive on each other's seeming opposition, whether via personality, looks, or the whole shebang? Cumming has the showy role, but Dillahunt provide the necessary foundation and back-up.

The role of the boy, Marco, features Isaac Leyva (above, himself a Down-syndrome fellow) who offers everything that is required from this, his film debut. Much of the supporting cast is made up of stalwarts like Frances Fisher, Chris Mulkey, Gregg Henry and Michael Nouri -- all just fine and some near-hissable in their villainy. Yet this is not in the least unbelievable; what we see here was the standard attitude some 35 years ago, a time in which many of my readers were not yet born. Even those characters shown to be kindly and helpful were generally not ready to stand up and shout for gay rights. (Nor was I, now that I think about it...)

One thing this noble movie should make us older folk realize anew is how much circumstances have changed for the better for the GLBT set. Though, as anyone who knows history will realize, it's a fight just to remain in place.

Any Day Now, running 97 minutes and from Music Box Films (the company that has given us, with Keep the Lights On and now this one, the two best gay movies of the year), opens this Friday, December 14 in a dozen cities around the country and will expand to many more in the weeks to come. In New York, see it at the Sunshine Cinema or the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center; in L.A. it's at Laemmle's Monica 4, Town Center 5, Playhouse 7, and at the Sundance Cinema Sunset 5.  Click here -- and then click THEATERS on the drop-down bar -- to view all currently scheduled playdates.