John G. Young's BWOY: very nearly good enough to give gay movies a bad name

Well acted but beyond dreadful in most other aspects -- with characters and situations so stupid and unbelievable as to boggle the brain -- BWOY, the new film from John G. Young, tracks a middle-aged married man whose young son has recently died and who is now spending most of his time online, trying to find a gay relationship. We can buy this online love story, of course (and have been at least since the time of Craig Lucas's fine play and the excellent movie based upon it, The Dying Gaul). But aside from its central, obsessive relationship, everything in this tired film falls utterly flat.

As both writer and director, Mr. Young, shown at left, has a lot to answer for. His primary failure is to make the marriage/ relationship of his leading man, Brad (Rent's Anthony Rapp,below), and wife, played by De'Adre Aziza (shown at bottom, with Ashton Randle, who plays the couple's dead son) into something remotely believable.

Instead, we get two people who appear to have almost no relationship at all.

The couple barely seems to know each other, let alone live together in any kind of marriage. Over and over again, their behavior beggars belief -- from their near-complete lack of communication skills (could the filmmaker's have bothered to show us even one scene that might make this marriage real?) to the manner in which she, way too belatedly and coincidentally, discovers her hubby's online relationship.

If what we see here is the extent of the couple's bonding, then this marriage is hardly worth saving. And this is just fine, since most of the movie is devoted to our "hero's" budding romance with his online cutie, Yenny, a Jamaican boy played with sweetness and enthusiasm by Jimmy Brooks, shown at right. But is Yenny for real? Ah, we shall see...

Throughout the entire movie, we view Brad almost always at work (in boringly repetitive scenes) or online with Yenny. In both locales, all we can surmise about Brad is that is he is one-note and either shockingly stupid or amazingly naive.

As it rolls along, the movie goes from silly and implausible to -- as the foolish climax approaches -- big time melodrama. (Yes, that is indeed a gun you see above.) By the finale, the moral here would seem to be: You'd sure as hell better pay your credit card bill. (And that goes for our boy, Brad, as well.)

If you enjoy rolling your eyes and guffawing at nonsense, by all means take a chance on BWOY. Otherwise, I'd recommend just about any other gay film available (Netflix streaming has oodles from which to choose).

Meanwhile, the movie -- from Breaking Glass Pictures and running a thankfully short 86 minutes -- opens this coming Friday, March 31, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. A home video release will follow fairly closely on the heels of theatrical exposure: Look for both DVD and VOD to arrive on Tuesday, April 4.

Francophile film lovers, rejoice: MyFrenchFilmFestival.com is back!

Starting tomorrow, Thursday, January 17, and playing for a full month through February 17, the eagerly-awaited, third annual edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival.com arrives online with its plethora of exciting new French movies -- both full-length (ten new ones and one classic) and short form (ten more in this section). Four of these (two short and two long) have already been viewed by TrustMovies and they are well worth your time, so if the remainder of the films come anywhere near this level, we're in for an exciting month of fine French cinema.

One of the hallmarks of this series (it seems to me, at least) is that the films are chosen to appeal to a younger generation (those who use the internet as a big part of their daily life) -- but without sacrificing one bit of the quality demanded by us older folk. If the past two years are to be used as trusted examples, these are "good" films by any standards. You can read about them online first, in case there's some subject matter here than simply does not appeal, and then, if you choose to view, you can rest assured that the film you're going to watch is quality material.

The four films I've already viewed (you can click on the links to see a full review of each) are A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (a wonderful, moving, almost-love story taking place in Israel and Palestine), A World Without Women (click and scroll down: a sunny, funny tale of a seaside vacation and some near-and-maybe-more-than-that connections), The Shady Sailor (click and scroll down: a stylish look at two women, talking and doing, about the past and the present), and The Pirogue (because this one, an exciting, meaningful story of African emigrants crossing the sea to Europe, opens at NYC's Film Forum next week and will be playing around the U.S. in the months to come, it is barred from U.S. viewing, so you'll have to catch it during its upcoming theatrical run. I'll have a review of this film up early next week).

As for the rest of the series, if names such as Karin Viard (above, left), Clovis Cornillac (in photo, top), Nicolas Duvauchelle (above, right), Josiane Balasko (two photos up) and Jean-Pierre Darroussin (below, with gun) get your engine running, you'll already be accessing the films in which they're appearing. If you're unfamiliar with them, now's a perfect time to learn why these superb actors are so important to French cinema today.

And just what does all this cost you? A mere $2.64 per full-length film, and only $1.32 for any short film. Come on: you can't beat prices like this! So, come tomorrow, check in with MyFrenchFilmFestival.com and start your viewing. I'll be checking in pretty often myself, with a review of each of the films I manage to see, over the next four weeks.

Oh, yes, there is also a bunch of added stuff -- contests, prizes, etc. -- which may entice some of you. For me, it's just the movies themselves that are key. (The shot above is from The Disintegration by Philippe Faucon, a film you can bet I'll soon be watching.)