Adolescence – Page 38 – Discover great gay stories.

Film Flashback: Like It Is

Set amidst the disparate worlds of the London pop music scene and the bare knuckles boxing clubs of working-class Blackpool, the 1998 gay classic Like It Is is a sexy, and at times, caustically funny tale of one youth’s coming out and his first, tumultuous gay love affair.

Craig (real-life boxing champ Steve Bell) is a 21-year-old Blackpooler who makes his living by fighting in illegal bare-knuckle fights. But the tough youth is also a closeted gay. By chance, he meets Matt (Ian Rose), a cocky London music producer who takes Craig under his wing.

The affair that ensues brings wide-eyed Steve down to the swinging gay Soho scene and into the duplicitous clutches of Matt’s friends, which include Paula (Dani Behr), Matt’s flatmate and an up-and-coming singer threatened by the arrival of the youth; and Kelvin (Roger Daltrey… yep, that Roger Daltrey), Matt’s gay and decidedly wolfish boss.

Will Craig find happiness in Britain’s gay Mecca or be forced back to his sordid former lifestyle? Some of the film’s best moments are when it shows the tensions of being gay in a tough, macho environment; the biting indictment of shallow gay men; and the hilarious camp performance by Daltrey (who sinks his toothy grin into his role with lecherous gusto).

Now twenty years old, you can take a trip back in time with Like It Is right now on Dekkoo.

A teacher is wrongfully accused in ‘The Green’

An emotional gay drama, The Green is an honest, hard-hitting film about a well-meaning teacher in trouble. Early on in the film, a confident gay high school student makes the observation that “people always look for the easiest scapegoat when their sense of entitlement is threatened.” That line of dialog sets the movie in motion.

Jason Butler Harner stars Michael, an openly gay, happily-partnered teacher who has taken a special interest in a troubled, artistically-inclined student named Jason (Chris Bert).

It is alluded to that Jason’s family life is not very stable. His mother and stepfather (Karen Young and Bill Sage) don’t seem like the most nurturing or attentive parents. Despite warnings from his best friend and co-worker (Illeana Douglas, charming as always) about getting too involved in the lives of students, Michael presses on. He sees potential in Jason and cares about his well-being.

Unfortunately for all parties involved, a heated public argument ensues during a school art show. Jason’s parents soon begin to suspect that Michael’s interest in their son may have lurid undertones.

It doesn’t take long before Michael becomes the town pariah, accused of carrying on a predatory relationship with his student. Adding insult to injury, his relationship with Daniel (Cheyenne Jackson), his loving partner of 15 years, is thrown into jeopardy when authorities start investigating the pair as partners in sordid crime.

The pair’s only major ally comes in the form of Karen (Julia Ormond), a tough-as-nails attorney who believes in Michael’s innocence (and also happens to be gay). Karen is ready for a dirty fight – planning to expose Jason’s parents as ethically-bankrupt opportunists. But, Michael’s refusal to cause harm to this already struggling family might prevent him from clearing his name.

A provocative drama with a stellar cast, The Green is playing now on Dekkoo. Check out the trailer below.

‘Come Undone’ is Coming Soon

“It captures the uncertainty and emotional turbulence of late adolescence with poignancy. Shimmeringly beautiful and utterly real.” – The New York Times

“Brings maximum subtlety, nuance and insight into the timeless story of first love.” – Los Angeles Times

“The most mature depiction of a young gay male’s romantic awakening I have ever seen.” – The Advocate

All of the gorgeous bronzed bodies on the beaches of southern France, plus the passionate romance between the lead teens, are reason enough to see Come Undone, but this bittersweet gay classic also has something poignant to say about the heartbreak of first love.

Eighteen-year-old Mathieu (Jérémie Elkaïm) is vacationing at the beach with his family when he meets local teen Cedric (Stéphane Rideau). After an extremely erotic kiss, the boys begin a hot and heavy affair, complete with skinny-dipping at night, nude dancing on the beach and intense lovemaking in the dunes. Yet as Mathieu grapples with his sexuality – and copes with his sick mother, absent father and annoying kid sister – his bond with Cedric grows stronger… until it bursts.

Come Undone, directed and co-written by Sebastien Lifshitz, beautifully conveys Mathieu’s coming-of-age – a scene in which he comes out to his mother is quite moving. Both Stéphane Rideau and Jérémie Elkaïm are incredibly sexy leads and give remarkable performances as the affectionate young lovers.

Check out the original trailer for Come Undone below and make sure to watch it on Dekkoo when it debuts July 17! While you’re waiting, you can check out a huge selection of other coming-of-age flicks here.

One Great Gay Shot – ‘Monster Pies’ (2013)

‘Monster Pies’ is available to stream now on Dekkoo!

Pride Month Spotlight: Were the World Mine

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

It doesn’t get better than this swoon-worthy, candy-colored musical about a high school boy who uses magic to turn many of the boys at school gay – just in time for a show-stopping production of a Shakespearean classic. Since its release, Were the World Mine has become a gay musical classic that we will return to again and again.

Timothy (Tanner Cohen) is a gay boy stranded in a private all-boys school, which is largely obsessed with rugby. Unfortunately, there’s only one thing about rugby that catches Timothy’s interest: he’s obsessed with the super-adorable star player Jonathan (Nathaniel David Becker).

Both boys are students in Ms. Tebbit’s English class (she’s played by the delightful Wendy Robie of “Twin Peaks” and The People Under the Stairs). She’s a teacher with a mission: to excite her students with the literature of the ages. When she decides to cast these two boys as the romantic leads in her production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (and to cast boys in all of the female roles), she proves herself just as mischievous as Puck.

The rugby Coach and townspeople are up in arms, but for Timothy, it seems like his wildest romantic fantasies may be coming true. He finds, in the script, the recipe for a potion to make people gay. With just a few spritzes from his magic pansy, the entire town (filled with Christian fundamentalists) is soon whipped into frenzy as the glorious production night approaches.

This deliciously surreal confection from co-writer/director Thomas Gustafson, based on his own 2003 short film Fairies, is a true gem. The musical numbers are over-the-top, production values first-rate and the acting is as flawless as the adorable boys on display. Even the top critics agreed back in 2008 when the film first screened. After Elton called it “absolutely breathtaking” and The New York Times said it was “movie musical magic.” It also managed to snag over twenty audience and jury awards during its initial film festival run.

Swoon all over Were the World Mine RIGHT NOW on Dekkoo! It’s one of our treasured Pride Picks.

Pride Month Spotlight: This is What Love in Action Looks Like

Though he’s know primarily for films like Blue Citrus Hearts and his Dekkoo Original Series Feral, writer-director Morgan Jon Fox set out to make a difference with his 2011 documentary This is What Love in Action Looks Like.

When 16-year-old Zach Stark told his parents that he was gay, they panicked, believing that something was psychologically wrong with him. They soon sent him to “Love In Action,” a religious organization that promised to “cure” homosexuality.

Founded in 1973, Love in Action, now known as “Restoration Path” is the oldest and largest ex-gay organizations in the United States. They take the position that homosexuality is strictly behavioral and can be cured. Originally for adults, they began a program for teens, many of whom sent involuntarily.

Their draconian methods for sexual “redemption” prompted Fox, already a well-established indie filmmaker, to both become active in the ensuing protest against the group as well as document it all through interviews with several youths who had been in the program, the then current director of “Love in Action” (himself, a “former gay”) and the many young protesters who were compelled to mobilize against the organization.

An important look at gay youth, intolerance and skewed religious beliefs, This is What Love in Action Looks Like is available on Dekkoo. It’s one of our heralded Pride Picks.

New This Week – 6/8/18

Carefree Elias works at a textile factory, juggling long shifts, dreams of the sea, and animated nights-out with no-strings sexual encounters. As he tries to discern where his future may lead him, he and his coworkers decide to go out for a bit of fun, ultimately leading to new encounters and unexpected desires. ‘Body Electric’ is now available on Dekkoo.

A gritty, 17-minute short from Switzerland, ‘Vandalen’ follows two young graffiti artists who are having a secret affair. While one thinks of their relationship as purely sexual, the other is falling in love. When a female acquaintance comes between them, jealousy forces their hidden desires out in the open. Watch ‘Vandalen’ now on Dekkoo!

‘NY84’ follows the adventures of three young artists in the downtown art scene in the early 1980’s. Young and carefree, the friends party, photograph, paint, sing, and play their way through the clubs and lofts of Alphabet City. The party ends in 1984 when Anton and Keith contract a mysterious illness. Stream the gay film ‘NY84’ now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: On the second anniversary of a needless tragedy, we present a film that commemorates the victims.

One Great Gay Shot – ‘Hidden Kisses’ (2017)

‘Hidden Kisses’ is now available to stream on Dekkoo!

New This Week – 6/1/18

Nathan, 16, lives alone with his father Stephane. A newcomer in high school, he is invited to a party and falls in love with Louis, a boy in his class. They find themselves out of sight and kiss each other, but someone takes a picture of them. Soon, the photo is published on Facebook and a storm overtakes their lives as they face bullying and rejection. ‘Hidden Kisses’ is now available to stream on Dekkoo!

Two friends, just beginning to explore their sexual identities, reveal intimate details of their lives. Is it curiosity, braggadocio or flirtation? Stream the gay short ‘Summer’ now on Dekkoo!

Manchester’s famed queer hub Canal Street comes to life in this documentary series that focuses on the exploits of people who ‘live, work and play’ around the village. Binge watch ‘Queer Street’ now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: “…The film examines – with a joyous vibe – the exploring of one’s identity and sexuality through fashion and partying” – Vague Visages

DEKKOO DISPATCH 071 – ‘PAPER BOYS’

Title – ‘Paper Boys‘

Director – Curtis Casella

Starring – Kyle Cabral, Nathan Brown, Kai Liu, Sarah Elizabeth

Release Date – 2018

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Hey Dekkoo’ers! It’s almost June which means the shirts are about to come off! Although technically here on Dekkoo we almost always have guys with their shirts off and you don’t have to leave your couch to stare at them. Today on the dispatch we’re very excited to feature the newest member of the Dekkoo Original Series family: ‘Paper Boys‘!!! Wooooo!! It’s always super exciting for us to show off new talent and rising star Curtis Casella who directed all 6 episodes of this new series that takes a close look at a young creative gay man and his immersion into a new life in San Francisco.

Cole is your typical creative type. Shy, cute, and looking for love. For circumstances we’re unaware of (maybe something to explore in season 2?) Cole decides to use the excuse of an engagement party in San Francisco of his best friend to actually move to San Francisco. He’s a cartoonist and even before he gets to say hi to his hunky best friend who he’s staying with he’s already pounding the pavement to look for a job. Daren, the hunky best friend seems to have it all. A nice apartment in expensive San Francisco, a tech job, and an adorable wife-to-be named Rebecca. Everything seems to be going great until Daren confides to Cole that the engagement is actually something he doesn’t really want to happen. Everything so far has seemed pretty typical right? Well here’s the twist: Daren finds an old sketchbook of Cole’s and gives it to him and once Cole starts drawing in it he discovers that everything he draws happens in real life!!

I blew through all 6 episodes in two sittings and thought it was a really touching tale of a shy gay boy just trying to figure out this new stage in his life while at the same time trying to support his best friend that he obviously harbors some feelings for. The plot twist was a super cute addition to the ‘drama’ that naturally occurs in their every day lives. The diversity of the cast was refreshing and the setting of San Francisco was used even better than it was in ‘Looking’ I thought.

The director sat down with OUT Magazine for an interview and had some really great remarks about race, gay relationships, and queer content:

Tell us about the reasoning and importance behind showcasing a gay-straight male friendship? You often don’t see this story in media.

CC: The gay-straight friendship is somewhat autobiographical for both Kyle and me. Both of us have really close friends who are straight, and we felt like it was something we didn’t see often enough in gay media. It’s really interesting to see the vast differences in life experience between gay men and straight men. My best friend was having a hard time meeting friends and asked me how I made them when I moved back to San Francisco, and I said, well, I have Grindr, and gay bars, and circuit parties, and I just see people again and again and friendships come naturally. And he says, “yeah, I don’t think that’s going to work the same for me.”

In some way, it was also aspirational. Like, if we could show a friendship that was platonic between a straight and gay man, it might normalize it to an extent that it’s perhaps not normalized now. I think there is still an undercurrent of maybe tension in gay and straight relationships – like this feeling on the part of straight men that gay men might either threaten their masculinity, be secretly attracted to them, or both. And we wanted to show a friendship between two men that didn’t have any of that. Where they were like brothers.

The cast is highly diverse. How important was it for you to represent a range of people from different backgrounds to tell this story?

CC: This was one of our most important goals. Kyle is Filipino, and we both have pretty diverse groups of friends, so we felt like it was essential to include a diverse cast in Paper Boys. First, we both were cognizant of the fact that people of color don’t see themselves represented enough in media, so that was one facet. But this also allows us to address issues in the gay community that just wouldn’t ring honest with a cast of white characters – like the racism that exists in dating and hookups, internalized homophobia that some still feel, and themes that white audiences – probably myself included – wouldn’t even think about because of the privilege we’re born with.

That’s also why having a diverse cast is only half of it. I know that there are some things that I can’t see, or that seem innocuous to me but may not be to people with different lived experiences from me. So having writers, editors, cinematographers of color is essential too. We had one line in the 6th episode – which we’d written before we’d cast our series – where Charlie says that Daren and Rebecca would have had beautiful children. It was still there after a couple of rewrites, and when we went into rehearsals, the actress who played Rebecca pointed out that she often had people say that to her and her husband (who was white), and it had a clearly racial tinge to it. That honestly never occurred to me, and we decided to drop the line from the scene because it didn’t advance the story, and wasn’t true to a character who, having grown up with Rebecca, would have seen some of the racism that Rebecca experienced and would not have wanted to perpetuate that.

Dekkoo is changing the way queer men experience content, what has it been like working with the streaming service?

It’s been amazing working with Dekkoo – they’ve been incredibly accommodating and want to let us tell our story the way we want to tell it. Plus, I think having a service that’s targeted towards queer men is important. Netflix is great, but much of the gay content on there is of the B-movie variety, with a few notable exceptions. So it’s great to have a platform like Dekkoo, especially one that works with independent filmmakers like us.

We’d love to know what you think of a new Dekkoo Original Series that we’re super proud of so be sure to leave comments on the videos and let us know!

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Watch it with: Your best friends 🙂

Mix it with: Red Wine.

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